[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 9679-9691]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



   NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2001--Continued

  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I express my gratitude to the 
distinguished ranking member and to the distinguished minority whip.
  We are endeavoring to ascertain the remainder of the amendments that 
could be brought before the Senate in connection with this bill. There 
are strong initiatives on this side. We are going to put out a hotline 
on our side. We are urging Senators to contact the respective 
cloakrooms and to indicate--in the event they have a desire to have a 
matter covered on this bill by amendment--their desire to speak in 
relation to this bill or other procedural steps so that we can try to 
project the conclusion for this bill. We hope by 6 o'clock tonight is 
to get a unanimous consent request to lay down a list of amendments to 
be considered for the remainder of time on this bill.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I support the request for our colleagues to 
contact the cloakrooms about their intentions relative to amendments 
and speaking on the bill. It will help us to organize the rest of the 
time we will need on the bill.
  I particularly thank Senator Reid. He has been working hard on our 
side. I know that kind of effort is being made also on the Republican 
side to see if we cannot come up with a finite list at the end of the 
day of amendments that Members intend to offer.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I think we have made progress. Sometimes it 
has been painfully slow. But this is a very big and important bill. We 
have a number of Senators on the minority side who expressed their 
desire to offer some amendments. We have a hotline going out from our 
cloakroom asking that we try to develop a finite list of amendments. 
Once that is done, we will be in a better position to determine 
approximately how long it will take to complete this bill.
  I should say to both managers of this bill that the minority is 
desirous of having this bill completed as quickly as possible.
  As the managers of this bill know, in the past this bill has taken a 
long time. We are going to try to move it more quickly than in the 
past. But we still have a lot of amendments. But by the end of the day, 
I hope we will be in some kind of position to indicate to the managers 
of the bill how many amendments we have on this side. We hope the 
majority will tell us how many amendments they have.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I certainly appreciate the expression from 
our distinguished leader on the minority that it is the minority's 
desire to move this bill to completion. That is very reassuring.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, we have a pending unanimous consent request. 
We are not in a position at this time to agree to that. We are getting 
very close. As soon as that is possible, we will notify the manager of 
the bill and enter into that unanimous consent agreement to take care 
of some things tomorrow.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I assure our distinguished leadership on 
this

[[Page 9680]]

side that Senator Lott, I, and others believe very strongly that this 
bill is essential for the United States and essential for the men and 
women in the Armed Forces. I think considerable bipartisanship has 
prevailed up to this moment. I hope it continues and we can complete 
this bill.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, my staff just handed me some interesting 
statistics, since we have a moment. Over the last 10 years, we have 
averaged 5\1/2\ days on the Defense authorization bill and 116 
amendments, on average. We are actually doing pretty well. We are 
making some progress. We may beat the average even. We never know.
  Mr. REID. Especially considering the fact that we didn't start this 
bill until late yesterday afternoon. We have only been on this bill a 
little more than one day.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, a hotline will be going out to both 
cloakrooms. I thank my colleagues. We are still awaiting the arrival of 
Senator McCain, at which time we will proceed to the McCain-Levin 
amendment, which is described in detail in the unanimous consent 
request.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 3197

     (Purpose: To authorize additional rounds of base closures and 
realignments under the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Act of 1990 
                           and 2003 and 2005)

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The senior assistant bill clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), for himself and Mr. 
     Levin, Mr. Robb, Mr. Voinovich, Mr. Reed, Mr. DeWine, and Mr. 
     Wyden, proposes an amendment numbered 3197.

  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 530, after line 21, add the following:

     SEC. 2822. AUTHORITY TO CARRY OUT BASE CLOSURE ROUNDS IN 2003 
                   AND 2005.

