[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 122 (Tuesday, September 15, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H7708-H7711]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     APPOINTMENT OF CONFEREES ON H.R. 4103, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 
                        APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1999

  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take 
from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 4103) making appropriations for 
the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 
1999, and for other purposes, with Senate amendments thereto, disagree 
to the Senate amendments, and agree to the conference asked by the 
Senate.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Florida?
  There was no objection.


            Motion to Instruct Conferees Offered by Mr. Obey

  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Obey moves that the managers on the part of the House 
     at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses 
     on the bill, H.R. 4103, be instructed to reduce, within the 
     scope of conference, the maximum amount possible from 
     appropriations for low priority congressionally-directed 
     projects not requested in the FY 1999 Defense Department 
     budget request and apply those funds to alleviate high 
     priority military readiness needs for spare parts, quality of 
     life programs, training exercises, retention bonuses, and 
     recruitment incentives.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and 
the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) each will be recognized for 30 
minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, my understanding is that the majority party leadership 
is contemplating an emergency spending supplemental to add substantial 
sums of money for military readiness to be paid for out of the surplus. 
The concerns for slippage in military readiness are legitimate and I 
share them. What I do question is whether this Congress needs to spend 
sums out of the surplus to take care of those needs when it is evident 
that we have not come close to squeezing low priority pork barrel 
spending out of this bill so that that spending can be shifted to meet 
those legitimate readiness needs.
  A lot that often happens in this town is enough to give hypocrisy a 
bad name, and on this issue I think we have the same principle 
operating. This Congress has added $20 billion to military budget 
requests of the President over the last three years. The vast majority 
of that money, over 85 percent, has not gone to address readiness 
shortfalls about which we now hear so many crocodile tears. It has gone 
for procurement and research, some of it useful, much of it of low 
priority to meet the political needs of Members for things like 
additional C-130 aircraft that the Pentagon has not asked for, or 
questionable studies of the Aurora Borealis. It has been reported that 
there is $4 billion in the House defense appropriation bill this year 
for congressionally-directed projects not requested by the Pentagon.
  I want to say that I am not a Percy Pureheart on these items.

                              {time}  1200

  I think there are times when the Congress has a perfect right to 
substitute its judgment on the need for projects for that of the 
executive branch. I recognize that that is our prerogative. What I do 
object to is when we go overboard in the process, and I would like to 
say that we ought to be able to take at least one-fourth of the 
congressional add-ons that in my judgment, and in the judgment of many 
others who know a lot more about it than I do, were made principally to 
meet the political needs of Members of Congress rather than to meet the 
defense needs of the country, and we ought to take that money, 
eliminate those low-priority projects and move that into true readiness 
portions of the budget for things like quality-of-life improvements for 
troops, spare parts, recruitment and retention initiatives.
  Mr. Speaker, this amendment does not specifically require a specific 
amount to be moved, but it does instruct the committee, to the maximum 
possible extent, to move whatever items they can move out of these low-
priority pork and project areas into readiness parts of the budget.
  Now, I earlier mentioned hypocrisy. We have seen this Congress on 
several occasions bemoan the very shortfalls that it has helped create.
  One example: Just last year, when the leadership of this House 
attacked the Clinton administration intelligence budget for being too 
low and then proceeded to cut it even more in order to free up more 
money for congressional pork.
  I do not, as I said, object to the Congress occasionally exercising 
its independent judgment on the values of some of these projects. What 
I object to, whether it occurs on the highway bill, or the committee of 
jurisdiction added over 1,800 pork barrel projects, or whether it 
happens in this bill, what I object to is when the practice of adding 
these projects becomes so gross that in the end that itself drives 
through this place legislation which otherwise would be considered in a 
more thoughtful way and with a more skeptical eye.
  And so I simply want to repeat: This Congress has added in the last 3 
years over $20 billion in military spending, 85 percent of which went 
to nonreadiness accounts for destroyers that the Pentagon did not ask 
for or C-130s the Pentagon did not ask for and other items.
  In my own district, I have tried to eliminate one military project 
for 14 years and still have not had any success. I do not know if there 
is another Member of Congress who has asked the Congress to eliminate a 
project in his own district. I have not succeeded, but I am going to 
keep trying.
  But what I object to is the mind-set on this bill that always assumes 
that money should be spent, rather than saying that the burden of proof 
falls on those once in a while who want to spend the money.
  It just seems to me when we are told that there are 11,000 military 
personnel who are still on food stamps, that what we ought to be doing 
is putting our money in places that alleviates that demeaning need for 
them to ask for food stamps when they ought to be

