[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 96 (Wednesday, July 9, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7042-S7048]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 1998

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Roberts). Under the previous order, the 
Senate will now resume consideration of S. 936, which the clerk will 
report.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 936) to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 
     1998 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 resumed consideration of the bill.
  Pending:
       Cochran/Durbin amendment No. 420, to require a license to 
     export computers with composite theoretical performance equal 
     to or greater than 2,000 million theoretical operations per 
     second.
       Grams amendment No. 422 (to amendment No. 420), to require 
     the Comptroller General of the United States to conduct a 
     study on the availability and potential risks relating to the 
     sale of certain computers.
       Coverdell (for Inhofe/Coverdell/Cleland) amendment No. 423, 
     to define depot-level maintenance and repair, to limit 
     contracting for depot-level maintenance and repair at 
     installations approved for closure or realignment in 1995, 
     and to modify authorities and requirements relating to the 
     performance of core logistics functions.
       Lugar modified amendment No. 658, to increase (with 
     offsets) the funding, and to improve the authority, for 
     cooperative threat reduction programs and related Department 
     of Energy programs.
       Gorton amendment No. 645, to provide for the implementation 
     of designated provider agreements for uniformed services 
     treatment facilities.
       Wellstone amendment No. 669, to provide funds for the 
     bioassay testing of veterans exposed to ionizing radiation 
     during military service.
       Wellstone modified amendment No. 668, to require the 
     Secretary of Defense to transfer $400,000,000 to the 
     Secretary of Veterans' Affairs to provide funds for veterans' 
     health care and other purposes.
       Wellstone modified amendment No. 670, to require the 
     Secretary of Defense to transfer $5,000,000 to the Secretary 
     of Agriculture to provide funds for outreach and startup for 
     the school breakfast program.
       Wellstone modified amendment No. 666, to provide for the 
     transfer of funds for Federal Pell Grants.
       Gorton/Murray/Feinstein amendment No. 424, to reestablish a 
     selection process for donation of the USS Missouri.
       Murkowski modified amendment No. 753, to require the 
     Secretary of Defense to submit a report to Congress on the 
     options available to the Department of Defense for the 
     disposal of chemical weapons and agents.
       Kyl amendment No. 607, to impose a limitation on the use of 
     Cooperative Threat Reduction funds for destruction of 
     chemical weapons.
       Kyl amendment No. 605, to advise the President and Congress 
     regarding the safety, security, and reliability of United 
     States Nuclear weapons stockpile.
  Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, we are now back on the defense 
authorization bill, S. 936. We are ready to take up amendments. I want 
to inform my colleagues, if you have an amendment, come to the floor 
and present it. We are ready to act on these amendments. We have to 
finish this bill this week. We have lots of amendments. If you want 
your amendment acted on, you better come to the floor and see about it, 
otherwise we are going to proceed.
  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. KERREY. 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. KERREY. Mr. President, I rise to comment on one of the most 
important authorization bills to be debated by the Senate each year, 
the defense authorization bill. In fact, if you consider that the first 
duty of government is to assure the life and freedom of its people, 
then this is the most important authorization bill we will take up this 
year.
  Our debate, like most of what we do on this floor, will eventually 
produce a law. In our democracy, Mr. President, law is really our 
collective national imagining of how something should be. In this 
debate, America imagines its Armed Forces and crafts a law that 
authorizes their existence and shapes them to their tasks. This law has 
global reach and global consequences; so we should approach this debate 
with seriousness, with respect for those who serve, and respect toward 
those who wrestle with these issues on a daily basis.
  Deserving respect in the latter category are our colleagues who serve 
on the Armed Services Committee. They have produced a good bill, on 
balance, and they have done an exceptionally difficult task in putting 
together this legislation because they have to consider not only the 
threats to the Nation and the nonnegotiable requirements to repel those 
threats today, but also to support the force that is already deployed, 
as they are in Bosnia. They also face tough budget limitations, along 
with the demands of competing bureaucracies and those in the private 
sector who supply equipment and services for defense. Our colleagues on 
the Armed Services Committee must balance near-term with long-term, 
readiness with research, and through it all keep their eyes focused on 
the overall good of protecting the Nation. Mr. President, I thank them 
for taking on this tough task and producing such a good product. I 
especially thank the distinguished Senator from South Carolina and the 
distinguished Senator from Michigan for their fine work on this 
legislation.
  National strategy should be the basis for our consideration of the 
Defense authorization, and strategy is illuminated by history. We have 
a history, in the aftermath of decisive military involvement overseas, 
of withdrawing from foreign commitments. The surest sign of our 
withdrawal has always been the deep reduction of our Armed Forces. 
After World War I, we listened to our isolationist instincts, refused 
to join the League of Nations which our own President had created, and 
cut our military to the bare bones. Absent our leadership, Europe and 
Asia developed into a conflict which killed 50 million people--a 
conflict which only renewed American engagement could win. Again, after 
World War II, we deeply cut our military, only to be shocked into 
rearmament by the initial victories of Communist forces in Korea--
forces which might well have been deterred had we kept our forces 
capable. Again, after Vietnam we deeply cut our forces but fortunately 
rebuilt them when it became clear that our military was less capable 
than our national strategy required. We wisely rearmed and created a 
force which outlasted the Soviet Union and won a historic victory in 
the cold war.
  The clear lessons of history are: Stay engaged in the world and keep 
our Armed Forces congruent with the national strategy and with the 
threats we