       (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 a semicolon; and
       (iii) by adding at the end the following new clauses (iv) 
     and (v):
       ``(iv) by no later than January 24, 2003, in the case of 
     members of the Commission whose terms will expire at the end 
     of the first session of the 108th Congress; and
       ``(v) by no later than March 15, 2005, in the case of 
     members of the Commission whose terms will expire at the end 
     of the first session of the 109th Congress.''; 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, for 2003 in clause 
     (iv) of that subparagraph, or for 2005 in clause (v) of that 
     subparagraph''.
       (2) Meetings.--Subsection (e) of that section is amended by 
     striking ``and 1995'' and inserting ``1995, 2003, and 2005''.
       (3) Staff.--Subsection (i)(6) of that section is amended in 
     the matter preceding subparagraph (A) by striking ``and 
     1994'' and inserting ``, 1994, and 2004''.
       (4) 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 107th Congress for the 
     activities of the Commission in 2003 or 2005, the Secretary 
     may transfer to the Commission for purposes of its activities 
     under this part in either of those years 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 (l) of that section is amended 
     by striking ``December 31, 1995'' and inserting ``December 
     31, 2005''.
       (b) Procedures.--
       (1) Force-structure plan.--Subsection (a)(1) of section 
     2903 of that Act is amended by striking ``and 1996,'' and 
     inserting ``1996, 2004, and 2006,''.
       (2) Selection criteria.--Subsection (b) of such section 
     2903 is amended--
       (A) in paragraph (1), by inserting ``and by no later than 
     December 31, 2001, for purposes of activities of the 
     Commission under this part in 2003 and 2005,'' after 
     ``December 31, 1990,'';
       (B) in paragraph (2)(A)--
       (i) in the first sentence, by inserting ``and by no later 
     than February 15, 2002, for purposes of activities of the 
     Commission under this part in 2003 and 2005,'' after 
     ``February 15, 1991,''; and
       (ii) in the second sentence, by inserting ``, or enacted on 
     or before March 31, 2002, in the case of criteria published 
     and transmitted under the preceding sentence in 2001'' after 
     ``March 15, 1991''; and
       (C) by adding at the end a new paragraph:
       ``(3) Any selection criteria proposed by the Secretary 
     relating to the cost savings or return on investment from the 
     proposed closure or realignment of a military installation 
     shall be based on the total cost and savings to the Federal 
     Government that would result from the proposed closure or 
     realignment of such military installation.''.
       (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, March 14, 2003, and May 16, 
     2005,'';
       (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 any year after 1999, 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 any year after 1999 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 
     July 7 in the case of recommendations in 2003, or no later 
     than September 8 in the case of recommendations in 2005,'' 
     after ``pursuant to subsection (c),'';
       (B) in paragraph (4), by inserting ``or after July 7 in the 
     case of recommendations in 2003, or after September 8 in the 
     case of recommendations in 2005,'' after ``under this 
     subsection,''; and
       (C) in paragraph (5)(B), by inserting ``or by no later than 
     June 7 in the case of such recommendations in 2003 and 
     2005,'' 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 
     July 22 in the case of recommendations in 2003, or no later 
     than September 23 in the case of recommendations in 2005,'' 
     after ``under subsection (d),'';
       (B) in the second sentence of paragraph (3), by inserting 
     ``or by no later than August 18 in the case of 2003, or no 
     later than October 20 in the case of 2005,'' after ``the year 
     concerned,''; and
       (C) in paragraph (5), by inserting ``or by September 3 in 
     the case of recommendations in 2003, or November 7 in the 
     case of recommendations in 2005,'' 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 each such report after 1999 only if 
     privatization in place is a method of closure or realignment 
     of the installation specified in the recommendation of the 
     Commission in such 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 ``December 31, 2005,''.
       (e) Technical and Clarifying Amendments.--

[[Page 9681]]

