[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 139 (Thursday, September 29, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 29, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
   DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1995--CONFERENCE REPORT

  Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, I submit a report of the committee of 
conference on H.R. 4650 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The report will be stated.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The committee on conference on the disagreeing votes of the 
     two Houses on the amendments of the Senate to the bill H.R. 
     4650 making appropriations for the Department of Defense for 
     the fiscal year ending September 30, 1995, 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 all 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 September 26, 1994.)
  The Senate proceeded to consider the conference report.
  Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there be 1 
hour for debate on the conference report, with the time divided as 
follows: 30 minutes controlled by the chairman and vice chairman of the 
committee, 15 minutes under the control of Senator Bumpers, 15 minutes 
under the control of Senator McCain, that when the time is used, the 
conference report be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid 
upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                         privilege of the floor

  Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following 
persons be given the privilege of the floor during the consideration of 
this report:
  David Hennessey, Nora Kelly, Nancy Lescavage, and Herb Nakamura.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Who 
yields time?
  Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, I yield myself 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii is recognized.
  Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, I am pleased to offer the conference 
report (H. Rept. 103-747) making appropriations for the Department of 
Defense for fiscal year 1995. The conference report before you provides 
funds to operate, maintain and equip the Defense Department and our 
military forces during fiscal year 1995.
  There is some urgency to the enactment of this conference report, Mr. 
President. Title IX provides $299.3 million in fiscal year 1994 
supplemental appropriations to meet the unbudgeted costs of emergency 
relief for Rwanda and for emergency migrant processing and safe haven 
costs in or around Cuba.
  The fiscal year 1995 appropriations bill provides $243.6 billion for 
the Department of Defense. This amount is within the subcommittee's 
602b allocation. Discretionary outlays from the bill will be $250.7 
billion or about $50 million below the subcommittee's allocation.
  Mr. President, this is a very lean bill. I must advise my colleagues 
that not every worthwhile program could be accommodated in this austere 
bill, but the conferees have done their best to produce a bill which 
meets the needs of our men and women in uniform.


                           military personnel

  The bill provides a total of $70.3 billion for military personnel 
pay, allowances and related costs. This amount includes funding for a 
2.6-percent pay raise for our uniformed personnel.


                       operation and maintenance

  To operate and maintain our Forces, the conference agreement 
recommends $80.9 billion. It may be noted that we have exceeded 
authorized levels for the Service O&M accounts. In the course of our 
conference, we found that we were able to provide more funding for 
readiness programs than the authorizing conference had been able to 
accommodate.
  Mr. President, we have added funding for aircraft and ship 
maintenance programs, unit training activities, and for returning 
excess Army equipment from Europe. We began this year by emphasizing 
the need to maintain the readiness of and quality of life for our 
troops. I believe this bill does preserve that critical readiness for 
another year.
  As a matter of particular concern to the members of the subcommittee 
we have provided additional resources for the recruiting efforts of the 
Uniformed Services. We have provided a total of $89 million above the 
budget request for this purpose.
  Also in this title, funds were added for select Defense conversion 
programs supported by many Members in this body. For example, the 
conference agreement adds funds for military youth programs, small 
business loan guarantees, and economic development programs in 
California, Florida, Michigan, and many other States affected by base 
closures.


                              procurement

  The bill would fund $43.4 billion for procurement, a decrease of 
nearly $1.2 billion below the amount provided last year.
  Significant Army highlights of this action include providing $108 
million to keep the main battle tank industrial base alive. The bill 
also provides funds for Apache and the advanced helicopters to keep 
these lines open.
  For the Navy, the agreement provides funds to complete the 
procurement of the CVN-76 nuclear aircraft carrier and to support the 
purchase of three DDG-51 destroyers as requested by the administration.
  Significant highlights for Air Force procurement include providing 
$2.2 billion to buy six C-17 aircraft this year and advance procurement 
funds for buying eight in fiscal year 1996.
  Mr. President, the conference report reflects the strong support of 
the Senate regarding National Guard and Reserve equipment. While the 
House earmarked funds for specific projects, the Senate did not.
  The conference agreement allows the chiefs of the Reserve components 
to determine which specific items will be purchased. The statement of 
the Managers earmarks $800 million for miscellaneous equipment and 
lists items which it believes should be given priority, but does not 
mandate which equipment must be acquired. Within this amount the 
statement earmarks $505 million for Guard and Reserve aircraft. The 
conferees intend that these aircraft can be either new production or 
newly refurbished aircraft.


                        research and development

  Mr. President, in order to preserve the technological advantages 
which the United States enjoys over potential adversaries, the 
conference agreement made only modest changes to the research and 
development request.
  In other highlights, the agreement funds the Army's Comanche, funds 
the Navy's F/A-18 E/F program, and the Navy's new attack submarine.
  Mr. President, the conferees provided $2.5 billion for ballistic 
missile defense. In keeping with past practice, the conferees agreed to 
recommend a number of discrete reductions in this program.


                          other related areas

  Mr. President, when H.R. 4650 was considered by the Senate a number 
of foreign policy provisions were added to the bill. Unfortunately, in 
conference, the House conferees, backed by their authorizing 
committees, were adamant that these provisions be removed from the 
bill. To gain agreement on the overall conference, the Senate conferees 
found it necessary to recede from the Senate position.
  Mr. President, this has been a tough year for the Defense 
Subcommittee. The funding constraints that the committee had to meet 
were quite stringent. After 10 straight years of reducing Defense 
spending, development of a Defense appropriations bill is not an easy 
task. The Senate, I believe, met that challenge when it passed the 
Defense bill, and I am happy to say the conferees have also responded 
to that difficult challenge.
  This report reflects a good compromise between the priorities of the 
Senate and the House. But most importantly, it is a good agreement 
which will provide for the safety and support of our men and women in 
uniform. So I urge all Members to support the conference report.
  Mr. President, it has become my custom to identify a member of the 
Defense Subcommittee staff for individual recognition each year. There 
is one staff member who has served with particular devotion over many 
years who has not been singled out, one who is most deserved of tribute 
for his dedication to the Senate Appropriations Committee and this 
institution. I am speaking of our fine staff director, Mr. Richard 
Collins.
  Mr. Collins began his tenure with the Senate Appropriations Committee 
on June 12, 1974, assigned to the Foreign Operations Subcommittee. As 
chairman of that subcommittee, at that time I soon realized that Mr. 
Collins was a man who possessed great wisdom, uncompromising integrity, 
and a finely honed sense of duty to his country. Mr. Collins quickly 
learned the business of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee, and in 
1981, I was privileged to promote him to staff director of the 
subcommittee. He served in that position with me through 1988.
  In 1989, I was selected to chair the Defense Subcommittee. There were 
many who suggested that I needed a staff director with a strong 
military background to run the Defense Subcommittee. But, for me, there 
was no doubt who to choose. I knew Richard Collins was the man who 
could best serve the Senate's interest as staff director of this 
subcommittee and I was proven correct.
  Mr. Collins attacked the issue, learning everything about the 
Department of Defense. He spent countless days in briefings from each 
of the military departments, gaining a deep understanding of the 
pressing defense issues of the day. But he was not satisfied just to 
listen to what those in the Pentagon were saying. He traveled 
throughout the United States talking to our military commanders and 
soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen in the field.
  He reported back to me on the strengths and problems in the Defense 
Department as he continues to do so today. Richard Collins is my 
compass. He guides me every day in carrying out my duties to the Senate 
as chairman of the Subcommittee on Defense. As staff director, he is 
fully informed on all defense matters and he keeps me updated on the 
needs of our men and women in uniform.
  Richard Collins has served me and, more importantly, this body for 20 
years. We in the Senate owe him our undying gratitude for his tireless 
efforts, his moral certitude, and his dedication to this body. And, 
Richard, I salute you, sir.
  Mr. President, how much time do I have?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's 10 minutes has just expired.
  Mr. INOUYE. I yield myself 2 more minutes.
  Mr. President, this bill, as I indicated, involves over $243 billion. 
We have just passed a unanimous-consent request to conclude our debate 
in an hour, and upon its conclusion the report would be adopted, 
hopefully without a vote.
  For those who may not be aware of the process in the legislature, it 
would seem that this was a very easy process with no controversies. 
This bill is filled with controversy. This bill is the most expensive 
measure facing the Congress of the United States. And yet, we come to 
this day and make it seem so easy. It is so because of one reason. This 
committee has been blessed with an extraordinary staff on the majority 
side and on the minority side. If it were not for the staff, I think we 
would be nit-picking and higgling and haggling for weeks and weeks to 
come.
  So I would like to recognize these staff members: Richard Collins, 
Charles Houy, Peter Lennon, Jay Kimmitt, John Young, David Morrison, 
Mary Marshall, Dick D'Amato, Mazie Mattson, and Hallie Hastert. I would 
also like to make special recognition of Steve Cortese, who has been 
most helpful, Jim Morhard, and Dona Pate.
  We have also had support from the Department of Defense: David 
Hennesey, Herbert Nakamura, Nora Kelly, and Sidney Ashworth.
  So, Mr. President, I know the subcommittee joins me in extending our 
undying gratitude to these staff members.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. STEVENS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska is recognized.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I join the Senator from Hawaii, the 
chairman of our subcommittee, in presenting this conference report to 
the Senate and urge that it be approved. We filed this conference 
report on Monday, and it has been printed in the Record. It is a credit 
to the subcommittee as a whole, under the leadership of my good friend, 
Senator Inouye, that this bill is before us prior to the end of the 
fiscal year. It has been facilitated in terms of the work we have done 
in the subcommittee by the support given to us by the chairman of the 
full committee, Senator Byrd, and the ranking member, Senator Hatfield.
  This bill, as the Senator from Hawaii has noted, meets the 602(b) 
allocation that was submitted to our subcommittee. We have not made any 
broad general reductions. There are no across-the-board cuts in this 
bill. I do not believe in them anyway. I am pleased to say that this 
conference has gone through this bill item by item. We have made 
specific adjustments. They have been consistent basically with the 
positions taken by the two military committees in both the House and 
the Senate. We have done this through consultation with leaders of the 
military and with representatives of the President through the 
Department of Defense and the White House. In other words, this bill 
has been very well staffed. It has been the subject of a great many 
individual consultations through the services of my good friend, the 
chairman, Senator Inouye, and myself, with many other Members of the 
Senate and the House. We are privileged to work with a great team in 
the House, headed by Chairman Murtha and the ranking member there, Mr. 
McDade.
  I wish to say that when I appeared on the floor of the Senate earlier 
this year and talked about this bill, I was very much concerned that 
the authorized funding presented to us was too low to maintain our 
national security. I did not think it would support the efforts of our 
military to provide for our national defense consistent with our 
existing international obligations and those that seem to come on us 
now one by one. We are expanding our role as far as the use of our 
military, and the events of the past weeks confirm my concerns that I 
expressed here before. I see no reason to repeat them. I will add some 
comments concerning the stress that exists now for the men and women 
who serve in uniform for our country throughout the world, and 
particularly upon their families.
  But let me state, Mr. President, over the recent recess, along with 
Senator Warner of Virginia, I took the occasion to have some meetings 
with a series of military commanders and with our intelligence 
officials in Europe. We did discuss the operations in Bosnia and Rwanda 
and Iraq. I have returned heartened by the commitment and dedication of 
those armed services and the personnel we have overseas. But I continue 
to be troubled by the nature of the increasing deployments that we face 
as far as the Department of Defense is concerned.
  Specifically, this bill contains a supplemental appropriation of 
$299.3 million to address some of the shortfalls that have been created 
by the deployments in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the 
Caribbean. The funds are designated as ``emergency,'' consistent with 
the President's request. As such, the bill does not dip into existing 
funds that have been requested to maintain our military strategy and to 
provide for the quality of life of the people of our armed services. It 
is a bill that I consider to be vital today.
  Let me point out that we had to have this bill done today, so it 
could be signed and made available for tomorrow. This is because some 
of the funds in this bill must be obligated in this fiscal year which 
expires tomorrow night.
  I applaud the efforts of Secretary of Defense Bill Perry, the Deputy 
Secretary, John Deutch, and the Comptroller, John Hamre, who have 
worked with us to see to it that these funds could be secured in a way 
that would meet these obligations now and not impair the funds that 
might be necessary for the next fiscal year.
  This supplemental only covers the expenses incurred by the Department 
of Defense for the missions that I have mentioned through September 18 
of this year. All of those people who urged the President to utilize 
our armed services in Haiti I hope will be prepared next year to fund 
the costs that we have incurred. We are not funding those costs in this 
bill. The Department of Defense is currently operating under authority 
that gives them the right to incur obligations in advance of 
appropriations for the missions in Haiti. I am not sure how many people 
really realize that. We are not funding those operations with this 
bill.
  When the Congress returns--hopefully, it will be in January, but when 
we do return we undoubtedly will receive a supplemental request for the 
military operations in Haiti. Certainly, that will be in excess, 
according to the current estimate, of over $0.5 billion.
  It will be necessary for all Members of the Congress to work with the 
appropriations committees to ensure that the funding that we have here 
for the men and women in our military, their quality of life and for 
the systems to support them in the event that they are called upon to 
defend our country, will not suffer, that the funding for their ongoing 
programs will not suffer by virtue of the mission that we have 
undertaken in Haiti.
  So far this year, Mr. President, the Department of Defense has 
expended $1.57 billion for peacekeeping and refugee support 
contingencies. That does not, as I say, include Haiti.
  I ask unanimous consent that I may put in the Record a chart that 
reflects the funding that I have mentioned. It has been provided by the 
Department of Defense to show the cost for the missions that I 
mentioned and the number of personnel previously or currently engaged 
in those deployments.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                  CONTINGENCY COSTS IN FISCAL YEAR 1994                 
                          [Dollars in millions]                         
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                 Current
                                                        Costs     U.S.  
                                                                military
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Somalia (UNOSOM, USLO)..............................    $406.2      \3\0
Southwest Asia (Provide Comfort, Southern Watch,                        
 Desert Storm)......................................     462.3    21,000
Bosnia (Deny Flight, Provide Promise, Sharp Guard,                      
 Able Sentry........................................     266.6     6,550
Rwanda (Support Hope)...............................   \1\87.9       565
Haiti interdiction/migrant processing (Uphold                           
 Democracy, Sea Signal, Distant Haven)..............  \2\170.6  \4\17,70
                                                                       0
Cuba refugee operation (Able Vigil, Able Manner,                        
 Safe Haven)........................................     106.3     2,700
Korea readiness costs...............................      67.3    37,000
------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\Supplemental pending.                                                
\2\Excluding Haiti Democracy Restoration.                               
\3\U.S. forces peaked at 24,165 during Dec. 1992-Sep. 1994.             
\4\U.S. force level change daily per OPLAN; expected to increase as the 
  operation unfolds.                                                    

