[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 63 (Wednesday, May 14, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4428-S4431]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             NOMINATION OF LT. GEN. GEORGE T. BABBITT, JR.

  Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the nomination 
that is before the Senate of Lt. Gen. George T. Babbitt, Jr. to be 
promoted and receive an additional star to become general in the U.S. 
Air Force.
  When this nomination came to the Senate at an earlier time several 
months ago, I notified the majority leader that I would like to be 
informed prior to its coming to a vote. In Senate parlance, that is 
called putting a hold on this nomination. It was never my intention to 
hold up General Babbitt from receiving his additional star. But it was 
my intention to focus seriously on the policy of the Air Force which 
General Babbitt will be called upon to implement. Accordingly, I told 
the majority leader that I do not want this nomination to go forward 
until we have had an opportunity to discuss that policy in some length. 
The majority leader responded appropriately to my request, and we have 
had a series of events that I think satisfy my requirement for full 
discussion. I would like to outline those for the Senate today before I 
make it clear that I will have no further objection to proceeding with 
the nomination of General Babbitt. I speak entirely for myself. There 
are a number of other Senators who have also put holds on this 
nomination. What they will do with their holds is something that they 
will, of course, speak to on their own. I am speaking entirely, as I 
say, for myself on this matter.
  I have been criticized by some Members of this body for putting a 
hold on a nomination for a member of the uniformed services, and was 
told, ``No. This should apply only to civilian personnel in the 
Department of Defense. You are using the uniformed services for a 
political purpose.''

[[Page S4429]]

  Mr. President, if anyone has been using the uniformed services for 
political purposes and political gain it has been the Department of 
Defense, not the Senator from Utah. The Department of Defense, under 
instructions from the Base Realignment and Closure Commission--or 
BRCC--was told to close two of its five air logistics centers. That 
would be the best result for the uniformed services; in this case the 
Air Force.
  A Member of this body, the then senior Senator from Maine, Senator 
Cohen, stood on this floor and berated the Department of Defense for 
its failure to abide by BRCC recommendations. He said very clearly that 
the Department of Defense was in violation of the BRCC recommendation 
by their attempts to keep two of those air logistic centers operating 
under the guise of privatization for competition. They invented a new 
term of art. They call it privatization in place. ``We will privatize 
the facility right where it is, which means we will not, as BRCC 
ordered us to, send the work that is currently going on in those 
facilities to the other facilities that can handle the work.'' That was 
what BRCC intended. That is what Senator Cohen attacked. And, yet, that 
is the policy that Secretary Cohen is now carrying out. That is the 
policy that I protested when I said that I do not want the nomination 
of General Babbitt to go forward until we can have a full airing of 
this issue.
  I am happy to report to the Senate that the full airing for which I 
called has, indeed, taken place. We had a hearing before the Armed 
Services Committee, particularly before the Readiness Subcommittee, 
chaired by the Senator from Oklahoma [Mr. Inhofe].
  In addition, we had a hearing before the Appropriations Committee, 
and in those hearings we found that, according to the General 
Accounting Office, the GAO, that the Air Force proposal for 
privatization in place will cost this country an additional $500 to 
$700 million--maybe even $800 million. At a time of tight defense 
budgets, at a time when we are talking about balancing the budget, it 
seems perverse for the Defense Department to say that we are going to 
waste that much money.
  The Air Force in those hearings said, ``No. We will not waste that 
much money.'' But to the question of how much money will you save with 
your proposal of privatization in place, the Air Force has been 
basically silent. And their response has been overwhelmingly ``Trust 
us. We will not tell you how much money we will save, but trust us. We 
will save some, and the General Accounting Office figure is wrong.''
  ``How wrong?''
  ``Well, we do not know.''
  ``Why wrong?''
  ``Well, they don't understand our business.''
  Mr. President, the General Accounting Office is the arm of the 
Congress created by law to be the fiscal watchdog of the executive 
branch. There can be no better example of the value of the General 
Accounting Office than this one, as they have gone behind the`trust me 
facade created by the Air Force and come up with numbers--lowest level 
$500 million, highest level $800 million, with $700 million being the 
guess about where it will finally come out.

