[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 10718-10752]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



        NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2000

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.


                           Amendment No. 388

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there are 2 minutes 
equally divided on the Roth amendment. Who yields time?
  Mr. ROTH addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. ROTH. Mr. President, for 58 years, two distinguished commanders, 
Admiral Kimmel and General Short, have been unjustly scapegoated for 
the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Numerous studies have made it 
unambiguously clear that Short and Kimmel were denied vital 
intelligence that was available in Washington. Investigations by 
military boards found Kimmel and Short had properly disposed their 
forces in light of the intelligence and resources they had available.
  Investigations found the failure of their superiors to properly 
manage intelligence and to fulfill command responsibilities contributed 
significantly, if not predominantly, to the disaster. Yet, they alone 
remain singled out for responsibility. This amendment calls upon the 
President to correct this injustice by advancing them on the retired 
list, as was done for all their peers.
  This initiative has received support from veterans, including Bob 
Dole, countless military leaders, including Admirals Moorer, Crowe, 
Halloway, Zumwalt, and Trost, as well as the VFW.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, on behalf of the managers of this bill, we 
vigorously oppose this amendment. Right here on this desk is perhaps 
the most dramatic reason not to grant the request. This represents a 
hearing held by a joint committee of the Senate and House of the 
Congress of the United States in 1946. They had before them live 
witnesses, all of the documents, and it is clear from this and their 
findings that these two officers were then and remain today accused of 
serious errors in judgment which contributed to perhaps the greatest 
disaster in this century against the people of the United States of 
America.
  There are absolutely no new facts beyond those deduced in this record 
brought out by my distinguished good friend, the senior Senator from 
Delaware. For that reason, we oppose it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired. The question is on 
agreeing to amendment No. 388. The yeas and nays have been ordered. The 
clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain) is 
necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 52, nays 47, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 142 Leg.]

                                YEAS--52

     Abraham
     Akaka
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Breaux
     Bunning
     Campbell
     Cleland
     Cochran
     Collins
     Daschle
     DeWine
     Domenici
     Durbin
     Edwards
     Enzi
     Feinstein
     Grassley
     Hagel
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Helms
     Hollings
     Inouye
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerry
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Lincoln
     Lott
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Rockefeller
     Roth
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Shelby
     Smith (NH)
     Thomas
     Thurmond
     Torricelli
     Voinovich
     Wellstone
     Wyden

                                NAYS--47

     Allard
     Ashcroft
     Bond
     Brownback
     Bryan
     Burns
     Byrd
     Chafee
     Conrad
     Coverdell
     Craig
     Crapo
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Feingold
     Fitzgerald
     Frist
     Gorton
     Graham
     Gramm
     Grams
     Gregg
     Hutchinson
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Jeffords
     Kerrey
     Kohl
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lugar
     Mack
     Moynihan
     Murray
     Nickles
     Reed
     Reid
     Robb
     Roberts
     Santorum
     Sessions
     Smith (OR)
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stevens
     Thompson
     Warner

                             NOT VOTING--1

       
     McCain
       
  The amendment (No. 388) was agreed to.
  Mr. ROTH. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. WARNER. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.


                           Amendment No. 377

  Mr. WARNER. Is the Senator from Virginia correct that the next vote 
will be on the amendment by the Senator from Kansas?

[[Page 10719]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes, amendment No. 377 by the Senator from 
Kansas.
  Mr. WARNER. And the Senator from Kansas and I understand, also, that 
our colleague, the ranking member of the committee, likewise supports 
the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There are 2 minutes of debate.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, noting the presence of the Senator from 
Kansas, the amendment by the Senator from Kansas raises a very good 
point; that is, at the 50th anniversary of the NATO summit, those in 
attendance, the 19 nations, the heads of state and government, adopted 
a new Strategic Concept.
  The purpose of this amendment is to ensure that that Concept does not 
go beyond the confines of the 1949 Washington Treaty and such actions 
that took place in 1991 when a new Strategic Concept was drawn.
  A number of us are concerned, if we read through the language, that 
it opens up new vistas for NATO. If that be the case, then the Senate 
should have that treaty before it for consideration. This is a sense of 
the Senate, but despite that technicality, it is a very important 
amendment; it is one to which the President will respond.
  I understand from my distinguished colleague and ranking member, in 
all probability, we will receive the assurance from the President that 
it does not go beyond the foundations and objectives sought in the 1949 
Washington Treaty.
  Mr. LEVIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I support this amendment. It says that the 
President should say to us whether or not the new Strategic Concept 
imposes new commitments or obligations upon us. It does not find that 
there are such new obligations or commitments. The President has 
already written to us in a letter to Senator Warner that the Strategic 
Concept will not contain new commitments or obligations.
  In 1991, the new Strategic Concept, which came with much new language 
and many new missions, was not submitted to the Senate. Indeed, much of 
the language is very similar in 1991 as in 1999.
  In my judgment, there are no new commitments or obligations imposed 
by the 1999 Strategic Concept. The President could very readily certify 
what is required that he certify by this amendment, and I support it.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this vote be 
limited to 10 minutes and the next vote following it to 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  All time has expired.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I believe that under the order 1 minute was 
reserved for anybody in opposition, is that correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Two minutes equally divided.
  Mr. KYL. I don't think the Senator from Michigan spoke in opposition 
to the amendment, as I understand it. Therefore, would it not be in 
order for someone in opposition to take a minute?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes. The Senator from Arizona is recognized 
for 1 minute.
  Mr. KYL. Might I inquire of the Senator from Delaware--I am prepared 
to speak for 30 seconds or a minute.
  Mr. BIDEN. If he can reserve 20 seconds for me, I would appreciate 
it.
  Mr. KYL. I will take 30 seconds.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that both Senators 
be given 30 seconds.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I say to my colleagues that, as Senator Levin 
just pointed out, this is a totally unnecessary amendment, because the 
administration has already expressed a view that it has not gone beyond 
the Concepts this Senate voted for 90 to 9 when the new states were 
added to NATO. Those are the Strategic Concepts.
  One might argue whether or not they are being applied correctly in 
the case of the war in Kosovo. That is another debate. But in terms of 
the Strategic Concepts themselves, this body voted on them, and I would 
hate for this body now to suggest to the other 18 countries in NATO 
that perhaps they should resubmit the Strategic Concepts to their 
legislative bodies as in the nature of a treaty so that the entire NATO 
agreement on Strategic Concepts would be subject to 19 separate votes 
of our parliamentary bodies. I don't think that would be a good idea 
given the fact that, as Senator Levin already noted, the President has 
already said the Strategic Concepts do not go beyond what the Senate 
voted for 90 to 9.
  This an unnecessary amendment. I suggest my colleagues vote no.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, the Strategic Concept does not rise to the 
level of a treaty amendment, and the Senator from Michigan has pointed 
that out. Therefore, it is a benign amendment, we are told, and in all 
probability it is. But it is unnecessary. It does mischief. It sends 
the wrong message. It is a bad idea, notwithstanding the fact that it 
has been cleaned up to the point that it is clear it does not rise to 
the level of a treaty requiring a treaty vote on the Strategic Concept.
  But I agree with the Senator from Arizona. He painstakingly on this 
floor laid out in the Kyl amendment during the expansion of NATO debate 
exactly what we asked the President to consider in the Strategic 
Concept that was being negotiated with our allies. They did that. We 
voted 90 to 9.
  This is a bad idea.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment. 
On this question, the yeas and nays have been ordered and the clerk 
will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain) is 
necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Crapo). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber who desire to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 87, nays 12, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 143 Leg.]

                                YEAS--87

     Abraham
     Akaka
     Allard
     Ashcroft
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Breaux
     Brownback
     Bryan
     Bunning
     Burns
     Byrd
     Campbell
     Chafee
     Cleland
     Cochran
     Collins
     Conrad
     Coverdell
     Craig
     Crapo
     Daschle
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Edwards
     Enzi
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Fitzgerald
     Frist
     Gorton
     Graham
     Gramm
     Grams
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Helms
     Hollings
     Hutchinson
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lott
     Lugar
     Mack
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nickles
     Reed
     Reid
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Santorum
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith (NH)
     Snowe
     Stevens
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Thurmond
     Torricelli
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Wellstone
     Wyden

                                NAYS--12

     Biden
     Boxer
     Durbin
     Hagel
     Inouye
     Kyl
     Lautenberg
     Moynihan
     Robb
     Roth
     Smith (OR)
     Specter

                             NOT VOTING--1

       
     McCain
       
  The amendment (No. 377), as modified, was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.


                           Amendment No. 382

  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, the next amendment is in the jurisdiction 
of the Finance Committee. Therefore, I have consulted with Chairman 
Roth.
  Does Senator Roth have any comments on this?
  Mr. ROTH. No comments.
  Mr. WARNER. We yield back such time as we may have.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There are 2 minutes equally divided on the 
amendment.
  The Senator from Minnesota is recognized.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair.
  I have been trying to get this amendment on the floor. This is simple 
and straightforward. This requires the Department of Health and Human 
Services to provide us with a report on the status of women and 
children who are

[[Page 10720]]

no longer on welfare. There are 4.5 million fewer recipients. We want 
to know what kinds of jobs, at what wages, do people have health care 
coverage. This is based on disturbing reports by Family U.S.A., 
Catholic Organization Network, Children's Defense Fund, Conference of 
Mayors and, in addition, National Conference of State Legislatures.
  Good public policy is good evaluation, and we ought to know what is 
going on in the country right now on this terribly important question 
that dramatically affects the lives of women and children, albeit low-
income women and children. I hope to get a strong bipartisan vote. It 
will be a good message.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I strongly support Senator Wellstone's 
amendment to require states to collect data on the employment, jobs, 
earnings, health insurance, and child care arrangements of former 
welfare recipients.
  This information is essential. The most important indicator of 
welfare reform's success is not just declining welfare caseloads. It is 
the well-being of these low-income parents and their children after 
they leave the welfare system. We do not know enough about how they 
have fared, and states should be required to collect this information. 
Millions of families have left the welfare rolls, and we need to know 
how they are doing now. We need information on their earnings, their 
health care, and other vital data. The obvious question is whether 
former welfare recipients are doing well, or barely surviving, worse 
off than before.
  The data we do have about former welfare recipients is not 
encouraging. According to a study by the Children's Defense Fund and 
the National Coalition on the Homeless, most former welfare recipients 
earn below poverty wages after leaving the welfare system. Their 
financial hardship is compounded by the fact that many former welfare 
recipients do not receive the essential services that would enable them 
to hold jobs and care for their children. The cost of child care can be 
a crushing expense to low-income families, consuming over one-quarter 
of their income. Yet, the Department of Health and Human Services 
estimates that only one in ten eligible low-income families gets the 
child care assistance they need.
  Health insurance trends are also troubling. As of 1997, 675,000 low-
income people had lost Medicaid coverage due to welfare reform. 
Children comprise 62 percent of this figure, and many of them were 
still eligible for Medicaid. We need to improve outreach to get more 
eligible children enrolled in Medicaid. We also need to increase 
enrollment in the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which 
offers states incentives to expand health coverage for children with 
family income up to 200 percent of poverty. it is estimated that 4 
million uninsured children are eligible for this assistance.
  In addition to problems related to child care and health care, many 
low-income families are not receiving Food Stamp assistance. Over the 
last 4 years, participation in the Food Stamp Program has dropped by 
one-third, from serving nearly 28 million participants to serving fewer 
than 19 million. But this does not mean children and families are no 
longer hungry. Hunger and undernutrition continue to be urgent 
problems. According to a Department of Agriculture study, 1 in 8 
Americans--or more than 34 million people--are at risk of hunger.
  The need for food assistance is underscored by he phenomenon of 
increasing reliance on food banks and emergency food services. Many 
food banks are now overwhelmed by the growing number of requests they 
receive for assistance. The Western Massachusetts Food Bank reports a 
dramatic increase in demand for emergency food services. In 1997, it 
assisted 75,000 people. In 1998, the number they served rose to 85,000. 
Massachusetts is not alone. According to a recent U.S. Conference of 
Mayors report, 78 percent of the 30 cities surveyed reported an 
increase in requests for emergency food in 1998. Sixty-one percent of 
the people seeking this assistance were children or their parents; 31 
percent were employed.
  These statistics clearly demonstrate that hunger is a major problem. 
Yet fewer families are now receiving Food Stamps. One of the unintended 
consequences of welfare reform is that low-income, working families are 
dropping off the Food Stamps rolls. Often, these families are going 
hungry or turning to food banks because they don't have adequate 
information about Food Stamp eligibility.
  A Massachusetts study found that most people leaving welfare are not 
getting Food Stamp benefits, even though many are still eligible. Three 
months after leaving welfare, only 18 percent were receiving Food 
Stamps. After one year, the percentage drops to 6.5 percent. It is 
clear that too many eligible families are not getting the assistance 
they need and are entitled to.
  Every state should be required to collect this kind of data. We need 
better information about how low-income families are faring after they 
leave welfare. Adequate data will enable the states to build on their 
successes and address their weaknesses. Ultimately, the long-term 
success of welfare reform will be measured state by state, person by 
person with this data.
  I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. Ignorance is not 
bliss. We can't afford to ignore the need that may exist.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Is there any Senator who wishes to speak in opposition?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, we yield back our time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to amendment No. 
382. The yeas and nays have been ordered. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain) is 
necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 49, nays 50, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 144 Leg.]

                                YEAS--49

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Breaux
     Bryan
     Byrd
     Campbell
     Chafee
     Cleland
     Conrad
     Daschle
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Edwards
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Graham
     Harkin
     Hollings
     Inouye
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Mikulski
     Moynihan
     Murray
     Reed
     Reid
     Robb
     Rockefeller
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Snowe
     Specter
     Torricelli
     Wellstone
     Wyden

                                NAYS--50

     Abraham
     Allard
     Ashcroft
     Bennett
     Bond
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burns
     Cochran
     Collins
     Coverdell
     Craig
     Crapo
     DeWine
     Domenici
     Enzi
     Fitzgerald
     Frist
     Gorton
     Gramm
     Grams
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Hatch
     Helms
     Hutchinson
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Jeffords
     Kyl
     Lott
     Lugar
     Mack
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Nickles
     Roberts
     Roth
     Santorum
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith (NH)
     Smith (OR)
     Stevens
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Thurmond
     Voinovich
     Warner

                             NOT VOTING--1

       
     McCain
       
  The amendment (No. 382) was rejected.
  Mr. WARNER. I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. GRAMM. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to table was agreed to.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Thank you, Mr. President.
  I have a colleague who is ready to go, Senator Specter, so I will not 
take much time. But I just want to make it clear to colleagues that on 
this vote I agreed to a time limit. I brought this amendment out to the 
floor. There could have been debate on the other side. Somebody could 
have come out here and debated me openly in public about this 
amendment.
  I am talking about exactly what is happening with this welfare bill. 
I am

[[Page 10721]]

talking about good public policy evaluation. Shouldn't we at least have 
the information about where these women are? Where these children are? 
What kind of jobs? What kind of wages? Are there adequate child care 
arrangements?
  The Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal once said: ``Ignorance is never 
random.'' Sometimes we don't know what we don't want to know.
  I say to colleagues, given this vote, I am going to bring this 
amendment out on the next bill I get a chance to bring it out on. I am 
not going to agree to a time limit. I am going to force people to come 
out here on the majority side and debate me on this question, and we 
will have a full-fledged, substantive debate. We are talking about the 
lives of women and children, albeit they are poor, albeit they don't 
have the lobbyists, albeit they are not well connected. I am telling 
you, I am outraged that there wasn't the willingness and the courage to 
debate me on this amendment. We will have the debate with no time 
limits next bill that comes out here.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I tried to accommodate the Senator early 
on on this matter. To be perfectly candid, it was a jurisdictional 
issue with this committee. It was not a subject with which this Senator 
had a great deal of familiarity. I did what I could to keep our bill 
moving and at the same time to accommodate my colleague. The various 
persons who have jurisdiction over it were notified, and that is as 
much as I can say.
  Now, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there be 90 minutes 
equally divided in the usual form prior to a motion to table with 
respect to amendment 383 and no amendments be in order prior to that 
vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I further ask that following that vote, 
provided it is tabled, that Senator Gramm of Texas be recognized to 
make a motion to strike and there be 2 hours equally divided in the 
usual form prior to a motion to table and no amendments be in order to 
that language proposed to be stricken prior to that vote.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, the only 
question I have is that on the second half here, which is the one that 
is before us, I suggest that it read ``prior to a motion to table or a 
motion on adoption'' so that there is an option as to whether there is 
a motion to table or a vote on the amendment itself.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, we find no objection to that. I so amend 
the request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the request as amended? 
Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I see the Senator from Pennsylvania, and I 
yield the floor.


                           Amendment No. 383

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania is recognized.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, this amendment provides that:

       None of the funds authorized or otherwise available to the 
     Department of Defense may be obligated or expended for the 
     deployment of ground troops from the United States Armed 
     Forces in Kosovo, except for peacekeeping personnel, unless 
     authorized by declaration of war or a joint resolution 
     authorizing the use of military force.

  The purpose of this amendment, obvious on its face, is to avoid 
having the United States drawn into a full-fledged war without 
authorization of the Congress. This authorization is required by the 
constitutional provision which states that only the Congress of the 
United States has the authority to declare war, and the implicit 
consequence from that constitutional provision that only the Congress 
of the United States has the authority to involve the United States in 
a war. The Founding Fathers entrusted that grave responsibility to the 
Congress because of the obvious factor that a war could not be 
successfully prosecuted unless it was backed by the American people. 
The first line of determination in a representative democracy, in a 
republic, is to have that determination made by the Congress of the 
United States.
  We have seen the bitter lesson of Vietnam where a war could not be 
successfully prosecuted by the United States, where the public was not 
behind the war.
  This amendment is being pressed today because there has been such a 
consistent erosion of the congressional authority to declare war. Korea 
was a war without congressional declaration. Vietnam was a war without 
a congressional declaration. There was the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, 
which some said justified the involvement of the United States in 
Vietnam--military involvement, the waging of a war. But on its face, 
the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was not really sufficient.
  The Gulf War, authorized by a resolution of both Houses of Congress, 
broke that chain of the erosion of congressional authority. In January 
of 1991, the Senate and the House of Representatives took up the issue 
on the use of force. After a spirited debate on this floor, 
characterized by the media as historic, in a 52-47 vote, the Senate 
authorized the use of force. Similarly, the House of Representatives 
authorized the use of force so that we had the appropriate 
congressional declaration on that important matter.
  We have seen the erosion of congressional authority on many, many 
instances. I shall comment this afternoon on only a few.
  We have seen the missile strikes at Iraq really being acts of war. In 
February of 1998, I argued on the floor of the Senate that there ought 
not to be missile strikes without authorization by the Congress of the 
United States. There may be justification for the President to exercise 
his authority as Commander in Chief, if there is an emergency 
situation, but where there is time for deliberation and debate and 
congressional action, that ought to be undertaken.
  As the circumstances worked out, missile strikes did not occur in 
early 1998, after the indication that the President might authorize or 
undertake those missile strikes.
  When that again became an apparent likelihood in November of 1998, I 
once more urged on the Senate floor that the President not undertake 
acts of war with missile strikes because there was ample time for 
consideration. There had been considerable talk about it, and that 
really should have been a congressional declaration. The President then 
did order missile strikes in December of 1998.
  As we have seen with the events in Kosovo, the President of the 
United States made it plain in mid-March, at a news conference which he 
held on March 19 and at a meeting earlier that day with Members of 
Congress, that he intended to proceed with airstrikes. At a meeting 
with Members of Congress on March 23, the President was asked by a 
number of Members to come to Congress, and he did. The President sent a 
letter to Senator Daschle asking for authorization by the Senate. In a 
context where it was apparent that the airstrikes were going to be 
pursued with or without congressional authorization, and with the 
prestige of NATO on the line and with the prestige of the United States 
on the line, the Senate did authorize airstrikes, specifically 
excluding any use of ground troops. That authorization was by a vote of 
58 to 41.
  The House of Representatives had, on a prior vote, authorized U.S. 
forces as peacekeepers, but that was not really relevant to the issue 
of the airstrikes. Subsequently, the House of Representatives took up 
the issue of airstrikes, and by a tie vote of 213-213, the House of 
Representatives declined to authorize the airstrikes. That was at a 
time when the airstrikes were already underway.
  I supported the Senate vote for the authorization of airstrikes. I 
talked to General Wesley Clark, the Supreme NATO Commander. One of the 
points which he made, which was telling on this Senator, was the morale 
of the troops. The airstrikes were an inevitability, as the President 
had determined, and it seemed to me that in that context we ought to 
give the authorization, again, as I say, expressly reserving the issue 
not to have ground forces used.
  So on this state of the record, with the vote by the Senate and with 
the tie

[[Page 10722]]

vote by the House of Representatives, you have airstrikes which may 
well, under international law, be concluded to be at variance with the 
Constitution of the United States, to put it politely and not to 
articulate any doctrine of illegality, at a time when my country is 
involved in those airstrikes. But when we come to the issue of ground 
troops, which would be a major expansion and would constitute, beyond 
any question, the involvement of the United States in a war--although 
my own view is that the United States is conducting acts of war at the 
present time--the President ought to come to the Congress.
  When the President met with a large group of Members on Wednesday, 
April 28, the issue of ground forces came up and the President made a 
commitment to those in attendance--and I was present--that he would not 
order ground troops into Kosovo without prior congressional 
authorization. He said he would honor that congressional authorization, 
reserving his prerogative as President to say that he didn't feel it 
indispensable constitutionally that he do so. However, he said that he 
would make that commitment, and he did make that commitment to a large 
number of Members of the House and Senate on April 28 of this year. He 
said, as a matter of good faith, that he would come to the Congress 
before authorizing the use of ground troops.
  So, in a sense, it could be said that this amendment is duplicative. 
But I do believe, as a matter of adherence to the rule of law, that the 
commitment the President made ought to be memorialized in this defense 
authorization bill. I have, therefore, offered this amendment.
  It is a complicated question as to the use of ground forces, whether 
they will ever be requested, because unanimity has to be obtained under 
the rules that govern NATO. Germany has already said they are opposed 
to the use of ground forces. But this is a matter that really ought to 
come back to the Congress. I am prepared--speaking for myself--to 
consider a Presidential request for authorization for the use of ground 
forces. However, before I would vote on the matter, or give my consent 
or vote in the affirmative, there are a great many questions I will 
want to have answered--questions that go to intelligence, questions 
that go to the specialty of the military planners. I would want to know 
what the likely resistance would be from the army of the former 
Yugoslavia. How much have our airstrikes degraded the capability of the 
Serbian army to defend? How many U.S. troops would be involved? I would 
like to know, to the extent possible, what the assessment of risk is.
  When we talked about invading Japan before the dropping of the atomic 
bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we had estimates as to how many would 
be wounded and how many fatalities there would be. So while not easy to 
pass judgment on something that could be at least estimated or 
approximated, I would want to know, very importantly, how many ground 
troops would be supplied by others in NATO. I would want to know what 
the projection was for the duration of the military engagement, and 
what the projection was after the military engagement was over.
  These are only some of the questions that ought to be addressed. In 
16 minutes, at 4 o'clock, members of the administration, the Secretary 
of Defense, the Secretary of State, and the Chairman of the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff are scheduled to give another congressional briefing. 
Before we have a vote on a matter of this importance and this 
magnitude, those are some of the questions I think ought to be 
answered. That, in a very brief statement, constitutes the essence of 
the reasons why I have offered this amendment.
  Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. SPECTER. Yes.
  Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Senator. He and I are of the same mind in 
terms of the authority and responsibility of Congress when it comes to 
a declaration of war. It is interesting to note that last year when a 
similar amendment was called on the defense appropriation bill, offered 
by a gentleman in the House, David Skaggs, only 15 Members of the 
Senate voted in favor of it, including the Senator from Pennsylvania, 
the Senator from Delaware, myself, and a handful of others. It will be 
interesting to see this debate now in the context of a real conflict.
  I have seen a copy of this amendment, and I want to understand the 
full clarity and intention of the Senator. As I understand it, there 
are two paragraphs offered as part of this amendment. They use 
different language in each paragraph. I wish the Senator would clarify.
  Mr. SPECTER. If I may respond to the Senator, I would be glad to 
respond to the questions. I thank him for his leadership in offering a 
similar amendment in the past. When I undertook to send this amendment 
to the desk, I had called the Senator from Illinois and talked to him 
this morning and will consider this a joint venture if he is prepared 
to accept that characterization.
  Mr. DURBIN. Depending on the responses, I may very well be prepared 
to do so.
  Would the Senator be kind enough to enlighten me? The first paragraph 
refers to the introduction of ground troops. The second paragraph 
refers to the deployment of ground troops. Could the Senator tell me, 
is there a difference in his mind in the use of those two different 
terms?
  Mr. SPECTER. Responding directly to the question, I think there would 
be no difference. But I am not sure the Senator from Illinois has the 
precise amendment I have introduced, which has only one paragraph. I 
can read it quickly:

       None of the funds authorized or otherwise available to the 
     Department of Defense may be obligated or expended for 
     deployment of ground troops from the United States Armed 
     Forces in Kosovo, except for peacekeeping personnel, unless 
     authorized by a declaration of war or a joint resolution 
     authorizing the use of military force.