  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, again, this includes the Haiti migrant 
interdiction and processing, but it does not include the military 
operations in Haiti.
  Let me say this. I am going to be brief because I see my good friend 
from Arizona is waiting to speak.
  Mr. President, we have all said the cold war is over and that this is 
peacetime. But I think that Members ought to look at this chart and see 
that that status is little solace to the families of the men and women 
in the armed services and to those men and women who have been deployed 
this year. This year alone, 85,000 people have been deployed off our 
shores.
  When we were in Europe, we discussed with pilots the problems of the 
men and women who are flying our aircraft that are maintaining the 
surveillance of Iraq. They are maintaining the surveillance in no-fly 
zone of Bosnia. They have been involved in Somalia and in the Rwanda 
operation. They have been involved in increased tensions in Korea. They 
have been involved in terms of trying to save lives as people tried to 
leave Cuba and come to our country. They have been involved in the 
problem of the surveillance of the Haiti refugee people. They are 
involved literally around the world today on a day-to-day basis. 
Speaking as someone who flew in wartime, they are flying more time 
daily than we used to fly in the war. It is having its toll now.
  We talked to some of the people in the Navy. There is a blockade 
still in Iraq and a blockade still at Bosnia. They still have people in 
American vessels off Somalia. We still have the involvement in the 
Caribbean dealing with the Cuban refugees and the Haiti people, 
including the support of the Haiti military operations.
  Mr. President, this is not normal peacetime. It certainly is not the 
peacetime that I knew in my youth. This is a time now when people have 
to realize that being in the armed services today means to be called on 
day after day, month after month after month and sometimes year after 
year after year to be away from one's family. We cannot afford to see 
the support for these people dwindle because of the constant erosion of 
the funds that are necessary for their support. This is caused by 
increased contingencies that Congress does not fund. We have an 
increased tendency now to say, ``Well, the Department of Defense just 
ought to absorb that money. Somehow or other it ought to find the money 
and it can take the pay raise out of the funds that we previously 
allocated to them.'' And to an extent we do that in this bill. We also 
have them absorb other increases that are brought about by changes in 
law.
  I think it is fortunate that we have people who are involved today in 
oversight of our military forces who have served in the armed services 
during wartime. But that time is going to disappear soon. There are not 
many of us left really. I am worried about the future of the men and 
women of our armed services if Members of Congress do not get out and 
find out what is happening to them: do not go on these trips that some 
people called junkets; and do not take the trips and go visit the 
Americans that we have deployed abroad because of some special interest 
of the United States in another part of the world. It is necessary, in 
my opinion, for more Members of Congress to take it upon themselves to 
go visit the sons and daughters of our constituents that are serving 
abroad. I am highly critical of those who call those trips junkets. 
They ought to come along sometime and see what goes on on those 
junkets.
  But the thing that bothers me most, as I have returned now from this 
last visit, is this continued report about the fatigue of our men and 
women who are involved in these blockades and flying these constant day 
after day routine missions, and the fatigue of those who are providing 
for their support. They are also flying long resupply missions, flying 
them into everywhere, from Rwanda to Somalia to Italy, to Turkey, into 
the support for the Bosnian people. It seems to me that we owe a lot 
more to these men and women that are going out there on these routine 
missions than any of us realize.
  I want to close, as I started, by thanking the chairman for his kind 
consideration to the many requests that I have made for special items 
that concern Members of the Senate on this side of the aisle. I can 
assure my colleagues that this bill has been cleared by all concerned. 
We have had every request that was made by any Member of the Senate 
considered by both Senator Inouye and me and by our staff. We have 
given favorable consideration to everyone we could and we have tried to 
work out the problems for every State so that this bill could be fair 
in the allocation of moneys that we have available to run the 
Department of Defense for the next fiscal year.
  I had the occasion to be chairman of this subcommittee at one time. I 
know that the Members of the House committee who worked with us feel as 
I do--that we have not only some great staff members but we have 
members of the staff of the House Subcommittee on Appropriations who 
have been working with us.
  I want to mention specifically the retirement of two of the members 
of the House staff and want them to know that we will miss them. Mr. 
Don Richbourg has served as clerk to three different chairmen of the 
Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. It is a tribute to his 
professionalism. Also, Mr. Dave Willson is the senior member of the 
professional staff of the Defense Subcommittee on the House side. He 
has worked tirelessly over the years that we have worked with them to 
protect the readiness of our Armed Forces. I wish to state here that I 
think every Member of the Senate who has worked with the House Defense 
Appropriations Subcommittee and who has come to know these two 
gentlemen respect them and wish them and their families all the best in 
the future.
  Mr. President, I too have been very fortunate to have the assistance 
of my good friend, Steve Cortese, and the assistance, provided by the 
Department of Defense, of Sid Ashworth who has worked with me, as well 
as Dona Pate and Jim Morhard of our staff.
  I do not know. I am sort of stepping on a feathered pillow. But I 
heard my good friend from Hawaii give such great commendation to our 
good friend, Richard, that I do not know whether this is a swan song 
for Richard or just the praise that he deserves. I am going to take it 
to be the latter, Mr. President, and say that I too appreciate working 
with the majority staff. I think we have the best subcommittee in the 
Congress in terms of the attitude of our people. We all work for the 
same goal without regard to who is chairman. It has been probably the 
most nonpartisan and professional group that I have worked with in my 
service in the Senate.
  It is a privilege to be once again here on the floor to present this 
bill that I commend to the Senate for its approval.
  Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona is recognized for up 
to 15 minutes.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, the events of the last few days and weeks 
have again indicated that we have gone from the very dangerous, yet 
very predictable, world of the post-cold-war era to a still dangerous 
and much less predictable world. We now find 15,000 to 20,000 American 
troops in Haiti.
  The talks with North Korea are approaching an apparent impasse. NATO 
air strikes and a renewed siege of Sarajevo indicate an unraveling 
situation in Bosnia. The effects of Islamic fundamentalism are being 
felt in Egypt, Algeria, Malaysia, Indonesia, and countries throughout 
the world. While any objective observer can see many situations in 
which the United States may have to become militarily involved, what we 
see today is a continued decline in the defense budget.
  The defense budget has declined by nearly 35 percent in constant 
dollars since 1985, with another 10 percent reduction planned by 1999. 
Mr. President, I am convinced that if we continue this decline, it will 
result in a hollow military force which is unready to fight and win in 
future conflicts.
  I would like to point out that the size of the defense budget begins 
with the submission of the President's budget, and its review by 
Congress. Then, as my colleagues know, the appropriations are divided 
up amongst various types of requirements, such as those of the Defense 
Appropriations Committee. As an example of the failure of the Senate 
and the Congress to appreciate the importance of defense spending, the 
fiscal year 1995 budget resolution this year cut $500 million in 
outlays from the overall discretionary spending account. It cut $42 
billion over 5 years, all of which was taken from the defense bills and 
the appropriations allocations to defense. Now, the entire $500 million 
cut did not have to be taken from defense. This was a conscious 
decision on the part of the Appropriations Committee.
  To compound the problem, the Appropriations Committee cut the 
allocation for the Defense Subcommittee and increased the allocation to 
the Military Construction Subcommittee by $490 million. This 
effectively made a billion-dollar cut in the President's request before 
we began the formal review of the defense program. Then, once we began 
to alter the budget request, we indulged in a process which resulted in 
many billions of dollars being taken out of the defense budget request 
and being reallocated to areas which have nothing to do with defense.
  In fact, the Congressional Research Service recently prepared a study 
of the costs of nondefense activities funded in the defense budget 
during the 6-year period of 1990 through 1995. The results are 
astonishing: A total $52 billion was spent on nondefense programs out 
of the defense budget over the past 6 years. As has been pointed out by 
my friends from Hawaii and Alaska, we are taking further funds out of 
the defense budget for our peacekeeping obligations in Somalia, in 
Bosnia, or in Iraq, and now in Haiti. Our commitment in Haiti has cost 
well over $300 million since we began to enforce sanctions and prepare 
for an invasion. Some estimate it will probably exceed $2 billion 
before we are finished, and $850 million in the short term.
  These expenditures are all coming from a defense budget which has 
been cut already 35 percent since 1985, and which has another 10 
percent reduction planned for the future. The effect of such efforts is 
then dramatically exacerbated by the incredible ways we find to spend 
American tax dollars. Let me give you one example from the current 
bill, Mr. President. Let me quote from the portion of the bill called 
``Job Creation/Retention'':