       (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)(5).
       (iii) Section 2905(b)(7)(B)(iv).
       (iv) Section 2905(b)(7)(N).
       (v) Section 2910(10)(B).
       (B) That Act is further amended by inserting ``or 
     realigned'' after ``closed'' each place in 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 2910(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, the amendment I propose today is one which 
we have attempted on several occasions in the past. It authorizes two 
rounds of U.S. military installation realignments and closures to occur 
in the years 2003 and 2005--in other words, BRAC, or Base Realignment 
and Closure.
  I am pleased to join Senators Levin, Robb, Voinovich, Reed, DeWine, 
and Wyden as cosponsors.
  We have heard for the last several years of the severe problems that 
exist in the military. We addressed one of those problems, food stamps, 
earlier in the proceedings on this legislation. We have heard in the 
Senate Armed Services Committee repeated testimony of plunging 
readiness and modernization programs that are decades behind schedule 
and quality-of-life deficiencies so great that we can't retain or 
recruit quality personnel necessary to defend this Nation's vital 
national security interests.
  Statistics are sometimes numbing but sometimes interesting also. The 
Air Force will be 2,000 pilots short by the end of next year, the Navy 
SEALS are losing two-thirds of their officer corps, and the Army is 
struggling to retain its captains. In the last few weeks, there was a 
well publicized study conducted by the Army which shows an 
unprecedented exodus of Army officers at the rank of captain from the 
U.S. Army.
  The consequences of losing the majority of your junior officers at 
that rank are indeed disturbing and even alarming. Equipment is falling 
in disrepair. The Marine Corps spends more time fixing broken equipment 
than it does training on it. And the Air Force is discovering that its 
F-16 fleet is only safe to fly for 75 percent of its original planned 
service life. The Army is in need of new engines for its entire M-1 
tank fleet.
  Modernization of our military equipment has all but ceased for the 
very large and risky programs such as the Joint Strike Fighter, 
Comanche helicopter, and excessively expensive ship and submarine 
programs of questionable design and questionable requirement.
  There is no doubt that many of the woes of our military can be 
addressed in areas other than the budget, but more judicious use of the 
military by the national command authority and reduced operational 
tempo will help with personnel retention.
  Any person in the military will tell you today that our military 
personnel, both active duty as well as Guard and Reserve forces, are 
being deployed all too frequently at the expense of their lifestyles, 
their family lives, and ultimately their desires to continue to serve 
the country in the uniform of the military.
  Streamlined training and greater attention to exercise management 
will result in less strain on our service members and their equipment. 
But ultimately we must pay for the last 7 years of chronic underfunding 
of our military. Finding these dollars at a time when we must also 
carefully attend to the health of our Social Security system and other 
much needed social benefits will be absolutely difficult.
  It is against this backdrop that we should acknowledge the absolute 
requirement to close unneeded military bases. The armed services is 
carrying the burden of managing and paying for an estimated 23-percent 
excess infrastructure costing at least $3.6 billion a year. Let me 
point out again, Mr. President, keeping these bases open is not without 
significant cost. In fact, about $3.6 billion every year could be saved 
when these unnecessary bases are ultimately closed.
  By the year 2003, these costs will grow to a total of over $25 
billion. If Congress allows the military to streamline its 
infrastructure, these costs can be realized as real savings that can be 
used to address the military's readiness shortfalls. Many have heard 
strong testimony supporting further BRAC rounds from the service 
chiefs, all the service Secretaries, and the Secretary of Defense. 
Potential savings are dramatic. The savings in 1 year alone would more 
than pay for the proposed personnel pay benefits--including health 
care, buy over 36 new F-22 strike fighters for the Air Force, fully 
fund our Nation's ballistic missile defense program, or pay for 75 
percent of the next generation aircraft carriers.
  Savings over the next 4 years are conservatively estimated to reach 
$25 billion. The annual net savings from previous BRAC rounds have 
grown from $3 billion in 1998 to $5.6 billion to $7 billion a year by 
2001. That is an important statistic because so many of the opponents 
of a base-closing round argue that money is not only not saved but 
spent because of the cleanup costs that are associated with base 
closings.
  There are two points to be made. One is that these cleanups, although 
lengthy and difficult sometimes, depending on the type of operations 
that took place on that military base, have now been completed to a 
large degree, and the money is being saved. As I mentioned, between 
$5.6 to $7 billion will be saved next year. Also, it should disturb us 
if these bases are not cleaned up anyway, whether they are open or 
closed. It is an expense that probably will continue to grow. To say 
that we shouldn't close bases because of the cleanup costs then, I 
guess, using a certain logic, would mean we would want areas that are 
hazardous to ourselves and our children's health to remain unaddressed.
  These savings are, as I said, real. They are coming sooner and they 
are greater than anticipated.
  The GAO recently noted that in most communities where bases were 
closed, incomes were actually rising faster and unemployment rates were 
lower than the national average. In my own home State of Arizona there 
was great wailing and gnashing of teeth as Williams Air Force Base 
appeared on the base-closing list several years ago. It is now called 
Williams Gateway Airport and it is generating sizably more revenue for 
the community and the State of Arizona than it was when it was a 
military installation. That is true at bases throughout the Nation.
  There is a provision in this bill that allows for the no-cost 
transfer of property from the military to the community in areas 
affected by closures. This amendment authorizes two additional rounds 
of base closure in 2003 and 2005. The amendment is similar to that 
introduced last year except the rounds are 2003 and 2005 instead of 
2001 and 2003. Why did we change the date from 2001, which would then 
obviously mean it would take action well into the next administration? 
Due to the justifiable mistrust, particularly on this side of the 
aisle, about this President's nonpoliticization of the process. There 
are credible arguments that the last base-closing round, as far as 
Kelly Air Force Base in Texas and McClellan up in Sacramento, were 
politicized.
  Last year, when Senator Levin and I and others brought this amendment 
up, the distinguished chairman of the committee said: There will be 
immediately ``acting'' in the bowels of the Pentagon to somehow 
politicize this process. I say to my friend from Virginia, the 
distinguished chairman of the committee, they won't be acting in the 
bowels of the Pentagon, at least until the year 2003, under this 
proposal.
  So we are talking about an evolution that would not take place. The 
round

