[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 126 (Monday, September 12, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 12, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 1995 AND MILITARY 
 CONSTRUCTION AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 1995--CONFERENCE REPORT

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will now 
turn to the conference report to S. 2182, which the clerk will report.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       The committee of conference on the disagreeing votes of the 
     two Houses on the amendment of the House to the bill (S. 
     2182) to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 1995 for 
     military activities of the Department of Defense, for 
     military construction, and for defense programs of the 
     Department of Energy, to prescribe personnel strengths for 
     such fiscal year for the Armed Forces, and for other purposes 
     having met, after full and free conference, have agreed to 
     recommend and do recommend to their respective Houses this 
     report, signed by a majority of the conferees.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the Senate will proceed to 
the consideration of the conference report.
  (The conference report is printed in the House proceedings of the 
Record of August 12, 1994.)
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from New 
Mexico.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. President, I am pleased to open the debate on the conference 
report on the fiscal year 1995 National Defense Authorization Act.
  Senator Nunn, the chairman of the committee, will deliver a statement 
on the entire conference report when he arrives at 2:30. I plan to 
focus my brief remarks this afternoon on the work of the Defense 
Technology, Acquisition and Industrial Base Subcommittee, which I chair 
and on which Senator Smith serves very ably as the ranking minority 
member, and also to make some comments on the work of other 
subcommittees as it affects my home State of New Mexico.
  Mr. President, I believe that this is a sound bill that continues the 
process of restructuring our defense establishment to new global 
conditions that we see. In the case of the acquisition subcommittee, 
this conference report needs to be seen in the context of the 
conference report on the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994, 
which the Senate approved last month. The fundamental themes of both of 
these conferences reports are fostering commercial-military integration 
and making greater use of dual-use technology that we have in our 
weapons systems.
  Why is this approach so important in a post-cold-war world? The 
reasons are twofold. First, the commercial sector increasingly drives 
technology important to our national security. Second, commercial-
military integration is the most cost-effective approach that we can 
take in maintaining our defense technology base.

  In semiconductors, software, computers, telecommunications, advanced 
materials, and even sensors, all among the most important future 
technologies for the Department of Defense, the commercial sector's 
needs in these areas overwhelm the needs of DOD. Typically DOD buys 
well under 10 percent of the output of these industries. In the past 
DOD has too often tried to meet its needs in these areas by relying on 
a unique defense industrial base separate from the commercial world. 
That was the approach taken, for example, in the early 1980's in the 
Very High Speed Integrated Circuit Program. By 1986, Norm Augustine and 
his colleagues on the Defense Science Board recognized that that 
approach was unworkable. Instead they proposed to leverage the real 
commercial semiconductor industry in this country through Sematech, a 
concept that has served our Nation well in the past 7 years. The heart 
of that concept is cost-sharing, which saves the taxpayer money both in 
the development of dual-use technologies and in the acquisition of 
dual-use products, since DOD can take advantage of the much larger 
production efficiencies in the commercial world.
  Secretary Perry recognizes the need to broaden that approach. Let me 
briefly quote an excerpt of Deputy Secretary Deutch's commencement 
address at Northeastern University in June:

       Today, Secretary Perry is responding to these changed 
     circumstances. He is called for greater reliance on 
     commercial goods and services to meet defense needs. He's 
     doing this for two reasons.
       First, we can no longer afford the extra cost of 
     maintaining a defense unique technology and industrial base. 
     Second, we find in many fields vital to defense that 
     commercial demand--not defense demand--is driving 
     technological innovation. There is no better example of this 
     than computers. Computers in weapons systems tend to be 
     several generations old because the commercial market is 
     moving so quickly.
       For these two reasons, we have developed a growing interest 
     in technology integration via that we call dual-use 
     technology, that is, technology that meets both defense and 
     commercial needs.
       There are two advantages to this strategy: First, 
     acquisition costs will be lower because the DOD is taking 
     advantage of the economies of scale and the faster pace of 
     change of technology in the larger commercial market of this 
     country.
       The second advantage is the one you hear President Clinton 
     emphasize each time he talks about the importance of 
     government action to increase economic growth and create 
     jobs. That is, when DOD buys commercial products and services 
     or supports dual-use technology, the DOD is strengthening the 
     private sector.
       The big change here is that the Department is not just 
     paying attention to technical performance as we did in the 
     past. We have to pay attention to technology integration. 
     Both the larger society and our shrinking budgets demand it.

  Mr. President, this bill is entirely consistent with Secretary Perry 
and Secretary Deutch's vision. It funds the Department's technology 
base programs at $4.2 billion, the level of the budget request. It 
fosters dual-use research in a wide range of areas, including 
additional funding for advanced lithography, flat panel displays, 
telemedicine, and law enforcement technologies.
  Let me briefly mention telemedicine as an example of this new 
approach. This is a technology which can save the lives of our troops 
in peacetime and in war by bringing the full capability of modern 
medicine to remote locations. It is also a technology of great 
relevance to rural populations in this country. This bill devotes $20 
million to initiatives in this area.
  Similarly, there is an opportunity to help our law enforcement 
community at the same time we develop improved technologies for our 
troops serving peacekeeping functions overseas. The Justice Department 
and DOD have agreed through a memorandum of understanding to seek such 
synergies in their respective research programs. This bill authorizes 
$41 million for the DOD component of that research effort.
  This bill also fully funds the technology reinvestment project at 
$625 million, and provides a total of $751 million in technology 
reinvestment-related research funds. The technology reinvestment 
project is really the flagship of DOD's effort to pursue a commercial-
military integration approach in its research efforts. It provides 
defense-unique firms the opportunity to diversify into commercial 
markets and an opportunity for commercially oriented firms to adapt 
their technologies to defense uses. The bill also provides $50 million 
for a loan guarantee program for small- and medium-sized firms, an 
initiative on which Senator Feinstein took the lead in the Senate. And 
it allows small businesses 120 days after being selected for a TRP 
project to obtain venture capital funding for their share of the 
project.
  This bill also provides over half a billion dollars to the DOD Small 
Business Innovative Research Program. This is a crucial connection for 
the department to the most innovative component of our commercial 
sector.
  I want to commend Senator Smith, the ranking member on the Defense 
Technology, Acquisition and Industrial Base Subcommittee, for his work 
in the conference and throughout the year on these issues. We, and our 
House colleagues, Congresswoman Schroeder and Congressman Stump, share 
a desire to do all we can to foster Secretary Perry's commercial-
military integration approach. I was pleased that we were able to be 
the first subcommittee to complete its work in the conference last 
month.
  I also want to commend the staff on both sides of the aisle who 
worked so hard on this bill while simultaneously working on the 
acquisition streamlining act. John Douglas, Andy Effron, and David 
Lyles on the majority side of the Armed Services Committee, and Jon 
Etherton and Jack Mansfield on the minority side did yeoman work 
throughout the year. Jack has gone on to bigger and better things at 
NASA since our conference concluded. I also want to thank John Gerhart, 
now at MIT, and Ed McGaffigan of my staff, and Tom Lankford of Senator 
Smith's staff for their very hard work and consistently good work this 
year, as always.
  Mr. President, let me conclude by citing some of the other elements 
of this bill that are particularly important for my home State of New 
Mexico.
  This bill provides $20 million to complete the upgrade of the Los 
Alamos Neutron Scattering Center for materials sciences purposes as 
part of DOE's stockpile stewardship program. This funding puts this 
vital center on a firm foundation for the future.
  This bill provides $20 million for the high energy laser systems test 
facility at White Sands, the heart of the DOD high energy laser 
program, in my view.
  This bill provides $48.6 million for military construction at 
Kirtland Air Force Base to speed the revitalization of Kirtland's 
infrastructure.
  The bill contains a provision, cosponsored by my senior colleague 
from New Mexico, Senator Domenici, that prohibits any action to retire, 
or prepare to retire, the F-111 fighter/bomber aircraft at Cannon Air 
Force Base during fiscal year 1995. This is entirely consistent with 
the action Secretary Deutch took last month on the fiscal year 1996 
budget, and is a strong statement by the Congress in favor of retaining 
the vital capability of these aircraft until precision munitions become 
available on our strategic bombers at the turn of the century or 
beyond.
  This bill provides $30 million in new fiscal year 1995 funding plus 
$35 million in unobligated fiscal year 1994 funds to the Phillips 
Laboratory for the Air Force component of the reusable space launch 
vehicle technology program to be carried out in partnership with NASA. 
Jack Mansfield, as I mentioned earlier, has left the Armed Services 
staff to take over the NASA reusable launch program and I am confident 
that the two agencies will work together with the private sector to 
seek a breakthrough here in low-cost access to space. The DC-X Program, 
which NASA has now taken over, points the way to a competitive next 
step in reusable launch vehicles.
  This bill contains a provision, authored by Senators Warner and 
Sarbanes, which moves the cost-of-living allowance for military 
retirees forward to April 1, 1995, to be consistent with the civil 
service retiree COLA cost-of-living adjustment. And it also provides a 
2.6 percent pay raise for active duty service members, effective 
January 1, 1995.
  The bill contains $49.9 million for the Army's echelon-above-corps 
communications systems, a program which has helped make Laguna 
Industries one of the leading, if not the leading, Indian-owned firm 
supplying equipment to the Pentagon.
  And the bill contains additional funding for conventional munitions 
research at the DOE laboratories, counterproliferation research, the 
high-speed sled track at Holloman Air Force Base, and excimer laser and 
thermionics research at Phillips Laboratory. In short, it is 
considerable improvement over the administration's request earlier this 
year for New Mexico's military installations and the people who serve 
there.
  Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to give overwhelming support to 
this conference report, which overall provides $263.8 billion for our 
national security programs, primarily at DOD and the Department of 
Energy, about the same level as last year, although eroded by 
inflation. This is sound legislation, fashioned on a bipartisan basis 
under the leadership of Senator Nunn and Senator Thurmond, and it will 
serve our Nation well upon enactment.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor. I know my colleague, Senator 
Thurmond, wishes to make a statement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes Senator Thurmond.
  Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I wish to thank the chairman of the 
Armed Services Committee for his capable and tireless efforts on this 
year's Defense authorization conference. I would also like to thank the 
other members of the committee and their staffs as well. This is a good 
bill, but not a great bill. We were able to do a number of essential 
things. Mr. President, let me give you a few examples:
  First, the bill meets our basic needs in modernization and 
preparedness. Let me cite some highlights:
  We kept a number of key weapons systems in production which could 
spell the difference between victory and defeat in future conflicts.
  The conferees also chose to preserve the current inventory of 95 B-52 
and 95 B-1 bombers. In addition we directed studies to determine what 
the bomber mix of the future should be.
  The conferees agreed to add funds to improve near-term precision 
guided weapons.
  The bill provides funding and authority for multiyear procurement of 
small arms to provide the weapons needed by our military services, and 
to preserve critical elements of the small arms industrial base.
  The bill authorizes an increase, above the budget request, for key 
readiness areas such as depot maintenance, training, recruiting, and 
real property maintenance.
  The conferees authorized an additional $510 million for modernized 
equipment for the National Guard and Reserve components.
  I have indicated to the chairman of the committee that I do not like 
the allocation of funds within the Guard and Reserve package. I do not 
believe we have provided a proportionally fair share of these funds to 
the Army National Guard and Army Reserve. Senator Nunn has agreed that 
we will work with the Appropriations Committee conferees to ensure that 
additional funds are added for the Army National Guard in the 
appropriations process.
  Second, Mr. President, this year's bill is good for soldiers and 
their families.
  It authorizes a 2.6-percent pay raise for military personnel starting 
in January 1995.
  It adds $20 million to the budget for continued research into the 
cause and treatment of the gulf war syndrome.
  The bill also adds $76.1 million to the budget request of $3.4 
billion for improvements to, and construction of, military family 
housing.
  As the services continue their drawdown, the conferees have chosen to 
maintain a prudent glide path to reduce military personnel strength and 
yet make sure those who must leave the services are treated fairly. To 
ensure fairness for all uniformed personnel, the bill authorizes the 
expansion of personnel transition benefits in effect for the other 
services to the Coast Guard.
  Third, Mr. President, this year's bill is good for the neighbors of 
our military communities because it maintains the momentum of the 
Defense Reinvestment and Conversion Program enacted in 1992.