       The conferees strongly encourage the Department to make job 
     creation and retention a selection criterion as a condition 
     of the TRP award process--

  That is the Technology Reinvestment Program.

     to make unions explicitly and directly eligible to apply for 
     funds; and also to include union representatives among the 
     list of eligible applicants for Technology Reinvestment 
     Program grants in the next round of proposals.

  I ask my friend from Hawaii, why not include the Sierra Club? Should 
they be in this? They are about as qualified as the unions. What about 
the Boy Scouts? Should we include the Boy Scouts? I think they are 
probably more qualified.
  The bill then goes on to say:

       Other conversion initiatives. The conferees suggest that 
     the Defense Department consider funding the following 
     conversion projects during the course of fiscal year 1995:

  Some of the suggested recipients are: Berkshire County Regional 
Employment Board; Hunters Point Civilian Job Training in Environmental 
Remediation; domestic fuel cell manufacturing; Great Lakes 
Environmental Manufacturing Technology Center; methanol plantship 
technology; Georgia Tech plasma arc remediation; Great Lakes 
Environmental Manufacturing Technology Center; torque converter 
project, and Michigan State University.
  We have found out over the years, Mr. President, what the effect of 
these suggestions is. They happen. These suggestions get the money, Mr. 
President. So what we are doing, in addition to the earmarking that is 
already in the bill, is earmarking even more money away from real 
defense needs. Further, there are additional expenditures in this 
conference report which were not in either the House or Senate bill: $1 
million for a police research institute; and $1 million for the 
southwest Oregon narcotics task force are just a few examples.
  Meanwhile our military leaders are warning us about readiness. As you 
may know, I did a report last year called Going Hollow, which analyzed 
the erosion of our readiness using the views of the heads of each of 
our military services. I went back this year and asked our chiefs 
similar questions about their state of readiness and their views of the 
future capabilities. Their responses are an even firmer warning. Let me 
give you a few quotes:
  The Chief of Staff of the Army said:

       Although still trained and ready, the Army is now at the 
     lower edge of the band * * * at the razor's edge.
       This [FY95] budget represents the minimum resources 
     required to maintain the unmatched superiority your Army 
     enjoys today. Any reduction in this budget request would 
     jeopardize that assured superiority. However, this budget 
     request will not pull us away from the razor's edge of 
     readiness.
       Infrastructure/Facilities [are] still underfunded * * *. 
     Quality of life [is] still underfunded * * *.
       * * * The ``average'' soldier * * * spends approximately 
     138 days each year away from home. * * * The situation will 
     not improve.
       Retention rates are expected to decline this year. * * * 
     The major factor is the perception that an Army career may 
     not provide a secure future in the present environment.

  The Navy says:

       The major problems the Department of Navy faces in terms of 
     readiness are the increasing risks we are having to face in 
     order to maintain adequate readiness levels * * * [including] 
     increased readiness costs due to unforeseen contingency 
     operations.
       Readiness levels have declined slightly from their peaks in 
     the mid-1980s. * * * Programmed readiness levels nonetheless 
     involve risk. These risks include * * * depot maintenance 
     backlogs * * * reduction in afloat inventories.
       We are experiencing difficulty in maintaining unit 
     integrity throughout full workup cycles for deploying units 
     as we use force shaping tools * * * to decrease end strength.

  The Marines said:

       Ongoing [budget] reductions, coupled with contingencies, 
     have created a situation where existing assets are 
     insufficient to support major operations plans simultaneously 
     executed in separate theaters.
       * * * The fundamental truth is, readiness is directly 
     proportionate to funding. Our analysis of Marine Corps 
     requirements in the current years is that the Corps has 
     inadequate resources to maintain the level of readiness 
     expected by the Congress. * * *

  All of the responses by our chiefs of staff are basically the same, 
Mr. President--problems and shortfalls in sustainability, readiness and 
morale, and the list of examples goes on and on. All of our service 
chiefs, whom we entrust with the responsibility for evaluating our 
military capability, are saying that we are treading on dangerous 
ground.
  The Chief of Staff of the Air Force says:

       Over the last 7 years we have had a fourfold increase in 
     deployment obligations, as we have been drawing down the Air 
     Force by nearly one-third to meet Congressionally-mandated 
     end strength requirements.
       * * * We've seen a subtle rise in overall cannibalization * 
     * * rates.

  We ought to pay attention, Mr. President, to what our military chiefs 
are saying. The fact is that we are already in a very serious 
situation, and we have major further budget problems to come. This is 
best illustrated by a recent GAO report saying the Department of 
Defense may be underfunded by about $150 billion. GAO cites such 
shortfalls as the failure to budget for inflation, overstated projected 
management savings, underfunded potential cost increases for base 
closures, et cetera.
  The Department of Defense admits some of the problems exist. In a 
recent letter in response to the GAO report, Comptroller John Hamre, a 
man that all of us respect and admire, noted that ``we do have a 
problem ranging from $26 billion to as much as $40 billion because of 
inflation and congressionally directed pay raises.'' Mr. Hamre also 
noted that the Department of Defense has not fully addressed these 
recognized funding shortfalls, leaving ``a $20 billion adjustment to be 
made in future years.''
  These funding problems impact on more than readiness. Just last 
month, Deputy Secretary of Defense John Deutch published a memo written 
to the military services which directed that the services explore the 
idea of terminating the major procurement programs in their budgets. 
The memorandum directed the services to propose terminating such key 
projects as the Comanche helicopter and the Advanced Field Artillery 
System of the Army, deferring the F-22 and TSSAM programs of the Air 
Force, cancelling the V-22 and new attack submarines, and on and on.
  The Assistant Deputy Secretary of Defense John Deutch is saying we 
may have to cancel virtually every new weapons system that the services 
are seeking. We all remember that in the 1970's, we spent money on new 
weapons systems but we allowed our military personnel situation, 
readiness, and sustainability to degenerate and deteriorate to the 
point where we had the most deplorable of conditions. This was 
exemplified by the failed rescue effort of the Iranian hostages. Now, 
we have gone to the other extreme. We are putting our few available 
funds into readiness and we are on the edge of terminating the kind of 
modernization and advance technology that gave us one of our greatest 
victories: Operation Desert Storm.
  Mr. President, we now have a Hobson's choice between inadequate 
readiness and inadequate modernization and technology, and it seems to 
me one only answer is to do what the President of the United States 
said at his State of the Union Message last year when he said, ``Do not 
let Congress cut defense any more.'' Those were his words.
  This will not be enough to deal with the problem. First of all, I 
would like to see the President come over with a much larger proposal 
in his budget for defense. Instead of threatening to eliminate every 
major modernization program which will ensure technological supremacy 
in the future, the President, in my view, should allocate additional 
resources to the defense budget to make up for these shortfalls. And 
second of all, I have not heard the President say one additional word 
about defense spending since he said it that night before a joint 
session of the Congress. I would like to hear him repeat this statement 
and I would like to support him in that effort.
  At the same time, I would like to see the Congress use the defense 
budget for defense. Mr. President, I talk often about nondefense 
spending in the defense budget. What Congress does is really mind-
boggling at times. I will not belabor the resulting problems. I 
discussed them the last time this bill was up in the form of the 
appropriations bill before it went to conference.
  But, there are some examples which in this bill are very hard to 
understand.
  A national center for toxicological research in Jefferson, AR. Mr. 
President, you know what would happen if you asked any member of the 
military if they need a pay raise or more money in their weapons system 
or do they need $5.8 million for a national center for toxicological 
research in Jefferson, AR.
  A remediation effort at Cordove, AK.
  A total of $1 million earmarked for Derector Shipyard environmental 
remediation. Finally, $5 million to Charleston Naval Hospital to 
establish a coastal cancer control program.
  The fact is that what we do when we take hard-earned American tax 
dollars and use them on such projects, is to use them wastefully, or on 
low priority projects.
  We also seem to have found a new name for pork called defense 
conversion. We now justify one local or parochial project after another 
to preserve what is called a defense industrial base. We now have a 
defense industrial base argument for bombers. We now have a defense 
industrial base argument for MRE's, meals ready to eat. We now have a 
defense industrial base argument for combat boots. We now have a 
defense industrial base argument for submarine reactors. You name it, 
Mr. President, we have a defense industrial base argument to fund it.
  I think this kind of waste is outrageous. When we are cutting the 
defense budget so dramatically, we cannot maintain a defense industrial 
base for everything that has to do with the military. We need the 
Department of Defense to come forward with a set of criteria and 
clearly defined spending priorities--in fact, I met with some of their 
people this morning--which we can use to judge where a defense 
industrial base is really needed and where capabilities are not needed 
or may be nice to have but are not needed.
  Mr. President, several times in this century we have found this 
Nation in a military crisis, and without the ability to cope with it, 
because of the mistakes the Congress and the President of the United 
States made in reducing our defense capability to such a degree that we 
could not defend this Nation's vital national security interests. 
Fortunately, in those prior times we were separated from Europe by a 
large body of water. The nature of technology and warfare gave us time 
to catch up and prevail.
  Mr. President, I worry about the next time there is a severe national 
crisis which requires us to react strongly with a capable, well-manned 
military establishment, and I am afraid we are dramatically eroding the 
capabilities we need, and we have to act very soon to reverse current 
trends if we are not to be too late.
  Mr. President, I appreciate the indulgence of my colleagues, and I 
thank the Senator from Hawaii and the Senator from Alaska for their 
usual outstanding job.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas is recognized for a 
period of up to 15 minutes.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, first, I want to pay tribute to my 
chairman of the subcommittee. Senator Inouye and I have differences on 
different weapons systems. We have differences on a lot of things. But 
I want to say he is eminently fair, unfailingly polite, and extremely 
conscientious about the status of our defense forces. So what I have to 
say today is certainly not intended as a denigration of my very good 
friend of 20 years, Senator Inouye. I want to express some of my own 
personal thoughts.
  First of all, I am constantly chagrined by the fact that we start a 
weapons system such as the B-1 bomber to penetrate the Soviet Union and 
then we make a conventional bomber out of it in order to have a 
rationale for building the B-2 bomber. We started the Milstar 
communications system in 1981 as a communications satellite system to 
communicate during a 6-month nuclear war. If you have a nuclear 
exchange with Russia, there is not going to be anybody left to 
communicate with. Everybody is going to be vaporized. That never made 
any sense.
  So now the Defense Department says, well, we no longer need it to 
fight a nuclear war; we need it for conventional warfare such as Desert 
Storm even though it would handle only a minuscule portion of the 
communications traffic that the Defense Department would use during a 
war such as Desert Storm. And the costs are just staggering, 
staggering. Everybody knows that I tried this year to kill that program 
and got, I think, maybe 44 votes. I was shocked that I got 44 votes to 
terminate that program. But it is never quite enough.
  Mr. President, the Defense Department admits that they are going to 
be $40 billion short over the next 5 years. In other words, they have 
programed the policies of the Defense Department, including 
procurement, and they will admit that they are $40 billion short to 
carry out their plan.
  But do you know what the General Accounting Office is saying? The 
General Accounting Office says they are $150 billion short. And until 
this very moment the Defense Department has not told me, and I very 
strongly suspect they have not told the chairman of our subcommittee, 
where they are going to find that kind of money. We are trying to get 
the deficit down. This Congress, if GAO is right, is not going to be in 
any mood to increase defense spending by $30 billion a year. We could 
not do it if we wanted to. And yet the Defense Department has yet to 
tell us what they propose to do about this $150 billion shortfall.

