[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 86 (Thursday, June 19, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5978-S5998]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 1998
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I am very pleased to be able to ask
unanimous consent that the Senate now turn to the consideration of
Calendar No. 88, S. 936, the Department of Defense authorization bill.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk
will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (S. 936) to authorize appropriations for fiscal year
1998 for military activities of the Department of Defense,
for military construction, and for defense activities of the
Department of Energy, to prescribe personnel strengths for
such fiscal year for the Armed Forces, and for other
purposes.
The Senate proceeded to consider the bill.
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, for the information of all Senators, then,
the Senate is now considering the defense authorization bill. Several
amendments are expected to be offered to the bill; therefore, votes can
be expected throughout the remainder of the afternoon and into the
night. We will have to get started and see what amendments are
available, and then we will expect some votes, but we would like to get
as much work done today as we can. And that could take us into the
night.
Also, I want to make clear that we do intend for the Senate to resume
consideration of the bill on Friday. I do expect rollcall votes on
amendments relative to the DOD bill, at least until the noon hour on
Friday. But, again, that will depend on exactly what amendments are
pending. We recognize Senators do have commitments to go back to their
States tomorrow afternoon, and we will try to accommodate that.
But I do think we need to get some work done on this important
legislation. A lot of effort has gone into working out a way to be able
to bring the DOD authorization bill to the floor. I think we can make
some progress, and I encouraged the ranking member and the chairman to
see right away if they could get some finite list of amendments that
might want to be offered and be considered. Maybe we can get some
understanding of when we could get a final vote on this legislation
when we come back after the recess.
Next week, we again do intend to bring up the reconciliation spending
bill on Monday, as I discussed with the acting minority leader, and we
hope to run off time on that bill on Monday. We will talk further about
exactly what will happen on Monday. We will do that tomorrow probably
just as we wrap up consideration of this bill, complete the spending
reconciliation bill Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday, and then go to the
tax bill on Thursday, and stay until we finish the tax cut bill.
I do not know exactly how long that will take. We have a very
bipartisan effort underway in the Finance Committee. The vote on the
spending bill was 20 to 0, and we are working together right now on the
tax cut provisions also. I expect it will be a bipartisan process and a
bipartisan bill. It is possible it may not take that long, but it is
very important legislation and we need to get it done, completed next
week--both of those bills.
Assuming we cannot complete the DOD authorization bill tomorrow
because of some concerns, and at least one issue that may come up, I
know the Democratic leader would want to be here for that, so we may
not be able to take that up until after we come back from the recess.
I want to thank the Members for their cooperation in getting this
legislation before the Senate now. And I do want to announce that we
will expect to complete action on it the week that we come back.
Hopefully, it will not take all week, because we have a lot of other
bills now that are ready for consideration. It will be the pending
business when we come back--if we do not complete it tomorrow--when we
come back from the recess.
I hope Senators will come to the floor now and offer their
amendments. Some Senators were inquiring, ``Why do we need to vote
during the middle of the afternoon on Thursday?'' I would like to
suggest we have votes the rest of the day into tonight, on Friday, and
we be prepared next week to work long hours, Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, to get our work done. Then we can go
to the recess period and feel good about our production.
Would the Senator from Kentucky have any comments?
Mr. FORD. No comments, Mr. President. I appreciate the courtesy that
the majority leader has shown me in the absence of the Democratic
leader. I am trying to fill in as best I can, and hopefully we can be
accommodating. And I am sure the majority leader will be accommodating
to us. We both have to work together. I think Monday we can work out
something that would be amenable to both sides. Hopefully, tomorrow we
might look at the DOD authorization bill with amazement.
Mr. LOTT. Yes.
Mr. FORD. We hope we can do that, I am sure. But there is one
amendment that we will have to wait until into July, so we are not
going to finish. We could be very close. I hope we could find out how
many amendments are out there and maybe get some kind of resolution to
how many we might have.
I will be glad to help the majority leader with that.
Mr. LOTT. That would be very helpful, Mr. President.
I thank Senator Ford.
It is a pleasure for me to yield the floor to the chairman of the
committee so we can begin the debate.
[[Page S5979]]
Mr. THURMOND. Thank you very much.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I want to take a few minutes before the
Senate begins consideration of the fiscal year 1998 Defense
authorization bill to explain why the Armed Services Committee filed
two separate Defense authorization bills.
Yesterday, as most of you observed, there was objection to a consent
request to take up S. 924, the bill the committee reported to the floor
for consideration. This objection was based on a number of provisions
involving public depots--specifically--Air Force Logistics Centers.
Senator Inhofe, the chairman of the Readiness Subcommittee included
these provisions in his subcommittee markup. They were approved by the
subcommittee and the full committee in the markup and therefore were
included in the bill which the committee voted unanimously to report to
the floor.
Senators from other States who did not agree to these provisions
would not consent to S. 924 being considered by the Senate. I believe
all Senators acted in the interests of their states and their
perception of what was in the best interests of the Government. This
issue affects a great many jobs in all of these States and is an
important economic issue within each State.
I want to commend Senator Inhofe for stepping forward and offering to
strip these provisions out of the bill. The committee met yesterday
and, at his request, reported out a bill that does not include the
provisions that provided the basis for objection. Therefore, the Senate
can proceed to consideration of the Defense authorization bill, now S.
936. The committee did not publish a report to accompany S. 936 and
deems Senate Report 105-29, minus sections 311, 312, and 313, as the
report to accompany S. 936.
I understand the importance of this issue to each of you. I want to
especially thank and commend Senator Inhofe for his courageous and
unselfish act in moving to remove the basis for objection so that this
bill, which is so critical to our Armed Forces and our national
security, can be considered by the Senate.
I want to emphasize that all Senators reserve their rights to offer
amendments on this issue on the floor while the bill is being
considered. I understand that while the bill is on the floor, Senators
and staff will continue to search for a solution to this very difficult
issue.
I want to thank all Senators for their consideration. We hear a lot
of talk on this floor about the loss of comity in the Senate. I believe
this is an indication of how Senators can act cooperatively on
difficult issues. In this case, it took a courageous Senator, Senator
Inhofe, to make the difference and I thank him again on behalf of the
committee.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first of all, let me thank the very
distinguished chairman of our committee, Senator Thurmond, for the
hours and hours that he put in and the way he ran the meetings. He was
very fair and open. I appreciate personally very much his remarks that
he just made. Thank you, Senator Thurmond.
As chairman of the readiness subcommittee I want to thank Senator
Robb who is the ranking minority member. We took care of a lot of the
problems out there. I must say, Mr. President, that I think that our
readiness is desperately underfunded. We did the very best we could in
this bill with the resources we had but we are not going to be able to
continue on the course we are on right now. We have problems.
As I go around the Nation, and around the world, actually, and visit
bases, I have been in bases in the State of Alabama, and throughout the
Nation, as well as some of the foreign bases, and I can tell you we are
in an OPTEMPO rate which is unacceptable. Our divorce rates are going
up, our retention rates are going down, and we need to do a better job
of funding not just readiness but modernization and quality of life. I
am very concerned about quality of life. As I go around I find that
some of these kids are working about double the normal tempo that we
have found to be acceptable. While they can sustain it for a while, and
while the troops can sustain it, the spouses cannot. There will come a
point in time where they will have to have more time with their
families and have a more civil type of existence. We cannot do that
with the way this administration has not allocated the proper amount of
money to keep our system going to meet the minimum expectations of the
American people. That is, to be able to defend America on two regional
fronts.
Having said that, I say again that we did the very best that can be
done, and in our readiness subcommittee we were able to reinstate money
for flying hours. We are losing pilots on a daily basis to the
airlines. So we will have to do a lot more than we have done, but we
have done the very best that we can.
Let me make one comment about the depot issue. I know it is a
difficult issue. A few years ago when one of the House Members,
Congressman Armey, I believe, originally came up with the whole idea of
the Base Realignment and Closing Commission concept, which means we
know we cannot reduce excess infrastructure by doing it through the
normal political process because everybody is concerned about jobs in
their States. So they appointed an independent commission to be totally
free from political influence to make recommendations and they went
through, with round one in 1991, in 1993 another round, in 1995 a third
round, and in doing this there is hardly a Senator in this Chamber that
did not have major installations that have closed in their States.
Certainly the State of Alabama lost a major one, and there were two
major installations in the very State from which our chairman comes
from, South Carolina, and virtually all the other States. So, we all
bit the bullet.
However, it appears there is an effort now to disregard that and
leave air logistic centers in California as well as in Texas open.
While it is a difficult thing to go through we have to accept the fact,
sooner or later, that you cannot have in the case of any specialty
area, and specifically in this case, air logistic centers where you
have five operating at 50 percent capacity. You cannot continue to do
that. So they recommended closing two of them that they determined to
be the least efficient of the five and transferring that workload to
the remainder which would be around 75 to 80 percent capacity.
That makes a lot of sense. According to the GAO, that would save $468
million a year, and over 5 years, Mr. President, that is $2.34 billion.
When I think about that and think about where those dollars are
desperately needed in quality of life, in readiness, in force strength,
in modernization, it breaks my heart to think we are maybe willing to
just throw it away.
So I did make the gesture that the chairman referred to and no one
asked me to do it. I felt it was the right thing to do because we have
to have an authorization bill. Under the rules of the Senate, it is
very possible for one Senator to keep a bill from coming up. I did not
want that to happen to Senator Thurmond's bill. I did not want that to
happen to our defense establishment. So I pulled the objectionable
portions of how we treat depot maintenance out of the bill, but at the
same time I announced I have every intention of reestablishing language
that will accomplish what we want to get accomplished, and that is to
be able to save that money that the GAO states is at risk.
So I do not know whether it will be an amendment on the floor by
which I will try to do this or in conference but I think everyone
understands clearly there will be an effort to reinstate language that
we have had to take out.
With that, I will say this is a good bill and I want to move forward
with it. I want to get a chance to really consider these amendments,
and I know there will be a lot of amendments.
As the new chairman of the Readiness Subcommittee of the Armed
Services Committee, I have a devoted a significant amount of time
during the past few months traveling to military bases to discuss
issues that impact the readiness of the Armed Forces and their ability
to carry out assigned missions: European theater, including
installations in England, Italy, Bosnia, Hungary; Camp Lejuene, NC;
Fort Hood, TX; Corpus Christi Naval Base, Texas; Dyess Air Force Base;
and Fort Drum.
[[Page S5980]]
We have also received testimony from the Secretary of Defense, the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the service chiefs, the unified
commander-in-chief, and several other high ranking military and
civilian officials from the Department of Defense.
While the administration claims to have provided strong support for
training, maintenance, supplies and other essentials needed to keep
U.S. Forces ready to fight and win decisively, its budget request
reduced real funding for these areas by $1.4 billion.
Nothing I've heard during my base visits has made me feel like we are
as ready as the administration asserts.
At each unit, maintenance personnel have resorted to cannibalizing
good equipment to keep other equipment operating. These additional
maintenance actions result in 12-hour average work days for our young
troops--only because of a lack of good spares.
If readiness truly remains the administration's highest priority,
then I have to wonder about the shape of the other accounts--
modernization, quality of life, research and development--are they even
more seriously underfunded?
Military units and the personnel within them, are being overused and
underfunded to the point that I am afraid we are returning to the days
of the hollow force. And the military personnel with whom I've spoken
agree.
It is also apparent to me that our Forces are being stretched to the
limit to support humanitarian and contingency operations such as the
deployment of IFOR/SFOR in Bosnia.
Our high OPTEMPO is particularly troubling, since it results in more
than just time away from home for the troops--it results in more
equipment wear and tear; higher than planned consumption of spares; and
canceled training.
At every base visited, I heard concerns about the quality of
equipment.
Our lack of spares has caused us to cannibalize perfectly
good engines to keep others operating, requiring my
maintenance troops to work even more hours to keep our planes
flying. Our normal work week is now 50--56 hours/week.--
Lakenheath, AF Maintenance Officer.
Letter to Senator Thurmond from a non-commissioned officer:
We have old, worn out equipment that is difficult to
maintain because we cannot always get the parts needed to
repair them. It is the same way wherever we go; outdated,
broken equipment, a lack of spare parts, overworked and
underpaid GIs, resulting in an inability to perform our
mission.
I do not question the fact that our military forces are the finest in
the world. They are clearly performing their assigned missions superbly
and they are capable of defeating any potential enemy of today.
But what about tomorrow? If this trend continues, I am concerned
about how long we can maintain the present pace of operations. I am not
alone in my concerns--they were echoed by many of the military
personnel I had the pleasure of meeting. One officer summed it up
nicely when he said ``the storm clouds are on the horizon.''
The Pentagon continues to omit these concerns from official reports
we receive from the Committee--to the contrary, their reports reports
indicate readiness levels are at an all time high. I find the
remarkable discrepancy between what I see in the field and the official
statements coming from the administration and the Pentagon very
troubling. And I am concerned that unless we take the necessary steps
to correct these problems now, our military capability will erode as we
enter the 21st century.
The most troubling challenge is the need for additional modernization
funding, for lack of new procurement has dramatic affects across all
the other accounts: As our military equipment ages, it requires
increased maintenance and thus more operations and maintenance [O&M]
funding; since additional funding is not available to increase the O&M
accounts, dollars are often robbed from training accounts;
unfortunately, as the equipment ages, the problem will only get worse,
and we will find ourselves in a death spiral.
The funding crisis is further aggravated by the continual deployment
of forces to contingency operations such as Southern Watch and Provide
Comfort. I have spoken many times, about the huge cost of these
operations--between $6.5 and $8 billion for Bosnia alone--and the fact
these expenditures will come at the expense of our defense budget.
While dollars are the most obvious issue in defense, I suggest that
what we often overlook is the huge burden we are placing on our people
and our equipment. We are wearing out our equipment and pushing our
people so hard they no longer have time to train.
I heard comment after comment during my visits:
The high OPTEMPO at which our personnel are operating is
definitely causing a strain on our people's families.
Ultimately, this strain also affects my pilots' job
performance.--Marine F--18 Squadron Commander.
``The number of days we fly to support Bosnia doesn't leave
us with enough time to train. The only areas where we get
training from our Bosnia missions is in reconnaissance and
close air support. The rest of our training areas are
suffering.''--Air Force F-16 Squadron Commander.
``Our average crew goes TDY 150--160 days per year--the Air
Force goal is 120 days. These excessive taskings are
straining my peoples' families as well as impacting the
ability of my crews to receive adequate training.''--Air
Force C--130 Squadron Commander.
Clearly, there are situations when the deployment of the U.S.
military is necessary to protect America's vital interests.
Unfortunately, it appears the Clinton administration will continue to
keep a very low threshold for determining the need to commit our
forces.
My friends, the United States cannot force its military to expend
more resources than we are willing to provide and still expect it to
remain a viable force for the future when it may be called upon to
defend American interests. I am concerned, the committee is concerned,
our military personnel are concerned, and the American people should be
concerned. If we are to avoid losing our military edge, we must act
decisively and begin providing the resources necessary to support the
missions we continue to ask of our Armed Forces.
Mr. COVERDELL. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. INHOFE. I am happy to yield to the Senator.
Mr. COVERDELL. Senator, as I understand, you have been trying to
facilitate this very important piece of legislation in conjunction with
the distinguished chairman from South Carolina. I have been a vigorous
supporter of your efforts to fulfill the BRAC recommendations to the
Congress, the President, and the Nation, which called for there to be
three logistic Air Force bases. Your efforts are to fulfill that
recommendation, to make that aspect of the Base Realignment and Closure
Commission fulfilled. It has been abrogated by the administration.
Mr. INHOFE. That is correct.
Mr. COVERDELL. And it is your intention, as I understand our
conversations, to continue to pursue an appropriate conclusion to this
avoidance of BRAC by the administration during the deliberations, the
ongoing deliberations of the debate on the Department of Defense
authorization?
Mr. INHOFE. That is my intent.
Mr. COVERDELL. The Senator from Oklahoma can be assured that he will
have my undevoted attention to accomplishing this because not only have
we lost half a billion dollars because the Base Realignment and Closure
Commission was voided by the administration, we have lost the integrity
of the discipline itself. It should never occur again in that form.
