[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.
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