[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 124 (Friday, September 21, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9565-S9577]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2002
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now
proceed to Calendar No. 163, S. 1438, the Department of Defense
authorization bill; that once the bill is reported, I be recognized to
offer a managers' amendment; that the amendment be agreed to and the
motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. WARNER. Reserving the right to object--and I certainly will not
object--I have joined with my distinguished chairman in preparation of
the managers' amendment and will be a cosponsor of it.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will report the bill.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (S. 1438) to authorize appropriations for fiscal
year 2002 for military activities of the Department of
Defense, for military construction, and for defense
activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe
personnel strengths for such fiscal year for the Armed
Forces, and for other purposes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan is recognized.
Amendment No. 1598
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the managers' amendment is at the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Michigan [Mr. Levin], for himself and Mr.
Warner, proposes an amendment numbered 1598.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further
reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Without objection, the amendment is agreed to, and the motion to
reconsider is laid upon the table.
The amendment (No. 1598) was agreed to.
The amendment is as follows:
At the appropriate place in the bill, add the following:
SEC. . AUTHORIZATION OF ADDITIONAL FUNDS.
(a) Authorization.--$1,300,000,000 is hereby authorized, in
addition to the funds authorized elsewhere in Division A of
this Act, for whichever of the following purposes the
President determines to be in the national security interests
of the United States--
(1) research, development, test and evaluation for
ballistic missile defense; and
(2) activities for combating terrorism.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, this is no ordinary time in our country. In
New York and just across the Potomac in Virginia, our fellow citizens
continue to sift through the ruins left by the most deadly attack ever
against the United States. Our fury at those who attack innocents is
matched by our determination to protect our citizens from more terror
and by our resolve to track down, root out, and relentlessly pursue the
terrorists and those who would shelter or harbor them. The President
spoke eloquently and forcefully last night setting out those goals.
Against this background, we bring the National Defense Authorization
Act for Fiscal Year 2002 to the floor of the Senate. The bill
authorizes the full amount requested by the administration for national
defense, including the $18.4 billion requested by the President in his
amended budget request. The bill also addresses a number of important
priorities identified by the Armed Services Committee.
I am pleased we were able to add a significant amount of money, over
$700 million, to the budget request for compensation and quality of
life.
We added more than $1 billion to improve the readiness of the
military services to carry out their assigned missions.
We added a large amount of money to advance the transformation of the
military services and to improve the capability of the armed forces to
meet nontraditional threats, including terrorism.
Even in advance of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon, we gave particular attention to the problem of terrorism
as reflected in our bill and in the report that accompanies it. Not
only did the committee fully fund the President's proposal for
combating terrorism, we were able to add funds for a new combating
terrorism initiative to improve the ability of the U.S. forces to deter
and defend against terrorism, including additional funds for research
by the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy on the
detection, identification, and measurement of chemical and biological
weapons, and funds to upgrade Army installations and make them less
vulnerable to terrorism. Much more remains to be done in this area, and
that has surely been dramatized by the events of September 11.
We have already passed a $40 billion emergency supplemental for our
war on terrorism. I understand the Department of Defense will be coming
forward
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with an additional supplemental budget request in the next several
weeks, and our committee will review any such request.
The U.S. military is by far the most capable fighting force in the
world. From Europe to the Persian Gulf to the Korean peninsula, the
presence of U.S. military forces and their contributions to regional
peace and security reassure our allies and deter adversaries.
U.S. forces have excelled in every mission assigned to them,
including the 1999 NATO air campaign over Kosovo and ongoing
enforcement of the no-fly zones over Iraq, humanitarian operations from
Central America to Africa, and peacekeeping operations from the Balkans
to East Timor.
The U.S. armed forces remain the standard against which all
militaries are measured. Our armed forces are without peer today, and
this bill will help ensure they remain so for the foreseeable future.
At his confirmation hearing before the Armed Services Committee last
week, Gen. Richard Myers, the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, testified that we have military forces and capability that we
need to respond to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon.
We identified five priorities to guide our consideration of the bill:
Continuing the improvements in the compensation and quality of life of
the men and women of the armed forces and their families; improving the
capability of the armed forces to meet nontraditional threats,
including terrorism and unconventional means of delivery of weapons of
mass destruction; sustaining the readiness of the military services to
carry out their assigned missions; encouraging the transformation of
the military services to lighter, more lethal, and more capable forces;
and improving the efficiency of Department of Defense programs and
operations.
Let me briefly address each of those areas.
One of our top priorities was to continue the improvements in the
compensation and quality of life for our men and women in uniform. In
this regard, we approved a pay raise of at least 5 percent for all
military personnel and targeted pay raises of between 6 and 10 percent
for enlisted personnel and junior officers, and we provided $17.9
billion requested by the Department to fully fund the Defense Health
Program, including the significant new benefits we authorized last
year.
The committee approved a number of other important initiatives to
improve the quality of life for our military, and, in particular, the
bill before us would authorize $30 million to improve retention efforts
by allowing personnel with critical skills to transfer up to 18 months
of unused benefits under the Montgomery GI bill to family members in
return for a commitment to serve 4 additional years.
Senator Cleland has been fighting for that initiative since he came
to the Senate, and I am delighted we were able to include it in our
bill this year.
We added more than $450 million for family housing and other military
construction to improve the facilities in which our military personnel
work and housing in which they and their families live.
We added more than $230 million to increase the basic allowance for
housing and eliminate all out-of-pocket housing costs for service
members and their families by the year 2003, which is 2 years earlier
than the Department of Defense plan.
Finally, the bill includes a set of provisions offered by 18 members
of the committee, led by Senators Landrieu, Allard, Cleland, and
Nelson, to ensure overseas voters and absent military voters have a
meaningful opportunity to exercise their voting rights as citizens of
the United States.
Another top priority of our committee was to improve the ability of
the United States and U.S. forces to deal effectively with
nontraditional threats, including terrorism, unconventional means of
delivering weapons of mass destruction, and the proliferation of
nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. The Emerging Threats
Subcommittee, under the leadership of Senator Mary Landrieu and Senator
Pat Roberts, took the lead in this effort.
Our committee added funds to the budget request to help address
nontraditional threats. First, the bill adds funds for a combating
terrorism initiative to improve the ability of U.S. forces to deter and
defend against terrorism, including almost $100 million for research by
the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy to detect and
identify chemical and biological weapons in advance of their use, and
more than $75 million to upgrade Army installations and make them less
vulnerable to terrorism.
I am particularly pleased that we were able to add $13 million to the
budget for standoff explosive detection research and development, a
proof-of-concept system for predetonation of explosive devices and hand
held explosive detectors for the U.S. Navy, all fulfilling the
requirements which were so urgently identified in the aftermath of the
October 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole.
If we can develop that standoff explosive detection, if we can come
up with the technology to do that, learning the lesson which we learned
to our great expense, cost, and horror with the attack on the U.S.S.
Cole, we will make a very significant gain in the war against
terrorism.
The bill would authorize the full $400 million requested by the
administration for cooperative threat reduction programs, to continue
destroying and dismantling nuclear warheads and missiles in the former
Soviet Union, and we added more than $50 million to Department of
Energy programs to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction and related expertise.
Earlier this year, a bipartisan task force, chaired by former Senator
Howard Baker and former White House counsel Lloyd Cutler, concluded the
following: The most urgent unmet national security threat to the United
States today is the danger that weapons of mass destruction or weapons-
usable materiel in Russia could be stolen and sold to terrorists or
hostile nation states and used against American troops abroad or
citizens at home.
With this funding, the committee has placed itself firmly on record
in support of the continuing effort to reduce the threats posed by
offensive nuclear weapons, their delivery systems, and related
material.
Another priority of the committee was to sustain the readiness of the
U.S. military. Toward that end, we added approximately $1 billion to
the budget request to fund critical priorities of the military
services. These additions included the following: Almost $250 million
to improve the readiness of Army aviation, including additional Black
Hawk helicopters, upgrades to Apache helicopters, and additional TH-67
training helicopters.
We added $125 million for upgrades to the B-2 and B-52 bombers and an
additional $100 million to maintain B-1 bombers to ensure we will
continue to have a ready, capable bomber fleet.
We added more than $120 million to upgrade engines and reduce
maintenance costs for the F-15 and F-16 aircraft, and we added almost
$100 million for the maintenance of surface ships and Navy and Marine
Corps equipment.
The committee also added money to increase full-time manning in the
Army National Guard, to upgrade the Navy's electronic warfare aircraft,
to improve the operational safety and capabilities of the test ranges
and space launch facilities, and to continue modernizing the training
aircraft used by the Air Force and Navy for the training of new pilots.
Again, I emphasize these additions to the President's budget request
were all made before the events of September 11. There will be
additional ones I will list in a moment, but we will be receiving in
the next few days an amended budget request from the administration, or
a supplemental budget request, to add additional funds to those I am
outlining.
We do not have that request before us yet, so we are unable to
respond to it. Of course, it will be mainly an appropriations request,
but we also hope as authorizers to have an opportunity to take a look
at that request in the days ahead.