  So, by virtue of the hold that I put on General Babbitt's nomination, 
we have had those two hearings and have gotten that information into 
the public and on the record for the Senate.
  In addition to those hearings, in response to my request to the 
majority leader, the Secretary of the Air Force last week met with me 
and two other Senators, Senator Nickles and Senator Inhofe. And we had 
a full and frank discussion about this issue. To be honest with you, 
Mr. President, there was not much encouragement to come out of that 
discussion. Essentially, Secretary Widnall said, ``There is no problem. 
Therefore, we will not discuss with you any solution.'' She said to me, 
``Please remove your hold on General Babbitt because it is having a 
corrosive effect on the personnel of the Air Force to have them 
continue without a commander.'' I said to her, and I repeat here today, 
there is a corrosive effect in this area certainly. But it is not 
caused by the fact that there is no confirmed commander. The corrosive 
effect is being caused by the Air Force's callous disregard for the 
needs of their personnel in the surviving air logistics centers, and 
for their refusal to abide by the BRCC process.
  Following the meeting with Secretary Widnall today, I had a meeting 
again with Senator Nickles, Senator Inhofe, and with General Babbitt. 
Where the Air Force said there was no problem relating to overcapacity 
in the air logistics centers, General Babbitt acknowledged that there 
is a big problem, and pledged himself to do the best he could to try to 
resolve it. He made it very clear, as he appropriately should, that he 
was not going to violate Air Force policy; that, as a uniformed 
officer, he would carry out his orders in this regard. And we would 
expect nothing less from him. But he did acknowledge, as the Air Force 
has not, to my satisfaction, that there is a serious problem of 
overcapacity, and that it calls for serious management solutions. And 
he pledged himself to provide those solutions to the degree he could 
within the policy dictated by his civilian superiors.
  The Air Force has refused, as I have indicated, to give us any 
numbers. They have taken basically a trust me stance on this issue. 
General Babbitt, on the contrary, agreed, when I told him that we would 
want to see numbers, that he would make numbers available to the 
Congress. I said, ``General, as you proceed down this program of 
privatization in place, surely you are going to get some financial 
information that will tell you whether you are or are not saving 
money.'' And the financial information out of the Air Force should be 
available to us in Congress to compare with the analysis of the General 
Accounting Office. The Air Force, as I have said, Mr. President, has 
always refused to give us those numbers in the past. General Babbitt 
pledged that those numbers would be made available to Congress.
  I consider this a significant act of good faith on the part of the 
general, because, once we have those numbers in front of us in the 
Congress, we can appropriately deal with this issue. And, if we find 
that the Air Force is correct, and they are saving the taxpayers 
hundreds of millions of dollars of privatization in place, and the 
General Accounting Office is wrong, I will be the first to come to the 
floor and congratulate the Air Force, because certainly I, like every 
other Senator, want to see to it that we save the taxpayers' money. 
But, if we find that, once we have the real numbers, the Air Force is 
wrong and the General Accounting Office is right, then I will be the 
first to come to the floor and once again demand that the Air Force try 
to solve this problem more intelligently.
  The Air Force told us essentially there will be no change in policy 
regardless of whatever Congress does, regardless of your interpretation 
of the BRCC rules, and regardless of Senator Cohen's analysis, 
Secretary Cohen will insist that there be no change.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to continue 
for another 3 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BENNETT. General Babbitt agreed that he would do whatever he 
could within the constraints of the policy laid down by the Air Force 
to give us intelligent management of this problem. That is the first 
sign of cooperation that I have seen out of this administration since 
this issue first arose.
  So, Mr. President, because General Babbitt has made it clear, now 
that we have had our hearings in the Armed Services Committee, we have 
had our hearings in the Appropriations Committee, we have had our 
meeting with the Secretary of the Air Force, and we have had our 
meeting with him, that he will do what he can to address the issue 
within the constraints placed upon him by his civilian superiors to try 
to solve the problem, I am announcing my willingness to no longer 
insist that his nomination be held up. The purposes for which I made 
that insistence in the first place have been fulfilled. I will allow 
him to go forward to his additional star and his command, and I look 
forward to staying in touch with him in the spirit of the pledges he 
made to me and the other Senators this morning to see that this issue 
is properly resolved once and for all in the long term.

  In sum, Mr. President, I am in no way backing down from my conviction

[[Page S4430]]

that this administration is shamelessly playing politics on this issue 
and has involved the uniformed services in a way that is totally 
inappropriate. I do not wish to be accused of doing the same thing in 
response because my desire is to solve the problem. I am hoping the 
administration will address it in the same spirit.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following my remarks the 
additional views of Senator William S. Cohen on S. 1673 be printed in 
the Record.
  There being no objection, the remarks were ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                     [Excerpt From a Senate Report]