[[Page S7043]]

face. In other words, we should not withdraw from the world--we should 
continue to lead, and an essential component of leadership is Armed 
Forces who can do what our strategy requires. Keeping those forces 
capable means sizing and shaping and equipping them to deal with the 
threats of today and tomorrow, changing and improving them so they can 
achieve their purpose.
  Our forces have an overriding purpose: To defend the Nation. But they 
also have subsidiary purposes: To defend our national interests and to 
support the stability which shields prosperity and democracy. We 
Americans also expect our military to do more than just national 
defense. We expect them to maintain and embody our national leadership. 
We expect them to be the agent of America's desire to lead a response 
to anarchy or famine or other instances in which American values call 
for action. These are the American values the world loves and depends 
on, and our military delivers on them.
  No other country on Earth has such a set of purposes for its armed 
forces, and no other country has the multifaceted, action-oriented, 
take-charge people in its military who can accomplish any or all of 
these purposes and think outside the box to do it better. Developing 
and nurturing such people is yet another essential task of our Armed 
Forces.
  The military that can answer the tall orders we place it cannot be a 
static institution, and our is not. It is not a status quo force. Some 
fail to see it, but in fact the U.S. military has become significantly 
smaller since the cold war. In 1990, there were 2,069,000 active duty 
service members. This bill authorizes 1,431,000 for fiscal year 1998. 
In 1990, there were 18 active Army divisions and 10 divisions in the 
Army National Guard. This bill authorizes 10 and 8 divisions, 
respectively, for fiscal year 1998. The number of Navy aircraft 
carriers has gone from 15--and 1 for training--to 22 and 1. Battle 
force ships have gone from 546 to 346. Air Force fighter wings have 
gone from 24 active and 12 reserve to 13 active and 7 reserve. My point 
is not to argue with these reductions, which made sense in terms of the 
threats and our commitments, but to note they occurred, and also to 
note they have been traumatic, not just for the communities in which 
they are located, but also for the services themselves.
  Let me add parenthetically, whatever the size of our forces, they 
should be supported by logistics and infrastructure that reflects their 
size. If our forces get smaller, we should not retain unneeded military 
basis. I, therefore, support the distinguished ranking member's 
amendment to initiate a new base closure process. The money we can save 
on excess bases is a matter for debate, but excess bases hurt readiness 
regardless of money because they add requirements for our most precious 
resource: personnel.

  Too much of what passes for strategic decisionmaking in defense these 
days is really about money. In my view, money is an issue only after 
you decide on a strategy and the military component of the strategy. 
The lesson of the cold war is, if we need something military to protect 
our country and achieve our strategic goal, we will pay for it, 
whatever the cost. In examining this bill and our strategic direction, 
saving money is not my highest priority. In fact, I don't think we 
spend too much on defense, given our global responsibilities and the 
size of our economy.
  My question is whether we are spending it on the right things. We can 
answer it by reviewing the threats we are facing and will face in the 
future.
  The top threat, the only threat that can instantly extinguish our 
national life and the lives of scores of millions of our citizens, is 
Russian nuclear weapons. The mission of U.S. Strategic Command is as 
essential as ever. It is the fashion to consign the cold war to the 
historic past, and Russia today is a friendly country. Indeed, the 
growth of prosperity and democracy in a friendly, peaceful Russia ought 
to be at the top of our strategic priorities--the potential for such a 
Russia is one of the principal fruits of the cold war. Conversely, a 
poor, unstable, chaotic Russia threatens our security because the 
command and control of nuclear weapons could be weakened. The 
likelihood of accidental launch or leakage of fissile materials into 
the hands of criminals or terrorists is increased. No aspect of the 
proliferation problem is more potentially threatening than the 
possibility that Russian fissile materials get into the wrong hands.
  The Armed Services Committee has understood the connection between 
Russian nuclear surety and our own national security. The Nunn-Lugar 
programs are proof of that understanding and the strategic vision of 
those two statesmen and many of their colleagues. The cuts made in 
those programs in this bill suggest we may have briefly lost sight of 
that vision, and I will join with the Senator from Michigan in seeking 
to restore the requested levels.
  Russian nuclear weapons are an inescapable, obvious part of our 
strategic reality. We also face a serious threat of proliferation of 
weapons of mass destruction to rogue States, countries like Iraq, Iran, 
Libya, and North Korea. One appropriate response to the threat from 
these countries, when the threat matures and becomes specific, is 
missile defense. But there are other responses that should not wait, 
including advanced research and development on the detection and 
targeting of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. Our global 
responsibilities could propel us with little warning into a conflict in 
which these weapons, the so-called poor man's nuclear weapons, are 
present, just as we now know they were during the gulf war.
  A third threat is the conventional capabilities of potentially 
hostile states, and analysis suggests to me these capabilities are in 
broad decline around the world, just as are the conventional 
capabilities of many allies. Most countries can stage a decent military 
parade. But there are few who can sustain ground combat operations or 
an air campaign lasting more than a few days.
  Recent history, and I am thinking especially of the performance of 
non-United States NATO forces in the earlier UNPROFOR stage of Bosnia, 
shows there are not many armies willing to even engage in ground combat 
unless United States troops are in action alongside them. Likewise, the 
Russian invasion of Chechnya several years ago seemed to me to be a 
repeated instance of Russian troops who would not leave the safety of 
their armored vehicles and their artillery positions to fight on the 
ground. The Russians blew up a lot of things from a distance but they 
did not win the war.
  I am most grateful American soldiers and marines still have the 
warrior spirit and have it in abundance, but I think we should 
recognize that this spirit, at least at this time in history, is far 
from universal. There are many armed people in the world who are 
willing to fight, but not generally on behalf of governments. The 
foreigners who are eager for a fight are likelier to be with Hizbollah 
or the PKK than with an established government. This reality, which may 
be only a temporary condition, should be reflected in how we shape our 
forces. We may be overstressing the likelihood of conventional conflict 
and understressing the unconventional, although the latter may be more 
likely. Let me add that unconventional operations have not been our 
forte, historically. As the nation-state declines in many regions and 
dissolves altogether in some parts of Africa, the potential for 
unconventional operations by U.S. forces grows larger.
  Conventional naval threats also appear to be in decline. Certainly 
there are no naval forces in the world remotely close to ours in either 
size or capability. The Russian Navy is experiencing severe problems 
just in paying and feeding its sailors, much less getting underway. At 
least temporarily, we may have the world's last real navy. But the 
gradual emergence of the navies of developing powers like China and 
India present a more distant threat that bears watching. At the other 
end of the spectrum, unconventional and shore-based attacks on our 
warships are already a threat to our forces which, as in the Persian 
Gulf, must come close to hostile coasts to maintain regional stability.
  Our global responsibilities, in the opinion of the administration, 
require us to be prepared to fight simultaneously in two major regional 
contingencies. Looking at the situation in North Korea, a regime which 
was described to the Intelligence Committee

