[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 178 (Thursday, December 20, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14060-S14061]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SECURITY ASSISTANCE ACT OF 2001
Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the
immediate consideration of Calendar No. 276, S. 1803.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the bill by title.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (S. 1803) to authorize appropriations under the Arms
Export Control Act and the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 for
security assistance for fiscal years 2002 and 2003, and for
other purposes.
There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to the immediate
consideration of the bill.
Amendment No. 2695
(Purpose: To make managers' amendments to the text of the bill)
Mr. REID. I understand Senators Biden and Helms have an amendment at
the desk, and I ask unanimous consent it be considered.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am very pleased to urge Senate adoption
of S. 1803, the Security Assistance Act of 2001. This is legislation
that the Foreign Relations Committee reports out each year, either
free-standing or as a title in our State Department authorization bill.
But the substance of the Security Assistance Act is anything but
routine. It includes: foreign military assistance, including Foreign
Military Financing, FMF, and International Military Education and
Training, IMET; international arms transfers; and many of our arms
control, nonproliferation and anti-terrorism programs.
The Security Assistance Act of 2001 covers those programs and
includes not only routine adjustments, but also some significant
initiatives. For example, a 5-year National Security Assistance
Strategy is mandated, so as to provide country-by-country foreign
policy guidance to a function that may tend otherwise to operate on the
basis more of military or bureaucratic concerns.
Several provisions are designed to streamline the arms export control
system, so as to make it more efficient and responsive to competitive
requirements in a global economy, without sacrificing controls that
serve foreign policy or nonproliferation purposes. This is a vital
enterprise. U.S. industry depends upon the efficient processing of arms
export applications, and U.S. firms lose contracts when the U.S.
Government cannot make up its mind expeditiously.
At the same time, however, an ill-advised export license could lead
to sensitive equipment getting into the hands of enemies or of unstable
regimes. So there is a tension between the need for efficiency and the
need not to make the mistake that ends up putting U.S. lives at risk.
This bill addresses that tension by providing funds for improved
staffing levels, information and communications to enable the State
Department to make quicker and smarter export licensing decisions.
The Security Assistance Act of 2001 includes several new
nonproliferation and antiterrorism measures. For example, the ban on
arms sales to state supporters of terrorism, in section 40(d) of the
Arms Export Control Act, is broadened to include states engaging in the
proliferation of chemical, biological or radiological weapons.
Subtitle III-C of this bill establishes an interagency committee to
coordinate nonproliferation programs directed at the independent states
of the former Soviet Union. This provision is based on S. 673, a bill
introduced by Senator Hagel and me with the co-sponsorship of Senators
Domenici and Lugar. It will ensure continuing, high-level coordination
of our many nonproliferation programs, so that we can be more confident
that they will mesh with each other. The need for better coordination
was cited in the report, earlier this year, of the Russia Task Force
chaired by former Senator Howard Baker and former White House counsel
Lloyd Cutler.
Section 308 of this bill encourages the Secretary of State to seek an
increase in the regular budget of the International Atomic Energy
Agency, beyond that required to keep pace with inflation, and funds are
authorized for the U.S. share of such an enlarged budget. This
organization is vital to our nuclear nonproliferation efforts, and its
workload is increasing. The lack of a sufficient assessed budget has
impaired its ability to hire and retain top-flight scientists, however,
so the Committee believes that an increase in that budget is essential.
Subtitle III-B of this bill authorizes the President to offer Soviet-
era debt reduction to the Russian Federation in the context of an
arrangement whereby a significant proportion of the savings to Russia
would be invested in agreed nonproliferation programs or projects. Debt
reduction is a potentially important means of funding the costs of
securing Russia's stockpiles of sensitive nuclear material, chemical
weapons and dangerous pathogens, of destroying its chemical weapons and
dismantling strategic weapons, and of helping its former weapons
experts to find civilian careers and resist offers from rogue states or
terrorists. The Administration is reportedly considering this funding
option, and this bill gives the President authority to pursue it.
A few changes were made in a managers' amendment to this bill, which
I would like to summarize for the record.
The managers' amendment adds, at the request of Senator Feinstein of
California, a new section 206 on congressional notification of small
arms and light weapons export license approvals. This section makes
license approvals for commercial sales of such weapons, with a value
over $1,000,000, subject to the prior notice provisions of section
36(c) of the Arms Export Control Act. It also requires annual reports
on end-use monitoring of such arms transfers, the yearly value of such
transfers, the activities of registered arms brokers, and efforts of
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to stop U.S. weapons from
being used in terrorist acts and international crime.
I want to commend Senator Feinstein for raising this issue, which is
central to our efforts to stem wars and civil bloodshed in Africa and
other regions. The United States leads the way on this issue, but we
must do more. Senator Feinstein's proposals for U.S. policy and
international negotiations in this field are contained in S. 1555,
which has been referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations. I will
work with her and with my House and Senate colleagues in the coming
weeks and months to see whether we can agree on further steps on small
arms and light weapons exports. Personally, I think we can do so.