The committee also gave priority to continued support for
transformation of the U.S. military forces. To do this, we added more
than $800 million to the budget request to advance the transformation
efforts of the military to a lighter, more lethal, and a more flexible
force. These additions included the
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following: Nearly $400 million to support Navy transformation,
including more than $300 million to support conversion of four excess
Trident missile submarines to carry Tomahawk cruise missiles; more than
$200 million to increase the defense science and technology budget,
including substantial increases for advanced materials and
manufacturing technologies, nanotechnologies, and cutting-edge
communication technologies. We added almost $200 million for Army
transformation programs, including full funding for all of the
objective force priorities on the Army's list of unfunded requirements
in fiscal year 2002, and more than $80 million to fund continued
efforts to develop and field unmanned vehicles.
I want to give special credit to our ranking member, Senator Warner.
He has been an active advocate, for as long as I can remember, for
putting additional funds in for our unmanned aerial vehicles and other
unmanned vehicles. He has had a great deal of foresight in focusing on
the importance of doing that, and I have supported those efforts, but
the credit for the leadership really belongs to Senator Warner. The
Nation is in his debt for that and so many other actions on his part.
In future years and future decades, we will see the payoff for these
kinds of investments now in these unmanned vehicles.
The money that is needed to fund these priorities was obtained
through management and other efficiencies identified by the committee.
In particular, we determined the Department should be able to achieve
significant savings through improved management of its purchases of
services, including--I emphasize this--the increased use of
performance-based service contracting, competition for orders under
service contract, program review spending analyses, and other best
practices commonly used in the commercial sector.
In fact, the final report on an OMB pilot program 3 years ago
concluded Federal agencies should be able to save as much as 15 to 30
percent on their service contracts through the use of performance-based
service contracting alone. There has not been much done in that area.
There is a lot we can do, and we will harvest significant savings when
we do so, as this bill provides.
We are also able to achieve efficiencies by identifying programs in
which the Department requested more money than it could wisely spend in
fiscal year 2002. We approved a reduction of $592 million to the V-22
tilt rotor Osprey aircraft program because of continuing concerns about
the program and the recommendation of the V-22 review panel that
production should be kept to a minimum sustaining rate in order to
minimize the number of aircraft requiring retrofit after these programs
have been addressed.
Similarly, we approved a net reduction of about $250 million to the
Joint Strike Fighter Program because of the likely delay of the launch
of the engineering and manufacturing development phase of the JSF
Program.
The bill before us authorizes a new round of base alignments and
closures for the year 2003, and that will produce a significant
increase in the Department of Defense's savings that it has achieved
the four previous rounds. The civilian and military leadership of the
Department of Defense has told us for years, through two
administrations, that the Department of Defense has excess
infrastructure and needs a new round of base closings to free up funds
for higher priority defense needs and to support the successful
transformation of our military and implementation of the Quadrennial
Defense Review.
Senator McCain and I have been fighting for a new BRAC, as we call
it, for more than 4 years. I am glad the committee endorsed by a 17-8
vote the proposal the administration sent to us.
Now we are asking the Department of Defense whether or not, in light
of recent circumstances, there is any change in their position that
they want the tool of reducing excess infrastructure in order to make
savings so they can apply those savings in the years ahead to other
vital needs of the Defense Department. That request has been sent to
the Department of Defense to see what their current position is in
light of the events of September 11. We will have discussions with our
colleagues relative to this matter in the hours and days ahead, and
with the Defense Department, because we do want to make sure the
Defense Department position is still the same and that is still a tool
they consider to be essential for them in waging a war efficiently and
in having resources needed to wage future efforts, such as the long
effort that is going to be needed in the war against terrorism.
In short, we believe this is a strong and balanced bill that fully
funds the amount requested by the administration for national defense,
and it goes a long way to meet the urgent needs of our military. In
light of recent events, we are obviously going to do more, as we have
with the enactment of $40 billion emergency supplemental appropriations
bill last week. On top of that, in the next few days we will be
receiving a request for additional funds given the circumstances that
have unfolded.
As important as the funding that we provide is, there is something
else that is critically important. That is the unity of purpose that we
show as we enter into the current struggle. Debate on a bill such as
this is an inherent part of our democracy. While our democratic
institutions are stronger than any terrorist attack, in one regard we
operate differently in times of national emergency. We set aside those
differences that we cannot bridge. We try to resolve differences that
we previously were unable to resolve. But in cases of other
differences, we put them off for another day, where the effort or
attempt to resolve them now would create dissent where we need unity.
There are a number of these issues that were in this bill. One had to
do with the question of national missile defense. We were able, by one
vote in committee, to put into the original bill which came before this
Senate a provision which would have required Presidential certification
in the event that it was decided or determined there were activities
that were going to be funded that were in conflict with the arms
reduction and arms control treaty that we entered into. It was a matter
of major seriousness, regardless of what position people took on that
issue, to just about every Member of this body. Rather than to have the
effort made to resolve that issue now, we decided we would withhold
those provisions. That is why a few days ago I withdrew those
provisions from this bill and introduced under rule XIV a separate bill
which contained those provisions.
Under that rule, today, that separate bill which contains these
provisions relative to national missile defense is on the calendar of
the Senate. It is available for the majority leader to call up, should
he choose to do so, for debate by this body. If and when--and I
emphasize the ``if,'' not just the ``when''--the administration
determines that an activity for which it is using funds from this bill
conflicts with the arms control treaty, the ABM Treaty, it would then
be an option for the majority leader to call up the bill that is now on
the calendar which would then provide the opportunity for us to debate
whether or not we wanted to fund such activity. That was the way in
which we preserved that option, delayed that debate that preserved the
rights of people who feel strongly about that issue, including myself,
to have such a debate should it be appropriate to do so.
To summarize what we have done relative to those provisions, relative
to national missile defense, the specific provisions relative to
activities for which funds might be used from this bill in conflict
with the ABM Treaty, the provision which is now on a separate bill
would not have prohibited such activities but, rather, would have
deferred a congressional decision on funding them until we had a
determination from the administration as to whether the activities
would be in conflict with the treaty.
For some Members, that is very important information. As the author
of that provision, I believe very strongly that we have a
responsibility to determine whether or not a testing activity or
funding conflicts with an arms control agreement. Some might vote to
approve the funding without regard to that arms control agreement.
Others would want additional information and the nature of the conflict
between the treaty and the requested activity. Some Members would want
to know the significance of the testing effort, to weigh whether or not
the value of the test which is in conflict with that arms
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control agreement outweighs some of the negative circumstances which
might be created by the unilateral withdrawal which would have to take
place before such a testing activity occurred.
It seemed to me, regardless of one's position relative to the issue
of whether or not we should proceed with such activities in conflict
with the treaty, that was important information for all Members to
have. We don't have that information now. The Department has been
unable to tell us whether or not any of the activities which funds are
being asked for in this bill, and to be authorized in the bill, are in
conflict with the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. They have been unable
to tell us. The thought behind the language was that if and when the
time comes when they do determine there is such a conflict, at that
time Congress should have an opportunity to vote.
Again, I emphasize that language, subject of much debate and much
dissent, has now been withdrawn from this bill by myself and put into a
separate bill which is now on the Senate calendar. This was a very
difficult decision, I tell my good friend from New Jersey.
While the Senator is presiding, I must say how extraordinarily moving
he and Senator Torricelli were in New Jersey yesterday, as many
Senators visited New Jersey after our visit to ground zero in New York
City. It helped Members get a full picture by our visit to New Jersey
with the presentations which were made to us by Senator Corzine,
Senator Torricelli, by the Governor of New Jersey, and by so many
mayors who helped to round out exactly what the effect was of that
attack upon us on September 11. I know I speak for all who were present
yesterday in New Jersey when our Presiding Officer, Senator Corzine,
and Senator Torricelli made such an effective presentation. Many of us
were not aware that perhaps half of the people killed in that terrorist
attack were residents of New Jersey. While New York City was ground
zero, and we had severe losses at the Pentagon, New Jersey and also
many from Connecticut and I believe from as many as 40 or 50 other
countries were attacked by those terrorists. There were many, many
countries symbolized on that attack on the World Trade Center when
citizens from so many countries were killed in that attack. I think
Britain lost literally hundreds of its citizens.
What was so dramatically presented to us yesterday was the fact that
New Jersey's families are suffering in as great a number as any other
place, including New York, as a result of that attack. I just wanted to
thank Senator Corzine for his role in bringing us to New Jersey, along
with Senator Torricelli. It makes a difference.
Just as important as it is that we stand together in these days,
coming together where we can on a bill which is so important to the
defense of this Nation and to our security--and where we cannot agree,
trying to defer those other issues to a different time and place--it is
also important that our colleagues join us in trying to focus on issues
that directly relate to this bill as this bill comes before the Senate.
Obviously, amendments are appropriate. They always are appropriate.
