[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 140 (Wednesday, October 17, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H7108-H7109]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 2904, MILITARY CONSTRUCTION APPROPRIATIONS 
                               ACT, 2002

  Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Speaker, I call up the conference report to accompany 
the bill (H.R. 2904) making appropriations for military construction, 
family housing, and base realignment and closure for the Department of 
Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2002, and for other 
purposes, and ask unanimous consent for its immediate consideration in 
the House without intervention of any point of order.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  (For conference report and statement see proceedings of the House of 
Tuesday, October 6, 2001, at page H6831).
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Ohio?
  Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, and I do not 
intend to object, but I have only reserved the right to object here in 
order to give the gentleman from Ohio an opportunity to explain what we 
are doing here.
  Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. OLVER. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
  Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Speaker, as the manager of this conference agreement, 
I do not intend to use any of the hour on general debate; however, I 
would like to have the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) 
recognized.
  Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, continuing my reservation, I yield to the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I too wanted to object with the reservation on this for 
the purpose of asking the chairman and the ranking member a few 
questions about the bill. But I also do not intend to object to the 
bill but I want to reserve the right to do that. So if it is 
appropriate on the gentleman's time frame, I would like to ask a couple 
of questions if the gentleman will continue to yield.
  Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I continue to yield to the gentleman on my 
reservation.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I thank both of the gentlemen and I want to say that my 
office and the gentleman's committee have worked very diligently for 
over a year now on a housing issue for Fort Stewart, Georgia and the 
City of Hinesville, Georgia, that I will not go into the details of. It 
is a project, as we know, that the staff on the committee is somewhat 
familiar with.
  We have worked hard on this and have also had the honor of having the 
chairman of the committee come to our area and meet with several of the 
elected officials from Hinesville and Liberty County, Georgia, and I 
have been assured that we had this project under control and moving in 
the right direction.
  Yesterday upon my return to Washington I was extremely shocked and 
extremely disappointed to find out that a problem had developed on this 
project, and even though it did pass the House, when this bill left the 
House it unfortunately disappeared in the conference committee. Maybe 
there was some lukewarm support or lukewarm objections from the Senate, 
but I also understand that there was a glitch with the authorizing 
committee, which I did not know about. So I wanted to express these 
concerns to the chairman and the ranking member and kind of flush it 
out for maybe next year if that is our only fallback position at this 
time.
  Again, this was a very vital and important project for the folks in 
Hinesville, Georgia and Liberty County and Fort Stewart as well.
  Mr. HOBSON. If I may respond, if the gentleman will continue to 
yield, first of all, I want my colleagues to know that I feel very 
badly about this because I have been to Hinesville and I have been 
involved in this project. I want to see this project succeed. This is a 
new type of situation that we really have not done before in the 
military, and that is one of the reasons I wanted to do it.
  This helps the community, it helps the Army, and I think it helps the 
mortgage holder of these properties to get out of the property at a 
better way than they could have before. This is also new for the 
community to do a project in this way. We thought we had it done. And I 
want to be very frank, I thought it was done. We put it into our bill. 
We got into conference where these things are checked again, and we 
found there were a couple of procedural problems which the gentleman 
alluded to or mentioned there that were raised.
  It became a situation where we cannot overcome that in this 
conference at this time and get the authorization and the other things 
necessary to get it done. But I want to make a commitment that I am 
going to do everything I can to make sure that this project gets done 
because I think this is a good model. If we can get this done, this is 
not just good for Hinesville, but this is a good model that we can use 
elsewhere in the country. So it is very important that we do it 
correctly.