  The day before yesterday, I talked about the Republicans' Snake Oil 
Convention, Newt Gingrich stood on the Capitol steps saying, ``Here is 
what we will do to the American people.'' And in a sense saying, if 
there is somebody out there that wants something that we did not 
include, let us know and we will give you that, too.
  And how are the Republicans going to pay for it? They will add $300 
billion to $400 billion on the deficit, and how are they going to pay 
for it? Well, they are going to put a little clause in the Constitution 
saying we must have a balanced budget.
  What else do they say? That whatever it takes to pay for these tax 
cuts for the wealthiest people in America at the expense of education, 
health care, you name it, whatever it takes to pay for it, will come 
out of domestic spending, and $19 billion of it out of Medicaid and 
Medicare. The first thing you know, we are going to cut Medicare so 
much the doctors are going to have to pay people to come into the 
office; $200 billion in program cuts so the Republicans can take care 
of the wealthy.
  But they say of all that roughly $400 billion in tax cuts, none of 
it--none of it--can come out of defense spending. It must all come out 
of domestic discretionary spending and entitlements. The things that we 
spend money for to make ourselves a civilized nation. They would cut 
domestic discretionary spending still further, almost in half from what 
it was 10 years ago.
  Yesterday, I did a television interview and the interviewer asked me:

       Do you think we are headed for a hollow force? Do you think 
     our defenses are going to become a hollow force when you 
     consider all of our cuts?

  I said:

       Well, I will say one thing. If we become a hollow military 
     force while we are spending more money on defense than all 
     the rest of the world combined

Let me repeat that, Mr. President--

       If we become a hollow force while we are spending more 
     money than the rest of the world combined, twice as much as 
     our 10 most likely adversaries, including Russia, China, 
     Iraq, Iran, North Korea, we deserve it, because it means we 
     will have presided over the most seriously mismanaged defense 
     spending in the history of the world.

  I do not say that to be dramatic. I simply say that to say, how on 
Earth could anybody conceive of us being a hollow force when we are 
spending between $250 and $275 billion a year on defense, more than the 
rest of the world combined?
  Mr. President, I used to be a great champion of the C-17. As a matter 
of fact, we have a plant up in the Ozark Mountains that makes doors for 
McDonnell Douglas. It is not easy for me to oppose the C-17, 
considering the fact that Douglas has a good plant in my State. But 
$450 million for one C-17, which is about twice to three times what it 
started out to be, when we could have bought modified Boeing 747's for 
one-third that amount and gotten 80 percent of the capability we get 
out of the C-17.
  The Seawolf. I confess before all the world that I voted for the last 
Seawolf, and I have regretted it ever since. Why are we going ahead 
building another Seawolf--there is no money in this bill for it, but 
next year there will be--and the last Los Angeles class attack 
submarine was launched just last week. Those submarines have a 30-year 
life. But we are soon going to retire some that are half that. You 
think of that.
  The F-22 fighter plane. Who could be opposed to such a sophisticated 
aircraft as the F-22? And yet, Mr. President, GAO said we could save 
billions by delaying for 4-7 years the building of that airplane, which 
is going to cost right now $130 million each--$130 million for one 
fighter plane. And the F-15 is superior to any other interceptor in the 
world and will be for 15 more years.
  Oh, yes, the good is the enemy of the best. No matter how good 
something is, the Defense Department can conjure up something that will 
be better that we have to have. And all of the sudden that weapons 
system that used to be the best, all of the sudden it is the enemy of 
the best. We even sell some of our most sophisticated weapons to other 
nations and then the Defense Department comes over here and says, 
``Look at all these sophisticated weapons the rest of the world have. 
We have to build something new to overcome that,'' when we sold it to 
them in the first place.
  And I personally do not believe we need 12 aircraft carriers; 10 
would be more than adequate. They cost $3.2 billion in today's dollars. 
And that does not include the cost of the planes on that aircraft 
carrier.
  Mr. President, last--and again I would not presume to speak for the 
chairman of the committee, but I believe he is relatively sympathetic 
to an issue that I raised in the conference, and here it is.
  Under the START II Treaty, which we must implement by the year 2003--
and which Yeltsin and Clinton both yesterday said they want to hurry 
up, speed it up, do it before 2003--we are allowed 1,750 warheads in 
submarines.
  Now today, we are planning on having 18 Trident submarines by 1998. 
Each Trident submarine carries 24 missiles. Each missile has eight 
warheads. That means that to come into compliance with the START II 
Treaty, Mr. President, we have to do either of two things: We have to 
either download those missiles from 8 warheads per missile to 4 
warheads per missile, which would come out to about 1,750, the 
permissible number; or put 12 missiles on each submarine instead of 24. 
They cost about $40 million each. Put 12 on a submarine with their 
existing 8 warheads, and that will bring you in compliance.
  I thought that made a lot of sense, but the Defense Department was 
not having any of that. That saves billions, incidentally; billions. It 
does not reduce our strategic capability one whit. But they are not 
having any of that.
  And do you know why? Because they want to keep the D-5 missile 
production line open.
  As long as the Soviet Union existed, we could use the cold war and 
the Soviet Union as the threat that kept us building these things. 
Today, we do not talk about the threat. We talk about our industrial 
base.
  If you shut down the D-5 missile line, what will the Brits do? They 
want to buy some more D-5 missiles. Well, who are we to be protecting 
Britain in the purchase of D-5 missiles?
  Three months ago, Mr. President, 3 months ago, the Navy said we will 
settle for 347 D-5 missiles. I wanted to have 10 less than that, but I 
said, ``That's fine. We will go with 347.'' That will equip all of the 
10 Trident submarines we have in the Atlantic. We also have eight 
Tridents in the Pacific. But they carry the C-4 missile.
  All of a sudden, between the time we passed the bill here and went to 
conference, the Pentagon came out with a new nuclear posture review and 
now the Navy says, ``No, we don't want 347. We want 425.''  It is only 
$3.4 billion more.

  ``What are you going to do with them?''
  ``We have decided we want four of our submarines in the Pacific to 
have the D-5 missile.''
  Everybody knows those submarines are now equipped with what we call 
the C-4 missile. It is a magnificent missile. It will last as long as 
the submarines will last. It lacks 450 feet being as accurate after a 
4,000- or 5,000-mile trip as the D-5; less than half the distance of 
where I am standing to my office. That is how much accuracy you lose 
with a C-4 as opposed to the D-5. And there is not going to be anything 
alive within 50 miles of where it hits, anyway.
  Mr. President, $3.4 billion to backfit four of those submarines and 
take off a perfectly good C-4 missile and put D-5's on. I can tell you 
categorically one of the reasons for this is not because it enhances 
our nuclear superiority or our nuclear posture. It is to keep the 
industrial base of the D-5 missile. Keep the line open. It does not 
make sense--any other argument you want to put on it makes no sense 
whatever. Yet, when I brought this up in the conference, the House was 
having none of that.
  I said, ``How do you answer this question?'' The Defense Department 
did a study, which they completed November 9, 1992, less than 2 years 
ago, on this very subject: ``Shall we backfit the Trident submarines in 
the Pacific Ocean?'' And they came back and the results of the study 
were: No. The Defense Department, DOD, said, ``No, we are not going to 
retrofit those submarines. The C-4 missile is fine. It will last as 
long as our submarines will.''
  Do you know what the Navy did? They went off in a corner and pouted 
and then they came back and said, ``We want them anyway.''
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator from Arkansas has 
expired.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 3 additional 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, do you know what happened? The 
downpayment for those extra 88 missiles is in this bill.
  I have vented my spleen on things that are of great concern to me. I 
do not know any other way to express what I see as a continuing skewing 
of what I think the Defense Department's priorities ought to be. I have 
done everything I know to do, to point out things where they could save 
money. But we do not ever save money. We do not ever kill a weapons 
system.
  I have talked about this with the Assistant Secretary of Defense, 
John Deutch. He was Assistant Secretary of Energy when Jimmy Carter was 
President--I was on the Energy Committee and Secretary Deutch and I got 
to know each other reasonably well. I had great confidence in him. And 
I pleaded with him to look at the Milstar communications system very 
carefully, think of the cost as opposed to the benefits you are going 
to get. I said please, do not buy all those MK-6 guidance systems. 
Please consider putting 12 missiles on each submarine with 8 warheads 
and save billions of dollars. And please, for god's sake, consider not 
backfitting those submarines in the Pacific--for nothing except 
spending $3.4 billion worth of the taxpayers' money.
  He promised me that every one of those things were under serious 
review. This is not to denigrate him, but it is the same old story. 
Unless the Defense Department tells you they no longer want a weapon, 
nothing happens.
  Mr. President, I am a former Marine. The Marines want the V-22 Osprey 
worse than they want to go to Heaven. The Defense Department wanted to 
kill it and I voted with the Defense Department. It is still alive and 
kicking because of Congress. The Defense Department could not even kill 
that one. They did not want an additional 20 B-1 bombers, but we put 
$150 million in to keep the line open.
  So Secretary Deutch may have reviewed them, but they all came out 
exactly the way I knew they would, and the way they have come out every 
year during the 20 years I have been in the U.S. Senate. I told the 
committee, in a different situation, though, this morning: These 
battles are kind of like me fighting with my wife. ``Those I win just 
ain't over.''
  So I will be back at the same stand next year doing my very best to 
raise these issues to a level that the Members of the Senate will not 
only understand but appreciate and possibly adopt. We have been able to 
do a few things around here, but I am going to be anxious to hear the 
Defense Department testify next spring in our subcommittee about how 
they are going to find the $150 billion they have to find.
  I would be remiss if I did not again pay respects and tribute to our 
distinguished chairman, who is so untiring and unstinting in his 
efforts to get this bill here. Those conference committees are very 
difficult. There is a lot of parochial interest, a lot of interest, 
sincere interest--I do not question anybody's sincerity about any 
weapons system. But there obviously is a lot of parochialism, and I am 
not above it myself when it comes to something for my State. But I tell 
you, we must start to do something about the billions of dollars we are 
prepared to waste on some of these weapons systems.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.