  Mr. DURBIN. The version I have----
  Mr. WARNER. If the Senator will yield, I am holding this draft 
amendment. You are referring to two paragraphs, and it appears to me 
that the first paragraph is the title; am I correct? I find that 
inconsistent with what I believe was paragraph 2. The first paragraph 
is the title, and there is really only one paragraph in the body of the 
amendment.
  Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Senator from Virginia. If the Senator from 
Pennsylvania will yield, I will confine myself to the nature of the 
amendment. Could the Senator tell me why reference is only made to the 
deployment of grounds troops from U.S. Armed Forces in Kosovo and not 
in Yugoslavia?
  Mr. SPECTER. The amendment was drafted in its narrowest form. Perhaps 
it would be appropriate to modify the amendment.
  Mr. DURBIN. I think it might be. I ask the Senator a second question. 
Would he not want to make an exception, as well, for the rescue of the 
NATO forces in Yugoslavia if we would perhaps have a downed flier and 
ground troops could be sent in for rescue, and that would not require 
congressional authorization. I think that would be consistent with the 
Senator's earlier statements about the emergency authority of the 
President as Commander in Chief.
  Mr. SPECTER. I would be prepared to accept that exception.
  Mr. DURBIN. The final question is procedural. The Senator from 
Pennsylvania has been here----
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, to amend it for a downed flier--we just 
witnessed ground troops being caught, and they have now been released. 
I would be careful in the redrafting and not just to stick to a downed 
flier. That is just helpful advice.
  Mr. SPECTER. I thank the Senator.
  Mr. DURBIN. A rescue of NATO forces in Yugoslavia was the question. 
Last, I will ask the Senator from Pennsylvania, if this requires a 
joint resolution, under the rules of the Senate, Members in a 
filibuster, a minority, say, 41 Senators, could stop us from ever 
taking action on this measure. How would the Senator from Pennsylvania 
respond to that? Does that, in effect, give to a minority the authority 
to stop the debate and a vote by the Senate and thereby tie the 
President's

[[Page 10723]]

hands when it comes to committing ground troops, should we ever reach 
the point where that is necessary?
  Mr. SPECTER. I respond to my colleague from Illinois by saying that 
with a declaration of war where the Senate has to join under the 
Constitution and there could be a filibuster requiring 60 votes, the 
same rule applies. To get that authorization, either by declaration of 
war or resolution for the use of force, we have to comply with the 
rules to get an affirmative vote out of the Senate. Under those rules, 
if somebody filibusters, it requires 60 votes. So be it. That is the 
rule of the Senate and that is the way you have to proceed to get the 
authorization from the Senate.
  Mr. DURBIN. I know I am speaking on the Senator's time. I thank him 
for responding to those questions. I have reservations, as he does, 
about committing ground troops. I certainly believe, as he does, that 
the Congress should make that decision and not the President 
unilaterally. He has promised to come to us for that decision to be 
made. I hope Mr. Milosevic and those who follow this debate don't take 
any comfort in this. We are speaking only to the question of the 
authority of Congress, not as to any actual decision of whether we will 
ever commit to ground troops. I think that is the sense of the Senator 
from Pennsylvania. I thank him for offering the amendment, and I 
support this important amendment.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I will speak in opposition to the 
amendment. But I don't wish to interfere with the presentation of the 
Senator. At such time, perhaps, when I could start by propounding a few 
questions to my colleague and friend, would he indicate when he feels 
he has finished his presentation of the amendment?
  Mr. SPECTER. It would suit me to have the questions right now.
  Mr. WARNER. I remind the Senator of the parliamentary situation. 
While I have given him some suggestions, if he is going to amend it, it 
would take unanimous consent to amend the amendment.
  Mr. SPECTER. To modify the amendment?
  Mr. WARNER. That is correct.
  Mr. SPECTER. The yeas and nays have not been ordered.
  Mr. WARNER. The time agreement has been presented under the rules. I 
will address the question to the Chair. I think that would be best.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. It would take unanimous consent to modify the 
amendment.
  Mr. WARNER. Just as a friendly gesture, I advise my colleague of 
that.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Virginia for his 
friendly gesture.
  Mr. WARNER. As the Senator reads the title and then the text, I have 
trouble following the continuity of the two. For example, first it is 
directing the President of the United States pursuant to the 
Constitution and the War Powers Resolution. I have been here 21 years. 
I think the Senator from Pennsylvania is just a year or two shy of 
that. This War Powers Resolution has never been accepted by any 
President, Republican or Democrat or otherwise. Am I not correct in 
that respect?
  Mr. SPECTER. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. WARNER. Therefore, we would not be precipitating in another one 
of those endless debates which would consume hours and hours of the 
time of this body if we are acting on the predicate that this President 
is now going to acknowledge that he, as President of the United States, 
is bound by what is law? I readily admit it is the law. But we have 
witnessed, over these 20-plus years that I have been here and over the 
years the Senator from Pennsylvania has been here, that no President 
will acknowledge that he is subservient to this act of Congress because 
he feels that it is unconstitutional; that the Constitution has said he 
is Commander in Chief and he has the right to make decisions with 
respect to the Armed Forces of the United States on a minute's notice. 
Really, this is what concerns me about this amendment, among other 
things.
  Mr. SPECTER. If the Senator will yield so I can respond to the 
question.
  Mr. WARNER. All right.
  Mr. SPECTER. If it took hours and hours, I think those hours and 
hours would be well spent, at least by comparison to what the Senate 
does on so many matters. And we might convene a little earlier. We 
might adjourn a little later. We might work on Mondays and Fridays and 
maybe even on Saturdays. I would not be concerned about the hours which 
we would spend.
  I think this Senator, after the 18 years and 5 months that I have 
been here, has given proper attention to the constitutional authority 
of the Congress to declare and/or involve the United States in war, or 
to the War Powers Act. This is a matter which first came to my 
attention in 1983 on the Lebanon matter when Senator Percy was chairman 
of the Foreign Relations Committee and I had a debate, a colloquy, 
about whether Korea was a war, and Senator Percy said it was. Vietnam 
was a war.
  At that time, I undertook to draft a complex complaint trying to get 
the acquiescence of the President--President Reagan was in the White 
House at that time--which Senator Baker undertook to see if we could 
have a judicial determination as to the constitutionality of the War 
Powers Act.
  It is true, as the Senator from Virginia says, that Presidents have 
always denied it. They have denied it in complying with it. They send 
over the notice called for under the act, and then they put in a 
disclaimer.
  But I think the War Powers Act has had a profoundly beneficial 
effect, because Presidents have complied with it even while denying it.
  But I think it is high time that Congress stood up on its hind legs 
and said we are not going to be involved in wars unless Congress 
authorizes them.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, perhaps when I said hours and hours, it 
could be days and days. But we would come out with the same result. 
Presidents haven't complied with the act. They have ``complied with the 
spirit of the act.'' I believe that is how they have acknowledged it in 
the correspondence with the Congress.
  Mr. SPECTER. If I may respond, I think ``complied with the act''--the 
act requires certain notification, certain statements of the President. 
They make the statements which the act calls for, and then they add an 
addendum, ``but we do not believe we are obligated to do so.''
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, let me ask another question of my 
colleague. We will soon be receiving a briefing from the Secretaries of 
State, Defense and the National Security Adviser and the Chairman of 
the Joint Chiefs. I will absent myself during that period, and the 
Senator from Pennsylvania will have the opportunity to control the 
floor. I hope there would be no unanimous consent requests in my 
absence. I hope that would be agreeable with my good friend, because I 
have asked for this meeting.
  Mr. SPECTER. The Senator may be assured there will be no unanimous 
consent requests for any effort to do anything but to play by the 
Marquis of Queensberry rules.
  Mr. WARNER. That is fine. I asked for this meeting and have arranged 
it for the Senate. So I have to go upstairs. But I point out: Suppose 
we were to adopt this, and supposing that during the month of August 
when the Senate would be in recess the President had to make a decision 
with regard to ground troops. Then he would have to, practically 
speaking, bring the Congress back to town. Would that not be correct?
  Mr. SPECTER. That would be correct. That is exactly what he ought to 
do. Before we involve ground troops, the Congress of the United States 
could interrupt the recess and come back and decide this important 
issue.
  Mr. WARNER. But the reason for introducing ground troops, whatever it 
may be, might require a decision of less than an hour to make on behalf 
of the Chief Executive, the Commander in Chief, and he would be then 
shackled with the necessary time of, say, maybe 48 hours in which to 
bring the Members of Congress back from various places throughout the 
United States and throughout the world. To me, that imposes on the 
President something that was never envisioned by the Founding

[[Page 10724]]

Fathers. And that is why he is given the power of Commander in Chief. 
Our power is the power of the purse, to which I again direct the 
Senator's attention in the text of the amendment. But it seems to me I 
find the title in conflict with the text of the amendment.
  Mr. SPECTER. As I said during the course of my presentation, Mr. 
President, I think the Commander in Chief does have authority to act in 
an emergency. I made a clear-cut delineation as I presented the 
argument that when there is time for deliberation, as, for example, on 
the missile strikes in Iraq, or as, for example, on the gulf war 
resolution, it ought to be considered, debated and decided by the 
Congress.
  Mr. WARNER. How do we define ``emergency?'' Where the President can 
act without approval by the Congress, and in other situations where he 
must get the approval, who makes that decision?
  Mr. SPECTER. I think that our English language is capable of 
structuring a definition of what constitutes an emergency.
  Mr. WARNER. Where is it found in this amendment?
  Mr. SPECTER. I think the President has the authority to act as 
Commander in Chief without that kind of specification, and it is not 
now on the face of this amendment. However, it may be advisable to take 
the extra precaution, with modification offered and agreed to by 
unanimous consent in the presence of the Senator from Virginia, to 
spell that out as well, although I think unnecessarily so.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I must depart and go upstairs to this 
meeting. But I will return as quickly as I can. I thank the Senator for 
his courtesy of protecting the floor in the interests of the manager of 
the bill.
  Mr. SPECTER. I thank the Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. The Senator is aware that the Senator from Virginia will 
at an appropriate time move to table, and in all probability I will 
reserve the right to object to this amendment until the Senator from 
Pennsylvania seeks to amend the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair will advise the Members of the 
Senate that under the previous order Senator Allard is to be recognized 
for 20 minutes.
  Mr. WARNER. Perhaps the Senator from Pennsylvania and the Senator 
from Colorado will work that out between them. I hope they can reach an 
accommodation.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, if I may, I understand that the Senator 
from Virginia has articulated his views about a unanimous consent, and 
that is fine. Those are his rights. But it may be that there will be an 
additional amendment which I will file taking into account any 
modifications which I might want to make which might be objected to. So 
we can work it out in due course.
  Parliamentary inquiry: Does the Senator from Colorado have the floor?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado is to have 20 
minutes at 4 o'clock under the previous order. The 20 minutes is on the 
amendment, not on the bill.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, if I might clarify the situation.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Before the Senator from Pennsylvania specifically advised 
me he was going to assert his rights, which he has since his amendment 
was the pending business of the Senate following the three votes, I put 
in place a modest time slot for our colleague from Colorado, such that 
he could address the Senate on the general provisions of the underlying 
bill. But then we reached a subsequent time agreement to accommodate 
the Senator from Pennsylvania.
  It is my request, in the course of this debate, if the Senator could, 
within the parameters of the two unanimous consents, work out a 
situation where he could have about 15 minutes and then we could return 
to your debate?
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I do not understand that. If you are 
asking me to give time----
  Mr. WARNER. Not from your time agreement. It would be totally 
separate. In other words, your 90 minutes, now the subject of the 
second unanimous consent agreement, would be preserved. That is as it 
was written. But can the Senator accommodate sliding that to some point 
in time to allow the Senator from Colorado to have 15 minutes?
  Mr. ALLARD. What is the regular order?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The regular order is the Senator from Colorado 
has the floor for 20 minutes.
  Mr. SPECTER. I would be delighted to accommodate the Senator from 
Colorado one way or the other. He can speak now and then we can go back 
to our time agreement on the pending amendment.
  Mr. ALLARD. I have been waiting. I was here most of the morning and 
then waiting this afternoon for 3 hours to have an opportunity to make 
some general comments on this bill. I do not anticipate taking much 
longer. My agreement is 20 minutes, if I remember correctly.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
  Mr. ALLARD. Maybe there would be an opportunity--I would like to get 
in on this meeting Senator Warner is attending at some point in time--
probably the last part of it. But I would like to have the opportunity 
to address this bill.
  What is it the Senator from Pennsylvania is seeking, as far as the 
privilege of the floor?
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, if I may respond, I am delighted to have 
the Senator from Colorado use his 20 minutes, which is ordered at this 
time.
  Mr. WARNER. With no subtraction whatsoever from the unanimous consent 
in place for the Senator.
  Mr. SPECTER. That is the understanding the Senator had spoken to 
earlier.
  Mr. WARNER. That is correct.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. At this point in time, the Senator from 
Colorado has the floor for 20 minutes. The Senator is advised, with 
regard to the amendment of the Senator from Pennsylvania, 25 minutes 
remains for the Senator from Pennsylvania and 38\1/2\ minutes, 
approximately, remains for the opposition.
  The Senator from Colorado is recognized for 20 minutes.
  Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, today I rise in strong support of S. 1059, 
the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000.
  As the Personnel Subcommittee chairman, I take great pleasure in 
which Senator Cleland, the ranking member, and the other members of the 
subcommittee were able to provide for our men and women in uniform. 
Every leader in the military tells me the same thing, without the 
people the tools are useless. We must take care of our people and the 
personnel provisions in this bill were developed in a bipartisan 
manner.
  This bill is responsive to the manpower readiness needs of the 
military services; supports numerous quality of life improvements for 
our service men and women, their families, and the retiree community; 
and reflects the budget realities that we face today and will face in 
the future.
  First, military manpower strength levels. The bill adds 92 Marine 
personnel over the administration's request for an active duty end 
strength of 1,384,889. It also recommends a reserve end strength of 
874,043--745 more than the administration requested.
  The bill also modifies but maintains the end-strength floors. While I 
do not believe that end-strength floors are a practical force 
management tool, I am personally concerned that the strength levels of 
the active and reserve forces are too low and that the Department of 
Defense is paying other bills by reducing personnel. Therefore, it is 
necessary to send a message to the administration that they cannot 
permit personnel levels to drop below the minimums established by the 
Congress.
  On military personnel policy, there are a number of provisions 
intended to support the recruiting and retention and personnel 
management of the services. Among the most noteworthy, are the several 
provisions that permit the services to offer 2-year enlistments with 
bonuses and other incentives. This is a pilot program in which students 
in college or vocational or technical schools could enlist and remain

[[Page 10725]]

in school for 2 years before they actually go on active duty.
  Many Senators have expressed their concerns about the operational 
tempo of the military. That is why this bill attempts to address this 
problem by requiring the services to closely manage the Personnel and 
Deployment Tempo of military personnel. We would require a general or 
flag officer to approve deployments over 180 days in a year; a four-
star general or admiral to approve deployments over 200 days and would 
authorize a $100 per diem pay for each day a service member is deployed 
over 220 days. The briefings and hearings in the personnel subcommittee 
have found that the single most cited reason for separation is time 
away from home and families. At the same time, the services have not 
been effective in managing the Personnel and Deployment Tempo for their 
personnel. I am confident that the provision will focus the necessary 
attention on the management of this problem.
  Another important provision is the expansion of Junior ROTC or JROTC 
programs. A number of members and the service Chiefs and personnel 
Chiefs told me that they believed Junior ROTC is an important program 
and that an expansion was not only warranted but needed. Thus we have 
added $39 million to expand the JROTC programs. These funds will permit 
the Army to add 114 new schools; the Navy to add 63 new schools; the 
Air Force to add 63 new schools; and the Marine Corps to exhaust their 
waiting list to 32 schools. This is a total of 272 new JROTC programs 
in our school districts across the country. I am proud to be able to 
support these important programs that teach responsibility, leadership, 
ethics, and assist in military recruiting.
  In military compensation, our major recommendations are extracted 
from S. 4, the Soldiers', Sailors', Airmen's and Marines' Bill of 
Rights Act of 1999. First, this bill authorizes a 4.8-percent pay raise 
effective January 1, 2000 and a restructuring of the pay tables 
effective July 1, 2000.
  Another provision includes a Thrift Savings Plan for active forces 
and the ready reserves and a plan to offer service members who entered 
the service on or after August 1, 1986, the option to receive a $30,000 
bonus and remain under the ``Redux'' retirement or to change to the 
``High-three'' retirement system. In order to assist the active and 
reserve military forces in recruiting, there are a series of bonuses 
and new authorities to support the ability of our recruiters to attract 
qualified young men and women to serve in the armed forces. There are 
also several new bonuses and special pays to incentivize aviators, 
surface warfare officers, special warfare officers, air crewmen among 
others to remain on active duty. Two additional provisions from S. 4 
are in this bill. A special retention initiative would permit a service 
secretary to match the thrift savings contribution of service members 
in critical specialties in return for an extended service commitment. 
Also, thanks to the hard work of Senator McCain and Senator Roberts, 
another provision authorizes a special subsistence allowance for junior 
enlisted personnel who qualify for food stamps.
  In health care, there are several key recommendations. There is a 
provision that would require the Secretary of Defense to implement a 
number of initiatives to improve delivery of health care under TriCare. 
Another provision would require each Lead Agent to establish a patient 
advocate to assist beneficiaries in resolving problems they may 
encounter with TriCare.
  Finally there are a number of general provisions including one to 
enforce the reductions in management headquarters personnel Congress 
directed several years ago and several to assist the Department of 
Defense Dependents School System to provide quality education for the 
children of military personnel overseas.
  Before I close, as a first time Senator subcommittee chair, I express 
my appreciation to Senator Cleland for his leadership and assistance 
throughout this year as we worked in a bipartisan manner to develop 
programs which enhance personnel readiness and quality of life 
programs. I also thank the members of the subcommittee, Senator 
Thurmond, Senator McCain, Senator Snowe, Senator Kennedy, and Senator 
Reed, and their staffs. Their hard work made our work better and helped 
me focus on those issues which have the greatest impact on soldiers, 
sailors, airmen and marines.
  Mr. President, I finish by thanking Chairman Warner for the 
opportunity to point out some of the highlights in the bill which the 
Personnel Subcommittee has oversight and to congratulate him and 
Senator Levin on the bipartisan way this bill was accomplished and ask 
that all Senators strongly support S. 1059.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time is under control. If neither side 
yields time, time will simply run equally.
  Mr. LEVIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan is recognized.
  Mr. LEVIN. I thank the Chair. The Senator from Delaware is here and I 
will be happy to yield--how much time do the opponents have?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The opponents of the amendment have 38 minutes 
and approximately 10 seconds.
  Mr. LEVIN. Is that divided in some way or under the control of 
Senator Warner and myself? How is that?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The manager of the bill is designated to be in 
charge of the opposition.
  Mr. LEVIN. I am happy to yield 5 minutes to the Senator from 
Delaware.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I will be necessarily brief.
  It is not often I disagree with my friend from Pennsylvania, Senator 
Specter. I think he is right in the fundamental sense that if the 
President is going to send American ground forces into a war, it needs 
congressional authority.
  Very honestly, this amendment is, in my view, flawed. First of all, 
it is clear that the President has to come to Congress to use ground 
forces and that the President has already stated--I will ask unanimous 
consent to print in the Record a copy of his letter dated April 28, 
1999, to the Speaker of the House in which he says in part:

       Indeed, without regard to our differing constitutional 
     views on the use of force, I would ask for Congressional 
     support before introducing U.S. ground forces into Kosovo 
     into a non-permissive environment.

  I ask unanimous consent that the President's letter be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                              The White House,

                                       Washington, April 28, 1999.
     Hon. J. Dennis Hastert,
     Speaker of the House of Representatives,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Speaker: I appreciate the opportunity to continue 
     to consult closely with the Congress regarding events in 
     Kosovo.
       The unprecedented unity of the NATO Members is reflected in 
     our agreement at the recent summit to continue and intensify 
     the air campaign. Milosevic must not doubt the resolve of the 
     NATO alliance to prevail. I am confident we will do so 
     through use of air power.
       However, were I to change my policy with regard to the 
     introduction of ground forces, I can assure you that I would 
     fully consult with the Congress. Indeed, without regard to 
     our differing constitutional views on the use of force, I 
     would ask for Congressional support before introducing U.S. 
     ground forces into Kosovo into a non-permissive environment. 
     Milosevic can have no doubt about the resolve of the United 
     States to address the security threat to the Balkans and the 
     humanitarian crisis in Kosovo. The refugees must be allowed 
     to go home to a safe and secure environment.
           Sincerely,
                                                     Bill Clinton.

  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, not only must the President, but he said he 
would.
  This amendment is flawed in two respects. First, as a constitutional 
matter, I believe it is unnecessary. The Constitution already bars 
offensive military action by the President unless it is congressionally 
authorized or under his emergency powers.

[[Page 10726]]

  The Senate resolution we adopted only authorizes the use of airpower. 
If Congress adopts this amendment, it seems to me we will imply the 
President has carte blanche to take offensive action, and anywhere else 
unless the Congress makes a specific statement to the contrary in 
advance. In short, I think it will tender an invitation to Presidents 
in the future to use force whenever they want unless Congress provides 
a specific ban in advance.
  Putting that aside, however, the amendment is flawed because its 
exceptions are much too narrowly drawn. The amendment purports to bar 
the use of Armed Forces in response to an attack against Armed Forces.
  For example, we have thousands of soldiers now in Albania and 
Macedonia. Let's suppose the Yugoslav forces launch an attack against 
U.S. forces in Albania or in Macedonia. This amendment would bar the 
use of ground forces to respond by going into Kosovo.
  The power to respond against such an attack is clearly within the 
power of the Commander in Chief. So, too, does the President have the 
power to launch a preemptive strike against an imminent attack. The 
U.S. forces do not have to wait until they take the first punch.
  The second point I will make in this brief amount of time I am taking 
is that the amendment does not appear to permit the use of U.S. forces 
in the evacuation of Americans. Most constitutional scholars concede 
the President has the power to use force in emergency circumstances to 
protect American citizens facing an imminent and direct threat to their 
lives.
  In sum, notwithstanding the fact that my colleague from Pennsylvania 
is going to amend his own amendment, it does not, in my view, appear to 
be necessary and it unconstitutionally restricts recognized powers of 
the President.
  This comes from a guy--namely me--who has spent the bulk of the last 
25 years arguing that the President has to have congressional authority 
to use force in circumstances such as this, and he does. But to bar 
funds in advance, before a President even attempts to use ground 
forces, in the face of him saying he will not use them and in the face 
of a letter in which he says he will not send them without seeking 
Congress' authority, seems to me to not only be constitutionally 
unnecessary but sends an absolutely devastating signal to Mr. Milosevic 
and others.
  For example, I, for one, have been encouraging the Secretary of 
Defense, our National Security Adviser, and the President of the United 
States to get about the business of prepositioning right now the 50,000 
forces they say will be needed in a permissive environment. That is an 
environment where there is a peace agreement. If tomorrow peace broke 
out in Yugoslavia, if Mr. Milosevic yielded to the demands of NATO, 
there would be chaos in Kosovo because there would be no force to put 
in place in order to ensure the agreement.
  I worry that an amendment at this moment not only is unnecessary but 
would send a signal to suggest that we should not even be 
prepositioning American forces for deployment in a peaceful 
environment. I think it is unnecessary.
  I thank the Chair for his indulgence and my colleague for the time. I 
oppose the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. SPECTER addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gorton). The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SPECTER. Before the distinguished Senator from Delaware leaves 
the floor, if I may have his attention. I say to Senator Biden, may I 
have your attention?
  Mr. BIDEN. Surely.
  Mr. SPECTER. The arguments which you have made stem from your stated 
position that the President really ought to have congressional 
authorization to use force. If the legislative approach is not to 
require him to come to Congress before the use of force, but to await 
his using force, then are we not really in a situation where we face 
the impossible predicament of seeking to cut off funds from the middle 
of a military operation which is untenable? Or to articulate the 
question more precisely: What would you suggest as a way to accomplish 
the constitutional principle you agree with, that only the Congress has 
the authority to authorize the use of force, with the current 
circumstances?
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, if I may respond, I think that is a fair 
question. I think I, quite frankly and bluntly, accomplished that. The 
way I did that--the Senator was in that same meeting. We were in the 
same meeting. I think it was the 28th, you said. I do not remember the 
exact date.
  Mr. SPECTER. It was.
  Mr. BIDEN. He may recall that I am the one who stood up and said: Mr. 
President, you do not have the authority to send in ground troops 
without congressional authorization. Since you have said, Mr. 
President, you have no intention of doing that, why don't you 
affirmatively send a letter to the Speaker of the House of 
Representatives committing that you will not do that without their 
authority? He said: I will. And he did. I think we accomplished that.
  To now say that we are going to add to that the requirement to cut 
off funds, that we will cut off funds, is a very direct way of saying: 
We don't trust you, Mr. President. You gave your word; you put it in 
writing; you put your signature on it; and we still don't trust you.
  I am not prepared to vote for that.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I would disagree with the statement of my 
colleague from Delaware that we say, ``we do not trust you, Mr. 
President,'' by noting that the President might change his mind. He has 
been known to do that. Other Presidents have, and even the Senator from 
Delaware and the Senator from Pennsylvania have been known to change 
their minds.
  The other concern is that if you have it on a personal basis, in a 
letter, it really does not have the force of law. And we are 
consistently moving in the Congress to where there has been an 
executive order, which is a good bit more formal than the letter that 
the Senator from Delaware refers to, to make sure that it is governed 
by law as opposed to a personal commitment or what might be said.
  But let me articulate a question in a different context.
  Aside, hypothetically, absent a letter, what would the legislative 
approach be to limit a President from exercising his powers as 
Commander in Chief short of cutting off funds once he has already done 
so? It seems to me that we have a choice. We can either say in advance: 
You may not do it unless you have our prior approval; or say nothing 
once the President uses force, and then cut off the funds, which 
appears to me to be untenable.
  Is there a third alternative?
  Mr. BIDEN. Yes, Mr. President. I think there is. If I may respond.
  There are several. There is a third and a fourth alternative. One of 
the alternatives would be, were the resolution merely to say: Mr. 
President, by concurrent resolution, we believe you do not have the 
authority to put ground troops in place without our authorization; we 
expected that you would request of us that authorization before you 
did, that would create an incredibly difficult political barrier for 
any President to overcome. It would not be an advance cutoff of funds.
  I do not recall where we have in advance--in advance of a President 
taking an action--told him that we would limit the availability of 
funds for an action he says he has not contemplated undertaking in 
advance. I think it is a bad way to conduct foreign policy. I think it 
complicates the circumstance. It sends, at a minimum, a conflicting 
message. At a minimum, it sends the message to Europe, for example, and 
our allies, that we, the U.S. Congress, think the President is about to 
send American forces in when he has not said he wishes to do that.
  Secondly, it says in advance, to our enemies, that the President 
cannot send in ground forces unless he undoes an action already taken, 
giving an overwhelming prejudice to the point of

