[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 78 (Monday, June 7, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6493-S6494]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page S6493]]
                         DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION

  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I thank all Senators for their cooperation 
in regard to the work that the committee, Senator Levin and I, and all 
Members of the committee have performed on the National Defense 
Authorization Act, which is currently the pending business before the 
Senate.
  I state to all Senators that the amendments are in now. We have quite 
a few. In such time as staff will have this week, I and other Members 
of the committee will be working through these amendments. When the 
Senate resumes its business next week, my understanding is the 
leadership intends to bring up this bill and we will continue our work. 
We are making progress.
  At the same time, I commend the leadership of the Senate. It is most 
appropriate as a tribute to our late President and the deep respect so 
many hold him in that this Senate will not be conducting its normal 
workload this week.
  Our committee had planned to have a very important hearing on 
Thursday. We had confirmed witnesses and the hearing was set to have 
the Deputy Secretary of State, Deputy Secretary of Defense, and 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs before the committee. The principal agenda 
we were going to address was the transition taking place in Iraq, the 
government, our concerns regarding the hopeful U.N. Resolution, as well 
as documents being in place that will give a specific clarity to the 
question of the status of forces and how they will operate under the 
evolution of this new government. It is very important, not only for 
the safety of each member of the Armed Forces of the United States but 
our coalition partners, as we continue to pursue the goal as laid down 
by our President and the Prime Minister of Great Britain and others in 
bringing about peace in Iraq and providing for a security situation 
such that they can enjoy the freedoms we in this country and other 
countries enjoy.
  I myself am anxious to receive the report of our majority leader and 
others who were in Iraq meeting with officials. I will leave that for 
the moment.
  In conversations with the majority leader over the weekend, I was 
very encouraged by the positive observations he provided.
  We will not be able to move forward on this bill this week for very 
important reasons, nor will we have our hearing. I thought of having 
the hearing the following week but, again, it is extremely difficult 
for a committee to pursue a bill of this magnitude--and I think there 
are probably 200 amendments at the present time--and then have a 
hearing, which hearing would take 4 or 5 hours, in all probability. 
Consequently, I will not schedule a hearing that week, but I will be in 
consultation with the Senate leadership and the members of the Senate 
Armed Services Committee, Senator Levin and all members of the 
committee, as to the course of action we will take to continue to 
pursue the hearings we deem necessary to fulfill the basic parameters 
of the investigation regarding the prisoner situation that were laid 
down in my opening statement on May 7 at which time the Secretary of 
Defense appeared before the committee.
  There had been a lot of press speculation, comments, and inquiries to 
my office about any changes. The answer, speaking for myself, is 
clearly no. It is my intention to try to achieve the necessary 
oversight. We cannot predict every course of action of the committee 
but basically the oversight we deem necessary on this important issue. 
At the same time, we must recognize important work is being done by the 
committee in getting this bill through and adopted. It is important 
because the Appropriations Committee, I understand, is awaiting the 
bill and the House is anxious to get started with the conference. All 
aspects are coming together.

  So for the present time I am not able to give an exact prediction. We 
are looking at the possibility of the earliest possible hearing to 
replace the one we are not going to have on Thursday. Thursday's 
hearing was going to be devoted to the transition of government and the 
security of our forces and the framework within which our coalition 
will operate in carrying out its mission. We nevertheless anticipated 
we would get an update from the Departments of Defense and State with 
regard to the various inquiries and investigations now underway, all of 
which were instituted by the executive branch. As far as I am 
concerned, the Department of Defense is pursuing those investigations 
in a very fair and objective and serious manner.
  Speaking for myself, I think the Department of Defense has been 
totally cooperative with me as chairman of the committee in bringing 
certain documents and other matters to the attention of the committee. 
There was a situation regarding General Taguba's report. I worked with 
the Department. The Department, in a timely way, is bringing to the 
Senate for its examination such other records as we deem to have been 
within the framework of that report and bringing them to the Senate in 
a timely fashion. They have been cooperative.
  I thank all Senators. We will be resuming our series of hearings on 
not only the prisoner situation but the transition in the government 
and other issues as quickly as we can following the completion of our 
bill in the Senate.
  I also at this time draw the attention of all Senators to an 
amendment which I put into the Record. The amendment is a very short 
one. It states the title of this bill, subject to the adoption of this 
amendment, will become the ``Ronald W. Reagan National Defense 
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005.''

  I have a number of cosponsors to this amendment at this time. I hope 
tomorrow other Senators might consider becoming cosponsors.
  I was privileged to be in the Senate through his Presidency and, at 
various times, served as ranking member of the committee. His steadfast 
determination to strengthen America's defense is one of the hallmarks 
of his administrations. I was so privileged, as were other Members of 
the body, to have worked with him on that buildup.
  That buildup, in my judgment, clearly laid the foundation for the 
eventual demise of the Soviet Union and the ability of diplomacy to 
work more effectively because, undoubtedly, through his actions and his 
remarks, the world clearly knew this President was going to guide this 
Nation to the position of such strength as necessary to back up 
diplomacy. After all, I think as a doctrine well established, diplomacy 
can only be as effective as a nation is capable of backing it up if it 
fails and have the determination to use such other assets as necessary 
to achieve its goals, in our case, in the area of the security and 
freedom of our great Nation; namely, national defense.
  Mr. President, with that, I think I will conclude my remarks, again 
drawing the attention of Senators to this amendment that I was 
privileged to submit together with Senator Frist, Senator Stevens, and, 
I must say, Senator Levin and Senator Inouye. So it is bipartisan in 
every respect. And Senator Lieberman has joined us. So I hope other 
Senators might consider joining us as cosponsors during the course of 
business tomorrow.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I would like to take this opportunity to 
explain an amendment that I offered and was accepted by unanimous 
consent on Friday, June 4, 2004. The amendment expresses the sense of 
the Senate that the Department of Defense should set aside funds to 
assist those school districts with school-aged populations that are 
severely affected by the Army's Residential Communities Initiative--
RCI. In essence, it urges the Department to build and improve its 
housing with an eye toward the needs of the surrounding civilian 
community, to contribute to that community's public school system and 
to assist with those expansions and accommodations that are driven by 
an increased military presence.
  In 1996, the Department began a project that will result in 
approximately 120,000 new housing units at 34 installations across the 
United States. The increase in family housing units will bring a 
corresponding increase in school-age children to these bases. These 
children will be educated primarily at public schools. Indeed, of the 
approximately 750,000 current school-aged children of members of the 
active duty Armed Forces in the United States, approximately 650,000 
attend public schools.
  President Truman created the Impact Aid Program in 1950 to reimburse