                   william langer jewel bearing plant

  Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, the conferees agreed to eliminate Senate 
bill language--amendment No. 56--providing $2,500,000 only for 
``capital investment, operations, and such other expenditures as may be 
necessary to maintain the William Langer Plant as a going concern while 
it is being excessed under the provisions of the Federal Property and 
Administrative Services Act.'' The conferees felt that bill language 
was unnecessary to carry out the Senate's direction and therefore 
agreed to provide the $2,500,000 required for this effort within the 
statement of the managers in the ``Missile Procurement, Air Force'' 
account. The conferees specifically provided an additional $2,500,000 
within the Industrial Facilities line--page 1 line 10--only to carry 
out the Senate's directions as explained in Senate Report 103-321, page 
129. It was further the intent of the conferees that the Air Force 
transfer the funds provided for the Langer Plant to the manager of the 
National Defense Stockpile for execution.


      dfas center for financial management education and training

  Mr. President, before we conclude our business on the fiscal year 
1995 Defense Appropriations Act, I want to bring to the attention of my 
colleagues a matter of importance that was not addressed in the 
conference report on this act. This matter concerns the establishment 
of the Defense Finance and Accounting Service's Center for Financial 
Management Education and Training in Southbridge, MA.
  On May 9 of this year, the Department of Defense announced plans to 
establish the DFAS Financial Management Education and Training Center 
at Southbridge as part of its overall plan to consolidate DOD financial 
and accounting operations. The purpose of this facility is to support 
the planned consolidation and continued operation of DFAS accounting 
centers.
  As determined by the Department during its review of DOD financial 
management operations, this new education and training center will be 
needed to assure the success of the envisioned consolidation. Though no 
funds were included in the President's 1995 defense budget request to 
initiate the establishment of this center, the Department has 
determined that it needs to move quickly to do so. Unfortunately, this 
budget inadequacy was brought to the conferees' attention very late in 
our deliberations, limiting our ability to fully address this issue.
  Nonetheless, I can unequivocally state my full support for this vital 
project and that of my House counterpart. We believe the Department 
should move expeditiously to establish the Southbridge education and 
training center, using funds available to the Defense Finance and 
Accounting Service. Should any additional legislation be required to 
facilitate the establishment of this center, I can assure my colleagues 
that I will work to secure its prompt passage.


                  B-2 bomber conventional capabilities

  Mr. President, this conference report represents an important step 
toward maintaining and enhancing the Nation's conventional bomber 
forces, especially the B-2 advanced technology stealth bomber. Contrary 
to assertions by some, the B-2 bomber can justifiably lay claim to 
being the foundation of our long-range, conventional, air power 
projection capabilities. No other aircraft embodies its unique 
combination of high survivability, long range, and large payload.
  This conference report includes funds to maintain and improve all our 
bomber forces--the still useful B-52 bombers, the ailing B-1B bombers, 
and the superlative B-2 aircraft. Most noteworthy is the recommended 
appropriation of $125 million to protect the nation's B-2 production 
base and ensure that the option of producing additional B-2 aircraft 
remains viable for at least 1 more year.
  Also noteworthy is the initiative to provide $25 million to support 
the acquisition for the B-2 of a limited stockpile of near precision 
conventional bombs, known as Global Positioning System [GPS]--Aided 
Munitions [GAMS]. In association with the GPS-aided targeting system, 
these weapons provide an early and accurate bombing capability for the 
B-2. They are a bridge to, not a substitute for, the Joint Direct 
Attack Munitions still being developed by the Air Force.
  Mr. President, it is the conferees expectation that the Air Force 
will implement an acquisition strategy which provides an operational 
GAM capability as early as practicable and prudent--from the taxpayers' 
perspective of minimizing costs and the Air Force's perspective of 
improving our combat capabilities.
  Mr. President, the conference agreement provides $243.6 billion for 
DOD. Together with military construction and nuclear energy programs, 
the amount appropriated for all national defense programs for fiscal 
year 1995 is $261.9 billion.
  This amount, for total national defense, is $1.4 billion below the 
amount contained in the Defense Authorization Act in new budget 
authority. In outlays, the appropriations bills save $700 million from 
the authorized level.
  But the Defense appropriations bill does not cut readiness. The 
Appropriations conference report provides more money for each military 
service and reserve component for critical readiness money than was 
authorized. The increases, above authorization, are as follows:

                             [In millions]

Army..............................................................+$271
Navy...............................................................+189
Marines............................................................. +2
Air Force..........................................................+116
Army Reserves....................................................... +5
Navy Reserves....................................................... +4
Marines Reserve..................................................... +1
A.F. Reserves....................................................... +7
Army Guard..........................................................+42
Air Guard........................................................... +1
                                                             __________

  Total............................................................+638

  Mr. President, in addition, the conference agreement provides $299.3 
million in supplemental appropriations for fiscal year 1994 to 
replenish readiness funds used for operations in Rwanda and refugee 
assistance in Guantanamo Bay.
  The bill cuts some modernization programs to allow for funding the 
increases in readiness. The conferees chose to protect readiness above 
the levels authorized at the expense of some investment programs. 
However, the majority of cuts made in investment programs were made 
because of programmatic delays or other fact of life changes that are 
already recognized by DOD.
  Mr. President, the appropriators protected readiness. Of that, there 
can be no question.


            the fiscal year 1995 defense appropriations bill

  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I rise in support of H.R. 4650, the 
fiscal year 1995 defense appropriations conference report.
  The conference report provides a total of $243.6 billion in budget 
authority and $164.2 billion in new outlays for programs of the 
Department of Defense for fiscal year 1995.
  When outlays from prior-year budget authority and other completed 
actions are taken into account, the conference report totals $243.6 
billion in budget authority and $250.7 billion in outlays for fiscal 
year 1995. The bill is $2 million in budget authority and $52 million 
in outlays below the subcommittee's 602(b) allocation.
  I want to thank the conferees for the support they have given for the 
Defense Department's counterproliferation initiative. The 
conferees provide $60 million for this important effort.
  These funds will serve to ``jump start'' the administration's 
multiyear plan to deter the spread of nuclear, biological, and chemical 
weapons.
  Proliferation of such weapons may well be the most important threat 
to national and international security in the post-cold war era. The 
counterproliferation initiative will focus on deterring, 
detecting, protecting against, and responding to the threat posed by 
such weapons.
  I also want to express my appreciation to the conferees for their 
support for several priority items important to the military presence 
in my home State of New Mexico.
  Finally, I commend the distinguished conferees for bringing this bill 
to the floor within the subcommittee's section 602(b) allocation. As a 
member of the Senate defense appropriations subcommittee, I know how 
difficult a job it has been to sustain readiness in the face of 
ongoing, significant budget reductions.
  I thank the conferees for the fine job they have done, and I urge all 
Senators to support the conference report.


                      heavy equipment transporter

  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I would like to raise one issue that was, I 
believe, inadvertently left out of the conference report. As we did 
last year, the conference committee left to the leaders of the Guard 
and Reserve the right to prioritize and buy their own equipment. Rather 
than earmarking funds for specific items, the committee instead 
provided a list of items that should be given priority consideration. 
That list was supposed to include the heavy equipment transporter [HET] 
for the Army Guard and Reserve, however, the HET was inadvertently left 
out of the final report.
  I would ask of the chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee 
that they address this issue and, specifically, confirm that the HET 
was one of the programs that was intended to be highlighted.
  Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Missouri for 
raising this issue. He is, in fact, correct that due to a printing 
error, the heavy equipment transporter was not included in the list of 
programs which the conference committee highlighted to the Guard and 
Reserve for priority. The HET System is an important one which 
addresses important logistics needs of the Army, and I will be sure 
that the leadership of both the Army Guard and Army Reserve are aware 
that we intended to include it in the conference report.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I would concur with the statement of the 
chairman. The conference committee intended to include the HET in the 
conference report, and we will ensure that the Guard and Reserve are 
aware of that.
  Mr. BOND. I thank the chairman and ranking member for that 
clarification, and also for their continued strong support of the 
National Guard. As co-chairman of the Senate National Guard caucus, I 
can say that the Guard has no strong friends in this body than these 
two Senators.
  With regard to the HET Program, I would just like to highlight the 
importance of this program. In hearings held earlier this year, members 
of the subcommittee heard from National Guard witnesses concerning 
their equipment shortfall. Specifically, we were told that the Guard is 
facing a severe shortfall of the most modern heavy equipment 
transporter [HET], the M1090 tractor and the M1000 trailer.
  In Operation Desert Storm, modern and capable heavy equipment 
transporters were in short supply. When Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf briefed 
the subcommittee following his return to the United States, he cited 
HET as an item that should be a priority for both the Active and 
Reserve Forces. Unfortunately, the active Army faces a shortfall and, 
according to testimony, they will attempt to buy additional units if 
funding is available. The Army, however, has said it will not buy 
additional HET's for the Guard or Reserve out of its procurement funds. 
These HET's remain a priority for the Guard and for the Reserve, and it 
is my understanding that they plan to use some of the funding in this 
bill to purchase additional systems. I believe that makes a lot of 
sense, I am supportive of it, and I hope that they follow through on 
its plan to buy more HET's.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I want to commend the chairman of the 
Defense Appropriations Subcommittee for his excellent and successful 
effort in defending the Senate position with respect to funding for the 
Defense Contract Audit Agency [DCAA] and the Defense Contract 
Management Command [DCMC]. When this bill was considered by the Senate 
earlier this year, I had intended to offer an amendment to put the 
Senate on record in support of full funding for these two agencies. I 
withdrew that amendment when the chairman assured me that he would 
fight hard in conference for full funding and in no event would support 
a cut greater than the $36,500,000 for DCMC contained in the Senate 
bill. As I knew he would, the chairman kept his word and this 
conference report contains only this $36,500,000 cut for DCMC.
  I do have one point I would like to make on this part of the 
conference agreement, Mr. President. And it concerns the statement of 
managers. The statement of managers reflects concern by the conferees 
that DCAA and DCMC achieve savings over the next few years by 
consolidating and streamlining. I take no issue with that 
recommendation. However the statement of managers also recommends that 
DCAA ``reduce its incurred cost audit backlog to 1 year by 1977.'' I 
think that is an important goal and one that DCAA should try to meet. 
However, I think we should also recognize that DCAA needs some 
assistance from the contractors and DOD in order to reduce this 
backlog. DCAA needs the contractors to submit their incurred cost 
claims in a timely fashion, and DCAA needs the Department to provide 
DCAA with appropriate staffing.
  There is a contractual requirement that each contractor submit 
incurred cost claims to the Government 90 days after the contractor's 
fiscal year ends. I have been advised that approximately 65 percent of 
contractors take 6 months or longer to submit incurred cost claims to 
the Government. DCAA cannot start the audit until it has the 
contractor's claim. Clearly, the timeliness of contractor incurred cost 
claims must improve in order for DCAA to reduce the incurred backlog to 
1 year.
  Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, if the Senator from Michigan would yield.
  Mr. LEVIN. I would be happy to yield to the senior Senator from 
Hawaii.
  Mr. INOUYE. I agree with what the Senator from Michigan has said. The 
1997 goal for reducing the backlog is an achievable goal, only with the 
cooperation of both the Department of Defense and the contracting 
community. I appreciate the Senator's remarks and his longstanding 
support of the work of these two agencies.