[[Page 10727]]

view that the President could never get the support to use ground 
forces.
  I understand my friend from Pennsylvania--and I have said this 
before, and I mean it sincerely, there is no one in this body I respect 
more than him, but he has indicated that he would be amenable to a 
consideration of the use of ground forces, if asked. But I suspect that 
is not how this will be interpreted in not only Belgrade but other 
parts of the world. I think it will be interpreted as the Senate saying 
they do not want ground troops to be put in under any circumstances. 
That is not what he is saying. But that is, I believe, how it will be 
interpreted.
  So let me sum up my response to the Senator's question: A, we could, 
in fact, say to the President: Mr. President, if you are going to use 
ground forces, come and ask us, with no funds cut off in terms of a 
resolution.
  Secondly, we could say to the President: Mr. President, we have your 
letter in hand. We take you at your word and expect that that is what 
you would do, memorializing the political context in which this 
decision was made, which Presidents are loath to attempt to overcome.
  The bottom line is, the President of the United States can in fact go 
ahead and disregard this as easily as he could disregard the provisions 
of the Constitution. If a President were going to decide that he would 
disregard the constitutional requirement of seeking our authority to 
use ground forces, I respectfully suggest he would not be at all 
hesitant to overcome a prohibition in an authorization bill saying no 
funds authorized here could be used.
  He could argue that funds that have already been authorized have put 
force in place, with bullets in their guns, gasoline in their tanks, 
fuel in their aircraft; that he has the authority to move 
notwithstanding this prohibition.
  I understand the intention of my friend from Pennsylvania. I applaud 
it. I think it is unnecessary in a very complex circumstance and 
situation in which the President of the United States has indicated he 
does not intend to do it anyway. And I just think it sends all the 
wrong messages and is unnecessary and is overly restrictive.
  Mr. SPECTER. The Senator from Delaware has mentioned a third option 
to the two I suggested.
  The third option is for us to send a resolution saying don't do it 
unless we authorize it, but not binding him. Saying that would 
certainly impose a political restraint on the President--not doing it, 
in the face of our requesting him not to without our prior 
authorization. I understand his third alternative, but I do not draw 
much solace from it, just as a matter of my own response.
  Mr. BIDEN. If the Senator would yield, I am not suggesting----
  Mr. SPECTER. My time is running out. Let me finish my statement. Then 
you have quite a bit of time left. Let me just finish the thought.
  I do not think it goes far enough to say: We request that you not do 
it unless we give you prior authorization. Because that kind of a 
gentle suggestion--and I can understand the gentility of my colleague 
from Delaware--would not go very far, I think, with this President or 
might not go very far with the Senator from Delaware or would not 
predetermine what the Senator from Pennsylvania would do.
  When the Senator from Delaware talks about the President flying in 
the face of a cutoff of funds, I think that the President would be 
loath to do that. I think there he might really get into the Boland 
amendment or challenging the Congress on the power of the purse.
  The Presidents have gotten away with disregarding the congressional 
mandate that only Congress can declare war. They have gotten away with 
it for a long time. It has been eroded. Presidents feel comfortable in 
doing that. But if the Congress said: No funds may be used, as this 
amendment does--maybe it needs to be a little tighter here or there--I 
think the President would proceed at his peril to violate that 
expressed constitutional authority in Congress to control the power of 
the purse. I am very much interested in my colleague's response, but I 
hope it will be on his time.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, will the Senator from Michigan yield me 2 
minutes?
  Mr. LEVIN. I would be happy to yield. May I inquire of the Chair how 
much time the opponents have?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Thirty-two minutes 11 seconds.
  Mr. LEVIN. I am happy to yield to the Senator.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. BIDEN. The Senator from Arizona, Mr. McCain, and I had an 
amendment to attempt to preauthorize the use of ground forces. The 
Congress debated, as the Parliamentarian can tell us, in the context of 
the War Powers Act, having been triggered by a letter sent by the 
President to the Congress.
  We have already spoken. We have already spoken as a Congress. We have 
made it clear to the President of the United States, unfortunately, in 
my view, that under the War Powers Act, we believe he should not at 
this moment be introducing ground forces because the McCain-Biden 
amendment was defeated, which was an affirmative attempt to give him 
authority in advance to use ground forces. So we have already debated 
this issue of ground forces in the context of the War Powers Act, which 
was one of the two documents cited by the Senator from Pennsylvania, 
the other being the U.S. Constitution. I argue we have done that.
  Second, I point out that I can't imagine a modern-day President, in 
the face of an overwhelming or even majority congressional decision, 
saying you should not use force and having the political will or 
courage to go ahead and use it anyway. I do not think such a 
circumstance exists. If you think this President is likely to do that, 
then you have a view of his willingness to take on the Congress that 
exceeds that of almost anyone I know.
  The idea that this President, in this context, having said so many 
times that he would not and does not want to use ground forces, would 
fly in the face of a majority of the Members of the Congress saying he 
should not do it without coming here, in what everyone would 
acknowledge would be a difficult political decision to make in any 
instance and difficult military decision to make, and then if, in fact, 
he is not immediately successful, I believe everyone in this Chamber 
would acknowledge that it would probably effectively bring this 
Presidency down. I just can't imagine that being the matter.
  Let me conclude by saying, Professor Corwin is credited with having 
said that the Constitution merely issues an invitation to the President 
and the Senate does battle over who controls the foreign policy. Seldom 
will Presidents take action that is totally contrary to the expressed 
views of the Congress which risk American lives and clearly would 
result in American body bags coming home.
  I wish he had a view different than the one I am asserting, because I 
think we need to have that option open and real. I am not sure it is. I 
am almost positive there is no reasonable prospect this President, or 
for that matter the last President, would have moved in the face of the 
Congress having already stated its views that it was not willing to 
give him that power in advance, which is another way of saying: Mr. 
President, if you want this power, come and ask us.
  So I think it is unnecessary. I think it is redundant. I think it has 
already been spoken to as it relates to the War Powers Act. I think it 
is a well-intended, mistaken notion as to how we should be limiting 
this President's use of ground forces.
  I thank the Senator from Michigan for yielding me that time.
  Mr. SPECTER addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Delaware for 
those comments. I think it all boils down to whether the President 
would feel compelled by a political situation, a statement by Congress, 
to not send in ground troops.
  I acknowledged in my opening comments that he had made that 
commitment, which I heard and spoke about, on April 28. But I believe 
we ought to be bound by the rule of law, not be dependent upon a change 
of mind by the

[[Page 10728]]

President, and memorialize it in this statute. Congress ought to assert 
its authority to declare war and have the United States engaged in war 
and to do it with the force of law with this kind of an amendment, 
perhaps somewhat modified.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I oppose the amendment. It would send the 
worst possible signal, I believe, to Milosevic at this time. A kind of 
``don't worry'' signal, if you weather the storm, no matter how 
weakened your military is, the President isn't going to be able to go 
in even in a semipermissive environment in order to return the 
refugees, because Congress has tied his hands, tied the purse to say 
that only if Congress affirmatively approves the expenditure of funds, 
then and only then could ground forces go in, even in a semipermissive 
environment.
  Mr. President, how much time do the opponents have?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Twenty-seven and a half minutes.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield myself 6 minutes.
  I can't think of a worse signal to send to Milosevic in the middle of 
a conflict than this amendment would send to him. Congressional 
gridlock is not unheard of around here. We have plenty of examples of 
Congress being unable to act. We had a recent example in the House 
where the House could not even agree to support an air campaign that is 
presently going on, a tie vote.
  Under this funding cutoff approach, that air campaign presumably 
would not be able to continue under a comparable resolution applying to 
the use of military forces.
  I know this only applies to ground forces and not to an air campaign, 
but that vote in the House of Representatives is a wonderful example of 
how Milosevic, when he looked at this resolution, would say, well, gee, 
this would require Congress to affirmatively act, and since the House 
can't even get a majority to act to support an ongoing operation, I 
could comfortably rely, he would say to himself, on the fact that they 
would never authorize in advance a ground campaign, even in a 
semipermissive environment.
  The President has been criticized for taking the possibility of 
ground troops off the table. The argument is that Milosevic doesn't 
have to worry as much about that possibility, given the position of the 
administration. I think we ought to want Milosevic to worry and to 
worry more, not less. This is a ``worry less'' amendment, not a ``worry 
more'' amendment. This says Congress would have to affirmatively 
approve ground forces in advance, even in a semipermissive environment, 
and it seems to me Milosevic could quite comfortably say to himself 
that is not a very strong likelihood.
  There are a lot of practical problems with the wording of this 
amendment. For instance, what happens if U.S. intelligence discovered 
that American forces in Albania or in Macedonia were about to be 
attacked by Yugoslav army forces and it was determined to be necessary 
for U.S. ground forces to conduct a preemptive attack into Kosovo in 
self-defense? We are just about ready to be attacked; can we hit the 
attacker? Not under this amendment. You have to come to Congress first.
  Our military would be told, whoops, you are about to be attacked in 
Albania or Macedonia, but Congress passed a law saying they have to 
authorize the use of ground forces. Do we want to tie the hands of our 
commanders that way in the middle of a conflict, to tell our commanders 
that even in circumstances where they think they are about to be hit 
that they cannot preemptively go after the attackers in Kosovo with 
ground forces? They have to then just take it on the chin?
  And what if U.S. forces in Albania or Macedonia were attacked by 
Yugoslav army forces, actually attacked in Macedonia or Albania. Would 
counterattacking U.S. forces have to stop at the Kosovo border, thereby 
giving the Yugoslav army a haven from which they could conduct ground 
attacks across the border but not be pursued by American ground forces? 
The commander would have to stop at the border and come to Congress? So 
it is the worst kind of signal we could give in the middle of a 
conflict to Mr. Milosevic, and it creates burdens on our commanders 
that are intolerable in the middle of a conflict.
  We have been advised by the Department of Defense on this amendment 
that ``it is so restrictive of U.S. operations and so injurious to our 
role in the alliance that the President's senior advisers would 
strongly recommend that the final bill be vetoed if this language is 
included in the bill.'' That is information we have just received from 
the Department of Defense.
  Gridlock. Fifty votes in the House. Now, under this amendment, we 
have to affirmatively approve something. What happens if a majority of 
us want to approve it but we are filibustered? The Senator from 
Pennsylvania said, well, those are the rules.
  Those are the rules. But under his amendment, it would mean that even 
if a majority of the Senate wanted to give approval to ground forces, a 
minority in the Senate could thwart that action.
  I think this is the kind of tying of our hands in the middle of a 
conflict that would tell Milosevic this country is not serious about 
the NATO mission. This NATO mission is so critical in terms of the 
future of Europe; it is so critical in terms of the stability not only 
of Europe but of the North Atlantic community that for us to adopt 
language that in advance says you can't do something without Congress 
acting, knowing, as we do, how difficult it is to get Congress to act 
even in the middle of a conflict, would be simply a terrible result for 
the success of our mission.
  Mr. President, I yield myself an additional 3 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator may continue.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, we want, I hope, to do two things. One is 
to tell the President, as we have, how important it is that there be 
consultation and that he seek support from the Congress, and he has 
committed to do so. But that is a very different thing from what this 
amendment provides. This is an advance funding cutoff, unless something 
happens that can be thwarted by gridlock.
  We should not ever forget the likelihood of gridlock in this 
Congress. Even if a majority wanted to support the use of ground forces 
in a nonpermissive environment, a minority of the Senate could thwart 
that majority view. I believe the signal to Milosevic that he will be 
the beneficiary of gridlock, and only if gridlock can be overcome would 
he then have to fear the possibility of the use of ground forces, is a 
signal that would undermine the current mission in a very significant 
way.
  Again, reading from the information paper the Department of Defense 
has shared with us this afternoon:

       The Department strongly opposes this amendment because it 
     would unacceptably put at risk the lives of U.S. and NATO 
     military personnel, jeopardize the success of Operation 
     Allied Force, and inappropriately restrict the President's 
     options as Commander in Chief.

  These are now the words of the information paper shared with us by 
the Department:

       . . . effectively give Milosevic advance notice of ground 
     action by NATO forces, should NATO commanders request 
     consideration of this option.

  While we have made no decision to use ground forces in a 
nonpermissive environment, it would be a mistake to hamstring this 
option with a legislative requirement for prior congressional approval. 
The Department says:

       This would be construed to prohibit certain intelligence or 
     reconnaissance operations essential to a successful 
     prosecution of Operation Allied Force. It would prohibit any 
     preemptive attack by U.S. forces based on advance warning or 
     suspicion of an impending attack by the Yugoslav forces. It 
     would prohibit U.S. ground personnel from pursuing those 
     forces, conducting hit and run, or similar attacks across 
     international boundaries.

  But the words that we should pay the most heed to in this memorandum 
from the Department of Defense--the words that I hope this Senate will 
think very carefully about before we consider adopting this amendment--
are that the Department strongly opposes amendment No. 383 because it 
would

[[Page 10729]]

``unacceptably put at risk the lives of U.S. and NATO military 
personnel and jeopardize the success of Operation Allied Force.''
  Mr. SPECTER addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, in listening to the comments of the 
Senator from Michigan, every single objection and argument he has 
raised applies equally to the President's commitment by letter to come 
to the Congress before he would use ground forces.
  When he says it would be the worst signal to Milosevic, the President 
gave that signal personally when he said it gives Milosevic advance 
notice. That is exactly what the President would be doing in coming to 
Congress. When he says there could be no intelligence or 
reconnaissance, that is exactly what would happen by the President's 
commitment. When he says it would preclude a preemptive strike, that is 
exactly what the President has done. When he says it puts at risk U.S. 
military personnel, that is precisely what the President has done.
  When they talk about a veto, it is the same old threat--senior 
advisers threatening to veto. I think this may be a better amendment 
than I had originally contemplated.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the opponents have how much time left?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The opponents have 16 minutes 44 seconds. The 
proponents have 11 minutes.
  Who yields time?
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from 
Wisconsin.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin is recognized.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. I thank the Chair, and I thank the Senator.
  Mr. President, I commend the Senator from Pennsylvania for what he is 
trying to do with his amendment, to protect the prerogatives of the 
Senate and the requirements of the War Powers Resolution with respect 
to the actions of our armed services abroad. Although I understand it 
may be modified, I think I will be able to support this amendment. I 
share the Senator's commitment to protecting the war powers granted to 
the Congress by the Founding Fathers and reaffirmed in the War Powers 
Resolution.
  That said, I hope that, should this amendment be adopted, the 
conferees will make an effort to better define the term 
``peacekeeping,'' for which the Senator has made an exception in his 
amendment. I believe that all military deployments, subject to the 
exceptions laid out in the War Powers Resolution including peacekeeping 
operations, should receive authorization of the Congress. And, since 
there currently is no peace to keep in Kosovo--and in fact NATO 
continues air strikes to this day--I hope that the Congress will define 
the parameters of such an exception more specifically.
  Mr. President, today is May 25, 1999, and in the context of the 
Senator's amendment I want to take the opportunity to remind the Senate 
of the significance of today's date.
  Exactly 62 days ago, U.S. forces, as part of a NATO force, began air 
strikes against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
  Today marks the expiration of the 60-day time period after which the 
President--under the provisions of the War Powers Resolution--is 
required to withdraw our Armed Forces from their participation in the 
air strikes against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
  Exactly 60 days ago--48 hours after the air strikes began--the 
President was required under section 4(a)(1) of the War Powers 
Resolution to submit a detailed report to the Congress regarding the 
actions he ordered our troops to take.
  No such report has been submitted. Rather, the Congress was notified 
of the U.S. participation in the NATO air strikes by a letter from the 
President that he says is--``consistent''--with the War Powers 
Resolution.''
  ``Consistent'' or not, I do not believe that the President's letter 
satisfies the requirements of the War Powers Resolution. Nevertheless, 
in my view, the War Powers Resolution stands as the law of the land, 
and the President should comply with it. So it follows, then, that if 
the President fails to withdraw our troops by midnight tonight--and of 
course it is clear that they will remain in the region long after the 
clock strikes twelve--the President will be in violation of the 
provisions of the War Powers Resolution.
  I find it disturbing that this important date of May 25 will come and 
go with no action to remove our troops from the region. Indeed, I am 
afraid that this Congress is ignoring the significance of this date 
completely. In fact, I am not sure that the significance of this date 
has been noted by any of my colleagues during debate on this Specter 
amendment.
  The War Powers Resolution provides that the President shall terminate 
the use of our Armed Forces for the purpose outlined in the report 
required under section 4(a)(1) of the Act after 60 days unless one of 
the three things has happened:
  The Congress has declared war or has enacted a specific authorization 
for the use of the military; the Congress has extended by law the 60-
day time period; or the President is not able to withdraw the forces 
because of an armed attack against the United States.
  In addition, the President may extend this time period by 30-days if 
he certifies in writing to the Congress that it is unsafe to withdraw 
the forces at the end of the 60 days.
  Sixty days have come and gone, Mr. President, and none of these 
things has happened.
  The Congress has not declared war, nor has it authorized this action.
  The Congress has not extended the 60-day time period.
  The United States has not been attacked.
  The President has not certified in writing to the Congress that an 
additional 30 days are necessary to ensure the safe withdrawal of our 
troops.
  As my colleagues know, I voted against the ongoing NATO air strikes 
against the FRY, and I am deeply troubled that U.S. participation in 
them continues despite the fact that Congress was divided on whether to 
authorize them. In addition, the resolution which this body adopted and 
on which the other body deadlocked was not a joint resolution that 
would have authorized the military action, by law.
  No, Mr. President, S. Con. Res. 21 is a sense-of-the-Congress 
resolution that does not carry the force of law.
  The Senate also considered a joint resolution offered by the Senator 
from Arizona [Mr. McCain] which, if adopted by both Houses of Congress, 
would have given the President the specific statutory authorization 
required under the War Powers Resolution to continue the use of our 
Armed Forces in the action against the FRY. In fact, Mr. President, 
that sweeping resolution would have allowed the President to expand 
this participation as he saw fit. While I opposed this resolution, I am 
pleased that the Senate debated it and voted on it as we unequivocally 
were obliged to do under the War Powers Resolution.
  I am afraid that the debate and votes on the participation of the 
United States in Kosovo both here in the Senate, as well as in the 
other body, reflect the fact that there is no consensus in the Congress 
or in the country with regard to what we have already done in Kosovo, 
let alone a consensus on whether to expand the U.S. mission there.
  Sixty days have come and gone since the President failed to submit 
the required report regarding U.S. participation in the air strikes 
against the FRY. Despite this regrettable inaction, the War Powers 
Resolution clock began to tick 48 hours after the first bombs fell--the 
date on which the President's report under section 4(a)(1) of the Act 
was required to have been submitted. That's right, Mr. President, the 
clock begins to tick whether the President fulfills his obligation to 
submit the report or not. The vitality of the War Powers Resolution is 
unmistakable because that law states that the troops must be removed 
``. . . within 60 calendar days after a report is submitted

[[Page 10730]]

or is required to be submitted pursuant to section 4(a)(1). . . .'' 
unless one of the actions I mentioned earlier has occurred.
  As the clock draws closer to midnight today, the sixtieth day, our 
troops are performing admirably under hostile conditions. But time has 
almost run out on the President to fulfil this legal obligations under 
the War Powers Resolution.
  Despite the fact that many in Congress oppose the current air 
campaign, and despite the fact that our troops will soon be 
participating in this campaign in violation of the War Power 
Resolution, members of this body last week adopted a massive spending 
package in support of a military action that many of them oppose. I 
support fully our efforts to give our men and women in the field 
everything they need to maximize their chances of success and to 
minimize the risks they face.
  Still, I voted against that package, both because of my continuing 
concern over our unauthorized military involvement in the FRY and 
because of the non-emergency spending that was jammed into the so-
called emergency bill.
  So we are not at a critical juncture, Mr. President. The Congress has 
voted to fund a military mission that it has not authorized, and the 
President has signed this bill even though he knows, as we know, that 
the continued participation of our troops in this mission is in 
violation of the War Powers Resolution.
  One way or the other, consistent with the safety of our troops, it is 
time for the President to comply with the War Powers Resolution by 
seeking--and gaining--the legal authorization of Congress to continue 
this war, or by withdrawing our forces.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time? The Senator from 
Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have not had an opportunity to read the 
letter from the President to the Speaker. It goes far short of the kind 
of commitment that has been represented--honestly represented. But the 
letter says in pertinent part: ``I can assure you that I will fully 
consult with the Congress'', which doesn't amount to a whole lot. And 
then another line, ``I would ask for congressional support before 
introducing U.S. ground forces into Kosovo into a nonpermissive 
environment''.
  The language of support here again goes far short of committing to 
congressional authorization such as is contained in this amendment.
  I yield the floor.
  I ask how much time I have left.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Thirty-five minutes 30 seconds.
  Mr. SPECTER. I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, on that point, we have been conducting a 
meeting for almost an hour in S-407, attended by the Secretary of 
State, the Secretary of Defense, and the National Security Adviser to 
the President, Mr. Berger, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. In the 
course of their presentations to some 40-plus Senators, in response to 
questions and in direct presentation, they reiterated that the 
President will formally come before the Congress and ask for any 
changes he deems necessary involving ground troops before he would 
implement or agree to implement with other NATO nations such a plan. 
That has just been stated on two occasions up in S-407. There was no 
equivocation. It was very clear in their declaration on behalf of the 
President. I acquainted them with the amendment which is now being 
debated on the floor of the Senate.
  Earlier indications from the Secretary of Defense to me today were 
that should this amendment as drawn now appear in a conference report, 
it would be the recommendation of the Secretaries of State and Defense 
to veto.
  I am pointing out to the Senate that again we revisit many, many 
times this whole war powers concept. We acknowledge that both 
Republican Presidents and Democrat Presidents have absolutely 
steadfastly refused to comply with the letter of the law, but they have 
complied with the spirit of the law.
  In this instance, the President has indicated to the Senate in that 
letter--and just now in the briefings by his principal Cabinet 
officers--that he would formally--I use the word ``formal'' to 
clarify--come to the Congress and request their concurrence for any 
departure from his preposition. That preposition was just moments ago 
restated by Secretaries Cohen and Albright in response to my question, 
which was, question No. 1, to allow me to return to the floor with 
regard to any nonpermissive force being put in place, which I favor, by 
the way, to send a signal. They said that would not be done. The 
President has no intention of doing it, nor do the NATO allies. And 
should the President decide at some later date, for whatever reason, to 
begin to preposition such forces, then he would come before the 
Congress prior thereto and get legislative approval.
  I believe very strongly that this amendment would put this bill in 
severe jeopardy in terms of getting it signed, and that the President 
and his principal advisers have in the past and again today advised the 
Congress that the President is prepared to deal with the spirit of this 
amendment and to come before the Congress and seek its formal 
concurrence by legislative action should he and other NATO allies in 
the future make a decision to depart from the present policy.
  I have just been handed a modification. It is one that the Senator 
from Pennsylvania and I have discussed. I don't know if my colleague 
has had an opportunity to see it.
  If there are other Senators who wish to speak, I need time within 
which to consider this modification. Unless other Senators seek 
recognition, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Who 
yields time?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator 3 or 4 minutes.
  Mr. ROBB. I thank my distinguished senior colleague. One minute will 
be sufficient because I know the chairman of the committee is about to 
make a unanimous consent request.
  I state to my good friend from Pennsylvania, I am very much opposed 
to this amendment. I cannot imagine a modification of this amendment 
that would cause me to be supportive. We have already debated this 
essential question twice.
  Congress has the power to declare war. If we are concerned about 
consultation with the executive branch, as we speak consultation is 
taking place up in S-407 in a classified briefing where the Secretary 
of Defense, the Secretary of State, the National Security Adviser and 
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have been briefing all 
Senators on what is taking place, what has taken place, what will take 
place and have again reaffirmed the intention of the President to 
consult with the Congress before any change, particularly with respect 
to the implementation of any particular plan that might involve the 
commitment of ground troops, takes place.
  With that, Mr. President, I ask our colleagues to look very seriously 
at the long-term implications. Think of the kind of message this sends 
to Milosevic. Think of the kind of message this sends to our 18 
alliance partners, if we were to continue to try to take this type of 
action on the floor of the Senate.
  Mr. President, I urge a rejection of this particular amendment and I 
yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time? The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for that strong 
statement. I am certainly of the same view.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when all time is used on 
the pending Specter amendment, the amendment be temporarily set aside 
with a vote occurring on or in relation

[[Page 10731]]

to the amendment--there will be a tabling motion.
  Mr. SPECTER. Reserving the right to object, will the Senator repeat 
that?
  Mr. WARNER. Let me repeat it in its entirety. I have not asked 
unanimous consent.
  I ask unanimous consent that when all time is used on the pending 
Specter amendment, the amendment be temporarily set aside with a vote 
occurring on or in relation to the amendment following the debate on 
the Gramm amendment.
  That is the time sequence. As I have indicated, I will move to table 
the Senator's amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WARNER. For the information of all Senators, the Gramm amendment 
will be presented with a 1\1/2\-hour time agreement. Following that 
debate, the Senate will proceed to two stacked votes, first on the 
Specter amendment--and we have to reserve in here the amending of that 
amendment, which could be amended--to be followed by a vote on the 
Gramm amendment.
  So we just have the sequencing of the debate, sequencing of the 
votes. And we will momentarily, Senator Levin and I--I am prepared to 
accept the amendment as amended. The Senator is waiting for just one 
Senator to get concurrence.
  So we have the unanimous consent in place. I have given information 
to the Senate with respect to the sequencing of the Gramm amendment.
  Mr. SPECTER. Reserving the right to object, I ask my colleague from 
Virginia to insert 2 minutes on each side to argue in advance of the 
vote.
  Mr. WARNER. I have certainly no objection to that.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Smith of Oregon). Is there objection to 
the request as modified? Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Do Senators yield back their time on the 
pending amendment? Who yields time on the pending amendment?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, does Senator Specter want to reserve his 
time, and I will reserve my time, and then we can proceed to the Gramm 
amendment and come back to Senator Specter's amendment? I am sure he 
will allow that.
  Mr. SPECTER. That is agreeable. We will take up the Gramm amendment 
now and then come back with the time I have reserved at that time.
  Mr. WARNER. And the time under the control of the Senator from 
Virginia, jointly shared with Senator Levin.
  Mr. SPECTER. May the Record show I have made a request for a 
modification of the amendment and I will send a copy of the requested 
modification to the desk. I have already provided it to the Senator 
from Virginia and the Senator from Michigan.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the modification of the 
time?
  Mr. LEVIN. Reserving the right to object and we will have to object--
--
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Modifying the time?
  Mr. LEVIN. The Chair just asked if there is objection to the 
modification.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Modification of the time. Is there objection 
to the modification? Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GRAMM addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, just so everybody can figure out when we 
are likely to vote, how much time remains on the Specter amendment?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania has 5\1/2\ 
minutes, and the Senator from Virginia has 3 minutes 20 seconds.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, hopefully, we can beat this 90-minute time 
limit and have this debate more quickly.


                           Amendment No. 392

(Purpose: To delete language which the Department of Justice has stated 
would ``. . . seriously undermine the safety and security of America's 
                           federal prisons'')

  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk for myself, 
Senator Hatch, and Senator Thurmond and ask for its immediate 
consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative assistant read as follows:

       The Senator from Texas (Mr. Gramm), for himself, Mr. Hatch, 
     and Mr. Thurmond, proposes an amendment numbered 392.

  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       On page 284, strike all on line 7 through line 14 on page 
     286.