  Please understand that these provisions are good, but nothing to 
boast about. The authorization bill will keep the Department of Defense 
functioning for another year, but I have grave reservations about the 
years to come. This bill represents a barely adequate level of funding. 
All indicators point to future levels being inadequate. We are 
witnessing the dangerous divergence of two trends--increasing the 
commitments of our military forces while cutting the military budget.
  Mr. President, let me mention but a few areas in which this bill is 
not good.
  It does not go far enough in funding training for our men and women 
in uniform.
  I mentioned earlier that the conferees chose to maintain a prudent 
glide path in personnel reductions. In order to do this under current 
budget constraints, it is necessary to make reductions in other areas; 
and quite often those areas involve future readiness and modernization 
of equipment. This cannot be allowed to continue in future years' 
budgets.
  We are not building our airlift capacity at the necessary pace.
  We have known for a long time that we do not have sufficient sealift; 
but, we fail to fix this shortfall because funding it not adequate. 
What this means is that even if we have the greatest armed forces in 
the world, they may not be able to deploy to other areas of the world 
to conduct missions essential to our national security quickly enough 
and in sufficient numbers. It also means we may not be able to sustain 
our forces even if we are able to get them to the conflict.
  Make no mistake about what is going on here, Mr. President, while 
this year's bill provides a minimum level of funding for our forces, it 
does not put us in a position to meet future needs. We cannot remain 
prepared to fight and win two major regional contingencies, provide the 
humanitarian response team for world crises, and modernize our forces 
with the budgets being proposed by the Clinton administration for the 
next 5 years.
  I support this conference report, because the conferees did the best 
we could within the budgetary limits we were given. The only other 
alternative is no authorization bill at all. But we must not become 
complacent because we have provided this minimal level of resources 
with which to safeguard the Nation's security.
  The world is still full of potential crises and challenges to our 
vital interests. There are a number of things we must do to meet those 
challenges--maintain adequate forces, stocks of war material, and our 
technological advantage in weapons and other systems. We must support 
our men and women in uniform and their families so that their morale is 
high, and make sure they are well-trained and well-led. Finally, we 
must spend the taxpayers' money wisely, to get more return for each 
defense dollar spent.
  Mr. President, these are all essential, but they are no substitute 
for the most compelling requirement of all. We must provide adequate 
funding for the Armed Forces if they are going to remain capable of 
protecting the Nation's vital interests.
  Recently we have seen increasing signs of the hollowing of our 
forces. Training is being curtailed and canceled. Just last month, five 
carrier aircraft squadrons were grounded at Naval Air Station, Whidbey 
Island in the State of Washington due to lack of funds. In addition, 
Deputy Secretary of Defense John Deutch announced last month that a 
number of major military systems will be reviewed for elimination or 
``stretch-out'' because the Department of Defense must use the money to 
prevent further erosion of readiness. These systems are important 
elements of the administration's own Bottom-Up Review force and they 
are necessary components of future combat capability.
  I urge my colleagues to vote for the conference report. But in so 
doing, I urge them to set their sights on approving future defense 
bills only when those bills ensure our soldiers, sailors, marines, and 
airmen have sufficient means to do what America asks them to do often 
at great personal sacrifice. Since that sacrifice may include laying 
down their lives, we owe them no less.
  I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks recognition?
  Mr. KEMPTHORNE. Mr. President, regarding passage of the fiscal year 
1995 Defense authorization conference report, I would like to take a 
moment of the Senate's time to clarify my position on the conference 
report. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I played an 
active role in the DOD authorization conference. I fully agree with the 
recommendations of the conference but I declined to sign the conference 
report because of my belief that we are cutting our defenses too deeply 
and too quickly.
  For the last 2 years, I have had the honor of serving with some of 
the Senate's best national security thinkers. On the Senate Armed 
Services Committee, I have watched and learned as members such as 
Senator Nunn, Senator Thurmond, Senator Exon, Senator Warner, Senator 
Levin, Senator Cohen, Senator Glenn, Senator McCain, Senator Lott, 
Senator Shelby, Senator Coats, and Senator Smith, acted to strengthen 
and promote our Nation's national security interests. In particular, 
the leadership provided by Chairman Nunn and Senator Thurmond gives me 
great confidence that the Senate will always have a voice for peace 
through strength as long as these two patriots guide the Senate Armed 
Services Committee.
  At the same time, I fear that the post-cold-war era has led some to 
believe that we can make significant cuts to our defenses without any 
risk. Because of this perspective, the President has proposed, and the 
Congress has endorsed, large cuts in defense spending. While we have 
endorsed these cuts in defense spending, our troop commitments have 
grown and grown. Today, we have United States pilots enforcing a no-fly 
zone over Iraq; we have troops providing humanitarian relief to the 
Kurds; we have pilots enforcing a no-fly zone over Bosnia; we have 
sailors enforcing an economic embargo against Serbia, we have troops in 
Macedonia monitoring the economic sanctions against Serbia, we have 
sailors and marines deployed off the coast of Haiti; we have United 
States military personnel responding to the humanitarian tragedy in 
Rwanda; and we have 38,000 Americans deployed to deter aggression in 
South Korea. I know that I have left out a few commitments of U.S. 
troops but I think my colleagues get the picture.
  The death of communism in the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin 
Wall lifted the superpower superstructure which inhibited regional 
conflicts. In the wake of those monumental actions, a new era of 
regional conflicts, civil wars, separatism, and humanitarian disasters 
have ensued.
  While not all of these problems threaten U.S. national security 
interests, America has tried to play a role easing tensions and 
addressing humanitarian needs. These responsibilities have put 
tremendous demands on our military forces at a time when we are 
discharging people and mothballing ships and planes as fast as we can. 
In other words, our capabilities have declined while our 
responsibilities have increased. These crisscrossing trends force us to 
prioritize our objectives in relation to our resources. Unfortunately, 
I do not see that happening. Instead, I see an administration 
threatening an invasion of Haiti when no one has explained how that 
action would promote our national security interests.
  Mr. President, I did not come here to critique our national security 
strategy but I do think we need to focus our declining resources on our 
most essential objectives. Likewise, I think we need to look closer at 
the relationship between our defense responsibilities and defense 
spending. It is my view that our responsibilities now outweigh our 
capabilities and that is why I oppose the conference report now before 
the Senate. In addition, unless the world changes dramatically, I will 
continue to vote against defense bills that do not provide enough 
funding to meet our national security requirements. I do so without in 
any way questioning the work of the defense authorization and 
appropriations committees. It is simply my view that we are not 
providing these committees with enough resources to adequately meet 
their responsibilities.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I rise today to offer some personal 
comments concerning the conference report on the fiscal year 1995 
Defense authorization bill.
  Let me begin by complimenting Chairman Nunn and ranking member 
Thurmond for their outstanding leadership during a difficult conference 
with the House. As always, the Senators from Georgia and South Carolina 
served with distinction, and represented the Senate's interests very 
effectively. It is an honor to serve with men of such dedication and 
integrity.
  As a member of the Armed Services Committee, I participated actively 
in the full range of conference negotiations. I believe the conferees 
did their best to reconcile differences and to safeguard our national 
security interests within the constraints of the budget allocation. In 
my view, the conference bill deserves to be presented to the House and 
Senate for consideration. That is why I signed the report discharging 
the legislation from conference. However, I will vote against the bill 
today.
  Mr. President, the Clinton administration's 5-year defense plan is 
both fiscally and intellectually dishonest. Although it claims to 
support the Bottom-Up Review [BUR] force levels and strategy, it 
clearly does not. In fact, the GAO recently estimated that the 
administration's defense program is underfunded by $150 billion. In 
addition, the BUR force levels and strategy themselves do not support 
our military requirements. Thus, not only is the structure and strategy 
inadequate, but the resources to implement that flawed strategy re 
grossly insufficient, as well.