I suspect there will be a debate on that on this bill. The Base
Realignment and Closure Commission has been sullied because it was a
strict discipline that the people, the citizens of the country had to
live by, the Congress had to live by, could not amend, gave up its
prerogatives to amend, could only vote up or down, and then we found
the administration could void it for whatever reason. That means that
system no longer is of sound integrity, so if it is ever visited again
it will have to be in a form that includes the President--not just the
people and the Congress.
I assume the Senator from Oklahoma will agree with that.
Mr. INHOFE. I do agree with that. I want to give my assurance to the
Senator from Georgia I have been living with this problem for a long
period of time. We need an ultimate solution. In the interim, we need
to make sure the recommendations of the BRAC Commission--that we
protect the integrity of that system and they be acted upon--that we go
ahead and fulfill the
[[Page S5981]]
expectations. Again, it is not just the money involved here.
I think about all of the Senators who had closures, and if we start
making exceptions now I think it is very unfair to every Member of this
Senate body who has had a closure to now say for political reasons we
can take exceptions.
I know it is controversial when you say this, but if you just read
the statements that the President made in August of 1996 right before
the election, saying we will make sure those jobs do not leave, so what
does that mean? It means regardless of what they do, whether it is
competition or anything else, if the jobs stay in those areas we will
still have five air logistic centers, so you have the same problem
operating at 50 percent capacity.
Mr. COVERDELL. One last comment. It is my understanding that the
total number of jobs in the two bases that BRAC asked be closed were
33,000 at the time of the recommendation and today, almost 2 years
later, it is 31,000.
Mr. INHOFE. That is correct. In responding to the Senator from
Georgia, we had a committee meeting on this with the GAO and we looked
at how much that has cost so far. That has been 2 years ago. And still,
almost the same number are there.
Now, there are other problems that come in, as the junior Senator
from Utah brought up yesterday, that we are having a flight of
expertise out of these areas, getting into other occupations, and if we
do not do something quickly we are not going to be able to ever solve
this problem.
I think for that reason we need to address this, address it in this
bill. But again, to protect the bill so that we would have an
authorization bill, I, personally, was willing, as you were willing, to
take that out so we could come to the floor and take it up and work in
a different work form--it may be the same form or a different form--but
take it up as a floor amendment or in conference.
Mr. COVERDELL. I thank the Senator from Oklahoma, and I yield the
floor.
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, national security remains the federal
government's most important obligation to its citizens. The Committee
on Armed Services recognizes its critical role within the Senate in
carrying out the powers relating to national security which are granted
to Congress in the Constitution. These include the power to: declare
war; raise and support Armies; provide and maintain a Navy; make rules
for the government and regulation of the Land and Naval Forces; provide
for organizing, arming and disciplining the militia; give its advice
and consent to treaties and to the nominations of officers of the
United States.
The members of the committee further understand the importance of the
committee's jurisdiction within the Senate over matters relating to the
common defense, the Department of Defense, the Military Departments,
and the national security programs of the Department of Energy.
The Armed Services Committee completed its markup last Thursday
afternoon after 4 days of careful deliberation, voting unanimously to
approve of the fiscal year 1998 defense authorization bill. I believe
we have a good bill with a better balance between personnel quality of
life programs, readiness, and modernization.
The budget agreement reached this year represents a historic endeavor
by the Congress and the President to reach a balanced budget by fiscal
year 2002. While the budget agreement protects our military forces from
unrealistic and unwise cuts, the committee remains concerned that the
funding levels for defense may not provide sufficient funds to
adequately sustain over time the personnel, quality of life, readiness,
and modernization programs critical to our military services. The
committee intends that the achievement of a balanced budget will not
adversely affect the readiness and capabilities of our military forces
and will endeavor, within the funds agreed upon for defense in the
budget agreement, to ensure their essential readiness and capabilities.
Changes in the world situation or threat, and adverse impacts from
funding shortfalls on general readiness or on vital operational
capabilities, are among the trends that might indicate a requirement
for additional funds for defense. In such cases, the committee believes
that national security requirements must take precedence over lesser
priorities within the budget.
In this bill, the committee worked to achieve a more appropriate
balance between near-term and long-term readiness through investments
in modernization, infrastructure, and research; maintenance of
sufficient end-strengths at all grade levels and policies supporting
the recruitment and retention of high quality personnel; fielding of
the types and quantities of weapons systems and equipment needed to
fight and win decisively with minimal risk to our troops; and ensuring
an adequate, safe and reliable nuclear weapons capability.
The committee worked to protect the quality of life of our military
personnel and their families. Quality of life initiatives include
provisions designed to provide equitable pay and benefits to military
personnel, including a 2.8 percent pay raise to protect against
inflation, and the restoration of appropriate levels of funding for the
construction and maintenance of troop billets and military family
housing.
The committee remains concerned about military readiness. To ensure
that U.S. Armed Forces remain the preeminent military power in the
world, readiness requirements must be adequately funded.
The committee is also concerned about the continuing migration of
modernization funds to operations and maintenance accounts. We have
consistently recommended a more robust, progressive modernization
effort which will not only provide capabilities requisite for future
military operations, but will lower future operational and maintenance
costs as well.
The committee has increased investment in the broad spectrum of
research and development activities to ensure that U.S. military forces
remain superior in technology to any potential adversary. We believe
that effective development of advanced technologies will be a key
factor in determining the victors on future battlefields. A program of
stable, long-term investment in science and technology will remain
vital to United States dominance of combat on land, at sea, in the air,
and in space.
The committee also directed a more detailed programming and budgeting
process for the reserve components. The utilization and effectiveness
of reserve component forces are dependent on proper funding to enhance
their readiness and capabilities.
Finally, the committee sought to accelerate the development and
deployment of theater missile defense systems and to provide adequate
funding for a national missile defense system to preserve the option to
deploy such a system in fiscal year 2003. This bill also supports
expeditious deployment of land and sea-based theater missile defense
systems to protect United States and allied forces against the growing
threat of cruise and ballistic missiles.
The committee intends that, within the balanced budget agreement, we
will provide adequately for our men and women in uniform to defend our
Nation. The committee will continue to examine the adequacy of the
funds we allocate to our national security. At the same time, we must
search for ways to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our
defense establishment--especially in the support structure--so that we
can achieve savings to devote to the cutting edge of our military
combat forces.
The national defense authorization bill for fiscal year 1998 reflects
a bipartisan approach to our national security interests, and provides
a clear basis and direction for U.S. national security policies and
programs into the 21st century.
Let me make it clear to my colleagues--we do not have much time to
complete action on this bill. If you have amendments, please come to
the floor and introduce your amendment now. Remember that if you are
adding anything to this bill that requires additional funding, you must
provide a legitimate offset.
Mr. President, I want to close by thanking all the Senators on the
committee and commend them for their hard work on this bill. All 18
Senators on the committee voted for the bill.
I also want to thank the staff on both sides and commend them for
their hard
[[Page S5982]]
work on the bill. I also ask unanimous consent that a list of members
of the Armed Services Committee staff be included at this point in the
Record in recognition of their dedication and hard work.
There being no objection, the list was ordered to be printed in the
Record, as follows:
SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE STAFF
Les Brownlee, David S. Lyles, Charlie Abell, Tricia L. Banks, John R.
Barnes, June Borawski, Lucia Monica Chavez, Christine Kelley Cimko,
Christine E. Cowart, Daniel J. Cox, Jr., Madelyn R. Creedon, Richard D.
DeBobes, Marie Fabrizio Dickinson, Shawn H. Edwards, Jonathan L.
Etherton, Pamela L. Farrell, Richard W. Fieldhouse, Cristina W. Fiori,
Jan Gordon, Creighton Greene, Patrick ``PT'' Henry, Larry J. Hoag,
Andrew W. Johnson, Melinda M. Koutsoumpas, Lawrence J. Lanzillotta,
George W. Lauffer, Peter K. Levine, Paul M. Longsworth, Stephen L.
Madey, Jr., Michael J. McCord, J. Reaves McLeod, John H. Miller, Ann M.
Mittermeyer, Bert K. Mizusawa, Jennifer L. O'Keefe, Cindy Pearson,
Sharen E. Reaves, Sarah J. Ritch, Moultrie D. Roberts, Steven C.
Saulnier, Cord A. Sterling, Scott W. Stucky, Eric H. Thoemmes, Roslyne
D. Turner, Amy M. Vanderwerff and Jennifer L. Wallace.
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I believe we have a good bill and I urge
all my colleagues to support it.
privilege of the floor
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the privileges of the
floor be granted to the following members of the Armed Services
Committee staff during the pendency of S. 924, the national defense
authorization bill for fiscal year 1998, for today, each day the
measure is pending and for rollcall votes thereon:
Les Brownlee, Charlie Abell, Tricia L. Banks, John R. Barnes, Lucia
Monica Chavez, Christine Kelley Cimko, Christine E. Cowart, Daniel J.
Cox, Jr., Madelyn R. Creedon, Richard D. DeBobes, Marie F. Dickinson,
Shawn H. Edwards, Jonathan L. Etherton, Pamela L. Farrell, and Richard
W. Fieldhouse.
Cristina W. Fiori, Jan Gordon, Creighton Greene, Gary M. Hall,
Patrick ``PT'' Henry, Larry J. Hoag, Andrew W. Johnson, Melinda M.
Koutsoumpas, Lawrence J. Lanzillotta, George W. Lauffer, Peter K.
Levine, Paul M. Longsworth, David L. Lyles, Stephen L. Madey, Jr., and
Michael J. McCord.
J. Reaves McLeod, John H. Miller, Ann M. Mittermeyer, Bert K.
Mizusawa, Jennifer L. O'Keefe, Cindy Pearson, Sharen E. Reaves, Sarah
J. Ritch, Moultrie D. Roberts, Steven C. Saulnier, Cord A. Sterling,
Scott W. Stucky, Eric H. Thoemmes, Roslyne D. Turner, Amy M.
Vanderwerff, and Jennifer L. Wallace.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. LEVIN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan is recognized.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I join the chairman of the Armed Services
Committee in bringing S. 936, the national defense authorization bill,
to the floor, and I want to congratulate the Senator from South
Carolina for the extraordinary effort he has put in on this bill. He
has really guided this bill through thick and thin, so that we are in a
position where we can bring this bill to the floor. It is his
commitment and his energy that he devotes to national defense that has
made this possible. I congratulate him on that.
I want to reiterate the comments of the chairman of the committee
that we are here debating S. 936, which is the bill that was reported
yesterday. Now, this bill is almost identical to S. 924, which was the
version of the defense authorization bill that was reported earlier
this week. The exception is that the bill before us does not contain
certain provisions relative to depot maintenance that were in the
earlier bill. That has been the subject of a number of colloquies here
this afternoon.
This bill meets the guidelines of the budget agreement and the fiscal
year 1998 budget resolution. The members of the committee didn't agree
on every provision; we never do, of course. There are several critical
areas where I believe this bill needs to be improved. I will be working
to make these improvements during the debate and during the conference.
But despite the few disagreements that existed, there was--again, as
this committee traditionally does--a very strong sense of
bipartisanship and a spirit of cooperation that permeated the
discussions and the markups. I want to join my friend, the chairman of
the committee, in thanking all of the members of the committee and the
staff for the hard work put up to get this bill to this point.
The chairman has summarized major provisions of the bill, and I want
to take a few moments to give my perspective on some of the key
provisions.
First, relative to the implementation of the quadrennial defense
review recommendations, for the most part, this bill is consistent with
the administration's defense policies and programs. The budget
agreement this year demonstrated that there is a growing consensus
between the President and the Congress over the level of defense
spending for the next 5 years. It is not going to be possible, at these
funding levels, to maintain today's force levels at their current
readiness posture, provide the pay and the quality of life for our
military members and their families that they deserve and that we are
obligated to provide, and still to modernize our forces to meet
possible future threats. We are not going to be able to do all that at
the agreed-upon funding levels.
In my view, our forces must continue to have the technological edge
over any potential adversary. In order to modernize our forces, we are
going to have to accept, in my judgment, a somewhat smaller force in
the future. But there are encouraging indications that technology is
going to allow a smaller force to have the same or even greater
lethality and combat effectiveness as our forces have today.
The recently completed quadrennial defense review begins to make some
of the tradeoffs that we are going to need to make to be able to
modernize our forces. In several important respects, this bill begins
to implement the requested recommendations. For example, the bill
reduces active duty personnel strength for the military services by
36,000 below the current levels and reduces Reserve component strength
16,000 below current levels.
The bill supports a major Army initiative, which was recommended at
the quadrennial defense review, by increasing funding by approximately
$150 million for the Army's Force 21 initiative. Last April, I visited
the Army's advanced war-fighting experiment at the National Training
Center. I saw, firsthand, the tremendous potential of the advanced
situational technologies the Army is developing in their Force 21
initiative. The QDR recommended speeding up the fielding of these
technologies, and the committee bill supports this important effort.
I may say that a number of our colleagues visited the center as well.
I know the Senator from Indiana, for instance, also visited the
National Training Center, and he is the chairman of our subcommittee.
He was also very deeply impressed by the potential of these
technologies, and he is primarily instrumental, I would say, for the
increased resources that we are devoting to this initiative. I have
been happy to support that effort. I believe very strongly in them. But
I want to give credit to Senator Coats for the energies he has shown in
this regard.
In order to be able to afford the modernization program for the
military services outlined in the quadrennial defense review, it is
important that the Congress and the Defense Department carefully limit
weapons acquisition programs to only the levels necessary to meet the
future requirements of the military services. In this regard, I am
pleased that our committee included a provision prohibiting future
production of B-2 bombers beyond the 21 currently planned for the Air
Force. We don't need and we can't afford more B-2's.
Finally, Mr. President, in this area, we have heard from a number of
Senators this year expressing concern over the levels of procurement
funding for the National Guard and Reserve components.
The committee bill authorizes a total of $653 million above the
budget request to buy equipment for National Guard and Reserve units.
But now I want to turn to several areas of concern that I have with
this bill.
[[Page S5983]]
First, on base closures: I am disappointed that the committee could
not agree on a process for future base closures in the Department of
Defense. Although there was strong support in the committee for more
base closures, the amendment to authorize two additional base closure
rounds--one in 1999 and one in 2001--failed on a 9 to 9 tie vote. I
believe that the case for closing more military bases is clear and
compelling.
From 1989 to 1997 the Department of Defense reduced total active duty
military end strength by 32 percent. That figure is going to grow to 36
percent by the year 2003, as a result of the quadrennial defense
review. So we have cut the size of our forces by 36 percent as of the
year 2003, and already by 32 percent.
But even after the four base closure rounds, the domestic military
base structure in the United States has been reduced by only 21
percent. And therein lies the problem. We have more structure than we
need in our bases. So both the QDR, quadrennial defense review of the
Department of Defense, and the national defense panel of outside
citizens that we have selected to review the QDR division--both the QDR
and that outside defense panel--have concluded that further reductions
in the DOD base structure are essential to free up money that we need
to modernize our forces.
Because we have to make some very difficult choices here, one of the
critical choices is whether or not we are going to continue to keep
excess structure when we are shorting modernization funding. And on
June 5 the Armed Services Committee received a letter signed by all six
members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The chairman, the vice chairman,
the four service chiefs all signed one letter. It is rather unusual.
But they did it in this case because of the strength of their views.
And they urged us in this letter to ``strongly support further
reductions in base structure proposed by the Secretary of Defense.''
Mr. President, every dollar that we spend to keep open bases that we
don't need is $1 that we can't spend on modernization programs that our
military forces do need. And I know that closing bases is a painful
process. I have been through it. We lost all three of our Strategic Air
Command bases in Michigan. One of them that was closed recently was in
the upper peninsula of Michigan which was the largest single employer
in the upper peninsula in a rural area, and it was closed. We argued
against it. We lost. So the largest employer in the upper peninsula of
Michigan shut down. We are surviving. A lot of good people are putting
their shoulder to the wheel and we are going to be able to pull
through. Is there some short-term pain and stress? You bet. Is it
essential that we go through this process to reduce excess structure?
It is.