  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, Senator Levin and I every year or two have 
this debate. It is well known. We have debated it before. People have 
voted before. In fact, 61 Members of the Senate voted with me 2 years 
ago to substitute a study for the Levin amendment.
  Let me add, the amendment is a little different than it was then. The 
thrust of it is basically the same. Two years ago, the Levin amendment 
applied to all procurement related to the prison industry system. This 
year, it applies to only defense procurement. But while its focus has 
narrowed, its impact on the work system within our prisons remains very 
broad.
  I remind my colleagues that we took up this issue on July 10 of 1997. 
There was a vote at that time, and 62 Members--61 of whom are still 
Members of the Senate--voted on this issue on a different day in a 
slightly different version. But the thrust of the issue, in terms of 
procurement from the Federal prison industry system, is and was 
basically the same.
  Let me set out what I want to do in my opening statement. I want to 
try to explain the problem in historical context, and I want to begin 
with Alexis de Tocqueville. Then I want to come to the Depression, 
which was really fork in the road with regard to prison labor in 
America. I want to talk about the fork we took, the wrong fork in my 
opinion. I want to talk about how the Levin amendment fits into the 
system which has evolved since then. I want to talk about why this 
provision by Senator Levin, which Senator Hatch and Senator Thurmond 
and I hope to strike from the bill, is so devastating to the prison 
industry system in America and why that, in turn, is harmful to every 
taxpayer, to every victim of crime, to everyone who wants prisoners 
rehabilitated when they go back out on the street. In fact, there is no 
good argument, it seems to me, when you fully understand this issue, 
for the Levin amendment. I then want to talk in some detail about each 
of these items and then, obviously, at that point we will begin the 
debate.
  Let me start with de Tocqueville. As many of my colleagues will 
remember, de Tocqueville came to America in the 1830s. He wrote a book 
that has become the greatest critique of America ever written--
``Democracy in America.'' We forget that de Tocqueville came to America 
not to study democracy but to study prisons. In fact, he wrote a book 
on prisons, together with a fellow named Beaumont. We have forgotten 
Beaumont, but we remember de Tocqueville.
  In his analysis of American prisons, which were very much studied in 
the 1830s because they were part of the most enlightened prison system 
in the world, de Tocqueville praised at great length the fact that we 
required American prisoners to work. In that period, prison labor of 12 
hours a day, 6 days a week was the norm. De Tocqueville says in his 
analysis on American prisons:

       It would be inaccurate to say that in the Philadelphia 
     penitentiary labor is imposed. We may say with more justice 
     that the favor of labor is granted. When we visit this 
     penitentiary, we successively conversed with all its inmates. 
     There was not a single one among them who did not speak of 
     labor with a kind of gratitude and who did not express the 
     idea that without the relief of constant occupation, life 
     would be insufferable.

  The principal characteristic of the American prison system in the age 
that Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that remark was that prisoners worked 
and they worked hard. They helped pay for the cost of incarceration by 
working, and they produced things. Those products were sold on the open 
market in

[[Page 10732]]

many cases. So the first obligation for feeding prisoners and 
incarcerating prisoners was borne not by the taxpayer but by the 
prisoner and, as de Tocqueville argues, I think quite impressively in 
the book and in the quote I used, prisoners actually benefited from 
labor because of the extreme boredom of being incarcerated with nothing 
to do. This was the norm in America from the 1830s, when Alexis de 
Tocqueville wrote, for 100 years, until the 1930s.
  What happened in the 1930s was that we passed a series of laws driven 
by special interests, principally labor and business, and you cannot 
get bigger special interests than that. These laws consisted basically 
of the following laws: the Hawes-Cooper Act which authorized States to 
ban commerce in prison-made goods within their borders; the Sumners-
Ashurst Act which made it a Federal crime to transport prison-made 
goods across State lines; and then another provision that said not only 
can you not sell what prisoners produce, not only can you not transport 
it for sale, but if you do force prisoners to work, you have to pay 
them the union scale set by the local union.
  Guess what the result of those three laws was. The result of those 
three laws was that we destroyed the greatest prison industry system 
that the world had ever known. We destroyed that prison system by 
eliminating our ability to force people in prison to work; and in doing 
so, force them to pay for part of the cost of their incarceration; and 
we eliminated our ability to collect from them part of what they would 
earn working in prison or what would be earned by their work to pay for 
restitution to victims of crime.
  What was left after we destroyed the ability of American prisons to 
force prisoners to work was the ability of prisoners to produce things 
that were used by Government. As a result, we now find ourselves in a 
situation where we have 1,100,000 Americans in prison. They are almost 
all male. They are almost all of prime working age. We spend $22,000 a 
year keeping people in prison, which is nearly the cost of sending 
somebody to the University of Chicago or to Harvard, and the cost of 
keeping Americans in prison costs the average American taxpayer $200 a 
year in taxes--just to keep people in prison.
  The impact of the Levin amendment--I am sure he is going to gild this 
lily with lots of gold around the edges--but the impact of his 
amendment is to take another major step in destroying prison labor in 
America. What his bill would do is, for all practical purposes, take 
away about 60 percent of the work that Federal prisoners do now.
  There are, obviously, two sides to these arguments. You can argue 
that when people are working in prison that there is someone else who 
might benefit from getting the job if the prisoner were not working. It 
is hard to make that argument in America today when we have the lowest 
unemployment rate in 30 years and when, in towns like my hometown of 
College Station, college students go out and relax after classes and 
impressment gangs come and virtually knock them in the head and drag 
them off to a factory. So if there ever was an argument here that we 
needed to take away prison work to protect American jobs, it is very 
hard to make that argument in May of 1999.
  But here is the system we have now. We have a system called Federal 
Prison Industries where the Federal Government has work programs for 
prisoners. It pays them a very small incentive payment. It withholds 
about 20 percent of that payment as restitution to victims of the 
crimes they have committed. It produces component parts for various 
things used by the Government. It produces furniture, it produces some 
electronic components. Through this system, we have about 20,000 
Federal prisoners who work.
  Under this amendment, about 60 percent of that work would be taken 
away. Not only do I oppose this amendment, but the administration, in 
its Statement of Administration Policy on this defense bill, on page 3, 
``Federal Prison Industries Mandatory Source Exemption,'' opposes the 
Levin amendment.
  I have a letter here from the Attorney General. Among other things, 
she says:

       I am extremely concerned about this legislation because it 
     could have a negative impact on [the Federal Prison 
     Industries], which is the Bureau of Prisons most important, 
     efficient, and cost-effective tool for managing inmates and 
     for preparing them to be productive, law abiding citizens 
     upon release from prison.

  I also have a letter from the National Center for Victims of Crime. 
And they say, among other things:

       Dollars that go to the crime victims through the [Federal 
     Prison Industries] program are coming out of criminal 
     offenders' pockets--the notion that the offender must be held 
     accountable and pay for the harm caused by crimes he [or] she 
     committed is at the heart of jurisprudence. Crime victims 
     often tell us that the amount of restitution an offender pays 
     is far less important to them than the fact that their 
     offender is paying restitution. Financial assistance from 
     offenders has a tremendous healing and restorative power for 
     criminal victims.
  No. 1, the administration opposes the Levin amendment, supports our 
effort to knock it out of the bill. The Attorney General, the Director 
of Federal Prisons, and the National Center for Victims of Crime all 
oppose this amendment. They all oppose it basically for the same 
reason; and that is, it will end up raising the cost of incarceration. 
It will end up lowering the amount of restitution going to victims. It 
will idle prisoners, and you do not get rehabilitated sitting around in 
air-conditioning watching color television.
  If there is anything we know about the Federal prison work system, 
and about the work system in States, it is that working is an important 
part of rehabilitation. I personally would support proposals that would 
force every able prisoner in America to work. I would like them to work 
10 hours a day, 6 days a week, and go to school at night. But I know 
with the vested interest that is built up against that, that we cannot 
succeed in changing it today. I hope we will someday. But I do not want 
to destroy what we have now.
  Let me talk about recidivism.
  In South Carolina--and you are going to hear from the distinguished 
former chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Thurmond, a 
very active member of the Judiciary Committee. In South Carolina, the 
probability that a person who serves in a penitentiary in South 
Carolina, when they will be released, will ever come back into a State 
or Federal penitentiary again is 17 times higher for those who did not 
work while they were in prison than it is for those who did work in 
prison. Part of the reason is that people acquire skills in working 
that allow them to go out into the private sector and get a job when 
they get out of prison.
  In Florida, the probability that a person in prison, when they are 
released, will ever come back to prison is three times as high for 
people who did not work while they were in the penitentiary in Florida 
as it is for those who did work while they were in the penitentiary in 
Florida.
  For Wisconsin, it is twice as high; for Kentucky, it is almost twice 
as high.
  In the Federal system, the recidivism rate, the chances that someone 
will come back to Federal prison, after having been released, is 24 
percent lower for those who participate in work programs. We have 
estimates that a 10-percent reduction in recidivism rates would lower 
the overall social cost of crime and incarceration by $6.1 billion.
  So another strong argument against the Levin amendment is that we 
have hard data, not just from the Federal Government, but from many 
States, that indicate conclusively if people work when they are in 
prison, the probability that they will go out and commit another crime 
that will get them sent back to prison is substantially, markedly lower 
if they work than if they do not work.
  You are going to hear Senator Levin argue that, well, this is not 
price competition. And it is not. Let's make it clear, this is not a 
competitive issue. I would defy anyone to pick up this defense 
authorization bill and hold it out as a paragon of virtue in terms of 
defense procurement efficiency. The defense procurement system is full 
of protectionism and special interests,

[[Page 10733]]

where we give all kinds of special deals to all kinds of producers in 
selling things to the Defense Department.
  I say competition in procurement is a good thing. I swear by it. I 
support it. But when you have page after page of acquisition rules that 
say we pay inflated prices to buy things domestically rather than 
buying them on the world market, it is hard to suddenly be concerned 
about competition in prices with regard to prison-made goods.
  This is not about competition. This is about using a resource we have 
with 1.1 million people in prison.
  Now, having said that, the GAO recently did a study of the Federal 
Prison Industries of 20 different products that were bought by the 
Defense Department. What the GAO concluded was the Federal Prison 
Industries prices were within the market range for virtually every 
product that was bought by the Defense Department. So it is true that 
in the strictest terms, we don't have competitive bidding on goods 
produced in prison, but we have market surveys. We have negotiations 
between the Defense Department and the prison, and we have a simulation 
of what the market system would look like if you had a competitive 
bidding system.
  Also, the Department of Defense Inspector General recently completed 
a study of the Federal Prison Industries prices and concluded that DOD 
could have saved millions of dollars by buying more items from the 
Federal Prison Industries if it had bought more items from them rather 
than buying them in the open market.
  Now, let me remind my colleagues--I know Senator Thurmond is here and 
is very busy; I want to give him an opportunity to speak--that 2 years 
ago, when we debated this same issue in a slightly different form with 
the thrust identical, I offered a substitute amendment that mandated a 
study be done by the Department of Defense and by the Federal Prison 
Industries and Department of Justice. That study has just been 
completed, and it was reported to the Armed Services Committee and then 
to Members of the Senate. I draw my colleagues' attention to page 4 of 
the executive summary to the conclusions that were reached in the 
study.
  The question was what recommendations did they have as to changes we 
might make in current law with regard to the Defense Department buying 
things produced in Federal prisons. They concluded, the recommendations 
can be made within existing statutory authority and will not require 
legislative action. Department of Defense and Federal Prison Industries 
say they believe that implementing the recommendations will improve the 
efficiency and reduce the cost of procurement transactions between the 
two agencies. Implementation of the administrative actions should 
facilitate and enhance the working relationship between the two 
agencies.
  So in short, 2 years ago when we debated this issue and we decided to 
study the problem that was raised by Senator Levin, we had that study 
completed jointly by the Defense Department and the Department of 
Justice, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and they have concluded that 
they should undertake a modernization system, but they do not need any 
legislative authority to do it.
  I urge my colleagues to remember, if we adopt this amendment and we 
kill off 60 percent of the remaining prison labor in America, we are 
going to spend more money to incarcerate prisoners. We are going to 
have less money go to victims. We are going to have a higher recidivism 
rate as people come out of prison and commit crimes again. And the net 
result will be that we will have taken work that was being done in 
prison, and we will have put it into the private sector. But in a 
period when we have an acute labor shortage and in a period when we 
have 1.1 million people in prison, 1 percent of the labor force, it 
makes absolutely no sense, it is destructive of our criminal justice 
system to destroy the remnants of prison labor.
  I remind my colleagues that when you bring Senator Thurmond, Senator 
Hatch and myself into an alliance with the administration, into an 
alliance with Janet Reno, the Attorney General, and then you have the 
support of victims' rights groups all over the country, that is a 
pretty broad coalition. What each and every one of these entities is 
saying is, do not kill off prison labor.
  When we have 130 million Americans who go to work every day and 
struggle to make ends meet, I do not understand what is wrong with 
forcing prisoners to work. I want prisoners to work. It is good for 
them. It is good for the taxpayer. It is good policy, and we should not 
allow that system to be destroyed.
  I reserve the remainder of my time, but I yield whatever time he 
might need to our distinguished colleague, Senator Thurmond, who today 
was recognized for the 75th anniversary of being commissioned an 
officer and a gentleman in the U.S. Army. For 75 years, three quarters 
of a century, Senator Thurmond has borne that commission to uphold, 
protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and 
domestic, and whether it was on D-Day in Normandy or whether it was on 
the Supreme Court of South Carolina or whether it was Governor or 
whether it is our most distinguished Member of the Senate, Strom 
Thurmond is truly a man to hold against the mountain and the sky.
  I yield whatever time he might need to Senator Thurmond.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I thank the able Senator from Texas, Mr. 
Gramm, for the magnificent remarks he made on this important subject 
and also thank him for the kind remarks he made about me.
  I rise in strong support of the amendment to strike section 806 of S. 
1059, the Defense Authorization Act, which was added in Committee by 
Senator Levin. This provision could endanger Federal Prison Industries 
or UNICOR, which is the most important inmate program in the Federal 
Bureau of Prisons.
  To protect our citizens, America is placing more and more dangerous 
and violent criminals in prison. Indeed, one of the main reasons crime 
rates in America are going down is because the number of criminals we 
are putting behind bars is increasing. The Bureau of Prisons has an 
extremely important and complex task in housing and, to the extent 
possible, rehabilitating these inmates. FPI is critical to this task.
  Prisoners must work. Idleness and boredom in prison leads to mischief 
and violence. FPI keeps inmates productively occupied, which helps 
maintain the safety and security for staff, other inmates, and the law-
abiding public outside.
  Moreover, prisoners who work in FPI develop job skills and learn a 
work ethic. As a result, they adjust better in prison and are better 
prepared to become productive members of society when they leave.
  Mr. President, the program works. Studies show that inmates who 
worked in Prison Industries are 24 percent more likely to find and hold 
jobs and remain crime-free after they are released. Inmates in FPI are 
more likely to become responsible, productive citizens.
  I am very concerned that section 806, the Levin provision, could 
threaten this essential program. FPI may sell its products only to 
Federal agencies, and the Department of Defense represents almost 60 
percent of its sales. Yet, the Levin provision would make it much 
easier for Defense purchasers not to use FPI based on a very vague and 
nuclear standard. Further, this provision would eliminate entirely the 
mandatory source preference for any Defense order under $2,500. 
Purchases under this amount account for 78 percent of FPI orders. Also, 
the amendment would exempt Defense purchases in a wide range of 
telecommunications or information systems under the broad name of 
national security. This could be very harmful to FPI's production of 
electronic products.
  Drastic changes of this nature are not warranted, as even the 
Department of Defense recognizes. The DoD and BoP have just completed a 
joint study

[[Page 10734]]

that we ordered in a previous Defense Authorization Bill. In a survey 
taken as part of the study, DoD customers generally rated FPI in the 
good to excellent or average ranges in all categories, including price, 
quality, delivery, and service. As the report states, the working 
relationship between FPI and DoD remains strong and vital.
  The study concludes that no legislative changes are warranted in 
Defense purchases from FPI. It made some recommendations for 
improvements that are currently being implemented. We should give the 
study time to work.
  Indeed, the Administration strongly opposes the Levin provision. The 
Statement of Administration Policy on S. 1059 explains that this 
provision ``would essentially eliminate the Federal Prison Industries 
mandatory source with the Defense Department. Such action could harm 
the FPI program which is fundamental to the security in Federal 
prisons.''
  FPI does not have an advantage over the private sector. Although 
inmates make less money than other workers, FPI must deal with many 
hidden costs and constraints that do not apply to the private sector.
  Working inmates must be closely supervised, adding to labor costs, 
and extensive time-consuming security procedures must be followed. For 
example, when inmates go to work, they must pass through a metal 
detector and check their tools in and out, even if they just leave for 
lunch.
  While the private sector often specializes in certain products, FPI 
by law must diversity its product lines to lessen its impact on any one 
industry. Also, the private sector tries to keep labor costs low, while 
FPI intentionally keeps its factories as labor-intensive as possible. 
Moreover, inmate workers generally have little education and training 
and often have never held a steady job. Indeed, the productivity rate 
of an employee with the background of an average inmate has been 
estimated at one-fourth that of a civilian worker.
  FPI is not used for every Federal purchase. In fact, it only 
constitutes a small minority. If a customer does not feel that FPI can 
meet its delivery, price, or technical requirements, then the customer 
can request a waiver of the mandatory source. Last year, 90 percent of 
waiver requests were approved, generally within four days.
  Moreover, some private businesses depend on FPI for their existence. 
FPI purchased over $418 million in raw materials and component parts 
from private industry in 1998. Contracts for such purchases are awarded 
in nearly every state, and more than half go to small businesses.
  Further, Prison Industries helps crime victims recover the money they 
are due. The program requires that 50 percent of all inmate wages be 
used for victim restitution, fines, child support, or other court-
ordered payments. Last year, FPI collected nearly $2 million for this 
purpose.
  The Levin provision falls within the jurisdiction of the Judiciary 
Committee and should be evaluated there. Indeed, my Judiciary 
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice Oversight held a hearing yesterday on 
Prison Industries. We discussed in detail the importance of the program 
and how damaging the changes we are considering in this bill could be.
  FPI is a correctional program that is essential to the safe and 
efficient operation of our increasingly overcrowded Federal prisons. 
While we are putting more and more criminals in prison, we must 
maintain the program that keeps them occupied and working.
  Mr. BYRD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia is recognized.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I am authorized by Senator Levin to speak at 
this time. But I am going to ask Mr. Gramm if he will yield me some 
time.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the distinguished 
Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. BYRD. I thank the Senator.
  Mr. President, the distinguished ranking member, Mr. Levin, knew my 
position on this matter, but he accommodated me by suggesting that I 
might proceed at this time while he is away from his chair. I thank the 
distinguished Senator from Texas for yielding time to me.
  I am strongly opposed to the inclusion of section 806 in the fiscal 
year 2000 Defense authorization bill. This section would substantially 
undermine Federal Prison Industries--the Bureau of Prisons' most 
important skill-developing program for inmates.
  I believe that this matter should not be included in the defense 
authorization bill. It is a matter that is being considered by the 
Senate Judiciary Committee. I am advised that the Criminal Justice 
Oversight Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by 
the senior Senator from South Carolina, Mr. Thurmond, conducted an 
oversight hearing on this matter on May 24--yesterday.
  The Attorney General of the United States, in a letter addressed to 
the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has indicated that she 
is concerned about this legislative provision. The Attorney General's 
letter asserts that the legislative provision would have a negative 
impact on Federal Prison Industries,

       . . . which is the Bureau of Prisons' most important, 
     efficient, and cost-effective tool for managing inmates and 
     for preparing them to be productive, law-abiding citizens 
     upon release from prison.

  I am also advised that the administration has taken a strong position 
in opposition to section 806 because of the harm it would do to the FPI 
program, which is fundamental to the security in Federal prisons. The 
administration believes that to ensure Federal inmates are employed in 
sufficient numbers, the current mandatory source requirement should not 
be altered until an effective alternative program is designed and put 
into place.
  Mr. President, in the State of West Virginia there are three Federal 
prisons--the Federal prison at Alderson, the Robert C. Byrd Federal 
Correctional Institution at Beckley, and the Robert F. Kennedy Prison 
at Morgantown. And each of these has an FPI operation. At these three 
Federal prisons alone, the Bureau of Prisons is able to keep more than 
500 inmates productively occupied, and employ nearly 40 staff at no 
cost to the taxpayer. How about that! That sounds like a good deal to 
me.
  Mr. President, a somewhat similar amendment was offered to the 
Defense Authorization Bill for Fiscal Year 1998. The Senate instead 
adopted a substitute amendment offered by the distinguished senior 
Senator from Texas (Mr. Gramm), which required a joint study by the 
Department of Defense and FPI on this matter. That study has recently 
been completed and transmitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee. 
The joint study made several recommendations that could be accomplished 
within existing authority, without requiring legislative action.
  In summary, I am opposed to section 806 to the Defense authorization 
bill because it is unwarranted, and not only is it unwarranted, but it 
would have a debilitating effect on Federal Prisons Industries. This is 
a matter within the jurisdiction of the Senate Judiciary Committee and 
should not be included in this bill.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Statement of 
Administration Position on Section 806 of the Defense authorization 
bill be printed in the Record at this point.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

  Statement of Administration Position on Section 806 of the Defense 
                      Authorization Bill (S. 1059)


          federal prison industries mandatory source exemption

       The Administration opposes Section 806 which would 
     essentially eliminate the Federal Prison Industries (FPI) 
     mandatory source with the Defense Department. Such action 
     could harm the FPI program which is fundamental to the 
     security in Federal prisons. In principle, the Administration 
     believes that the Government should support competition for 
     the provision of goods and services to Federal agencies. 
     However, to ensure that Federal inmates are employed in 
     sufficient numbers, the current mandatory source requirement 
     should not be altered until an alternative program is 
     designed and put in place. Finally, this provision would

[[Page 10735]]

     only address mandatory sourcing for the Defense Department, 
     without regard to the rest of federal government.

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I again thank the distinguished Senator from 
Texas, Mr. Gramm, and I likewise express my appreciation to the 
distinguished Senator from Michigan, Mr. Levin, for his leadership 
overall on this bill. He is very dedicated, very able, and he works 
very hard. I am proud to serve with him on the Armed Services 
Committee. But in this case, I regret that I have to oppose his 
position.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my 10 minutes that 
was yielded to me from that side to Mr. Hatch, if I may ask unanimous 
consent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HATCH. I thank the President and I thank the Senator.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 4 minutes 20 seconds.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise to speak in support of this 
amendment, which I am pleased to cosponsor. I congratulate Senators 
Gramm, Thurmond, and Byrd for their excellent statements on this 
matter, and for their leadership on this issue.
  This amendment strikes section 806 of the bill, a provision that 
would effectively eliminate the Department of Defense purchasing 
preference for products supplied by Federal Prison Industries (FPI), 
also known by its trade name of UNICOR.
  FPI is the federal corporation charged by Congress with the mission 
of training and employing federal prison inmates.
  For more than 60 years, this correctional program has provided 
inmates with the opportunity to learn practical work habits and skills. 
It has enjoyed broad, bipartisan support in Congress and from each 
Republican and Democrat administration. An important part of this 
support has been the cooperative relationship between FPI and the 
Department of Defense--a relationship that has helped supply our armed 
forces in every war since 1934.
  FPI is an irreplaceable corrections program. FPI and its training 
programs at federal prisons across the nation have been credited with 
helping to lower recidivism and ensuring better job-related success for 
prisoners upon their release--a result that all of us applaud.
  Finally, FPI is an essential tool for ensuring a safe and secure 
correctional environment for staff, guards, and inmates in the federal 
prison system. Simply put, FPI keeps inmates productively occupied. And 
since the limited number of FPI jobs are coveted by inmates, getting 
and keeping these jobs are important incentives for good behavior by 
inmates.
  These are important considerations as the federal inmate population 
continues to rise. In the last ten years, the federal inmate population 
has more than doubled, from 51,153 in 1989 to 108,207 in 1998. As 
Philip Glover, President of the Council of Prison Locals, AFGE, 
testified before the Judiciary Committee yesterday, ``We cannot afford 
to simply warehouse inmates.''
  Any corrections officer will tell you that the most dangerous inmate 
is the idle inmate. Idleness breeds frustration, and provides ample 
time to plan mischief--a volatile combination. Yet, despite the 
references to the costs imposed by FPI by my colleagues who oppose this 
amendment, I have heard no one suggest how the taxpayers will pay for 
the new prison programs and the additional prison guards that might be 
needed if FPI factories are forced to close.
  Section 806 of this bill, which our amendment strikes, puts the FPI 
program at substantial risk, and would certainly result in the 
shuttering of some FPI factories. Section 806 exempts from the FPI 
mandatory source requirement products priced below $2,500, products 
integral to or embedded in another product not made by FPI, or products 
which are components of a larger product used for military intelligence 
or weaponry. Together, these categories make up over 80 percent of 
DoD's purchases from FPI. FPI, in turn, depends on sales to the 
Pentagon for nearly 60 percent of its business.
  Some may reasonably ask, why should there be a government procurement 
preference for FPI goods? The answer is simply this: when FPI was 
established, in perhaps an unnecessary effort ensure the program did 
not affect private sector jobs, FPI was barred from selling its 
products in the commercial market. This is still the law. Thus, under 
current law, FPI may sell its products and services only to the federal 
government. Section 806 does not alter this sales restriction, and I do 
not understand the Senator from Michigan to be supporting such a 
change.
  To ensure that FPI has adequate work to keep inmates occupied, 
congress created a special FPI ``procurement preference,'' under which 
federal agencies are required to make their purchases from FPI instead 
of other vendors, as long as FPI can meet price, quality, and delivery 
requirements.
  Section 806 would remove this procurement preference, as it relates 
to the vast majority of sales to the Department of Defense. Without 
this preference, FPI could be crippled. Again, FPI is not permitted to 
compete for sales in the private market. It may only sell to the 
federal government, and then only if it can meet price, quality, and 
delivery requirements. And even then, waivers are available.
  Nothing short of the viability of Federal Prison Industries is at 
issue here. Under full competition for federal contracts, combined with 
market restrictions, FPI could not survive.
  My colleagues should remember that the primary mission of FPI is not 
profit. The primary mission of FPI is the safe and effective 
incarceration and rehabilitation of federal prisoners. Needless to say, 
FPI operates under constraints on its efficiency no private sector 
manufacturer must operate under. For example:
  Most private sector companies invest in the latest, most efficient 
technology and equipment to increase productivity and reduce labor 
costs. Because of its different mission, FPI frequently must make its 
manufacturing processes as labor-intensive as possible--in order to 
keep as many inmates as possible occupied.
  The secure correctional environment FPI in which FPI operates 
requires additional inefficiencies. Tools must be carefully checked in 
and out before and after each shift, and at every break. Inmate workers 
frequently must be searched before returning to their cells. And FPI 
factories must shut down whenever inmate unrest or institutional 
disturbances occur. No private sector business operates under these 
competitive disadvantages.
  The average federal inmate is 37 years old, has only an 8th grade 
education, and has never held a steady legal job. Some studies have 
estimated that the productivity of a worker with this profile is about 
one-quarter of that of the average worker in the private sector. This 
is another disadvantage that, by and large, private companies do not 
have to operate under.
  Finally, FPI is required to diversify its product line to minimize 
the impact on any one industry. Moreover, FPI can only enter new lines 
of business, or expand existing lines, after an exhaustive review has 
been undertaken to the impact on the private sector. Again, this is a 
restraint that most other businesses do not have imposed on them.
  All of us share the goal of ensuring that FPI does not adversely 
impact private business. FPI has made considerable efforts to minimize 
any adverse impact on the private sector. Over the past few years, it 
has transferred factory operations from multiple factory locations to 
new prisons, in order to create necessary inmate jobs without 
increasing FPI sales. FPI has also begun operations such as a mattress 
recycling factory, a laundry, a computer repair factory, and a mail bag 
repair factory, among others, to diversify its operations and minimize 
its impact on the private sector, while providing essential prison 
jobs.
  Furthermore, there is substantial evidence that FPI actually creates 
a substantial number of private sector jobs. In FY 1998, thousands of 
vendors nationwide registered with FPI, and supplied nearly $419 
million in purchases to FPI. And at the same time