The managers' amendment deletes subsection 221(c), and I am sorry
that we had to do this. This subsection would have returned to Israel
certain funds that Israel was forced to give back to the United States
due to a general rescission last year. This provision was first
proposed by Republican staff to the Foreign Relations Committee, when
the Republicans were in the majority, but it was one that I heartily
supported. The $4,000,000 at stake may be a small amount of money, but
each dollar we provide to Israel is given because it serves our
national security interests.
Unfortunately, the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on
Foreign Operations and the chairman of the full Appropriations
Committee objected strongly to this provision, not the least because it
was scored by the Congressional Budget Office as an appropriation. I
intend to press this issue in the coming year, and I hope that my good
friends from Vermont and West Virginia will work with me to provide
these funds. If we are ever to have a lasting peace in the Middle East,
we must do all we can to give Israel confidence that the United States
will continue to help assure that country's continued sovereignty and
well-being.
Section 242, on funds for humanitarian demining programs, is amended
in two respects. First, we have deleted any number for the Fiscal Year
2003 authorization for these programs. I welcome this change, because
it comes with suggestions that the Foreign Operations Subcommittee may
look favorably on an increase in that figure. I will work with that
subcommittee on this matter, and I would hope that in
[[Page S14061]]
conference we could insert a higher figure for Fiscal Year 2003 than
the $40,000,000 that has been spent on humanitarian demining each of
the last several years.
The second change is to delete subsection (b) of section 242. The
Foreign Relations Committee, in its desire to increase funds for
humanitarian demining, had suggested that the Secretary of State be
authorized to provide up to $40,000,000 from development assistance
funds in addition to the $40,000,000 authorized in the State
Department's Nonproliferation, Anti-
terrorism, Demining and Related Programs account. The Foreign
Operations Subcommittee informs us that this is not tenable, and I
accept their point that this would have been robbing Peter to pay Paul.
I think we have made our point, however, that more funds are needed for
this program, which has an important political impact in addition to
providing humanitarian benefits.
Another provision that is deleted in the managers' amendment is
section 302, (on an interagency program to prevent diversion of
sensitive U.S. technology). This was an effort to authorize the
Secretary of State to institute new joint programs with the Department
of Commerce and the Commissioner of Customs to improve our export
control, as well as a program to use retired inspectors and
investigators from the U.S. Customs Service and the Bureau of Export
Enforcement in our diplomatic missions overseas. Another committee
questioned our jurisdiction in this matter, and we did not have time to
work out this matter today, so we are dropping the provision. The need
remains, however, to make more use of the many talents of current and
former Commerce and Customs personnel. Especially in our overseas
missions, those people can make contracts with law enforcement and
border control officials in foreign countries that traditional
diplomats have a hard time achieving. So I hope that we can work
something out on this issue in the weeks and months to come.
Another provision in the managers' amendment inserts into section
404, on improvements to the Automated Export System new subsections to
extend the range of exporters that must file their Shippers' Export
Declarations electronically and to increase the penalties for failure
to file and for filing false information. An earlier version of these
subsections was deleted by the Committee at the request of Senator Enzi
of Wyoming, who spotted some faulty language. The version added to the
managers' amendment was worked out with Senator Enzi and with the
Department of Commerce, and I am pleased to thank my friend from
Wyoming, who is a new member of the Foreign Relations Committee, but an
expert in export control, for his sage counsel on this provision.
Section 602 of this bill, on nonproliferation interests and free
trade agreements, is deleted by the managers' amendment. There were
questions from other committees as to whether this was within our
jurisdiction. I hope we can resolve those concerns, because the fact
remains that other countries' nonproliferation and export control laws
and actions are relevant to the question of whether we should engage in
free trade with those countries.
The managers' amendment inserts into section 701 authorizing certain
ship transfers, a subsection authorizing the transfer of four KIDD-
class guided missible destroyers to Taiwan. This provision was
accidentially omitted from the bill at the Committee's business
meeting. In fact, these ship transfers, and the others in this bill,
have already been enacted in the defense authorization act. The Foreign
Relations Committee is the committee of jurisdiction on this matter, so
we do that in this bill.
One issue that is not addressed in this bill, but that is of
considerable interest to Senator Milkulski and others, is the need for
a Center for Antiterrorism and Security Training in the Department of
State. We tried to get funding for this in Fiscal Year 2001, but the
executive branch went to the wrong subcommittee of the Appropriations
Committee and this center fell between the cracks. Now, as our
Antiterrorism Assistance Program increases its course offerings for
security personnel from friendly countries, the need for a training
center is greater than ever. The Security Assistance Act may not be the
best vehicle in which to address this issue, but I want to assure my
good friend from Maryland that we work on this and that we will assure
the State Department of our support for a new center.
Even with the managers' amendments this is a good bill that will
contribute to our national security. I am happy to urge support of it
and I am very pleased that my colleagues appear ready to approve it.
Mr. REID. I ask consent the amendment be agreed to, the bill be read
the third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon
the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements be
printed in the Record.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment (No. 2695) was agreed to.
(The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Amendments
Submitted and Proposed.'')
The bill (S. 1803), as amended, was read the third time and passed.
[The bill will appear in a future edition of the Record.]
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