But there are some amendments currently being filed that really cannot
be appropriately considered on this bill. It is going to require all
the efforts of all of us to focus on the material in this bill and the
subject matter of this bill if we are going to get a bill passed as it
should be passed urgently; if not today, and that is unlikely--by
Monday or Tuesday.
(Mr. CORZINE assumed the chair.)
Mr. WARNER. Today may be possible.
Mr. LEVIN. Today may be possible, I am told by my good friend,
Senator Warner. We should not even eliminate that possibility. But if
we all cooperate in the kind of spirit which we have in bringing this
bill to the committee and trying to avoid amendments which are not
related to the subject matter of this bill, we have a chance of passing
this bill as it should be passed, with great urgency and with great
unity and with one voice.
Senator Warner and I have spent a lot of time in the last few days
working to do just that--to be able to bring a bill to the floor where
we can say together that we, the members of the committee, all support
this bill now.
We hope other Members of the Senate will join in this debate, offer
amendments as they must, which relate to the subject matter, but help
us to pass this bill with the urgency which is required and the unity
which, God knows, is appropriated in circumstances such as this.
I want to say one other thing to my friend from Virginia before I
yield; that is, how grateful this Nation is to him for his leadership
in bringing to our attention the losses, the personal losses and the
tragedies that were involved in the attack on the Pentagon. I was able
to personally join with Senator Warner on a number of these visits that
he has made. I know how many hours he has spent with, not only the
families of those who have lost loved ones at the Pentagon but with the
leadership at the Pentagon focusing on how to restore the Pentagon, to
let the terrorists know we are going to restore New York, we are going
to restore the Pentagon, and we are going to restore any other places
they were able to damage.
But I thank Senator Warner because he has played the leadership role
in bringing to the attention of the Nation that the losses in New York
are the largest losses numerically, assuredly, but that we had almost
200 people between the people working in the Pentagon and the people on
the airplane that hit the Pentagon, lost in Virginia. I know how his
heart goes out to those families.
I can only tell him--I know he already knows every Member of this
Senate is with you and with your colleague from Virginia in your
efforts to bring some peace and closure and then some restoration to
those families and to your State. I thank you for that.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I thank my colleague. The morning of
September 11 was a moving moment in the life of every American. Senator
Levin and I, within a very short time after learning of the attacks
both in New York and in Virginia, and of course the devastation that
occurred in Pennsylvania and the peripheral tragic consequences that
came upon the States of New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland and the
District of Columbia, in close proximity to these attacks--I called my
friend and I said I think you and I should show our support at this
point in time for the men and women of the Armed Forces and for the
President and for the Secretary of Defense.
I made a call to the Pentagon which resulted in the Secretary of
Defense saying, ``Your participation this day of the attack would be
welcome and helpful.''
The two of us met and went to the Department of Defense. Just a few
hours after that attack, Senator Levin, the Secretary of Defense, and I
stood right there, about 100 yards or so from where that plane crashed
into that edifice, the Pentagon, which represents, to our men and women
in uniform, the epicenter of the command and control of their destiny.
I thank my colleague for joining me that morning in going to the
Department. I think every time I have had the opportunity to address
the Senate since that period, I begin by saying that all of us in the
Senate have in our minds, in our prayers, the victims who were lost in
these attacks and their families, no matter where they are, around the
nation and around the world. Yes, we have them in our prayers. But,
those prayers are combined with prayers for literally thousands of men
and women: firefighters, policemen, rescue squads, hospital and Red
Cross workers, construction workers--that realm of individuals that
shun recognition but who selflessly responded to those sites, first in
New York and then in a fraction of time in Virginia, to try to help at
those sites where the attacks were inflicted.
That band of brothers and sisters, as one fireman said to me, whether
they are in Virginia or New York or Pennsylvania, or from any of the
many States and localities that sent help, represent the finest
traditions of this great Nation about how we respond and help each
other in time of need, all of us.
Now the Nation is arm in arm united behind our President, moving
forward--steadily, carefully, thoughtfully--to address the needs of the
Nation and the means by which we, seeking justice, will bring about a
redress
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of these criminal acts, perhaps with the use of force, which is likely
to be necessary. Of course, last night, as our President spoke, I and
others had in mind the men and women in the uniform of the United
States Armed Forces and their families who will bear the brunt if and
when that force is used.
Mr. President, I thank my chairman. We have worked together in this
chamber for 23 years and now we face another challenge. We are
fortunate to have on our committee men and women who are absolutely
committed to do what is necessary and proper to help this country in
this hour of challenge and need.
I think it is appropriate, following the President's magnificent
address last night--and I know of no President in the history of the
United States of America who has ever been faced with a more
challenging, a more complex framework of international security issues,
economic issues, and threats to the United States than has our
President, President Bush--that we now take up and swiftly pass this
Defense Authorization Bill for Fiscal Year 2002 that provides the
President the resources he has asked for and that our armed forces
need.
The President not only rose to the occasion last night, but I think,
if I may say, he exceeded in every way our hopes and prayers that he
would take command--as he did--and deliver a very clear message.
Today, as the Senate turns to the consideration of our national
defense authorization bill for the year 2002, in this time of national
emergency, it is time we provide our President and the men and women of
the Armed Forces, and the thousands of civilians who support those men
and women, the requirements that they have for the coming fiscal year
as best we can judge them.
The chairman indicated that the President would be forthcoming any
day now with an amendment to the 2002 bill. Our committee and other
committees of the Senate will immediately turn to that, upon receipt.
It is my expectation that it can be incorporated in this legislation
during the course of the conference between the House and the Senate.
The events of September 11 have forever changed this world, and
forever changed the United States. The one change that is clear is that
we are a stronger nation today. That inherent strength emerged not a
second after the infliction of these grave attacks. The 11th, when we
saw the smoke billowing from our homeland, is a day forever etched into
everyone's memory.
The initial shock was followed by a surging sense of new purpose and
strength and, a word that all of us understand--``patriotism''--love of
country for the freedoms that we have.
Now a responsibility and a challenge fall upon the Congress--a
coequal branch our Government--to work with our President and to serve
our citizens. It is vital that we very carefully--as we have done--and
expeditiously address this bill and, hopefully, act on it. The
leadership has been tremendously supportive of Senator Levin, myself,
and other members of the committee throughout the course of the past
few days as we have worked to bridge our differences and bring this
bill to the floor.
I hope we can pass this bill, for this bill will communicate a
message to our citizens and to the world that the U.S. resolves to do
whatever is necessary to protect our homeland and our forces abroad, to
work with our allies for their mutual protection, and to address the
full spectrum of threats that confront our Nation, the entire Western
World, and, indeed, all of civilization. As we have all heard and felt,
this was not just an attack on America, but an attack on the world and
the fundamental principles of civilization.
All of us in this Chamber have recognized the fact that this is an
increasingly dangerous world. There will be a time to look back on
events and how well we were prepared, and how we were not prepared, to
deal with this crisis. But those debates are yet to come. Now is the
time for unity. We have it here today in the Senate.
I addressed my caucus this morning outlining what Senator Levin and I
have agreed upon. He addressed his caucus. We bridged the one remaining
difference early this morning between the hours of 8 and 9. This
managers' amendment, which we have just adopted by unanimous consent,
in my judgment, satisfactorily addresses the remaining differences we
had.
When the authorization bill was reported out by the Armed Services
Committee almost 2 weeks ago, there was a division among its members.
That was understandable because our side--the Republican side--was
unified behind what we saw were clear and justified requests by our
President. The bill, at that time, contained certain provisions which
we believed might impede his ability under the Constitution as the
chief architect of foreign policy to continue and, hopefully, conclude
certain negotiations he has undertaken with Russia with regard to the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
Further, we thought the dollar amounts which our President requested
of the Congress for the purpose of initiating new research, development
and testing with regard to our Nation's absolute necessity to prepare
ourselves today, and most especially for future generations, against
the threat of a limited attack on us, were inconsistent with what I
believe are the President's justifiable requests. For that reason, we
were not able to report out, as is the tradition of our committee, a
bipartisan bill.
But in the aftermath of the tragic events of September 11, the
distinguished chairman and I, working with our Members on both sides,
have now bridged these differences in large measure. We agree at this
time, for reasons I have stated, that we feel that, in the aftermath of
these attacks, the justification for moving forward with new ways to
prepare this Nation against a limited attack of missiles is enhanced by
what we saw on the 11th. It brought to us the realization that, yes,
while there was some thought it was remote that a missile could attack
this Nation someday, now we cannot ignore or eliminate any part of that
full spectrum of threats that may be directed towards this country.
So, as never before, we are strongly committed to support our
President.
In my own many years on this committee, I have worked as ranking
member with Chairman Nunn, Chairman Stennis, and others. There were
rare times when the chairman and the ranking member of the Armed
Services Committee recognized, for whatever reason, that they could no
longer have bipartisanship. I am reminded of two instances between
Senator Nunn and myself. One was when we had a difference of view on
the Tower nomination, and the other was the Gulf War resolution giving
President George H. W. Bush the authority to utilize force in 1991.