[[Page 10736]]

FPI trained and employed 20,200 federal inmates at no expense to the 
taxpayer in FY 1998, it also directly supported 4,600 jobs outside 
prison walls.
  Every dollar FPI receives in revenue is recycled into the private 
sector. Out of each dollar, 76 cents goes to the purchase of raw 
materials, equipment, services, and overhead, all supplied by the 
private sector; 18 cents goes to salaries of FPI staff; and 6 cents 
goes to inmate pay, which in turn if passed along to pay victim 
restitution, child support, alimony, and fines. Incidentally, FPI 
inmates are required to apply 50 percent of their earnings to these 
costs.
  Thus, while I have some sympathy for the intent of Senator Levin, who 
sponsored this provision in the bill, I must join Senator Gramm in 
offering this amendment to strike Section 806. I would like to remind 
my colleagues that the Senate has addressed this matter before. Two 
years ago, Senator Levin offered a similar amendment. Mr. President, 62 
members of the Senate voted instead for an amendment offered by Senator 
Gramm and myself, requiring the Departments of Defense and Justice to 
undertake a joint study of the procurement and purchase processes 
governing FPI sales to the Department of Defense.
  Just last month, this study was delivered to Congress. Interestingly, 
the report does not support the action proposed by section 806. To the 
contrary, the Departments of Defense and Justice jointly concluded that 
the report's ``recommendations can be made within existing statutory 
authority, and will not require legislative action.''
  In fact, neither of the Departments affected by section 806 support 
its inclusion in this bill. The Administration's official Statement of 
Administration policy is equally clear, stating that ``the 
Administration opposes Section 806.''
  In summary, either we want Federal inmates to work, or we do not. I 
believe that we do want inmates to work, and therefore I must oppose 
section 806. I say to my colleagues, if you believe in maintaining good 
order and discipline in prisons, or if you believe in the 
rehabilitation of inmates when possible, you should support this 
amendment.
  I agree with those of my colleagues who believe that we must address 
the issues raised by prison industries nationwide. As we continue, 
appropriately, to incarcerate more serious criminals in both Federal 
and State prisons, productive work must be found for them. At the same 
time, we must ensure that jobs are not taken from law-abiding workers. 
Under the leadership of Senator Thurmond, the Judiciary Committee's 
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice Oversight yesterday held a hearing on 
this issue. Witnesses at that hearing urged Congress not to gut FPI 
without addressing the broader need for productive prison work.
  FPI is a proven correctional program. It enhances the security of 
federal prisons, helps ensure that federal inmates work, furthers 
inmate rehabilitation when possible, and provides restitution to 
victims. Section 806 would do immense harm to this highly successful 
program, and I urge my colleagues to support our amendment to strike 
it.
  I also ask unanimous consent a letter to me from the Office of the 
Attorney General be printed in the Record with the accompanying 
documents.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                               Office of the Attorney General,

                                     Washington, DC, May 25, 1999.
     Hon. Orrin G. Hatch,
     Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary,
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC
       Dear Mr. Chairman: The Fiscal Year 2000 Defense 
     Authorization bill that was recently reported out of the 
     Armed Services Committee includes a provision regarding 
     Department of Defense (DoD) purchases from Federal Prison 
     Industries (FPI). We believe that the statutory changes 
     required by this provision are premature in light of the 
     recommendations of the congressionally mandated two-year 
     study recently completed by the Department of Defense and FPI 
     that explored the procurement relationship between these two 
     agencies. For the reasons stated in the Deputy Attorney 
     General's letter (copy attached), I am extremely concerned 
     about this legislation because it could have a negative 
     impact on FPI, which is the Bureau of Prisons most important, 
     efficient, and cost-effective tool for managing inmates and 
     for preparing them to be productive, law abiding citizens 
     upon release from prison.
       Federal Prison Industries is first and foremost a 
     correctional program intended to train the Federal inmate 
     population and minimize adverse impact on the private sector 
     business community. As such, it adheres to several 
     statutorily mandated principles, including diversifying its 
     product line to avoid hurting any particular industry and 
     remaining as labor intensive as possible. These practices 
     render FPI less competitive than private sector 
     manufacturers. The mandatory source status (which would be 
     effectively eliminated as a result of provision) helps 
     ameliorate these circumstances by achieving customer contact 
     which reduces competitive advertising costs. It also assists 
     FPI in its efforts to partner with private sector 
     manufacturers who are attracted to the steady work flow 
     provided by this preference. These partnerships are essential 
     to FPI since it cannot, on its own, produce many complicated 
     products such as systems furniture.
       This provision would alter the requirement that the 
     Department of Defense purchase products from FPI, and it 
     could require FPI to compete with the private sector for 
     sales of products that are components of products not 
     produced by FPI, are part of a national security system, or 
     the total cost of which is less than $2,500. Even with 
     respect to other products, DoD is no longer required to 
     purchase from FPI, rather the Secretary of Defense must 
     ``conduct market research'' to determine whether the FPI 
     product is ``comparable in price, quality, and time of 
     delivery'' to products available from the private sector 
     before making purchases. If the Secretary concludes that the 
     FPI product is not comparable, the purchase may be made from 
     any source.
       Purchases by the Department of Defense account for almost 
     60% of FPI's sales. Moreover, 78 percent of the DoD orders 
     are for small purchases of less than $2,500, and much of the 
     remaining 22 percent is made up of products or components of 
     products made by other manufacturers and products used in 
     national security systems. Accordingly, if this provision is 
     enacted into law, the continued existence of FPI will depend 
     in large part on its ability to compete with the private 
     sector for the limited Department of Defense market.
       A recently completed report conducted by the Department of 
     Defense and FPI concluded that no legislative changes were 
     warranted by the investigation of procurement transactions 
     between these two entities. Rather, while the study, entitled 
     ``A Study of the Procurement, Procedures, Regulations and 
     Statutes that Govern Procurement Transactions between the 
     Department of Defense and Federal Prison Industries,'' \1\ 
     made a number of recommendations for facilitating and 
     enhancing the working relationship between the two agencies 
     that could be accomplished within existing statutory 
     authority, the study recommends the FPI and DoD create a 
     pilot program at eight DoD locations to test the 
     effectiveness of administrative waivers for purchases of less 
     than $2,500 where expedited delivery is required. 
     Additionally, FPI will continue to monitor and evaluate 
     delivery performance.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \1\ This study was mandated by Section 855 of the National 
     Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1998 (P.L. 105-85), 
     and was released to the Senate and House Armed Services 
     Committee several weeks ago.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       Issues surrounding FPI, such as the mandatory source status 
     affect all agencies, not just the Department of Defense. 
     Therefore, this issue should be reviewed in the broader 
     context.
       If you should have any questions or if we may provide 
     further information about FPI, please feel free to contact 
     the Department. The Office of Management and Budget has 
     advised us that from the perspective of the Administration's 
     program, there is no objection to submission of this letter.
           Sincerely,
     Janet Reno.
                                  ____

                                                     Office of the


                                      Deputy Attorney General,

                                     Washington, DC, May 11, 1999.
     Hon. John Warner,
     Chairman, Committee on Armed Services,
     U.S. Senate, Washington DC.
       Dear Mr. Chairman: We anticipate that an amendment will be 
     offered to the Defense Authorization bill that would 
     eliminate mandatory source status for Federal Prison 
     Industries (FPI). We believe that the amendment would have a 
     devastating impact upon FPI, a program that is critical to 
     the safe and orderly operations of federal prisons.
       FPI is the Bureau of Prisons most important, efficient, and 
     cost-effective tool for managing inmates. It keeps inmates 
     productively occupied and reduces inmate idleness and the 
     violence and disruptive behavior associated with it. Thus, it 
     is essential to the security of the Federal Prison System, 
     its staff, inmates, and the communities in which they are 
     located. By eliminating FPI's mandatory source status, the 
     amendment would dramatically reduce the number of inmates FPI 
     would be able to employ. The inmate

[[Page 10737]]

     idleness this would create would seriously undermine the 
     safety and security of America's federal prisons.
       In addition to being a tool for managing the growing inmate 
     population,\1\ FPI programs provide inmates with training and 
     experience that develop job skills and a strong work ethic. 
     Bureau of Prisons' research has confirmed the value of FPI as 
     a correctional program. Findings demonstrate that inmates who 
     work in FPI, compared to similar inmates who do not have FPI 
     experience, have better institutional adjustment. Moreover, 
     after release, they are more likely to be employed and 
     significantly less likely to commit another crime. A long-
     term post-release employment study by the Bureau of Prisons 
     has found that inmates who were released as long as 8 to 12 
     years ago and who participated in industries work or 
     vocational training programs were 24 percent less likely to 
     be recommitted to federal prisons than a comparison group of 
     inmates who had no such training. Clearly, the FPI program 
     contributes to public safety by enhancing the eventual 
     reintegration of offenders into the community after release.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \1\ The federal inmate population is growing at an 
     unprecedented rate and crowding at secure institutions is 
     already at critical levels and expected to increase in the 
     near term.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       Opponents of FPI have asserted that FPI is an unfair 
     competitor and that it is damaging the private sector. This 
     is not accurate. Throughout its history, FPI has followed a 
     number of practices deliberately designed to reduce its 
     impact on the private sector, such as diversifying its 
     product line to avoid hurting any particular industry and 
     remaining as labor intensive as possible. Further, far from 
     taking jobs from the private sector, FPI actually creates 
     jobs in the private sector by purchasing over $418 million 
     annually in supplies from the private sector.
       It is important to explain why FPI's status as a mandatory 
     source is critical to FPI's viability. The mandatory source 
     status was established as a means of creating a steady flow 
     of work for the employment of inmates. FPI views the 
     mandatory source status as a method of not only maintaining 
     this work flow but also achieving customer contact which 
     reduces competitive advertising costs.
       FPI does not abuse its mandatory source status. If a 
     customer feels that FPI cannot meet its delivery, price, or 
     technical requirements, the customer may request a waiver of 
     the mandatory source. These waivers are processed quickly (an 
     average of 4 days) and, in 1998, FPI approved over 80 percent 
     of the requests from federal agencies for waivers.
       FPI does not have the capability to produce many 
     sophisticated products, such as systems furniture, 
     independently. It relies on the private sector to provide 
     space planning, design, engineering, installation and 
     customer service. By entering into partnerships with private 
     companies through the use of federal acquisition procedures, 
     FPI vertically integrates the manufacturing of a company's 
     product using inmate labor. In order to attract a private 
     sector partner, there must be some incentive. That incentive 
     is the mandatory source. Without the mandatory source status, 
     FPI would be unable to attract the private sector partners 
     necessary for it to diversify its product offerings and to 
     offer products which are contemporary and attractive to its 
     federal customers.
       Last week, the report of a congressionally mandated study 
     conducted by the Department of Defense (DoD) and FPI 
     concluded that no legislative changes were warranted by the 
     investigation of procurement transactions between these two 
     entities. The study, entitled ``A Study of the Procurement, 
     Procedures, Regulations and Statutes that Govern Procurement 
     Transactions between the Department of Defense and Federal 
     Prison Industries,'' was mandated by Section 855 of the 
     National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1998 (P.L. 
     105-85), and was released to the Senate and House Armed 
     Services Committee last week. The report noted that some 
     steps could be taken to improve the procurement relationship 
     between DoD and FPI, but such steps are most appropriately 
     accomplished within the executive branch.
       FPI is a law enforcement issue more than a government 
     supply issue because it is essential to the management of 
     federal prisons and because FPI is operated as a correctional 
     program, not as a for-profit business. As a result, we 
     continue to develop pilot programs that will make FPI a more 
     efficient and cost competitive source. We believe that the 
     amendment would benefit from consideration by the Judiciary 
     Committee to consider the mandatory source issue in the 
     context of the full FPI program. Simply considering the 
     amendment as affecting a source of goods for the federal 
     sector would completely overlook the law enforcement 
     significance of FPI and threaten a program that is 
     fundamental to public safety.
       We are enclosing a copy of the study report conducted by 
     DoD and FPI for your review. If you should have any questions 
     or if we may provide further information about FPI, please 
     feel free to contact the Department.
           Sincerely,
                                              Eric H. Holder, Jr.,
     Deputy Attorney General.
                                  ____

                            Office of the Deputy Attorney General,


                                 Washington, DC, May 11, 1999.

     Hon. Orrin G. Hatch,
     Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary,
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Chairman: We anticipate that an amendment will be 
     offered to the Defense Authorization bill that would 
     eliminate mandatory source status for Federal Prison 
     Industries (FPI). We believe that the amendment would have a 
     devastating impact upon FPI, a program that is critical to 
     the safe and orderly operations of federal prisons.
       FPI is the Bureau of Prisons most important, efficient, and 
     cost-effective tool for managing inmates. It keeps inmates 
     productively occupied and reduces inmate idleness and the 
     violence and disruptive behavior associated with it. Thus, it 
     is essential to the security of the Federal Prison System, 
     its staff, inmates, and the communities in which they are 
     located. By eliminating FPI's mandatory source status, the 
     amendment would dramatically reduce the number of inmates FPI 
     would be able to employ. The inmate idleness this would 
     create would seriously undermine the safety and security of 
     America's federal prisons.
       In addition to being a tool for managing the growing inmate 
     population,\1\ FPI programs provide inmates with training and 
     experience that develop job skills and a strong work ethic. 
     Bureau of Prisons' research has confirmed the value of FPI as 
     a correctional program. Findings demonstrate that inmates who 
     work in FPI, compared to similar inmates who do not have FPI 
     experience, have better institutional adjustment. Moreover, 
     after release, they are more likely to be employed and 
     significantly less likely to commit another crime. A long-
     term post-release employment study by the Bureau of Prisons 
     has found that inmates who were released as long as 8 to 12 
     years ago and who participated in industries work or 
     vocational training programs were 24 percent less likely to 
     be recommitted to federal prisons than a comparison group of 
     inmates who had no such training. Clearly, the FPI program 
     contributes to public safety by enhancing the eventual 
     reintegration of offenders into the community after release.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \1\ The federal inmate population is growing at an 
     unprecedented rate and crowding at secure institutions is 
     already at critical levels and expected to increase in the 
     near term.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       Opponents of FPI have asserted that FPI is an unfair 
     competitor and that it is damaging the private sector. This 
     is not accurate. Throughout its history, FPI has followed a 
     number of practices deliberately designed to reduce its 
     impact on the private sector, such as diversifying its 
     product line to avoid hurting any particular industry and 
     remaining as labor intensive as possible. Further, far from 
     taking jobs from the private sector, FPI actually creates 
     jobs in the private sector by purchasing over $418 million 
     annually in supplies from the private sector.
       It is important to explain why FPI's status as a mandatory 
     source is critical to FPI's viability. The mandatory source 
     status was established as a means of creating a steady flow 
     of work for the employment of inmates. FPI views the 
     mandatory source status as a method of not only maintaining 
     this work flow but also achieving customer contact which 
     reduces competitive advertising costs.
       FPI does not abuse its mandatory source status. If a 
     customer feels that FPI cannot meet its delivery, price, or 
     technical requirements, the customer may request a waiver of 
     the mandatory source. These waivers are processed quickly (an 
     average of 4 days) and, in 1998, FPI approved over 80 percent 
     of the requests from federal agencies for waivers.
       FPI does not have the capability to produce many 
     sophisticated products, such as systems furniture, 
     independently. It relies on the private sector to provide 
     space planning, design, engineering, installation and 
     customer service. By entering into partnerships with private 
     companies through the use of federal acquisition procedures, 
     FPI vertically integrates the manufacturing of a company's 
     product using inmate labor. In order to attract a private 
     sector partner, there must be some incentive. That incentive 
     is the mandatory source. Without the mandatory source status, 
     FPI would be unable to attract the private sector partners 
     necessary for it to diversify its product offerings and to 
     offer products which are contemporary and attractive to its 
     federal customers.
       Last week, the report of a congressionally mandated study 
     conducted by the Department of Defense (DoD) and FPI 
     concluded that no legislative changes were warranted by the 
     investigation of procurement transactions between these two 
     entities. The study, entitled ``A Study of the Procurement, 
     Procedures, Regulations and Statutes that Govern Procurement 
     Transactions between the Department of Defense and Federal 
     Prison Industries,'' was mandated by Section 855 of the 
     National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1998 (P.L. 
     105-85), and was released to the Senate and House Armed 
     Services Committee last week. The report noted that some 
     steps could be taken to improve the procurement relationship 
     between DoD and FPI, but such steps are most appropriately 
     accomplished within the executive branch.

[[Page 10738]]

       FPI is a law enforcement issue more than a government 
     supply issue because it is essential to the management of 
     federal prisons and because FPI is operated as a correctional 
     program, not as a for-profit business. As a result, we 
     continue to develop pilot programs that will make FPI a more 
     efficient and cost competitive source. We believe that the 
     amendment would benefit from consideration by the Judiciary 
     Committee to consider the mandatory source issue in the 
     context of the full FPI program. Simply considering the 
     amendment as affecting a source of goods for the federal 
     sector would completely overlook the law enforcement 
     significance of FPI and threaten a program that is 
     fundamental to public safety.
       We are enclosing a copy of the study report conducted by 
     DoD and FPI for your review. If you should have any questions 
     or if we may provide further information about FPI, please 
     feel free to contact the Department.
           Sincerely,
                                              Eric H. Holder, Jr.,
     Deputy Attorney General.
                                  ____


  Statement of Administration Position on Section 806 of the Defense 
                      Authorization Bill (S. 1059)


          federal prison industries mandatory source exemption

       The Administration opposes Section 806 which would 
     essentially eliminate the Federal Prison Industries (FPI) 
     mandatory source with the Defense Department. Such action 
     could harm the FPI program which is fundamental to the 
     security in Federal prisons. In principle, the Administration 
     believes that the Government should support competition for 
     the provisions goods and services to Federal agencies. 
     However, to ensure that Federal inmates are employed in 
     sufficient numbers, the current mandatory source requirement 
     should not be altered until an alternative program is 
     designed and put in place. Finally, this provision would only 
     address mandatory sourcing for the Defense Department, 
     without regard to the rest of federal government.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brownback). The Senator from Michigan 
controls the remaining time.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, section 806 of the defense authorization 
bill which is before the Senate is a commonsense provision. It was 
adopted by the Armed Services Committee. Basically, it says the private 
sector ought to be allowed to bid on items that the Department of 
Defense is buying, if the Department of Defense declares that it is 
necessary that the private sector be allowed to bid.
  That may sound so obvious that people may be scratching their heads 
saying, well, obviously the private sector ought to be allowed to bid 
if the Department of Defense believes the product which is offered by 
the private sector is what is needed by the Department of Defense. But 
that is not the way it is now. The way it is now is that Federal Prison 
Industries can make a unilateral decision that it is going to supply 
the Department of Defense with a product, and the private business 
people out there who want to just simply compete for a product can be 
prohibited from doing so. That, it seems to me, is the height of 
unfairness in a society which has a private sector, has private 
businesses, has labor that is working in those private businesses, and 
where a Government agency says that product, produced by that private 
company, is a product that we want because it is a better product than 
FPI can give us or it is a product that can be given to us more cheaply 
than the prisons can give it to us.
  What an extraordinary way it is to run a Government, that we have 
agencies in this Government that want to buy a product, be it textiles 
or furniture or what have you, that are told they cannot compete that 
product with the private sector competing; they have to buy it from 
Federal Prison Industries even though it costs the agency more or it is 
of lower quality. What an extraordinary way to be inefficient, to waste 
taxpayers' money, and to force agencies that are supposed to be 
protecting taxpayers' money to spend it on lesser quality items or on 
more expensive items--just because Federal Prison Industries 
unilaterally has decided it is going to supply the Department of 
Defense. That is not fair. That is not fair and we have to eliminate 
it.
  Section 806 simply says that the Department of Defense--not Federal 
Prison Industries--should determine whether or not a product 
manufactured by Federal Prison Industries meets the needs of the 
Department of Defense.
  The approach that is taken by Section 806 is consistent with the 
basic tenet of how our whole procurement system works, which is the 
people who buy and use products should be the ones who decide whether 
the quality, price, and delivery of those products meet their needs. 
Yet amazingly enough, the FPI, Federal Prison Industries' current rules 
prohibit Federal agencies from even looking at private sector products 
to determine whether they might be superior to what Federal Prison 
Industries has.
  The regulations of Federal Prison Industries say:

       A contracting activity should not solicit bids, proposals, 
     quotations or otherwise test the market for the purpose of 
     seeking alternative sources to the Federal Prison Industries.

  If that is not absolutely extraordinary, that Federal Prison 
Industries is telling the Department of Defense, when they go and buy 
textiles or shoes or whatever they are buying, that they may not even 
test the market, seeking alternative sources to Federal Prison 
Industries.
  They may not solicit bids, proposals, quotations, or test the market 
for the purpose of seeking alternative sources to Federal Prison 
Industries.
  What kind of an upside-down situation is this? What kind of a topsy-
turvy situation is it that the Department of Defense cannot even 
solicit a quote from somebody to supply a product if Federal Prison 
Industries says they may not do so? Unilaterally, the seller is telling 
the buyer: You can't even go out and seek other quotes or seek 
competition.
  Boy, that sure turns the purchasing process of the Department of 
Defense and our other agencies right on its head.
  What the Department of Defense is required to do, instead of doing 
what ordinary buyers do, which is to seek the best product at the best 
price, is to accept Federal Prison Industries' determination. Federal 
Prison Industries is the sole arbiter of whether its products meet the 
requirements of the Department of Defense.
  Section 8104 of the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act requires the 
Department of Defense and other agencies to conduct market research 
before soliciting bids or proposals for products that may be available 
in the commercial marketplace. They are supposed to solicit bids, but 
they do not do that. They are not allowed to do that. Under the FPI 
rules, they have to buy it from Federal Prison Industries if the 
Industries on their own, unilaterally, decide they are going to force 
the Department of Defense to buy a product.
  All that the provision does is to reverse the rule which prohibits 
the Department of Defense from conducting market research and permits 
the Department of Defense to look at what private sector companies have 
to offer, as it would do in the case of any other procurement.
  If Federal Prison Industries offers a product that is comparable in 
price, quality, and time of delivery to products available from the 
private sector, the Department would still be required to purchase that 
product on a sole-source basis from Federal Prison Industries. But if 
the DOD determines that Federal Prison Industries' product was not 
competitive, then it would be permitted to conduct a competition and go 
to another source.
  That seems to me to be the least that we can do to protect the 
taxpayers from the misuse of Federal funds on products that fail to 
meet the needs of the Department of Defense.
  Federal Prison Industries has repeatedly claimed that it provides 
quality products at a price that is competitive with current market 
prices. The statute, indeed, is intended to do exactly that, provided 
Federal Prison Industries will provide the Federal agencies products 
that meet their requirements and prices that do not exceed current 
market prices. But the FPI is unwilling to permit agencies to compare 
their products at prices with those available in the private sector.
  Under Federal Prison Industries' current interpretation of the law, 
it need not offer the best product at the best price. It is sufficient 
for it to offer an adequate product at an adequate price and insist on 
its right to make the

[[Page 10739]]

sale. When Federal Prison Industries sets the price, it then seeks to 
charge what it calls a market price, which means that at least some 
vendors in the private sector charge a higher price, and the FPI's 
proposed regulation specifies that the determination of what 
constitutes the current market price, the methodology employed to 
determine the current market price and the conclusion that a product of 
Federal Prison Industries does not exceed that price is--you got it--
the sole responsibility of Federal Prison Industries.
  That is the situation. They are supposed to buy at market price, but 
they make a determination as to whether or not, in fact, what they are 
forcing an agency to buy is being set at a market price.
  The General Accounting Office reported in August of 1998:

       The only limit the law imposes on Federal Prison 
     Industries' price is that it may not exceed the upper end--

  Upper end--

     of the current market price range.

  Moreover, the manner in which Federal Prison Industries seeks to 
establish the current market price range appears calculated to result 
in a price far higher than the Department of Defense would pay under 
any other circumstances. According to the proposed regulation codifying 
FPI's pricing policies, ``a review of commercial catalog prices will be 
used to establish a `range' for current market price.''
  The contrast is very sharp because when the Department of Defense 
buys from commercial vendors, it seeks to negotiate, and generally 
obtains, a steep discount from catalog prices.
  FPI appears to have difficulty even matching the undiscounted catalog 
prices. Last August, the General Accounting Office compared Federal 
Prison Industries' prices for 20 representative products to private 
vendors' catalog prices for the same or comparable products and found 
that for four of these products, FPI's price was higher than the price 
offered by any private vendor. That is 4 out of 20. In 4 out of 20 
cases, GAO found that the price FPI charged was higher than the price 
offered by any private vendor. For five of the remaining products, the 
FPI price was at the ``high end of the range.'' Those are the words of 
the General Accounting Office. FPI's price was at the ``high end of the 
range'' of prices offered by private vendors--ranking sixth, seventh, 
seventh, eighth, and ninth of the 10 vendors reviewed. In other words, 
for almost half of the FPI products reviewed, the FPI approach appeared 
to be to charge the highest price possible rather than the lowest price 
possible to the Federal consumer.
  We have complaint after complaint from frustrated private sector 
vendors asking us: Why can't we compete? Why are we in the private 
sector precluded from bidding on an item?
  Here is one vendor's letter:

       Federal Prison Industries bid on this item, and simply 
     because Federal Prison Industries did, it had to be given to 
     Federal Prison Industries. FPI won the bid at $45 per unit. 
     My company bid $22 per unit. The way I see it, the Government 
     just overspent my tax dollars to the tune of $1,978. Do you 
     seriously believe that this type of procurement is cost-
     effective? I lost business, my tax dollars were misused 
     because of unfair procurement practices mandated by Federal 
     regulations. This is a prime example, and I'm certain not the 
     only one, of how the procurement system is being misused and 
     small businesses in this country are being excluded from 
     competition with the full support of Federal regulations and 
     the seeming approval of Congress.

      It is far past time . . . to require [FPI] to be competitive 
  for the benefit of all taxpayers.A third frustrated vendor, who had 
been driven out of business by FPI, told a House committee:

       Is it justice that Federal Prison Industries would step in 
     and take business away from a disabled Vietnam veteran who 
     was twice wounded fighting for our country . . . therefore 
     effectively destroying and bankrupting that . . . business 
     which the Veterans' Administration suggested he enter?