[[Page S7044]]

in open session earlier this year by Lt. Gen. Pat Hughes, the Director 
of Defense Intelligence, as ``terminal,'' I respectfully disagree with 
the two MRC assumption. I think the likeliest near term possibility is 
for a combination of one major and several minor simultaneous 
contingencies which could be inconveniently located in terms of our 
logistics structure. In my view, the soundest investment we could make 
is more airlift so we can rapidly force a favorable outcome in these 
contingencies, and better sealift to sustain them.
  As we take on new international responsibilities our military should 
be appropriately tasked and shaped to carry them out. I note the Senate 
will soon consider the expansion of NATO. Our most significant new 
responsibility from this policy decision will be to be prepared to 
defend the eastern border of Poland. That is the guarantee we will 
make. It will not be a meaningful guarantee unless U.S. military forces 
are dedicated for this mission and train for it, and for all the 
logistic support which will also be required. I have yet to learn how 
this commitment, if we make it, will affect our force structure and 
what it will cost.
  Every human environment is a potential military target or theater of 
conflict, and that includes the new environment of cyberspace, an 
environment which is essential to our national security and yet is an 
environment without international borders or government controls. If we 
are to defend our communications systems, our transportation systems, 
our power transmission systems, our medical care delivery systems, we 
must defend our national information environment, our public networks. 
Robust encryption is an essential part of the defense of this 
environment as well as its assured, secure use by consumers, the 
private sector, and Government. The Secure Public Networks Act, which 
Senator McCain and I and others have introduced, aims to make set a 
global as well as a national standard for secure public networks. Our 
bill serves national defense as well as our commercial interest, and I 
commend it to my colleagues.
   Mr. President, as the threats and the environments change, it is our 
duty, as well as that of the administration, to ask ourselves if our 
forces are designed and equipped in the light of today's and tomorrow's 
reality. What is the likelihood that our Army will have to conduct 
large-scale armored operations against an enemy like the Iraqis of 
1991? Is the aircraft carrier the optimum fire support or air supremacy 
system in areas where we are denied access to airfields? What is the 
likelihood of a major amphibious assault in today's world, or a mass 
tactical parachute jump? What are the tactics and platforms best suited 
to achieve rapid, overwhelming victory today and tomorrow?
  We have in our military officers who can answer these and many other 
questions essential to formulating the future of our forces. Our 
military education system trains officers to think outside the box. 
Will their political masters in the Pentagon and White House let them? 
Are we in Congress open to real change or does it present political 
risk to us that we would rather not face?
  In the past, we have only made major positive changes in our military 
under the pressure of external threats. Now we have the opportunity to 
do it for ourselves. The seriousness of the tasks we assign to our 
military, and the quality and spirit of those who serve and who are 
willing--even enthusiastic--about going into danger for the rest of us, 
demand no less.
  Again, Mr. President, I commend both the chairman of the Armed 
Services Committee, the distinguished senior Senator from South 
Carolina, and the Senator from Michigan, the ranking member of this 
committee, for their very constructive and important work. They have 
produced a good piece of legislation. There are some changes that I 
would like to make with their support, especially of the ranking 
member. But overall they have kept the faith with the people of this 
Nation and produced a piece of legislation that, if enacted, will 
enable the United States of America to continue to be safe and secure.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. THURMOND addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I commend the able Senator from 
Nebraska, who incidentally is the only Member of Congress who is a 
Congressional Medal of Honor winner, for the excellent statement he 
just made. It will be very beneficial to the country to hear a 
statement like that.