[[Page H7709]]

compensated at a level decent enough to avoid having to ask that, and 
it seems to me we ought to be putting our money into items like that 
and into other areas of readiness rather than putting so much of it in 
items that are simply here to make the grease on the bill move the bill 
a little faster through the process.
  So that is all this motion does, and as I said, out of deference to 
the committee I did not specify any specific dollar amount because the 
committee knows which items are pork and which items are truly high-
priority congressional differences of judgment with the executive 
branch, and it seems to me that the House ought to adopt this motion 
and get on with the other business that faces us.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I 
might consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) 
for bringing this motion to instruct before the House. I do not have 
any problem with what he is suggesting here because this is what we 
have been trying to do since we became the majority party and I have 
had the privilege of chairing this subcommittee. We have tried our very 
best to eliminate any pork-type spending in the defense bill.
  Now we are dealing with 435 Members of the House, 100 Members of the 
other body, and sometimes it might not be quite as easy as the 
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) would suggest, but we do work at 
it.
  And another reason I am glad that he raised this issue: Part of his 
motion says to apply those funds to alleviate high-priority military 
readiness needs for spare parts, quality of life, training exercises, 
retention bonuses and recruitment incentives. That is really one of the 
big things that we did in the House bill where we added to the 
President's budget. And we would admit the President's budget was very 
short in those areas. In our committee we added $215 million over the 
President's budget for those spare parts.
  More is needed. There are still airplanes in hangars that cannot fly 
because they do not have spare parts to fix them. There are other 
problems with spare parts throughout the services. So we agree with 
that, that we need more money in spare parts.
  Quality of life: We added right at a billion dollars for quality-of-
life issues, and one of the things that we added over the President's 
budget was for housing for people who work in the military and live in 
military housing, so that they have a decent place to live, a decent 
quality of life. And despite the fact that in the last 3 years we have 
added considerable money over the President's budget, there is still 
much to be done to repair and maintain some of the military housing.
  For training shortfalls, again as the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Obey) refers to it, he is right. We added $560 million over the 
President's budget. These are congressional initiatives over the 
President's budget for training shortfalls, retention and recruiting, 
again a serious problem. People are leaving the military in large 
numbers. Recruiting schedules are off. Except for the Marine Corps, who 
are on schedule, the other services are behind in their recruiting. So 
we added $85 million over the President's budget for retention and for 
recruiting.
  We understand these problems, and we are doing the best we can. But I 
also want to say, Mr. Speaker, that there have been many programs that 
have been created by the Congress that the Pentagon did not want at the 
time, and most of those have proved to be very successful. I want to 
talk about just one or two of them.
  Remember our committee was involved some years back in saying to the 
Defense Department that we need more sealift, we need the ability to 
get there from here, and the Pentagon objected; they did not like this 
idea at all. But we went ahead, and we did it anyway, and we bought the 
fast sealift ships. When Desert Shield, the buildup to Desert Storm, 
came about, they were all thanking their lucky stars that Congress 
pushed the program to create the sealift.
  Airlift falls into the same category. We pushed the C-17, which now 
everyone in the world says is one of the smartest things we ever did. 
Again a push by the Congress over the objections of the Pentagon.
  In the last 3 years we have had to add over a billion dollars, 
congressional adds, because the President's budget was so short when it 
dealt with health issues, when it dealt with the health care of those 
who serve in the military and their families.
  The list is very long, Mr. Speaker, but I want to say to the 
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and to all those in the House, we 
recognize our responsibility to the Members of the House and to the 
Members of the other body, and we recognize our responsibility to those 
who serve in uniform.
  I have a son who is enlisted in the military, and I can tell my 
colleague, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), he does not get 
enough money, he does not get paid enough. He does not have to live on 
food stamps because mom and dad tend to take care of some of his other 
financial requirements. But the lower ranks in the military are not 
paid enough. And the congressional initiative for fiscal year 1999 is 
to increase the President's budget request for pay raises by another 
half a percent. Not enough, not enough yet, but at least a signal to 
those who serve in the military that we recognize their needs.
  So what I am saying, Mr. Speaker, is I do not object to the gentleman 
from Wisconsin's motion because I agree with it. But I wanted to point 
out that we are trying to do the very things that his motion directs us 
to do, and as we go through this conference, we will continue the 
effort to make sure that whatever comes out in the final defense 
appropriations bill will be something that the military has a 
requirement for, that it responds directly to our national security and 
that there is a real need for it.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, I would point out that the gentleman has indicated a 
number of things which are factually correct, but I think they need to 
be placed in broader context.
  Example: At one point under the previous administration, the Bush 
administration, there was a complete pause in funding improvements to 
quality-of-life items for our troops in a number of areas.
  I would also point out that the President just today is engaged in a 
readiness conference with the Joint Chiefs.
  The reason that I raised this motion today is simply because I find 
it ironic that the Congress is considering adding a special 
supplemental to deal with readiness issues before it has eliminated a 
good deal of the waste and low-priority pork initiatives that this 
Congress has been renowned for through the years.
  And I want to give my colleagues another example. The highest 
priority request from the Navy was to fund F-18s to replace aging F-14 
aircraft. Thirty-one of those F-14s have gone down! Those planes need 
to be replaced, and yet the House cut that request in order to fund 
additional C-130s that the Pentagon had not asked for. Those C-130s 
were directed to the National Guard. And we should not kid ourselves, 
most of them were done that way simply to meet pork requests from 
Members of Congress who are trying to represent the need of their 
districts.
  People will say, ``Oh, gee whiz, but some of those C-130s are 
hurricane fighters.'' The fact is that the Pentagon showed there was 
another way to provide hurricane-fighting capacity by having greatly 
updated C-130s provided in those same areas but not going through an 
expense that was four times as high by providing new planes rather than 
updated older versions.
  My point is simply that we could have met that need in a cheaper way 
and still maintained our ability to provide the No. 1 priority that the 
Navy had: F-18s. And yet this Congress, or this House at least, choose 
up to this point not to do so.