Are there additional facilities in Michigan that might be addressed
in future rounds of base closings? There are. And that has to make all
of us worry. But we have really no choice. If we are serious about
modernizing, about the need to modernize and to keep ahead of any
potential adversary, and to make sure that our forces in the future
have the best equipment that can possibly be developed and
manufactured, we have to do what the Joint Chiefs have urged us to do
in this 24-star letter; and that is to support further reductions in
base closures which has closings which have been recommended by the
Secretary of Defense. I don't see any other choice. The easy way is to
not do it. But it is not the right thing to do, if we are going to
maintain our qualitative technological edge. We just simply must
continue to find a way to reduce our infrastructure costs. And, if that
means that the next round of base closing we have to adjust it so that
we don't run into the kind of argument that we have run into in the
past round of base closings, if we have to put in the next round of
base closing a provision that you can't privatize in place, for
instance, without a specific recommendation to do that by BRAC, if that
is what it is going to take, then so be it. But we have to continue
down this road, if we are going to be true to the needs of our
military.
Secretary Cohen pointed out in his testimony on the quadrennial
defense review that the choice is clear. We can maintain the current
base structure and fail to meet our modernization goals, or we can
reduce our base structure and achieve the savings that we need to pay
for the modernization that we all agree is necessary.
On the Air Force depot issue, there is no more contentious issue than
this one. And I commend the Senators who permitted this process of
bringing this bill to the floor to continue by removing the contentious
provisions at this time. I commend them for it. In my view, the only
way to resolve this issue is to have a fair competition, and determine
the most cost-effective solution to redistribute the workload of these
two depots, regardless of whether the result is privatization in place,
privatization in some other location, or transfer to another Government
depot.
There are many that believe and I know that the White House
politicized this one aspect of the base closure process when the DOD
privatized in place the work of the two closing Air Force depots. But I
think it would be just as bad for Congress to politicize the base
closure process by attempting to legislate a particular outcome. I
don't think we can legislate a particular outcome.
I don't think we should. I think we should legislate a process which
will guarantee that there be a full and fair competition. I tried that
approach in committee. I didn't quite make it. But I think that is the
best way to proceed.
We have base-decision amendments on this bill, and, even if we do
not, we are going to face this issue in conference because the House
bill contains provisions that do address the issue. Ultimately we will
have to reach a compromise I believe that is fair and equitable to all.
On another subject, cooperative threat reduction programs: One of the
most cost-effective and successful defense programs to reduce threats
to our country and to enhance our national security is the cooperative
threat reduction program that was started in 1991 by Senators Nunn and
Lugar. The cooperative threat reduction program at the Department of
Defense and its companion program at the Department of Energy have
produced important results in reducing the threat of proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, chemical, and
biological weapons and their materials.
In my view, the committee decision to reduce the budget request for
these programs by $135 million was shortsighted. I would have preferred
to see an increase in funding for these programs because they are a
very cost-effective approach to the most serious national security
threat that we face today. That is the threat from the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction. Of all the security threats that we face,
that is probably the most serious one--weapons of mass destruction in
the hands of terrorists, or terrorist states.
This is a very modest investment in terms of defense budget, and it
can significantly reduce the threat of proliferation by securing
materials wherever they are--in this case Russia and some of the other
former Soviet Union states. That is a real investment in our own
security with a huge payoff.
It doesn't take much of this plutonium or enriched uranium to leak--
to be transferred across the borders of these states to threaten us
with massive destruction. About a hockey puck of plutonium can take
care of one of our cities. That can be carried in one's pocket. That
material literally can be carried in a pocket across a border. We need
to secure that material; whatever it takes to secure it within reason.
These are reasonable amounts of money. We are talking about a major
investment in American security.
So I think the decision to reduce the budget request for these
programs, including security of nuclear material, was a mistake. And I
know there is going to be a bipartisan effort to restore these funds
for this important program. I hope that we will do so here on the
floor.
Mr. President, on another part of the bill, the committee authorized
$345 million to begin incremental funding of the construction of the
next Nimitz class nuclear aircraft carrier called CVN-77. It did so
based on claims of cost savings by the shipbuilder. Those claims, it
seems to me, can be made reasonably. Those are claims that have some
foundation.
Indeed, there was a report that we received. The Rand Corp. folks did
a
[[Page S5984]]
study on this issue that said that the savings which were advertised
here claimed by the shipbuilder can be achieved. It is possible. But
what we failed to do in committee is to assure that the advertised and
claimed savings would be achieved. We didn't adopt the safeguards to
ensure that the taxpayers actually received the savings advertised by
the shipbuilder on which this very unusual action is based.
We do not incrementally fund aircraft carriers. We do not say, ``OK,
we will put a couple hundred million dollars in this year, and a couple
hundred million dollars in next year'', and so forth, because it makes
it very difficult for us when it comes to negotiating the contract to
purchase the aircraft carrier to have any bargaining leverage. We have
already incrementally funded, bought pieces of it, obligated funds for
it, and we have lost our bargaining leverage when it comes to the
price. So what we have done traditionally is authorized the whole thing
at once in order to make sure that we get the best deal when it comes
time to negotiate the price.
The Defense Department's current future years' defense program
includes a total of $5.2 billion for the construction of the next
aircraft carrier with what is called ``advanced procurement'' in the
year 2000, and the balance of $4.5 billion in the year 2002. But
earlier this year the shipbuilder came forward with a proposal, as I
said, to incrementally fund this carrier beginning in this year's
budget--the one that is in front of us--and continuing each year
through 2002. According to the shipbuilder, this alternative funding
proposal would save us $600 million in the cost of building the CVN-77.
And this claim has been repeated many times in the last 2 months in
some very highly visible advertising in the media.
As I said, the normal method of funding major defense procurement
funding programs is to provide full funding in one lump sum in the year
in which the program is started.
There have been certain exceptions and limited long-lead items which
are funded through advanced procurement. And the reason for it is the
one that I have given, which has to do with avoiding buy-ins--the
situation in which it becomes more difficult to control total program
costs in future and future cost growth.
But the Rand Corp. did that study I referred to, and it substantiated
that savings were really possible here if we incrementally fund it as
proposed by the shipbuilders, and the Navy's own analysis subsequently
confirmed that this savings could be achieved.
So I am willing to support incremental funding as one Senator, but I
am willing to do it only if this incremental funding approach assures
us that the Government is going to receive the savings from this
approach that had been promised by the contractor. And it is doable. We
can do this. And I will be offering an amendment--and I hope there will
be bipartisan support for this amendment--that will attempt to assure
that this $600 million in advertised savings is, in fact, achieved in
the purchase of this aircraft carrier. And we began, I think, to do
this in a way which allows us to get the savings but also to assure the
savings.
Mr. President, just one or two other items. Section 1039 of this bill
prohibits the General Accounting Office from undertaking any self-
initiated audits unless it can certify that it has completed all
congressional requests. Since the General Accounting Office has
hundreds of pending requests at any given time, this provision in
effect is a total prohibition on any self-initiated work by the GAO.
I hope that this provision will be deleted or modified because it
could hamstring the GAO in its very important efforts to identify
waste, fraud and abuse in Government programs. Already 80 percent of
the GAO work is in response to the requests of committees and Members
of the Congress. But some of the work that they do fulfills work that
has been carried out by them in the waste, fraud and abuse area which
they have self-initiated and which has been very, very important to the
Congress in identifying waste, fraud and abuse--not just in the defense
area, in any area. And this provision applies not just to defense. The
provision in this defense bill applies Governmentwide.
That is why the chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee,
Senator Thompson, and the ranking member of the Governmental Affairs
Committee, Senator Glenn, both wrote a letter requesting sequential
referral of this bill to Governmental Affairs so that they could have a
look at this provision which is Governmentwide and would restrict the
GAO. Sequential referral was not approved because, under the rules, the
parliamentary rules, apparently in order for there to be sequential
referral, a bill must have many more provisions in it relating to that
second committee than this one provision. It has to predominantly
belong within the jurisdiction of a second committee, and this bill
obviously does not. This is one of a few provisions which touches the
Governmental Affairs jurisdiction. But I do hope that we will be able
to find a way to either delete or to modify this provision as it will
hamstring the efforts of the GAO in doing some very important work.
Finally, Mr. President, section 363 of this bill gives the Secretary
of Defense the unprecedented authority unilaterally to stop for 30 days
certain administrative actions of other Federal agencies. The Secretary
would have this authority without regard to the valid health or safety
concerns that may have motivated other agencies in taking their action.
This automatic stay could cover rules and orders intended to protect
the environment and safeguard work safety or preserve private property
and many other conceivable administrative actions and orders. This
action exceeds the jurisdiction of the Armed Services Committee. It
creates the appearance of placing the Department of Defense above the
law. For these reasons, I do not believe that it should have been
included in the bill, and I hope we can find a way to correct it.
Mr. President, I know there will be some vigorous debate on this
bill, and I hope Senators will come to the floor and offer their
amendments so that we can complete Senate action on the bill in a
timely manner and in a fashion that the majority leader has announced,
and then go to conference with the House.
And, again, I want to commend my friend from South Carolina for his
leadership on the committee and in making it possible for this bill to
come to the floor. I yield the floor.
Mr. THURMOND addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I would like to take this opportunity to
commend Senator Levin, the ranking member of this committee, for his
fine cooperation, advice and assistance during the preparation of this
bill. This cooperation on his part greatly enhanced the successful
completion of the 1998 defense authorization legislation. We worked in
a bipartisan manner for the benefit of our great Nation, and by doing
this I think we have brought to the floor an excellent bill on behalf
of our Nation.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, as we begin consideration of the Senate's
version of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1998,
I cannot help reflecting on the increasingly illogical nature of the
process through which we have arrived at this point. By that I refer to
the task of marking up yet another defense bill while budgets continue
to decline in real terms, force structure continues to contract, and
operational requirements continue to climb, while Members of Congress
continue to waste considerable sums on projects of questionable merit.
Let me say first that there is much in this bill that warrants our
support, including an active duty pay raise, improvements in the way
housing allowances for military personnel are calculated and applied,
funding for tactical aviation modernization and missile defense
programs, increased emphasis on defense against chemical and biological
weapons, and much more.
The bill includes, for example, a provision authorizing the
Department of Defense to waive CHAMPUS deductibles and annual fees for
service members and their families who are stationed in remote duty
locations within the continental United States. These families, most of
whom are junior enlisted personnel, are geographically separated from
military treatment facilities and TRICARE Prime sites and now rely to a
great degree on standard CHAMPUS for health care
[[Page S5985]]
services. The legislation also approves several survivor benefit plans
that will alleviate much of the emotional anguish experienced by
surviving spouses of military retirees.
The committee also adopted an amendment that enhances aviation
special pays. Compelling testimony from the service chiefs of the Navy,
Air Force, and Marine Corps revealed that our Armed Forces are facing
critical shortages of skilled aviators. It is clear that this provision
will be crucial in retaining sufficient aviators to operate today's
technically advanced aircraft. Any failure to address this issue would
certainly have an enormous impact on future readiness.
I was particularly pleased that the Armed Services Committee
continued to focus on improving the system by which the services
determine unit readiness levels. The Department of Defense is directed
to continue its study of the merits of maintaining units at differing
levels of readiness, depending upon actual deployability and the
likelihood of each unit actually responding to a crisis. With budgets
being as tight as they are while fiscally daunting modernization
decisions are fast approaching, it is worth examining whether savings
in the operations and maintenance accounts--the largest portion of the
defense budget and the most difficult to track--can be identified and
reallocated to high priority research and development and procurement
programs.
I recognize that there is already a considerable amount of tiering
that occurs in the Navy simply by virtue of the deployment, training,
and maintenance schedules it must follow in order to meet requirements.
The Army and Air Force, however, may be a source of some savings if
units whose deployability is highly contingent on air and sealift
capabilities are permitted to relax their readiness levels to some
degree. In fact, many Army personnel have expressed the sentiment that
they would fare better if forced to perform fewer training exercises,
which place a strain on people and equipment.
I am not arguing that units should be permitted to atrophy; on the
contrary, I would like to think that none of us would acquiesce in the
implementation of policies that would place U.S. interests and military
personnel at risk. It is a legitimate question, though, whether certain
units must be retained at the highest readiness levels despite the
improbability of deployment, given operational plans, and the time it
would take for such units to deploy given available lift assets.
One of the more significant actions taken by the committee involved
termination of funding for the B-2 bomber, including of funds required
to preserve that aircraft's industrial base. Opponents of the amendment
to end the program once and for all argued that we need to maintain the
ability to build more of these extremely technically complex aircraft
in the event future contingencies require more stealth bombers. We
already have enough strategic bombers in the inventory, however, and
the Air Force has repeatedly testified that it does not want and cannot
afford any more. Most important, the time it takes to build even one B-
2 precludes our being able to surge produce them in the event of a
major deterioration in the international environment. Should a major
regional contingency arise, it will be fought with the bombers on-
hand--not ones more than a year from being operational.
Unfortunately, for all that is good in this bill, there is much that
is wasteful. The manner in which shipbuilding and conversion dollars
are allocated no longer bears any resemblance to actual military
requirements and available resources, nor does it correspond to
essential industrial base preservation concerns. Rational discourse on
whether to incrementally fund a $5 billion aircraft carrier cannot
occur without other shipbuilding interests demanding something for
themselves. After all, what's another destroyer above and beyond the
number requested and budgeted for? What's another LPD-class ship, or an
AOE fast support ship, or another submarine? For the last several
years, we have seen a dangerous trend whereby decisions on shipbuilding
matters, more than any other--save for the depot issue--are predicated
solely on parochial considerations. This situation has to stop.
One of the more disappointing results of the Armed Services
Committee's mark-up of this bill was the rejection of an amendment
sponsored by Senators Robb, Levin, Coats, and myself that would have
statutorily mandated the two base closure rounds called for in the
Quadrennial Defense Review. There is a broad consensus that the Defense
Department, even after the previous four rounds of such closings,
continues to maintain considerably more infrastructure than it needs.
The expenditures associated with maintaining these installations and
facilities constitute a major drain on declining resources allocated
for national defense. Rejection of the amendment represented a serious
setback in the efforts of some of us at instilling greater discipline
into the budgetary process.
Mr. President, you can support the Reserve component of our total
force without acquiescing in the thorough hemorrhaging of scarce
military construction dollars for National Guard projects. The total
military construction budget request for projects located inside the
United States was $2 billion, not including another $2 billion for base
closure activities. The request for National Guard and Reserve
construction projects was $172 million. Of the 87 military construction
projects added to the administration's request, 46--more than half--are
for the National Guard and Reserve. The Senate bill includes over $900
million in National Guard and Reserve procurement items, the House
version $700 million.
As I have already noted, the bill includes an ample supply of pork-
barrel projects, including continued funding of High Frequency Active
Auroral Research Program, or HAARP. This project, while certainly
interesting from a purely theoretical perspective, is thoroughly
lacking in merit and does not belong in a defense spending bill. Nor do
additional dollars for the National Oceanographic Partnership Program.
The Navy, out of whose budget this project is funded, derives no
tangible return on its investment. This nondefense program may deserve
to be funded in another area of the Federal budget, but it does not
belong in this bill. Individually, projects like these are a serious
waste of taxpayer dollars. Collectively, they constitute a serious
drain on the resources needed to ensure future military readiness.
In short, Mr. President, it is regrettable that the propensity of
Members to continue to add pork as though it were still the early
1980's remains as strong as ever.
Amendment No. 417
(Purpose: To strike section 3138, relating to a prohibition on recovery
of certain additional costs for environmental response actions
associated with the Formerly Utilized Site Remedial Action Project
program, and to require a report on the remediation activities of the
Department of Energy)
Mr. LAUTENBERG addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I have an amendment that I send to the
desk and ask for its immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Lautenberg], for himself
and Mr. Torricelli, proposes an amendment numbered 417.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading
of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
Strike out section 3138 and insert in lieu thereof the
following:
SEC. 3138. REPORT ON REMEDIATION ACTIVITIES OF THE DEPARTMENT
OF ENERGY.