  Based on the abundance of testimony presented to Congress, it is 
clear that the BUR is fundamentally and fatally flawed. It is equally 
clear that, contrary to the assertions of Pentagon spin doctors, the 
BUR was a budget driven, not threat driven, exercise. By all 
indications, the administration determined exactly how much it wanted 
pillage from defense, and then utilized the BUR to rationalize the 
reductions. This is simply unacceptable.
  Mr. President, I cannot sit idle and allow our national security to 
be compromised, and our Armed Forces decimated. The Clinton 
administration has charted a course that will most certainly do both. 
Congress must have the courage and the foresight to reject this 
blueprint for disaster. Merely accepting the budget reductions, and 
reallocating the resources within accounts is not he answer. It is part 
of the problem. The resources are inadequate, and to level of 
reallocation and restructuring can remedy these shortfalls.
  While there is much within the bill that I strongly endorse, and 
worked actively to include, I simply cannot legitimize the 
administration's defense plan by approving its substance. The 
distinguished chairman and ranking member have done everything possible 
to make the best of an impossible situation. But I cannot, in good 
conscience, support this legislation.
  I will vote against the conference report because it inevitably 
continues the administration's systematic dismantling of our Armed 
Forces.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who now seeks recognition?
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. For what 
purpose does the Senator seek recognition?
  Mr. COATS. I rise to speak on the pending legislation.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana is recognized.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, first I would like to commend the chairman 
and ranking member of the Armed Services Committee for their efforts in 
guiding this legislation through some very difficult decisions. The 
process of reporting out a defense authorization bill gets tougher 
every year. The decisions get tougher every year because we are trying 
to do what we believe is necessary to preserve our strength, the 
strength of our national security apparatus, and we are doing it with 
increasingly limited resources. Those resources are being stretched 
further every year.
  The Armed Services Committee has had to deal with very serious 
concerns regarding readiness, the health and welfare of our personnel, 
procurement decisions, and how we allocate our funds. Many difficult 
issues still need to be addressed. But I do want to commend the 
chairman and ranking member and those members of the Armed Services 
Committee who have worked so diligently to produce legislation under 
very difficult circumstances.
  Mr. President, when presented with last year's budget, this body 
emphasized that every effort would need to be made to match our forces 
to the changing requirements of the post-cold-war world. The fall of 
communism and the demise of the Soviet Union dictated reduced levels of 
defense spending, and we have now, over the past 10 years, tried to 
adjust to those reduced levels of defense spending. But as we have done 
so, we have begun to notice--as I suppose would be inevitable under a 
declining budget--multiple signs of declining readiness, and that ought 
to be disturbing to all of us.
  While none of us would argue that refocusing of priorities is in 
order, such refocusing should be based on capabilities and 
requirements, not on arbitrary budget figures.
  Last year, the term ``too far too fast'' was used by many to express 
concern about the rapid decline of our military capability. As 
evidenced by the committee's evaluation of the administration's plan 
for our continued drawdown, the so-called Bottom-Up Review, that phrase 
``too far too fast'' still fits. The Bottom-Up Review conducted by the 
administration and the Department of Defense said that our goal should 
be to have the capability of conducting two nearly simultaneous 
regional conflicts, and yet I think the evidence is now in: We do not 
possess that capability. Based on extensive testimony from military 
leaders at all levels, along with empirical real world facts and 
figures, we now see that readiness has now slipped beyond the point 
where the United States is capable of responding to two nearly 
simultaneous regional conflicts and perhaps is not even capable of 
mounting one operation on the scale of Desert Shield and Desert Storm.
  According to the Department of Defense, 100 heavy bombers are needed 
to fulfill the war-fighting requirements during one major regional 
conflict. And from fiscal year 1995 to fiscal year 1999, the number of 
heavy bombers will drop below 110, well below the number needed to 
fight and win two regional conflicts at roughly the same time.
  As to strategic lift, General Hoar, commander in chief of the Central 
Command, has stated that requirements during the Somalia relief efforts 
stretched the Air Force's strategic lift capability to the point where 
it could not even simultaneously support a small multinational exercise 
on the same continent, never mind an operation of the magnitude that 
would be required to sustain a mission in North Korea.
  Yet, current events, like the continuing crisis with North Korea, 
possible future actions in Bosnia, what clearly appears to be a planned 
United States invasion of Haiti, to say nothing of numerous other 
trouble spots around the globe, tell us that the world, while changed, 
is not any less dangerous but perhaps more. That requires us to look at 
some areas of concern that go to the heart of our military capability 
and our national security.
  It is important, Mr. President, to understand how we got here, what 
has happened in the last decade.
  What most Members now know, and what all of us should know is that 
this defense bill represents the 10th straight year of declining 
budgets. Just during the decade of the nineties, defense outlays will 
decrease by 35 percent, while at the same time, Federal mandatory 
spending will increase 38 percent, and domestic discretionary spending 
will increase by 12 percent.
  Historically, defense has been cut deeper than domestic programs. We 
have cut active duty military personnel 32 percent. We have cut 
reserves 20 percent. We have cut civilian military workers 29 percent. 
We have cut the number of Army divisions by 45 percent. We have cut 
battle force ships 37 percent and fighter attack aircraft 40 percent.
  Defense outlays, as a share of gross domestic product, is 3.7 percent 
in 1995, nearly half of what it was just 10 years before. And that will 
drop. Defense outlays as a percent of gross domestic product will drop 
to 2.8 percent by 1999, the lowest figure since just prior to World War 
II.
  Mr. President, it has been stated on this floor, and needs to be 
stated again, that it is defense outlays that are helping to reduce the 
budget deficit. It is not any other aspect of spending. As the chairman 
of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Nunn, has said over and over 
and over, defense has done not only its share of reducing the deficit, 
it has done more than its share. It is virtually carrying the whole 
load and it cannot continue to carry the whole load. The Defense 
Department has commitments and responsibilities all over the globe, to 
say nothing of the constitutional responsibility to provide for our 
national security. We are stretching too thin the dollars available to 
meet those commitments and responsibilities.
  Mr. President, since the peak year of fiscal year 1985, we have 
reduced procurement of ships 80 percent, from 29 per year to 6 per 
year. We have reduced aircraft procurement 86 percent, from 943 to 127.
  We have reduced tanks 100 percent, from a procurement level of 720 in 
1985 to zero--zero new tanks--for fiscal year 1995. We have reduced our 
procurement of strategic missiles 95 percent from 307 in 1980 to 18 in 
fiscal year 1995. Army divisions, as I have said, are down 45 percent, 
battle ships down 37 percent, and attack fighter aircraft down 40 
percent.
  These are significant reductions in hardware and in personnel. We 
have reduced active military 32 percent from 2,151,000 active duty 
personnel in 1985 to 1,526,000 for fiscal 1995, moving down to 1.46 
million by the end of fiscal year 1999; selected reserves, from 
1,128,000 to 979,000 in fiscal year 1995, on the way down to 906,000; 
and civilian military personnel down 29 percent, from 1,129,000 to a 
projected 804,000. Who knows how much further that will come down?
  Now, where are these cuts coming from? They have come from personnel 
and they have come from operations and maintenance--two key accounts in 
the Defense Department budget.
  These two accounts generally are the ones that provide the savings 
because their funds can be spent out faster than any other segments of 
the defense budget. Procurement spreads out over a number of years, to 
do the research and development and do the production of various 
defense hardware items. But it is in operations and maintenance and it 
is in personnel where the immediate cuts come. The cutbacks have forced 
the current 5-year defense plan budget to be front-end loaded with 
massive personnel cuts. In the last 12 months alone, 94,146 armed 
services personnel have left the military.
  The total number of people leaving the military during the 5-year 
period from fiscal year 1990 to fiscal year 1995 will be 892,000 
people. That equates to 14,866 individuals a month or 496 every day. 
Today, 496 active duty uniformed personnel will leave the military. In 
the month of September, in this month of September as we meet and 
debate, 14,866 men and women wearing the uniform will leave the 
military. And this will happen month after month after month.
  Mr. President, we recently received a report from the GAO, the 
Government Accounting Office, projecting that Pentagon programs over 
the next 5 years will be underfunded by a figure of $150 billion. 
Current programs--according to GAO--on the books, that this Congress 
has approved as necessary to our national defense, will be underfunded 
by $150 billion. GAO identified a number of shortfalls as a result of 
overstating savings and understating costs.
  Now, I would like to quote from some of that report. They indicate 
that we are $20 billion short on revised inflation adjustments; $1.6 
billion short in negative adjustment to unspecified programs in the 
research and development accounts; $32 billion short in unrealized base 
closure and defense management report initiative savings; $112 billion 
in potential cost increases for base closures, weapons systems, 
personnel pay, environmental cleanup, and humanitarian peacekeeping 
operations.
  So GAO, which has looked at this and which has issued a report in 
July 1994, estimates that the programs this Congress has determined are 
necessary to provide for our national security needs for the next 5 
years are underfunded by $150 billion.
  Does anyone think that this Congress is going to come forth and say 
OK, we will live up to our commitments, and we will provide the 
additional $150 billion of funding because we believe in those 
commitments, we believe those are sound commitments and we need to fund 
those? I do not think this Congress will do it. So we are saying one 
thing on the one hand and we are not delivering on the other hand.
  Now, in fairness, the Department of Defense does not agree with the 
GAO analysis. They say GAO has overestimated the underfunding. In fact, 
I have a letter here from the comptroller of the Department of Defense, 
John Hamre, who gives a detailed explanation of why the shortfall will 
not be at the $150 billion level. He does indicate that it could be at 
least $40 billion short. So we are somewhere between $40 and $150 
billion. We are probably closer to the 150 rather than the 40 because I 
think we understand some of these savings are not going to come in as 
quickly as we had hoped.
  There are discrepancies in different methods of accounting, and GAO 
and the Department of Defense probably are apart on this, but the 
bottom line is we are underfunded in terms of the commitments that we 
have already made. We have made the commitments on the basis that this 
is what we need to do on a minimal basis. This is not maximum effort. 
This is what we need to do on a minimum. And even in doing so, we have 
to admit that it will not be possible to meet the stated goals outlined 
under the extensive Bottom-Up Review plan outlined by the Department of 
Defense.
  So we are somewhere between $40 and $150 billion short of meeting the 
goals that Congress has set. Yet we also realize that congressional 
goals are not always synonymous with Department of Defense goals.
  One of the reasons for that is we are engaging our military in all 
kinds of operations other than what the military is designed for and 
what military personnel are trained for. This administration has 
accelerated the use of defense dollars for funding nondefense efforts. 
Examples that come to mind are environmental cleanup, defense 
conversion, job retraining, humanitarian aid, and peacekeeping 
operations.
  Should we do these types of things? Yes, without question. But not 
with crucial defense funds that are needed for readiness, needed for 
training, needed for personnel, needed to perform the essential 
functions and tasks of our national security operation.
  Since the Persian Gulf war ended, American troops have rescued Kurds 
in Northern Iraq; they have helped south Floridians after Hurricane 
Andrew; they have broken the famine in Somalia; they have air dropped 
supplies to civilians in Bosnia; they blockaded Haiti; they have 
provided massive relief aid to Rwandan refugees; they have picked up 
Haitian and Cuban refugees at sea; they are building tent cities for 
refugees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; they have fought forest fires and 
engaged in a whole number of the other operations that are worthy 
efforts but are not essential defense missions. Yet, most of these 
efforts are being paid for out of defense budgets. We are taking from 
training funds, personnel funds, operation and maintenance funds, in 
order to fund those other nonessential military operations.
  I do not object to using our military in some of these sessions. But 
it ought to be paid for out of the appropriate Government account--not 
out of defense.
  Mr. President, let me quote from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 
Staff, General Shalikashvili, who in a recent speech made what I think 
is an important point. He said:

