[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 89 (Thursday, June 24, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7390-S7392]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             ARMY END STRENGTH AND FY05 DOD APPROPRIATIONS

  Mr. REED. Mr. President, last week, the Senate by a vote of 94 to 3, 
passed the Reed-Hagel-McCain amendment to increase the Army's end 
strength by 20,000.

[[Page S7391]]

  This overwhelming vote was an acknowledgement that the administration 
has consistently underestimated and tried to avoid publicly admitting 
the real number of troops needed to win the peace in Iraq. That 
amendment was one step to bring our Iraq policy in line with the 
realities of Iraq.
  However, the Defense authorization bill and the Defense 
appropriations bill before us today both continue to sidestep the 
budgetary realities of our military involvement in Iraq. Just 2 days 
ago, Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz testified that ``it's entirely 
possible'' that U.S. troops could be stationed in Iraq for years.
  If a long-term deployment of U.S. troops is ``entirely possible'', 
then the administration and Congress have a duty to properly budget for 
it.
  When we know we are adding more troops and we know that we have 
significant commitments in Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea, Colombia, and 
elsewhere, we should put those costs into the annual Defense 
appropriations bill, not a supplemental appropriations bill or a 
contingency fund as the administration calls it.
  By making these known costs subject to supplemental appropriations, 
we not only pretend that these costs are not long term, we also create 
an ongoing budget problem for the Army. This situation is all the more 
shocking when one considers the consistent claims from both sides of 
the aisle that we will provide our military with whatever it needs to 
win the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Indeed, since the Iraq war began, 
the Army has had to continuously cobble together the resources to pay 
for more troops out of its regular budget. So instead of replacing or 
repairing destroyed equipment, buying HUMVEEs or body armor, or 
fulfilling other obligations, the Army has had to eat its seed corn.
  It is true that the Army has also gotten supplemental funds on 
occasion to pay for additional soldiers, but only after it has 
exhausted all of the reprogramming options I just mentioned.
  In the short run, reprogramming and supplemental appropriations are 
an option, but Iraq, Afghanistan and Korea are not options. They are 
real, and the pressure on the Army's budget is real. Unless, we 
increase the size of the Army's regularly appropriated budget to 
include the costs of the Army's real personnel levels, I fear that the 
Army will continue to delay needed expenditures, put off necessary 
investments, all so the administration can attempt to minimize the 
costs of the war on terror.
  I want to be clear, this is not the fault of the Appropriations 
Committee. It has done its job well and has continually worked to make 
the Army whole. But, the committee and the bill before us are 
constrained by the administration's inflexibility and demands that 
known, long-term costs must be hidden in contingency reserve accounts 
and other budgetary maneuvers.
  It would be my desire to increase the size of the Army's personnel 
budget by moving the $2 billion in supplemental funds for this very 
purpose into the Army's annual fiscal year 2005 appropriation. I 
believe it would be more appropriate to take the $2 billion we know 
we'll spend out of the supplemental section of this bill and put it 
into the Army's regular budget just like all of the Army's other long 
term costs.
  In deference to the chairman and ranking member and the fact that 
such a proposal would likely require waiving the Budget Act as well as 
the Senate's endorsement of my amendment and Senator Levin's amendment 
that calls on the administration to put the true costs of Army end 
strength in its fiscal year 2006 budget request, I did not offer this 
amendment.
  However, if the administration persists in trying to sweep these 
costs under the rug, Congress must act to include these funds in the 
regular budget of the Army.
  I am also concerned that this year's bill has consolidated the Peer 
Reviewed Cancer Research Program under a single line item. While the 
peer review programs are united in their goal of improving detection, 
treatment and hopefully one day, prevention of deadly diseases such as 
leukemia, prostate, ovarian and breast cancer, they are each unique in 
their design, focus and stage of development. However, there is a valid 
concern that placing these programs under a single line item may 
inevitably pit them against one another. The fledgling Ovarian Cancer 
Research Program, which was only established in 1997 and has been level 
funded at $10 million per year, will be competing with the much larger 
breast cancer program that has been in operation for over 12 years and 
is funded at a healthy $150 million.
  I hope that I and other Senators can work with the Chairman and 
ranking member to find a way to protect the critical and specific 
health research on cancer that the Department of Defense has been able 
to support in the past.
  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the Department 
of Defense--DOD--Peer-Reviewed Breast Cancer Research Program. This 
program is a proven success and I support a $150 million earmark for 
the DOD Peer Reviewed Breast Cancer Research Program for Fiscal Year 
2005.
  This one-of-a-kind research program uses an innovative grants 
structure that brings scientists and consumers together to make key 
policy decisions about breast cancer research. Since its inception 12 
years ago, this far-reaching, influential program has literally changed 
the way breast cancer research is done. It has become a model that 
other research programs have sought to replicate.
  The program has funded groundbreaking research, including the 
discovery of the drug Herceptin, which prolongs the lives of women with 
a particularly aggressive type of advanced breast cancer. This drug 
could not have been developed without research that was funded in part 
by the DOD Peer Reviewed Breast Cancer Research Program.
  Not only is this program on the cutting edge of breast cancer 
research, but also is extremely streamlined. Every penny spent by this 
program and the researchers who receive funding are accounted for at 
public meeting every 2 years. Ninety percent of the funds go directly 
to research and only 10 percent are used for administrative costs. This 
kind of efficiency and prudence in spending is unheard of in other 
federally funding research programs.
  An overwhelming, bipartisan majority in the Senate supports this 
program every year. This year, 66 Senators, including myself, signed 
the letter addressed to appropriators urging the continuation of the 
Department of Defense Breast Cancer Peer Review Research Program 
earmark with level funding of $150 million for fiscal year 2005.
  Unfortunately, the language in the Senate Department of Defense 
Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2005 threatens the funding and 
unique structure of the Breast Cancer Peer Reviewed Research Program. 
The Senate bill combines all of the Congressionally Directed Cancer 
Research Programs into one account and reduces the total funding 
available to all.
  Because the Senate version lumps all the cancer programs into one 
pot, rather than maintaining separate earmarks, the proposal will have 
multiple, negative outcomes. As written, the Senate bill seriously 
threatens the integrity of the Department of Defense breast cancer 
research program and will dismantle its one-of-a kind peer review 
process involving patients and consumers that makes the program so 
successful and unique. The proposal will force cancer groups to compete 
with one another for reduced funding. And, a particularly dangerous 
component of the proposal is that it transfers funding to other cancer 
projects that are not recommended by a scientific peer reviewed 
process.
  I have heard the success stories that have manifested as a result of 
research that has come out of this program. I regularly meet with women 
and men alike, from my Commonwealth of Virginia, who commend the 
positive and innovative advances that this program produces. Just last 
month, I met with the Virginia Breast Cancer Foundation. Let me tell 
you, I believe Virginia is a model for other States on many issues, but 
I must say that the Virginia Breast Cancer Foundation is a leader in 
its advocacy for this issue.
  As the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2005 
goes to conference, I urge my colleagues to support the language passed 
in the House and preserve this important program for breast cancer 
research. I understand that we are fighting a war on

