[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 103 (Thursday, July 22, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8614-S8616]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2005--CONFERENCE REPORT
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following the
granting of this request, the official Senate copy of the Defense
appropriations conference report having been presented to the desk, the
Senate proceed to 2 hours for debate only, with 1 hour equally divided
between the chairman and ranking member of the committee and 1 hour
equally divided between Senator McCain and Senator Inouye; provided
further that following that time the Senate proceed to a vote on
adoption of the Defense appropriations conference report with no
intervening action or debate and points of order waived; further, that
when the Senate receives the official papers from the House, the vote
on passage appear at the appropriate place in the Record following the
receipt of those papers; and, finally, this agreement is null and void
if the House does not agree to the conference report.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, if all goes
well, Members will not use the full 2 hours. This, I think, is the only
remaining vote Members would have to worry about tonight unless
something untoward happens. Is that right?
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, we have several business items, one of
which has Transportation, Coast Guard, and other issues. The assistant
Democratic leader is right with his implication that this is going to
be in all likelihood the only rollcall vote. It is absolutely critical
that Members understand we have other items we have to address tonight.
We need to do that, and finish with this vote, if all goes well.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, if everything goes well, Members may have a
vote on this very important conference report.
There is no objection on this side.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Who yields time?
Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, after the vote on the Defense
appropriations, will there be opportunities for Senators to speak on
other subjects?
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, there will be. We will be happy to be here
through the night for morning business--at some reasonable hour, I
hope. We will be here for a while.
Mr. DAYTON. I thank the majority leader.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The committee of conference on the disagreeing votes of the
two Houses on the amendment of the Senate to the bill (H.R.
4613) ``making appropriations for the Department of Defense
for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2005, and for other
purposes,'' having met, have agreed that the House recede
from its disagreement of the amendment of the Senate, and
agree to the same with an amendment, and the Senate agree to
the same.
Signed by all of the conferees on the part of both Houses.
(The conference report is printed in the House proceedings in the
Congressional Record of Tuesday, July 20, 2004 (No. 101--Book II).)
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, our Appropriations Committee is pleased
to present to the Senate the Defense Appropriations Conference Report
for the Fiscal Year 2005. I believe passage of this measure today
represents the earliest date the Defense bill has ever been sent to the
President for signing.
This conference report symbolizes a balanced approach to fulfilling
the financial needs for the Department for the fiscal year 2005.
It provides $416.2 billion in new discretionary spending authority
for the Department of Defense. This amount includes $25 million in
emergency spending requested by the President for the fiscal year 2005
costs associated with the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. That
provision becomes effective immediately upon the signing of this bill
by the President.
The conference report fully funds key readiness programs critical to
the global war on terrorism such as land forces training, helicopter
flying hours, ship steaming days, and spare parts.
It fully funds the 3.5 percent military pay raise proposed in the
President's budget, and increases levels for basic allowance for
housing, eliminating service members' average out-of-pocket housing
from 3.5 percent to zero in 2005.
It provides $1.5 billion above the President's budget request for
Army and Marine Corps recapitalization of combat and tactical vehicles,
helicopters, and ammunition, and provides a total of $18.2 billion for
the Defense Health Program, an increase of $2.5 billion over the fiscal
year 2004 enacted level.
I urge all Members to support the men and women in uniform who risk
their lives for our country each day by voting for this measure.
I would like to thank Larry Lanzillota, the Acting Department of
Defense Comptroller, for his hard work, dedication, and diligence
throughout the past year. He has done a superb job and we wish him
success in his future endeavors.
I also thank my cochairman, Senator Inouye, for his support and
valuable counsel, and recognize him for any statement he wishes to
make.
I wish to put in the Record the names of the diligent staff members
who have worked on this bill night and day to be able to present it to
the Senate at this time, as follows:
Charlie Houy, Betsy Schmid, Nicole DiResta, Sid Ashworth, Jennifer
Chartrand, Kraig Siracuse, Tom Hawkins, Kate Kaufer, Lesley Kalan,
Alycia Farrell, Brian Potts, Brian Wilson, Janelle Treon, and Mazie
Mattson.
I yield to my friend from Hawaii, if he wishes to make an opening
statement.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Hawaii.
Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, I rise today to address the Defense
appropriations conference report that passed the House earlier today.
First, I wish to commend my chairman, Senator Stevens, and his
capable staff for this agreement.
The proposals provided by the conference report represent a careful
balance between the recommendations of each body. Moreover, it provides
what the Defense Department needs for the coming year.