                  senate amendment no. 24 to h.r. 4650

  Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, I would like to clarify a matter that has 
arisen with regard to Senate amendment 24 to H.R. 4650, which provided 
$8 million for upgrades to the Air Force CAMS/REMIS System. This is the 
major Air Force data management system to provide maintenance 
technicians with up-to-date information on the maintenance and supply 
status of missiles, aircraft and other critical operation equipment.
  During deliberations with House conferees on the fiscal year 1995 
Department of Defense Appropriations Act, the Senate conferees receded 
to the House on amendment 24, but added funds to the Air Force 
Operation and Maintenance account for CAMS/REMIS, as identified in the 
table for this account in the accompanying statement of the managers to 
this conference report. This table confirms the decision of the 
conferees to provide $8 million only for the CAMS/REMIS upgrades. 
Inadvertently, additional explanatory language for the statement of the 
managers was not included in the final version. These should be no 
question that the $8 million identified in the operation and 
maintenance account for CAMS/REMIS is to be available only for upgrades 
to this system. These funds are in addition to any other funds included 
in the Air Force budget for the normal operation of CAMS/REMIS.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I fully concur with the statement made by 
the distinguished chairman. The $8 million appearing in the operation 
and maintenance account table for the Air Force in the statement of the 
managers may be used only for upgrades to the CAMS/REMIS System.


                   NATIONAL DEFENSE SEALIFT FEATURES

  Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, I would like to engage the Senator from 
Hawaii, chairman of the Subcommittee on Defense, in a brief colloquy 
regarding a program of significance to national defense. Mr. President, 
I am concerned that the conference agreement does not appear to provide 
funding for the National Defense Sealift Features Program. Can the 
manager of the bill explain the conferees action on this program?
  Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President let me respond to the majority leader's 
request. As you will recall, the authorization conference included $43 
million for the National Defense Sealift Features Program, as an 
alternative to expansion of the inactive Ready Reserve Force. The 
Senate-passed appropriation bill also funded the National Defense 
Features Program at $43 million. The House-passed appropriation bill, 
however, provided no funds to begin this program in fiscal year 1995. 
In the final analysis, the conferees on the defense appropriation bill 
were unable to identify sufficient funds for the National Defense 
Features Program.
  Mr. MITCHELL. I thank the Senator for that explanation. Would it be 
correct to say that the conferees are in favor of the program, but 
simply did not have the money to pay for it at this time?
  Mr. INOUYE. The majority leader is correct. The conferees support the 
program and encourage the Defense Department to include funding in the 
fiscal year 1996 budget request for the National Defense Sealift 
Features Program. Furthermore, because the authorization conference 
agreement authorizes funds for the program in 1995, I believe the 
conferees on the defense appropriation bill would support DOD efforts 
to initiative the program in 1995 through a reprogramming.
  Mr. MITCHELL. I thank the chairman of the subcommittee for explaining 
this matter to the Senate. Would it be correct to summarize the 
manager's view that the conferees support the National Defense Sealift 
Features Program, hope it will be included in the DOD budget for fiscal 
year 1996, and would be supportive of efforts to reprogram $43 million 
to begin the program in fiscal year 1995?
  Mr. INOUYE. The majority leader has expressed it correctly.
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments from the Senator 
from Hawaii, chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, in 
support of the National Defense Sealift Features Program. As the 
Senator from Hawaii noted, the fiscal year 1995 National Defense 
Authorization Act contains $43 million in initial funding of the 
National Defense Sealift Features Program--for which Congress provided 
specific statutory authority in the fiscal year 1993 National Defense 
Authorization Act.
  I also appreciate the fact that the Senator from Hawaii has 
encouraged the Defense Department to include funding for the National 
Defense Sealift Features Program in the fiscal year 1996 budget 
request, and to consider a fiscal year 1995 reprogramming for this 
purpose. The National Defense Sealift Features Program offers a cost-
effective dual-use solution to the need for supplemental defense 
sealift assets in time of international crisis. It can also assist the 
preservation of defense-critical American shipyards, U.S.-flag merchant 
ships, and the jobs and vital skills of American shipyard workers and 
merchant mariners.
  Mr. President, the Senator from Alaska, ranking minority member of 
the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, has expressed interest in 
joining this colloquy. I thank him for his supportive remarks to the 
Senate on the National Defense Sealift Features Program.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, let me join the Senator from Hawaii, 
chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, in confirming 
to our colleagues from the State of Maine that I fully support the 
National Defense Sealift Features Program and its funding.


                     LHD-7 Amphibious Assault Ship

  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to note the $50 million in 
funding for the LHD-7 amphibious assault ship in this conference 
report, as well as bill language directing the Secretary of the Navy to 
extend the option on the ship for not less than 1 year. The conferees 
have unambiguously endorsed this ship, and it is my understanding that 
the LHD-7 will be a priority in next year's Defense appropriations 
bill.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, the amount of budget authority available 
this year was severely limited. That we were able to put even $50 
million into the ship is testament to the strong support for LHD-7. It 
will be a high priority next year, and it is my intention to seek to 
fully fund the ship, even if it is not included in the administration's 
budget request for fiscal year 1996. The requirement for the ship is 
clear-cut, and by acting next year to complete the funding for the ship 
we will still be able to save several hundred million dollars.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, both the House and Senate placed a high 
emphasis on providing a sufficient amount of funding for the operations 
and maintenance account this year. Like many of my colleagues, I am 
concerned that the administration is failing to ask Congress to provide 
the Department of Defense with resources adequate to perform the 
mission it is charged with. I am also concerned that, notwithstanding 
administration pronouncements to the contrary, we are sliding back 
toward the hollow force of the late 1970's. Though we have increased 
the amount of money provided for the O&M account this year, there is 
only so much our military--the people and equipment--can do. We have 
reached the point, in many cases, where more people and more equipment 
are necessary, not just additional O&M funds.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, the point raised by the Senator from 
Mississippi is entirely correct. On August 16, 1994, Secretary of 
Defense Perry was present to welcome the U.S.S. Inchon, an amphibious 
assault ship, back from the Caribbean. This ship deployed to the waters 
off of Haiti 2 weeks after returning from a 6-month deployment, where 
it was stationed first off of Bosnia and then off of Somalia. Despite 
the policy of having Amphibious Ready Groups--which are formed around 
amphibious assault ships, such as the LHD-7--at sea for 6 months and 
then back in port for 12 months, the Inchon had to steam out of Norfolk 
for Haiti 2 weeks after returning from a difficult 6-month deployment. 
Secretary Perry, when welcoming home the Inchon, said that the current 
operations and personnel tempos are too high, and that there continues 
to be a military requirement for 12 Amphibious Ready Groups. We 
currently have 11 Amphibious Ready Groups, and the only way to form a 
twelfth is to build LHD-7. I concur with Secretary Perry's comments, 
and ask that they be included at the conclusion of these remarks.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I thank both the Senator from Alaska and 
Senator Inouye, the chairman of our subcommittee, for their support for 
LHD-7 again this year. I look forward to working with them next year to 
fully fund the ship.