       When Washington participates in U.N. peacekeeping or relief 
     operations, Government pays about one-third of the cost. But 
     when it undertakes a U.N. mission on its own, as in Rwanda, 
     it picks up the entire bill.

  So we are, in a sense, paying twice. We are paying a third of the 
cost for the U.N. personnel that go in to provide humanitarian relief. 
And, yet, to the extent that we are using U.S. military personnel, we 
are also paying 100 percent of that cost.
  We have heard about the effects on procurement. Recently Secretary 
Deutch sent out a memorandum to members of the Defense Resources Board. 
The subject was ``Additional Defense Resources Board Program 
Alternatives.'' Secretary Deutch essentially is saying here that, 
because of this squeeze on the budget, there is going to have to be a 
review of many of the major procurement items needed by the military in 
the next 5 years. He told the Department of the Army that they need to 
review the Comanche Helicopter Program and begin to develop a program 
alternative that ``terminates the Comanche.'' He said the Army should 
develop a program alternative that terminates the Advanced Field 
Artillery System. He told the Department of the Air Force that at least 
two alternatives to the Joint Primary Aircraft Training System--the 
JPATS Program--should be developed, deferring the production of JPATS 
trainer for up to 7 years, and reducing costs by increasing reliance on 
commercial practices, slower procurement profile, and advanced 
training;
  As to the F-22 fighter program now under development, the Air Force 
should develop a program alternative that delays the initial 
procurement of F-22 fighters by up to 4 years;
  With regard to precision guided missiles, the Air Force should 
develop at least two alternative programs; first, cancel the triservice 
standoff attack missile, procuring other precision guided munitions to 
perform the mission; and second, retain the standoff attack missile but 
adding $100 million in the near-term program.
  He told the Department of the Navy that under medium-lift 
replacement, ``* * * from the September Defense Board's acquisition 
meeting on the lift program, the Navy and Marine Corps should submit 
for review the most promising alternative that cancels the V-22 and 
replaces it with a helicopter alternative.''
  As to destroyers, the Navy should develop program alternatives for 
the DDG-51 procurement in the fiscal year 1996 to the 2001 period.
  Secretary Deutch addressed the new attack submarine, saying the Navy 
should submit an alternative to the new attack submarine program that 
does not include a submarine in fiscal year 2012.
  With regard to the advanced amphibious assault vehicle--the Navy and 
Marine Corps should develop a program alternative that cancels the 
program.
  These and other concerns are listed in the memo from Secretary Deutch 
to the military services. It sent shock waves through the military. 
These are programs that we were counting on for the future to give us 
that edge we enjoyed in Desert Storm. These are programs that are now 
being suggested for termination or that other alternatives be developed 
because we simply do not have the funds to pay for them.
  There is a tendency to raid the seed corn of our future when 
reductions are imposed on our defense budget. This is one area where 
reductions will assure long-range implications of future readiness of 
our forces. Our capabilities to respond to threats and risks in the 
year 2005 and 2010 will be substantially weakened. That credibility 
will be weakened by the cuts that we make in the 1990's.
  If we learned anything in Desert Storm, it was that the weapons used 
there are weapons that are developed and put on the board, in the 
research process and development process, years, if not decades, before 
they are actually needed. It takes time to develop, to test, to do 
research, to procure and then train, and then finally utilize some of 
these sophisticated advanced weapons.
  To quote General Sullivan, the Army Chief of Staff:

       The fiscal year 1995 budget is our 10th consecutive budget 
     representing negative real growth. We cannot continue in that 
     direction forever, or we will not be ready tomorrow at any 
     level.

  Mr. President, this is the reality that we are dealing with in this 
year's budget. We are not sure what the reality is going to be in next 
year's budget, or the next 3 or 4 or 5 years' budgets. The squeeze will 
continue; the shortfalls will continue, and they will probably be 
exaggerated. They will probably magnify. We have too many programs 
chasing too few dollars. We have now limited the programs, and we are 
still short the dollars. We have limited the personnel, and we are 
still short the dollars. We are facing major shortfalls in funding for 
our national security, and surely we will pay a tragic price for that 
at some point in the future.
  It is important to understand why readiness is important. The term 
``readiness'' refers to the ability of the military force to deploy 
quickly and perform initially in wartime the way it was designed to. 
Readiness is a key aspect of military capability, particularly in a 
period when conflicts can commence with little warning. All the old 
rules have been thrown out. All the old cold-war rules of how we 
prepare and how we deploy and how we build up have been thrown out. We 
are responding now to new conflicts, sudden conflicts that emerge in 
unlikely places, places that we have not even heard of before. We have 
to run to the map to find out where some of these situations even exist 
and who the protagonists are.
  The reason we are so concerned, and the reason we need to protect 
readiness, is widely understood within the Department of Defense 
because many of today's senior military leaders were company commanders 
during the seventies. During that time, they dealt firsthand with the 
problems of a military which, largely because of problems with 
readiness, was dubbed ``the hollow force.'' The hollow force 15 years 
ago did not have the correct blend of weapons, equipment, and trained 
personnel to make them fully operational. Today's personnel and force 
structure are more robust. They are being asked to do more with much 
less, and all indications are that the situation will get worse before 
it gets better.
  In a recent effort to evaluate the readiness of a drawdown force, 
former Secretary of Defense Aspin formed the Defense Science Board 
panel to address long-term defense readiness. This readiness task 
force, as it was designated, was assigned to provide advice to the 
Department on how to avoid future unreadiness or future hollow Armed 
Forces. The memories of the seventies are still fresh in the minds of 
those who were there, and they do not want to see us return to that.
  We had that extraordinary commitment in the eighties to rebuild a 
depleted undermanned, underfunded, undersupported, undertrained 
national defense system. We made an extraordinary commitment and an 
extraordinary effort in the decade of the eighties that culminated in 
one of the most extraordinary engagements in the history of warfare, 
Desert Storm. There we rewrote the rules for warfare. We accomplished a 
massive military objective with an incredibly low loss of life and 
equipment, because we combined, through a decade of extraordinary 
effort, quality personnel with quality equipment with quality 
leadership and quality training. We brought it altogether in a 
synergistic way and we demonstrated to the world via CNN and other 
networks, the most efficient, effective military the world has ever 
seen. We engaged in an effort that resulted in victory and accomplished 
our objectives with minimal loss of life. Senior military people today, 
those of us in Congress, and Americans, do not want to see us lose that 
capability. They want us to maintain that edge. They do not want to see 
us return to the situation we were in 1970.

  General Meyers' task force found that the readiness of today's forces 
is acceptable in most measurable areas. Let me quote to you portions of 
that report:

       When we state that the readiness of today's forces is 
     acceptable, that does not mean that we do not find pockets of 
     unreadiness. Most of these pockets are a result of changes 
     taking place in the Armed Forces and the turbulence created 
     by these changes. However, we observed enough concerns that 
     we are convinced that unless the Department of Defense and 
     the Congress focuses on readiness, the Armed Forces could 
     slip back into a hollow status.

  That is an ominous warning. Let me repeat it.

       * * * unless the Department of Defense and the Congress 
     focuses on readiness, the Armed Forces could slip back into a 
     hollow status.

  That should cause all of us concern.
  General Meyers' task force reported on some recommendations to 
prevent this backsliding. He said:

       The following actions need to be supported: One, resources 
     to assess, train, educate, retain high-quality personnel and 
     maintaining the quality of our people should continue to be 
     the Department's top priority.