  There is a very fundamental unfairness which exists in this system. 
It is one that we need to correct. The Department of Defense took a 
survey recently of DOD customers for Federal Prison Industries' 
products. The results are eye-opening. The survey provided DOD 
customers five categories in which to rate Federal Prison Industries' 
products: excellent, good, average, fair, or poor.
  According to the data reported jointly by the Department of Defense 
and the Federal Prison Industries in April, a majority of Department of 
Defense customers rated FPI as average, fair, or poor in price, 
delivery, and as an overall supplier.
  On price: 54 percent of the Department of Defense's electronics 
customers, 70 percent of DOD clothing and textile customers, 46 percent 
of DOD dorm and quarters furniture customers, 53 percent of DOD office 
case goods customers, 57 percent of DOD systems furniture customers 
rated FPI prices as average, fair, or poor.
  On delivery, the same kind of figures: 50 percent of DOD electronics 
customers rated FPI delivery as averaged, fair, or poor; 62 percent of 
DOD clothing and textile customers rated FPI delivery as average, fair, 
or poor. That did not make any difference. FPI said it was going to 
sell, and once FPI made that determination, the Department had no 
alternative. It does not make any difference whether the delivery is 
lousy, whether the price is too high, whether the overall performance 
is poor. It makes no difference. Forget competition. FPI said: We are 
going to sell. Forget fairness to a business with workers in that 
business. FPI said: Tough. You have to buy from us.
  So the bottom line is that fully 35 percent of the Department of 
Defense customers indicated they have had a problem with an FPI product 
delivered in the last 12 months. The reason they are having problems is 
because there is a lack of competition.
  We think, given the fact that such a small amount of money is paid to 
prisoners for their labor, that Federal Prison Industries could supply 
these products much more cheaply than the private sector. But that is 
not the case. The case is that the private sector very often can supply 
these products to our agencies more cheaply than can the prison 
industries. But if the Federal Prison Industries decides in its 
unilateral, sole, exclusive judgment that it is going to supply the 
Department of Defense, that is it. That is it. This is an injustice to 
the people who have worked hard to put together a business. It is an 
injustice to the people who work for those businesses.
  This is one of those weird cases where you have business and labor 
coming together before us on the same side of an issue. The American 
Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, urges that this section remain in the 
bill. We have the alert from the Chamber of Commerce as well. Members 
of the Senate, business and labor--our good friend from Texas calls 
those special interests, business and labor. People who have worked 
hard to put together a business and people who work in those businesses 
are not being allowed to compete. Sorry. Federal Prison Industries says 
you are going to buy that product. That is what they tell the DOD. You 
are going to buy it. You may not like the price, you may not like the 
delivery, you may not like the quality, but we are not going to let 
anybody else compete for that sale.
  So that is the fundamental unfairness that this language would 
correct. It does not tell the Department of Defense they cannot buy it 
from Federal Prison Industries. It simply says that if the Department 
of Defense determines on price or quality that the private sector can 
do as well, then it--not the FPI; the Department of Defense--may 
compete and determine whether or not they can save the taxpayers any 
money.
  I am going to close and then turn this over to my friend and my 
colleague from Michigan for his comments. But I just want to read one 
additional quote from the Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy before 
the National Security Committee of the House a couple years ago. He 
said that the FPI monopoly on Government furniture contracts has 
undermined the Navy's ability to improve living conditions for its 
sailors.
  Master Chief Petty Officer John Hagan said:

       Speaking frankly, the [FPI] product is inferior, costs 
     more, and takes longer to procure. [The Federal Prison 
     Industries] has, in my opinion, exploited their special 
     status instead of making changes which would make

[[Page 10740]]

     them more efficient and competitive. The Navy and other 
     Services need your support to change the law and have FPI 
     compete with [private sector] furniture manufacturers. 
     Without this change, we will not be serving Sailors or 
     taxpayers in the most effective and efficient way.

  Mr. President, I yield the floor. I am happy to yield time to my 
distinguished colleague from Michigan.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan has 24 minutes 48 
seconds.
  Mr. LEVIN. How much time would the Senator wish?
  Mr. ABRAHAM. No more than 10 minutes.
  Mr. LEVIN. I am happy to yield 10 minutes to the Senator from 
Michigan.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan is recognized for 10 
minutes.
  Mr. ABRAHAM. Thank you, Mr. President.
  I suspect I will not use all of the time that I have been allotted, 
but I do want to speak here today in opposition to the amendment before 
us offered by the Senator from Texas.
  Especially in light of the grave concerns that all of us share about 
the readiness of our Armed Forces and the significant steps that 
Congress took in the supplemental appropriations bill to address this 
problem, as well as in the budget which we passed earlier this year, I 
strongly believe that section 806 of the defense reauthorization bill 
should be retained.
  This is not because I think that having Federal prisoners working is 
not important. To the contrary, I think it is very important. I firmly 
believe that the development through work, self-discipline and other 
virtues that enable people to lead productive lives is probably the 
single greatest hope for rehabilitation in a prison setting. Indeed, it 
is disappointing that, according to the May 20 Wall Street Journal, 
only 17 percent of Federal prisoners work under the current Federal 
Prison Industries program.
  But providing for national defense is the Federal Government's 
paramount responsibility. Given the very serious problems we are facing 
with respect to our military readiness, we need to take every possible 
step to rectify these problems as quickly and as effectively as 
possible.
  There is no question in my mind that the requirement that the 
Department of Defense contract with FPI for certain products, and 
giving FPI a veto over the Defense Department's going elsewhere, is an 
obstacle to our efforts to fix these problems. The routine, significant 
failure by FPI to provide goods that the Defense Department has 
contracted for on a timely basis--almost half of the time in 1995, and 
over a third of the time in 1996--is simply unacceptable. To have the 
Defense Department depend on FPI for over 300 different products under 
these circumstances is also simply unacceptable.
  Finally, in this era of tight budgets, to be spending precious 
defense resources on FPI goods that we could be obtaining at lower 
prices from the private sector is also unacceptable.
  We should obviously address these problems by allowing the Department 
of Defense to go elsewhere and to do so without getting advance 
permission from FPI. I am glad the Armed Services Committee, at the 
prompting of my colleague, the senior Senator from Michigan, Senator 
Levin, has so provided in the reauthorization bill that recently passed 
out of committee.
  I would add that the provision adopted by the Armed Services 
Committee still requires the Department of Defense to give FPI the 
opportunity to compete for contracts for almost all products and only 
permits the Department of Defense to go elsewhere if it determines that 
the product being offered by FPI is not comparable in price, quality, 
and time of delivery to products available from the private sector.
  The only exceptions are for national security systems, products 
integral to or embedded in a product not available from FPI, or 
products that cost less than $2,500. In those instances, under section 
806, the Department of Defense does not have to seek a bid from FPI, 
but in all other instances DOD would continue to be required to do so.
  It will be argued that we cannot follow this course without 
jeopardizing another important Federal policy, that of putting Federal 
inmates to work. But if that were really our only option, we would be 
facing a much harder choice, since we would arguably be having to 
choose between pursuing a course critical to securing tranquility 
abroad and a course important to securing domestic tranquility. I do 
not believe we are really faced with that dilemma.
  Rather, I am convinced that the limits this legislation imposes on 
the FPI monopoly can plainly be offset by expanding other opportunities 
for prisoners to work. This could be done, for example, by having the 
FPI focus on products that we do not produce domestically and that we 
are now importing from abroad. Or it could be done by putting prisoners 
to work on functions that are currently being assigned to government 
entities such as recycling.
  It will be argued that we should come up with the new opportunities 
first and then consider proposals along the lines of section 806 if the 
other options prove workable. I disagree. I believe we should put the 
needs of our national defense ahead of the needs of prisoners. I have 
no real question that if we do so, we will discover that in fact we are 
able to devise policies that adequately address both sets of needs.
  I will just close by restating what I said last year in a similar 
debate. None of us who are advocating a change in policy here are 
advocating the elimination of work requirements for Federal prisoners. 
But when Federal prisoners in the work they do are taking jobs away 
from law-abiding Americans who have never committed a crime, then I 
think we have to reexamine our policy.
  To me, it makes sense to devise a prison work policy that does not 
injure law-abiding citizens. I believe that requiring the FPI to be 
competitive in its bidding process and not granting it a monopoly are 
the right way to achieve this end. That way the taxpayers are protected 
from paying excessively for furniture or other items that are produced 
by the Prison Industries, and those individuals working in the private 
sector in competition with the Prison Industries have a legitimate 
opportunity to secure government contracts. To me, that is the American 
way, the competitive process.
  To me, if the Federal Prison Industries can't be competitive in that 
setting, where it has so much of a subsidy advantage to begin with, 
then it seems to me that the system isn't working the way it should be.
  I hope that we will vote to retain in place section 806 and that, at 
least in the specific context of the Department of Defense, we will 
follow the lead that has already been laid out by Senator Levin in the 
authorization bill as it comes to the floor.
  To me, that is a sensible course for us to pursue. It strikes the 
right balance. It by no means eliminates the work requirement for 
prisoners, but it does provide people who are law-abiding citizens, 
companies that are law-abiding companies, a chance to do business with 
the government in a very vital and sensitive area, specifically that of 
national security. To me, that is a sensible middle ground. Therefore, 
I hope that our colleagues will vote in opposition to this amendment.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time? The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. This is a matter which the Armed Services Committee 
considered with some care and considerable debate. It is not as if we 
just accepted it. There was discussion, and our former chairman spoke 
very strongly on behalf of the other side of the issue.
  I am just astonished that we cannot seem to convince the prison group 
that competition would be good. It would raise the quality. That is 
what concerns so many of us on the committee. It would provide 
incentives for the Federal Prison Industries to deliver quality goods 
in a timely fashion and at a reasonable price. That is what this whole 
country is predicated on.
  This is interesting. The Department of the Air Force gets 2 million 
plus in launchers, guided-missile launchers,

[[Page 10741]]

fiber optic cable assemblies. People think they are doing little, 
simple things, crafts and so forth, but there is a lot of high-tech 
equipment at the Department of Defense.
  Here is the Army, another guided-missile remote control; the Army, 
launchers, rocket and pyrotech; the Army, fiber rope, cordage; the 
Army, radio and TV communications equipment; the Army, antennas, wave 
guides and related; the Army, fiber optic cable assemblies.
  I mean, these are hardly simple matters. These are very complicated 
systems. We simply have to have quality for the Department of Defense. 
This is what concerns me.
  I could go on into some of the Navy engine electrical systems, all 
kinds of high-tech stuff listed in here. You see the office furniture, 
the office supplies. Here is one for some armor. In other words, we are 
talking about serious business for the Department of Defense. It is 
very serious business. We cannot be giving the strong disadvantage in 
the competitive world to the prisons and have them supply inferior 
equipment. I strongly urge Senators to vote against this amendment.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I have a unanimous consent request. I had 
the good fortune of having Senator Byrd, Senator Hatch and Senator 
Thurmond speak on behalf of my amendment, and those are riches you 
don't turn down. But there have been many points made that I have not 
had an opportunity to respond to. If the Senator is not going to use 
the rest of his time, I would like about 4 minutes to respond. I ask 
unanimous consent that I might have it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I am sorry. I was discussing something with 
the chairman. I know that he is conscience of the time. I am wondering 
whether he might repeat the unanimous consent request so that we could 
both hear it.
  Mr. GRAMM. I am sorry. I didn't hear.
  Mr. LEVIN. I apologize. I was discussing something with the chairman. 
We didn't hear the unanimous consent request relative to time, at least 
I didn't.
  Mr. GRAMM. I do not want to throw off the vote, but I made an opening 
statement. I had several other of my colleagues speak on behalf of my 
amendment more articulately than I was able to, and I am grateful, but 
I would like to have 4 minutes to sort of answer some of the points 
that have been made. It just turned out, because people that were for 
the amendment came to the floor, that they all spoke before any of 
those that were opposed to it had the opportunity to speak. So if it 
doesn't mess up our timetable, I would like to have 4 minutes to 
respond to some of the issues that have been raised.
  Mr. WARNER. We certainly can accede to that. It is a perfectly 
reasonable request. I think my colleague and I will be just about ready 
to yield back the balance of our time. Then we will turn to the 
amendment by the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania. The first 
order of business will be for him to amend the amendment that is at the 
desk. Then we will complete the debate on that, and we should meet the 
target of about 7:00 to have two stacked votes.
  Mr. LEVIN. Reserving the right to object, how much time is left to 
the opponents of Senator Gramm's amendment?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The opponents have 12 minutes 30 seconds. The 
proponents' time has been exhausted.
  Mr. LEVIN. How many seconds?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Thirty seconds, 12 minutes 30 seconds.
  The Senator from Texas is recognized for 4 minutes.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, first of all, let me make it clear, the 
Defense Department does not support this amendment. The Defense 
Department issued a joint report with the Department of Prisons, the 
Federal Bureau of Prisons, outlining ways of improving the system that 
required no legislation. The administration, on behalf of the Defense 
Department and the Department of Justice, opposes the Levin provision 
and supports the amendment that we have offered to strike it.
  The Attorney General supports our motion to strike the Levin 
amendment, as do many groups such as the National Center for Victims of 
Crime.
  It is obviously a very strong argument with me to talk about, ``why 
not competition?'' The problem is, you have to understand the history 
that competition was the rule prior to the Depression. Prior to the 
Depression, virtually everyone in prison in America worked on average 
12 hours a day, 6 days a week. But during the Depression, we passed 
three pieces of legislation, all of them driven by special interests, 
triggered by the Depression, which made it illegal for prisoners to 
work to sell goods in the market. There had been previous provisions so 
that they didn't glut the market in one area, but the problem is, now 
it is criminal for prisoners to work to produce anything to sell in 
America.
  When my colleagues say why not have competition, my answer is, yes, 
let's have it. But you cannot have it without letting prison labor 
compete, and now that is prohibited all over America. The only thing 
left for prisoners today is to produce things that the Government uses. 
That is the only thing that we have not prohibited by law. As a result, 
we have 1.1 million prisoners and about 900,000 of them have no work to 
do.
  If the amendment of Senator Levin passed, 60 percent of the prison 
labor at the Federal level in America would be eliminated because there 
would be no work for these people to do. So this is an argument about 
competition that sounds great until you understand that Government, 
driven by the same groups that support this amendment, eliminated the 
ability to use prison labor to produce and sell anything.
  When you are talking about the taxpayer, it sounds great. But what 
about the taxpayer that is spending $22,000 a year to keep somebody in 
prison and we are not allowing them to work? If taxpayers are working, 
why are they better than taxpayers? Why should they not have to work? 
Why can't we find things in the private sector for them to produce? If 
we can do that, I would support this amendment. I know that many of the 
people who support it would never do that.
  The Defense Department is not for this amendment. They are not for 
the Levin amendment. They are not objecting to the provisions. In fact, 
they just put out a joint report saying the Defense Department supports 
the program with these reforms, which they can undertake without 
legislation.
  So, basically, I believe that the system is not perfect, but it is 
basically a good system where prices are negotiated and the Defense 
Department gets 90 percent of the waivers that they seek. If they don't 
think the quality is right or the price is right or the delivery is 
right, they can ask for a waiver. In 90 percent of the cases, they get 
the waiver.
  This is basically an amendment, I am sad to say, that would idle 60 
percent of Federal prisoners. It would allow private companies to come 
in and take the business. But the point is, when we have full 
employment in America and we have a million prisoners idle, how does it 
make sense to prohibit them from working? I thank my colleague for 
giving me this time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks time?
  Mr. LEVIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the language in the bill that the Senator 
from Texas seeks to strike makes it possible for the private sector to 
compete. That sounds so fundamental in our country that maybe it comes 
as a shock that I would even suggest that you need to have language in 
a bill to permit the private sector to do this. But we do.
  We just want to make it legal for the private sector to offer a 
product to its Government, our Government, and not to have Federal 
Prison Industries say: Sorry, you cannot bid. It is almost bizarre to 
me that we would have to pass

[[Page 10742]]

any kind of legislation for that to come about, but we do because under 
the current law and regulations, Federal Prison Industries has the 
sole, exclusive determining voice. If it says that its product is 
within a range in the market--maybe at the high end of that range, and 
they may be wrong--but once FPI says that, that is it; private business 
cannot compete.
  In a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this week, 
the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, David Oliver, 
described the results of the survey we referred to.
  He said the following:

       I think if you looked at the study, you would see that 
     people were generally not satisfied with Federal Prison 
     Industries as a provider. Essentially, with regard to 
     efficiency, timeliness, and best value, they found that 
     Federal Prison Industries was worse than the other people 
     they bought from.

  Now, we know that the administration has decided to oppose this 
change, to prohibit the private sector from bidding on things that 
Federal Prison Industries says it wants to supply exclusively. So we 
understand what the Department of Defense's official position is. But I 
also understand what the testimony of their acquisition people is. The 
study shows that people were generally not satisfied with Federal 
Prison Industries as a provider with regard to efficiency, timeliness, 
and best value. They found that Federal Prison Industries was worse 
than the other people they bought from.
  I don't believe for one minute that Federal Prison Industries is 
going to be able to sell anything to the Department of Defense just 
because they are going to have to compete. They have such a huge 
advantage in terms of cost and price of labor that they are going to be 
able to sell a huge amount. But they are going to have to compete.
  If a private company can outbid them or provide the same product at a 
cheaper price, then the private company is going to get it. But for the 
Senator from Texas to say, suddenly, that wipes out all of the sales to 
the Department of Defense, that is a terrible indictment about what 
Federal Prison Industries is now doing. That would mean they can't 
compete on anything they are selling to the Department of Defense. That 
is a huge exaggeration. It is not the case.
  But it is the case that now they don't have to compete when they 
decide that the Department of Defense must buy that missile part. If 
Federal Prison Industries says the Department of Defense must buy that 
missile part Senator Warner referred to, that has to happen--even 
though a private contractor can sell a better quality at a better 
price. Once FPI, in its unilateral judgment, says we can supply it 
within a price range of what the private sector can do, that is it, no 
competition. DOD can't bid it out--the opposite of what we should be 
doing in this free enterprise society of ours.
  Mr. President, I hope the language in the Senate bill will be 
retained and that the amendment of the Senator from Texas to strike 
that language will be defeated.
  Mr. WARNER addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia is recognized.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I join my colleague. Again, it was 
carefully considered by the committee. It has very fundamental 
objectives: competition, fairness, and to get quality.
  Mr. President, I am anxious to complete this amendment. I believe the 
Senator from Texas has finished his presentation?
  Mr. GRAMM. Yes, I have.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield back our time.
  Mr. WARNER. I yield back our time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time is yielded back.


                           Amendment No. 383

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate returns to the amendment of the 
Senator from Pennsylvania. The Senator from Pennsylvania controls 5 
minutes 30 seconds, and the Senator from Virginia controls 3 minutes 20 
seconds.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I note that will bring us very close, if 
not precisely, to the hour of 7 o'clock, at which time the managers 
represented to the leadership and other Senators that two back-to-back 
votes would commence.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. SPECTER addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, this amendment provides, simply stated, 
that there shall be no funds expended for ground forces in Yugoslavia, 
in Kosovo, unless specifically authorized by the Congress.
  This amendment is designed to uphold the Constitution of the United 
States, which grants the exclusive authority to declare war to the 
Congress of the United States. Regrettably, there has been a 
significant erosion of this constitutional authority, as Presidents 
have taken over this power without having the Congress stand up. The 
one place where the Congress clearly has authority to determine 
military action is by controlling the purse strings. This amendment 
goes to the heart of that issue by prohibiting that spending.
  It has been a lively and spirited debate. Now we will have an 
opportunity to say whether the Senate will seek to uphold the 
Constitution and whether the Senate will seek to uphold its own 
institutional authority--the institutional authority of the Congress to 
determine whether the United States should be involved in war.
  A few of the problems which have been raised have been clarified. The 
amendment has been modified, and I ask that it formally be approved 
with the concurrence of the managers.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, there is no objection to the Senator 
sending to the desk the amendment as modified.
  Mr. SPECTER. I thank the general counsel of the committee for helping 
me on the modification that we have worked out so that the restriction 
will not apply to intelligence operations, to rescue operations, or to 
military emergencies.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, there is no objection on this side.
  Mr. THURMOND. Will the Senator from Pennsylvania add me as a 
cosponsor?
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator 
Thurmond be added as a cosponsor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SPECTER. I thank the Senator from South Carolina.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment is so modified.
  The amendment (No. 383), as modified, is as follows:

       At the appropriate place in title X, insert the following:

     SEC.   . LIMITATION ON DEPLOYMENT OF GROUND TROOPS IN THE 
                   FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA.

       (a) None of the funds authorized or otherwise available to 
     the Department of Defense may be obligated or expended for 
     the deployment of ground troops of the United States Armed 
     Forces in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, except for 
     peacekeeping personnel, unless authorized by a declaration of 
     war or a joint resolution authorizing the use of military 
     force.
       (b) The prohibition in subsection (a) shall not apply to 
     intelligence operations, or to missions to rescue United 
     States military personnel or citizens of the United States, 
     or otherwise meet military emergencies, in the Federal 
     Republic of Yugoslavia.

  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, the main argument against this amendment 
has been that the President has said that he would come to Congress in 
advance of deploying ground troops. He made that commitment in a 
meeting at the White House on April 28. Then he sent a letter, which is 
substantially equivocal, saying that he will fully consult with the 
Congress, and that he would ask for congressional support before 
introducing U.S. ground forces into Kosovo, into a nonpermissive 
environment.
  That doesn't go far enough.
  The distinguished chairman has reported that the Secretary of 
Defense, the Secretary of State, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs 
of Staff have confirmed that there would be congressional 
authorization.
  That doesn't go far enough.
  We are a government of laws--not a government of men. And minds may 
be changed. We ought to be sure we have this nailed down.

[[Page 10743]]

  This amendment is entirely consistent with what the Senate has 
heretofore done--58 to 41 to authorize air strikes but no ground 
forces. Seventy-seven Senators voted not to grant the President 
authority to use whatever force he chose. To remain consistent, those 
77 Senators would have to say, we are not going to allow you to use 
ground forces unless you come to us for approval, just as we said we 
will not allow you to use whatever force you choose, in effect, without 
coming to us for prior approval. Consistency may be the hobgoblin of 
small minds, but consistency and the institutional prerogatives of the 
Congress and the Senate call for an affirmative vote, and I ask for the 
yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, how much time remains for me?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania has 50 seconds.
  Mr. SPECTER. I reserve the remainder of my time.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, the Senator from Michigan wishes to 
address the amendment. We are together on it in the strongest possible 
opposition.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, very briefly, this amendment would send the 
worst possible signal to Milosevic, which is don't worry, weather the 
storm--that even though there is going to be gridlock in the Congress, 
you will be the beneficiary of any gridlock and any effort that 
authorizes in advance the use of ground forces. This is not the message 
which we should be sending to Milosevic--that he would be the 
beneficiary of the congressional gridlock, which would almost certainly 
occur before any such resolutions could be passed.
  I hope we will not send that signal to Milosevic. I think our troops 
deserve better. Our commanders deserve better.
  The administration believes so strongly in this that a veto would 
almost certainly occur, if this provision were in, and understandably 
so, because the hands of our commanders in the field would be tied by 
this resolution. They would have to come to Congress to see whether or 
not the terms were met. That is not the way to fight either a war or to 
engage in combat.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, in the course of the afternoon, as I said 
to my good friend and colleague, some 40 Senators have received the 
benefit of a full debate with the Secretaries of State and Defense, and 
the President's National Security Adviser, Mr. Berger, and with the 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Three times--twice by this Senator, one 
by another Senator--this very issue was posed to the national security 
team. They said without any equivocation whatsoever that the President 
would formally come to the Congress and seek legislation, not unlike 
what is described in this amendment prior to any change. In other 
words, the President of the United States is presently unchanged in the 
course of action that he is recommending to other leaders of the NATO 
nations, and the matter remains and will not be changed with reference 
to ground troops unless the President comes up and seeks from the 
Congress of the United States formal legislative action.
  I say to my good friend that I think we have achieved, in essence, 
what he seeks. As I pointed out in my first comments this morning and, 
indeed, in the title to the first amendment prior to the amending by 
the Senator from Pennsylvania, he referred to the War Powers Act, this 
is precisely what this debate is--a debate over the War Powers Act. 
That debate has not in my 21 years in this body ever been resolved, and 
I doubt it is going to be resolved on this vote.
  I yield the floor and yield back the time.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I reject the argument of the Senator from 
Virginia who wants to rely on assurances. This is a government of laws, 
and not men, and you get it done by this amendment.
  I reject the argument of the Senator from Michigan who says it is a 
bad signal to Milosevic. Whatever signal goes to Milosevic from this 
amendment has already been sent by the assurances of the President.
  It is a bad signal to America to tell the Country that the Congress 
is delegating its authority to involve this Nation in war to the 
President. We don't have the authority to delegate our constitutional 
authority. Our job is to analyze the facts and let the President come 
to us to state a case for the use of ground forces. I am prepared to 
listen. But, on this record, we ought to maintain the institutional 
authority of Congress and uphold the Constitution.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, does any time remain on our side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes, 10 seconds.
  Mr. LEVIN. Could I use the 10 seconds?
  Mr. WARNER. The Senator from Michigan can use 5, and I will use 5. 
Take 5.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan is recognized.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the Department of Defense strongly opposes 
the amendment because it would unacceptably put at risk the lives of 
U.S. military personnel.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, a vote against this amendment is 
consistent with the provisions of the Constitution of the United 
States.
  I move to table, and I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion to 
table amendment No. 383, as modified. On this question, the yeas and 
nays have been ordered, and the clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The result was announced--yeas 52, nays 48, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 145 Leg.]

                                YEAS--52

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Breaux
     Bryan
     Burns
     Chafee
     Cochran
     Daschle
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Edwards
     Feinstein
     Graham
     Hagel
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Inouye
     Kennedy
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lott
     Lugar
     Mack
     McCain
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Moynihan
     Murray
     Reed
     Reid
     Robb
     Rockefeller
     Roth
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith (OR)
     Warner
     Wyden

                                NAYS--48

     Abraham
     Allard
     Ashcroft
     Bennett
     Bond
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Byrd
     Campbell
     Cleland
     Collins
     Conrad
     Coverdell
     Craig
     Crapo
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Feingold
     Fitzgerald
     Frist
     Gorton
     Gramm
     Grams
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Helms
     Hollings
     Hutchinson
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Murkowski
     Nickles
     Roberts
     Santorum
     Smith (NH)
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stevens
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Thurmond
     Torricelli
     Voinovich
     Wellstone
  The motion was agreed to.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. LEVIN. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.


                       Vote on Amendment No. 392

  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, we yield back time on both sides.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time is yielded back. The question is on 
agreeing to the amendment.
  Mr. GRAMM. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to amendment No. 
392. The yeas and nays have been ordered. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.

[[Page 10744]]

  The result was announced--yeas 49, nays 51, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 146 Leg.]

