[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.
____________________