[[Page S7392]]

terror, but many individuals on our home front are fighting for their 
lives. I yield the floor.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask for third reading of the bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on the engrossment of the 
amendments and third reading of the bill.
  The amendments were ordered to be engrossed and the bill to be read a 
third time.
  The bill was read a third time.
  Mr. STEVENS. We have already ordered the yeas and nays. This is final 
passage, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The bill having been read the third time, the 
question is, Shall the bill pass? The yeas and nays have been 
previously ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I announce that the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Lugar) 
is necessarily absent.
  Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) 
is necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 98, nays 0, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 149 Leg.]

                                YEAS--98

     Akaka
     Alexander
     Allard
     Allen
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boxer
     Breaux
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burns
     Byrd
     Campbell
     Cantwell
     Carper
     Chafee
     Chambliss
     Clinton
     Cochran
     Coleman
     Collins
     Conrad
     Cornyn
     Corzine
     Craig
     Crapo
     Daschle
     Dayton
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Dole
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Edwards
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Fitzgerald
     Frist
     Graham (FL)
     Graham (SC)
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hollings
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lott
     McCain
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Miller
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Nelson (NE)
     Nickles
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Santorum
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Stevens
     Sununu
     Talent
     Thomas
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Kerry
     Lugar
       
  The bill (H.R. 4613), as amended, was passed.
  (The bill will be printed in a future edition of the Record.)
  Mr. STEVENS. I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. INOUYE. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, on behalf of my good friend and co-
chairman, I thank the Senate for coming together so quickly behind this 
enormous bill. This is the largest Defense appropriations bill in 
history, but it takes into account the needs of our men and women in 
uniform throughout the world. As I said, some 120 different countries 
have our men and women in uniform. It takes care of the great problems 
for those men and women in harm's way.
  We thank all of our colleagues for their support and for their 
confidence in this bill. I again thank the staff.
  I am overawed by the fact that it is a unanimous vote on this 
unanimous bill. I think it is a symbol to the country that we are 
willing to come together in times of crisis.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate insist on its 
amendment, request a conference with the House on the disagreeing 
votes, and the Chair then appoint conferees on the part of the Senate.
  There being no objection, the Presiding Officer (Mr. Chambliss) 
appointed Mr. Stevens, Mr. Cochran, Mr. Specter, Mr. Domenici, Mr. 
Bond, Mr. McConnell, Mr. Shelby, Mr. Gregg, Mrs. Hutchison, Mr. Burns, 
Mr. Inouye, Mr. Hollings, Mr. Byrd, Mr. Leahy, Mr. Harkin, Mr. Dorgan, 
Mr. Durbin, Mr. Reid, and Mrs. Feinstein.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I congratulate Chairman Stevens and the 
ranking member of the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee on the 
passage of the bill. It is my understanding this is one of the fastest, 
if not the fastest, Defense appropriations bills ever considered in the 
Senate. I thank them. I will have more to say a little bit later 
tonight about this.

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