[[Page H7109]]

  I want to assure the gentleman's constituents that the gentleman was 
very diligent on this. My colleague's staff was very diligent on this. 
This is just something that came up at the last moment.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Will the gentleman from Massachusetts continue to 
yield?
  Mr. OLVER. Under my reservation, I continue to yield to the gentleman 
from Georgia.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I want to say I truly appreciate the personal attention that the 
gentleman has shown on this and I appreciate those words and I 
appreciate his recommitment for the year ahead.
  Mr. HOBSON. I want to go down there and cut the ribbon on this one, I 
can assure the gentleman of that.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I also wanted to say should there be a supplemental 
bill, there may be an opportunity.
  Mr. HOBSON. If we can get the things done that are necessary to make 
it so, we can put it in a supplemental. We will certainly attempt to do 
that. I am sure the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver) will also 
be interested in doing that. But we have to get the things technically 
worked out to get it done because this is a good model, I think, for 
elsewhere in the country and it is important that we do it correctly 
and I think we want to do it correctly.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I appreciate the gentleman and I will not ask him to 
speculate the likelihood of its passage next year. I certainly hope 
that it would be favorable, as I felt like we were so close this year.
  Mr. HOBSON. I can make the gentleman from Georgia this assurance. I 
will make sure all the T's are crossed and the I's are dotted because I 
think this is a good model.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Having said that, I certainly will not object to the 
bill and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver) has already held 
a reservation. I thank him for yielding to me, and I thank the 
gentleman as the ranking member for his support for this and thank the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hobson).
  Mr. OLVER. I have certainly carefully listened to the exchange 
between the gentleman from Georgia and the chairman of the subcommittee 
and we will work together on the points that have been raised.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I thank the gentleman very much.
  Mr. HOBSON. If the gentleman would yield further, I would like to 
make two other comments.
  Mr. OLVER. I continue to yield under my reservation.
  Mr. HOBSON. First of all, I would like to thank our staffs for 
working on the bill. I think they both did a great job, all the staff.

                              {time}  1230

  I particularly want to thank Tom McNamara, who is the detailee from 
the Air Force. He has been particularly good and helped with the 
subcommittee staff, and we are going to miss him. I do not know if we 
can get him back next year, but we are sure going to try because he did 
a good job in facilitating this bill.
  I think it is a good bill. I have a good partner in my ranking 
member. With that, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
  Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, continuing under my reservation, I want to 
commend the chairman, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hobson), for his 
leadership in reaching this agreement. The two bills did contain 
substantial differences, and I believe that they have been resolved 
very fairly.
  I also wish to thank the staffs, particularly Valerie Baldwin, Brian 
Potts, Tom McNamara, and Tom Forhan of the committee staff and Suzy 
Dumont from my own staff.
  I think also the bill is a good bill. I hope we will have a 
resounding ``yes'' vote on the legislation.
  Mr. UNDERWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Conference 
Report on H.R. 2904, the Military Construction Appropriations Act for 
FY 02. I am particularly pleased that the conference agreement includes 
$7.748 million for the continued construction of the Guam Army National 
Guard Readiness Center. Located in Barrigada, Guam this Readiness 
Center will serve to enhance the administrative functioning and 
training capabilities of the Guam Army National Guard. This is a 
critical and desperately needed project whose construction is timely 
considering the renewed emphasis and recently placed demands on our 
Guard units. for several weeks, Guam's Guardsmen and women having been 
working around the clock to provide for a secure and safe environment 
at the Antonio Won Pat International Airport on Guam. Adequate space to 
assemble and train with modern equipment and facilities will strengthen 
their ability to respond when called to duty. This legislation provides 
Guam's National Guard with the infrastructure needed to meet future 
missions and increased demands with exceptional capability.I thank 
Chairman Hobson and Ranking Member Olver for their leadership in 
crafting this legislation and for their support of the Guam Army 
National Guard Readiness Center. I urge my colleagues to support the 
Conference Report as it is good for our nation's military 
infrastructure and supportive of our men and women in uniform.
  Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Thornberry). Is there objection to the 
request of the gentleman from Ohio?
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Both sides have yielded back all time for 
debate on the conference report.
  Without objection, the previous question is ordered.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the conference report.
  Pursuant to clause 10 of rule XX, the yeas and nays are ordered.
  Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further proceedings on this question 
will be postponed.

                          ____________________