  Again, if we learned anything in the decade of the 1980's, it was 
that the quality of our personnel made the difference. To retain that 
quality of personnel requires a commitment that demands a budget 
adequate to meet the needs of assessing, obtaining, educating, 
training, and retaining those quality personnel.
  Second, General Meyers' task force stated that we need a system that 
adequately funds contingency operations. We cannot continue to fund 
these operations, as I mentioned before, by funds that are allocated 
for defense purposes.
  Third, development of measurement systems that better equip resources 
in the future. The Department should take actions to develop and 
improve a set of analytical models and other means that can be used to 
help better understand the relationship between funding, allocation, 
and future force readiness.
  I will read a couple more requirements. We have a special concern 
about future readiness. The reduction of resources for acquisition 
raises serious questions about the capabilities of our forces to 
respond to the challenges of the 21st century.
  That goes back to the point I was making earlier. It is decisions 
made or not made today that affect our capabilities to meet challenges 
in the next century. We need to focus not only on what is needed in 
1995, but what will we need in the years 2005 and 2010 and beyond. 
Those decisions today are necessary in order to provide us with the 
correct capability 10 or 15 years in the future.
  General Meyers concluded his report by stating:

       The Nation celebrated the 50th anniversary of D-Day during 
     the preparation of this report. It is well to remember that 5 
     years before D-Day the United States had very hollow forces. 
     Many servicemen died as a result of our unreadiness. 
     Readiness cannot be taken for granted. History has shown how 
     pockets of unreadiness rapidly grow and create hollow forces. 
     We believe that attention to the issues raised in this report 
     and the continued support of Congress for a ready, responsive 
     force will give us a chance to prevent the shortcomings of 
     the past from happening again as the military force evolves 
     and responds to the demands of our unsettled world.

  Mr. President, I wish every Member of Congress were forced to 
memorize that paragraph. The most important line is that ``many 
servicemen died as a result of unreadiness.''
  The ultimate objective here is to provide for our national defense 
and meet our national security means with minimal loss of life. Failure 
to adequately budget funds to maintain the kind of forces we will need 
in the future ultimately results in loss of life--unnecessary loss of 
life. Is it expensive? Yes. Is it a commitment? Yes. Are these tough 
budget times? Yes.
  But the ultimate price we pay is the loss of the life of service men 
and women who make extraordinary commitments to serve in the defense of 
this Nation. We owe them no less than quality personnel, quality 
leadership, quality equipment, quality training, and a quality life in 
the military. If we start cutting back, if we start compromising on 
this, it is not simply a result that ends up with mismanagement, or 
waste, or duplication, or shortage of parts; it is the loss of life of 
America's best young men and women that is the final result. We must 
keep that in mind as we make our decisions.
  Mr. President, as important as these concerns are, the people are 
just part of the equation, because what the military does with these 
people is the other part. In 1990, the U.S. Navy was working toward a 
600-ship fleet. Today, although it is operating with the same level of 
commitments worldwide, we have only 346 ships; we are moving toward 
that. Said one Navy veteran: ``We are working 18 hours a day. What more 
can we ask of our people when there are 360 places to be in and only 
346 ships?'' Twelve years ago, 22,000 marines were deployed overseas 
for 6 months or more in fast-response and forward-placed units. Today, 
24,000 men and women are deployed, even though the Corps has been 
reduced by 22,000 during that same period of time. There are just as 
many commitments, fewer personnel, and longer deployments.
  ``The end of the cold war notwithstanding,'' said Marine Commandant 
Gen. Carl Mundy, ``the operating tempo for the Marines has not 
diminished. It has even picked up. The practice of deploying as many as 
30 percent of the Marines away from home will ultimately wear out 
marines and gear and drive down retention rates and end up with units 
not combat ready.''
  We are doing precisely that because of the commitments that this 
administration and this country have engaged in. We are deploying far 
more marines than is healthy.
  Like the Marines, the Air Force also increased its operating tempo, 
but mostly as a result of humanitarian peacekeeping tasks. Eighty-
thousand U.S. troops were used to support U.N. peacekeeping missions 
last year. These assignments adversely affected the military's ability 
to train constructively for its primary mission.
  (Mr. DeCONCINI assumed the chair.)
  Mr. COATS. Each year, according to Air Force Secretary Sheila 
Widnall, all aircrews spend more than 120 days deployed. Some even 
spend up to 170 days deployed--despite the goal, determined by our 
experience with previous ``hollow force'' shortcomings, of 60-day to 
120-day annual deployments.
  Lengthy periods of time spent away from home have a direct impact on 
the military's ability to effectively retrain and prepare for the next 
operational assignment.
  Like the Air Force, Marine Corps units are also not receiving 
required training in war fighting skills because they are being chopped 
up for peacekeeping and humanitarian assignments.
  According to testimony received in committee, the only way Navy ships 
were able to meet their operational and training commitments was to use 
the people and spare parts collected for the rapid decommissioning of 
other ships and units.
  Let us look at some readiness shortcoming examples. The reenlistment 
rates for midgrade enlisted, the middle managers of our forces, the E-5 
and E-6 levels, are now in the 67 percent range. This is down from the 
mid 80 percent range. This is the group of service members who are left 
in the force at the end of a massive drawdown in personnel.
  The major reason given by those separating from the service is 
repetitive deployments. The spouse and the family does have impact on 
future commitments of our force. We do not have volunteer single forces 
anymore. We have voluntary family forces. A majority of our armed 
services personnel are married. They have children. They have spouses. 
That is the commitment we made when we moved from a draft military to 
an All-Volunteer Force. We want people to make it a career. Those 
people have families. But they find themselves overseas for deployment 
more than what a family can reasonably expect or what the service 
personnel reasonably expected when they enlisted. They are forced to 
look at the civilian community outside. They say: ``I want to serve my 
country. I understood there is a commitment. I understand I have to be 
away from home. But this is far more than what I was told. This is far 
more than what is necessary for me to provide reasonably for the needs 
of my family.''
  As to the Army at Fort Gordon, one of every eight vehicles is now in 
storage to eliminate maintenance and fuel costs that they cannot 
afford. Battalions that are supposed to be authorized at the 575 
personnel level now contain only 474 present for duty, 100 people short 
of what they ought to be.
  Wheeled vehicle mechanics, a special skill area, has only two of 
every five billets filled. This low number is a direct result of 
replacing mechanics for deploying units, who continue to be manned at 
100 percent.
  Marines walk 17 miles to their training ranges because they need to 
conserve truck fuel, tires, and maintenance.
  A top sergeant in the Army recently said, ``In these times of 
uncertainty with the rapid drawdown, deployments and short turn around 
times, people are deciding to leave rather than to be asked to 
separate.''
  Just in the last few months up to seven active duty battalions, five 
Army and two Marine Corps, have been tasked to fight forest fires in 
the Western United States. A mechanized infantry battalion on the west 
coast asked the commander if they could go and fight forest fires. The 
reason they said was there was insufficient training funds to keep the 
command active and occupied. They did not want to sit around, so they 
asked for something to do. They did not have the money to provide the 
training and keep occupied.
  A junior Army officer said: ``Since 1991 I have been on four 
deployments starting with Somalia. If something comes up outside the 
military and I can get a decent job, you bet I will take it. I cannot 
provide the emotional support, the physical presence that my family 
needs if I am constantly on deployment.''
  We have a significant backlog of maintenance and spare parts 
requirements. A major Army command in the continental United States is 
only budgeted for 65 percent of fiscal year 1995 required level of 
training. Marines are facing the same overseas deployments as they did 
before the gulf war with two battalions less people, 30,000 fewer 
marines to fill these commitments. That means more time away from home 
and less time for career enhancement training. That is having an effect 
on readiness and, of course, on morale.
  The military has been forced to alter the length of the replacement 
cycle of its buildings. The replacement period for base structures has 
been increased from once every 50 years to every 100 years. When you 
build a building now instead of 50 years of life, it has to last 100. 
There is not a corporation in America that will build a building and 
say this has to last for 100 years. We have to make it last because we 
do not have the funds to replace it.
  Barracks structures for single service members are currently slated 
for replacement every 15 years. Now that is being changed to every 24 
years. Very little real property maintenance is being accomplished. We 
do not have the money to do it.
  Interviews with Navy carrier pilots indicate that squadrons are 
cutting back on pilot flying hours during the time the unit is waiting 
for its next sea deployment. One squadron commander said, ``If you do 
not practice, you do not stay proficient.'' That makes sense.
  The Air Force cut the numbers of AWACS radar aircrews to save money 
while meeting more and more requirements for overseas deployments. 
Those aircrews are now facing 200-plus days per year overseas compared 
to 100 days per year even during the gulf war. This affects 
reenlistments.
  Recruiting quality has begun to drop from recent record levels. When 
you accept lower quality recruits you place a greater burden on 
trainers. Lower funding for training exposes lower quality personnel to 
a greater risk of error.
  This is from the September 6 Defense Daily. Let me quote from General 
Shalikashvili, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. ``The military is 
beginning to eat into its readiness to fight.'' He said,'' Some units 
are already being forced to cancel training due to lack of funds. The 
time has come to stop warning that readiness is going to be jeopardized 
and focus on fixing the problems that are here right now.''
  General Shalikashvili went on to say: ``The best soldier in the tank 
wins the battle, not the best tank with a mediocre soldier.''
  Quality of our military men and women, their training and their 
morale, that is what wins war. War is not an abstract term. It requires 
people. The most advanced weapons and technology in the world will not 
win wars without qualified and motivated people.
  When the Department of Defense maintains that we will not repeat the 
mistakes that were made in the seventies, when the last major defense 
drawdown produced understaffed, poorly equipped and demoralized 
personnel that is exactly the road down which we are marching today.
  We cut the pay increase. We reduce the retirement benefits. Between 
70 and 80 percent of all enlisted men and women earn less than $30,000 
a year, including food and housing allowances, 45 percent of the Army 
and 46 percent of the Marine Corps earns less than $20,000 per year.
  One of the most disturbing statistics of all, Mr. President, is this: 
An estimated 17,000 members of our Armed Forces receive food stamps and 
the number is rising. According to the Department of Defense, the total 
value of food stamps redeemed at military commissaries in 1993 
increased from $24.5 million to $27.4 million. Over 50 percent of 
military spouses have full-time jobs just to help pay the bills.
  When I first ran for Congress in 1980, one of the platforms I ran on 
was a strong national defense. I do not remember the exact numbers, but 
I remember making the statement over and over again, as an 
illustration, that for a nation which asks its young people to 
sacrifice in defense of this country, it is unconscionable to pay them 
so little that they have to use food stamps to provide for their basic 
needs.
  And thank goodness we addressed that problem in the 1980's. But now 
we are heading right back in the same direction, and it is wrong. It is 
not right.
  What kind of people do you think we are going to attract and retain 
in the military if a significant portion of them can only make it with 
handouts? They do not want a handout. They want to serve their country. 
They want to be adequately compensated. They have mouths at home to 
feed. They have children to educate. They want to put some food on the 
table.
  How demeaning it must be to be a military man or woman in uniform to 
walk into a commissary and have to redeem food stamps to put milk on 
the table. Now, what kind of military are we going to have under those 
circumstances?
  Let us look at housing. The housing in our military is a disgrace 
today. Thanks to Senator Inouye and Senator Stevens and members of the 
Appropriations Committees and authorizing committees, we have passed, 
not finally, but we are moving along legislation that provides a 
significant amount of money for new military construction. But, in the 
meantime, we do not have money to rehab or to fix or repair some of the 
existing military housing. There is nothing more compelling to a 
soldier, sailor, airman, or marine than to ensure that his family is 
well cared for and securely housed during extended periods away from 
home.
  As Army Chief of Staff General Sullivan described it, military 
personnel are willing to place their lives on the line, work long hours 
under demanding conditions, accept a lower pay scale than comparable 
civilian jobs, and ask their families to make sacrifices. But in 
return, he said, they expect the Nation to take care of their families. 
That is all they are asking.
  If you walked up to a soldier today and said, ``We are going to 
deploy tomorrow to a place in the world you have probably never heard 
of,'' he or she will salute and say, ``Yes, sir.'' All they ask in 
return is that we take care of their families while they are gone. And 
taking care of their families does not mean putting them in substandard 
housing and having them qualify for food stamps in order to put food on 
the table.
  More and more, we read about and hear about stories of junior 
enlisted men sleeping in automobiles waiting for housing to free up. 
Routine plumbing, exterior painting, and other noncritical maintenance 
is being abandoned. There are units in bases in America--not overseas, 
but in America--there are units that you cannot put a family to live in 
because there are pipes that are leaking and there is paint that is 
peeling and there is lead in the paint and there are conditions that 
you just would not put a family in. And yet we do not have the money to 
fix it up.
  At Fort Huachuca, AZ, where common area upkeep has been reduced by 
half, the result is increased habitat for snakes and vermin. Family 
units are being closed rather than upgraded or repaired because we do 
not have the funds.
  My colleague, Senator McCain, described the situation as ``our 
military poor.'' I would put it more bluntly. Are we the new slum 
landlords of our military men and women? That is not something that we 
want.
  We are starting to see slipping in terms of the qualifications of our 
new enlistees. It is not great, but it is starting to move in the wrong 
direction. In the past, 97 percent of new enlistees were high school 
graduates. That is now decreasing.
  What is more, the Pentagon's 1993 Youth Survey--that is the survey 
that annually measures the inclination of 16- to 25-year-olds to 
enlist--found that the number of young people who are considering 
joining the military is declining, a fairly significant decline since 
1989 and 1990. What is more alarming is the fact, after a decade of 
striving and succeeding in reducing from 57 percent to zero the number 
of category 4 recruits--those in the lowest educational category--the 
military once again is forced to accept category 4 recruits.
  And so, not only are the numbers of personnel of individuals seeking 
to join the military declining, but the quality of those personnel is 
declining.
  Mr. President, despite downsizing, it is essential that the military 
continue to be able to attract higher caliber recruits. Yet, since 
1989, we have cut the overall service recruiting budget by 60 percent 
and advertising budgets by 40 percent. We are starting to see that the 
path we are on will take us to the point where we are losing the 
quality force that we worked so hard to achieve during the 1980's and 
early 1990's. We are seeing these pockets of unreadiness take shape 
with our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines; not numbers, not 
statistics, but people. In today's environment, with the continued 
drawdown, it will be extremely difficult to reconstitute this premier 
group of people.
  It has been said more than once in this body that our men and women 
in the military are a national treasure and should not be squandered. 
Secretary of Defense Perry has said, ``The benefits of service must 
match the burdens we ask men and women in uniform to bear.''
  We listened to the experts out of the Department of Defense. Now let 
us listen to some base commanders.
  On August 15, Maj. Gen. Jerry White, who is the commanding general at 
Fort Benning, announced immediate cuts in maintenance, staffing and 
training to offset $1.9 million that the Fort Benning installation must 
provide to the Training and Doctrine Command's $21 million share of 
their cuts. They are allocated $1.9 million, so he announced immediate 
cuts in maintenance. He said only emergency maintenance or repairs will 
be done on barracks and installation facilities.
  Other installations are being asked to make similar cuts, to the 
dismay of commanders and senior managers. ``This is morally wrong,'' 
said one senior officer. ``You should never put commanders in the 
position of sending their troops into harm's way, and in the same 
breath, steal money from their families, their training and their 
quality of life.''
  Fort Benning's garrison commander, Colonel Rutledge, echoed that 
sentiment. ``This is not about putting bullets down range,'' he said. 
``It is the quality of life of the soldiers and their families that is 
going to be hurt by this.''
  Secretary Perry had a report provided to him after field trips taken 
by the Pentagon's No. 2 man, Secretary Deutch.

