[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 75 (Tuesday, June 13, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1132-E1133]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    WAIVING POINTS OF ORDER AGAINST CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 4939, 
 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT FOR DEFENSE, THE GLOBAL WAR 
                ON TERROR, AND HURRICANE RECOVERY, 2006

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                            HON. MARK UDALL

                              of colorado

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, June 12, 2006

  Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, I will vote for this defense 
supplemental without hesitation, but with a number of concerns.
  As I've said in the past, I opposed the resolution authorizing the 
use of force in Iraq because I thought President Bush's decision to 
begin military action in Iraq was premature. I thought it would have 
been better to allow more time for other measures, including coercive 
inspections, to accomplish the goal of disarming Saddam Hussein. 
However, Congress--by adopting the resolution authorizing the use of 
force--left it to the President to decide if and when military action 
would begin.
  But with our troops still in the field, actively engaged in 
operations that Congress has authorized, we have an obligation to fund 
those operations. I won't make our soldiers the victims of my regrets 
by failing to support this bill to provide them what they need to carry 
out those operations.
  It's too bad the Republican leadership evidently didn't see the 
urgency in getting this funding to our troops to pay for key equipment 
and benefits. The president requested this funding back in February, 
but somehow the Republican leadership couldn't get it done until now. 
In the interim, the Army was forced to cut back on ordering spare parts 
and supplies and freeze civilian hires, among other constraints.
  So I'm glad we're finally focusing on this legislation today, which 
includes funding for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, as 
well as funding to train and equip the military and police forces of 
those countries. I'm pleased that the conference report funds more up-
armored Humvees, provides nearly $2 billion to procure and develop 
countermeasures to prevent improvised explosive device attacks on our 
troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and funds the recently enhanced 
$100,000 death benefit for soldiers' families.
  I'm also pleased that--more than 9 months after Hurricane Katrina 
struck--the conference report includes funding for levee improvements 
and for Community Development Block Grants for the Gulf Coast States. 
The report also includes important funding for pandemic flu 
preparedness and for border security.
  I do have strong concerns about some things that are in this 
conference report and some things that were left out.
  I am disappointed that it does not include the additional funds that 
the Senate approved for work to reduce the increased danger of severe 
wildfires in Colorado forests caused by prolonged drought and insect 
infestations.
  After the Senate acted, I wrote the House conferees to point out that 
these factors have raised to emergency levels the risk to our 
communities. I noted that hazardous-fuel reduction projects can reduce 
that risk, and our State has hazardous fuels projects waiting to be 
implemented but lacking adequate funding to do so. Unfortunately, the 
conferees did not include in the conference report the Senate-
passed increase to the National Forest System to reduce the risk of 
catastrophic fires and mitigate the effects of widespread insect 
infestation.

  I am also disappointed that the conference report does not include 
language prohibiting permanent military bases in Iraq. The House-passed 
bill contained a provision that I supported--H. Amdt. 750--which would 
ensure that no funds in the bill would be used to enter into a base 
agreement with the government of Iraq. The Senate-passed bill also 
contained a similar amendment--S. Amdt. 3855--which would prohibit 
funds to establish permanent military bases in Iraq or to exercise 
control over the oil infrastructure or oil resources of Iraq.
  But the conference report includes neither version of this language, 
which I find baffling, since the clear will of both bodies was 
expressed through the passage of these amendments. Policymakers and 
experts across the political spectrum agree that the U.S. should make 
clear that it does not seek a permanent military presence in Iraq. GEN. 
George Casey has testified that gradually lowering the visibility of 
U.S. troops will remove one of the elements fueling the insurgency. And 
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has testified that, ``We have no 
desire to have our forces permanently in that country. We have no plans 
or no discussions under way to have permanent bases in that country.'' 
I believe that Congress should have joined the administration in 
affirming this principle to send a clear signal to the Iraqi people 
that we fully support their efforts to establish democracy and exercise 
sovereignty.
  Finally, I believe the administration must begin to take 
responsibility for the full cost of the war in Iraq and consider these 
costs through the regular appropriations process. With the enactment of 
this supplemental, Defense Department spending for operations in 
Afghanistan and Iraq will reach $400 billion, with the majority of that 
provided for Iraq. Even though we are now more than 3 years into the 
conflict, virtually all of this money has been provided for Iraq as 
``emergency'' funding and has not been offset. But there is no 
``emergency'' here. So much of the costs are predictable. Instead, by 
funding this war through supplementals, the Bush administration avoids 
having to make tough choices--like raising taxes or making deep 
spending cuts. The American people deserve greater candor from the 
administration about both the predictable costs as well as the 
anticipated benefits of our undertakings in Iraq. I've attached a May 
editorial from the Rocky Mountain News that amplifies this point.
  Nonetheless, as I said, I will vote for this bill without hesitation 
because its prompt passage is needed not just to support our men and 
women in uniform as they fight, but also to continue to lay the 
foundation for the harder mission of stabilizing Iraq.

              [From the Rocky Mountain News, May 4, 2006]

A Crazy Way to Fund the Wars: Iraq Spending is No longer an `Emergency'

       A congressional emergency spending measure is meant to be a 
     quick response to sudden, unexpected and generally one-time 
     events, the Gulf Coast hurricanes being an excellent example. 
     The emergency bills are handled outside the regular budget 
     process and under much looser rules.
       The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, although obviously 
     serious, hardly qualify as emergencies in the normal sense. 
     Yet that is how the Bush administration and Congress insist 
     on funding them, even though we're in our fifth year on one 
     and fourth year on the other.
       The result is that Congress has a poor grip on the wars' 
     costs and how they fit in with other competing budget 
     priorities. And the process has allowed Congress to avoid the 
     question of how we are going to pay for those wars.
       The Senate took advantage of the urgency of the latest 
     emergency funding bill for Iraq, Afghanistan and hurricane 
     relief to load it up with money for Hawaiian sugar growers, a 
     Northrop Grumman shipyard, riverbank erosion in California 
     and farm relief, among other largesse. A $92 billion bill is 
     now around $108 billion.
       The wars are not going away. The president himself has 
     indicated we are likely to be in Iraq at least another 3\1/2\ 
     years. Its annual cost has risen from $51 billion in 2003 to 
     $102 billion this year, and the meter is running at about $9 
     billion a month. In a few weeks the total will surpass $320 
     billion, and Congress' analysts estimate that even if troop 
     withdrawals begin this year, a best-case scenario, the costs 
     of a phase-out in Iraq and Afghanistan will run an additional 
     $371 billion.
       As was done in previous wars, the expected cost of Iraq and 
     Afghanistan should be submitted as part of the regular annual 
     federal budget, and Congress should give it the regular line-
     by- line scrutiny it gives every other part of the budget. 
     This might have prevented the squandering in Iraq of the vast 
     sums meant for reconstruction.
       Congressional researchers complain that the Pentagon has 
     refused to give them data

[[Page E1133]]

     on current and cumulative cost obligations for the wars as 
     well as one-year and five-year estimates. In the normal 
     budget process, the Pentagon would have to provide those 
     figures.
       Incorporating war costs in the regular budget, Congress 
     would no longer be able to compartmentalize, treating those 
     expenditures as an aberration while going about business as 
     usual elsewhere. Those expenditures are no aberration, and 
     it's not business as usual.

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