The Secretary of Energy shall submit to Congress a report
on the remediation activities of the Department of Energy.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, first let me say to the distinguished
chairman of the Armed Services Committee and the ranking member that I
commend them for a job well done. I am very much aware of the
complications that one has in the defense authorization bill. It is a
large sum of money, a very complicated piece of legislation. It has
research funds and it has operational money. It is quite a job, and I
commend the both of them for moving this rapidly and getting this bill
to the floor.
Mr. President, I have an amendment that would strike a section,
section
[[Page S5986]]
3138 of this bill because this section prevents the Department of
Energy from recovering any cleanup costs at sites under DOE's Formerly
Utilized Site Remedial Action Project program other than the costs
already covered in a written, legally binding agreement with the party
involved in the site.
To put it more simply, this section would strike the Department of
Energy's ability to recover costs already covered in a previous
agreement with a party involved in the site.
As a practical matter, Mr. President, it would absolve W.R. Grace
Company of millions of dollars of responsibility for toxic pollution
costs by their actions. The effect of this provision from the analysis
that we have conducted so far is to grant a special exemption from
Superfund law to one company. The Superfund law, a law which I am proud
to have helped author, embodies the principle that polluters should pay
for the damage they do, and in this case W.R. Grace should pay for the
cleanup of the mess that it created.
The deal was an unacceptable slap in the face to American taxpayers
and the residents of Wayne, NJ, my home State. As a matter of fact, I
lived in this community for some time. The residents of Wayne Township
have been living with this problem for such a long period of time, and
why this amendment is so outrageous is something that I want to
explain.
A pile of approximately 15,000 cubic yards of potentially radioactive
material has already been removed by the Department of Energy, and the
Department of Energy says that there are still about 70,000 cubic yards
more still buried at the Wayne site, and it is still deciding how to
clean up the part that is on the surface and below. The Department of
Energy estimates the entire cleanup may cost $120 million. The major
contaminant in this soil is a contaminant called thorium, highly
radioactive material. It is known to cause cancer and has a half life,
Mr. President, that is far longer than perhaps this Earth can endure.
It is 14 billion years. In other words, this stuff stays hot for that
long a period of time.
This deadly waste was the result of industrial activity going on
since 1948, almost 50 years ago. The contamination may affect the
drinking water of 51,000 New Jersey residents resulting in untold
harmful health consequences. The W.R. Grace company owned the property
and contributed to this huge pile of waste. The Grace company signed an
agreement with the Federal Government in which it promised to
contribute to the cleanup, and then they went on to pay a tiny fraction
of the ultimate cleanup cost for this site when they deeded over the
property to the Government. They paid $800,000 as a down payment on
$120 million. That does not sound like a very serious downpayment to
me. But the agreement also said that the Federal Government maintained
the right to come after W.R. Grace under other laws to remedy the
threats caused by their pollution despite again the agreement they had
signed. But nothing happened for many years.
In 1995, I urged in a letter to the Department of Energy to expedite
the cleanup by negotiating with W.R. Grace, the responsible party, the
polluter, to pay its share. Those negotiations began shortly
thereafter. Over the last year, I have been assured a number of times
by the Energy and Justice Departments that progress was being made. And
for over 1 year now W.R. Grace has been engaged in a discussion with
the Department of Justice, which I believe was in good faith, to
determine what share Grace would pay for contributing so much to this
mess.
Now I read the language in this bill and find that it effectively
wipes out all of the progress that has been made, wipes out all of the
obligation that W.R. Grace would have. This language takes away the
Department of Energy's legal rights under the Superfund polluter pays
liability system. It abrogates a legal commitment signed by Grace.
Mr. President, this puts the burden squarely on the American taxpayer
instead of the polluters. Further, it will delay the cleanup and could
poison the drinking water of the people of Wayne and the State of New
Jersey. The Department of Energy, Mr. President, has limited cleanup
dollars and numerous sites across the country under a program that is
called FUSRAP, the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program.
These are the sites of industrial activity that may have contributed at
one point to our Nation's defense. That does not mean they have a
license to pollute thereafter. They have a responsibility.
Without an infusion of cleanup funds from the parties responsible for
the mess in Wayne, there will be years of delay in this cleanup, years
when the radioactive waste will continue to blight a community, years
for that plume to migrate, to reach the drinking water source for that
town.
Mr. President, the Senator from New Hampshire, Mr. Smith, and I
worked together on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
and together we are trying to rewrite the Superfund law which is soon
to expire. We worked together in good faith, and I believe we have
narrowed the differences on many issues affecting Superfund. I hope
that we are going to be able to produce a bill later this year with
both our names as cosponsors of that legislation.
However, as far as the provision in this bill that deals with the
Department of Energy cleanup at the site in Wayne, I oppose it
strenuously. As the Senator from New Hampshire expressed to me, he had
no scheme in mind to mitigate the obligation that W.R. Grace has to do
the cleanup. That was an effect apparently unintended by the Senator
from New Hampshire, but we have to deal in reality not the intent. W.R.
Grace must stand up to their obligation. The reality is that the
provision in this bill would not only slow down the Wayne cleanup
program, but it would also transfer its costs from the responsible
party to the taxpayer. We are not going to stand for that, Mr.
President.
So I urge the adoption of my amendment and urge my colleagues to
support it.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further debate on the amendment? The
Senator from New Hampshire.
Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, the amendment of the
Senator from New Jersey addresses a provision, section 3138, in the
defense bill which relates to something called Formerly Utilized Sites
Remedial Action Program [FUSRAP]. I just want to give a little
background as to how and why the language the Senator is concerned
about appeared in the legislation and also to indicate what its intent
was and to discuss specifically his amendment.
Earlier this year it came to the attention of the Armed Services
Committee this program, the so-called FUSRAP program, was not getting
the sites cleaned up as quickly or as efficiently as it could. Of
course, as all of us know who work on the Superfund issue, that is true
of many, many Superfund sites around the country as well as these
particular FUSRAP sites. So the committee felt we wanted to do
something to expedite the cleanups, to get it done quicker, to respond
to the concerns raised by Members who were not on our committee--that
is the Armed Services Committee--and in some cases were not even on the
Environment and Public Works Committee. In order to try to respond to
those concerns, the Armed Services Committee unanimously adopted this
language. It was hoped it would speed up the cleanup of these sites and
provide an incentive for parties that were responsible for the
contamination of these sites to come to the table, negotiate their
liability allocations with DOE, and to contribute an appropriate amount
to the cleanup costs--not to give anybody a sweetheart deal, not to
remove people from the hook, so to speak, but rather to bring people to
the table to pay their appropriate share of the cleanup costs. That was
the goal and the objective of the language.
I might say, unfortunately, sometimes these disputes manage to make
their way to the floor because they are not resolved before we get
here. Had this Senator had some knowledge of concerns raised by members
of the committee or other Members of the Senate prior to this time, we
might have been able to address those concerns. But as I indicated
earlier, it passed unanimously in the Armed Services Committee. There
was absolutely no discussion of it in the committee. So it is
unfortunate that we
[[Page S5987]]
have to deal with it here, but, be that as it may, that is what we will
do.
The language included in the section would have limited DOE's ability
to seek cost recoveries against some private parties. That is true.
That is what Senator Lautenberg just said. But in no way would it have
limited the similar powers, the collateral powers that the EPA and the
Department of Justice has to obtain these recoveries, get these dollars
recovered. So, given the fact that DOE may have some level of
responsibility for liability at these sites, we on the committee
believed it was an inappropriate conflict of interest for them to have
control for recovering costs against private parties. So, by leveling
the playing field, we believed it would be more likely that private
parties would settle their liability at the site, and, given the fact
that EPA and DOJ would still have enforcement authority, we knew no
party would be let off the hook. That was the intention.
I believe in my own heart, as I read the language, that the language
supports that intention. But I can understand there may be differences
of opinion in terms of how you interpret it. There have been some
concerns raised that we tried to address a single-party site here, to
give somebody specific relief. That could not be further from the
truth. I think the facts speak for themselves. This was a generic
amendment. I might say the topic at hand here is the so-called FUSRAP
sites, that is the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Project.
In a DOE Office of Environmental Restoration pamphlet that is dated
April 1995, there are 46 FUSRAP sites, of varying degrees. I think it
may be the case that the site in New Jersey could be singled out here
as possibly being helped in one way or another by his provision.
However, there are 46 sites, so I think the committee is on record
here, being very clear that the intention here was to deal with 46
FUSRAP sites to try to expedite the cleanup. They are in States all
across the United States.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a section of this
pamphlet listing those 46 FUSRAP sites be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Site Name and Location
missouri
Latty Avenue Properties--Hazelwood
St. Louis Airport Site (SLAPS)--St. Louis
SLAPS (Vicinity Properties)--Hazelwood and Berkeley
St. Louis Downtown Site (SLDS)--St. Louis
new jersey
DuPont & Company--Deepwater
Maywood--Maywood/Rochelle Park
Middlesex Sampling Plant--Middlesex
New Brunswick Laboratory--New Brunswick
Wayne Interim Storage Site--Wayne
new york
Ashland 1--Tonawanda
Ashland 2--Tonawanda
Linde Air Products--Tonawanda
Seaway Industrial Park--Tonawanda
Bliss & Laughlin Steel--Buffalo
Colonie--Colonie
Niagara Falls Storage Site--Lewiston/Youngstown/Niagara Falls
ohio
Associate Aircraft--Fairfield
B&T Metals--Columbus
Baker Brothers--Toledo
Luckey--Luckey
Painesville--Painesville
Other Sites
Madison--Madison, IL
W.R. Grace & Company--Curtis Bay, MD
Chapman Valve--Indian Orchard, MA
Shpack Landfill--Norton/Attleboro, MA
Ventron--Beverly, MA
General Motors--Adrian, MI
CE Site--Windsor, CT
cleanup completed
Acid/Pueblo Canyons--Los Alamos, NM
Alba Craft--Oxford, OH
Albany Research Center--Albany, OR
Aliquippa Forge--Aliquippa, PA
Baker & Williams Warehouses--New York, NY
Bayo Canyon--Los Alamos, NM
Chupadera Mesa--White Sands Missile Range, NM
Elza Gate--Oak Ridge, TN
Granite City Steel--Granite City, IL
HHM Safe Co.--Hamilton, OH
National Guard Armory--Chicago, IL
Kellex/Pierpont--Jersey City, NJ
Middlesex Municipal Landfill--Middlesex/Piscataway, NJ
Niagara Falls Storage Site Vicinity Properties--Lewiston, NY
Seymour Specialty Wire--Seymour, CT
C.H. Schnoor--Springdale, PA
University of California--Berkeley, CA
University of Chicago--Chicago, IL
Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. So that was the intention here and the
point I wanted to make regarding these sites.
Let me also say, because this is kind of a technical term--the so-
called FUSRAP sites is a little hard to understand. We have a lot of
acronyms here. I know it is difficult for people to comprehend some of
these, but this program was initiated in 1974 by the Atomic Energy
Commission under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. They have 7 or 8 major
objectives. I will just briefly highlight those.
One is to find and evaluate sites that supported the Manhattan
Engineer District/Atomic Energy Commission's early atomic energy
program and to determine whether these sites needed cleanup or control.
Second, to clean up or control these sites so that they meet current
DOE guidelines.
Third, to dispose of or stabilize waste in an environmentally
acceptable way.
Fourth, to complete all work so the DOE complies with the appropriate
Federal laws and regulations and State and local environmental and land
use requirements.
Fifth, to certify the sites for appropriate future use.
These sites are owned by either the Department of Energy, local
governments, private corporations or private citizens or a combination
thereof.
Again, the goal here was to try to craft something that would
expedite these 46 FUSRAP sites, some with problems more serious in
nature than others. Obviously the site the Senator from New Jersey is
talking about is much more serious than some of the others. But the
idea was to bring these parties to the table in a fair and equitable
way, being certain that those PRPs that had put money on the table, had
offered money on the table, would be encouraged to provide not only
that money but more. That way, we could get a fair settlement so the
taxpayers would be saved dollars and at the same time we would
accomplish the goal of cleaning up these sites.
In a moment I am going to offer a second-degree perfecting amendment
to the amendment of the Senator from New Jersey. Before I do that, I
just want to say that I understand the concerns of the Senator. He has
been very cooperative. We have talked about this at great length in the
past few days to try to come to an understanding of what my intent was
and what he believes the result to be. We may not be 100 percent in
agreement here, but I think we can resolve this with this second-degree
amendment which I believe addresses the concerns of the Senator and at
the same time will lead us to accomplishing the cleanup goal that we
want to achieve.
I do not want to preclude the Senator's debate. I would be happy to
withhold offering the second-degree if the Senator wants to speak on
this amendment? I will withhold that amendment and I will yield the
floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I just want to respond to my
colleague. I do not object to the Senator's second degree amendment. If
it is passed into law, DOE is going to have to report to Congress next
year on the number of sites of this category, the FUSRAP program, on
the cost of cleanup, the numbers of sites where private parties are
involved, and on the progress DOE has made in pursuing them for a
cleanup costs.
We want to do these sort of things. This reporting requirement is
certainly a step in the right direction. DOE at last will be required
to step up its efforts to make the private sector pay for the pollution
it caused. It's only fair. The private sector profited enormously from
participating in DOE's efforts to build the Nation's nuclear arsenal.
The company, however, should not escape liability for the mess they
created as they did that.
These former DOE sites, Department of Energy sites, contain some of
the Nation's most dangerous and pernicious pollution problems. Their
radioactive legacy--it is incredible--will endure for thousands if not
millions of years. This stuff, unfortunately, creates the energy supply
as well as the hazard for this period of time. DOE has been shamefully
slow and their reluctance to bring W.R. Grace into the cleanup efforts
is inexplicable. In fact,
[[Page S5988]]
DOE did not begin to go after Grace as a responsible party until I
started urging them to do so, now over 2 years ago.
Sadly enough, Wayne is not the only New Jersey site being managed by
the Department of Energy under the FUSRAP program. New Jersey has five
of these sites, including another thorium site which threatens
residents of Maywood, Rochelle Park and Lodi. Like the Wayne citizens,
these residents, too, have been waiting patiently for lots of years to
see that their particular site is cleaned up.
This report should prove helpful in encouraging faster cleanup at
these sites. I support the amendment and I note the presence of my
colleague from New Jersey on the floor, who has worked closely with me
on matters affecting the communities, these communities that have these
radioactive sites.
I am pleased to see him and to note that we worked together on these
things. I assume the Senator from New Jersey wants to make some
comments. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Abraham). The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. President, I want to identify myself with the
remarks of my colleague, Senator Lautenberg, and I join with him in
offering this amendment today. What we have before us is a classic case
of adding insult to injury. The people of various communities in New
Jersey have lived for 40 and 50 years with the problem of thorium. The
stories are long and often involved, but the thorium is clearly
dangerous in the case of Maywood and the thorium in Wayne. They are all
the result of wartime production, the production of lanterns and bomb
sights and other war material that required a low level of radiation.
In an extraordinary story of success of the U.S. Government, in the
case of Maywood all the thorium involving residential communities has
now been removed. Now we are beginning to do the same in the community
of Wayne. But it is not enough that the people of Wayne have the
thorium removed. The question remains who will pay the bill? This was
not an operation of the U.S. Government. This was not a question where
the Government was operating the facility and it was left for the
residents. This is a profitmaking corporation that had public and
private contracts, earned money on the site, left it polluted, and the
taxpayers are now left with the bill.
To date, $50 million has been spent. It is estimated the final cost
could be as high as $120 million to remove 100,000 cubic yards of waste
material.
Mr. President, only several months ago, I, as Senator Lautenberg, in
concern that as we began to make progress in the removal of this
thorium, wanted to know the progress and who was going to pay the bill.
We pressed the Department of Energy to seek legal recourse in
recovering costs and assuring future contributions.
I, too, met with the W.R. Grace Corp., and I was very pleased after
those meetings to receive this letter, as Congressman Pascrell, who
represents this district, received this correspondence and claimed ``we
are entered into good faith negotiations with the Department of Energy
in an effort to fairly resolve this matter.''
The letter from the Grace Corp. concluded:
Grace has acted in good faith and desires to achieve an
amicable resolution to this problem.
Only to discover in this legislation a prohibition in section (a) and
(b):
The Department of Energy may not recover from a party
described in subsection (b) any costs of response actions for
actual or threatened release of hazardous substances that
occurred before reenactment of the act.
