[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 93 (Thursday, June 8, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H5740]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


          THE SHOCKING AUDIT OF THE OFFICE OF SUPPORT AIRCRAFT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kim). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Oregon [Mr. DeFazio] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Today Senator Grassley and I received a very important 
report from the U.S. General Accounting Office. We asked for an audit 
of the Office of Support Aircraft of the Department of Defense, and 
what we received in this audit is shocking. The Department of Defense, 
which is required to keep administrative aircraft adequate to meet the 
wartime needs of the United States of America, made use of 48 such 
aircraft during the Persian Gulf war, maintains over 500 aircraft, 10 
times what they used at the height of the Persian Gulf war and, last 
year they spent $378 million on these support aircraft.
  There are some notable problems with their use of these aircraft. 
There is no centralized control. Each and every service determines who 
and when people will be eligible to use these aircraft. Frequently, 
one-star generals and lower-ranking civilian officials from the 
Department of Defense, instead of using their chauffeurs and their 
automobiles, their limousines and their drivers, to go to Andrews Air 
Force Base to catch a jet, opt to take a helicopter at the cost of 
$1,400 to $1,600 an hour. According to the GAO, they save between 5 and 
15 minutes instead of spending $30 on a cab. They spend $400 to $1,600 
to operate a helicopter. I think it is more for their ego than it is 
for any support purposes, and that is what the General Accounting 
Office has found.
  We also have the fact that we are providing now for the commander in 
Korea, C-U-S-F-K, as he is called, a four-star general, we are going to 
provide him with a luxury pallet. That is something which can be 
inserted into a jet aircraft as this general is required, often, to 
come back to Washington, DC, to receive orders, and the current 
$350,000 luxury pallets--I think that most Americans would like to live 
in a $350,000 house, but this general does not think that a $350,000 
luxury pallet is adequate to put in an airplane so he can fly back in 
comfort to Washington, DC. No, he needs a $750,000 pallet so that this 
general can fly back and forth to Washington, DC, in extraordinary 
luxury at probably seven times the average median price of houses for 
most Members of Congress, $750,000 for a luxury pallet for one general.

                              {time}  1645

  It is time that the generals in the Pentagon and the civilians in the 
Pentagon entered into the real world, the world of limitations, the 
world where you do not go first class-plus when you are not on an 
urgent mission. And the GAO identifies that most of these missions were 
not urgent missions.
  In fact, they also find that not only are these aircraft used to 
transport generals, as I said, every one-star general in the Pentagon 
can take a helicopter and then get a private jet any time they want. 
They do not have to justify it or compare it to commercial rates. They 
do not even have to compare it to first class rates with a chauffeur-
driven limousine. They can just do it, because it is there. And there 
are no controls.
  We not only use it indiscriminately for Pentagon brass and for 
officials at the Pentagon, we are carting around the cadets at our 
academies to football games and swim meets. We had one football game in 
Hawaii. The Air Force played the University of Hawaii. The taxpayers of 
the United States of America spent $270,000 to transport Air Force 
cadets to the
 University of Hawaii football game. Now, is that not wonderful?

  My hometown university, the University of Oregon, went to the Rose 
Bowl this year, something that only happened once in the last quarter 
of a century. It is our second time. Nobody asked the State of Oregon 
to support the students of the University of Oregon or the alumni of 
the university of Oregon and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to 
transport them. People made their own way.
  But no, not when it comes to the Air Force Academy. Was it a 
particularly important game in Hawaii? Why did we spend $300,000 on 
transporting? It had something to do the with the fact the game was in 
Hawaii. They spent a total of $2 million transporting cadets to and 
from sporting events last year, many times at the cost of $2,000 per 
student. Those same students could have flown first class and each 
student could have had a chauffeur-driven limousine and had their meals 
and hotels paid for, for less than it cost to transport them, and this 
does not include the cost of the crew on the ground and other 
incidental costs, wear and tear on the airplane. These are only the 
actual operating costs of the plane.
  So it is time the Pentagon came to reality here. I have introduced 
with Senator Grassley legislation that would reduce the support 
aircraft to that which is needed, truly needed by the military, 50 
percent, save $200 million next year and every year thereafter.

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