       After visits to U.S. troops stationed around the world, 
     Perry has become convinced that high morale is the most 
     important short-term element to maintaining readiness, Deutch 
     said.
       The key elements of high morale include good pay, 
     sufficient operations and maintenance funding, better quality 
     housing, day care for troops' children, good medical care, 
     and other items that improve the quality of life for military 
     personnel and their families, Deutch said.
       As the drawdown deepens, the defense officials are haunted 
     by memories of the post-Vietnam hollow military and are 
     determined not to re-create it.

  Vice Chairman Admiral Owens said, ``Some of the indicators from the 
1970's that were linked to the hollow force are beginning to 
reemerge.'' ``We are trying desperately to do what's best for our 
people,'' Owens said. ``I have never seen as much attention paid in the 
Pentagon to maintaining readiness.''
  I commend Secretary Perry, Secretary Deutch, Admiral Owens, and all 
those in the Pentagon who are doing everything they can to address this 
problem, but they are being asked to do ``Mission Impossible,'' because 
we are not giving them the funds to do what they know they must and 
need to do minimally to maintain the morale, maintain the quality of 
life, and maintain the readiness that is essential.
  Mr. President, I have talked for a lengthy amount of time here. 
Whether it is the Army's Fort Benning where waiting time for housing 
has increased by 5 months, interior painting now can only be done once 
every 5 years, all noncritical maintenance and repair has been 
deferred; whether it is Fort Dix where the repair of a fire damaged 
unit was deferred, maintenance in the fourth quarter of this year 
limited to emergency repairs only; whether it is Carlisle Barracks, PA, 
where 56 housing units are awaiting funds for asbestos removal, where 
Army War College students now have to paint their own quarters on 
change of occupant; or Fort Huachuca, AZ, which has eliminated exterior 
painting, reduced the common area and upkeep by half; at Fort Knox, 
where they have deferred lead-based paint removal; Fort Sill, where 
they have eliminated routine maintenance, eliminated interior painting 
and preventive maintenance--on and on and on it goes.
  We owe our military people more than this. Our military people are 
our most valued asset in this country. They are married, they have 
children--well over 50 percent of the service members now have 
children. When you have quality people, you have fewer discipline 
problems. They are easier to train. They complete their obligations. 
Ultimately they win on the battlefield.
  We want to recruit the best that we can. We want quality people to 
take quality jobs. We owe them quality of life. We want to retain those 
people by giving them adequate pay, adequate benefits, adequate 
housing. We want to take care of their families.
  The variable with the strongest impact on unit readiness is the 
soldier's perceptions of the amount of support the unit leaders give 
soldiers and their families. Ultimately it is the Congress that 
provides the direction and the funding to those unit commanders and to 
those families. We are in that chain of responsibility for our military 
people. We are the ones who ultimately make the decision about what 
kind of military we are going to have.
  Unit readiness is based on the individual service member and his or 
her readiness. A great deal of research demonstrates the importance of 
family issues in personnel retention. ``You recruit a soldier but you 
reenlist a soldier's family,'' is the line that any commanding officer 
will tell you. Retention is related to separations from family due to 
duty requirements. It is an important determinant to morale and a key 
factor in reenlistment decisions.
  As I have heard stated to me over and over and over as I visit with 
troops: ``We have made the commitment. We will make the sacrifice. All 
we ask is that you take care of our families.''
  Right now we are in a tremendous cost squeeze. It is this Congress 
that must decide what kind of national defense, what kind of military, 
what kind of obligation we have to the men and women in uniform and the 
families that support them. We make that decision. We cannot blame the 
administration, we cannot blame anybody but ourselves. We are in the 
chain of command when it comes to providing support for our military 
personnel. We have an obligation, a constitutional responsibility to 
provide for the needs of those people--to enlist and retain the highest 
quality people we can attract; to give them the best training that we 
can provide; to provide them with the best equipment that this country 
can produce; to give them the quality leadership necessary to provide 
the kind of cohesiveness and unit cohesion that ultimately wins wars, 
if and when conflict is required. That is our minimal obligation. We 
are beginning to see a return to the time when we are not meeting that 
obligation.
  Now that the chairman has arrived I want to conclude by again stating 
how hard the chairman and the ranking member, Senator Thurmond, have 
fought to keep this budget together and provide at least the most 
minimal of budgeted services for our military under extraordinarily 
difficult circumstances. But the responsibility goes beyond the 
committee. The responsibility goes to every Member in this Congress. It 
is a constitutional responsibility. It is a moral responsibility. It is 
one we are beginning to see very seriously undermined; and I hope we 
will focus on these matters because, as I said, ultimately they go to 
the very heart of who we are as a people, what we stand for, and the 
provision of our national defense.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. NUNN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I am pleased to lay before the Senate the 
conference report on national defense before the Senate. This 
conference report authorizes programs for the Department Defense, 
national security programs of the Department of Energy, and civil 
defense for fiscal year 1994.
  I know Senator Thurmond has already made his comments. Let me say I 
think the conferees worked very hard last month to resolve over 1,600 
language and funding differences between the House and the Senate 
versions of this bill. I would like to particularly thank Senator 
Thurmond, the ranking minority member of the Armed Services Committee, 
and all the members of the Armed Services Committee, for their 
cooperation and support throughout the conference.
  In a bill this large, much of the work has to be done by the 
subcommittee chairmen and ranking minority members. Without their 
efforts, Senator Thurmond and I would never have been able to complete 
this conference report. Certainly I want to say my counterpart on the 
House side, Chairman Dellums, and Senator Thurmond's counterpart, 
Congressman Spence, and the other conferees from the House, were very 
cooperative. We had a lot of difficult issues, a lot of difficult 
decisions, and a lot of disagreements. But we worked in a spirit of 
cooperation and, thanks to the leadership of Chairman Dellums, 
Congressman Spence, Senator Thurmond and other members of both 
committees, we were able to work out the difficult and contentious 
issues in a spirit of good faith in completing this conference report.
  Under the circumstances--and I will discuss some of those 
circumstances a little later--this is a good conference agreement that 
continues the process of restructuring our defense establishment. The 
conference report establishes and emphasizes the need to maintain the 
high quality of men and women entering the service and serving in the 
Armed Forces. For a long time we have recognized the quality of our 
personnel was the key to military readiness and the key to our 
preparedness as a nation.
  This conference report continues, within the overall framework of the 
budget limitations we were dealing with, to emphasize the high quality 
of American and women that are needed in the Armed Forces and to do all 
we can to basically carry that out. We increased the funding above the 
budget request for readiness and training programs, and sustained the 
reduced pace of weapons system modernization requested in the fiscal 
1995 budget.
  The conference report preserves critical defense industrial base 
capabilities, and strengthens the peacekeeping and peace enforcement 
capability of U.S. military forces. It continues the key areas of the 
defense conversion and transition programs to help individuals, 
communities and businesses adjust to the effects of the defense 
drawdown.
  This conference report authorizes $263.8 billion in budget authority 
for the national defense function for fiscal year 1995, the level 
requested by the President and agreed to by the Congress in the budget 
resolution for fiscal year 1995.
  Although we have authorized the requested amount, I remain--and have 
said this on many occasions--increasingly concerned about the projected 
funding level for national defense over the next several years. In my 
view, the current budget levels will not be adequate to maintain the 
current readiness of our forces; to provide for their needed 
modernization; to support the compensation and quality of life 
improvements that we all want for our military members and their 
families, and still support the force structure necessary to carry out 
the full range of missions that we expect our military forces to be 
able to perform.
  Something has to give because there is not sufficient funding to 
carry out all of those objectives.
  Mr. President, I want to take a few moments to describe for my 
colleagues some of the most important provisions in this conference 
report.
  In the area of strategic deterrence and arms control, with Senator 
Exon and Senator Lott as chairman and ranking member, the conferees 
preserved bomber force structure options while directing further 
analyses of bomber requirements; added funds to improve near-term 
precision bomber weapons; and continued restructuring ballistic missile 
defense programs to emphasize deployment and development of near-term, 
ABM Treaty-compliant missile defenses.
  Earlier this year, our committee concluded that the Defense 
Department did not have an adequate plan for the future of our bomber 
forces. The Senate bill contained a major initiative to preserve the 
current bomber force levels and industrial production capacity until 
the Department has had an opportunity to reconsider this whole issue. I 
am pleased the conference agreement includes all three of the major 
parts of the Senate's bomber initiative.
  First, the conference agreement preserves the current bomber force 
levels for an additional year by preventing the Department of Defense 
from retiring any B-52 or B-1 bombers during fiscal year 1995.
  Second, the conference agreement adds $77.5 million to the budget for 
demonstration and procurement of interim precision weapons for the 
bomber force until the new family of precision-guided munitions are 
available at the end of this decade.
  Finally, Mr. President, the conferees agreed to provide $125 million 
to preserve the bomber industrial base for 1 year, while the Secretary 
of Defense reexamines our bomber requirements and capabilities. While 
this reexamination is underway, the Secretary may obligate up to $100 
million to preserve these core capabilities which would take extended 
periods of time, or substantial expense, to regenerate, and which are 
in imminent danger of being lost, that are needed to maintain the 
ability to design, develop, and produce bombers in the near or long 
term.
  Mr. President, there has been some confusion in the media and the 
trade press about the Enhanced Bomber Capability Fund. Let me try to 
clarify the situation.
  Does the provision permit the Secretary of Defense to keep the major 
B-2 tooling in place? The answer to that is yes. The estimate is that 
it would cost $20 million to $30 million during fiscal year 1995 to 
keep the tooling from being dismantled. But dismantling and storing the 
tooling and then bringing it back later is estimated to cost well over 
$100 million and add an extra year to any schedule for more B-2's if 
the Secretary and the administration decided more B-2's were needed. 