The net result would be that all of our efforts to ensure the
Department of Energy uses all legal recourse and continues in good-
faith negotiations, that the private parties that profited by these
operations also bear the cost of removal of the thorium contamination,
would have been lost and the taxpayers would be left with the entire
cost, $120 million.
Mr. President, I am very pleased Senator Lautenberg and I have the
chance today to strike this provision, and I am very pleased that
Senator Smith, in his secondary amendment, will simply seek good-faith
efforts in negotiations to resolve this matter. But let the record be
clear to the Department of Energy, a good-faith resolution is nothing
less than the Federal policy of polluter pays prevails.
We fully expect the Department of Energy to seek those parties who
profited and that they pay. We cannot allow an enormous environmental
potential success to be transferred and transformed into a failure. As
the communities of Maywood have seen much of the thorium now leave,
Wayne is witnessing the first departure of that same thorium. We intend
to see it not only removed, but the taxpayers not be left with a legacy
of debt.
I am very pleased we have a chance to offer this amendment today, and
I am glad Senator Smith is now joining us in having good-faith
negotiations proceed. I urge my colleagues to support both efforts.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Amendment No. 418 to Amendment No. 417
(Purpose: To create a report for Congress regarding the Formerly
Utilized Sites Remedial Action program)
Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I think it would be
appropriate at this time for me to offer the second-degree amendment,
and then I believe we can get this matter resolved and go on to the
next amendment.
So I offer a second-degree amendment to Senator Lautenberg's
amendment to strike section 3138 from the national defense
authorization bill for fiscal year 1998. I send the amendment to the
desk and ask for its immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. Smith], for himself and
Mr. Lautenberg, proposes an amendment numbered 418 to
amendment No. 417.
Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent
that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
In lieu of the language proposed to be inserted, insert the
following:
SEC. . REPORT ON REMEDIATION UNDER THE FORMERLY UTILIZED
SITES REMEDIAL ACTION PROGRAM.
Not later than March 1, 1998, the Secretary of Energy shall
submit to Congress a report containing the following
information regarding the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial
Action Program:
(1) How many Formerly Utilized Sites remain to be
remediated, what portions of these remaining sites have
completed remediation (including any offsite contamination),
what portions of the sites remain to be remediated (including
any offsite contamination), what types of contaminants are
present at each site, and what are the projected timeframes
for completing remediation at each site.
(2) What is the cost of the remaining response actions
necessary to address actual or threatened releases of
hazardous substances at each Formerly Utilized Site,
including any contamination that is present beyond the
perimeter of the facilities.
(3) For each site, how much it will cost to remediate the
radioactive contamination, and how much will it cost to
remediate the non-radioactive contamination.
(4) How many sites potentially involve private parties that
could be held responsible for remediation costs, including
remediation costs related to offsite contamination.
(5) What type of agreements under the Formerly Utilized
Sites Remedial Action Program have been entered into with
private parties to resolve the level of liability for
remediation costs at these facilities, and to what extent
have these agreements been tied to a distinction between
radioactive and non-radioactive contamination present at
these sites.
(6) What efforts have been undertaken by the Department to
ensure that the settlement agreements entered into with
private parties to resolve liability for remediation costs at
these facilities have been consistent on a program wide
basis.
Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I am going to take a
couple of minutes, and then we will move on.
This second-degree amendment would substitute a reporting requirement
for the original section of section 3138 directed regarding cost
recovery agreements at cleanup sites managed by DOE within the so-
called FUSRAP program.
As you know, and as we indicated earlier, there had been some
interest requested that limitations be placed on this Federal agency
cost recovery from
[[Page S5989]]
potential responsible third parties. We were able to deal with those,
and the Armed Services Committee does not have jurisdiction over these
issues, but does have jurisdiction over defense-related cleanups of DOE
sites. Section 3138 was intended to narrowly focus on concerns that
were related to cost recovery of FUSRAP.
Mr. President, basically, there are six provisions that are part of
that report language. They are self-explanatory. This is an attempt to
try to get a reasonable compromise to see to it that we save taxpayers
dollars, at the same time to be fair and to get both parties to the
table as quickly as possible.
I yield the floor, Mr. President.
Mr. LEVIN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, first, let me commend the Senators from New
Jersey for this amendment and commend the Senator from New Hampshire
for his support of it with a second-degree amendment.
It is a good amendment. We support it.
I ask unanimous consent that a letter from the Department of Energy,
addressed to our chairman, dated June 19, strongly supporting, in
effect, the amendment by stating their opposition to the provision, be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the
Record, as follows:
Department of Energy,
Washington, DC, June 19, 1997.
Hon. Chairman Strom Thurmond,
Committee on Armed Services,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Thurmond: I am writing to express strong
opposition to a provision, section 3138, in S. 936, National
Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1998, that would
prohibit the Department of Energy from recovering all legally
available response costs for certain actual or threatened
releases of hazardous substances at sites included in the
Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP). At
some FUSRAP sites, the application of this provision would be
inconsistent with the policy that the polluter should pay the
cost of addressing the pollution created.
We strongly support removing this language and would be
pleased to report to the Congress on our current efforts
under the FUSRAP program.
Sincerely,
Alvin L. Alm,
Assistant Secretary for
Environmental Management.
Mr. LEVIN. I yield the floor.
Mr. THURMOND addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, we support the amendment. I suggest a
voice vote.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. If there is no further debate, the question is
on agreeing to the second-degree amendment No. 418.
The amendment (No. 418) was agreed to.
Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the
vote by which the amendment was agreed to.
Mr. LEVIN. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. If there is no further debate, the question is
on agreeing to amendment No. 417, as amended.
The amendment (No. 417 ), as amended, was agreed to.
Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the
vote by which the amendment was agreed to.
Mr. LEVIN. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Amendment No. 419
(Purpose: To prohibit the distribution of certain information relating
to explosives, destructive devices, and weapons of mass destruction)
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from California [Mrs. Feinstein], for herself
and Mr. Biden, proposes an amendment numbered 419.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
At the end of subtitle E of title X, add the following:
SEC. 1074. CRIMINAL PROHIBITION ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF
CERTAIN INFORMATION RELATING TO EXPLOSIVES,
DESTRUCTIVE DEVICES, AND WEAPONS OF MASS
DESTRUCTION.
(a) Unlawful Conduct.--Section 842 of title 18, United
States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:
``(l) Distribution of Information Relating to Explosives,
Destructive Devices, and Weapons of Mass Destruction.--
``(1) Definitions.--In this subsection--
``(A) the term `destructive device' has the same meaning as
in section 921(a)(4);
``(B) the term `explosive' has the same meaning as in
section 844(j); and
``(C) the term `weapon of mass destruction' has the same
meaning as in section 2332a(c)(2).
``(2) Prohibition.--It shall be unlawful for any person--
``(A) to teach or demonstrate the making or use of an
explosive, a destructive device, or a weapon of mass
destruction, or to distribute by any means information
pertaining to, in whole or in part, the manufacture or use of
an explosive, destructive device, or weapon of mass
destruction, with the intention that the teaching,
demonstration, or information be used for, or in furtherance
of, an activity that constitutes a Federal criminal offense
or a State or local criminal offense affecting interstate
commerce; or
``(B) to teach or demonstrate to any person the making or
use of an explosive, a destructive device, or a weapon of
mass destruction, or to distribute to any person, by any
means, information pertaining to, in whole or in part, the
manufacture or use of an explosive, destructive device, or
weapon of mass destruction, knowing that such person intends
to use the teaching, demonstration, or information for, or in
furtherance of, an activity that constitutes a Federal
criminal offense or a State or local criminal offense
affecting interstate commerce.''.
(b) Penalties.--Section 844 of title 18, United States
Code, is amended--
(1) in subsection (a), by striking ``person who violates
subsections'' and inserting the following: ``person who--
``(1) violations subsections'';
(2) by striking the period at the end and inserting ``;
and''; and
(3) by adding at the end the following:
``(2) violates subsection (l)(2) of section 842 of this
chapter, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more
than 20 years, or both.''; and
(2) in subsection (j), by striking ``and (i)'' and
inserting ``(i), and (l)''.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I send this amendment to the desk on
behalf of Senator Biden and myself.
For 3 years, Senator Biden and I have sent an amendment to the desk
which would prohibit the teaching of bomb making. Twice it passed this
body by unanimous consent, and twice in conference the amendment was
taken out.
Last year, when we made this amendment and this body graciously and,
I believe, wisely accepted it, it was replaced in conference with the
proviso that the Department of Justice would do a report to see whether
this amendment was well advised and would stand a constitutional test.
On April 29 of this year, the Department of Justice published a
report, and that report was entitled, ``Report on the Availability of
Bomb Making Information, The Extent to Which Its Dissemination is
Controlled by Federal Law, and the Extent to Which Such Dissemination
May be Subject to Regulation Consistent with the First Amendment to the
United States Constitution.''
The bottom line of the report is that the Department of Justice
agrees that it would be appropriate and beneficial to adopt further
legislation to address the problem of teaching bomb making directly, if
that can be accomplished in a manner that does not impermissibly
restrict the wholly legitimate publication and teaching of such
information or otherwise violate the first amendment.
In other words, the question presented by this is, when does the
first amendment end and when does conspiracy to commit a felony begin?
So the language in the amendment that we submit to this body today
has been reworked, strengthened and approved by the Department of
Justice. I would like to briefly read it. The language is as follows:
It shall be unlawful for any person--
(A) to teach or demonstrate the making or use of an
explosive, a destructive device, or a weapon of mass
destruction, or to distribute by any means information
pertaining to, in whole or in part, the manufacture or use
[[Page S5990]]
of an explosive, destructive device, or weapon of mass
destruction, with the intention that the teaching,
demonstration, or information be used for, or in furtherance
of, an activity that constitutes a Federal criminal offense
or a State or local criminal offense affecting interstate
commerce . . .
Then there is an alternative:
or (b) to teach or demonstrate to any person the making or
use of an explosive, a destructive device, or a weapon of
mass destruction . . . knowing that such person intends to
use the teaching, demonstration, or information for, or in
furtherance of, an activity that constitutes a Federal
criminal offense or a State or local criminal offense
affecting interstate commerce.
The penalty for violating this law would be a fine of $250,000 or a
maximum of 20 years in prison, or both.
Mr. President, according to terrorism expert, Neil Livingston, there
are more than 1,600 so-called mayhem-manuals in circulation. I outlined
some examples of what I am talking about.
I will never forget, Mr. President, and you are a member of the
Judiciary Committee--I don't believe you were on the committee at the
time--but when a document entitled ``The Terrorist's Handbook'' was
circulated, I believe at that time Senator Kennedy and I couldn't
believe it. So I went back to my office and asked my staff to download
what is called ``The Terrorist's Handbook.'' The cover of ``The
Terrorist's Handbook'' reads something like this:
Stuff you are not supposed to know about.
Whether you are planning to blow up the World Trade Center,
or merely explode a few small devices on the White House
lawn, the Terrorist's Handbook is an invaluable guide to
having a good time. Where else can you get such wonderful
ideas about how to use up all that extra ammonium triiodide
left over from last year's revolution?
And then this handbook, which I have in my hand, goes on to tell
people how to break into a building, how to pick a lock, how to break
into a chem lab in a college, how to look like a student. It produces
techniques for picking locks. It goes on and tells you what useful
household chemicals you should use. And then it goes on to explain,
with specificity, how to make a light-bulb bomb, a book bomb, a phone
bomb, and it goes on and on and on.
Mr. President, there is no legal, legitimate use for a phone bomb,
for a book bomb, for a baby-food bomb, all of which are described in
this handbook. When it is put in this context, the context of
criminality, it is my belief that the person who puts this up on the
Internet becomes a conspirator in the ability to commit a major crime
in the United States.
An interesting thing that we have found is that individuals who have
committed these crimes have actually had at least some of these
publications in their home when they were arrested.
According to the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, the following
publications were found among Timothy McVeigh's possessions: ``Homemade
C-4, A Recipe for Survival.'' My staff just went over to the Library of
Congress and tried to take out a copy of this. Incidentally, it is
missing from the library.
``Ragnar's Big Book of Homemade Weapons and Improvised Explosives.''
So we know that materials on the Internet are used by terrorists to
commit terrorist acts. We also know that the number of explosive
devices now being found are increasing. Authorities have stated that
the rise is attributable to a rise in Internet use. This is certainly
true in Los Angeles County. During the first half of 1996, these
numbers of explosive devices have increased dramatically; 178 were
found compared to 86 total in 1995.
Responses by the Los Angeles Police Department to reports of
suspected bombs have shot up more than 35 percent from 1994 to 1995.
The LAPD found 41 explosives in 1995, more than double the number 3
years ago. And it goes on and on and on.
One thing is also very interesting. Not only are terrorists using
this, but children are using this.
Not too long ago there was a cartoon in a newspaper. It really
describes what is happening. A mother is on the telephone saying to a
friend, ``* * * history, astronomy, science, Bobby is learning so much
on the Internet * * *'' And there is Bobby sitting by his computer, and
what Bobby is doing here is putting a timer on six sticks of dynamite
looking at the Internet and following the recipe. Of course what that
leads to is something like this:
Three Boys used Internet to Plot School Bombing, Police
Say.
That is the New York Times.
Something like this:
Internet Cited for Surge in Bomb Reports.
Police and sheriffs officials say Web sites provide
youngsters with information on making explosives.
Yesterday, June 18, the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel reported on the
pending trial of 15-year-olds Burke DeCesare and Adam Walker, who were
charged with planting a bomb in their Catholic school. They are eighth
graders. They live in the Bayview neighborhood. They broke into Saint
Coleman Catholic School in Pompano Beach around 2 a.m. on February 24,
1996. They planted a gasoline bomb in the ceiling of classroom 116.
Bomb experts from the Broward Sheriff's Office said the device, made
with gasoline, was wired to explode at the flick of a light switch.
This is taught--the recipe for this is in one of these manuals. The
boys told police they got the instructions to build the bomb from the
Internet.
Nine days ago, on June 10, 1997, the Cleveland Dispatch reported the
arrest of a North Side 15-year-old who built a homemade bomb with
information he gathered from the Internet. The Columbus Fire Division
bomb squad was required to remove devices from the kitchen and the
basement of the parents' homes. Neighbors, who lived within 500 feet of
the home, were evacuated for 2 hours.
Columbus police reported that one device consisted of a quart Mason
jar containing lighter fluid and Styrofoam, with an M-90 inserted into
the Mason jar cap which served as an igniter. This young man told his
parents he learned to make the bomb on the Internet.
Last month, the Los Angeles Times reported that two 14-year-old boys
were arrested in Yorba Linda, CA, after crafting eight pipe bombs and
detonating one of them. The bomb caused a fire, charring 400 feet of
land behind a home on Grandview Avenue. After admitting they sparked
the fire with the bomb, the boys told investigators they had seven more
bombs inside the house. The bombs were fashioned with information from
the Internet.
In May of this year, the Baltimore Sun reported that two teenagers in
Finland face charges over an explosion from Finland's second ``Internet
bomb'' in a week. Sixty people were evacuated. And it goes on and on
and on.
In Orange County, police say teenagers may have used the Internet to
help construct acid-filled bottle bombs in Mission Viejo and Huntington
Beach, one of which burned a 5-year-old boy when he found it on a
school playground.
According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, between
1992 and 1995, 15 juveniles were killed and 366 injured in the United
States while making explosive devices. Most of this comes right off of
the Internet.
The Justice Department, on a single Web site, obtained the titles to
over 110 different bombmaking texts.
The point here is that this material is now so easy to get. When it
is put in something like a terrorist handbook and you are told what to
use, how to steal it, how to dress like a college student, how to break
into a chem lab, how to use cardboard to stuff in the lock so you can
come back at night, how to go home and how to go into your kitchen and
make one of these bombs, and then how to go out and explode it wherever
you want--there is no legitimate legal use for this information.