                         Privilege of the Floor

  Mr. President, while I am on my feet, I ask unanimous consent that 
Ron Moranville, a legislative fellow on Senator McCain's staff, be 
granted privileges of the floor during the debate of S. 936.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LEVIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, while the Senator from Nebraska is still on 
the floor, I want to add my voice to my good friend, the chairman of 
our committee, for his comments about the Senator's remarks. I only 
wish that every Member of the U.S. Senate could have been here to hear 
the Senator from Nebraska.

  It is a comprehensive statement. It is thorough. It is intellectually 
solid. It is based, most importantly, on experience. There are some 
times theoretical statements that we hear that do not have that kind of 
a base and experience.
  The Senator talked about old values of this country and new threats. 
He set forth what these new challenges and new threats are. But he also 
underpinned our commitment as we hope to reflect in this bill with his 
help the old values which he has so superbly represented throughout his 
life.
  I just simply want to thank the Senator from Nebraska for his 
commitment, for his dedication, for his patriotism, and for taking the 
time to set forth in a document, as he did this morning, and in 
speeches he gave this morning, some of the most critical challenges 
that this Nation faces.
  Mr. GRAMM addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, let me not miss this opportunity to join 
our chairman and ranking member in saying good things about our dear 
friend from Nebraska. I am glad I was over and got to hear part of his 
speech.
  Mr. President, I have waited until we got to a lull in consideration 
of amendments to come over today and talk about an issue which is very 
important to me and to my State. But I think more importantly it is 
very important to our national security, and it is very important to 
the American taxpayer who is intimately involved in all of these 
considerations as the ultimate payer for all that we undertake.
  I want to apologize in advance to my colleagues because I want to 
cover a series of issues here that are related to base closing and 
privatization.
  We have had a protracted debate in the House of Representatives, most 
of which I would have to say I believe is based on a view of the facts 
that do not comport with my view, and I think don't comport with the 
facts. I think it is very important at least to have on record at one 
place as we enter into the debate, which ultimately will occur in 
conference, on what this whole issue is about and what it is not about, 
because I want our colleagues to know that this is not a dispute among 
Senators that are simply representing the views and interests of their 
States.
  In my mind this is about a fundamental issue. I think when you cut 
through all of the rhetoric, when you separate out all of the random 
facts that are out there in the debate, that the ultimate issue is, do 
you believe in competition? Do you believe the taxpayer benefits from 
competition with a lower price? And do you believe that competition 
produces quality and excellence? If you do, you are for it. If you do 
not, you are against it. And it is my belief that these decisions about 
privatization ought to be made on that basis.
  Having thrown a bunch of ideas out there that to any listener not 
involved in this sounds to be random, let me go back to the beginning, 
back to the 1995 Base Closing Commission report, and then come forward 
to the present, to the House action and where we are today, and 
basically try to set this whole thing in the context of facts. So let 
me begin with the base closing report.

[[Page S7045]]

  As our colleagues are painfully aware--and especially if they 
represent a State as I do where bases have been closed--we adopted a 
bill establishing a commission to close military bases that were no 
longer needed. I was a principal cosponsor of that bill. I supported 
it. I have voted for each of the recommendations of the Base Closing 
Commission including the recommendations that closed five military 
bases in my State. I am committed to continuing the base closing 
process. I will be one of the Senators, assuming that Senator McCain 
and I can work out some language differences, who will be cosponsoring 
Senator McCain's amendment to reinstitute the Base Closing Commission.
  So I do not want anybody to be the least bit confused. I am in favor 
of closing military bases to reduce the overhead that we have which is 
literally starving national defense, and in the process threatens our 
modernization and threatens our ability to maintain the pay and 
benefits that have allowed us to recruit and retain the finest young 
men and women who have ever worn the uniform of this country.

  I intend, assuming that we can work out these minor language 
differences, to cosponsor the McCain amendment to reinstitute base 
closing, though it is very unpopular in my State, and very unpopular in 
the country. The bottom line is we have cut national defense spending 
by over a third, and we have closed only 18 percent of the military 
bases.
  We have a huge overhang from the cold war in the bureaucracy in 
Washington, around the world, and in our own country, which makes 
absolutely no sense. We have more nurses in Europe than we have combat 
infantry officers in Europe. We have a huge overhang of resources, 
facilities, production capacity, and bureaucracy that ultimately have 
to be pared down to meet the defense needs of the Nation. And while I 
am not happy about doing it, while I worry that more military bases in 
my State will be closed, I am for it because I think the national 
interest dictates it.
  I also believe it is a tragedy that cannot be avoided that the very 
communities whose support allowed us to operate military bases and 
facilities that won the cold war and tore down the Berlin Wall and 
liberated Eastern Europe and transformed the world are the very 
communities that end up being hurt by this process. But the alternative 
to this process is that we end up with a huge bureaucracy where we are 
spending our money to maintain facilities rather than to maintain 
defense. We have in terms of our ``tiger,'' so to speak, our military 
strength today, too little tooth and too much tail. That is what the 
Base Closing Commission is about.
  Having said all of that, let me go back to the Base Closing 
Commission Report of 1995. I want to talk about a base in my State. And 
then from that I want to discuss this whole issue because I have never 
heard a debate since I have been here that has been more confused on 
what the real issues are than this debate about privatization.
  Let me take you back to 1995. We are in the process of moving toward 
congressional and Presidential elections. The Base Closing Commission 
recommends, among other things, closing Kelly Air Force Base in San 
Antonio, TX, a huge facility with 14,000 employees. And they recommend 
two options. I want to read from the Base Closure Commission report, 
because one of the assertions that has been made in all this debate is 
that the President is trying to use politics to overcome the 
recommendation of the Base Closure Commission. There is only one 
problem with that assertion, and that is it is not true.