[[Page 9682]]

would not take place for 3 years, 3 years from now, and then obviously 
those recommendations would not be implemented until beginning with the 
final determination of the base-closing commission and approval by the 
President and the Congress.
  Additionally, under this proposed legislation, privatization in place 
would be permitted only when explicitly recommended by the Commission, 
which I hope would prevent a recurrence of the kind of machinations, 
whether legitimate or not, that were conducted by the present 
administration, which has caused so much skepticism about the results 
of the last Base Closure Commission.
  Finally, the Secretary of Defense must consider the total cost the 
final base closure rounds have on the Government, not just cost or 
savings to the Department of Defense. We can continue to maintain a 
military infrastructure that we don't need or we can provide the 
necessary funds to ensure our military can fight and win future wars. 
Our men and women are deployed and continuing to train and prepare for 
upcoming deployments, many to active combat regions. They are 
undermined, increasingly short on critical weapon systems, and are 
struggling to overcome a multitude of readiness deficiencies.
  Recently, one of the Army divisions was declared in the lowest 
category of readiness. It struck home to a lot of us in this body who 
happen to still revere the great and wonderful Senator from Kansas, Mr. 
Dole, who was our majority leader, who served and sacrificed in the 
famous 10th Mountain Division. He, among others, was surprised when a 
division with that glorious and wonderful history was declared, for all 
intents and purposes, unfit to be deployed into a combat situation.
  The cost associated with maintaining excess infrastructure represents 
real money that is not available for essential programs and for 
alleviating real defense programs.
  Earlier this year, the Armed Services Committee met to discuss the 
need to add critical funds to the defense account for much needed 
modernization projects. I was amazed that although there were arguments 
for the need for increased defense spending, no one could see that 
critical defense reforms such as further BRAC rounds were required. 
These rounds could provide long-term funding for modernization and 
readiness programs without risking other key programs.
  We must finish the job we started by authorizing a new round of base 
closures. I urge my colleagues to join in support of this amendment and 
work diligently to put aside politics for what is clearly in the best 
interests of our military forces in our Nation.
  We had kind of an unusual occurrence last year in that the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff, in what was deemed by most observers as a rather 
unusual move, they testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee 
that they had significant shortfalls in funding.
  The committee asked for detailed responses as to what were those 
shortfalls in funding. The Army came up with some $5.5 billion in 
unfunded requirements they thought were necessary. This comes from the 
uniformed heads of the services. The Army needed $5.5 billion for 
programs ranging from Longbow Apache to night vision goggles, to UH-60 
Blackhawk procurement. The list is very detailed and very long: The 
Navy needed about $5.8 billion; the Marine Corps needed $1.6 billion; 
the Air Force needed $3.5 billion; the Special Operations Command 
needed $260 million; the Army National Guard needed $800 million; and 
the Air National Guard came in with a requirement for $2.4 billion.
  We are taking strides to improve funding for our military. But when 
you add all of this up, it comes to a very significant amount of money, 
about $20 billion, that the military chiefs have submitted in written 
testimony to the Congress as to the needs of the individual services.
  I have to be sort of candid. I am not sure we are going to come up 
with $20 billion that the services need. We are increasing funding, and 
that is the first time in some years. But I do not see that in the 
realm of this $20 billion, when you look at the additional costs which 