There is only a criminal purpose for this information. There is no
legal use for a baby food bomb, for a phone bomb, for a book bomb. You
do not blow up a tree stump if you are a farmer in the field with one
of these. There is no legal use. So I am hopeful--I know that we are
into the third year of this amendment--that it will in fact survive a
conference committee. I understand that both sides are willing to
accept the amendment.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a summary of the
Department of Justice report be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[[Page S5991]]
Summary of the Report on the Availability of Bombmaking Information,
The Extent to Which its Dissemination is Controlled by Federal Law, and
the Extent to Which Such Dissemination May be Subject to Regulation
Consistent with the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
(Prepared by the U.S. Department of Justice)
Introduction and Summary
In section 709(a) of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death
Penalty Act of 1996 [``the AEDPA''], Pub. L. No. 104-132, 110
Stat. 1214, 1297 (1996), Congress provided that, in
consultation with such other officials and individuals as she
considers appropriate, the Attorney General shall conduct a
study concerning--
(1) the extent to which there is available to the public
material in any medium (including print, electronic, or film)
that provides instruction on how to make bombs, destructive
devices, or weapons of mass destruction;
(2) the extent to which information gained from such
material has been used in incidents of domestic or
international terrorism;
(3) the likelihood that such information may be used in
future incidents of terrorism;
(4) the application of Federal laws in effect on the date
of enactment of this Act to such material;
(5) the need and utility, if any, for additional laws
relating to such material; and
(6) an assessment of the extent to which the first
amendment protects such material and its private and
commercial distribution.
Section 709(b) of the AEDPA, in turn, requires the Attorney
General to submit to the Congress a report containing the
results of the study, and to make that report available to
the public.
Following enactment of the AEDPA, a committee was
established within the Department of Justice [``the DOJ
Committee''], comprised of departmental attorneys as well as
law enforcement officials of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and the Treasury Department's Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The committee members divided
responsibility for undertaking the tasks mandated by section
709. Some members canvassed reference sources, including the
Internet, to determine the facility with which information
relating to the manufacture of bombs, destructive devices and
other weapons of mass destruction could be obtained. Criminal
investigators reviewed their files to determine the extent to
which such published information was likely to have been used
by persons known to have manufactured bombs and destructive
devices for criminal purposes. And legal experts within the
Department of Justice reviewed extant federal criminal law
and judicial precedent to assess the extent to which the
dissemination of bombmaking information is now restricted by
federal law, and the extent to which it may be restricted,
consistent with constitutional principles. This Report
summarizes the results of these efforts.
As explained in this Report, the DOJ committee has
determined that anyone interested in manufacturing a bomb,
dangerous weapon, or a weapon of mass destruction can easily
obtain detailed instructions from readily accessible sources,
such as legitimate reference books, the so-called underground
press, and the Internet. Circumstantial evidence suggests
that, in a number of crimes involving the employment of
such weapons and devices, defendants have relied upon such
material in manufacturing and using such items. Law
enforcement agencies believe that, because the
availability of bombmaking information is becoming
increasingly widespread (over the Internet and from other
sources), such published instructions will continue to
play a significant role in aiding those intent upon
committing future acts of terrorism and violence.
While current federal laws--such as those prohibiting
conspiracy, solicitation, aiding and abetting, providing
material support for terrorist activities, and unlawfully
furthering civil disorders--may, in some instances, proscribe
the dissemination of bombmaking information, no extant
federal statute provides a satisfactory basis for prosecution
in certain classes of cases that Senators Feinstein and Biden
have identified as particularly troublesome. Senator
Feinstein introduced legislation during the last Congress in
an attempt to fill this gap. The Department of Justice agrees
that it would be appropriate and beneficial to adopt further
legislation to address this problem directly, if that can be
accomplished in a manner that does not impermissibly restrict
the wholly legitimate publication and teaching of such
information, or otherwise violate the First Amendment.
The First Amendment would impose substantial constraints on
any attempt to proscribe indiscriminately the dissemination
of bombmaking information. The government generally may not,
except in rare circumstances, punish persons either for
advocating lawless action or for disseminating truthful
information--including information that would be dangerous if
used--that such persons have obtained lawfully. However, the
constitutional analysis is quite different where the
government punishes speech that is an integral part of a
transaction involving conduct the government otherwise is
empowered to prohibit; such ``speech acts''--for instance,
many cases of inchoate crimes such as aiding and abetting and
conspiracy--may be proscribed without much, if any, concern
about the First Amendment, since it is merely incidental that
such ``conduct'' takes the form of speech.
Accordingly, we have concluded that Senator Feinstein's
proposal can withstand constitutional muster in most, if not
all, of its possible applications, if such legislation is
slightly modified in several respects that we propose at the
conclusion of this Report. As modified, the proposed
legislation would be likely to maximize the ability of the
Federal Government--consistent with free speech protections--
to reach cases where an individual disseminates information
on how to manufacture or use explosives or weapons of mass
destruction either (i) with the intent that the information
be used to facilitate criminal conduct, or (ii) with the
knowledge that a particular recipient of the information
intends to use it in furtherance of criminal activity.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I conclude my statement simply with
this. This amendment has been put into this bill once before. It has
been put into the terrorism bill once. It has been passed by this body
twice. It has been reworked to withstand a first amendment challenge. I
am hopeful, with the history of what is happening in this country, that
Americans all across this land will say there is no first amendment
right to be a conspirator and teach someone how to make a bomb to blow
someone else up. So I am hopeful that this year it might survive a
conference.
I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
Mr. LEVIN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
Mr. LEVIN. We are checking with one Senator who we understand may
wish to be heard on this amendment. I just want to notify the Senate of
that. I see, though, the chairman is on his feet, so I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, we have no objection to the amendment.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending
amendment be set aside.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Amendment No. 420
(Purpose: To require a license to export computers with composite
theoretical performance equal to or greater than 2,000 million
theoretical operations per second)
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk for
myself and Mr. Durbin.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Cochran], for himself and
Mr. Durbin, proposes an amendment numbered 420.
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further
reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
At the end of subtitle E of title X, add the following:
SEC. . SUPERCOMPUTER EXPORT CONTROL.
(a) Export Licensing Without Regard to End-Use and End-
User.--
(1) In general.--Notwithstanding any other provision of
law, effective upon the date of enactment of this Act,
computers described in paragraph (2) shall only be exported
to a Computer Tier 3 country pursuant to an export license
issued by the Secretary of Commerce.
(2) Computers described.--A computer described in this
paragraph is a computer with a composite theoretical
performance equal to or greater than 2,000 million
theoretical operations per second.
(b) Limitation on Reexport.--It is the sense of the Senate
that Congress should enact legislation to require that any
computer described in subsection (a)(2) that is exported to a
Computer Tier 1 or Computer Tier 2 country shall only be
reexported to a Computer Tier 3 country (or, in the case of a
computer exported to a Computer Tier 3 country pursuant to
subsection (a), reexported to another Computer Tier 3
country) pursuant to an export license approved by the
Secretary of Commerce and that the preceding requirement be
included as a provision in the contract of sale of any such
computer to a Computer Tier 1, Computer Tier 2, or Computer
Tier 3 country.
(3) Computer Tiers Defined.--In this section, the terms
``Computer Tier 1'', ``Computer Tier 2'', and ``Computer Tier
3'' have
[[Page S5992]]
the meanings given such terms in section 740.7 of title 15,
Code of Federal Regulations.
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, on the 11th of June, my Subcommittee on
International Security, Proliferation, and Federal Services of the
Committee on Governmental Affairs held a hearing on the subject of
proliferation and U.S. dual-use export controls. The hearing focused
almost entirely on the subject of U.S. exports of high-performance
computers, also known as supercomputers.
In preparing for and conducting this hearing, we learned that the
administration's policy on supercomputers, which are an integral
component for developing, producing and maintaining nuclear weapons,
ballistic missiles, and practically all advanced weapon systems, could
put American lives and interests at risk.
I am offering this amendment as a necessary first step to staunch the
flow of American-made supercomputers to countries and places they
should not be going.
On October 6, 1995, President Clinton announced a new export control
policy for supercomputers which decontrolled supercomputer exports to a
great extent. He said that he had ``decided to eliminate controls on
the exports of all computers to countries in North America, most of
Europe, and parts of Asia.'' Continuing further, ``For the former
Soviet Union, China, and a number of other countries, we will focus our
controls on computers intended for military end uses or users, while
easing them on the export of computers to civilian customers.''
There is, of course, a delicate balance that must be struck between
presenting U.S. national security by controlling dual-use exports and
promoting exports. We must be careful not to place American
manufacturers in a position where they cannot export goods that other
countries are exporting, though, of course, our national security
interests dictate that some goods cannot be sold to some countries no
matter how irresponsibly other countries behave. For example, the
willingness of some Western European countries to work with Libya to
construct a chemical weapons complex does not justify the involvement
of United States companies in similar ventures.
President Clinton's October 6, 1995, announcement liberalizing U.S.
export controls on supercomputers established four country tiers to
guide American exporters, at the same time eliminating restrictions on
the export of computers capable of less than 2,000 million theoretical
operations per second-- this is referred to as an MTOPS--for all except
tier 4 countries, it is unrestricted if the computers are capable of
less than 2,000 MTOPS. Whether it makes sense to decontrol computers
capable of up to that level is one of the issues which should be
studied more extensively. I will ask the General Accounting Office to
do so.
Country tier 1, consisting primarily of NATO allies, effectively
establishes a license-free zone for U.S. high-performance computer
exports. Computers of unlimited capacity under this policy can be
exported to any tier 1 country without regard to the identity of the
end user or the intended end use.
The policy for country tier 2, which includes countries such as South
Korea, Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic, allows unlicensed
exports to any country within this tier of computers capable up to
10,000 million theoretical operations per second. And the policy
continues the virtual embargo against those nations--the terrorist
nations such as Iran, Iraq, Syria, and North Korea--that comprise
country tier 4. There are many deficiencies in this new policy, Mr.
President.
Our amendment addresses what we consider to be the most significant
deficiency in need of immediate attention. It is a problem specific to
the part of the policy pertaining to country tier 3 which I want to
describe now. The policy announced by President Clinton for tier 3
countries, which include Russia, China, and some others, is based
entirely upon the questions of who the end user will be and for what
end use the supercomputer is intended. End use and end user are the
critical factors for tier 3 exports.
The tier 3 policy requires an export license to be granted by the
Department of Commerce under only two circumstances: First, if the
computer to be exported is capable of 2,000 MTOPS and is going to a
military end use or end user; and second, if the computer to be
exported is capable of 7,000 MTOPS and is going to a civilian end use
and end user. This policy requires no export license for manufacturers
who want to sell supercomputers capable between 2,000 and 7,000 MTOPS
to buyers in tier 3 countries when there is to be a civilian end use
and end user. It is the exporter--not the Department of Commerce, not
the U.S. Government--who is given the latitude under the policy for
determining whether the purchaser's representations are accurate, that
it is not a military end user and will not use the supercomputer for a
military purpose.
The Clinton administration policy further requires American exporters
to act on the honor system, policing themselves and deciding themselves
whether or not the end user is going to be a military entity or will be
putting the supercomputer to a military use.
Unfortunately, some companies have already been tempted to take a
chance. Maybe they were not sure; maybe they were tempted by the
profits of the transaction. Whatever the motivations and the
understandings or lack of information, or for whatever the reason, we
have known that some transactions have involved the sale of
supercomputers, without objection from our Department of Commerce or
our Federal Government to those who may be putting computers to a
military use, or maybe military entities themselves.
We know now, for example, based on statements from the Russian
Minister of Atomic Energy and from United States Government officials,
that there are at least five American supercomputers in two of Russia's
nuclear weapons labs: Chelyabinsk-70 and Arzamas-16. Minister Mikhailov
of the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy has not been reluctant to
proclaim what these high-performance computers will be used for, and he
said in a speech in January they will be used to simulate nuclear
explosions, and that the computers are, in his words, ``10 times faster
than any previously available in Russia.''
Four of the five supercomputers we are aware of publicly in Russia's
nuclear weapons labs came from Silicon Graphics, a company in
California, I think. According to the CEO, Edward McCracken, it was his
company's understanding that the computers were for environmental and
ecological purposes. It may be that Silicon Graphics was unable to
determine whether a Russian nuclear weapons lab was going to be the
military end user or if its supercomputers would be put to a military
end use. But it seems from the statements made by the Atomic Energy
Minister in Russia that they certainly are available to them for those
purposes.
We also know at least 47 high-performance computers have been
exported without licenses to the People's Republic of China. One of the
computers sold also by Silicon Graphics is now operating in the Chinese
Academy of Sciences. The Chinese Academy of Sciences is a key
participant in military research and development, and works on
everything from the DF-5 ICBM--which, incidentally, is capable of
reaching the United States--to uranium enrichment for nuclear weapons.
There can be no question about the Chinese Academy of Science's status
as a military end- user.
According to the Department, its new Silicon Graphic Power Challenge
XL supercomputer provides it with computational power previously
unknown, which is available to all the major scientific and
technological institutes across China. We can only hope that some of
these institutes in China are using the supercomputer's technology for
peaceful purposes, but we cannot help but suspect that some may be a
part of the weapons development program in China, which is on a fast
track to modernize their nuclear weapons system and capabilities and
their missile technologies and all the rest.
At our recent hearing, we had the benefit of testimony from the Under
Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration, William Reinsch, who
said that the Clinton administration doesn't know if any of the
supercomputers in China or Russia are being used for weapons-related
activities, but the Commerce Department is in a difficult position. You
have to appreciate how difficult it must be to have the responsibility
for both promoting exports
[[Page S5993]]
and controlling exports, and that is the dilemma that this Department
is in. But we have to realize that nuclear weapons labs are potential
end users and have been shown already by the evidence before our
committee that they have obtained American supercomputers and they may
be put to a military end use.
In 1986, the Department of Energy published an unclassified report
entitled, ``The Need for Supercomputers in Nuclear Weapons Design.''
The report's conclusion included this statement: ``The use of high-
speed computers and mathematical models to simulate complex physical
processes has been and continues to be the cornerstone of the nuclear
weapons design program.'' These computers continue to be important to
the design and production of nuclear weapons and other types of weapons
of mass destruction and delivery systems.
I do not see how we can tolerate the continuation of a policy that
makes it easier for Russia and China to modernize their nuclear weapons
and delivery systems. We ought not to be in the business of helping
them to improve the quality of our weapons, their technology, their
delivery systems, particularly when there is evidence of proliferation
from those countries to other countries.
This amendment, I want to point out, does not include a comprehensive
revision of our export control policy. It is targeted to one specific
part of the policy. We hope that with the findings that are obtained
from the General Accounting Office study and our further studies in our
subcommittee, which is reviewing this entire issue and proliferation
problems generally, that we will be able to come up with and work with
the administration and hopefully develop a consensus agreement on a
modification of our export policy.
We think the time is here, it is now, when we need to stop the
unrestricted flow of these supercomputers to potential users all around
the world that can threaten our Nation's security and put at risk
American citizens. It is not like some other country has these systems
available for sale on the market. They do not. We are the state-of-the-
art producer of the supercomputers. Japan has the capacity to produce
supercomputers as well, but their export policy is more restrictive now
than ours is. So we are the culprit, if we are putting in the hand of
military end users and military weapon system producers in other
countries technologies that are superior to what they have now and that
can be used to make more lethal their nuclear weapons and their missile
systems. We are putting in jeopardy the lives of our own citizens.
I am hopeful that this amendment, in concert with other efforts that
we are making, will help improve our capacity to monitor these exports
and require license in those situations where we think this export
might present a proliferation problem, because we know from previous
experience in Russia and China, as well, private companies have
demonstrated that they do not have the adequate restraints to make
determinations about where and how their exports are distributed into
other country's hands. We know that transshipments are occurring. We
also know that it is difficult to verify in a country like China what
the private company that may be the purchaser of a supercomputer really
intends to do with it once they have it. It is difficult to get access,
to get information, and so a private company has a very difficult time
developing an information base on which it can really make a conclusion
about the end use or the end user. That is another reason to change
this policy. The Commerce Department is going to have to do a better
job of compiling information about those who are in the market
worldwide for these supercomputers and making this information
available to our exporters and the companies that have these
supercomputers for sale.