This is a good bill. It represents a fair compromise. It is the
product of a lot of hard work by the chairman and members of the
committee. I recommend all my colleagues support it.
Let me highlight just a couple of key items in this measure.
In meeting the conference committee priorities, the bill supports
the men and women in uniform. It approves a 3.5 percent pay raise for
them. It funds health care requirements to include benefits that are
authorized for our guard and reserve forces. And, most important in
this very challenging time, it provides significant increases for force
protection--specifically up armored ``humvees'', body armor, better
helmets, armor plating for other vehicles and new technology to try and
counter improvised explosive devices.
The bill provides substantial resources to enhance investment
programs in the Defense Department to support key programs like the V-
22, the F-22, the new DDX destroyer, the littoral combat ship, missile
defense and significant increases in Army equipment for Stryker combat
vehicles, trucks, and helicopters.
But, I want to inform my colleagues that this bill does not rubber
stamp the administration's desires. It reduces many programs for which
insufficient justification has been provided. While we recognize that
the country needs to continue to enhance its space capabilities,
members of the Appropriations Committee have learned the hard way that
improvements must be developed prudently. It is a waste of resources to
try and accelerate complex new technologies in the manner recommended
by civilian officials in the Defense Department.
The bill also provides $25 billion in emergency spending, the amount
requested, but it allocates the funds to meet the priorities and needs
of the individual military departments, not the
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blank check sought by the administration. It provides adequate
safeguards on these funds to ensure proper congressional oversight and
requires stringent reporting requirements on its use.
I point out also that there are a few items in here that do not fall
under the jurisdiction of the Defense Subcommittee. I will defer to
others to speak to those.
This is a good bill. It represents a fair compromise. It is the
product of a lot of hard work by the Chairman and Members of the
committee. I encourage all my colleagues to support it.
I reserve the remainder of my time.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore (Mr. Chambliss). Who yields time?
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, on behalf of my colleague from Hawaii, I
reserve the remainder of our time. Senator Byrd has his time, Senator
McCain will have his time, and we will withhold our time.
Our time is reserved?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Yes.
Who yields time?
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, how much time do I have?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator has 30 minutes.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I yield such time as I may require from my
allotted time.
Yesterday, the General Accounting Office released a shocking report
about the state of funding for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Simply put, our troops are running out of money. But the White House
denies that there is a problem.
The findings in the General Accounting Office report are alarming.
The Army is overspending its fiscal year 2004 operations in maintenance
funds to the tune of $10.2 billion. The Air Force urgently needs
another $1.4 billion this fiscal year, and the Marines are short by
$500 million. Our military is cutting back on training at the same time
that retired service members are being pressed back into uniform to be
sent overseas. These budget problems are being compounded by the fact
that the White House planned on having only 99,000 troops in Iraq by
this point instead of the 140,000 troops we will have there for the
foreseeable future. This is the most astounding evidence to date that
the administration has fundamentally mismanaged the financing for the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The President did not bother to put a
single dime, not one thin dime, in his February budget request for
these wars. He insisted that more funding would not be needed until
January 2005.
Even when the administration flip-flopped and came to Congress on May
13, 2004, to ask for a $25 billion emergency reserve fund, top
administration officials denied that there was an urgent need for more
funds to support our troops in the field. Deputy Defense Secretary
Wolfowitz described the $25 billion which is contained in the
conference report of the Defense appropriations bill now before the
Senate as an insurance plan. That is the way Mr. Wolfowitz described
it. Secretary Wolfowitz stated in his testimony to the Armed Services
Committee that our troops would not run out of funds until February or
March 2005.
I didn't buy that line. The administration has fallen down on the job
in budgeting for these wars, and his budget projections simply are not
to be trusted. I say ``these wars'' because we are fighting two wars,
one war in Afghanistan, which is the result of the al-Qaida attack upon
the United States on September 11, 2001. That was an attack upon the
United States by those individuals who had hijacked planes and flown
them into the World Trade Towers, into the Pentagon, and into the field
in Pennsylvania. That was one war. I supported Mr. Bush on that war. I
support that war today.
The second war is the Bush war, the war that is of Mr. Bush and his
ring of people around him in the White House. That is the Bush war.
That was an attack upon a sovereign nation which had not provoked us,
which had not attacked us. That was an attack on a nation in support of
the Bush doctrine of preemption. I did not support that war then, and I
do not support it today.
I did not buy that line. The administration has fallen down on the
job of budgeting for these wars, and its budget projections simply are
not to be trusted. It should have been clear to anyone who has picked
up a newspaper in the last 6 months that our troops were beginning to
run low on funds, but the administration sent witnesses bearing only
rosy scenarios.