History reflects the outcome of those two events. But I remember that
Senator Nunn and I shook hands. We recognized we had to go our
different ways, and we did it. In the aftermath of both events, we
rejoined as the chairman and ranking of the committee to work together.
Senator Levin and I have likewise done so.
There came a point in the course of our deliberations--it was
actually last weekend following a joint appearance--when we were on a
national television show that I told him I felt I had to go my separate
way and introduce legislation which reflected very clearly what we
Republicans perceived as the essentials that the Commander in Chief,
the President, desired and needed. This included preserving his ability
to continue negotiations regarding the ABM Treaty and to prepare for a
future, limited missile attack. Hopefully, God will never let that
happen. Regardless, we must make preparations.
For a while we went our separate ways. But then in due course,
Senator Levin introduced this bill we are acting on today. I say to my
colleagues that I believe, along with the managers' amendment, this
bill satisfies the concerns we had with the bill originally reported to
the Senate by the committee, with regards to the ABM Treaty and
equitable funding for ballistic missile defense. After careful
consultation with the Secretary of Defense, the Deputy Secretary, and
many others--consultations I have had at length every day this past
week--I can represent to our chairman and to all members that the
administration now supports this bill as it is drawn.
Proceeding on, we have, as managers of this bill, introduced
legislation
[[Page S9570]]
which we believe should meet the expectations of the Senate and that
the Senate, hopefully, will act swiftly upon this bill. I did not
realize we would have the opportunity to consider this bill today, and
I thank our leaders for recognizing the importance and timeliness of
this important legislation.
I hope Members, having heard the deliberations in our caucuses this
morning regarding this bill, know those areas in which they are
interested. If they have amendments, they should bring them to the
floor. Hopefully they will be germane to the provisions of this bill
and respectful of the spirit of discretion our leaders have asked for
so that we can move expeditiously on this bill.
I urge my colleagues to join us in sending our President and our
fellow citizens in the world a message of this resolve by passing this
bill. I remember also Governor Bush, when he was a candidate, reminded
us almost prophetically in the Citadel in the fall of 1999 that: ``The
protection of America itself will assume a high priority in a new
century. Once a strategic afterthought, homeland defense has become an
urgent duty.'' In that same Citadel speech, he called for ``anti-
ballistic missile systems, both theater and national, to guard against
attack and blackmail.'' He also called for strengthening our
intelligence community and developing the technologies to detect
chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons threatening our shores. The
threat, as he perceived it then, required greater emphasis on homeland
defense.
Our committee, when I was privileged to be chairman several years
ago, with the help of my now chairman, Senator Levin, established a
subcommittee entitled ``Emerging Threats.'' The responsibility of that
subcommittee was to provide the full committee with the wide spectrum
of issues as they saw it with regard to known, anticipated, and
unanticipated threats. This subcommittee examines whether the current
elements of the national defense we have in place need to be
strengthened or, indeed, new initiatives taken to strengthen, to
hopefully deter, and, if necessary, to respond to these threats. This
subcommittee has done a lot of valuable work. Senator Roberts was
chairman; now Senator Landrieu is chairman. They have continued to
provide very helpful assistance to the full committee, and the full
committee has acted in many ways to protect our country from the
growing threat of terrorism.
When the bill was adopted by the committee this year--and I commend
the chairman--the chairman actually, with his initiative, added another
$200 million towards antiterrorist activities. As he mentioned earlier,
part of that increase was expanding the scope of research and
development of unmanned military vehicles. I thank the chairman for his
recognition of my modest role in that. I assure you, I could not have
achieved those initiatives as chairman without his support and that of
the other members of the committee.
The President of the United States has committed significant
resources to deal with the types of terrorists threats we witnessed a
week ago. For fiscal year 2002, President Bush requested $5.6 billion
for the Department of Defense for activities to combat terrorism. This
is a $1 billion increase over last year's level of funding. Again, the
chairman added another $215 million, for which I commend him. With the
committee's support, we clearly have a bill that addresses homeland
defense, and supports this highest priority concern our President
brought to the attention of the Nation in the fall of 1999 at the
Citadel.
Missile defense, in my judgment, is a critical component of that
homeland defense. The President stands by his vision to prepare America
and begin now to look at new options by which to prepare us to
hopefully deter and then defend against a limited attack. This is
clearly the time to stand by our President.
I remember when the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency,
George Tenet, came before our committee. He has repeatedly warned us
that ``America's superpower status does not bestow invulnerability upon
us but in fact makes us a target for the angry and disaffected of the
world.''
That was in his testimony. We as a Nation have grown accustomed to
being safe within our borders. While many of us recognized the growing
vulnerability, this vicious attack on our homeland removed all doubts
about the full spectrum of the capabilities, military and otherwise,
that the terrorists can use to inflict damage upon us.
We have heard incredible stories of courage and heroism amidst the
tragedy of the past week and a half. Our Nation today, as the President
said last night, remains in danger. All American citizens should
understand that. I remember so clearly in my past experience with the
military, there was occasionally that sign--the all clear, sound the
all clear bell aboard ships. And at my airbase in Korea, the cold
winter of 1951-1952: The all clear siren had blown--We could rest easy.
Today, that siren has not blown. I don't know, nor does anyone else
know, when that siren can be blown across this Nation. We are in danger
at this moment. We remain in danger. But the world should know that we
are a much stronger Nation, and we are prepared, with the men and women
of the Armed Forces today and the other many resources that we have, to
deter and hopefully not let another attack hit this Nation.
I hope those Members who have amendments will come to the floor. I
see other Members seeking recognition. I hope our members of the
committee will likewise come and express their views about this bill
and their active participation on the committee.
Again, I thank our chairman. I thank all members of our committee and
our magnificent staff, on both sides. We have produced a commendable
piece of legislation which is deserving of prompt consideration and
enactment by the Senate.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I thank both the chairman of the Armed
Services Committee and the ranking Republican, Senator Warner, for
their diligent efforts in reaching this compromise. It means a lot to
me, to the State of Colorado, and particularly to the Nation. When you
consider the events that happened just 10 days ago, those tragic
events, it is imperative that we get a Defense authorization bill to
move forward.
The way the issue of missile defense started out in the subcommittee
on which I am the ranking Republican, it was a rocky road. The chairman
of that strategic subcommittee, Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, is a
tremendous chairman. I like working with him. There are a couple of
committees on which I serve with him, where he is the chairman and I am
the head Republican. Our working relationship I describe as superb. He
listens, tries to work with the minority side. I try and do everything
I can to work with him. We have a very good relationship.
It was with a heavy heart, when reporting out of that subcommittee
our portion of the armed services bill, we had it reported out in a
divided mode. We had a strict partisan vote, Republicans voting against
it, Democrats were for it, the chairman. It was over the issue of
missile defense. Then the issue went to the full Armed Services
Committee and that debate continued.
I know when it got to that point in the debate, people began to lock
in their positions, and we would still be tied up today if it would not
have been for the tremendous leadership of our chairman of the Armed
Services Committee, Senator Levin, as well as the ranking Republican
working together on this most important issue.
There are many other important issues in this bill. I am particularly
pleased that we have moved forward with missile defense. I am pleased
the restrictive language in missile defense was taken out and the
funding is there with the flexibility to either use for missile defense
or for terrorism. The President, in light of the recent changes in the
last 10 days, needed that flexibility. I, for one, was more than
willing to give it to him.
I appreciate the efforts in the area of defense environmental
management of my chairman, what has been in the committee; in
particular, the support in the bill for closure sites which would
benefit the sites' surrounding communities and the Nation as a whole.
This
[[Page S9571]]
would provide a clean and safe environment at the sites of former
defense nuclear weapons facilities. It would free up scarce resources
as these sites are cleaned up and closed down to help advance
environmental cleanup and restoration at other environmental management
sites.
In my subcommittee, we had basically two functions.
We have the armed services function, and then also we have the Energy
Department function. So we deal with many of the nuclear programs, as
well as the bombing programs and missile defense and defense
intelligence. So I think this was important to the country as well as
the State of Colorado.
I also appreciate the efforts for the National Nuclear Security
Administration. The National Nuclear Security Administration appears to
be making important strides. There are still enormous challenges ahead,
but I think the NNSA seems to be moving in the right direction. In
intelligence matters, I was encouraged by the support for unmanned
aerial vehicles, sensor capabilities, and commercial satellite imagery.
I am still concerned, however, that other critical components of the
intelligence architecture did not receive similar support.
Processing and dissemination of intelligence products remains a
weakness in the overall system. Current programs in intelligence are
underfunded and would greatly benefit from increased support.
Hopefully, we have taken care of much of that with some of the funding
approved by the Senate in the past week.
I was pleased with the support for greater Department of Defense
involvement in the development of reusable launch vehicles. However, I
should note that I was disappointed that the committee had opted not to
implement any of the reforms of the Space Commission. This is an area
of particular interest to me and to another former member of the
subcommittee, Senator Bob Smith.
There was a lot of hard work put into the Space Commission report. So
I was very disappointed that there wasn't more consideration taken on
those recommendations.