are already basically there without us being able to do anything about 
it--first, the funding for the new fighter aircraft, funding for the 
additional ships, planes, tanks, et cetera, that will be necessary to 
replace existing aging equipment and modernize our armed forces.
  So here is $20 billion the chiefs say they need. I do not see a huge 
increase of that size, frankly, in the future, as far as the Congress 
is concerned, nor, at least under this administration, do I see that 
sizable additional request.
  Obviously, as I pointed out earlier, it would be a savings of some 
$25 billion over a period of the next 4 years. The savings are 
conservatively estimated to reach about $25 billion. I do not want to 
have any of my colleagues be misled. That would be the case if we had a 
base-closing commission that declared its decisions today. But if the 
base-closing commission, in the year 2003, made its decisions, we could 
save over the following 4 years some $25 billion. I want to make it 
clear.
  Yes, there will be initial costs for cleanup of these bases. That is 
a sad fact--and at that time an unexpected--experience that we had. But 
I also argue, with the perspective of time, we have found there is now, 
as a result of the earlier base closings, annual net savings which are 
growing from $3 billion in 1998 to $5.7 to $7 billion per year by next 
year.
  I would be distressed if Yuma Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma were 
on the base-closing list. I would be distressed if Luke Air Force Base 
in Phoenix were on the base-closing list. I would be distressed if 
Davis Mountain Air Force Base in Tucson were on the base-closing list. 
I see my friend from Nevada here, one of the cosponsors of this 
amendment. I am sure he would be deeply distressed if Nellis Air Force 
Base in Reno were on the base-closing list. There is not, I believe, a 
Senator or very few Senators who would not feel the impact of a base-
closing commission.
  But I challenge the opponents of this amendment to find me one--I say 
one--credible military expert who resides outside of the Congress of 
the United States who will not say that we need to have a base-closing 
commission to decide on the elimination of unneeded infrastructure in 
the reform of bases that the military does not need.
  I ask any of us to pick up the phone and call up Gen. Colin Powell; 
call up Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf; call up Cap Weinberger; call up Dick 
Cheney; call up Zbigniew Brzezinski; Call up anyone, anyone today, who 
is a person who has credentials as far as military readiness is 
concerned, and I think you would be hard pressed to find anything but 
the overwhelming majority--perhaps not totally but the overwhelming 
majority of opinion on this issue by credible military experts is that 
we have excess infrastructure in the form of too many bases which we do 
not need and which should be closed in order to use those funds for 
badly needed military requirements.
  I apologize to this body, to keep going back to the plight of the 
service men and women in the military today. But we do have service men 
and women in the military on food stamps. We do have service men and 
women in the military in my own State residing in barracks that were 
built during World War II. We do have service men and women in the 
Marine Corps who are, for example, retreading military vehicle tires so 
they can get additional money in order to have ammunition with which to 
practice.
  The stories go on and on.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
  Mr. McCAIN. I will be glad to yield to the distinguished chairman at 
any time, including now.
  Mr. WARNER. At an appropriate time.
  Mr. McCAIN. Please go ahead.
  Mr. WARNER. Since he and I joined together several years ago on a 
piece of legislation to initiate the BRAC process--you remember that, 
and I will not go into the chronology--I share with the Senator 
appreciation of the need for an assessment of our base structure. That 
should be made in the context of the demands of the armed services. 
There is no one--you just had an