To add insult to injury, the White House asked for a $25 billion
blank check on the heels of Bob Woodward's revelations in his book,
``Plan of Attack,'' about the Pentagon hiding from Congress $700
million in spending to prepare for war in Iraq. This was an astounding
request.
Thankfully, Congress has seen through the administration's double
dealing on funding our troops. I thank the chairman of the
Appropriations Committee, Senator Ted Stevens, and his colleague, the
ranking member of the Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, Senator
Daniel Inouye, for working to pierce the fog of rhetoric to reshape
this $25 billion reserve fund to best help our troops while protecting
the constitutional prerogatives of Congress.
Instead of being a $25 billion blank check, $23 billion of these
funds--that is, 92 percent--is made available for regular
appropriations accounts. This means that Congress will be better able
to track how these additional funds are used. In addition, the $25
billion in funding will be available for our troops as soon as this
bill is signed into law. They will not have to wait until October 1 to
purchase the critical equipment our troops need to survive in the
combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. Again, I thank Senator Stevens
and Senator Inouye for working with me to promote fiscal responsibility
and accountability for how these funds are to be used.
Despite the improvements made to the administration's request for
funding for the war, I continue to have serious concerns about the
direction of the so-called peacetime defense budget; that is, the huge
amount of funds not related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This
bill contains $391.2 billion for the Pentagon, not including $25
billion for the cost of the wars. That is a massive increase over the
$287.1 billion appropriated for the Pentagon as recently as fiscal year
2001.
The administration claims this explosion in defense spending is
necessary to transform our military into a faster, lighter, and
stronger fighting force. But today's Los Angeles Times states that the
Army is delaying by 2 years the launch of its first modernized unit
that is supposed to be the centerpiece of this defense transformation
effort.
In this age of sky-high deficits, could it be that we are getting
less bang for more bucks? How else can the administration explain a
stalled transformation effort when defense spending has risen 36
percent in 4 years? If this rate of growth continues, this country will
soon be spending half a trillion per year on the defense establishment,
with no assurance that those funds are being well spent.
The Pentagon's accounting systems are a mess, an absolute mess.
Despite Secretary Rumsfeld's promise to me at his confirmation hearing
in January 2001 to get this problem fixed, the General Accounting
Office has recently issued serious warnings that his accounting reform
effort is headed down the wrong track.
In fact, this Defense appropriations bill cuts funds from this
accounting reform effort precisely because the Defense Department's
program to fix its accounting systems is underperforming. Tens of
millions of taxpayer dollars that were supposed to have been put to use
in establishing a robust system of financial accountability remain
unspent. This Congress made the wise decision not to throw more money
at a problem that is not being fixed. When Secretary Rumsfeld gets his
accounting reform program back on its feet, I will be the first Senator
in line to support all necessary funds for that purpose.
Senators should also realize this Defense appropriations bill brings
back from conference something that was never included in the Senate-
passed bill and something that was never included in the House-passed
bill. It includes a deeming resolution to increase the annual
discretionary spending limit to $821.9 billion for the fiscal year
2005.
The failure of this Congress to pass its annual budget has led to
this move to include a deeming resolution in the
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Defense appropriations bill, signaling the complete breakdown in this
year's budget process.
Setting aside the fact that this provision violates rule XXVIII of
the Standing Rules of the Senate, Senators should know that this
deeming resolution authorizes $11 billion less than what the
Congressional Budget Office says is necessary to maintain current
services, adjusted for inflation. That $11 billion is needed to
maintain services to our veterans, fund health care and education
programs for our seniors and our youth, and maintain our mass transit
and highway programs.
In a time of war, each dollar devoted to our military must be put to
full use. No matter how many additional hundreds of billions Congress
may approve for the Pentagon, defense spending without accountability
ultimately hurts our troops in the field.
Each dollar that is spent on wasteful contracts, each dollar that is
lost in an accounting maze, is one less dollar for our troops to buy
ammunition, to buy fuel, to buy body armor. There must also be a budget
so Congress can know the spending plan for our troops on the
battlefield will be supported in the coming months and years.
The administration would do well to listen--just to listen; get off
its high horse, swallow its false pride, and listen--to this
commonsense message. Stop the budget gamesmanship that only endangers
the lives of our fighting men and women. Enough of the political
posturing that denies that our military in the field may have urgent
needs. The President of the United States must take responsibility for
the fiscal mess that he has created.
Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Who yields time?
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time
during this quorum call be charged against the time of the Senator from
Hawaii and my time.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. STEVENS. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.