        Additional Views of Senator William S. Cohen on S. 1673

       The FY97 National Defense Authorization Senate Armed 
     Services Committee report includes a provision that changes 
     the allocation of maintenance workloads between the public 
     depots and the private sector from a 60/40 to a 50/50 split. 
     Like most compromises, it will probably not satisfy everyone 
     with an interest in this issue. I do not believe that the 
     depot maintenance issue should be addressed this year as a 
     result of the inability of the Department of Defense (DOD) to 
     articulate its depot policy and its failure to adequately 
     answer depot-related questions Congress requested in last 
     year's National Defense Authorization Act. It appears that 
     DOD is not interested in providing Congress with the data it 
     needs to make an informed decision.
       There is a need to reform how the Pentagon operates. 
     Finding more efficient ways to support our war-fighters could 
     result in billions of dollars in savings that can be 
     transferred to support the modernization of our forces. DOD 
     has proposed three methods of savings to fund modernization--
     procurement reform, base closings, and privatization. I am 
     highly skeptical about significant savings accruing from any 
     of these. The Congress has given DOD three revolutionary 
     procurement reform acts in the last two years which could 
     generate savings but I am fearful these may fail to achieve 
     the desired effects due to management inertia. Likewise, the 
     savings from BRAC may prove illusionary if the Administration 
     continues to come up with proposals which are designed not 
     for cost savings but to avoid the pain doled out in BRAC to 
     politically important communities.
       With regard to privatization, I believe the Pentagon has a 
     misplaced sense of priorities. In the private sector, which 
     DOD claims to emulate, organizations most frequently contract 
     out for building management, fleet management, and 
     information technology to better focus on their ``core 
     competencies''. DOD has decided to turn this on its head by 
     first outsourcing core competencies--for example, maintaining 
     advanced weapon systems--while keeping most commercial 
     business processes in-house.
       If we are truly going to maximize the benefits of the 
     commercial marketplace, I believe we should instead focus on 
     those areas where the private sector has chosen to outsource, 
     such as data processing, accounting, audit, transportation, 
     and inventory. But the Pentagon wants to continue to operate 
     its own data processing centers, develop its own software for 
     financial systems when it can buy them off-the-shelf, like 
     most private companies do, and manage its own inventory so 
     the taxpayer ends up spending $36 billion more on goods that 
     DOD does not need. And yet, the Pentagon wants to move 
     quickly to privatize depots that were slated for closure by 
     BRAC and further contribute to the excess capacity problem at 
     public depots that have served our country so well since 
     1799.
       On the point of privatizing closing facilities, there also 
     seems to be a misunderstanding about the intent of the BRAC 
     and the closure of the Air Logistics Centers at Kelly AFB and 
     McClellan AFB. First, let there be no misunderstanding about 
     the fact that the BRAC decisions were made under the 
     assumption that 60 percent of the workload would go to public 
     depots. The need to change this ratio to accommodate the 
     Administration's plans to shift work to Kelly and McClellan 
     illustrates that what we are doing in this bill is a clear 
     circumvention of the BRAC process. To change the 60/40 
     criteria as the Armed Service Committee has agreed to will 
     deteriorate critical warfighting capabilities, impede 
     investment in the public domain, and most likely require 
     further closures beyond what has been accomplished in BRAC.
       The BRAC did not recommend or authorize ``privatization-in-
     place'' at Kelly or McClellan. Indeed for those facilities 
     where the BRAC thought there was a unique capability that 
     could lend itself to privatization-in-place (such as those at 
     the Naval Air Warfare Center in Indianapolis or the Naval 
     Surface Warfare Center in Louisville), a recommendation was 
     made to that effect. The BRAC made no such identification or 
     recommendation for facilities at the Kelly or McClellan Air 
     Logistics Centers. Perhaps, it can be argued that the BRAC 
     made a mistake and that it did not adequately recognize the 
     unique potential of these two facilities. I would then argue 
     that the BRAC did not adequately recognize the unique 
     capabilities of Loring AFB in Presque Isle, Maine and I am 
     sure some of my colleagues could argue the same for 
     facilities in their states. The fact of the matter is that 
     the BRAC made a recommendation and the Congress and the 
     Administration accepted that recommendation with all of its 
     consequences for national security and the economic impact on 
     these communities.
       Because of the implications of any change to 60/40 on 
     excess capacity and concerns over DOD's direction on the 
     privatization of defense depots, Congress asked the DOD to 
     prepare a depot policy report. If Congress agreed with this 
     policy, it would repeal the 60/40 rule. DOD ignored their 
     deadline and sent up a policy just four weeks ago. The report 
     did not meet the requirements that were outlined in last 
     year's National Defense Authorization Act and was rejected by 
     the Senate Armed Services Committee.