Under the conference provision, the Secretary may act to prevent 
substantial future expenses and delays of this type from arising.
  Does the provision permit the purchase of B-2 parts and end items to 
keep the lower tier, stealth-unique vendor base intact? The answer 
again is yes, so long as the items in question are not long-lead items 
for additional B-2's. That decision has not been made, and we do not 
try to in any way preempt that decision, which has to be made first by 
the Secretary and then by the President before it gets to the Congress.
  The best way to keep stealth-unique lower tier vendors in business is 
to give them new orders for the parts that have already been produced 
and delivered for the 20 B-2's now on order.
  Does the provision permit the Secretary to conduct these activities 
throughout fiscal year 1995, both while his analyses are underway and 
after they are completed? Again, the answer is yes. The Secretary may 
spend up to $100 million of the $125 million provided before his 
analyses are completed and he reports to the Congress. And once he has 
reported, he may continue to allocate unobligated balances--up to the 
entire $125 million in the fund--to sustain the B-2 industrial base; 
that is, if he has chosen not to use $25 million of that money for an 
alternative purpose, which is a longer range bomber study.
  It is correct that no additional B-2 or long-lead items may be 
purchased with the bomber industrial fund. That is clear. That was the 
Senate position going into the conference, and we certainly agreed to 
that and made that very clear in the conference.
  The restructuring of the Ballistic Missile Defense Program initiated 
in the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 1994 will 
continue under the conference agreement. The conferees transferred $120 
million in ballistic missile defense, BMD, funds for the Brilliant-Eyes 
space-based sensor system from the Ballistic Missile Defense 
Organization to the Office of Secretary of Defense, and reduced the 
request of $3.25 billion by an additional $330 million, to $2.8 
billion.
  The conferees maintained funding for priority theater missile defense 
[TMD] programs, including Patriot PAC-3, the Theater High-Altitude Area 
Defense System [THAAD], and Navy TMD programs.
  The conference agreement authorizes the budget request of $648 
million for the Milstar satellite communications program. The conferees 
agreed not to transfer the program from the Air Force to the Navy as 
proposed in the Senate bill because the Secretary of Defense will 
propose to Congress a major reform of space systems acquisition in the 
near future.
  I am pleased that the conferees approved the budget request of $400 
million for another program, which I think is one of our most important 
programs, and that is the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program for the 
states of the former Soviet Union, the so-called Nunn-Lugar funding.
  The conference report directs the Department of Defense to develop a 
multiyear strategy for these programs, establishes guidelines for 
future implementation, and requires a full accounting of implementation 
of this program.
  The final conference provision I want to mention in this particular 
area, Mr. President, would repeal the Civil Defense Act of 1950 and 
transfer the authorities contained in that act to the Stafford Disaster 
Relief Act. This initiative was taken in the House bill to help 
consolidate jurisdiction over the Federal Emergency Management Agency 
under the Public Works Committees, which is consistent with the 
congressional reform initiative begun last year. After careful review, 
the Senate conferees agreed to this House provision.
  On the subject of coalition defense and reinforcing forces, the 
conference agreement includes a series of initiatives to strengthen 
conventional capabilities and improve the production efficiency of key 
weapons programs. This area is under the jurisdiction of Senator Carl 
Levin and Senator John Warner, as chairman and ranking member.
  In the area of tactical aviation, the conferees approved the budget 
request of $2.5 billion for development of the F-22 and $1.4 billion 
for the development of the F/A-18 E/F aircraft, and directed the Office 
of the Secretary of Defense and the Offices of the Secretaries of the 
Navy and the Air Force to pursue a derivative of the Air Force F-22 as 
a joint program. We also authorized $1.1 billion for the 24 F/A-18 C/D 
aircraft for the Navy requested in the budget.
  For the Army, the conference agreement added $72 million to the 
budget for buying 6 AH-64 Apache helicopters, and added $150 million to 
the budget for upgrading 24 OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopters, sometimes 
referred to as the Army helicopter improvement program, AHIP.
  The conference agreement contains several important initiatives 
involving tanks. The conferees authorized multiyear procurement of M1A2 
Abrams tank upgrades for the Army, and added $17.9 million for enhanced 
warfighting capabilities.
  A total of $108 million was added to the budget request for 24 
additional M1A2 tank upgrades for the Army. The Army would then 
transfer a comparable number of M1A1 tanks to the Marine Corps Reserve 
no later than when the M1A2 upgrades are delivered to the Army. 
Finally, the conferees approved the Senate provision to transfer 84 
M1A1 tanks to the Marine Corps as these tanks become excess to the 
active Army's requirements.
  The conferees took several actions to improve U.S. peacekeeping and 
peace enforcement capabilities, including the addition of $100 million 
to the budget for advance procurement of commercial airframes to be 
converted to JSTARS surveillance aircraft. This system, like the Air 
Force AWACS, is ideally suited to providing sophisticated intelligence 
and command and control over peacekeeping as well as military 
operations. The conferees also agreed to add $10 million to the budget 
request of $12 million for countermine warfare research. Mine warfare 
is a particularly serious problem in areas where U.S. forces are 
engaged in peacekeeping operations.
  Finally, the conferees agreed to authorize a total of $510 million 
for equipment for the National Guard and Reserve components. These 
funds are authorized in generic categories and the conferees directed 
the National Guard and Reserve components to purchase items of 
equipment which contribute most directly to supporting the domestic 
missions of these units.
  In the area of regional defense and contingency forces, which has 
been so ably headed by Senator Kennedy and Senator Bill Cohen as 
chairman and ranking member, the conferees approved the budget request 
of $3.6 billion for one nuclear powered aircraft carrier, CVN-76, $2.7 
billion for three DDG-51 Aegis destroyers, and $507.3 million for 
continued development of the Navy's new attack submarine.
  In the area of mobility, the conference agreement authorizes $608.6 
million for the national defense sealift fund to continue construction 
of strategic sealift vessels to implement the mobility requirements 
study. It adds $220 million to the budget to purchase and convert two 
additional ships to enhance the current Marine Corps prepositioning 
ship squadrons. These additional ships will contain an expeditionary 
airfield, a fleet hospital, seabee equipment, and additional logistics 
and sustainability items.
  The conferees approved the administration's request to enter into the 
settlement agreement negotiated with the C-17 prime contractor in 
January 1994. The conference agreement authorizes the budget request 
for six new aircraft but reduced the fiscal year 1995 procurement 
request of $2.8 billion by $387.4 million. The conference agreement 
also authorizes long lead funding for $189.9 million for eight more 
aircraft, the amount requested in the budget.
  I have some reservations about this program and the settlement, but a 
clear majority of both committees favors the Department's recommended 
approach.
  In the area of defense technology, acquisition and the industrial 
base, under the leadership of Senator Jeff Bingaman and Senator Bob 
Smith, the conference agreement maintains the momentum of the Defense 
Reinvestment and Conversion Program enacted in 1992. The conferees 
approved the requested amount of $625 million for the Advanced Research 
Project Agency's technology and reinvestment program, including $50 
million for a loan guarantee program for small- and medium-sized 
defense firms, which will guarantee approximately $2 billion in loans.
  I am pleased that the conference agreement includes $25 million, a 
$10 million increase to the budget, for historically black colleges and 
universities and minority institutions to increase their capacity to 
educate scientists and engineers, as well as the requested level of $50 
million for the mentor-Protege program. Under this growing program, 
large defense contractors enter into agreements with small and 
disadvantaged businesses to assist them in upgrading their 
manufacturing capabilities and their ability to compete for defense 
contracts.
  In the area of defense medical research, the conference agreement 
authorizes increases to the budget of $40 million, specifically to 
address health care issues affecting women in the Armed Forces; $20 
million for research and telemedicine, whereby doctors can examine and 
suggest treatment for injured soldiers in remote locations; and $20 
million for further research into the causes and possible treatments 
for the gulf war syndrome.
  On the subject of telemedicine, Mr. President, that program is of 
enormous importance to our military because of the ability to take 
specialists at Walter Reed, Bethesda, or elsewhere, and have them 
basically direct field operation medical teams in performing intricate 
and complicated medical procedures.
  Telemedicine is an exciting concept for our entire country because it 
is technology which can bring to bear the best medical technology to 
the most remote areas of our country, including many rural areas which 
are medically underserved.
  I believe it can do so and saving substantial, perhaps billions of 
dollars over a period of time. Most medical technology has been miracle 
working in its nature in the last 15 or 20 years, but has in most cases 
cost a lot more money.
  In this case, I think we have a chance of improving the quality of 
medical care, both in the military and in the civilian sector, and at 
the same time lowering costs because this kind of technology is going 
to enable people to be treated where they are in many cases rather than 
traveling long distances to much more expensive areas and hospitals for 
treatment. So this is, indeed, an exciting program and our committee is 
doing all we can to help stimulate that program.
  In the areas of military readiness and defense infrastructure, under 
the leadership of Senator John Glenn and Senator John McCain, the 
conferees authorized an increase of $310 million to the budget request 
of $7.2 billion for depot-level maintenance programs to reduce the 
backlog of equipment overdue for repair and to prevent future 
degradation in equipment readiness.
  The conferees agreed to the Senate initiative to authorize an 
increase of $72 million to the budget request of $534 million for DOD 
recruiting programs. This increase is needed to ensure that the 
military services continue to meet their recruit quality goals in an 
increasingly difficult recruiting environment.
  The allocation of work between DOD depots and the private sector was 
one of the major issues facing the conference. The House bill contained 
several provisions that would have significantly altered the current 
law that provides a floor of 60 percent of the total depot maintenance 
and repair work in each service that must be done in DOD depots. The 
conferees agreed to provisions that maintain the current allocation of 
depot maintenance workload between DOD depots and the private sector. 
In addition, the conference agreement includes a Senate provision that 
would require DOD, in moving depot maintenance workload out of a DOD 
depot, to continue public-public competitions--competitions among DOD 
depots--and public-private competitions--competitions between DOD 
depots and private sector companies.