[[Page S6494]]

public school districts for the loss of traditional revenue sources 
resulting from a Federal presence or Federal activity. Since that time, 
numerous school districts throughout the country have received direct 
assistance from the program. Impact Aid is unique among the Federal 
education programs because it is one of the only programs in which 
funds are sent directly to the school district with little or no 
intervening bureaucracy.
  Although in recent years the program has not been fully funded, it 
still provides critical support to school systems that contain Federal 
bases. School systems have three main sources of revenue for each 
student: State aid, local property taxes, and local taxes on 
businesses. Districts that contain Federal installations do not have 
the benefit of collecting property taxes on the property upon which 
military bases sit. Their schools educate children whose parents are 
stationed on base, but they do not receive the benefits of a tax base 
that includes the property that these parents would occupy in normal 
school districts. In other words, these districts have less money per 
child with which to support their public schools.
  The Impact Aid Program was created to alleviate some of the pressures 
created by a large military presence by providing funding for 
additional students and programs to meet growth-related needs. But the 
Department's RCI program presents a unique situation for communities 
across the country, including that of Anne Arundel County, which 
contains Fort Meade. On the one hand RCI provides a commendable 
solution. By rehabilitating dilapidated military housing, our service 
men and women have safer, more comfortable places to live. We in 
Maryland are very proud of and grateful for our military presence and 
strongly support the right of military families to have livable 
dwellings. But on the other hand our communities must have the 
Department participate as a full partner in those facilities its 
personnel use.
  It is only proper that the Department, as it improves its housing, 
consider the impacts those improvements are likely to have on the 
surrounding community, particularly the school system. My amendment 
asks the Department to do just that--to not only build and improve 
housing, but to think of the community it is creating and to contribute 
to that community's needs as a partner. I believe this is the only 
responsible way for the Department of Defense to proceed and I thank my 
colleagues for supporting this amendment.
  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, last Thursday, I submitted amendment No. 
3273 to the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2005 
revising and extending the authority for the advisory panel to the 
Administrator for Federal Procurement Policy on review of government 
procurement laws and regulations
  This amendment is intended to ensure that small business interests 
are represented both in the membership of the panel and in its 
activities.
  The advisory panel was created in Section 1423 of the National 
Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2004, and was mandated to 
focus on laws and regulations concerning the use of commercial 
practices, performance-based contracting, the performance of 
acquisition functions across agency lines of responsibility, and the 
use of government-wide contracts. The panel was required to issue a 
report a year after appointment, but, otherwise, the panel has no 
subset date.
  While the panel was to study contracting laws in different contexts, 
small business was not one of them. Further, Section 1423 provided that 
appointments were to be made in consultation with several government 
agencies and Congressional committees involved in procurement policy. 
Again, neither the Small Business Administration nor the Congressional 
Small Business Committees were mentioned. Finally, there as no mention 
of small business with regard to the panel's report.
  As Chair of the Small Business Committee, I am profoundly troubled by 
the omission of small business interests from the work of this panel. 
The contracting practices to be studied by the panel have an enormous 
impact on the ability of small business to participate in the Federal 
procurement marketplace. The Senate must assure small businesses that 
their opinions about acquisition reforms will be heard.
  My amendment is simple and straightforward. It would require 
participation on the panel by the Chief Counsel for Advocacy of the 
Small Business Administration or his designee. The Chief Counsel's 
Office of Advocacy, created by Public Law 94-305, has a unique mandate 
to be an independent voice of small business before Congress and 
Federal agencies. Under Executive Order 13272 signed by President 
George W. Bush, Federal agencies must consider the chief counsel's 
comments on any proposed rules in order to ensure that our government's 
policies will not cause harm to America's small business.
  As we know, small businesses have been struggling to gain and retain 
access to Federal contracts. Problems like contract bundling continue 
to persist, and many agencies still fail to meet their statutory small 
business contracting goals. The Chief Counsel for Advocacy and his 
capable staff have worked hard to tackle challenges faced by small 
companies in doing business with the Federal Government. Naming the 
chief counsel or his designee to this panel will enable the Office of 
Advocacy to better carry out its statutory mandate, and it will 
facilitate the implementation of President Bush's Executive order on 
consideration of small business interests. The chief counsel, Mr. 
Thomas M. Sullivan, advised my committee that such an appointment will 
be in the interest of small business.
  This amendment also requires the panel to consider small business 
issues in its studies and in its report, provides for an extension in 
the deadline for completing or supplementing its report to reflect the 
small business perspective, and mandates accountability to the small 
business committees of the House and the Senate.
  This amendment gives small businesses a seat at the table to have 
their views heard as recommendations are made that could significantly 
impact their future viability as government contractors. Senators 
Coleman and Kerry have already expressed their support for this 
amendment by becoming cosponsors. I urge the rest of my esteemed 
colleagues to support America's small business and this amendment.
  Mr. President, 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.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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