                                YEAS--49

     Ashcroft
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bond
     Brownback
     Burns
     Byrd
     Campbell
     Chafee
     Cochran
     Coverdell
     Craig
     Crapo
     DeWine
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Fitzgerald
     Gorton
     Graham
     Grams
     Gregg
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hollings
     Hutchison
     Jeffords
     Kerrey
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Lott
     Mack
     McCain
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Nickles
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Roth
     Santorum
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stevens
     Thompson
     Thurmond
     Voinovich

                                NAYS--51

     Abraham
     Akaka
     Allard
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Breaux
     Bryan
     Bunning
     Cleland
     Collins
     Conrad
     Daschle
     Dodd
     Edwards
     Enzi
     Feingold
     Frist
     Gramm
     Grassley
     Hagel
     Helms
     Hutchinson
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerry
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lugar
     Mikulski
     Moynihan
     Murray
     Reed
     Reid
     Robb
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Smith (NH)
     Smith (OR)
     Thomas
     Torricelli
     Warner
     Wellstone
     Wyden
  The amendment (No. 392) was rejected.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I have a motion to reconsider. I enter a 
motion to reconsider the vote, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll to ascertain the 
presence of a quorum.
  The legislative assistant proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, to advise the Senate with regard to the 
important business remaining to be performed tonight, I ask unanimous 
consent that the Senate now proceed to an amendment to be offered by 
Senators McCain and Levin re: BRAC and that there be 3\1/2\ hours of 
debate equally divided between the proponents and opponents.
  I further ask consent that all debate time be consumed during 
Tuesday, May 25, except for 2 hours, to be equally divided, and to 
resume at 11:45 a.m. on Wednesday.
  I further ask consent that the vote occur on or in relation to the 
BRAC amendment on Wednesday at 1:45 p.m. and no amendments be in order 
to the amendment prior to the 1:45 p.m. vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WARNER. Now, Mr. President, in light of this agreement, there 
will be no reinstitution of a vote tonight. It is not the leader's 
desire; I wish to make that clear.
  Mr. GRAMM. My intention would be to try to have the reconsideration 
tomorrow.
  Mr. WARNER. I thank the Senator.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I wonder whether or not we might be able to 
schedule an amendment earlier in the morning for Senator Kerrey.
  Mr. WARNER. We are working on that.
  Mr. LEVIN. At 10:30; is that the effort?
  Mr. WARNER. That is correct. Let me just finish this and then I think 
it will be clear.
  Now, Mr. President, if I may continue, in light of this agreement, 
there will be no further votes this evening. Senators interested in the 
BRAC debate should remain this evening. The Senate will resume the DOD 
bill at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, and two amendments are expected to be 
offered prior to the 11:45 a.m. resumption of the BRAC debate. 
Therefore, at least one vote, if not more votes, will occur beginning 
at 1:45 p.m. on Wednesday.
  Mr. LEVIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. I wonder if I could inquire of the chairman as to the two 
amendments he is referring to.
  Mr. WARNER. One under consideration is Senator Brownback's, and it 
relates to India and Pakistan and the current sanctions.
  Mr. LEVIN. What was the other amendment?
  Mr. WARNER. Senator Robert Kerrey on strategic nuclear delivery 
systems.
  Mr. LEVIN. And it is the hope of the chairman that both of those be 
debated in the morning?
  Mr. WARNER. I would hope so, together with the remainder of BRAC.
  Mr. LEVIN. I hope that during this evening we will be able to try to 
schedule timing for those amendments, if possible.
  Mr. WARNER. I would be happy to----
  Mr. LEVIN. I do not know the status, particularly, of the first one, 
but I would like to work on that this evening.
  Mr. WARNER. I yield the floor, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks recognition?


                           Amendment No. 393

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, on behalf of myself and Senator Levin, 
Senator Bryan, Senator Leahy, Senator Kohl, Senator Lieberman, Senator 
Robb, Senator Kyl, Senator Hagel, and Senator Chafee, I send an 
amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative assistant read as follows:

       The Senator from Arizona [Mr. McCain], for himself, Mr. 
     Levin, Mr. Bryan, Mr. Leahy, Mr. Kohl, Mr. Lieberman, Mr. 
     Robb, Mr. Kyl, Mr. Hagel, and Mr. Chafee, proposes an 
     amendment numbered 393.

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       On page 450, below line 25, add the following:

     SEC. 2822. AUTHORITY TO CARRY OUT BASE CLOSURE ROUND 
                   COMMENCING IN 2001.

       (a) Commission Matters.--
       (1) Appointment.--Subsection (c)(1) of section 2902 of the 
     Defense Base Closure and Realignment Act of 1990 (part A of 
     title XXIX of Public Law 101-510; 10 U.S.C. 2687 note) is 
     amended--
       (A) in subparagraph (b)--
       (i) by striking ``and'' at the end of clause (ii);
       (ii) by striking the period at the end of clause (iii) and 
     inserting ``; and''; and
       (iii) by adding at the end the following new clause (iv):
       ``(iv) by no later than May 1, 2001, in the case of members 
     of the Commission whose terms will expire on September 30, 
     2002.''; and
       (B) in subparagraph (C), by striking ``or for 1995 in 
     clause (iii) of such subparagraph'' and inserting ``, for 
     1995 in clause (iii) of that subparagraph, or for 2001 in 
     clause (iv) of that subparagraph''.
       (2) Meetings.--Subsection (e) of that section is amended by 
     striking ``and 1995'' and inserting ``1995, and 2001, and in 
     2002 during the period ending on September 30 of that year''.
       (3) Funding.--Subsection (k) of that section is amended by 
     adding at the end the following new paragraph (4):
       ``(4) If no funds are appropriated to the Commission by the 
     end of the second session of the 106th Congress for the 
     activities of the Commission that commence in 2001, the 
     Secretary may transfer to the Commission for purposes of its 
     activities under this part that commence in that year such 
     funds as the Commission may require to carry out such 
     activities. The Secretary may transfer funds under the 
     preceding sentence from any funds available to the Secretary. 
     Funds so transferred shall remain available to the Commission 
     for such purposes until expended.''.
       (5) Termination.--Subsection (1) of that section is amended 
     by striking ``December 31, 1995'' and inserting ``September 
     30, 2002''.
       (b) Procedures.--
       (1) Force-structure plan.--Subsection (a)(1) of section 
     2903 of that Act is amended by adding at the end the 
     following: ``The Secretary shall also submit to Congress a 
     force-structure plan for fiscal year 2002 that meets the 
     requirements of the preceding sentence not later than March 
     30, 2001.''.
       (2) Selection criteria.--Subsection (b) of such section 
     2903 is amended--
       (A) in paragraph (1), by inserting ``and by no later than 
     March 1, 2001, for purposes of activities of the Commission 
     under this part that commence in 2001,'' after ``December 31, 
     1990,''; and
       (B) in paragraph (2)(A)--
       (i) in the first sentence, by inserting ``and by no later 
     than April 15, 2001, for purposes of activities of the 
     Commission under this part that commence in 2001,'' after 
     ``February 15, 1991,''; and
       (ii) in the second sentence, by inserting ``, or enacted on 
     or before May 15, 2001, in the

[[Page 10745]]

     case of criteria published and transmitted under the 
     preceding sentence in 2001'' after ``March 15, 1991''.
       (3) Department of defense recommendations.--Subsection (c) 
     of such section 2903 is amended--
       (A) in paragraph (1), by striking ``and March 1, 1995,'' 
     and inserting ``March 1, 1995, and September 1, 2001,'';
       (B) by redesignating paragraphs (4), (5), and (6) as 
     paragraphs (5), (6), and (7), respectively;
       (C) by inserting after paragraph (3) the following new 
     paragraph (4):
       ``(4)(A) In making recommendations to the Commission under 
     this subsection in 2001, the Secretary shall consider any 
     notice received from a local government in the vicinity of a 
     military installation that the government would approve of 
     the closure or realignment of the installation.
       ``(B) Notwithstanding the requirement in subparagraph (A), 
     the Secretary shall make the recommendations referred to in 
     that subparagraph based on the force-structure plan and final 
     criteria otherwise applicable to such recommendations under 
     this section.
       ``(C) The recommendations made by the Secretary under this 
     subsection in 2001 shall include a statement of the result of 
     the consideration of any notice described in subparagraph (A) 
     that is received with respect to an installation covered by 
     such recommendations. The statement shall set forth the 
     reasons for the result.''; and
       (D) in paragraph (7), as so redesignated--
       (i) in the first sentence, by striking ``paragraph (5)(B)'' 
     and inserting ``paragraph (6)(B)''; and
       (ii) in the second sentence, by striking ``24 hours'' and 
     inserting ``48 hours''.
       (4) Commission review and recommendations.--Subsection (d) 
     of such section 2903 is amended--
       (A) in paragraph (2)(A), by inserting ``or by no later than 
     February 1, 2002, in the case of recommendations in 2001,'' 
     after ``pursuant to subsection (e),'';
       (B) in paragraph (4), by inserting ``or after February 1, 
     2002, in the case of recommendations in 2001,'' after ``under 
     this subsection.''; and
       (C) in paragraph (5)(B), by inserting ``or by no later than 
     October 15 in the case of such recommendations in 2001,'' 
     after ``such recommendations,''.
       (5) Review by president.--Subsection (e) of such section 
     2903 is amended--
       (A) in paragraph (1), by inserting ``or by no later than 
     February 15, 2002, in the case of recommendations in 2001,'' 
     after ``under subsection (d),'';
       (B) in the second sentence of paragraph (3), by inserting 
     ``or by no later than March 15, 2002, in the case of 2001,'' 
     after ``the year concerned,''; and
       (C) in paragraph (5), by inserting ``or by April 1, 2002, 
     in the case of recommendations in 2001,'' after ``under this 
     part,'';
       (c) Closure and Realignment of Installations.--Section 
     2904(a) of that Act is amended--
       (1) by redesignating paragraphs (3) and (4) as paragraphs 
     (4) and (5), respectively; and
       (2) by inserting after paragraph (2) the following new 
     paragraph (3):
       ``(3) carry out the privatization in place of a military 
     installation recommended for closure or realignment by the 
     Commission in a report in 2002 only if privatization in place 
     is a method of closure or realignment of the installation 
     specified in the recommendation of the Commission in the 
     report and is determined to be the most cost effective method 
     of implementation of the recommendation;''.
       (d) Relationship to Other Base Closure Authority.--Section 
     2909(a) of that Act is amended by striking ``December 31, 
     1995,'' and inserting ``September 30, 2002,''.
       (e) Technical and Clarifying Amendments.--
       (1) COmmencement of period for notice of interest in 
     property for homeless.--Section 2905(b)(7)(D)(ii)(I) of that 
     Act is amended by striking ``that date'' and inserting ``the 
     date of publication of such determination in a newspaper of 
     general circulation in the communities in the vicinity of the 
     installation under subparagraph (B)(i)(IV)''.
       (2) Other clarifying amendments.--
       (A) That Act is further amended by inserting ``or 
     realignment'' after ``closure'' each place it appears in the 
     following provisions:
       (i) Section 2905(b)(3).
       (ii) Section 2905(b)(4)(B)(ii).
       (iii) Section 2905(b)(5).
       (iv) Section 2905(b)(7)(B)(iv).
       (v) Section 2905(b)(7)(N).
       (vi) Section 2910(10)(B)
       (B) That Act is further amended by inserting ``or 
     realigned'' after ``closed'' each place it appears in the 
     following provisions:
       (i) Section 2905(b)(3)(C)(ii).
       (ii) Section 2905(b)(3)(D).
       (iii) Section 2905(b)(3)(E).
       (iv) Section 2905(b)(4)(A).
       (v) Section 2905(b)(5)(A).
       (vi) Section 3910(9).
       (vii) Section 2910(10).
       (C) Section 2905(e)(1)(B) of that Act is amended by 
     inserting ``, or realigned or to be realigned,'' after 
     ``closed or to be closed'.

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, this amendment authorizes a single round 
of U.S. military installation realignment and base closures to occur in 
the year 2001.
  It is an argument and a debate that we have had several times in the 
past few years, but obviously the argument deserves to be ventilated 
again. I am reminded, in considering this amendment, of a comment made 
by my old dear and beloved friend, Morris Udall, of my home State of 
Arizona, who once said after a long discussion of an issue that had 
been fairly well ventilated:

       Everything that could possibly be said on this issue has 
     been said, only not everyone has said it.

  I think that, again, will be the case with this base closing 
amendment, because we have been around this track on several occasions. 
But I do have to credit the imagination and inventiveness of the 
opponents of the base closing round because they continue to invent new 
reasons to oppose a round of base closings. They are charming ideas. 
One of them you will probably hear is that base closings don't save 
money. That is a very interesting and entertaining argument. I wish we 
had held to that argument after World War II was over, because we would 
still have some 150 bases in my State of Arizona, which I am sure would 
be a significant benefit to our economy.
  Another aspect of this debate you will hear is that the issue of base 
closings has been politicized and, therefore, we can't have one. I 
think my friend, the distinguished chairman, has come up with a new and 
entertaining argument that every time we go through a base closing, 
every town, city, and State goes through a very difficult period of 
time. I agree with him. I certainly agree with him as he will pose that 
argument. But that doesn't in the slightest change the requirement that 
we need to close some bases.
  I have to tell my friend, the chairman, it doesn't ring true to stand 
and lament the state of the military, our declining readiness, our lack 
of modernization of the force, all of the evils, the recruitment 
problems, and the failure to fund much-needed programs, and then not 
support what is clearly most needed, according to the Chairman of the 
Joint Chiefs of Staff and according to the Secretary of Defense--and 
according, really, to every objective observer of our military 
establishment.
  Why is it that it took us a month to get Apache helicopters from 
Germany to Albania? Why is it that we are now hearing if we decided 
tomorrow to prepare for ground troops--an idea which was soundly 
rejected by this body--but if finally the recognition came about that 
we are really not winning this conflict, that Mr. Milosevic is 
achieving all of his objectives, and we continue to hear great reports 
about how we have destroyed so much of their capability, yet, the 
ethnic cleansing is nearing completion and Mr. Milosevic has more 
troops now than less, why is it that it would take many, many weeks, if 
not months, to get a force in place in order to move into Kosovo to 
help right the atrocities that have been committed there? It is because 
we have not restructured our military establishment. It is that simple.
  The military establishment in the cold war, very correctly, was 
structured for a massive conventional tank war on the plains of Europe, 
the central plains of Europe. That was what our military was all about, 
and that was the major threat to our security. And now we have a 
military, which we have failed to restructure, we have failed to make 
mobile, we have failed to become capable to move anyplace in the 
world--in this case rather a short distance, from Germany to Albania--
and, once there, decisively impact the battlefield equation. There are 
many reasons for this.
  There was a great article in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago 
about how the Army had plans to restructure; yet, at the end of the 
day, they failed to do so for various reasons--by the way, the lesson 
being that the military will not restructure itself. It has to be done 
with an active role by the Congress.
  But to sit here, as we are today, with all these shortages, where all 
of us are lamenting the incredible problems we have; yet, we then 
support a base structure which cannot be justified for any logical 
reason, is something that I

[[Page 10746]]

think causes us great credibility problems--first, with people who pay 
attention to these kinds of things, and, second, at the end of the day 
with the American people.
  I say this with full realization and appreciation that there are 
bases in my home State that may be in danger of being closed. There was 
a base closed in the round of base closings before the last one, which, 
by the way, is now generating more revenue for the State of Arizona 
than it did while it was a functioning military base. But setting that 
aside, when the base was closed, of course, there was great trauma. 
There was great dislocation among many civilians who worked out at 
Williams Air Force Base. But the fact is that we have to reduce the 
size of our base structures or we will continue to not be able to fund 
the much-needed improvements that are absolutely vital to us being able 
to conduct a conflict or war.
  Our former colleague, Secretary Cohen, says.

       Nevertheless, no other reform even comes close to offering 
     the potential savings afforded by even a single round of 
     BRAC. There simply is no substitute for base closure and 
     realignment.
       The two additional rounds under consideration will 
     ultimately save $20 billion and generate $3.6 billion 
     annually,
       Moreover, the Department continues to streamline the 
     process, making it even easier for communities to dispose of 
     base property and to create new jobs in the future.

  The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff wrote:

       We are writing to you to express our strong and unified 
     support for authorization for additional rounds of base 
     closures . . . .

                           *   *   *   *   *

       The importance of BRAC goes beyond savings, however. BRAC 
     is the single most effective tool available to the Services 
     to realign their infrastructure to meet the needs of changing 
     organizations and to respond to new ways of doing business. 
     No other initiative can substitute for BRAC in terms of 
     ability to reduce and reshape our infrastructure. Simply 
     stated, our military judgment is that further base closures 
     are absolutely necessary.

  Signed by all of the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
  I ask unanimous consent that the letter from Secretary Cohen and the 
letter from the Joint Chiefs of Staff be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the letters were ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                         The Secretary of Defense,


                                        1000 Defense Pentagon,

                                     Washington, DC, May 11, 1999.
     Hon. Carl Levin,
     Ranking Member, Armed Services Committee,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Carl: As I have on many occasions, I want to convey my 
     strong support for approval of additional rounds of Base 
     Realignment and Closure (BRAC) authority as part of the FY 
     2000 Department of Defense Authorization Bill, which the 
     Senate Armed Services Committee is marking up this week.
       As you are aware, the first three rounds of BRAC have 
     already yielded some $3.9 billion net savings in FY 1999 and 
     will generate more than $25 billion by the year 2003. These 
     savings have proven absolutely critical to sustaining ongoing 
     operations and current levels of military readiness, 
     modernization and the quality of life of our men and women in 
     uniform. Even still, the General Accounting Office (GAO) 
     points out that the Department of Defense continues to retain 
     excess infrastructure, which we estimate at roughly 23 
     percent beyond our needs.
       As you know, we are aggressively reforming the Department's 
     business operations and support infrastructure to realize 
     savings wherever possible. Nevertheless, no other reform even 
     comes close to offering the potential savings afforded by 
     even a single round of BRAC. There simply is no substitute 
     for base closure and realignment.
       The two additional rounds under consideration by the 
     Committee will ultimately save $20 billion and generate $3.6 
     billion dollars annually. Both the Congressional Budget 
     Office and the GAO affirm the reasonableness and credibility 
     of our estimates for savings from BRAC. In exchange for 
     property that we neither want nor need, we can direct $3.6 
     billion on an annual basis into weapons that give our troops 
     a life-saving edge, into training that keeps our forces the 
     finest in the world, and into the quality of life of military 
     families.
       I well appreciate both the difficult decision you and your 
     colleagues now face, as well as the legitimate concerns of 
     bases and communities potentially affected by additional 
     rounds of BRAC. At the same time, many success stories across 
     the nation prove that base closure and realignment can 
     actually lead to increased economic growth. In fact, the GAO 
     recently noted that in most post-BRAC communities incomes are 
     actually rising faster and unemployment rates are lower than 
     the national average. Moreover, the Department continues to 
     streamline the process, making it even easier for communities 
     to dispose of base property and to create new jobs in the 
     future.
       The Department's ability to properly support America's men 
     and women in uniform today and to sustain them into the 
     future hinge in great measure on realizing the critical 
     savings that only BRAC can provide. As such, the Chairman and 
     Joint Chiefs are unanimous in their support of our 
     legislative proposals, and I most strongly solicit your 
     support and that of your colleagues.
     Bill Cohen.
                                  ____

                                                   Chairman of the


                                        Joint Chiefs of Staff,

                                     Washington, DC, May 10, 1999.
     Hon. John Warner,
     Chairman, Committee on Armed Services,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Chairman: We are writing to you to express our 
     strong and unified support for authorization for additional 
     rounds of base closures when the Senate Armed Services 
     Committee marks up the FY 2000 Department of Defense 
     Authorization Bill next week.
       Previous BRAC rounds are already producing savings--$3.9 
     billion net in 1999 and $25 billion thorugh 2003. We believe 
     that two additional rounds of BRAC will produce even more 
     savings--an additional $3.6 billion each year after 
     implementation. This translates directly into the programs, 
     forces, and budgets that support our national military 
     strategy. Without BRAC, we will not have the maximum possible 
     resources to field and operate future forces while protecting 
     quality of life for our military members. We will also be 
     less able to provide future forces with the modern equipment 
     that is central to the plans and vision we have for 
     transforming the force.
       The Department's April 1998 report to Congress demonstrates 
     that 23 percent excess capacity exists. The Congressional 
     Budget Office agrees that our approach to estimating excess 
     capacity yields a credible estimate. The General Accounting 
     Office also agrees that DOD continues to retain excess 
     capacity.
       The importance of BRAC goes beyond savings, however. BRAC 
     is the single most effective tool available to the Services 
     to realign their infrastructure to meet the needs of changing 
     organizations and to respond to new ways of doing business. 
     No other initiative can substitute for BRAC in terms of 
     ability to reduce and reshape infrastructure. Simply stated, 
     our military judgment is that further base closures are 
     absolutely necessary.
       BRAC will enable us to better shape the quality of the 
     forces protecting America in the 21st century. As you 
     consider the 2000 budget, we ask you to support this 
     proposal.
                                    General Henry H. Shelton, USA,
                                  Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff.
                                    General Dennis J. Reimer, USA,
                                          Chief of Staff, US Army.
                                    General Michael E. Ryan, USAF,
                                     Chief of Staff, US Air Force.
                                  General Joseph W. Ralston, USAF,
                             Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff.
                                      Admiral Jay L. Johnson, USN,
                                        Chief of Naval Operations.
                                   General Charles C. Krulak, USMC
                                   Commandant of the Marine Corps.

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, as I said at the beginning of my remarks, 
we have been over this many, many times. The annual net savings from 
previous BRAC rounds will grow from almost $4 billion this year to 
$5.67 billion per year by 2001. The savings are real. They are coming 
sooner and are greater than anticipated.
  GAO recently noted that in most communities where bases were closed 
incomes are actually rising faster and unemployment rates are lower 
than the national average. Additionally, a provision in the bill allows 
for the no-cost transfer of property from the military to the community 
in areas that are affected by the closures.
  Our Armed Services are carrying the burden of managing and paying for 
an estimated 23 percent of excess infrastructure that will cost $3.6 
billion this year alone, $3.6 billion that could be spent in efforts to 
retrain our pilots who are getting out faster than we can train them. 
It could be spent on recruiting qualified men and women of which there 
are significant shortfalls, especially in the U.S. Navy. It could be 
spent on retaining the highly qualified men and women who are leaving 
the Armed Forces in droves. There are so many things we can do with an 
additional $3.6 billion. But it will probably not happen.
  I want to tell my colleagues that occasionally we lose credibility 
around here because of some of the things we

[[Page 10747]]

do--the pork barrel spending, for example, that seems to be on the rise 
rather than decreasing, if you had the chance to examine the 
supplemental emergency bill we just passed. That, of course, is not 
pleasant for me to contemplate.
  But when we are fooling around with national security, when we are 
fooling around with our Nation's ability to defend our vital national 
interests in these very unsettling times, then I would argue that we 
bear a heavy responsibility.
  This is a simple amendment--one round, year 2001. The Commission is 
not appointed until May 2001. So this President does not have any hand 
in the appointment of a base closing commission. We really need two 
rounds. But this is at the request of the Senator from Michigan. It 
will only be one round.
  Savings over the next 4 years are conservatively estimated to reach 
$25 billion. We probably won't do it. We probably won't do it. We 
couldn't do it in the Armed Services Committee, the committee that is 
supposed to have the most knowledgeable people on national defense.
  Again, there are really some of the most interesting arguments I have 
ever heard. We save money by not closing bases. That is an interesting 
argument. Again, I wish we had never closed a base after World War II, 
using that logic. Or perhaps we should build more bases. The fact is 
that this causes discomfort to towns, communities, and States around 
the country when a base closing commission is appointed. I agree with 
that. I am sorry that happens. I stack that discomfort up against the 
fact that we still have 11,000 enlisted men and women on food stamps.
  I hope we will have the American people at least weigh in on this 
issue, because they understand. They get it. They get what is going on 
here. They get why we are not having a base closing round when we need 
it. They know why it is being done. It will not pass but for one simple 
reason; that is, strictly parochial concerns that somehow there may be 
some political backlash associated with the closure of a base. I find 
that disgraceful.
  I appeal again to the better angels of our nature, and recognize that 
every military expert within the military establishment, both within 
the Government and without, says that we need to close bases. We need 
to have a base closing round, and we do not have to make it political.
  We have put in every possible constraint to prevent there being so 
many. We need to do it soon. Otherwise, we will continue to suffer in 
our capability. We will continue to suffer in our readiness. We will 
continue to suffer in our modernization. But most of all, these brave 
young men and women who serve our country will be shortchanged because 
we will not have adequate funds.
  I know a lot of these young people do not vote. I know a lot of them 
don't even get absentee ballots. Many of them are stationed far away. 
But I think perhaps we ought to have concern about them in how these 
funds can improve their lives and keep many of them in the military and 
keep our Nation ready to defend itself.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, will the Senator from Arizona yield 10 
minutes?
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
Senator from Rhode Island.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. REED. I thank the Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. President, I rise in support of this amendment that would 
authorize a single round of base closures during the year 2001. I 
commend both the Senator from Arizona and the Senator from Michigan for 
presenting this amendment to the Senate today.
  I am well aware that we all recognize this is a very sensitive issue, 
because it potentially impacts the constituents of each and every one 
of the Members of the Senator.
  My home State of Rhode Island is no exception to this. We are the 
proud home to a significant presence of the U.S. Navy, both at the 
Naval War College and the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport.
  We have a tradition of Naval service in Rhode Island. As in every 
other State, we are sensitive to the potential vulnerabilities of 
another round of base closures. But I, for one, recognize the 
imperative nature of doing this, for many of the reasons that were so 
well outlined by the Senator from Arizona.
  We have already in the past in Rhode Island--and I suspect in other 
places around the country--suffered from cutbacks. In fact, before the 
base closing process was established back in the early 1970s, one of 
our major bases, Quonset Point Air Station, was closed and, indeed, we 
lost effectively all of the surface ships that used to regularly be 
stationed in Newport. The result was traumatic to my home State.
  Rhode Island is the smallest State in the country. Every family in 
Rhode Island either had some connection to Quonset Point Air Station or 
knew someone who worked there. Whole families had to leave the State. 
Many moved down to Wilmington, NC, where there was another naval 
aviation center. It caused great trauma and it set our economy back 
tremendously. In fact, we are still trying to reestablish and 
regenerate that site.
  But despite all of that--despite the real costs to individuals, the 
real costs to families--we have to do this in order to maintain a 
national defense that will truly be efficient and effective.
  It is difficult to talk about this issue and to tell constituents 
that there might be another round of base closings, but it is 
absolutely necessary. We are maintaining a cold war military structure 
in terms of bases. Yet, we know we need to reform and to reorganize. We 
will face new threats in the century beyond with a cold war military 
structure.
  As the Senator from Arizona said, we organized so much of our 
military to support a huge landforce that was designed to counterattack 
a threat from the former Soviet Union. That has mercifully evaporated 
with the demise of the Soviet Union. The new threats to our national 
security are different. Yet, we still have the same cold war base 
infrastructure which we must reform, and the only practical way to do 
that is to organize another round of base closings.
  It is a difficult decision, but it is a decision that we must make.
  The numbers speak for themselves. This is almost a mathematical 
equation in terms of what we must do. We are maintaining approximately 
23 percent extra capacity in the Department of Defense in terms of our 
bases. If you look at our force structure, the troops in the field, the 
men and women who are actually the war-fighters who defend the Nation 
every day, we have reduced those numbers by 36 percent since 1989. Yet, 
we have only been able to reduce our infrastructure by 21 percent. 
There is an imbalance. We have a smaller force structure. Yet we still 
have much of the old real estate that we accumulated from World War II 
all the way through the cold war.
  We already embarked on limited base reductions in previous base 
closing rounds. We have saved approximately $3.9 billion to date. It is 
estimated that the base closing process that has already taken place 
will yield $25 billion by the year 2003.
  Those are the significant savings. Yet, we hear lots of folks 
disputing the savings. I think everyone in America recognizes that when 
you close unnecessary bases, you save money. That is what corporate 
America has been doing now for the last 10 years. That is, in fact, one 
of the reasons why American productivity and American corporate profits 
are soaring and Wall Street is reflecting those results. It is because 
American businesses have the flexibility to close unwanted facilities, 
many times painfully so, to small communities.