Mr. President, I encourage the Senate to look very carefully at this
proposal. I hope that the amendment will be agreed to. Senator Durbin
and I were involved in questioning witnesses before our subcommittee
just recently on this subject, and we are convinced that this is a
policy that has to be changed, and the time to change it is right now.
Our amendment does not in any way change the policy President Clinton
announced in October 1995, though it is my judgment that the entire
policy is in need of serious evaluation and revision, and I will also
be asking the General Accounting Office to assist me in this
evaluation. Our amendment requires the Department of Commerce, in
concert with other parts of the executive branch, to determine whether
an entity in a tier 3 country is a military or civilian end-user, and
whether the end-use will be for a military or civilian purpose. By
their exports to Russian and Chinese nuclear weapons labs, private
companies have demonstrated that they do not do an adequate job of
making this determination. Government has the resources and information
available to make the best determination possible, and should step in
to ensure that America's national security is not being compromised for
sake of a more profitable quarter.
In a country like the People's Republic of China, how can any private
company have the resources to determine whether an end-user is military
or civilian?
Some suggest that the process can be left unchanged, but that the
Commerce Department can do a better job of helping industry make the
proper end-use and end-user determination by publishing a list of end-
users to which high performance computer exports are prohibited. I
disagree with this suggestion. Any published list would necessarily be
incomplete, for a complete list would compromise U.S. intelligence
sources and methods. Any published list would also serve as a marketing
tool for the world's proliferators, making their job of finding
specific clients easier. And, any published list would be only too easy
to manipulate by both the purchaser and the exporter who may not be
willing to operate under the honor system. If, for example,
Chelyabinsk-70 is on the list of prohibited locations, does that mean
that a Chelyabinsk-71, not on the list, can receive U.S. exports of
high performance computers? What's to stop an exporter like Silicon
Graphics from accepting the convenient suggestion that, ``yes,
Chelyabinsk-70 does nuclear weapons work, but at Chelyabinsk-71 we
conduct only environmental research.''
Publishing a list could reduce, but not eliminate, the problem we
face, though in so doing other serious problems would be created.
Congress needs to change the current process so the Government--with
the most access to information with which to make the most informed
determination of military end-use and end-user--makes the decision on
whether to ship these computers to countries who are modernizing their
weapons and delivery systems and engaged in proliferation of these
technologies. America should not be participating in the qualitative
upgrade of Russian and Chinese proliferant activities.
The Commerce Department maintains that President Clinton's
supercomputer export control policy is working. Commerce continues to
make this claim despite the fact that the administration's policy has
allowed American supercomputers to be shipped to Russia's and China's
nuclear weapons complexes, and who knows where else. If this policy is
working, what would a policy that wasn't working look like? Would there
be more supercomputers in Russia and China, or would we know absolutely
that our supercomputers were in Iran, North Korea, or other terrorist
states?
The cold war's end does not decrease the need for the continued
safeguarding of sensitive American dual-use technology. While there may
no longer be a single, overarching enemy of the United States, there is
little doubt that many rogue states, and perhaps others, have interests
clearly contrary to those of the United States. Helping these nations--
or helping other nations to help these nations--to acquire sensitive
dual-use technology capable of threatening American lives and interests
makes no sense.
I thank Senator Durbin for his work with me on this issue, and look
forward to continuing to work with him to get to the bottom of this
problem. I encourage all of my colleagues to support this amendment.
Mr. DURBIN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bennett). The Senator from Illinois is
recognized.
[[Page S5994]]
Privilege of the Floor
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, first, I ask unanimous consent that the
privilege of the floor be granted to Lamelle Rawlins during the
pendency of this debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleague from
Mississippi, Senator Cochran, as a cosponsor of this important
amendment. I think anyone who had attended our hearing within the last
2 weeks on this issue would have been shocked at what they learned. We
have expanded opportunities for the purchase of some of the most
valuable technology in the world. It is technology developed in the
United States, which has no parallel anywhere else in the world, and we
are selling it. The fact that we are selling it is nothing new. The
United States has done that for years. But this technology is so
important and sensitive that the people who buy it automatically
acquire a capacity, a capability that they have never had in their
history. In other words, our expertise, our knowledge, our
technological skill is being sold.
What makes this particularly important is that this very technology
has the capacity to give to the purchasing country the skills and
abilities that they have never had before to develop things that are
very positive, on one hand, but also potentially very negative. I was
reminded of a quotation that is attributed to Mr. Lenin in the early
days of his establishment of the Soviet republics. He said that it was
his belief that ``a capitalist would sell you the rope that you would
use to hang him.'' I thought about that over and over, as we discussed
this question of selling these computers to countries like China and
Russia, which have the capacity to allow them to develop extraordinary
military capability.
Recent news accounts about sales of supercomputers to Russian nuclear
weapons labs and the Chinese Academy of Sciences--in apparent
circumvention of United States export control regulations--have raised
troubling questions about the control that the United States exercises
over supercomputer exports.
China has purchased at least 46 United States supercomputers. Of
these, 32 are one particular model that is faster than two-thirds of
the classified computer systems available to our own Department of
Defense, including the United States Naval Underwater Weapons Center,
United States Army TACOM, and United States Air Force/National Test
Facility.
The Commerce Department and the Justice Department are investigating
the unlicensed sale--unlicensed sale--of four over-2000 MTOPS computers
to the Russian nuclear weapons facility Chelyabinsk-70.
The computers recently sold are 10 times more powerful than anything
Russia ever had before, and we sold it to them.
There is ample room for mistakes and confusion in the current dual-
use export control system for supercomputers.
According to a New York Times article on February 25 of this year, in
an effort to circumvent United States export controls, Russia's nuclear
weapons establishment obtained a powerful IBM supercomputer through a
European middleman and said they planned to use it to simulate nuclear
tests.
I was on this floor 2 weeks ago giving a speech about a test ban,
recalling the speech given by President Kennedy before American
University in 1963. I came to the floor with Senator Harkin and said it
is time for us to have a comprehensive nuclear test ban, moving toward
the day when there are no nuclear weapons threatening this world. In
the world we live in today, you don't need to detonate a nuclear
weapon. If you have a supercomputer, which can simulate that
detonation, you can derive the same information--or a lot of it--
through this model and through this technology. These are the very same
computers and capabilities that we are selling.
The Nation's export controls for supercomputers ``amount to a kind of
honor system,'' according to one U.S. official quoted in the Wall
Street Journal. Companies that have doubt about a customer's activities
are expected to call the U.S. Government for advice.
Think about that. You have a computer company and you have a sale
worth millions of dollars and you don't know whether it is going to be
used for a peaceful purpose or a military purpose. Well, the honor
system says it is time to call the Department of Commerce and check it
out and see if they have any records or classified information. They
may not share the information with you, but they may tell you there is
some concern. But it is an honor system. There is nothing built into
the law to guarantee this kind of surveillance, this kind of
supervision.
Companies may fail to obtain licenses to sell supercomputers ordered
for civilian purposes, such as weather forecasting or air pollution
studies or natural resources prospecting and development, but these
computers end up in places which do design work for nuclear weapons
programs--not a civilian use. Companies may knowingly ignore licensing
requirements or, alternatively, companies may unwittingly fail to
recognize a suspect end-user.
The first step toward better export controls is better communication.
Increased accountability and interaction between industry and the
Federal Government called for by this amendment will help facilitate
that interchange.
Even William Reinsch, the Undersecretary for Export Administration
for the Commerce Department, quoted by Senator Cochran with whom I
share the sponsorship of this amendment, testified at the Governmental
Affairs subcommittee hearing last week, agreed that better
communication is essential. He invited and encouraged companies to
consult with the Commerce Department when faced with challenging sales
decisions.
The current system for supercomputer exports involves controls on
high-power computer exports set forth in Federal regulations that
divide the countries of the world into various categories, or tiers.
The licensing policies vary depending on which category the country
falls into. There are countries for which no export license is
required--tier 1--some countries for which licenses are required for
extraordinarily high performance machines--tier 2--some for which
licenses are required, depending on whether the end-use is military
rather than civilian--tier 3--and countries for which sales are totally
banned--tier 4.
The tier 3 countries include India, Pakistan, all of the Middle East/
Maghreb, the former Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, and the rest of
Eastern Europe.
Under current rules, export licenses are required to export or re-
export computers with a composite theoretical performance, known as
CTP, greater than 2000 MTOPS to military end-users and end-uses and to
nuclear, chemical, biological, or missile end-users and end-uses in
tier 3 countries.
However, for civilian end-users or end-uses that don't fall into a
military or proliferation category, licenses are not required for
export or re-export of computers under 7000 MTOPS to these countries.
What this means is that for many sales, no Government oversight or
decisionmaking takes place at the front end if the exporter determines
that he is selling to a company that portrays itself as a civilian user
because no license is required.
Because of the differences in the licensing rules that apply to
exports for military and proliferation uses than those governing sales
for civilian use, the U.S. Government plays no upfront role in
determining whether the end-use of a supercomputer under 7000 MTOPS
sold to a buyer in a tier 3 country is indeed to be used for a civilian
purpose.
I know this is involved, I know that it is complicated. Let me try to
cut to the bottom line. If a company in the United States seeks to sell
a supercomputer, one of great capacity, and the end-user, the company
that is buying in another country, says this is strictly for a civilian
purpose, it is not going to be used for anything of a military
capacity, there are virtually no controls on that sale; nor is there
much of anything done to track that sale, once it is made, as to where
that computer actually ends up.
The responsibility is all on the shoulders of the manufacturer or
exporter to make the determination on whether or not a license is
needed, whether or not the computer might be used for military
purposes. Exporters run the risk
[[Page S5995]]
of relying on assurances of the purchasers or their own intelligence
information about end-use, rather than the resources of the Government.
Either intentionally or inadvertently, exporters have made sales to
destinations for which a license should have been obtained, because of
end-use, but was not.
The Cochran-Durbin amendment would require that all U.S. exports of
supercomputers above 2,000 million theoretical operations per second--a
measure of the computer's speed--to a tier 3 country be licensed by the
Commerce Department.
The presently more lenient requirements for civilian end-use sales in
this category would be made identical to stricter ones applicable to
sales for military proliferation purposes.
The amendment would shift responsibility from industry to the
Government for deciding the propriety and conditions of the sales.
By subjecting all such sales above 2,000 MTOPS to licensing
requirements, the United States may be able to prevent the uncontrolled
flow of technology for unauthorized use or diversion to purchasers in
countries who may have vastly different interests than those of the
United States.
Civilian sales of supercomputers above 2,000 MTOPS to purchasers in
tier 3 countries would be reviewed and approved by the Commerce
Department, using the same standards used in licensing military and
proliferation sales to these countries.
In addition, the amendment expresses the sense of the Senate that
Congress should enact legislation requiring that any computer exceeding
2,000 MTOPS exported to a tier 1 or tier 2 country shall only be
reexported to a tier 3 country, or reexported by a tier 3 country to
another tier 3 country, pursuant to an export license approved by the
Secretary of Commerce.
We are trying to track these computers, once sold, and determine
where they are going to end up. We are saying to those countries, whom
we consider to be our allies and friends, that we are going to ask you
to bear responsibility for the end-use of the computer. We don't want
you to be a conduit for the sale of a computer to a country where the
United States suspects it may be used for military purposes.
The sense of the Senate would call for legislation that would require
any reexport to a tier 3 country would have to be done under U.S.
export license. This amendment is clearly necessary. I urge my
colleagues to join Senator Cochran and myself. If you had listened to
the testimony, as we did, you would have discovered, as I did, that
there has been a dramatic increase in technology and expertise in this
field. It is estimated that every 9 months to a year most of the
computers that we are talking about become obsolete and move on to
higher standards.
The United States is where these computers are made and the country
from which they are sold. As we are concerned about the proliferation
of those items that can be used for the construction of nuclear,
biological, and chemical weapons, we should also be concerned about the
potential that we are selling technology that can also be used for
proliferation of military weaponry. If we are truly seeking a peaceful
world--and we are--the United States should take care not to sell that
technology which allows another country to develop weapons of
destruction.
I think the Cochran-Durbin amendment strikes an appropriate balance.
It brings our Government into the decision process. It protects those
exporters in the United States who truly are trying to do the right
thing and sell for civilian use. But it gives them a backup, and it
leaves some assurance that will be another party investigating when it
comes to sales of a suspect nature.
This amendment is an important step toward addressing some of the
growing concerns about U.S. export control policies governing sales of
dual-use technology and whether those policies may be permitting access
to sophisticated American technology to aid in the buildup of nuclear
weapons capability of other countries.
Recall the words of Mr. Lenin: ``A capitalist will sell you the rope
that you will use to hang him.''
Let's not have that occur. Not in the name of free trade and good
commerce should we forget our responsibility to national and world
security. I believe the Cochran-Durbin amendment is a sensible and
responsible way to bring some order to what is becoming a very chaotic
situation.
I urge my colleagues to join Senator Cochran and me in support of
this amendment.
I yield the remainder of my time.
Mr. COCHRAN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I commend the distinguished Senator from
Illinois for the great force of his argument and for the clarity of his
statement in support of this proposal.
I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Michigan [Mr. Abraham]
be added as a cosponsor to the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Enzi). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, on behalf of the chairman and
distinguished ranking member present here, I wish to inform Senators
that there will be a vote at 7:15 tonight on the amendment by the
senior Senator from California [Mrs. Feinstein]. Essentially, this vote
is a legislative measure to criminalize, under Federal laws, the
willful disclosure of technology and other information that would
enable an individual or individuals to make--manufacture a bomb.
The time between now and 7:15 will be equally divided between myself
and the distinguished ranking member. Hopefully, within that time we
can accommodate the distinguished colleague from Virginia, also. But,
just a few words about the amendment to advise Senators with regard to
the subject of the vote.
It is entitled, ``Distribution of Information Relating to Explosives,
Destructive Devices, and Weapons of Mass Destruction.''
Definitions.--In this subsection--
(A) the term ``destructive device'' has the same meaning as
[another section of the code];
(B) the term ``explosive'' [same meaning].
These terms are defined within the code, the existing code.
(C) the term ``weapon of mass destruction'' has the same
meaning as in [another part of the code].
Prohibition.--It shall be unlawful for any person--
(A) to teach or demonstrate the making of an explosive, a
destructive device, or a weapon of mass destruction, or to
distribute by any means information pertaining to, in whole
or in part, the manufacture or use of an explosive,
destructive device, or weapon of mass destruction, with the
intention that the teaching, demonstration, or information be
used for, or in furtherance of, an activity that constitutes
a Federal criminal offense or a State or local criminal
offense affecting interstate commerce; or
(B) to teach or demonstrate to any person the making or use
of an explosive, a destructive device, or a weapon of mass
destruction, or to distribute to any person, by any means,
information pertaining to, in whole or in part, the
manufacture or use of an explosive, destructive device, or
weapon of mass destruction, knowing that such person intends
to use the teaching, demonstration, or information for, or in
furtherance of, an activity that constitutes a Federal
criminal offense or a State or local criminal offense
affecting interstate commerce.
And the penalties are then recited.
Mr President, I yield to my distinguished colleague.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator form Michigan.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that of the time
remaining between now and 7:15, that 5 minutes be allocated to Senator
Robb and that----
Mr. WARNER. To be charged equally, Mr. President, to both sides.
Mr. LEVIN. That would be great, and 3 minutes be allocated to Senator
Feinstein.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is the Senator also asking we return to the
Feinstein amendment?
Mr. LEVIN. I ask unanimous consent that we return to the Feinstein
amendment immediately after the Senator from Virginia has completed his
5 minutes.
[[Page S5996]]
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. ROBB. Thank you, Mr. President.
The defense authorization bill before us today does a pretty
responsible job of providing adequate funding for personnel readiness,
quality of life and modernization.
It also makes a concerted effort to accommodate many of the
recommendations of the Quadrennial Defense Review. I remain concerned,
however, as do many colleagues on the Armed Services Committee, that we
will face a serious funding shortfall in just a very few years as we
try to replace and modernize aging vehicles, ships, and aircraft that
will be exiting the inventory in droves just after the turn of the
century.
By accelerating some of the funding for major procurement items in
this authorization, we help head off this funding crisis at least to a
small degree.
As a ranking member of the Readiness Subcommittee, I compliment the
chairman, Senator Inhofe, for his diligence in supporting U.S. military
readiness.