            subcommittee on force requirements and personnel

  In the areas of personnel and compensation, under the leadership of 
Senator Richard Shelby and Senator Dan Coats, the conferees maintained 
a prudent glide path to reduce military personnel strength, and, at the 
same time, provided for the quality of life of military personnel and 
their families.
  The conference agreement authorizes a 2.6-percent pay raise for 
military personnel effective January 1, 1995, and approves the payment 
of a new cost-of-living allowance to service members stationed in 
certain geographic locations within the continental United States where 
the nonhousing living costs are significantly above national average.
  At the request of Secretary Perry, the conferees included provisions 
to improve the health care and housing benefits available to dependents 
of service members who die on active duty. These provisions authorize 
coverage in the dependents' dental program and full CHAMPUS coverage 
for up to 1 year beginning on the date of the service member's death, 
and extend the period dependents are authorized to remain in Government 
quarters or continue to receive housing allowances from 90 days to 180 
days beginning on the date of the service member's death. These changes 
would be retroactive to October 1, 1993.
  The conferees also agreed to require the Secretary of Defense to 
develop a comprehensive policy on unlawful discrimination and sexual 
harassment, and to ensure that the Service Secretaries prescribe 
regulations implementing policies not later than March 1, 1995. The 
equal opportunity and complaint procedures of each of the military 
departments, at a minimum, must be substantially equivalent to the 
procedures of the Army on such matters.
  Mr. President, there were the usually large number of general 
provisions in this conference which were ably handled by a Senate panel 
headed by Senator Bob Graham and Senator Dirk Kempthorne. This panel 
handled many of the very complex and controversial policy issues, such 
as peacekeeping, burdensharing, and Defense Department organizational 
issues. One in particular I want to mention was probably the most 
difficult issue for the conference to resolve--United States policy 
convening the international arms embargo on Bosnia.
  After a great deal of discussion and debate, the conferees agreed to 
a provision that expresses the policy of the Congress that the 
President should by the end of October formally introduce a resolution 
at the U.N. Security Council to terminate the international arms 
embargo on the Government of Bosnia and Hercegovina if the Bosnian 
Serbs have not accepted the contact group's proposal by October 15, 
1994. The President has indicated his willingness to make this effort 
in the U.N. Security Council. Funding for enforcement of the arms 
embargo on Bosnia will be terminated no later than November 15 if the 
Security Council has not lifted the arms embargo on Bosnia and the 
Bosnian Serbs have not accepted the contact group's proposal. This same 
provision was adopted by the full Senate during our debate on the 
Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal year 1995.
  Mr. President, as these highlights of the conference agreement 
indicate, the conferees on the National Defense Authorization Act for 
fiscal year 1995 reached a sound compromise and produced a good 
conference agreement.
  Before I complete my remarks, I want to again thank Senator Thurmond 
and all of the members of the Armed Services Committee for their work 
on this conference. Without the active participation of all of the 
committee members, we could not have completed the conference.
  I also want to thank the staff on both sides of the aisle for their 
hard work and outstanding help on this conference agreement and 
throughout the year. Under the very capable leadership of staff 
director Arnold Punaro, and the minority staff director, Dick Reynard, 
the majority and minority staffs continued the committee's long 
tradition of bipartisanship by working closely together to carry out 
much of the burden of this conference and the conference on S. 1587, 
another enormously important bill which is not contained in this bill, 
that is, the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994.
  That act is working its way through the conference and will hopefully 
become law in the near future, and it will be the most important 
acquisition reform, in my view, since World War II. On the acquisition 
side, this is comparable to what is known on the organizational side as 
the Goldwater-Nichols legislation. It has not received much attention 
because so much hard work has been done by so many people over the 
years that a lot of the controversy has been removed from this major 
reform, but no one should in any way underestimate the effect of this 
reform, the good effect it can have over a long period of time. It is 
not going to be overnight, but over a period of 5 to 10 years it can 
make an enormous difference in efficiency and effectiveness in defense 
expenditures.
  I would also like to add a special note of appreciation to Greg Scott 
and Charlie Armstrong of the Senate legislative counsel's office, and 
Bob Cover, Sherry Chriss, Judy Sheon, and Greg Kostka of the House 
Legislative Counsel's office for their excellent work on this bill and 
on S. 1587.
  Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to support this conference 
report.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Breaux). The absence of a quorum is noted. 
The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Heflin). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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