       The Department of Defense's depot policy report was non-
     responsive and it was clear from DOD's April 17th testimony 
     before the Senate Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee that 
     DOD's policy was not well developed or supported. DOD's 
     definition of core capability is so general that it is 
     virtually meaningless. The report did not address how new 
     weapons systems would be introduced in depots, or how public 
     depots would be kept cost-efficient. There was a complete 
     lack of detailed statistical data supporting the Pentagon's 
     policy decisions and no data on past depot maintenance 
     performance in which to support privatization decisions. In 
     addition, there were neither plans to assure effective 
     competition in a market where 76 percent of contracts are now 
     let on a sole-source basis, nor a risk assessment on how 
     plans for privatization-in-place would affect existing excess 
     capacity and overall maintenance costs.
       With the move to 50/50, the Senate Armed Services Committee 
     is now saying DOD does not have a depot policy and Congress 
     does not have the data to adequately develop its own policy, 
     but we are going to repeal 60/40 anyway because it meets the 
     short-sighted political agenda of the day. By repealing 60/40 
     at this time, we are rewarding DOD for not adequately 
     responding to a congressionally mandated requirement. DOD's 
     policy and the repeal of 60/40 were inextricably linked. to 
     reject DOD's policy as the Armed Services Committee has done, 
     is to reject DOD's call for a repeal of 60/40.
       I do not believe we should give DOD any more flexibility in 
     this area until DOD establishes a coherent policy on depot 
     maintenance. It was apparent that this position was not 
     universally accepted by my colleague on the Senate Armed 
     Services Committee. When a compromise was offered to change 
     the mix to 50/50, I reluctantly accepted it as I felt this 
     was the best way to continue to maintain our nation's 
     investment in the unique capabilities the public depots 
     provide our armed forces in war and peace.
       The committee report does provide some direction to require 
     DOD to develop a rational depot policy. The final Committee 
     agreement again asks DOD to report in detail on the 
     provisions where it has failed to adequately respond. The 
     committee directs DOD to provide answers to crucial questions 
     needed by Congress in order to support an informed decision 
     about maintaining a core logistics capability in the public 
     sector. Some of the questions include:
       What workloads should be ``core'' in each service?
       What procedures will be used to conduct public-private and 
     public-public competitions?
       What is DOD's maintenance plan for new weapon system?
       What level of organic work is necessary to provide 
     efficient capacity utilization of the public depots that 
     remain?
       How does DOD plan to improve the productivity of the 
     remaining public depots?
       What are the estimated savings that will result from 
     increased privatization?
       This last question is crucial as DOD is proclaiming savings 
     from consolidating depots, but then plans to keep more excess 
     capacity with its policy of privatization-in-place. While DOD 
     risks future modernization on savings supposedly generated by 
     privatization of depot maintenance, these savings are 
     unproven. DOD's estimated savings of 20-30% from depot 
     privatization rely on past studies of the privatization of 
     commercial type functions in the government where there is 
     significant competition for contacts. This is in stark 
     contrast to the marketplace for depot maintenance activities. 
     In fact, the General Accounting Office found the Air Force is 
     implementing a privatization plan at facilities at the Newark 
     AFB that will most likely increase maintenance costs and not 
     save the taxpayer any money as promised.
       I would have preferred to delay any decision on depot 
     maintenance until we secured all of the facts from DOD. 
     However, the Senate Armed Services Committee has agreed to a 
     compromise that I fully supported. Given the fact that the 
     committee report allows DOD to shift to 50/50 while not 
     obligating DOD to provide an adequate response to Congress, 
     my continued support is dependent on the degree to which DOD 
     satisfies the Committee's request for information on DOD's 
     depot policy between now and the conference with the House of 
     Representatives over the Fiscal Year '97 National Defense 
     Authorization bill. I look forward to the Chairman and 
     Ranking Member's letter directing DOD to provide this 
     information. The Senate Armed Services Committee rejected 
     DOD's proposed policy this year and is offering DOD another 
     opportunity to get it right. DOD does not plan to meet the 
     60/40 ceiling for several years, so I believe we have the 
     time to ensure that a coherent depot maintenance plan

[[Page S4431]]

     that will truly save taxpayer dollars and effectively meet 
     wartime surge requirements and readiness needs can be 
     properly developed and implemented.

  Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. BOXER. I thank the Chair. I wonder if the Presiding Officer 
could tell me what the order of business is before the Senate?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. We are in morning business. The order was to 
close morning business and go to H.R. 1122, but that has not been laid 
down yet so we are still in morning business.
  Mrs. BOXER. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________