I am pleased the bill funds many of the high-priority readiness
increases requested by the service chiefs in the operations and
maintenance accounts, as well as the ammunition accounts. Military
construction is well funded, but all adds were subjected to the strict
criteria established in the Senate years ago to ensure we only fund
projects truly needed by the military.
The bill does not go far enough, however, in my judgment, in taking
on the issue of excess infrastructure. One of the best ways we can pay
for future modernization is through reducing the Department of
Defense's large ``tail'' of infrastructure and support, which is taking
away critical funding for the ``teeth''--our warfighting troops and
equipment that will fight the next war.
The best place to reduce tail is to cut more bases. An effort to
authorize a new base closure round failed in a tie vote in committee,
but in spite of its political unpopularity, I hope the full Senate
will, for the good of the Nation's defense, support a new BRAC round.
We have reduced force structure by over 30 percent since 1989, but
four rounds of base closures have yielded an infrastructure reduction
of only 21 percent. Reductions enacted so far will yield, in the long
term, over $5 billion a year.
To gain additional, badly needed savings, the only responsible course
of action, in my judgment, is to begin reducing additional excess right
away. Although I certainly understand the reservations of those Members
who are concerned about the integrity of the BRAC process, in light of
the attempts to privatize in place the work at Kelly and McClellan Air
Force depots, I hope once those issues are resolved, those Members will
support a new BRAC round as well.
The depot issue remains a difficult one, to say the least. My view is
that we must significantly reduce the excess capacity at the air
logistic centers, that the spirit of the BRAC was to reduce roughly two
ALC's worth of capacity, and that the BRAC did allow for some level of
privatization of work at Kelly and McClellan.
But in no way did the BRAC intend to privatize in place excess
capacity. Preserving that excess capacity will cost hundreds of
millions of dollars, and we simply cannot afford this kind of waste
anymore.
I applaud my counterpart on the Readiness Subcommittee, Senator
Inhofe, for his willingness to strike the controversial depot
maintenance sections of the original bill that threatened to prevent us
from proceeding to consider this bill.
Mr. President, there are other ways to save money so that we can
properly fund modernization.
One is to invest in new technologies that promise to deliver more
lethality for less cost.
This bill aggressively funds the Army's efforts to ensure battlefield
dominance through better intelligence, communications and smart
weapons. It adds significant funds for the Navy's impressive
information Technology 21 initiative, which will enable the warfighter
to exchange all types of information on a single desktop computer,
shorten decision time lines and better utilize information for combat.
I will be addressing another technology, smart card technology, that
promises to save millions in an amendment later on in our consideration
of this bill.
The bill also sensibly allows a new approach for funding the next
carrier, the CVN-77.
By letting the contractor maintain a steady supplier and workforce
base through early funding in fiscal year 1998 for construction in
2002, the taxpayers stand to save over $600 million on this program
alone. By authorizing an innovative teaming arrangement for the new
attack submarine, we achieve additional savings over a noncompeted,
sole-source procurement while preserving two nuclear-capable shipyards.
Let me offer one other area the bill addresses that could lead to
billions in savings without undue risks to military capability. We
generally assume that any money for force modernization must come from
force structure cuts, end-strength cuts or infrastructure cuts.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. ROBB. I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional minute.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, we generally assume that there are no
prospects for savings in readiness. The reality is that we maintain
most of our active force units at very high levels of readiness at
considerable expense, when, in fact, we could relax readiness levels
for certain units, especially those not slated to go into combat early.
Senator McCain included language in this and last year's bill requiring
an evaluation of a concept he refers to as ``tiered readiness'' where
four tiers of readiness are established for our units based on their
likely time of deployment to battle.
I have included language in this bill asking for an estimate of
savings from a related concept I refer to as ``cyclical readiness.'' It
would involve alternating a high state of readiness between units,
where the units at the high state of readiness would be slated for a
first major theater war, and the other lower readiness units would be
available for a second theater.
The services tell us that their operational and personnel tempos are
too high to relax the readiness of any units. I have come to the
conclusion that much of that problem is self-inflicted through
excessive training and contingency requirements.
I have included another provision in this bill that requires a look
at how much of the demands on our troops are, in fact, self-inflicted.
The reality is that come October, our largest overseas contingency
commitment will be about a third of an Army division in Bosnia.
In my judgment, we don't need to maintain all ten active Army
divisions at a high state of readiness, and I believe we need to take a
hard look at this matter.
With that, Mr. President, I look forward to our continued
consideration of this bill and yield the floor.
Mr. WARNER addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask for 1 minute charged to the time of
the chairman.
I just wish to say what a valuable contribution to the work of the
Armed Services Committee from my distinguished colleague from Virginia.
We work together as a team on behalf of our Nation but, obviously,
caring for the specific needs of our State which are directly related
to national security.
We are fortunate in Virginia to have a very significant concentration
of activities relating to national security, and I know of no one
better qualified than my distinguished colleague to work together as a
partner in fulfilling our obligations to country and State.
Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, I thank my senior colleague.
amendment no. 419
Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Feinstein-Biden
anti-bomb-making amendment. The bill would make it a Federal crime to
teach someone how to use or make a bomb if you know or intend that it
will be used to commit a crime.
As my colleagues know, I fought to pass nearly identical legislation
last
[[Page S5997]]
year. Senator Feinstein and I tried several times to have it enacted as
part of my anti-terrorism initiatives. The bill passed the Senate on
two occasions, but unfortunately, it was rejected by the House both
times.
Critics of the bill claimed that it was unnecessary,
unconstitutional, and would outlaw legitimate business uses of
explosives.
To respond to these claims, we asked the Justice Department to
examine each of these questions. The report supports Senator Feinstein
and my position on each and every criticism.
So now that we have cleared away the basis for some of the
opposition, I hope we can quickly enact this important legislation. And
let me tell you why.
I think most Americans would be absolutely shocked if they knew what
kind of criminal information is making its way over the Internet. This
information is easily accessible. It's proliferating by leaps and
bounds.
Let me give just one example. A guy named ``War-Master'' sent this
message out over the Internet about how to build a baby food bomb. Here
is how his message goes:
These simple, powerful bombs are not very well known even
though all the material can be easily obtained by anyone
(including minors). These things are so [expletive deleted]
powerful that they can destroy a car. The explosion can
actually twist and mangle the frame. They are extremely
deadly and can very easily kill you and blow the side of the
house out if you mess up while building it. Here's how they
work.
And then the message goes into explicit detail about how to fill a
baby food jar with gunpowder and how to detonate it. The message
observes that the explosion shatters the glass jar, sending pieces of
razor sharp glass in all directions. The message continues with even
more deadly advice:
Tape nails to the side of the thing. Sharpened jacks (those
little things with all the pointy sides) also work well.
As a result, the message concludes:
If the explosion doesn't get 'em then the glass will. If
the glass don't get 'em then the nails will.
I am not making this up. And this is only one small example.
Mr. President, we hear about this happening time and time again: A
bomb goes off. People are killed. A criminal is apprehended. And we
learn that the criminal followed--to the letter--someone else's
instructions on how to make a bomb and how to make it kill people.
Indeed, the Justice Department report indicates that numerous
notorious terrorists--including the World Trade Center bombers and the
murderers of a Federal judge--have been found in possession of bomb-
making manuals and internet bomb-making information.
And there is another situation that we are hearing about more and
more frequently. We read about it in our local papers across the
country. These bomb-making instructions are having an ever increasing
impact on children.
In Austin, TX, a boy lost most of one hand and part of the other
after following bomb-making instructions he found on the internet. This
boy once had plans to serve in the Marines. But that dream is now gone.
And in Massachusetts, several boys--in separate incidents throughout
the State--were maimed when they tried to mix batches of napalm on
their kitchen stoves. These experiments were direct results of kids
finding a bomb-making recipe on the internet.
And what is even worse is that some of these instructions are geared
toward kids. They tell kids that all the ingredients they need are
right in their parents' kitchen or laundry cabinets.
These stories illustrate what can happen when the literally millions
of kids today sit in front of their computer and type ``explosive'' on
their keyboard. In minutes, they can have instructions for making all
sorts of explosive devices they never knew even existed.
I know that some say that going after people who only help other
people make bombs is not the way to go. They say that bomb-making
instructions are protected by the first amendment. And I agree--to a
point.
I take a backseat to no one when it comes to the first amendment. I
have always argued that we must take great care when we legislate about
any constitutional right--paticularly our most cherished right of free
speech.
But let's not forget the obvious. It is illegal to make a bomb. And
there is no right under the first amendment to help someone commit an
illegal act.
Our bill says you have no right to provide a bomb-making recipe to
someone if you know that person has plans to destroy property or
innocent lives. You have no right to help someone blow up a building.
The Justice Department has concluded that our legislation--with some
minor modifications which we have incorporated into this bill--is
entirely consistent with the first amendment.
I am glad that the Senate voted last year to join Senator Feinstein
and me in making this type of behavior a crime. I hope this time
around, we can pass this legislation through the full Congress and send
it on to the President so he can sign it into law.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the amendment has been cleared on this
side. I commend my good friend from California for her amendment. It is
carefully worded. It has been cleared on this side, and I believe that
there are 2 minutes allocated to the Senator from California under the
unanimous-consent agreement and that the remainder of the time is to be
divided as indicated.
Privilege of the Floor
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Dr. Kim
Hamlett, who works on the Veterans' Affairs staff, be allowed the
privilege of the floor during the time of consideration of the Defense
Authorization Act and the conference report thereto.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. LEVIN. I yield the floor.
Mr. THURMOND addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, the Feinstein amendment is primarily a
judicial amendment, but it is a very worthy amendment, and I intend to
support it.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from
California.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank the Chair.
Mr. President, I thank the chairman and the ranking member for their
comments, and I thank all the Members for their support of this
amendment.
Essentially, this is the third year that I have submitted this
amendment. It has been put on the terrorism bill and on this bill in
prior times. It was removed in conference. Part of the terrorism bill
asks the Department of Justice to take a look at the situation that
exists out there with respect to the teaching of bombmaking and the
knowledge and intent that such teaching will be used for a criminal
purpose. In fact, the Department of Justice has submitted a report
indicating that they believe that the amendment is necessary and will
stand a constitutional test, and they have, in fact, approved the
drafting of this amendment. I believe it is important and timely. I
believe it will stand a constitutional test. I am just delighted that
it has been cleared on both sides. I thank the Chair, and I yield the
floor.
Mr. BENNETT. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I will be most happy to yield to the distinguished
Senator.
Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I was present at a hearing on the issue
of terrorism and raised the question of domestic terrorism,
specifically in terms of information that is put on the Internet by
groups that are opposed to fur farming; that is, opposed to the raising
of animals for their fur. On the Internet, these groups describe how to
build a bomb for the purpose of destroying a fur farm.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The remaining time is under the control of the
Senator from Michigan.
Mr. BENNETT. It was my understanding the Senator from Michigan
yielded to the Senator from California.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California had 2 minutes.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my time to the
Senator from California. She can yield to the Senator.
Mr. BENNETT. I will finish my question. This group opposed to fur
farming put on the Internet a description of how to build a bomb to
blow up, say, a mink farm. They did say in their Internet thing, make
sure no animal, including a human, is present in the building when you
blow it up.
[[Page S5998]]
I ask the Senator from California if, in her opinion, her amendment
would make that kind of information on the Internet subject to Federal
prosecution?
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank the distinguished Senator. My answer is I
believe it would if the individual had the knowledge that any attempt
would be used for criminal purpose, which this would be. The answer to
the question is yes.
Mr. BENNETT. I thank the Senator.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank the Senator from Utah very much.
Mr. THURMOND addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to amendment No.
419. The yeas and nays have been ordered. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina [Mr.
Helms] is necessarily absent.
Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from South Dakota [Mr.
Daschle], the Senator from New Mexico [Mr. Bingaman], the Senator from
Iowa [Mr. Harkin], the Senator from Hawaii [Mr. Inouye], and the
Senator from Maryland [Ms. Mikulski] are necessarily absent.
I also announce that the Senator from South Dakota [Mr. Daschle] is
absent due to a death in the family.
I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from Iowa
[Mr. Harkin] would vote ``aye''.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 94, nays 0, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 110 Leg.]
YEAS--94
Abraham
Akaka
Allard
Ashcroft
Baucus
Bennett
Biden
Bond
Boxer
Breaux
Brownback
Bryan
Bumpers
Burns
Byrd
Campbell
Chafee
Cleland
Coats
Cochran
Collins
Conrad
Coverdell
Craig
D'Amato
DeWine
Dodd
Domenici
Dorgan
Durbin
Enzi
Faircloth
Feingold
Feinstein
Ford
Frist
Glenn
Gorton
Graham
Gramm
Grams
Grassley
Gregg
Hagel
Hatch
Hollings
Hutchinson
Hutchison
Inhofe
Jeffords
Johnson
Kempthorne
Kennedy
Kerrey
Kerry
Kohl
Kyl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lott
Lugar
Mack
McCain
McConnell
Moseley-Braun
Moynihan
Murkowski
Murray
Nickles
Reed
Reid
Robb
Roberts
Rockefeller
Roth
Santorum
Sarbanes
Sessions
Shelby
Smith (NH)
Smith (OR)
Snowe
Specter
Stevens
Thomas
Thompson
Thurmond
Torricelli
Warner
Wellstone
Wyden
NOT VOTING--6
Bingaman
Daschle
Harkin
Helms
Inouye
Mikulski
The amendment (No. 419) was agreed to.
Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. THURMOND. I move to lay it on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. THURMOND. 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. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, first of all, I would like to announce there
will be no further rollcall votes tonight. We have been working to make
sure that the Members that we need to have here tomorrow, if necessary,
on the Finance Committee and also the Budget Committee members are here
so we can complete our work on the tax cut provision of reconciliation,
so that the Budget Committee can meet tomorrow morning to package both
the reconciliation spending provision and the tax cut bill. We are now
satisfied we will be able to have Members here for that, even though we
do not have recorded votes scheduled.
For the information of all Senators, the Senate will resume
consideration of the DOD authorization bill. However, I have been
assured that amendments will be offered. Therefore, votes will not
occur during Friday's session.
The point I am making here is that we will be in session. We will
continue to work on the DOD bill. We will have amendments that will be
offered, but because of the request of a number of Senators, and the
agreement we have been able to work out, we will not have to have votes
during Friday's session.
As all Members know, the Senate will begin reconciliation on Monday.
It is my understanding that Members will offer amendments to the
reconciliation bill. Again, with a lot of requests from the Members and
with the assurance and the cooperation in a number of ways, which I
will not enumerate now, the votes that are required as a result of
amendments being offered Monday will be stacked to occur on Tuesday, at
9:30 a.m. Therefore, no votes will occur on Monday.
Committees are expected to act in the morning on the tax
reconciliation package. We will be in session tomorrow with some
morning business time that we will have identified later, and the
Department of Defense authorization bill will continue to be
considered. We will be in session on Monday on the reconciliation bill,
with amendments to be offered. But the next recorded votes will occur
and be stacked--more than one, hopefully, and at least a couple, but
maybe even more--to occur at 9:30 on Tuesday.
Mr. President, does the Senator from Kentucky wish to add anything?
Mr. FORD. Mr. President, we have been working back and forth all day.
I think the water is calm. So, on Monday, we will debate
reconciliation. There will be amendments offered. Votes will be stacked
until 9:30 on Tuesday, and there will be votes--a minimum of four,
probably, back to back.
Mr. LOTT. I appreciate that. That was an important component of us
getting this agreement, to guarantee that we are, in fact, getting work
done and making progress on the reconciliation bill.
Mr. FORD. I can guarantee the majority leader this. If we are here
and alive, you will have at least two amendments from our side that we
will vote on on Tuesday morning.
Mr. LOTT. We will have two from our side.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The pending question is the Cochran amendment
No. 420.
Mr. THURMOND. 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. THURMOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Privilege of the Floor
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
following three members of the Senator Kyl's staff be granted floor
privileges during the consideration of the national defense
authorization bill: Paul Iarrobino, John Rood, and David Stephens.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. THURMOND. 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. THURMOND. 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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