[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 141 (Wednesday, September 21, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5798-S5800]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       THE AUTHORIZATION PROCESS

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss a fundamental 
problem of this body: the fact that Congress as an institution--and the 
Senate in particular--rarely engages in the process of authorizing 
prior to appropriating money for our government. As a result, a handful 
of senior appropriators and their unelected staffs dictate the spending 
of hundreds of billions of dollars, often in a manner that directly 
contravenes the will of those committees that still authorize spending. 
It is time this process be stopped.
  The solution is simple. We should not authorize on appropriations 
bills, and any funding proposed for unauthorized projects should be 
subject to the scrutiny and approval of the authorizing committees and 
reflect the will of their members.
  We are all to blame for this problem. The fact is that routine 
passage of authorizing legislation simply doesn't occur as it should. 
Far too often, even routine passage of appropriations legislation has 
devolved into passage of a

[[Page S5799]]

single omnibus bill. This also must stop.
  A case in point is the appropriations bill to fund the Department of 
Defense that was reported out of the Appropriations Committee last 
week. That legislation should reflect the will of the Defense 
authorization bill but runs directly contrary to it in many areas. At a 
time when we face a $14.7 trillion national debt that is mortgaging the 
future of our children and grandchildren, the Senate Appropriations 
Committee is proposing a Defense spending bill that uses a budget 
gimmick totaling over $10 billion to mislead the American people about 
the savings the committee claims to achieve.
  While the Department of Defense is struggling to find more than $400 
billion in cuts directed by the President, the Appropriations Committee 
is still conducting business as usual by rewarding special interests 
and funding pet projects that have little or nothing to do with our 
national defense. In the bill reported out last week that purports to 
cut over $26 billion from the President's request by changes to 580 
different programs, somehow the Appropriations Committee still found 
money for over $2.3 billion in additional spending not requested by the 
Department of Defense and for items that are far from real defense 
requirements.
  I have here a list of the roughly 580 items changed by the 
Appropriations Committee which are differences from the bill adopted 
unanimously by the Senate Armed Services Committee in June in the 
Department of Defense authorization bill. This list is 45 pages long 
and represents $20 billion in changes.
  For example, it is incredible to me the Appropriations Committee put 
a priority on spending $33 million in operation and maintenance funds. 
That money is used to maintain the readiness and combat capability of 
our troops. The $33 million is going to purchase schoolbuses, to build 
a mental health substance abuse facility on Guam, and a repository for 
cultural artifacts. I am not making that up: $33 million for a 
repository--oh, phase one of a repository for cultural artifacts, 
funding for a mental health substance abuse facility, and the purchase 
of schoolbuses. All of this money, and $40 million more next year to 
complete these facilities, is, at least in theory, supposedly, to help 
promote Guam's cooperation as part of the plan to move 8,700 marines 
and 9,000 family members from their current bases on Okinawa to Guam.

  I know the marines will enjoy being on Guam. I am not sure it is 
absolutely necessary for them to have a repository for cultural 
artifacts. But the plan to move the marines, which will require 
spending between $18 billion and $23 billion on Guam to build up its 
capabilities as a permanent base, is so much in doubt that both the 
Armed Services Committee and the Military Construction and Veterans' 
Affairs Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee have stopped 
funding Guam military construction projects until the Department of 
Defense provides a master plan and considers alternatives that may 
provide the needed marine forward presence at much less expense.
  In fact, we simply cannot afford to carry out the plans as they were 
originally envisioned. In the face of all the doubt about the scope and 
timing of the eventual buildup, the Appropriations Committee put a 
premium on buying schoolbuses, an artifact repository, and a mental 
health clinic in Guam. That is not anybody's idea of defense priorities 
in the fiscal environment we face.
  In some cases, the Appropriations Committee was well aware that the 
Armed Services Committee had, on a unanimous vote, reported out a bill 
that denied funding for a program, but the appropriators funded the 
full amount anyway. This is the case with the Army's Medium Extended 
Air Defense System, or MEADS. The Armed Services Committee cut the 
entire budget request of $406 million for this program because Army 
leaders have told the Senate they do not intend to ever buy or deploy 
the system and because repeated technical reviews have determined that 
MEADS is behind schedule, over cost, and a high risk of technical 
failure. The Appropriations Committee ignored the Armed Services 
Committee's decision not to authorize further funding for MEADS and 
instead appropriated the full amount of $406 million--even in the face 
of the fact of the need to cut defense spending by eliminating troubled 
programs that are not effectively providing increased combat capability 
for the troops.
  Additionally, hundreds of millions of dollars in the fiscal year 2012 
Defense appropriations bill have been allocated to things that were 
never requested by the Pentagon, never authorized by the Senate Armed 
Services Committee, and which are simply not core defense priorities.
  Example: There is $354 million added for medical research not 
requested by the Pentagon, including $120 million for breast cancer 
research, $10 million for ovarian cancer research, $64 million for 
prostate cancer research, and $50 million for other medical research 
for a laundry list of medical conditions. I am not questioning the 
merits of medical research, but they do not have anything to do with 
defending this Nation. They should be taken out of the appropriations 
of the Health and Human Services Subcommittee, not out of defense.
  Again, I am not questioning the merits of medical research and the 
important role the Federal Government can play. I am saying it is time 
for it to stop being taken out of national defense.
  The Appropriations Committee adds even more unrequested funding for 
programs such as $60 million for environmental conservation for ranges; 
$106 million for alternate energy research, whatever that means; $45 
million for high-performance computing modernization--all of these, and 
a long list of them, may be good programs; they are not authorized; and 
the job of the Senate Armed Services Committee is to scrutinize these 
programs and select those that are in most need of funding--$5 million 
for the National Guard Youth Challenge Program; $4.5 million for the 
Civil Air Patrol.
  Programs have some merit, but we have to look at these with an eye to 
the fact that we have been tasked to cut $400 billion that the 
President has already ordered the Pentagon to undertake.
  Despite the Appropriations Committee's desire to find $26 billion in 
defense savings, they found money to add $240 million in unrequested 
funding--the Pentagon and the President did not ask for them--for a 
number of congressional special interest areas, such as advanced 
materials research, $10 million; Industrial Base Innovation Fund--
whatever that is--$30 million; Defense Rapid Innovation Fund, $200 
million.
  In the procurement account, the Appropriations Committee added $675 
million for items that were not requested by the Pentagon or authorized 
by the Armed Services Committee, including $120 million for advance 
procurement of 12 Air Force C-130Js, $47.4 million for improved radars 
for Air National Guard F-15s, $140 million for program increases to 
classified programs--the list goes on and on.
  Although the appropriators were looking for $26 billion in savings, 
they chose not to follow the Armed Services Committee in making cuts to 
some programs even when the justification for taking savings was clear. 
These examples include $150 million for the Army Guided Multiple Launch 
Rocket System; $495 million for Navy F/A-18E/F Hornets, which the Armed 
Services Committee pointed out were funded in the full-year Defense 
appropriations bill for the year 2011; $205 million for the Fleet 
Satellite Communications follow-on program, for which the Government 
Accountability Office and the Armed Services Committee noted that the 
funding for the requested booster was too early.
  In order to give the appearance of real savings to the taxpayer, the 
Appropriations Committee, again, incredibly, shifted over $10 billion 
in funding from the nonwar base defense funding budget to the ``off-
budget/emergency spending.'' For the benefit of the record, the 
Overseas Contingency Operations Fund does not count as part of the 
budget, but it is for overseas contingencies, i.e., the wars in Iraq 
and Afghanistan.
  So what did the Appropriations Committee do? They took money that is 
supposed to be for the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they 
transferred over $3.2 billion to the account for

