[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 183 (Thursday, December 1, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8083-S8084]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              CERP REFORM

  Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I have offered an amendment to the 
Defense authorization bill that unfortunately we are not going to get a 
chance to vote on, but I want to begin talking about it because I think 
this is something we need to do as we appropriate money for our 
military for the next year.
  I wish to start by saying that I support the mission in Afghanistan, 
but after years of work on wartime contracting issues and looking at 
the way we have spent money through contracting in both Iraq and 
Afghanistan, I have come to a stark and real conclusion about the money 
we have wasted and continue to waste in this effort.
  We are building infrastructure in Afghanistan that we cannot secure 
and that will not be sustained. Since 2004, the Defense Department--
just the Defense Department, not the State Department--has spent more 
than $6.9 billion in Iraq and Afghanistan on humanitarian stabilization 
projects that include infrastructure, energy, and road construction.
  Primarily, this has occurred through what is known as the CERP fund. 
``CERP'' stands for ``Commanders Energy Response Program.'' This began 
as an effort in the war against insurgencies, the counterinsurgency 
effort, the COIN strategy. This began as a good idea where the 
commanders on the ground would have money they could directly access to 
do small neighborhood projects, to win the hearts and minds, to secure 
a neighborhood, to stabilize a community.
  These projects were envisioned, when I first came to the Senate, as 
fixing broken panes of glass in a shopkeeper's window. This program has 
morphed into something much different than what was envisioned at the 
beginning of the counterinsurgency effort in Iraq. These $100 projects, 
$1,000 projects, are now hundreds of millions of dollars. In fiscal 
year 2010, more than 90 percent of the spending in CERP was for 
projects over $\1/2\ million. At its height in 2009, the authorizations 
for CERP spending in Afghanistan and Iraq reached $1.5 billion. And--
this is the kicker--the military building large infrastructure projects 
has not shown a measurable impact on the success of our mission.
  I have stacks of studies, and I am such a wonk; I have actually read 
all of these studies. These are just a few of the studies that have 
been done by inspectors general, by special inspectors general, by the 
DOD inspector general, by the Wartime Contracting Commission that 
Senator Webb and I put into place to look at all of the wartime 
contracting issues. Even our own troops have studied the expenditure of 
these funds. I want to quote their conclusion in a recent study that 
was completed by the troops that are, in fact, fighting this effort in 
Afghanistan.

       Despite hundreds of millions in investments, there is no 
     persuasive evidence that the Commander's Emergency Response 
     Program has fostered improved interdependent relationships 
     between the host government and the population--arguably the 
     key indicator of counterinsurgency success.

  I go on, a direct quote:

       The effectiveness of CERP in advancing our 
     counterinsurgency objectives in Afghanistan has yet to be 
     operationalized or well documented. The relationship between 
     development assistance and counterinsurgency is being 
     increasingly challenged in the academic and practitioner 
     fields with only unsubstantiated assertions and the 
     occasional anecdote offered as counterargument. There are no 
     clear objectives for a program that funds everything from 
     immediate emergency relief to multi-year, multi-million 
     dollar road projects. The lack of proper incentives and 
     accountability measures have rendered CERP and similar funds 
     an extractive industry for construction companies, 
     nongovernmental organizations, and multiple Afghan government 
     ministries, fueling rather than fighting corruption, 
     community insecurity and insurgent coercion.

  Finding and defeating terrorists, fighting the Taliban, securing 
strategic victories against al-Qaida, training the Afghanistan military 
and police--all of these things I support. But this amount of money 
being spent on large infrastructure projects that cannot be sustained 
we must end.
  In an unprecedented fashion, our military--not the State Department--
has embarked upon these massive projects. This year, for the first time 
in this authorization, there is now a new Afghanistan Reconstruction 
Fund to get around the limits that have been placed on the size of 
projects in the CERP fund. I call this fund the ``son of

[[Page S8084]]

CERP.'' It has now been documented that they want to go even larger and 
even bigger with these large multimillion dollar projects. I cannot 
stand by as we spend billions on roads, electrical grids, and bridges 
in Afghanistan, knowing the incredible need we have in this country for 
exactly that kind of investment.
  These projects are not being built in a secure environment. We are 
paying off people to try to keep the contractors safe. And it has been 
documented that some of that money has gone right into the hands of our 
enemy. That must be stopped.
  These projects, in many if not most instances, cannot be sustained. I 
can give a number of examples. But all you would have to do is travel 
around Iraq and see the empty, crumbling health care centers built with 
American taxpayer dollars, the water park that is a twisted pile of 
rubble that is no longer operational, all of the investments that were 
made in oil production and electricity generation that were blown to 
bits.
  I can give specific examples in Afghanistan. How about hundreds of 
million of dollars spent on a powerplant--the latest technology: duel 
fuel--and nobody there knows how to operate it. And they cannot afford 
to operate it, so it stands by as an empty, hulking potential generator 
for backup power, while they buy cheaper electricity from a neighboring 
country.
  For the first time, the Department of Defense has requested and 
received $400 million in authorization in this new Afghanistan 
Reconstruction Fund. We should limit our military to the small projects 
that CERP was originally intended for, not produce contracts to major, 
multinational corporations.
  All of these reconstruction funds should be pulled, and my amendment 
would do just that. We would pull all of this money out with the 
exception of projects under $50,000. That would be as much as $700 
million that we could immediately put directly into the highway trust 
fund in this country. That is what my amendment does. It will transfer 
that investment from a nonsecure environment, in areas these projects 
cannot be sustained, to the very needy cause of infrastructure 
investment in the United States of America.
  Let's do this. Let's stop these large projects that cannot be secured 
and be sustained. Keep in mind, as much as $700 million would be 
pulled, and that is a small fraction of what we are spending in 
Afghanistan. The authorization for next year is more than $100 billion. 
So anyone who tries to say this will cripple our mission in Afghanistan 
does not understand the numbers. Of the moneys we are spending in 
Afghanistan, the vast majority is about personnel: to train the Afghan 
military, to train the Afghanistan police department, to fight the 
terrorists who are there, the Taliban, al-Qaida in the areas near 
Pakistan. All of that remains. A very small percentage of this would be 
pulled. But it should be pulled, and it should be pulled today. We 
should take this investment and put it in roads and bridges right here 
in our country.
  I hope this amendment will have success when we look at the 
appropriations process. I think it is time we stop this funding, and 
stop it now.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New Mexico.

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