  Now, when the Base Closure Commission in 1995 closed Kelly, they had 
two recommendations as to what to do. One was consolidate the workload 
to other DOD depots or to private sector commercial activities as 
determined by the Defense Depot Maintenance Council. In other words, 
the recommendation was to close Kelly Air Force Base and then either 
transfer its functions to another depot or put them out for private 
bids, and if under the procedures established by the Defense Depot 
Maintenance Council it is cheaper to do it in the private sector than 
to transfer it to a depot, DOD could do it that way.
  Now, this is not me talking; this is not what I am in favor of. This 
is what was recommended by the Base Closure Commission.
  Now, it does get confusing after that. You have a base closed, a big 
maintenance facility in California, and you have a big maintenance 
facility in Texas closed, Kelly Air Force Base, and President Clinton 
is running for reelection. Obviously, people in California are not 
happy about the base closing. Obviously, people in Texas are not happy 
about it. So what do you expect the President to do? Do you expect him 
to go around and say this is great? What the President did, which I 
would have to say 9 out of 10 politicians would have done, including 
many people on my side of the aisle, is he went out of his way to say, 
well, look, all is not lost. Maybe we can privatize some of these 
functions in facilities that are currently at McClellan or currently at 
Kelly. In other words, the President, in campaigning, did what any 
politician would do. He took the options of the Base Closure Commission 
and wrapped them in as pretty a package as we could wrap them and led 
people to believe that he somehow was going to support ``privatizing 
these functions in place,'' which was a term that he used.
  Now, those who oppose competition based on price and quality have 
seized on what the President did during the campaign and claimed that 
somehow that violated the principles of the Base Closure Commission. It 
seems to me that as politicians we are all familiar, intimately 
familiar, practiced, in fact, in the skill of taking bad news and 
putting as pretty a face on it as you can. And what the President did 
all through the campaign in voter-rich California and Texas, two big 
States with huge electoral votes, is he talked about the potential for 
privatization. But I want to remind my colleagues that the President 
signed the Base Closure Commission report. We had some effort in my 
State to try to encourage the President not to sign the Base Closure 
Commission report. I am proud to say that I rejected it, refused to 
participate in it and thought the President had no choice, and in the 
end he did not.
  But to somehow assert, as has been done in the debate in the House 
and to some extent here, that the President has tampered with the 
process by trying to put a pretty face on a corpse is just not fair, 
and it misleads people about this whole debate.
  Now, let me outline what we are actually talking about. We are going 
to have a contract where maintenance work on the C-5 is put out for 
competition. If a private contractor can do it for less, it will be 
privatized to save the taxpayer money. Now, that private contractor can 
do the work anywhere they choose, and obviously one of the options that 
is going to be bid will be the option of using the C-5 hangar which 
exists at Kelly and nowhere else--it would cost $100 million to rebuild 
it somewhere else--and doing the work not with Government employees but 
with private employees. They will not get the contract if they cannot 
do it for less.
  So what is the issue here? Well, some people say the issue is DOD is 
not following the Base Closure Commission report because they are not 
closing Kelly Air Force Base. They are not closing McClellan Air Force 
Base. Well, look, we all want to take facts and try to use them to 
bolster our argument, but this is not true. No one is proposing that we 
not close Kelly Air Force Base. No one is proposing that we not close 
McClellan Air Force Base. There are a lot of people in San Antonio, 
there are a lot of people in Texas, there are a lot of people in 
California who would rather not close these bases, but there is no 
debate about it. The debate is about this: Should private industry have 
a right to compete for the work that will no longer be done by the 
Government at Kelly and McClellan? That is the question. So nobody is 
saying do not close the military bases. To listen to the debate in the 
House, you would think that is what is being proposed.