I was also a member of another commission, the NRO Commission. Many
of the provisions we recommended in our commission were adopted in the
Intelligence Committee and then subsequently adopted in my subcommittee
and the full Armed Services Committee.
So I think we have set the stage for us to move forward at this point
in time. I am supportive of the bill and am pleased the chairman and
the ranking member could work out our differences and move forward. I
look forward to the debate, and I thank the ranking Republican for his
tremendous statement.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado yields the floor.
Who seeks recognition?
The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have been listening intently to our
chairman, our ranking member, as well as the Senator from Colorado. I
find myself in agreement with virtually everything that has been said.
I think it is important for us to realize something that really has not
been said, which is that on Friday, September 7, we met--the Senate
Armed Services Committee. We passed out of the Armed Services Committee
our Defense authorization bill. Four days later, we find ourselves at
war. So there are some things that have changed; the dynamics have
changed--those things which we know are urgent to our Nation's defense
and to our national security. They weren't there back on September 7
when we passed our authorization bill.
I have around 14 amendments at the desk. It is not my intention to
offer any of them now or call for a resolution to those. But I will be
doing it when we get into the bill on Monday.
One is to give the President the authority to waive sanctions against
allies in our war on global terrorism. This was something we didn't
really anticipate on September 7. It was just a matter of weeks ago
that we passed sanctions against both India and Pakistan, which receive
both military and economic aid. There are some conditions under which
the President can waive these sanctions, but they are not too well
defined. They put him in a position, when negotiating with countries,
where he doesn't have that authority firmly planted within his powers
to do it. So I am going to propose in an amendment, No. 1593, that we
provide for notification in a 30-day period of time to Congress. But
the President can say, if you do this, we are going to lift sanctions.
You might argue that there are vehicles in place to lift sanctions
right now. But if it happens that we are in recess at that time, if it
happens that there is some ambiguity as to whether or not Congress
would go along with it, this way he can say, yes, we are going to lift
these sanctions or waive these sanctions. I don't think there will be a
lot of opposition to this. It is something that would give power to the
President, who last night, I believe, gave the defining speech of his
career.
Second, it deals with something more technical, but I think we need
to look at it differently now, and that is depot maintenance. Depot
maintenance refers to the type of maintenance of our military fighting
equipment that has to be done in a publicly owned depot. The idea
behind it, which has always been our policy, was we should have the
capability of doing core maintenance--maintenance that would help us in
times of war--so that we don't take the risk of being held hostage by a
single supplier or contractor. So what I am going to be suggesting is
to change our waiver policy. What we have done over the past several
years is say, well, we do want the depots to have the capability of
maintaining our vehicles.
Take, for example, aircraft, the air logistics centers; there are
three. There used to be five; now there are three. They are operating
with equipment put in place back during World War II. It is outdated.
We still have on the books a law that says 50 percent of the core
maintenance has to be done in a public depot. So we have been operating
on waivers now for several years. The waivers are put in there by the
Secretary of the Air Force, in this case, or the Secretaries.
This power should be changed so that there is a new accountability.
We have gone waiver after waiver after waiver, with no hope that in the
following year we would be able to do it without a national security
waiver. I will suggest it be written into the bill that we give the
President of the United States the authority to waive the performance
of depot level maintenance instead of the Secretary of the Air Force.
If the President signs the waiver, he must deliver a report that lists
why the waiver is necessary and what will be done to prevent the waiver
from being required in the future.
The President, under the amendment I will be offering, may delegate
this to another party. The President has that responsibility. This is
what is missing because right now it goes from administration to
administration without any interest in really resolving the problem or
saying what we are doing to increase the capability of our public
depots in order to make the maintenance that is prescribed by law.
There are several others. I want to say that even though I am hoping
that the amendment I have filed--I have two, 1597 and 1596, that would
attach to the Defense authorization bill an energy policy for America.
Let me be critical not of Democrats, not of Republicans, but of both,
going all the way back to the early eighties because then, when
President Reagan was President of the United States, we tried to get
him to have an energy policy. In fact, Don Hodel was Secretary of the
Interior at that time, or in that timeframe.
Mr. President, we had this dog and pony show where we went all around
the United States--to the consumption States, not the production
States--demonstrating clearly that the outcome of every war, back to
and including the First World War, has been determined by who has
control of the energy. That is still true today.
Nobody believed it then. Since then we have gone through the Persian
Gulf war. We realize we have enemies in the Middle East, and yet to a
great extent we are reliant on the Middle East for our ability to fight
a war. It is insane we should continue that policy.
I know there are a lot of Members who are asking why it is an issue
right now. It is an issue now because this is a readiness issue. I
spent 5 years as
[[Page S9572]]
chairman of the Readiness Subcommittee. It is now chaired by my
distinguished colleague from Hawaii, Senator Akaka, and I am his
ranking member.
I can tell you right now that we are not ready in many areas to fight
the war we are looking at right now. One of those areas is our
dependency on foreign oil.
Let me put up a chart. My amendment is not a partisan attack. I hope
my colleagues do not take it as such. I have been urging Democrats and
Republicans to deal with this for years, and they have refused to do
it. Even George Sr., coming from an oil patch, said: Yes, we have to
have an energy policy, the cornerstone of which would be the maximum
percentage of the energy we need to fight a war.
In the year 2000, 19.6 million barrels a day was used for the
consumers of America. I guess what I am trying to say is, our need for
petroleum consumption has been going up for a long time. From the year
2000 to 2001, it is up to 19.7 million barrels of oil a day. That is on
the rise.
The second chart shows our domestic oil production has sharply
decreased over the last 10 years. We have produced less domestic oil
since World War II. In January of 1991, we produced 17.6 million
barrels a day, and that has dropped down to 6 million barrels a day
during this timeframe.
On chart No. 3, we can see that our domestic oil production continues
to decrease while our consumption continues to increase. This was not
true in the days when we started calling this to the public's
attention, but it is true today.
That means we are getting oil from foreign sources, and that is what
this chart shows. It shows our imports in that same year, January of
1991, were 4.6 million barrels a day, and they went up to 8 million
barrels a day. It has almost doubled since that period of time.
Our dependence on foreign oil has dramatically increased since 1973
and is projected to increase in the future. Currently, 56.6 percent of
U.S. oil needs are met by foreign sources. This presents a real energy
and national security problem. The military is equally dependent on
foreign oil, as is the general public. We must seek to drastically
increase a domestically produced, diverse energy supply, including
nuclear, coal, oil, gas, and renewables.
All these sources of energy are addressed in the House bill, and I
have one amendment that would merely adopt the language in the House
bill and also the language in the bill from the Senate Energy
Committee.
Looking at our dependence on foreign oil imports and how it has
escalated, we are today at 56 percent. We were at 36 percent when I
talked about going around the country alerting people to the
seriousness of the problem. In the same progression, we are going to be
up to 66-percent dependent upon foreign sources in our ability to fight
a war.
What is most startling is that we depend on nations in the Middle
East, such as Iraq, to supply our oil needs. The Middle East supplies
about 25 percent of our oil needs. What shocks an awful lot of people
is that of that amount, we are importing 862,000 barrels a day from
Iraq, a country we just defeated in a war 10 years ago, a country whose
President made the statement that: If we had waited 10 years to march
into Kuwait, the Americans would not have come to their aid because we
would have the capability of lobbing a missile at them. That is the
dilemma in which we find ourselves today. That is why I say this is a
national defense issue.
Iraq is the fastest growing source of United States oil imports. That
is the same nation that we took military action against seven times
last month, the same nation we know has links to bin Laden, who is the
prime suspect in the horrible attacks in New York and Washington, as
well as the U.S.S. Cole and both Embassy bombings in East Africa.
This is a major national security problem. Energy will be critical if
and when America engages in military action.
Operating a modern war machine requires a lot more oil than it used
to. A contemporary 17,500-soldier U.S. Army division uses twice as much
oil daily than did an entire 200,000-soldier field army during World
War II.
The 450,000 barrels of petroleum products consumed daily by the
582,000 soldiers in the Persian Gulf was four times the daily amount
used by the 2 million allied soldiers who liberated Europe from the
Nazis. Today it takes eight times as much oil to meet the needs of each
soldier as it did during World War II, and the Department of Defense
accounts for nearly 80 percent of all U.S. Government energy use.
What I am saying is this is a very serious issue, and this is an
issue that directly relates to our readiness, relates to our ability to
defend America, and relates to our ability to carry on the war which we
are in right now. It is very important that we pass an energy package.
I don't care if it is the House wording, I don't care if it is the
wording that came out of the Senate Energy Committee, but it directly
relates to our ability to fight a war.
It will be perfectly acceptable to me if we make an arrangement
whereby we agree to passing a comprehensive energy policy by the end of
this year and not having it as a part of the Defense authorization bill
because it would complicate things. It is very important we pass our
Defense authorization bill and get it into conference and signed into
law in a very short period of time.
Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks recognition?
The Senator from Hawaii.
Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, I rise today to support the Armed Services
Committee actions on the fiscal year 2002 Defense authorization bill. I
also commend the chairman, Mr. Levin, and ranking member, Mr. Warner,
for their part in leading the committee, as well as guiding the
committee, in their efforts to bring about a bill that will give
confidence to the people of our country.
My friend and partner, Senator Inhofe, and I have worked closely to
ensure that the Readiness Subcommittee's actions support the full
committee's five goals for this bill. As Chairman Levin has described,
these goals are: One, to continue improvements in the quality of life;
two, to sustain readiness; three, to encourage transformation; four, to
improve the capability of the Department of Defense to meet
nontraditional threats; and five, to increase the efficiency of
Department of Defense operations.
Our subcommittee worked together to make contributions in all five
areas, and these actions are reflected in the bill we present to you
today.
In the area of improving quality of life, the bill takes strong steps
to improve the facilities in which our military personnel work and the
housing in which they and their families live. This bill supports the
$10.0 billion administration request for military construction and
family housing for fiscal year 2002, which is a 10-percent increase
over fiscal year 2001 levels. This funding will, according to
Department of Defense calculations, reduce the current 192-year
replacement cycle for military facilities to 101 years. While this is a
significant improvement, this figure is still nearly double the
standard of approximately 57 years accepted in the private sector.
The bill invests an additional $451 million from savings and
efficiencies achieved elsewhere in the budget to make further
improvements in military facilities, including projects to enhance
mission performance, build additional unaccompanied housing and family
housing, purchase key tracts of land at military installations to
prevent future encroachment problems, and adequately fund legally
binding cleanup requirements at facilities closed by previous base
closure rounds.
The bill also includes an increase of $40.0 million for personal gear
for military members to improve their safety and comfort in the field.
The committee's second theme was one that I and the whole committee
care deeply about: sustaining the readiness of our Armed Forces.
This bill supports the funding increases contained in the
administration's budget request to more accurately reflect the
increased use of spare parts and the higher prices for spare parts
associated with older weapons systems. In addition to the requested
increases, the bill provides almost $100 million in additional funding
for maintenance work on surface ships and other Marine Corps and Navy
equipment. These funds will increase the
[[Page S9573]]
availability of equipment to units and allow them to spend more time
training.
The bill also supports the budget request for an increase of seven
percent in real terms for facilities sustainment, restoration and
modernization over fiscal year 2001 levels. I believe that these
additional funds will provide critical improvements to service members'
places of work, allowing for greater productivity and increased job
satisfaction.
I also believe that further advances in sustainment, restoration and
equipment maintenance are possible, in particular by increasing
attention to corrosion prevention technologies and products. As I know
from the military facilities in Hawaii and elsewhere in the Pacific,
maintaining military equipment and facilities in wet, salty, and hot
environments is a significant challenge. I believe progress can be made
on this critical issue that will both improve the service life of our
property and the lives of our service members who have to maintain this
property.
This bill includes a $7.4 million increase for anti-corrosion product
testing and treatments, and directs the Department of Defense to
coordinate anti-corrosion research and testing across the military
services. The bill also supports small increases in a limited number of
ammunition programs to reduce training and war reserve shortfalls and
enhance troop safety.
The committee's third goal was encouraging transformation. This bill
includes small increases to support necessary training for the Army's
new Interim Brigade Combat Teams (IBCTs), a critical step in the Army's
transformation to a lighter, more rapidly-deployable force. Other
actions taken by the Readiness Subcommittee to improve efficiency
should also result in savings in both the current and future budgets,
savings that can be redirected to the necessary process of transforming
our armed forces.
The committee's fourth priority was to improve the Department of
Defense's capability to meet non-traditional threats, the importance of
which was made painfully and sorrowfully clear to us all last week.
Many of my colleagues will speak forcefully on this issue, and I share
their sentiments of outrage and extreme sadness as we cope with this
horrendous attack. The committee looks forward to bringing further
recommendations to our colleagues on this critical issue in the near
future. Until this occurs, the bill before us will provide funding for
the requested improvements to bases and installations that will
increase the safety of our forces at home and abroad.
The fifth theme of our bill this year was to improve the efficiency
of DOD programs and operations. This is a goal the committee shares
with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and we look forward to
working with him closely to make further progress on this in the
future. The bill presented here today takes important steps to help us
along the path.
In the area of acquisition reform, the bill includes a number of
provisions to improve the acquisition of equipment and services. One
provision would require the Department to set up a management
structure, management information system, and program review structure
for the Department's contracts for services. A related provision would
establish savings goals for services contracts and goals that would be
achieved through the application of best commercial practices,
including competition, performance-based contracting, and spending
analyses.
Another provision strengthens requirements for competition for
multiple-award contracts to purchase products and services, and would
require approval for sole-source awards. The bill also includes
provisions enabling DOD to shorten the acquisition cycle for weapons
systems by codifying a technological maturity requirement for key
technologies to be incorporated into new systems.
Other provisions of the bill address acquisition workforce issues and
aim to ensure that the defense components have sufficient staff to
manage requirements in a cost effective manner. I was impressed by the
work of the Acquisition 2005 Task Force's recent report, ``Shaping the
Civilian Acquisition Work Force of the Future.'' I intend to confer
with the Task Force to further define the extent of the problem. As the
chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on
International Security, Proliferation, and Federal Services as well as
the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness, the issues raised
by the Task Force are of great interest to me.
This bill also takes steps to improve financial management within
DOD. Specifically, it includes a provision that would refocus
comptroller and auditor resources on addressing systemic problems in
DOD financial systems rather than wasting resources on reviews of
financial statements. Another provision codifies the Department's
Senior Financial Management Oversight Council and financial feeder
systems compliance process to provide top-level guidance in addressing
financial management problems.
Though the committee finished its work just days prior to last week's
terrible attacks in New York and at the Pentagon, I believe that the
bill we produced is just as relevant today as it was then. This bill
lays a firm foundation to fortify our armed forces, takes many
important actions to sustain and improve their readiness in both the
short- and the long-term, and represents a product which I commend to
my colleagues. I urge your support for this bill.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for
the quorum call be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I was going to make a statement on an
amendment I had filed. I did not know the Senator from Georgia was
about to speak now. I will be happy to yield to him.
Mr. CLELAND. Mr. President, I am glad to work with the distinguished
Senator from Texas, and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I want to speak briefly on an
amendment I offered to the armed services bill. It relates to survivor
benefits for people in the military who are killed in the line of duty.
I had offered this amendment with Senator Inouye actually before
September 11, the day that changed all of our lives, because I thought
there was an injustice in the law as it deals with our military
personnel; that is, if someone died in a training accident or in the
line of duty but had not yet retired, he or she would not be entitled
to any retirement benefits, even the benefits already earned. So if
someone died after 10 years of service and had not had the opportunity
to serve the full 20 years, the survivors would have no benefits.
I do not think that is the way to treat our military families, so I
have been working on a piece of legislation that would allow those
people who die in the line of service while on active duty to have the
retirement benefits for their survivors--just what they have already
accumulated. It would not give them the full 20 years, but it would
give them the 5 years they served or the 10 years they served. This is
something that now takes on an even bigger, more important role as we
are dealing with the issues of September 11 because, as we know, over
100 of our military personnel were in the Pentagon and were killed in
the line of service while on active duty.
So I am offering this amendment, once again, to the armed services
bill. I hope it will be accepted. I hope both sides will agree that all
those who were in the Pentagon at the time should have the survivor
benefits to which they are entitled by their years of service.
The interesting thing about this is that the very parts of the
Pentagon where this particular issue was being worked is the part that
was hit.
I want to specifically mention a couple of the people who were in the
Pentagon and who are now missing who were really pushing for my
legislation to go forward--not for themselves because they were already
retired. But they knew about the dangers of not taking care of our
people. They were in the Pentagon talking to the personnel
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about the necessity of this particular piece of legislation. COL Gary
F. Smith, who was the Chief of Army Retirement Services, and Army MSG
Max Beilke were working on this legislation. Those two men were in the
Pentagon and are now missing as of September 11, 2001. LTC Smith wrote
to my staff about this legislation on June 15 saying:
Those of us who work on these issues daily know how
important this will be. We'll keep our fingers crossed and
hope it will get into law.
That was written to Jimmie Keenan, who is an Army nurse on my staff
detailed to me as an Army fellow. She is an expert in this area and has
worked tirelessly on this issue. She has worked long hours. It was
because of her experience in working with her fellow members of the
military medical corps that she realized there was something wrong.
Many times in a training accident, for instance, we go through an
elaborate procedure to medically retire someone who is already dead.
That is what we have been doing--where we could--if someone died in a
training accident. Before we declare a military person dead, we go
through a process that medically retires that person.
My staff says this isn't right; why would we go through this process
when the family is already in trauma and the people around the person
who has died are in trauma? Why do we have to go through that? Why
don't we just say when someone dies in the line of duty, for heaven's
sake, they should have the benefits to which they are entitled by the
number of years they serve?
She went to work. It is a great idea. Another fellow knew what was
needed. And they worked on this for almost a year.