                              [Exhibit 1]

Secretary of Defense William J. Perry Remarks to Inchon, August 6, 1994

       Secretary Perry: First of all, I wanted to simply welcome 
     these Marines and sailors back home. Secondly, I wanted to 
     thank them, not just for a regular deployment, but for an 
     extraordinary deployment. As you probably know, this was a 
     second deployment--a two month deployment--tacked onto a six 
     month deployment to Somalia.
       I wanted to also comment that they had two extraordinary 
     missions during these two different periods of deployment 
     that they're on. In Somalia, they were executing a tactical 
     withdrawal one of the most difficult military maneuvers to do 
     well--and they did it very, very well. I wanted to thank them 
     for the excellence of the operation that they performed 
     there.
       In Haiti, it was a standby operation. Even though some of 
     the gossip was that we were down there for an invasion, the 
     fact is, we were down there to provide an emergency 
     evacuation capability should it be needed. Luckily, it was 
     not needed, so we were able to bring them back. And they're 
     now replaced with the WASP which is there to provide that 
     function--again, if it were to be needed.
       One of the specific reasons I came was to get some first-
     hand flavor for the stresses and strains that come from extra 
     long deployments. We have what's called a personnel tempo, 
     which is designed to be six months on deployment and then 12 
     months back in training and work outs. So we had them on the 
     six-month deployment and then, instead of having them back 
     for 12 months, we had them back for two weeks and sent them 
     out again for two months. I wanted to assure them that the 
     decision to send them out again after two weeks was not made 
     lightly at all. In fact, General Shalikashvili and I both 
     agonized over that decision before we actually did that. We 
     did it because the mission was an important mission and 
     needed to be met right then. And they were the best ready--
     the best trained unit--for doing it at that time, and we 
     wanted to send the best. But we also committed, at the time 
     we did that, that we would get them replaced just as soon as 
     it was feasible to do that, and we've done that now by 
     sending the WASP.
       It's also worth noting that we expect to catch up with 
     this. That is, the next planned long deployment of this 
     battalion will be next December--December of '95--so there 
     will be some catch up in the deployment phase.
       All in all, one of the biggest problems we have today with 
     the reduction of the military forces but no reduction in 
     military needs--in mission needs, an increase in military 
     needs--is a strain on the operational tempo that we're 
     conducting. It has two different potential effects. One is 
     it could take people out of the normal training cycle. We 
     have to be very carefully to ensure that we maintain the 
     training cycles, that we maintain an adequate readiness 
     for our forces. Second is the wear and tear on the morale 
     of people and their families.
       So what I was really trying to do today was get a first 
     hand feeling of that latter point--the wear and tear on 
     morale--by talking with the Marines, talking with the 
     families. You don't get a flavor of that from reading the 
     statistics and reading the reports. You get it by going out 
     and talking with people and this seemed like a particularly 
     good day to do that.
       Q: What was the reaction?
       A: Generally positive today, but mixed. There is no 
     question that the families felt the stress and the strain of 
     this long deployment, particularly the second deployment. 
     There's no question that there was some resentment on the 
     part of some of the families about this second deployment. I 
     would like to have promised them that the next big deployment 
     wouldn't occur until December of '95. But the fact is, all I 
     can promise them is that's what the plan is, and that I 
     cannot control the emergencies that might come up in the 
     world between now and then. It's always possible that there 
     will be an emergency and we'll have to pull them out sooner, 
     but our plan is . . .
       Q: [There was a Time magazine] article (inaudible) deadline 
     for an invasion of Haiti. Does that mean you're opposed to an 
     invasion?
       A: My position on that, which I've stated several times, is 
     that I think an invasion of Haiti is the last alternative 
     that we should consider. We have plenty of other alternatives 
     to develop first. We already have a course of what I call 
     coercive diplomacy underway which are very heavy duty 
     sanctions. And those are not, even today, not fully in 
     effect, not fully biting the regime in Haiti today. We have 
     just recently started to shut the back door on the 
     sanctions--blocking off the Dominican Republic. That has to 
     happen first. We're some period of time away from seeing the 
     effects of that diplomacy.
       Q: how Long . . .
       A: The last thing I will do is give you an estimate on that 
     as to when or even whether. I have some optimism that this 
     coercive diplomacy is going to be effective. I want it to 
     have its full chance to work. If we have to go to an 
     invasion, the conventional wisdom is that this will be a 
     piece of cake. And I don't like that point of view. Any time 
     you have a good operation an invasion, a forceful entry--you 
     have a danger of a very high risk of casualties. The 
     casualties from the possible resistance on the part of the 
     Haitians, a large complex operation like that, some 
     casualties, some accidents can happen. So we don't take 
     that decision lightly and we will take every alternative 
     we can to see that we don't have to do that.
       Q: Have you made a decision about how many ARGs are 
     appropriate, then, to help relieve some of this?
       A: Yes. Our plan is to have . . . Let me put this in terms 
     of LHAs and LHDs which is sort of the flag--the main ship of 
     an ARG. Our plan is to maintain 12 of those. Coincidentally, 
     that's the number that we have for carriers. But it's more 
     than a coincidence. In both cases what that means is as we 
     expect to be able to deploy three of them in three regions of 
     the world simultaneously; and with 12, you can work out the 
     ratio on that. That means if you're on a six-month overseas, 
     there's 12 to 18 months then back in the States. It also 
     allows a little time to rework on the ship.
       So we will have enough ships to maintain the personnel 
     tempo that we consider desirable--the operational tempo that 
     we consider desirable.
       Q: Your operational budget? These deployments have gone 
     right into . . . You haven't had any additional funding for 
     these * * * .
       A: Yes. We have gotten--I don't want to be complacent about 
     the funding--but we did put in for, and got approved, a 
     supplementary for most of our extra deployments last year. As 
     we speak, we have a supplemental being considered by the 
     Congress for the deployments we made to Rwanda for 
     humanitarian purposes. And I think we're probably likely to 
     get $170 million supplemental appropriation for that.
       The defense budget is just for maintaining the defense 
     force. When you go on operations, that costs additional. So 
     [for] every operation we go on, we have to somehow find 
     additional funding for it--or the alternative is to take it 
     our of the training and take it our of the operational 
     account. That's what my job is--to resist that, and to be 
     sure that we take on additional operations, we get the 
     additional funding that goes with it.
       These are not necessarily negative to readiness, if you can 
     supplement the funding. What is happening on these operations 
     would be generally good training in and of itself. But if you 
     fund them out of the O&M account--the operations and 
     maintenance account--then what you are doing is taking away 
     the money that would have been used for training, that would 
     have been used for quality of life initiatives, that would 
     have been used for things around the base. That's what I'm 
     resisting.
       Press: Thank you very much.


                      carrier replacement program

  Mr. SASSER. I would like to address a question to the distinguished 
floor manager of the bill. I noted that in conference the House receded 
to the Senate with regard to the amount appropriated for the carrier 
replacement program. The conferees thus cut the Navy's original request 
by $162 million, as was proposed by the Senate. According to the Senate 
report, however, the Senate's lower figure reflected concerns about the 
prices contemplated by the Navy, not about the specific equipment and 
services to be procured. Thus, I would assume that it was not the 
intention of the conferees to cancel the procurement of any equipment 
or services--such as the procurement of components or reactor fuel--
that were contemplated by the Navy in connection with this and earlier 
requests. Is my assumption correct?
  Mr. INOUYE. It is in fact correct.


                  DoD Appropriations Conference Report

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I commend the chairman of the Defense 
Appropriations Subcommittee, Senator Inouye, and the ranking member on 
the Defense Subcommittee, Senator Stevens, for their superlative 
efforts in guiding this measure to completion prior to the beginning of 
the new fiscal year. Their work becomes ever more difficult with each 
year, as the budgetary constraints imposed upon the defense budget, and 
all discretionary budgets, become tighter. The chairman and the ranking 
member of the Defense Subcommittee, and their fine staff, have worked 
very hard to balance all of the competing needs and desires within the 
fiscal year 1995 Defense appropriations bill.
  I also want to thank the Defense Subcommittee, and the conference, 
for agreeing to fund the restoration of a limited, three-plane, SR-71 
reconnaissance contingency force, which was authorized in the 
conference agreement on the fiscal year 1995 Department of Defense 
Authorization Act. We are all aware that in the last few years, the 
world has been beset by troubles. One of these troubles has already 
required the deployment of United States military forces in a war 
against Iraq. Another troubling situation is still bubbling away on the 
Korean Peninsula, sometimes at a low simmer, sometimes looking like it 
is coming up to a boil. One of the critical lessons we learned from the 
Persian Gulf war is that, in a threatening situation or during the 
conduct of a war, a military commander cannot have too much 
information, too many maps, or too many ``looks over the hill'' to see 
what the enemy is doing. The Department of Defense's ``Final Report to 
Congress on the Conduct of the Persian Gulf War'' in 1992 noted that:

       Imagery was vital to Coalition operations, especially to 
     support targeting development for precision guided munitions 
     and Tomahawk Land Attack Missile attacks, and for BDA [bomb 
     damage assessment]. Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm 
     placed great demands on national, theater, and tactical 
     imagery reconnaissance systems. The insatiable appetite for 
     imagery and imagery-derived products could not be met.

  The U.S. Defense Mapping Agency had to use Landsat and SPOT data to 
create maps for the U.S.-led coalition's use in that war.
  Mr. President, our national ability to meet that ``insatiable 
appetite'' has not improved in the intervening years. The ``Final 
Report to Congress on the Conduct of the Persian Gulf War'' went on to 
note that:

       The SR-71 could have been useful during Operation Desert 
     Shield if overflight of Iraq had been permitted. In that 
     case, the system would have provided broad area coverage of a 
     large number of Iraqi units * * *. During Operation Desert 
     Storm air operations, the SR-71 would have been of value for 
     BDA [bomb damage assessment] and determining Iraqi force 
     dispositions.

  It is for this reason that I again, as I had in a letter to the 
Secretary of Defense before the war with Iraq, broached the subject of 
bringing the SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft out of forced 
retirement.
  In 1991, my suggestion to then Secretary of Defense Cheney was not 
adopted. The SR-71 program had been terminated as a full-fledged 
operational activity involving 12 aircraft in 1990 on the grounds of 
cost, lack of need due to the end of the cold war, and the promise of 
follow-on systems then in development. The follow-on to the SR-71 has 
since then also been canceled. The SR-71 Blackbird remains our sole 
manned, survivable, penetrating reconnaissance aircraft. The Congress 
had acted to preserve that capability. In June, 1990, the Secretary of 
the Air Force directed the Air Force to ``place three SR-71A aircraft 
and six associated reconnaissance sensors and electronic countermeasure 
suites into long-term storage, rather than a flight ready status, as a 
hedge against a protracted conflict some time in the future.'' This was 
a far-sighted move. I believed in 1991 that we should have taken 
advantage of that foresight, and I continue to believe that we should 
take advantage of this fortuitous circumstance and create a contingency 
capability for the SR-71 in the face of the potential for conflict that 
continues to exist on the Korean Peninsula. Our military forces deserve 
access to every tool that we can provide, particularly tools of such 
demonstrated capability and need.
  Unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAV's, have been touted as a penetrating 
and survivable follow-on to the SR-71 and, indeed, in a few years they 
may be developed to that point. Very high expenditures are under 
consideration for a family of various UAV's, amounting to almost $2.3 
billion over the next 5 years. The funds for UAV development have come 
in part at the expense of upgrades and overhaul to other existing 
airborne reconnaissance platforms like the U-2 and RC-135, which unlike 
the SR-71 are not survivable over hostile territory. While potentially 
useful, the current program of UAV development is extremely ambitious 
and may not be fully attainable in the current constrained budget 
environment. The SR-71 is a cost-effective stop gap that makes use of 
existing, but still state of the art, equipment to fill an inarguable 
gap in battlefield intelligence. I do not view it as a competitor of 
UAV's--I support funding for an effective tactical UAV program.
  The SR-71 as an aerial surveillance system complements other 
``national technical means,'' as satellite systems are euphemistically 
termed. A 1991 report by the Office of Technology Assessment, 
``Verification Technologies: Cooperative Aerial Surveillance,'' cites a 
1990 report to the Department of Defense that states

       the existence and utility of reconnaissance satellites is 
     accepted . . . Satellite orbits are highly predictable. It is 
     taken as a given by each side that the other will refrain 
     from some activities, which would otherwise be observable, 
     during a satellite pass--once or a few times a day, say for a 
     total of 20 minutes. The long advance predictability of 
     reconnaissance coverage makes it possible to hide, by careful 
     advance scheduling, even very large and elaborate activities. 
     Each side might worry, in the extreme case, that preparations 
     for war or treaty breakout could thus be hidden.