  Now, that brings me to the next point I want to make. All throughout 
the debate in the House of Representatives reference was made to a GAO 
study entitled ``Air Force Depot Maintenance: Privatization in Place 
Plans Are Costly While Excess Capacity Exists.''
  Now, might I say that this is so typical of GAO work, because what 
happened is somebody asked GAO to do a

[[Page S7046]]

study that in essence said, if your whole objective is to reduce Air 
Force overhead, would you want to consolidate or would you want to 
privatize? Nobody asked the question, if you want to save the taxpayer 
money, if you want to improve quality, what would you do? But to listen 
to the debate in the House of Representatives, where over and over 
again people held up this study, you would think that the General 
Accounting Office had concluded that having the Government do this work 
rather than having a public/private competition, where we would decide 
who does it based on who could do it better or cheaper, that GAO had 
looked at this option and had decided the Government could do it 
better.
  Now, when you actually look at their study, you find, in fact, that 
is not what the study looks at at all. What the study basically looks 
at is, if your objective is to reduce the level of overhead in depots, 
what you would want to do is consolidate. If your objective is to 
reduce the amount of excess capacity in private industry, as if that is 
our concern, you would want to consolidate into the depots. But when 
they get down to cost, all they can say is that ``Air Force planning 
has not progressed far enough to compare precisely the cost of 
privatization of depot workload in place with the cost of transferring 
the work to other unused depots.''
  So, in other words, all the GAO study says is if the only options are 
to close Kelly and McClellan and transfer the work versus keeping them 
open, operating at the same cost, you ought to close them and transfer 
the work, especially if your sole objective is to reduce overhead. I do 
not disagree with a word this study says, but the problem is it does 
not have anything to do with the debate that is being conducted. The 
debate is not about excess capacity. The debate is about cost. The 
debate is about dollars and cents: Is it cheaper to have public/private 
competition, or is it cheaper to simply have the maintenance work done 
in Government depots?
  Interestingly enough, there was another study on this subject which 
was never referred to in the debate in the House, and this is a July 
1995 study done by the Congressional Budget Office. I want to remind my 
colleagues this study was done before the Base Closure Commission 
report and was in no way colored by anybody trying to tilt the evidence 
in favor or against privatization.
  Now, the CBO study basically concludes, comparing the public sector, 
where the Government does maintenance work with Government employees, 
versus the private sector, that ``shifting depot work to the private 
sector might reasonably be expected to save $1 billion annually in the 
long run.''
  In other words, you have two studies. One looks at whether or not to 
close a facility and shift the function, where those are the only two 
options--and which is not what we are debating at all. The other study 
tries to look at competition between the public sector and the private 
sector in doing this work, and--something that should not come as 
startling to an American--competition means lower prices and higher 
quality, and this study projects about $1 billion of savings from 
competition once you fully implement competition.

  Let me summarize then what the real issue here is about. The real 
issue here is not about closing two Air Force maintenance facilities. 
Nobody is arguing that these two bases should not be closed. But what 
is being argued, and being argued with some passion, is whether or not 
we ought to look at the least costly way of doing this work. Should we 
simply close these two military bases, which everyone supports, and 
shift the functions to other Air Force maintenance facilities, or 
should we put out this work for bids, and if it can be done cheaper in 
a Government depot, do it there, and if it can be done cheaper by the 
private sector, do it there?
  That is what the issue really is about, but you would never know it 
from the debate. The debate we hear really goes in two directions. One, 
we are talking about keeping bases open that the Base Closure 
Commission closed and that violates the agreement. Nobody is talking 
about keeping the bases open. They are going to be closed. We are going 
to bring down the flag. The military personnel are going to be shifted. 
Nobody is debating that option. The question is, should we allow a 
private contractor, who would come in and lease a facility that will 
belong in this case to the city of San Antonio, a C-5 hangar that does 
not exist anywhere else in America, should a private contractor be able 
to come in and lease that facility and compete with other private 
contractors and with the Government to maintain, for example, the C-5?
  That is the question. Obviously, if we have private competition, that 
is going to mean that our remaining depots are going to have to 
compete.
  I am not going to get into the business of trying to determine the 
intentions of our colleagues. I never try to impugn anybody's 
intentions. But let me talk specifically about that issue. I have 
proposed a compromise that I think makes sense. In this sort of 
supercharged environment where this has become one State versus 
another, we have not yet worked out a compromise, but I wanted to 
outline what my compromise is because I think in the future we are 
going to have to come to some conclusion here.
  My proposed compromise is the following thing. We have in this bill a 
requirement that 50 percent of our maintenance work be done in 
Government depots and no more than 50 percent be done by the private 
sector. This is an arbitrary provision. It ought to be repealed. We 
ought to make the decision based on defense needs and cost. But what 
has really happened here is that at the very time when defense spending 
is being cut, you might initially believe that, well, with defense 
having been cut by a third, we have all been forced to make tough 
decisions, and in the name of a strong national defense and in the name 
of the security of the United States, we are all forced to make 
decisions about cutting overhead and waste and protecting special 
interests, dropping that so that we can get the most return we can on 
our defense dollars. You might think that would happen. But I am sorry 
to say that I think there is every evidence that exactly the opposite 
has occurred, that what has happened with defense spending declining is 
that our defense facilities and the people who live in those 
communities and those who represent those communities have started to 
view defense like welfare or an entitlement, that somehow because you 
have a defense maintenance facility, for example, that you are entitled 
to the work and the fact that we have less of it makes you more 
entitled.