It just happens that the people who were working on it with her in
the Pentagon will not be able to see this bill pass. But what they will
get is the comfort of knowing that their families are going to be taken
care of in a much better way than before.
I am asking the managers of the bill to put this provision in the
managers' amendment. I think it is a very important part of taking care
of all members of the military--not only the ones who have died before
and not only the ones who died on September 11.
I think this is an important message to the members of our military
who are getting ready to be called up. Many are already called up. Many
are waiting for those orders. That is what our military does. They wait
until they are called up to serve their country. They are waiting to be
called to service today as we speak and as we are seeing the
preparations to enact the war against terrorism that our President so
eloquently laid out for the people of America.
As we know, the brunt of carrying out the President's orders is going
to be on the men and women of our military. I want them to answer the
call knowing that if anything does happen to them, their survivors will
be entitled to the benefits of their retirement for whatever number of
years prorated they would be entitled to under the preretirement laws.
I thank Jimmie Keenan and Ray Ivie in my office, along with Michael
Ralsky and David Davis who have also helped on this issue.
In memory of LTC Gary Smith and MSG Max Beilke, I ask that this
amendment be accepted.
Thank you, Mr. President. I yield floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia is recognized.
Mr. CLELAND. Mr. President, it has been an incredible 10 days.
I was reading in the New York Times today a marvelous quote of John
Kennedy that I think is appropriate for where this country stands as we
face our future.
Only in winter can you tell which trees are truly green.
Only when the winds of adversity blow can you tell whether an
individual or a country has steadfastness.
In so many ways over the last week and a half, it has been my honor
and personal privilege to be a part of this great body, to see its
steadfastness in the face of adversity, and to see the wonderful staff
people come back to work even though they knew they were at least for a
moment in time a target of the terrorists.
It has been encouraging to see the steadfastness of my own people in
my own home State of Georgia as they rally for the cause.
It has been a marvelous thing to experience, watching television and
seeing the experience of New Yorkers who rose to the occasion to honor
their firefighters, and to honor their policemen, and who did what it
was difficult to do in dealing with that terrifying situation which
still goes on this day.
But one element of steadfastness we are showing is that this
legislative process continues. The Senate Armed Services Committee was
busy buttressing the defense of America before the attack. We are busy
today buttressing the defense of America after the attack.
I would like to discuss today this pending legislation--the Defense
authorization bill for fiscal year 2002.
Just 2 short weeks ago, the Senate Armed Services Committee completed
its markup of this authorization bill, which I heavily support. After
the tragic events of last week, in a very timely fashion, we bring this
measure to the floor to begin the process of providing our military men
and women with the resources they will need to respond in this crisis.
As all of us are aware, last week people and property of the United
States were attacked in a vicious, deliberate, cowardly, and inhumane
fashion. The full cost of this attack is only now becoming clearer.
In the days that followed the attack, I was often asked what I
thought was the historical meaning of this moment. I have often quoted
Admiral Yamamoto who planned and executed the attack against Pearl
Harbor. Afterwards, he was quoted as saying he feared he had only
``awakened a sleeping giant.'' In so many ways I think that is exactly
what has happened to our country. We have become awakened. This
sleeping giant called America is now awakened.
What is also clear to the perpetrators of this crime, while being
unified against our country, is that we are now unified against them.
The President spoke eloquently and with great strength last night in
that regard. But I will say that the U.S. military will not be alone in
this fight. Indeed, I have spent some time this morning listening to
testimony before the Governmental Affairs Committee regarding how we
ought best to support the President's establishment of a National
Office for Homeland Security. In that hearing, it was the unanimous
consent of the witnesses that the current effort of the myriad agencies
involved in the fight against terrorism, including the Department of
Defense, must be better coordinated.
The Government Accounting Office report recently released--actually
released yesterday--sums up the issue succinctly. ``Current Federal
efforts,'' the GAO says, ``to combat terrorism are inherently difficult
to lead and manage because the policies, strategies, programs, budgets,
and activities are spread across more than 40 different Federal
agencies.''
Since the problem appears to be one of coordination--and the GAO has
fingered that--I believe the President's Office of Homeland Security is
an excellent solution. It promises to adapt our Government to
accomplish more effective counterterrorism coordination and assign
responsibility for measurable results.
It is simple enough to be rapidly implemented--and that is
important--without disrupting the operations of the agencies which are
affected.
I join the distinguished chairman of the Governmental Affairs
Committee, Senator Lieberman, in his desire to move quickly to support
the President's action with appropriate legislation.
Notwithstanding the fact that our response to terrorism will involve
many agencies, it will be our military that will be on the cutting
edge--the tip of the spear, so to speak. It will be our military, our
young men and women, that will wage one of the most visible and
dangerous attacks that we have seen in many, many years. They are on
the cutting edge of this war on terrorism. For many around the world,
the performance of our military will characterize our success or
failure in the war on terrorism.
As the military carries out its critical part in the war, we must
also continue to provide for our military men and women in terms of
their security as they protect our national security. This bill does
that.
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Prior to the recent terrorist attacks, the Senate Armed Services
Committee increased the original budget request for combating terrorism
by well over $200 million. This increase includes over $100 million to
support research and development aimed at detecting, defending against,
and responding to the use of weapons of mass destruction. The other
half of this increase--over $100 million--would increase the ability of
U.S. forces to deter and U.S. installations to defend against a
terrorist attack.
Within this latter total, the committee determined that the Army had
an unfunded mandate for installation security, and we provided an
additional $778 million to address this need.
The committee also added funding of almost $14 million for U.S.
special operations for the special operations command. Though we expect
additional requests and will identify future needs, the measure pending
before the Senate continues this committee's bipartisan efforts to
provide a solid foundation for combating terrorism.
Just one anecdote: On the last day of consideration of this massive
bill, authorizing over $300 billion to be spent for our defense, one of
the questions I asked my fellow committee members was: Defense against
what? What is the threat? This was 2 weeks ago.
Senator Pat Roberts, the distinguished Senator from Kansas, for the
last couple years has been the chairman of the Subcommittee on Emerging
Threats. Senator Mary Landrieu from Louisiana is now the chairman of
that subcommittee. I asked both of them in their research, in their
hearings, in their study of the real threat against America: What is
it? What are we defending against?
Both agreed the most likely threat to the country was a terrorist
attack, a stealthy attack, with no known address, no return to sender
address, especially biological or chemical attack. That was the threat
No. 1. Threat No. 2 was cyber-warfare against our Internet, against our
computers to, in effect, shut us down in terms of our communications
and our data processing.
I thought about that last Tuesday when we had the terrifying attack
on this country. We were zeroing in on the fact that the real honest to
goodness threat against this Nation was going to be a terrorist attack.
Today I had the pleasure of visiting with two former Members, Senator
Warren Rudman and Senator Gary Hart, part of the Hart-Rudman
commission, who months ago identified the chilling fact that it wasn't
a question of whether this country was going to get hit by a terrorist
attack but when. Lord knows, we have learned that lesson.
As we proceed in the days and weeks and months ahead to consider
additional counterterrorist efforts, I cite an editorial that appeared
in Monday's Atlanta Journal Constitution.
In that editorial, former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn, in whose seat I now
sit, whose position I now have in the Senate and position I have on the
Senate Armed Services Committee, coauthor of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative
Threat Reduction Act, who currently serves as cochairman of the Nuclear
Threat Initiative, clearly summarized the threat we face and outlined
some key elements that should be included in our response.
Senator Nunn points out that the terrorists' murderous deeds are
limited only by the weapons they are able to employ--limited only by
the weapons they are able to employ. He notes that the disintegration
of the former Soviet Union left many thousands of tons of nuclear,
biological, and chemical weapons, along with the scientists who worked
with those weapons, adrift in an eroding infrastructure of inadequate
controls and depressed economies.
We must prevent terrorist groups from exploiting this situation to
obtain weapons of mass destruction, weapons materials and know-how. As
we have only narrowly averted some attempts by terrorists to purchase
these materials in recent years, I call on my colleagues to act on the
recommendation of the bipartisan task force that called for a fourfold
increase in the funding of programs aimed at reducing the threat of
inadequately safeguarding weapons, materials, and know-how in Russia.
As Senator Nunn correctly states:
We must develop a comprehensive defense against the full
range of threats based on relative risk and supported by
strong alliances around the world so that the pain of today
will not be known by the children of tomorrow.
In the trials to come, we must remember our military might springs
from the willingness of our people to serve. I have always thought,
since I was a young serviceman in Vietnam, 35 years ago, the key to our
defense is our defenders. They are the military and civilian personnel
who make up the Department of Defense. They are our defenders.
As chairman of the Personnel Subcommittee of the Armed Services
Committee, I am pleased to inform the Senate that this authorization
measure is a good bill and the provisions that address the needs of our
military men and women and their families enjoy the full and bipartisan
support of all members of our committee.
Some of the personnel provisions in this legislation include: total
funding for personnel-related items at a level of $106 billion, about
$7 million over the original budget request; and support for the
recommended active duty end strength requested by the administration.