                              {time}  1215

  It just seems to me that this Congress ought to adopt this motion and 
really mean it and bring a bill back from conference that does 
eliminate many of the low priority pork items that the committee has 
added to the bill simply to garner votes for passage of the bill.

[[Page H7710]]

  Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina 
(Mr. Hefner), the distinguished ranking member on the Subcommittee on 
Military Construction.
  (Mr. HEFNER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. HEFNER. Mr. Speaker, first of all, let me say that in the years 
that I have been on the Committee on Appropriations, the Subcommittee 
on Defense, and served for a time as chairman of the Subcommittee on 
Military Construction and now the ranking member, the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha), when he was the full chairman, served with 
distinction. Now the job has been passed on to the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Young), and he has served with distinction, and we would 
like to believe that we have done a magnificent job with the limited 
funds that we have.
  I agree with the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) that priorities 
sometimes do not go where they need to be. For instance, in all of the 
time that I was chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Construction, 
every year, year after year after year, we fell further behind in 
quality of life as far as the housing for our men and women in the 
service. This was not a high priority for anybody except the people 
that were in the service, and for retention, this should have been one 
of our very, very high priorities. We should not have had to really 
push to add monies and take monies out of the defense bill and put on 
to military construction, but our military construction bill and 
quality of life has continued to decline. When we consider inflationary 
pressures, we have continued to decline, and we are not doing what we 
should be doing for quality of life for our family housing.
  Mr. Speaker, I think that this is a modest amendment, and I think it 
points out that when we go to conference, we need to be very strong in 
our scrutiny of the add-ons and for the so-called pork. What is pork to 
some people, what is pork in one district is vital to another district. 
We like to think that we have done a good job, and I commend the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) for being one of the fairest 
chairmen that I have ever served under. I pledge to the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) that for the remainder of my tenure here, I will 
work very, very hard to do what I believe to be the responsible thing 
with the limited dollars that we have.
  Mr. Speaker, if I may on a personal note, it has nothing to do with 
this amendment, but in all the hubbub that we have been having lately, 
it was alluded to that the terrorist attack that we had on the bases 
was a personal thing to divert attention. I am not going to get into 
that argument, but I want to say this. I have been knowing General 
Shelton, who is a chairman of the joint chiefs, I have been knowing him 
for years and years and years, and for anyone to insinuate that he 
would go along with an operation like this is absolutely ludicrous, and 
I take it personally. I would think that anybody who would insinuate 
that personally owes an apology to General Shelton who is one of the 
finest public servants and one of the finest military people who would 
never stand for anything of this nature and would not go along with it.
  Mr. Speaker, with that I urge that we support the motion of the 
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and that the committee, when we go 
to conference, look at the differences with the other body and come up 
with a bill that we believe is responsible and does the job for our 
military men and women, also for quality of life and the things that 
need to be done for the defense of this great Nation.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman 
from California (Mr. Cunningham), a very distinguished member of the 
Subcommittee on Defense Appropriations, who is also a very 
distinguished fighter pilot.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I would like to tell Members one of the 
best committees we have in Congress and works in a very bipartisan way 
is the Committee on National Security on authorization and also on the 
Committee on Appropriations, the Subcommittee on Defense. Republicans 
and Democrats focus on a general area and they work in the same 
direction, and that is national security for the United States of 
America.
  I would like to make a statement that I would like my colleagues to 
listen to, and that is that even at a low funding rate, under the 
balanced budget, defense of this country could survive under the 
balanced budget figure. Would we be strong? No, but we could survive. 
Could we do 2 MRCs starting now? I do not believe that is the case.
  But what the problem is is that the President has us operating at 300 
percent above what it was in Vietnam, if we take an already low defense 
budget and then we pile on top of that $40 billion because the White 
House has us deployed all over the world. Some of those places I 
supported, like Iraq, that the President tried to fight. But we have to 
pay for those things. That mostly comes out of our operation and 
maintenance funds. We find ships that are not repaired, we find sailors 
that are not going.
  Mr. Speaker, we are going to lose, and I want my colleagues to listen 
to this on both sides, between now and over the next 5 years, even if 
we invest, we are going to lose a great number of aircraft and pilots 
in our services. Operation Tempo being 300 percent above, the number 
one issue for sailors and pilots getting out is family separation. Our 
sailors are getting worked to death. They are away from their families. 
They are hurting so bad that we are only maintaining 24 percent. When 
we say we need to recruit, we need to keep the experienced people that 
are in the service and not kill them through working them 20 hours a 
day every day and being away from their families. Mr. Speaker, 24 
percent, which means our experience level is going. We are only 
maintaining 33 percent of our pilots.
  The gentleman talks about, well, the Pentagon did not ask for it. In 
an already low budget, that is one of the things that is kind of smoke 
and mirrors. The Pentagon does not ask for it. If we ask the Pentagon 
what they really need and they will tell us they need these things. I 
talk to them almost every single day and I know most of them by their 
first names.
  Let me tell my colleagues about some pork in my district if we want 
to call it pork. Captain O'Grady was shot down by a SAM over in Bosnia. 
When we were in Vietnam he shot a Shrike at a missile site and then 
they went to standard arm. Those weapons only have a 10 percent, we 
call it PK, kill probability to take out that weapon. In my district we 
have a 7-inch tube that uses GPS that will take out that site 95 
percent of the time.
  Now, some call that pork; I call it survivability of our men and 
women in our services, and that should be a priority.
  The training. Oceana just announced that they normally have 45 F-14s 
to train their pilots, and the gentleman talked about training. They 
only had 4. So the capability to train the brand-new pilots coming into 
the Navy, and then they go overseas with a lack of training, that is 
all a degradation. We could do it with the balanced budget figures, but 
we cannot continue to pay for this White House extravagant overseas 
deployment.
  Bosnia. Bosnia, $12 billion that comes out of the defense budget. I 
would say to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, there are 
national security needs. We need to provide for those, and we are 
deficient. Just listen to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Yes, they have to 
speak the words of the President, such as morale is good. We are near 
disaster, but when we talk to them, we are in a hollow force. GAO says 
we are $150 billion short.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I 
yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2\1/2\ minutes.
  I wanted to explain, and again, I have had a number of questions from 
Members as to what I intended to do on the Obey motion. As I said in my 
first comments, I intend to support it, because I think it is 
appropriate that we make sure that whatever goes into the defense 
appropriations bill actually deals with national defense. So I have no 
problem with that. In fact, I do support it. But I wanted to make this 
point.
  There is a serious shortfall list that the services, the Army, the 
Navy, the Air Force and the Marine Corps have