  The scheduling and route flexibility provided by aircraft platforms 
such as the SR-71 make it very nearly impossible to avoid detection. 
Properly employed, there should be no advance warning of when or where 
an SR-71 might fly. Given the repute of the North Koreans in concealing 
their facilities and installations even in peacetime, this flexibility 
might be essential should tensions escalate or hostilities erupt on the 
peninsula.

  ``National technical means'' of intelligence collection will remain 
essential, but have some limitations, as I have just illustrated. 
Another weakness of current satellite intelligence systems, but a 
strength of the SR-71, is the ability to provide synoptic broad area 
coverage of large swaths of ground, needed for monitoring overall enemy 
forces dispositions and for specialized and updated mapping. Prior to 
the Persian Gulf war, the United States acquired Landsat and SPOT 
satellite images from which to build maps, because United States 
intelligence systems were swamped trying to monitor Iraqi military 
activities. Buying Landsat and SPOT imagery for these needs was a 
stopgap measure. We might not be so fortunate the next time a crisis 
arises. Nor may we benefit from 6 months to prepare for a conflict, as 
we did during the Persian Gulf conflict. Military reconnaissance 
missions' requirements for timeliness often exceed the current 
capabilities of civilian satellite systems. According to a 1993 Office 
of Technology Assessment report, ``The Future of Remote Sensing From 
Space: Civilian Satellite Systems and Applications,'' Landsat 
satellites pass over any given place along the equator once every 16 
days, while SPOT passes over once every 26 days. Each system may 
require weeks to process orders. The report goes on to state that 
``existing civilian satellite data are not adequate to create maps with 
the coverage or precision desired for military use.''
  The same report also notes that because other nations control some of 
the most capable civilian satellite imaging systems, they could in the 
future deny the United States access to their systems. Additionally, 
since all countries now generally follow a nondiscriminatory data 
policy, any purchaser can buy imagery at the same price and on the same 
delivery schedule. This means that in the future, Iraq or some other 
belligerent could purchase Landsat, SPOT, and other civilian satellite 
imagery to prepare their own battle maps for their troops or for their 
own future cruise missile systems. During the Persian Gulf conflict, 
both the SPOT and Landsat organizations cut off Iraq's access to 
satellite imagery, but such cooperation is not assured in the future as 
more and more companies and countries attempt to enter the satellite 
imaging business.
  The SR-71, on the other hand, could have provided photographic 
coverage of Iraq in under 3 hours of flying time. It could have covered 
the country at regular intervals--daily or every several days, if 
necessary--to help update battle maps showing the widely dispersed 
Iraqi troop positions. Such missions might also have helped to reveal 
other Iraqi activities involving their nuclear, biological or chemical 
weapons industries that were uncovered only with great effort after the 
war. With electronic intercept sensors available for the SR-71, Iraqi 
air defense equipment could have been pinpointed prior to bombing 
raids. And with a different camera, the SR-71 could have followed 
bombing missions in to provide post-bombing damage assessments. An 
existing radar suite allows the SR-71 to support U.S. forces even in 
bad weather or at night, helping to keep an unblinking eye on every 
movement of enemy forces.

  In any future conflict, the capabilities of the SR-71 would augment 
support to U.S. combat forces. A limited contingency capability 
involving three aircraft can be reconstituted for as little as $100 
million, and maintained in standby status for under $50 million per 
year, according to estimates provided by the Defense Airborne 
Reconnaissance Office and by the contractor. The contractor is 
confident enough in these estimates to willingly accept a cap on the 
amount provided for the reconstitution of this capability. Over $700 
million worth of spare parts remain in storage, ranging from spare 
engines to spare tires. By basing the contingency aircraft with the 
NASA-operated SR-71 fleet that is used for scientific studies, 
additional savings are possible for sharing support equipment. In this 
scenario, 12 months of operations would include one 30-day deployment 
in which 10 overflights would be conducted. If or when military 
tensions escalate, the operating tempo could be readily increased to 
meet the needs of the local commanders.
  More creative use of the SR-71 is possible even while the aircraft 
remain in contingency status. In March, 1993 for instance, the United 
States used Landsat and SPOT data to create maps of the former 
Yugoslavia in order to support airdrops of food and medical supplies to 
towns and cities under siege in eastern Bosnia. With the greater 
resolution and finer detail achievable with SR-71 imagery, greater 
precision in airdrops would have been possible. Similarly creative use 
of the system is possible in support of humanitarian efforts now 
underway in Rwanda and Zaire, without drawing national collection 
systems away from other areas of interest.
  Finally, I would note that an overflight by an SR-71 can be a potent 
signal to a potential adversary of the seriousness of U.S. intentions. 
Even moving an SR-71 into a region underscores U.S. intentions to 
support possible military actions by every means possible. It is a 
mechanism that the President can use selectively to demonstrate 
national will as a political instrument. Imagine the message received 
by an adversary when an unarmed, nonhostile SR-71 aircraft sweeps 
across their country at high speed--a portent of future waves of 
bombers that could follow. It is a message that no satellite blinking 
across the night sky can send.
  During the period leading up to the Persian Gulf war, a political 
decision was made not to overfly Iraq, despite the potential 
intelligence that might be garnered for the United States and the 
coalition forces. But to conclude from that decision, as some have, 
that no American political authorities will ever have the ``political 
will'' to overfly another country, even when the vital interests of the 
United States demand it, denies the idea that any lessons were learned 
from the Persian Gulf war experience. A New York Times article from 
July 4, 1994, says that ``senior officers questioned whether the United 
States had the political will to use the aircraft against North Korea, 
its likeliest target.'' I reject the assumption that we are incapable 
of learning from the past. It is not the job of military officers or 
professional intelligence officials to second guess the political will 
of our elected national leaders. Far better for the political 
authorities to have an instrument in hand to use if necessary, than to 
deny them the opportunity to use it by assuming that the Nation's 
leadership will never have the political will to overfly a nation if 
our intelligence needs, and our combat fores at risk, demand it. 
Reestablishing a limited contingent of SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance 
aircraft is a prudent move, and one that I am glad that the conference 
has approved in this measure.


                    technology reinvestment project

  Mr. PRYOR. I would like to thank my good friend and colleague, 
Senator Inouye, for his assistance regarding funding for the Clinton 
administration's technology reinvestment project [TRP]. I am pleased 
the conferees agreed to fund this important defense conversion program 
at $550 million for fiscal year 1995.
  However, I am concerned about language in this bill requiring the 
military services to exclusively select focus areas for $75 million of 
these funds. I am specifically concerned that the word ``exclusively'' 
would be interpreted to mean that the military services would operate 
outside of the current structure of the TRP when selecting these focus 
areas.
  I therefore ask my friend, the Senator from Hawaii, whether the word 
``exclusively'' was intended to encourage the military services to 
operate separate from the other agencies in TRP when selecting focus 
areas for this important program?
  Mr. INOUYE. I thank Senator Pryor for his question. I can answer by 
simply saying that it would be appropriate for the military services, 
in selecting focus areas for TRP, to consult with the other TRP 
agencies. Indeed, it is our hope that the military services will play 
an integral role in setting all TRP focus areas. The services have a 
unique perspective on how to maximize the military utility of these 
dual use funds. As a result, this subcommittee hopes that the military 
services will be allowed to actively work within the framework of the 
TRP to ensure the military utility of TRP funds.
  Mr. PRYOR. I thank Senator Inouye for his leadership and for his 
assistance with this important program.
  Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I would like to commend the managers of the 
fiscal year 1995 Defense appropriations bill, Senator Inouye and 
Senator Stevens, for their work in bringing this conference report 
before the Senate today.
  As I well know, the managers faced many difficult choices this year. 
The defense budget is stretched very thin, even without the many 
contingencies which the Defense Department has been called on to 
respond to in recent months. The supplemental included in this bill 
will help the Defense Department meet the fiscal year 1994 costs of 
these contingencies without cutting funds from other readiness-related 
efforts.
  I particularly want to commend the managers for their efforts in 
preserving the requested funding for the Cooperative Threat Reduction 
Program. Now that many of the international agreements are in place, I 
believe this program is ready to move forward more rapidly. The full 
funding of the $400 million request included in this bill will support 
projects which I believe will make significant contributions to our 
national security.
  I also want to commend the managers for continuing to fund DoD's 
efforts in support of the 1966 Atlanta Olympic games, and for providing 
funding to preserve the bomber industrial base for another year while 
the Defense Department studies our bomber requirements.
  Mr. President, this bill does a good job of protecting the quality of 
our military forces, but many tough decisions lie ahead. The 
administration's budget forecasts continued declines in defense 
spending in years ahead, even as Congress is voting to make further 
reductions in discretionary spending. At the same time, Secretary Perry 
and Deputy Secretary Deutch are attempting to find the money to 
increase military pay raises above the levels currently included in the 
administration's budget, which I believe is essential.
  I remain concerned that the projected funding levels for national 
defense over the next several years will not be adequate to maintain 
the current readiness of our forces; provide for their needed 
modernization; 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 carry out.
  Finally, as the new fiscal year starts on Saturday, our troops are 
deployed in Haiti. The costs of this operation are not included in the 
fiscal year 1995 authorization and appropriation bills, and will have 
to be addressed in a supplemental next year. The defense budget is 
going to continue to be under enormous pressure in the months and years 
ahead.


                             Don Richbourg

  Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, as a final note before we adopt the 
conference report, I wish to call attention to the dedication and 
service of a member of the professional staff who will not be with us 
to work on the Defense appropriations bill next year. He is a 
thoroughly competent professional, a quiet man whose depth of knowledge 
of the appropriations process is unmatched. He has earned the respect 
of the Senators and Senate staff with whom he has worked for the past 
25 years.
  Mr. President, I am pleased to have this opportunity to recognize Don 
Richbourg, a member of the professional staff of the House 
Appropriations Committee. I have worked with Don for many years, first 
on the foreign operations bill and more recently on the Department of 
Defense appropriations bill.
  Mr. President, Don Richbourg has served the Congress well. He has 
served the Nation well. We will miss him, and we wish him well.
  Mr. President, has all time been consumed?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired.
  Under the previous order, the conference report on H.R. 4650, the 
Department of Defense Appropriations Act, is agreed to.
  The conference report on H.R. 4650 was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion to reconsider that vote is laid 
upon the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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