  So what we have seen in the House is sweeping language that would bar 
privatization and price competition for all practical purposes, forcing 
the Air Force to do something they do not want to do. The Secretary of 
Defense, the Secretary of the Air Force, the uniformed leadership, the 
Joint Chiefs of Staff, the people who are trying to preserve a strong 
defense desperately want the ability to engage in price competition. 
They understand we won the cold war because the private sector can do 
things well. So what they want to do, with the limited amount of money 
they have, is take a requirement and put it out for competitive bids 
and get the most return we can by having competitive bids. So that, if 
a depot in some State wants work, they have to prove they can do it 
cheaper than any other depot or than any other private sector person 
who might do that work.
  I have offered to our colleagues on the other side of this issue to 
sit down with them and define a level playing surface, so that we can 
be absolutely sure that this is going to be a fair competition. But, 
basically, what has happened, I am afraid, and I am unhappy to say, is 
that increasingly defense is being viewed as an entitlement or welfare 
program, where, as we have less of it, rather than spending our money 
more efficiently, there is a demand to protect the interests of 
individual communities and individual military facilities. If we follow 
this procedure, we are going to end up with a less effective military 
force, we are going to end up with less procurement of new equipment, 
we are going to end up with poorer pay and working conditions, we are 
going to end up with a military that does not represent the best and 
the brightest in our society.
  What my proposal has been is the following: Leave this division of 
public/private work in place, at least temporarily. I would have to say 
that logic

[[Page S7047]]

dictates that we ought not to have any arbitrary division, that it 
ought to be done based on competition. But my proposal is the 
following, that within this arbitrary division set out in law, in our 
bill 50-50--no more than 50 percent can be contracted out--leave that 
provision in place, but add a provision that says that, if a private 
contractor using a level playing surface that takes into account all 
costs, where a bidder has to have a firm, fixed price and where you 
don't pay them if they have a cost overrun, they have to eat it, and 
where you impose a fine and other penalties on them if they don't meet 
quality requirements and a timetable, including disbarring them from 
doing defense work, then have a full and fair competition, however we 
want to define it. I would define it to include all costs, including 
retirement and overhead, and require the public and the private sector 
to have fixed-price contracts, and then make them live up to the 
contract.
  I am trying to work out a compromise and break this impasse that not 
only fractures the Senate and House but that threatens our national 
defense efficiency, in my opinion. What I am willing to say is, OK, 
stay with the 50-50 arbitrary division except in the cases where the 
savings are 10 percent or greater. In other words, begin with a 
presumption that it is worth 10 percent to have the Government do it, 
but if the private sector can do it for more than 10 percent less than 
what the Government can do it for, let the private sector have the 
contract. In other words, give a 10-percent bias toward the Government. 
If you really are concerned about efficiency, it seems to me that is 
more than a reasonable proposal. What it would say is that any time the 
Government in its depots can do the work within 10 percent of what the 
private sector can do it, we leave the existing restrictions in place. 
But in those cases where the savings are at least 10 percent or more, 
let the private sector have the opportunity to bid on it and, if they 
win the bid by that margin, let them have the work.

  That is, I believe, the ultimate solution to this problem. I don't 
think it makes sense economically. I think it is tilted toward 
Government procurement, Government provision of maintenance. But to try 
to reach a compromise, it is what I am in favor of. But let me make it 
clear, not only do I believe the position I have taken is right for 
America and right for the taxpayer, but the idea that companies in 
Texas or anywhere else don't have a right to bid on work and, if they 
can do it cheaper, get the contract is so alien to everything that I 
believe and everything that I believe is in the national interest that, 
if there is any provision in this final bill that stops competition, 
that precludes price competition to benefit the taxpayer, I am going to 
vigorously resist.
  Also, I might note that the President has said that he would veto the 
bill if such a provision were in it. I hope my colleagues, at the very 
time when we are all down here bemoaning the decline in defense 
spending and the threat it poses to our security, I hope we are not 
going to put ourselves in a position where we are defending special 
interests and the President is vetoing the bill because we are more 
concerned about the pork barrel and treating defense like welfare than 
we are concerned about providing for the national defense.
  Let me go to the final point. So confused has this issue become that 
we now have colleagues who are saying that they are not going to 
support another base closing commission because of what the President 
supposedly has done about the last one. Our chairman of the Defense 
Appropriations Subcommittee, Ted Stevens--we all know and admire him--
he is quoted in today's paper in the following way: ``Senator Ted 
Stevens, Alaska Republican, said there will be no further closure until 
Mr. Clinton backs off his plan to protect bases in California and 
Texas.''
  Let me respond by saying, obviously the President, like any good 
parade leader, when the Base Closing Commission proposed one of the 
options being price competition, the President grabbed his baton and 
got out in front of the parade. He just thought it was a great idea and 
he thought that we would almost certainly do it. And he was for it. He 
was very much for it. Because people were getting ready to vote on 
whether to renew his contract or not.
  But it is not what he said that is important; it is what his 
administration did. The point is, they didn't do it. All they have said 
is that they want to follow the Base Closing Commission report where 
they would put out bids, and if the private sector can do the work on 
these closed military bases, or anywhere else, cheaper than the 
Government can do the work internally, they want to do it.
  So, are we going to base the public policy of the country on 
political posturing by a candidate for office during a contested 
Presidential election? The plain truth is, the President said over and 
over he was for privatization and he believed that contractors at these 
bases would win the competition. But he didn't change Government 
policy. He didn't say we are going to write the proposals so that they 
have to win. In fact, the Defense Department believes, our Secretary of 
Defense believes, the Secretary of the Air Force believes, the 
uniformed services believe, that we could save as much as 30 percent by 
having price competition.
  So, what a terrible confusion we find ourselves in, where we are 
talking about not moving forward with necessary policy because the 
President, taking the best provisions of the Base Closing Act from a 
political point of view and trying to hide behind them, somehow 
confuses people. We are going to let a contract on C-5 maintenance. If 
it can be done cheaper by the private sector, it will be done by the 
private sector. If it can't, it won't. Now, if it is cheaper to be done 
by the private sector--and I believe it will be substantially cheaper--
but if it is, do I expect the President to make a statement about it 
and say: I am delighted that a private contractor in California or 
Texas or Timbuktu has gotten this contract? Yes, I expect him to do 
that. But does that change the fact that the taxpayer has benefited? 
That defense has benefited? No. So, I urge my colleagues to go back and 
look at this issue.