[[Page S5800]]

overseas contingency operations, $550 million for predator drones, $228 
million for counterfire radars, $192 million for Fire Scout unmanned 
aerial systems, $784 million for unmanned aerial systems.
  In the operations and maintenance accounts, the Appropriations 
Committee transferred over $6.2 billion for items that were requested 
in the base budget to the ``off-budget'' overseas contingency 
operations funding, including $3 billion for Army depot maintenance, 
$495 million for Navy depot maintenance--it goes on and on.
  In the miliary personnel accounts, another $529 million was 
transferred from the defense budget, where it was requested, to the 
overseas contingency operations budget so it would count as ``defense 
savings.''
  This is pure budget gimmickry. It is about time we got serious about 
cutting spending. Using budget gimmicks to shift over $10 billion from 
the base defense budget to the emergency account we have set aside for 
support of overseas contingency operations is not saving the taxpayers 
a dime. Cutting $10 billion from the President's request for the wars 
in Iraq and Afghanistan, shifting over $10 billion in nonwar expenses, 
and then claiming in a press release--they had the gall in a press 
release--that the President's request for the warfighting accounts is 
fully supported is not only a gimmick, it is dishonest with the 
American people. It is a disservice to the men and women of the 
military who depend on that funding for critical warfighting equipment 
and support.
  I have talked to many of our senior commanders in Iraq and members of 
the Iraqi Government during repeated trips to Iraq this year. All of 
them have recommended that the United States maintain at least 10,000 
soldiers beyond December 31, 2011. There is no money in the warfighting 
accounts for, if we have, additional troops. So because of the 
administration's delay in any decision for any additional troops, 
understandably, that is not funded in these bills, which is required, 
obviously, by October 1, the end of the fiscal year.
  What will also put our troops, our national security, and our Nation 
at grave risk is the specter of even more drastic defense cuts should 
the recommendations of the joint select committee fail to gather enough 
congressional support.

  Secretary of Defense Panetta warned last week that the failure of 
lawmakers to agree on debt ceiling talks, which would trigger up to 
$600 billion in additional Pentagon budget cuts, could add 1 percentage 
point to the Nation's jobless rate. He also called the impact of cuts 
of that magnitude ``devastating'' to our Armed Forces.
  The citizens of my State--and nearly every other State in the 
Nation--have been struggling through record unemployment rates and 
unprecedented fiscal pressures. Now, more than ever, they need strong 
leadership to make tough decisions to restore fiscal discipline and 
responsibility in Federal spending. I am committed to using every power 
available to me to ensure the Defense bill for 2012 provides spending 
for only the most critical national security requirements, as proposed 
by the President and defense leadership. In this regard, the Defense 
appropriations bill that has been reported from the Appropriations 
Committee is sadly lacking.
  There is plenty of blame to go around. I do not fault just the 
appropriators. We have all failed to do our jobs. The answer to this 
problem is to fix it. We must stop authorizing on appropriations 
legislation without the agreement of the authorizing committee. The 
appropriations bills should reflect the will of the authorizing 
committees. I intend to work with my colleagues to remedy this problem 
so the will and wisdom of all Senators--not just a select few--is 
represented when we pass appropriations legislation.
  A solution to this problem is long overdue, and I intend to fight to 
see that it is solved.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCAIN. 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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