[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 131 (Thursday, September 6, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11136-S11137]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
AMENDMENT NO. 2622
Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I rise to speak on amendment No. 2622,
which the Senate will be voting on later today offered by Senator
Salazar.
Mr. President, I regret that I must rise to oppose this amendment
from my friend and colleague from Colorado. But this issue is of too
great importance to the men and women who are fighting for our freedoms
around the world.
My colleague has characterized this as an Army versus the ranchers
and farmers issue. I do not think this is our fighting men in the
military versus farmers and ranchers, and here is why. Because I
believe there are willing sellers and willing buyers in this particular
instance. Private property owners, I have been told, approached the
Army and said: Look, we have some land available we want you to
consider in your plans to expand a needed training area, for the Army
to consider looking at dealing with us and selling that land.
So I think this particular proposal does not need to be an Army
versus farmers and ranchers. I think this can be worked out with
deliberation and thought during this process. Two years ago, the entire
Colorado congressional delegation made a successful argument to the
BRAC Commission to keep Fort Carson Army Base in Colorado Springs open.
We made a commitment that if the Army kept Fort Carson open and even
added soldiers, we would make sure our soldiers stationed there would
be provided with adequate training to do their job.
The Army kept Fort Carson open and restationed two new brigades,
totalling more than 10,000 new soldiers, to the mountain post due to
the commitment made by the entire Colorado delegation.
It would be hypocritical for us as a delegation to now tell the Army:
We want those new soldiers, and we want the economic benefit from those
new soldiers, but we are unwilling to do what is required of us as a
State to ensure that our men and women stationed at Fort Carson are
provided with adequate training.
This amendment is a horrible precedent that will impact more than
Fort Carson. It is a national security issue at a time when our Nation
is engaged in armed conflict. Currently, the Army has a backlog of 2
million acres needed for training. The shortfall is expected to
increase to 5 million acres by 2011, according to the Department of the
Army's response to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2007,
which is available for perusal by my colleagues.
This issue could be reaching your State. Congress should be working
with the Pentagon to address this serious backlog that is hindering the
Army's ability to provide adequate training our soldiers need and
deserve.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the letter of
opposition to the Salazar amendment from the Secretary of Army, Pete
Geren.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
Mr. ALLARD. According to the Army, the Salazar amendment is too
restrictive. It prevents them from doing anything on Pinon Canyon to
resolve even their differences with the farmers and ranchers, including
photocopying handouts or maps to the citizens with questions, holding
community meetings to find common ground, and even doing a required
environmental impact statement.
Senator Salazar and I have offered amendments to last year's and this
year's Defense authorization bill to address many of the valid issues
raised by concerned citizens and elected officials whose communities
are affected by the proposed expansion of Pinon Canyon, the need for
any expansion of Pinon Canyon by the Army, and the economic and
environmental impact to southeastern Colorado. I agree with my
colleague that the Army needs to answer questions. I agree we need to
ensure the residents and communities impacted by any expansion are part
of the process and their concerns are addressed. I believe this
amendment would not accomplish those goals but, rather, actually keep
us from getting needed answers to which they are entitled. Where we
disagree is on the approach. This amendment will have long-term
unintended consequences we could regret. I ask my colleagues to
consider those consequences before they vote.
I ask my colleagues to vote no on the Salazar amendment.
Exhibit 1
Secretary of the Army,
Washington, DC, September 6, 2007.
Senator Jack Reed,
Acting Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriations,
Subcommittee on Military Construction, and Veterans'
Affairs, Washington, DC.
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison,
Ranking Member, Senate Committee on Appropriations,
Subcommittee on Military Construction, and Veteran's
Affairs, Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Chairman and Senator Hutchison: I am writing to
express the Army's views regarding the Pinon Canyon Maneuver
Site (PCMS) in Colorado. The Army wishes to expand the PCMS
in order to provide our Soldiers with the best, most
realistic, and doctrinally sound training possible.
The Army's need for U.S.-based training and maneuver space
will increase significantly as a result of the planned return
of approximately 70,000 troops from overseas bases. These
Soldiers previously conducted much of their training and
achieved their readiness standards by using overseas training
and maneuver space; the same requirements are now being
shifted onto an existing U.S. installation footprint. Adding
an increased requirement to a finite amount of training space
can be partially managed with work-arounds, but there are
limits. At some point, training can become degraded in
quality and unrealistic. Moreover, the land itself must also
recover from intense training exercises. Adding more training
exercises to the same plot of land can pose environmental
risks.
In addition, changes to technology and the organization of
our units requires each Brigade Combat Team (BCT) to be more
agile, be more readily deployable, and be able to secure
significantly more territory than their Cold-War era
counterparts. To properly train our BCTs, they need to meet
higher home-station readiness levels than ever before. To
attain this readiness, they need adequate space to maneuver
under realistic conditions. Shipping units elsewhere is not
an acceptable substitute for home-station training because it
would take valuable time from Soldiers away from their
Families--Soldiers and Families are already bearing tough
sacrifices on behalf of the nation.
[[Page S11137]]
The Army has a growing training land shortfall that will
reach 5 million acres across the entire country by 2011. Fort
Carson is not the only base with projected training land
shortfalls, but not all bases have an opportunity to expand
to remedy to the problem. The Army has the ability to address
some of the overall training land shortfall by acquiring land
at PCMS. If the Army is legislatively prevented from
expanding PCMS, it will harm the Army's ability to provide
necessary and realistic training to units stationed at Fort
Carson, as well as Active, Reserve, and Guard units training
there.
The Army firmly opposes legislation to limit the Army's
proposed expansion of PCMS. Indeed, the Army may need to
expand other installations around the country, and such
legislation could create a dangerous precedent that the Army
will forever be locked into its current training and maneuver
space footprint regardless of any future changes to
organization, technology, doctrine, or threats.
Thank you for your consideration of the Army's views as you
complete your work on S. 1645.
Sincerely,
Pete Geren.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Pryor). The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. SALAZAR. What is the pending business and the amount of time?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is still in a period of morning
business, and the majority controls 5 minutes.
Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for up to 2
minutes of that time, followed by Senator Brown for the remainder.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I want to make sure we don't have
Republican colleagues who have a need to speak further in morning
business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican side has 40 seconds remaining
in their allotted time.
Mr. ALLARD. Very good. I have no objection.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Colorado for his
views on this amendment. I also thank him for the work we do together
in support of our military installations which we consider to be part
of the crown jewel of the Nation's defense and homeland security, and
we often work on those matters together.
I will take exception with respect to a characterization concerning
my amendment in that there is some inconsistency between what we did in
the 2005 BRAC recommendations, which we all supported, and this
particular amendment.
The fact is, the BRAC, in its findings, said we would move the
additional brigades into Fort Carson, that there was sufficient
capacity to provide all the training that was required there at Fort
Carson, and that is because Fort Carson has over 100,000 acres on its
own site and 235,000 acres of additional land. Now the Army wants to
acquire land that is going to make the Army's holdings at Pinon Canyon
greater than the size of the entire State of Rhode Island. My question
is, What has changed from January of 2005 until today? What has changed
is that all of a sudden the Army has decided that it needs all this
additional land.
I go back to my initial argument, which is, if we care about private
property rights, if we care about the ranchers in southeast Colorado,
if we care about national security and making sure we are investing
taxpayer dollars wisely, then it is important we do a timeout, which is
all that my amendment does.
I urge my Republican and Democratic colleagues to support my
amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
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