[[Page H7711]]

provided to us, as members of the subcommittee, listing things that 
they need, but they could not fit into the overall budget. Now, many of 
the Members who have asked to have congressionally-directed adds put in 
this bill, many of those Members are asking that the shortfall list be 
dealt with. The Members who are very knowledgeable on national defense 
issues in this House, and there are many who are knowledgeable, they 
are working toward the same shortfall list that the Department of 
Defense has provided for us during our hearings. We will be very 
careful to make sure that anything that we add over the budget will fit 
into the category of having a direct national defense effect, and 
number 2, that there is a requirement for it.
  So for those who are questioning how I intend to vote on the Obey 
motion, I intend to support it because I see nothing at all wrong with 
it.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to take another minute. The gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) mentioned the F-14. He is right, the F-14 had a 
pretty serious safety record. I led the fight in the committee for 
years to reengine the F-14s to eliminate the TF-30 engine that was 
causing many of the accidents and the problems. As the airplane got 
older, the Defense Department decided not to continue the reengining 
program because the airplanes would be going out of the inventory. But 
those F-14s that are going out of the inventory are not nearly as old 
as some of the C-130s that we are replacing with those that we add 
today. Some are as many as 40 years old. Yes, some of them are 
hurricane hunters. Others are refueling tankers used by the Marine 
Corps and are 40 years old. I just do not think that people who are in 
uniform and given a mission to fly into a hostile situation should have 
to fly an airplane that is 40 years old. Frankly, an airplane at 40 
years old should not be in the air.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Calvert). Without objection, the 
previous question is ordered on the motion to instruct.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to instruct 
offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the noes appeared to have it.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a 
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not 
present.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, further proceedings on 
this question are postponed.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The point of no quorum is considered 
withdrawn.

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