  A final point and I will yield the floor. This is not, in my mind--
and I believe demonstrably it is not a fact--to say that this is a 
dispute between the Senators who represent Texas and California on one 
hand and the Senators who represent States that have Air Force depots 
on the other hand. In fact, I had the great privilege, as our 
distinguished chairman will remember, of serving on the Armed Services 
Committee for 6 years. Every day in every way on every issue, I 
supported privatization as a member of that committee. Now, granted, if 
the situation were reversed and we had closed a maintenance facility in 
some other State and we were moving it to Texas, my position would be 
more difficult than it is today, because the national interest and my 
State's little special interest would be at least partially on a 
different side. But I don't believe that my position would be any 
different than it is today. I cannot imagine that I would ever oppose 
price competition as a way of getting the largest return on our dollar. 
I hope, if the day ever comes that I have to go against something that 
I believe in as strongly as I believe in price competition, that maybe 
I'll get out of the way and let somebody else do this job.
  The point I want to make in concluding is this is not a dispute among 
States. Granted, everybody can look at this, this collage of facts and 
political posturing, and they can pick and choose what they want. They 
can take reports that do not have anything to do with price competition 
and say, ``You see, it's cheaper to let the Government do it and have 
no price competition.'' Anybody who has lived in America for more than 
a day would know this can't be right. But you can do that. You can take 
political posturing and make whatever you want to out of it. But, when 
you get down to the bottom line, this is a debate about price 
competition, are you for it or are you not for it? I'm for it.
  Let me say, I want to work something out. This ends up, in a sense, 
pitting me against some of the Members for whom I have the highest 
affection. There is no Senator I love more than the Senator from 
Georgia, Senator Coverdell, or Senator Inhofe from Oklahoma. I was 
instrumental, as chairman of the senatorial committee, I think, in 
helping to elect both of them.

[[Page S7048]]

  I want to work out an agreement where everybody can feel that we have 
a good national policy, and their interests are protected. If there is 
a legitimate concern about full and fair competition, if people are in 
any way concerned that the Air Force is going to tilt the competition 
to benefit private contractors at the expense of depots, which I don't 
believe because I think every pressure will be in the opposite 
direction, but the point is, if people are concerned about that, I am 
willing to sit down and work with them and come up with an ironclad 
system.
  I am willing to bring private accounting firms into the certification 
process to guarantee that it is a fair competition. I am willing to do 
whatever we have to do to safeguard the competitive process. But I am 
not willing to let what I perceive to be special interest treat defense 
spending as welfare and say this belongs to us, even if we can't do it 
better, even if we can't do it cheaper, that the fact that we have done 
it means that we ought to have it forever.
  We all have to resist that. We all have to represent our States. That 
is why we are elected. But we have to also look at the overriding 
national interest.
  I wanted to come down today and go over all these issues because 
someday, the Senate is going to have to reach a decision on this. I 
think as it stands now, this decision will be made in conference. I 
hope that we can, in conference, preserve the ability to have price 
competition. I am hoping that next year, we can sit down and work out 
an agreement where everybody believes and is confident, to the degree 
we can make people confident, that their individual interests are 
protected.
  But the issue here is not preventing base closures. We are going to 
close the bases. The flags are coming down. We are already moving 
people. Nobody is disputing that. Despite all the political rhetoric to 
the contrary, we are closing these bases. The question is: Should we 
use price competition to determine whether some of their functions go 
to other bases or whether they go to the private sector? And the Base 
Closing Commission recommended that we do that. So nobody is here 
trying to override the Base Closing Commission. What we are here trying 
to do is to implement the Base Closing Commission recommendations.
  We all, obviously, look at an array of facts, and we often try to 
take the facts that bolster our case. I think that is only human 
nature. But I believe that if a person gathers all the facts and cuts 
through all the irrelevant issues and gets to the bottom line on this 
issue, it is: Do we believe in competition? Do we believe that we can 
maximize the effectiveness of national defense by having public-private 
competition where the best provider at the lowest price wins? I believe 
we do. I believe that is the principle that most Members of the Senate 
and the House believe in.
  I wanted to take the time today--and I thank my colleagues for their 
forbearance in this lengthy speech--to at least get on the public 
record what one Member believes the facts to be. I yield the floor.
  Mr. THURMOND. 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. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Who seeks time?
  Mr. DODD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.

                          ____________________