This includes an increase of over 3,000 personnel in the Navy and
almost an increase of 2,000 in the Air Force. This bill provides an
increase in the full-time manning end strength by almost 2,000
personnel. This is the first installment of an 11-year plan to increase
full-time manning, which is one of the top readiness priorities for the
Reserves.
As we now know, some 50,000 reservists have already been called up.
All of our State adjutant generals have said to us that they need help
with the shortage in full-time support that they receive from the
active duty force.
This bill also provides a significant pay raise--well above the rate
of inflation--for all military personnel.
Mr. President, again, for our troops in the field, military
personnel, there is a significant pay raise in this bill, well above
the rate of inflation. We recommend a targeted pay raise that ranges
from 5 percent to 10 percent, beginning in January of 2002. It is
between 5 and 10 percent. Enlisted personnel and junior officers will
receive a pay raise of at least 6 percent or more.
We also extend the special pays and bonuses that are so important for
recruiting and retention. As someone who has served on the Personnel
Subcommittee over the last 5, 5\1/2\ years, and now chairs that
subcommittee, as you know, we have been struggling with recruitment and
retention. I am pleased to report the military services have seen a
burst of recruitment around the country. That is another sign that the
steadfastness of this country is sound, particularly when we are
threatened.
Acceleration by 2 years of the existing plan to gradually increase
the basic allowance for quarters to eliminate average out-of-pocket
expenditures for off-post housing by 2005--accelerate that by 2 years--
the BAH will cover median housing costs by 2003. We have capped the
average out-of-pocket expenditures for 2002 at 7.5 years.
The bill authorizes a significant increase in funding for the defense
health program, which includes full funding for TRICARE for Life. That
is for the military retirees over 65. This is the retiree benefit that
this committee initiated. The bill includes an authorization of an
expanded benefit for disabled dependents of active duty personnel. This
benefit includes comprehensive health care, home health care, and case
management services for the disabled family member and respite care for
the primary caregiver to the disabled family member. We recognize that
providing for the special needs of disabled family members increases
the capability of service members to perform their military mission.
The bill also includes two new initiatives to help retain service
members with critical skills. As a matter of fact, I was surprised to
actually learn that part of the report recommended a focus on terrorist
attacks and an emphasis on homeland defense. This report by Senator
Rudman and Senator Hart also included recommendations to dramatically
upgrade the Montgomery GI bill. Some of those recommendations were
already in this authorization bill.
These initiatives include my own initiative, which I worked on for 3
years with my staff, to allow service members to transfer up to 18
months of unused Montgomery GI bill benefits to
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family members and Senator Hutchinson's education savings bond
initiative. Both of these help the educational package now available to
service men and women.
The bill also authorizes retired service members with a service-
connected disability to receive both military retired pay and veterans
disability compensation, contingent upon the President proposing and
Congress authorizing an offset.
The bill also authorizes pilot programs with the VA for a joint
program of graduate medical education, and for the VA to conduct
separation and retirement physicals.
Finally, the bill authorizes $35 million for impact aid and $5
million for impact aid for children with severe disabilities. Not only
is this bill good for our service members, but this year's Defense
authorization bill provides critical resources to sustain and improve
the strength of America's Armed Forces, from funding initial production
of the world's most advanced fighters, such as the F-22, to addressing
infrastructure concerns, to adding to our airlift capabilities, and
providing extra C-130s--shortfalls that DOD identified, and it
guarantees that we as a nation are continuing the strong tradition of
supporting our military, as well as preparing for the threats of the
future.
In conclusion, I thank Chairman Levin for his leadership and hard
work on this bill and the ranking Republican, Senator Warner--he and
his staff. They have made a strong contribution to this year's
authorization bill.
I think we should all commend these two gentlemen for their
tremendous dedication to our Nation's military and their continued
example of true bipartisan cooperation and accomplishment.
Mr. President, I will conclude with a line that I came across when I
was going through Reserve Officer Training Corps school as a young
cadet, written by one of Wellington's troops after the Battle of
Waterloo, after the glory of the battle had long since faded. He wrote
once that:
In time of war and not before,
God and the soldier men adore,
But in time of peace, with all things righted,
God is forgotten and the soldier slighted.
Mr. President, over the last 10 days, this country has in many ways
rediscovered our God and certainly has rediscovered our soldiers, our
service men and women. This bill is in their interest. I urge my
colleagues to adopt it.
I yield the floor.
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, a number of our colleagues have been
calling both leaders asking for some update on the schedule for the
day. I wanted to notify Senators that the negotiations on the airline
legislation have just been concluded. So it is my expectation that we
will take the bill up within the next hour and a half.
All Senators should be on notice that we will attempt to get a
unanimous consent agreement to move to the bill shortly after the
legislation has been drafted, and it would be my expectation to take
the bill up immediately. There would be most likely a rollcall vote
before the end of the day. I guess, in the 3:30 to 4 o'clock range we
will take the bill up. I am not sure about the length of the debate. We
will have a rollcall vote on that legislation before the end of the
day.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri is recognized.
Mrs. CARNAHAN. Mr. President, I associate myself with the remarks of
the chairman and the ranking member, as well as the eloquent statement
that my colleague, Senator Cleland, has just made.
This is a good bill. It is one that strengthens our military and
enhances the quality of life for our Armed Forces and prepares our
Nation to confront terrorism.
One group of Americans will be on the front line of the new war on
terrorism: our reservists and National Guard members. President Bush
has authorized a callup of 50,000 of these citizen soldiers. They may
soon leave their families and civilian jobs and, at a great personal
sacrifice, report to active duty. They will be among those who will
confront our enemies, defending our freedoms in a shadowy and
potentially brutal war.
Our Nation must do all we can to support these brave men and women
and their families. There are many things we need to do to address the
issues for reservists' quality of life. One of those is to ensure that
those who are called to duty and their families have access to
uninterrupted health care coverage.
Currently, when reservists are called up, they are temporarily
considered active duty components. While they are in harm's way,
members of the Reserves and National Guard and their dependents are
entitled to the same military health care coverage as other military
personnel, with what is called TRICARE. Reservists who have deployed
for more than 30 days during a major contingency may extend their
military health care coverage for 30 days after they return.
I have discussed this issue at length with several reservists and the
leadership of the Missouri National Guard, and I can tell you 30 days
simply is not enough. Oftentimes, civilian employers are unable to
restore the reservists' health care benefits immediately. In other
cases, Reserve members have quit their jobs before deploying and have
no source of insurance when they return home.
On Monday I will offer an amendment on behalf of myself and Senators
DeWine, Leahy, Landrieu, Johnson, Breaux, Bingaman, Dodd, and Thurmond.
The amendment is based on legislation I introduced with Senator DeWine
earlier this year with seven co-sponsors. Our amendment will allow
reservists returning from deployments without health care, to extend
their TRICARE coverage for up to 180 days or until their civilian
health insurers return their coverage to them.
This legislation would address the circumstances faced by reservists
like Capt. Terri McGranahan. She volunteered to be a part of our
peacekeeping mission in Kosovo. During her service, she worked in a
health clinic that had been newly painted with a toxic sealant. Working
in this clinic had made her very ill, resulting in pneumonia.
Eventually, she developed a spot on her lung. She did not detect this
condition right away. When she finally sought medical treatment, the 30
days of TRICARE coverage had already expired.
When she returned home, her private health insurance company refused
to cover her. She asked the Army for help, but was turned down. Captain
McGranahan has fallen through the cracks of two health care
bureaucracies.
We have to do better than this.
Mr. President, my amendment will provide comfort to thousands of
reserve families whose loved ones risk their lives defending our
Nation. But more important it would be part of our national effort to
unite behind our troops during this time of national crisis.
The bill on which the amendment is based has been endorsed by 28
organizations across the country, including the Reserve Officers
Association, National Guard Association, Enlisted Association of the
National Guard, the Air Force Association, the Association of the U.S.
Army, and several other organizations promoting quality of life for our
service men and women.
Over 50,000 reservists may soon be called into service. As President
Bush himself has said, ``We're talking about somebody's mom, or
somebody's dad, somebody's employee, somebody's friend, or somebody's
neighbor.''
Our initial cost estimate for our original bill was just 5 million
dollars a year. This proposal is not extravagant in a $343 billion
defense budget. It is the right thing to do, and it is needed right
now. This is not a permanent solution. We need a full health care
program for these service men and women. The Defense authorization bill
requires the Pentagon to study this issue, and I look forward to
reviewing it. But in the meantime, I am pleased to offer this amendment
in the name of our Missouri's National Guard and Reservists, as well as
our country's other citizen soldiers.
General Eisenhower once said:
Leadership cannot be exercised by the weak. It demands
strength--the strength of this great nation when its people
are united in purpose, united in a common fundamental faith,
united in their readiness to work for human freedom and
peace.
Mr. President, let us assure our citizen soldiers that when they
return home, they will not be denied health care because of their
military's service.
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They deserve no less. I thank the Chair.
I yield the floor.
Mr. LEVIN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________