[[Page 10748]]

  But in the military establishment, we have denied our managers--the 
Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and his 
colleagues--that same type of flexibility. We have done it in a way 
which has retarded our ability to save billions of dollars which we 
need for other priorities in the Department of Defense.
  Another charge was raised in this discussion about why base closings 
shouldn't be pursued at this moment. It said that there is no effective 
audit of these savings. In many respects, what we have saved, if you 
will, are costs that would have been incurred. They are foregone. They 
won't be incurred. It is difficult to audit some things you won't spend 
money on, but those savings are equally real.
  We have a situation where we know we have saved money in previous 
base closing rounds--billions of dollars. And we know through estimates 
that we will save in this round additional money if we authorize an 
additional round of base closings. This is an estimate that has been 
agreed to by both the Congressional Budget Office and the General 
Accounting Office. They estimated there is excess capacity, that we can 
save money by another round of base closings.
  There is another argument that has been raised to try to defeat the 
notion of a new round of base closings: That the environmental cleanup 
costs associated with closing bases eats up all the savings.
  The reality, legally, is that the Department of Defense is 
responsible for these cleanup costs regardless of whether they keep the 
bases open or they close them. The only difference is an accounting 
difference. When you close a base, there is much more of an accelerated 
cleanup so the property can be turned over to civilian authority. In 
terms of the dollar responsibility, the contingent liabilities out 
there for cleanup of military bases remain the same, regardless of 
whether we have a base closing round or we just simply let these excess 
bases continue to operate. That, too, is not a reason to defeat the 
notion of a base closing round today.
  As the Senator from Arizona pointed out, this is the top priority of 
the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 
the Service Secretaries, the uniformed heads of our military services. 
They all know that they need additional dollars for higher priority 
items than some of these bases.
  Last September, the Service Chiefs came to the Senate Armed Services 
Committee and said they needed more resources to do the job. We were 
quite forthcoming. In fact, we authorized $8.3 billion over the 
President's budget request. Yet, when they say they equally need the 
closing of excess bases, we ignore their plea--equally fervent, equally 
important, equally necessary for the success of the Department of 
Defense, yet we ignore this plea.
  Some of this has been a result of claims that the last base closing 
round was politicized. This proposal is that the process be conducted 
in the year 2001, which is beyond the term of this administration. I 
think the argument of politicization is false because whatever 
confidence or lack of confidence you have in this current 
administration, this proposal, this amendment, would carry it beyond 
this administration into the next administration.
  Mr. WARNER. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. REED. I am happy to yield to the Senator.
  Mr. WARNER. That is the problem that troubles the Senator from 
Virginia the most--the California and Texas experiences.
  As I listened to my good friend from Arizona, he made rational 
positions and I agree with him; the Senator from New Jersey made 
rational positions.
  However, the practical thing that will happen if the Congress of the 
United States were to enact a base closure bill--this bill--the day 
after the signature is affixed by the President, the work begins in the 
Department of Defense down at the level of the services to work up the 
list of communities which, in the judgment of the Army, the Navy, the 
Air Force and certain DOD facilities is to be boarded up, and 
eventually it goes to the BRAC Commission.
  True, the next President would appoint that BRAC Commission. But the 
staff work would have been done.
  The communities all across America, as my good friend from Arizona 
pointed out in repeating my statement, become suddenly on full alert 
that it could be their base. They have a long tradition in this country 
of embracing that base. It is not just because of economic reasons and 
jobs. It is also, as the Senator well knows, because of the tradition 
in the community.
  Does the Senator realize I was the Secretary of the Navy who closed 
the largest naval base and destroyer base in your State? Your 
predecessor, Senator Pastore, brought this humble public servant, the 
Secretary of the Navy, down to the caucus room of the Senate of the 
Russell Building before more cameras than I have ever seen and grilled 
me for hour after hour after hour, together with the Chief of Naval 
Operations. That convinced me that we had to have a process called 
BRAC.
  I say with humility I was the coauthor of the first BRAC statute, 
coauthor of the second BRAC statute. Then I lost confidence in BRAC 
because of what the Senator just said--the politicization of the 
process as it related to decisions in California and Texas. If we were 
to pass this all over America, these communities would suddenly begin 
to wonder: Will politics play as the bureaucrats in the Department of 
Defense begin their assigned task to work up those lists that slowly go 
to the top and eventually to the BRAC Commission?
  Mr. President, that is the problem. That is a problem shared by so 
many of our colleagues. That was the problem that was shared by the 
majority of our committee, the Armed Services Committee, on which we 
all serve with great pride. In two instances, that committee turned 
down the proposal which the Senators bring before the Senate tonight. 
That is the process.
  Mr. McCAIN. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. REED. I yield.
  Mr. McCAIN. If the Senator doesn't like the fact that it upsets the 
communities but believes that we need to close bases, does the Senator 
have another solution?
  Mr. WARNER. Yes, the solution, regrettably, I say to my good friend, 
is that we have to wait until the next President determines whether or 
not in his judgment we should have a BRAC Commission and he comes 
before the Congress and he requests it.
  I will commit right now, no matter who wins the office of the 
Presidency, including, if I may say with great respect, yourself, I 
would be the first to sponsor a BRAC Commission under the McCain 
administration and I will work relentlessly to get it through the 
Senate.
  But that would be the moment that the bureaucracy begins to work up 
the list of the communities.
  Mr. McCAIN. May I just say with all due respect, if I may, the 
amendment calls for a base closing commission to be appointed in May of 
2001. The election takes place in November of the year 2000, as I seem 
to recollect; some 5 or 6 months later is when the commission is 
appointed.
  The logic of the Senator from Virginia, in all due respect to my 
chairman, escapes me. There will be a new President of the United 
States, there will be a new Secretary of Defense. Obviously, the 
chairman doesn't trust or have confidence in the Secretary of Defense 
and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, both of whom sent over 
compelling statements and letters. So if it is a new President that you 
want, there will be a new President.
  If I get this right, what the distinguished chairman is saying is 
that we will just put everything on hold for a year or two until we get 
a new President, then we can start a process?
  This amendment says there will be a new President, there will be a 
new Secretary of Defense, there will be a new Chairman of the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff, as a matter of fact, and that is what this amendment 
contemplates.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I reply to both friends, this is a very 
interesting colloquy.

[[Page 10749]]

  First, I hope my good friend would amend it that the Secretary of 
Defense--perhaps he could stay on and I would join at that point; I 
have the highest confidence in the Secretary of Defense.
  Mr. McCAIN. The Senator has a strange way of displaying that 
confidence if you don't agree with his primary and most important 
recommendation.
  Mr. WARNER. But, I say to my good friend, it is not the Secretary. 
The work begins literally down in the bowels of that building, in which 
I was privileged to remain for 5\1/2\ years, down at the low level of 
the staff beginning to work up those lists. And that political problem 
that arose in California and Texas could begin to creep into those 
basement and lower areas in the Pentagon, begin to influence those 
decisions which would gravitate to the top.
  Mr. LEVIN. Will the Senator from Rhode Island yield?
  Mr. REED. If I can retain my time.
  Mr. McCAIN. In all due respect to my friend from Virginia, he knows 
where that California and Texas thing came from. It didn't come from 
the bowels of the Pentagon; it came from the White House. That is why, 
as he knows, we are saying this Commission should only convene after 
there is a new President of the United States.
  Mr. WARNER. I agree with that. That is precisely why I object, 
because that same White House could begin to communicate down with 
those good, honest, hard-working GS-14 employees of the Department of 
Defense. That is where it could start.
  Mr. LEVIN. If the Senator will yield, the Senator from Virginia said 
how much confidence he has in the Secretary of Defense. Is the Senator 
suggesting that the Secretary of Defense is going to stand by while 
some political person from somewhere reaches around him into the bowels 
of the Pentagon to give a signal that some base should not be 
considered?
  It is because our good friend from Virginia did not want there to be 
any possibility of any political involvement by anybody that we delayed 
the date for the Secretary of Defense to transmit the base closure 
recommendations to September 1, 2002.
  The new President and the new Secretary of Defense--or the current 
one, if he is continued--will have until September 1 to transmit the 
base closure recommendation. We delayed it 6 months because the 
Senator, in committee, said he was concerned that the preliminary work 
could be done now and somehow or other, unbeknownst to an honest 
Secretary of Defense--who I think our good friend would concede is an 
honest one----
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I do.
  Mr. LEVIN. This work would begin and somehow or other it would take 
hold.
  So we delayed the transmittal to September 1 of the year after the 
new President is elected, 6 months--more than that, 8 months after the 
new President is in office.
  It seems to me at this point that the argument about politicization 
is now being used as an excuse not to act. We have done everything we 
possibly can to eliminate any possibility of that. The new President is 
not required to transmit names for a base closure commission. As the 
good Senator from Virginia knows, if the new President does not want a 
base closing round, he or she need not have it. That is the law. All 
the new President has to do is not nominate anybody.
  So you have total control in the new President. You have 9 months to 
submit the recommendations. At this point, the politicization argument, 
it seems to me--talking about reaching down? I think the good Senator, 
my good friend, is reaching back.
  Mr. McCAIN. Could I ask my friend from Virginia, would he agree to an 
amendment which had the base closing round begin in the year 2002?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, the answer is very simple: No. Because the 
moment the ink is dry and this becomes law--would the Senator not agree 
with me that the staff work begins on this the day it becomes law? The 
decisions begin to be made. The communities all across America go on 
full alert. The communities begin to hire expensive consultants to help 
them in the process, to prepare their case so that community is not 
struck. Am I not correct? Does any one of the three wish to dispute 
that the work begins at the bureaucratic level, by honest, 
conscientious individuals----
  Mr. McCAIN. I ask my friend----
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair reminds the Members of the Senate, 
the Senator from Rhode Island controls the time.
  Mr. McCAIN. I ask unanimous consent that we continue this colloquy 
and maybe, to make the sides even, the Senator from Maine would like to 
engage us as well.
  Mr. WARNER. I would welcome the Senator from Maine. That resonant 
voice will reverberate through this Chamber with a reasonable approach 
to this.
  Mr. LEVIN. May I suggest, if the Senator will yield, that the Senator 
needs the support and help of the Senator from Maine. But before that 
suggestion resonates through this Chamber, I will say just one other 
thing. Would the Senator accept an amendment that says no staff work 
can begin until January 21 of the year 2000? If we added that language 
in the bowels of the Pentagon, nobody----
  Mr. WARNER. Or at any level.
  Mr. McCAIN. There would be no movement.
  Mr. LEVIN. I want the record to be clear, that comment came from the 
prime sponsor of this legislation.
  That there would not be a computer keyboard touched in the bowels or 
any level of the Pentagon prior to January 21 of next year--would the 
Senator accept that amendment?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, in the course of the deliberation in the 
Armed Services Committee I came up with a phrase. I said there was no 
way to write into law the word ``trust.'' Therefore, my answer to my 
good friend is: No.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island controls the 
time.
  Mr. REED. Briefly, because I know my colleagues are eager to continue 
in colloquy, but in response to the chairman, most of what I think was 
the initiative, if you will, involved in the last base closing, came 
after the particular bases were identified for closing by the 
Commission. It was not a question where political decisions were made 
to close bases. I think, rather, political decisions were made to try 
to avoid and go around the work of the Commission. So the Commission 
process is, I think we would all agree, as unpolitical as you can get. 
The research in the bowels of the Pentagon is, I think, similarly 
nonpolitical. If it is not, then we have more worries than a base 
closing commission, if we have GS-14s doing political deeds for anyone 
rather than looking rationally and logically at the needs of the 
service and the infrastructure to support those needs.
  If the administration was guilty of politicization, then shame on 
them. But we are running the risk of, ourselves, politicizing this 
process. We are running the risk of rejecting the logic.
  The overwhelming conclusion I think any rational person could draw is 
that we have to start closing bases. The base closing mechanism is the 
best way to do that, and we are in a situation where, if we resist 
this, if we cannot find a formulation, we are going to politicize it 
worse than anything that is purported to have been done by the 
administration.
  I strongly support the measure offered by the Senator from Arizona 
and the Senator from Michigan. We have an opportunity to align our 
force structure and our base structure to give resources to the 
Department of Defense, to support the really pressing needs of our 
troops, to retain them, to train them, to provide them a quality of 
life they deserve.
  When you go out to visit troops--I know everyone here on this floor 
today does that frequently--what those young troops are worried about 
is: Do they have the best training, best equipment, and are their 
families well taken care of? They do not worry about whether we have a 
base in Oregon or a base in Texas or a base in Rhode Island. They worry 
about their training, their readiness for the mission, their weapons, 
and whether their families

[[Page 10750]]

are taken care of. If we listen to them, we will support this 
amendment.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Rhode Island for 
the very strong and, I think, thoughtful statement. He is a much valued 
member of the committee. I appreciate his efforts in this area.
  I do not like to belabor my old and dear friend, the former Secretary 
of the Navy and chairman of the committee. Our respect and friendship 
is mutual. It has been there for many, many years.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, if I may say, it will be there for an 
eternity.
  Mr. McCAIN. I thank my friend from Virginia.
  I do have to mention one other aspect of this issue that is 
important, and then I know the Senator from Maine has been patiently 
waiting.
  We do have a credibility problem here. We are asking these young 
people to do without. Some of them right now are in harm's way. We ask 
them to spend time in the middle of the desert and the middle of Bosnia 
under very difficult, sometimes nearly intolerable conditions. We have 
an Air Force that is half the size of what it was at the time of Desert 
Storm, and it has four times the commitments. We simply do not have a 
military that we can sustain under the present conditions.
  If we are not willing to make a sacrifice of the possibility of a 
base closure in our home State, how in the world can we ask these young 
people to risk their lives? This is an issue of credibility. If we are 
going to make the kind of changes necessary to restructure the 
military, there are going to have to be some very tough decisions made. 
Base closing is just one of them. But if we cannot even make a decision 
to have a base closing commission, on the recommendation of every 
expert inside and outside the defense establishment of the United 
States of America, then I do not think we have any credibility in other 
decisions that the committee or the Senate will make.
  I realize that bases are at risk. I realize there can be economic 
dislocation. I recommend and I recognize all those aspects of a base 
closing commission. But for us to tell these young men and women, whom 
we are asking to sacrifice and take risks, that we will not take the 
political risk of approving the base of the base closing commission 
that would convene under the tenure of the next President of the United 
States under the most fair and objective process that we know how to 
shape, then, Mr. President, we deserve neither our credibility with 
them nor their trust.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Smith of New Hampshire). The Senator from 
Maine is recognized.
  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the amendment that 
has been offered by Senator McCain and Senator Levin concerning the 
establishment of another Base Closing Commission process in the year 
2001.
  It is not a matter of when it is established. It is not a matter by 
whom it is appointed. I think the question is whether or not the 
Department of Defense and this administration has answered the 
questions that have been raised time and time again in the committee 
and on the floor of this Senate with respect to a number of issues that 
justify having another base closing round. Having been involved in the 
four previous rounds, I can tell you it raises a number of issues with 
respect to the efficiency and the effectiveness of base closings.
  We are seeing already with our commitment in Kosovo the Defense 
Department cannot continue to decide which installations to downsize or 
close by making arbitrary comparisons to personnel reductions. Just 
since the hostilities began in March, we have seen the Pentagon divert 
a carrier battle group to the Adriatic leaving the western Pacific 
without a carrier for the first time in decades.
  It has contributed more than 400 aircraft to the NATO campaign 
against Yugoslavia.
  It has nearly depleted the Nation's air-launched precision missile 
stocks, exhausted our tanker fleet, and called up 33,000 reservists.
  Now we have a situation where we are conducting a campaign regarding 
Kosovo and it has been revealed that the air and sea bridges required 
to ``swing'' forces into one major theater war to support a second 
conflict makes the risk of prevailing in the latter engagement too high 
because of the operational strains on personnel, weapons, and 
maintenance schedules. Yet, the Pentagon persists with the position 
that we must close more bases. But who is really making these 
assumptions about the volatile and complex nature of warfare as we 
approach the 21st century?
  The standard the administration is putting forth is personnel 
reductions; that closing 36 percent of our bases is absolutely 
essential, if 36 percent of all our people have left the military since 
the peak of the cold war. But the standard must remain if we are to be 
truly honest about what kinds of assumptions and determinations we must 
make. We should be making a decision of adapting our infrastructure to 
the mix of security threats that we anticipate into the 21st century. I 
do not think that we have to project that far out to recognize what we 
can expect for the types of conflicts that we will be facing in the 
future.
  As it did last year and in 1997, the administration rests its 
argument for more base closings primarily on the claim that facility 
cuts have lagged behind personnel reductions by more than 15 percent. I 
do not happen to think that a simple percentage can answer the types of 
questions that we need to determine the future of our military bases.
  What systems, what airfields, and what ports do we need to sustain in 
light of our engagement in the Balkans and considering the fact that 
the Pentagon planners thought that the Nation's two simultaneous 
conflicts would likely occur in Asia and the Persian Gulf?
  What depots can provide competition for the private sector?
  What shipyards can provide the Navy with a diversified industrial 
base to sustain the next generation of submarines that will maneuver in 
our waters?
  What airbases must stay active to support long-range power projection 
capabilities we now have with the diminished forward presence overseas?
  What configuration of domestic bases does the country require to 
project a smaller force over long distances that we now lack because we 
have a diminished presence in Asia and Europe?
  This fact means at a minimum the country has to stabilize a number of 
domestic facilities to prepare forces once deployed abroad for long-
range projections from this country. How has DOD calculated the 
vulnerability of political uncertainties of gaining access to our 
Middle Eastern military assets in the event of another regional crisis?
  These are the unanswered questions. These are the questions that need 
answers, not some isolated percentages that should determine the size 
and the shape of our basing network. These are the answers that we do 
not have.
  We have discrepancies in the numbers that have been provided to us by 
the Department of Defense. We do not have the assessments. We do not 
have the matching infrastructure to the security threat. We have not 
made a determination with respect to the assets, and even the national 
defense plan indicated in its own report that it was necessary to make 
that determination based on a report. In fact, the panel said it 
strongly urges Congress and the Department to look at these issues.
  They talked about if there is going to be a next round, it might be 
preceded by an independent, comprehensive inventory of all facilities 
and installations located in the United States. This review would 
provide the basis for a long-term installation master plan that aligns 
infrastructure assets with future military requirements and provides a 
framework for investment and reuse strategies.
  We raised this issue time and time again in the committee and in the 
Senate over the last 2 years to those individuals who are propounding 
this amendment and raising the fact that

[[Page 10751]]

we should have another base closing round. Yet, how can we make those 
decisions and on what basis are we making those decisions? Are they 
going to be arbitrary determinations? Are they going to be politicized?
  I know people argue: Oh, this is a depoliticized process in the Base 
Closing Commission procedure. I argue to the contrary. Having been 
through this procedure on four different occasions since 1988, I can 
tell you we just moved politics from one venue to another.
  I think we have to very carefully consider whether or not we want to 
initiate another base closing round for the future, absent the kinds of 
decisions and determinations that need to be made in order to make a 
reasonable decision.
  Even in the Department's own report in April of 1998, it exposed the 
apparent base closure savings as a frustrating mystery rather than a 
confirmed fact. To its credit, the Department actually admitted in its 
own study that there was no audit trail for tracking the end use of 
each dollar saved through the BRAC process. They admitted in their own 
report that they did not have a procedure for determining the actual 
savings that they projected from the base closing rounds and how they 
were used, so that we could not correlate the savings and whether or 
not they were used for any purpose or, in fact, were there any savings.
  So now the Department of Defense has said: Yes, there are savings 
from the four previous base closing rounds; and, yes, we are using them 
for readiness and modernization; and that is what we will do in the 
future. But they never established a process that we could document 
those savings that ostensibly occurred in the four previous rounds, and 
that they were invested in modernization and in the readiness accounts. 
The fact is, it never happened.
  The General Accounting Office, in fact, recommended, in their 1997 
report, and, in fact, documented what the DOD report said, that there 
is no process by which to track the savings which the Department of 
Defense claims occurred as a result of the base closings over the last 
10 years. So we have no way of knowing if, in fact, we have realized 
real savings.
  The Department claims that over the last four rounds there were 
savings of $21 billion, $22 billion. Yet, in their 1999 report, they 
admitted that the cost of closing bases was $22.5 billion. Their 
savings, in their 1999 report, from the four previous rounds is $21 
billion. So they have $1.5 billion more than the estimated savings 
through 2015. So that is what we are talking about here. The Department 
of Defense is spending more to close these bases than they are actually 
saving. They have had more costs as a result of environmental 
remediation. In fact, they project to spend $3 billion more.
  They said they would realize $3 billion from the first base closing 
round, to give you an example, from the sale of the property to the 
private sector, when in fact they only realized $65 million. That gives 
you an idea of the discrepancy that has occurred from their projected 
savings to the actual revenue that was realized through their sale 
process.
  So that is the problem we have. We have been given promises by the 
Department of Defense that we will have the savings, and yet these 
savings have not really materialized. So we do not have a picture of 
what we need for the future in terms of domestic bases because we have 
closed so many abroad as well as at home.
  Because we do not have the presence in other countries, it is all the 
more important that we have the necessary domestic bases to do the 
kinds of things we have to do, as we have seen in Kosovo.
  It is interesting that back in 1991, when we went through a base 
closing round, we had Loring Air Force Base up in northern Maine. It 
was a B-52 base. We were told at the time B-52s were going to go out. 
They were old. They were aging. They were going to be rapidly removed 
from the defense program.
  What are we seeing? B-52s are being used in Kosovo. No, we do not 
have the base in northern Maine that is closest to Europe, to the 
Middle East, to the former Soviet Union, to Africa. We are having to 
launch those B-52s from other bases that are not as close to Europe. So 
that is the problem we are seeing, because of the miscalculations and 
the underestimation of what we might need for the future. It has not 
been the kind of documentation that I happen to think is necessary.
  In fact, it was interesting to hear--when talking about B-52s--what a 
former Air Force Secretary said a few weeks ago, that the current 
crises are proving the enormous value of the Nation's long-range bomber 
force of B-52s. That is what it is all about.
  So what we were told in 1991: No; they are going to be out of 
commission because they are simply too old, we find is not the case.
  So I think we have to be very circumspect about how we want to 
proceed. That is why I think we have to be reticent about initiating 
any base closing process for the future until we get the kinds of 
answers that are necessary to justify proceeding with any additional 
base closing rounds.
  We have had the miscalculations of the costs in the Balkans. In fact, 
that is why there is such great pressure within the Pentagon to try to 
find additional savings, because we have spent so much money in Bosnia. 
When we were only supposed to spend $2 billion, we are now beyond $10 
billion. We will probably spend $10 billion in Kosovo by the end of 
this fiscal year. That has placed granted, inordinate pressures on the 
defense budget.
  But as QDR said, and even the Pentagon has admitted, there are many 
ways, in which to achieve their savings. They could follow up on the 
management reforms that have been proposed by the Department of Defense 
through technology upgrades. They could obviously require the services 
to determine their budget priorities. We can obviously look even at the 
deployment in Bosnia, which has far exceeded the original estimates, as 
I said earlier.
  So those are the kinds of challenges we face in the future. I think 
we have to be very, very cautious about suggesting that somehow we 
should close more bases--subject to another arbitrary process, subject 
to more arbitrary percentages--without the kind of analysis that I 
think is necessary to make those kinds of decisions.
  We have to be very selective. We have to make decisions for the 
future in terms of what interests are at stake, what we can anticipate 
for the future, because it seems that we are going to have more 
contingency operations like the ones we are confronting now in the 
Balkans. Therefore, we will have to look at what we have currently 
within the continental United States. It is important to be able to 
launch these missions, simply because we cannot depend on a presence in 
foreign countries.
  So I hope Members of the Senate will vote against the amendment which 
has been offered by the Senator from Arizona about initiating another 
base closing round, because we have raised these questions before. We 
have asked the Department: Please document what bases you are talking 
about. What bases do you need? What bases don't you need? Why don't you 
need them? How does that comport with the anticipated security threats 
for the future?
  Of course, finally, the Department claims that they have made 
enormous savings from the previous base closing rounds, but now we find 
that the cost of closing those bases--of which more than 152 were 
either realigned or closed--was greater than the savings that have been 
realized to date and into the future.
  So I think we have an obligation and, indeed, a responsibility to 
evaluate what has happened. I think it is also interesting that the 
Department of Defense has not responded to the General Accounting 
Office or to the National Defense Plan in terms of coming up with an 
analysis of what is actually necessary for our domestic military 
infrastructure, and then, secondly, setting up a mechanism by which we 
can evaluate whether or not savings have, indeed, been realized as a 
result of the four previous base closing rounds, because on the basis 
of what we have currently from the Pentagon, they cannot suggest in any 
way that they have

[[Page 10752]]

made any savings. If anything, it has cost them more money.
  Then when you look at what we are facing in Kosovo, what we can 
project in the future for additional asymmetric threats, we may want to 
be very careful about closing down any more bases in this country 
without knowing whether or not they are going to be necessary for the 
future, because once you lose that infrastructure, it is very difficult 
to recoup.
  So I hope the Senate will reject this amendment.
  I yield the floor.


             position on landrieu-specter amendment no. 384

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, had I been present for the vote on the 
Landrieu-Specter amendment No. 384 to the FY 2000 Defense 
Authorization, S. 1059, bill regarding the need for vigorous 
prosecution of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the former 
Yugoslavia, I would have voted in favor of the amendment. My vote would 
not have changed the outcome of the vote on the amendment which passed 
by a vote of 90-0.
  I was unable to reach the Capitol in time for the vote because of air 
travel delays due to weather conditions. I am disappointed that, though 
I and other Members notified the Senate leadership about our travel 
difficulties hours before the vote began, they were unwilling to 
reschedule the time of the vote.

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