[[Page 9683]]

amendment that succeeded overwhelmingly in the Senate on food stamps. 
You begin to address these problems. I commend my old friend and 
colleague.
  This comes to my mind. There is no one who is a stronger fighter for 
the prerogatives of the President of the United States. You fought hard 
here recently on an amendment which I had with Senator Byrd. I think 
you took the line we could be strapping the President of the United 
States.
  Factually speaking, with no criticism towards President Clinton, 
there will be an election in this country and a new President elected 
in a few months. He will take office. Should we not accord him the 
courtesy to address this question, address it in the context of the 
needs that you have stated, address it in the context of a QDR, his own 
analysis of the military structure of the United States? Address it in 
the context of what his direction will likely be with respect to the 
Armed Forces of the United States?
  My colleague, above all, and I are strong supporters of one 
particular candidate. He has spoken out very forcefully on the need to 
further strengthen our military. I think if we were to start the 
process now, it could in some ways impede or indeed thwart the next 
President's, what I consider, complete freedom to look at this issue.
  My colleague was right. He was talking about the $20 billion this 
could possibly generate. He was correct in assessing the needs of the 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and others. Just moments ago we 
missed by a few votes a $90 billion program for retirement, which was 
tough for those who had to go against it, but we had to resist that.
  I am suggesting: What is the reason we should start now versus just 
allow the next President to frame this legislation in terms of his own 
needs and aspirations?
  Mr. McCAIN. Again, I thank the chairman for his leadership and the 
courage he has displayed on a number of occasions on a number of 
issues.
  First, I respond to my friend from a practical standpoint. This 
amendment authorizes a base-closing commission. The President of the 
United States does not have to appoint the Commissioners and the 
President of the United States can reject the findings of the 
Commission. So I do not believe we are forcing the next President of 
the United States in that respect.
  My second point is, it is well known the advisers, at least to the 
party on this side of the aisle, to the person we believe will be the 
next President of the United States--George Shultz, Brent Scowcroft, 
Condolleeza Rice, Colin Powell, Robert Zoellick----
  Mr. WARNER. And I suggest yourself.
  Mr. McCAIN. Addressing every one of those individuals, if the 
chairman and I picked up the telephone and said, ``Do you think we 
should have a base-closing commission?'' they would say yes. They would 
say yes.
  I argue, even though I understand and appreciate and sympathize with 
the position of our nominee for President of the United States not to 
interfere too much with what goes on in the Congress, I believe he 
would be very supportive as well.
  On the other side of the aisle, if it should occur that the nominee 
from the other side of the aisle were elected President of the United 
States, the fact is very well known the Vice President of the United 
States supports a base-closing commission as well and has voted on this 
floor for the appointment of a base-closing commission.
  By the way, I want the record to be very clear that I have the 
greatest respect and friendship for the Vice President of the United 
States.
  It is the decision of the people of this country who will be the next 
President of the United States. I had respect for the Vice President 
and his involvement in military issues when he and I served together, 
as we did, in the Senate.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, he served on our committee with the Vice 
President.
  Mr. McCAIN. The Vice President of the United States, who is the 
nominee of the other party on the other side of the aisle, is also 
supportive of and would support a base-closing commission. I believe 
whoever will be President of the United States supports at this time 
authorizing further base-closing commissions. I believe the advisers to 
both individuals also support a base-closing commission, and if that 
commission were authorized, it still would not require the next 
President of the United States to act even in the appointment of 
commissioners, much less accepting the recommendations of that 
commission. I yield to the Senator from Virginia, if he has any 
additional comments.
  Mr. WARNER. No, I think Senator McCain answered my question. We both 
made our points. Mr. President, the time that I consumed will be 
chargeable to those in opposition to the McCain amendment. I shall 
eventually vote in opposition to the McCain-Levin amendment.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I simply conclude by saying I hope we can 
authorize this. It is important, not only because of the money we save 
which is critical for defense, but we as a body should understand that 
it does not enhance our reputation about our concerns about the needs 
of the military when we refuse to take what is a very logical step, and 
that is to approve a base closure commission which would make 
recommendations which could be either accepted or rejected by the 
President of the United States and rejected by this body if this body, 
in its wisdom, decided those recommendations were invalid.
  Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, will the Senator from Arizona yield me 10 
minutes?
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Michigan 
whatever time he uses.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan is recognized.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, once again, it is necessary for Senator 
McCain and I and a number of colleagues he has specified to make an 
effort to authorize an additional two rounds of base closings. On this 
issue, the Congress simply can run but it cannot hide.
  Every time we speak about the need for additional resources, be it 
for health care in the military for retirees or active duty people, 
whether it is for modern equipment, whether it is for a reasonable, 
decent cost-of-living allowance or a pay increase for our active duty 
people, whatever it is we talk about as being needed in our military, 
it seems to me to be a little bit hollow if we are not willing to make 
the savings that clearly are essential and can be made and are 
requested by our uniform military to help pay for those additional 
expenditures. We can run but we simply cannot hide from our 
responsibilities in this area.
  The amendment would implement the recommendation of the Quadrennial 
Defense Review. We have heard a lot about Quadrennial Defense Review 
today and how important it is that review take place, and it is 
important. The recommendation of the Quadrennial Defense Review was 
that we have additional rounds of base closings. The National Defense 
Panel recommended additional rounds of base closings. The Joint Chiefs 
of Staff have recommended additional rounds of base closings. The 
Secretary of Defense has made the same recommendation.
  The way to respond to the need for resources for our military is to 
eliminate the expenditures which are not essential.
  This amendment would authorize two base-closure rounds: one in 2003 
and one in 2005. The first round would take place well into the next 
administration. The second round would take place in the administration 
after that.
  The amendment Senator McCain and I and others are offering would 
follow the base-closure process that was used previously in 1991, 1993, 
and 1995, with three main exceptions: First, because 2005--which is the 
second round under this amendment--will be the first year of a new 
administration, the schedule in 2005, which again would be the second 
round, would start and end about 2 months behind the schedule that 
would

[[Page 9684]]

be used in 2003. The 2003 schedule would basically mirror the 1995 
schedule, except that it would start and end about 2 weeks later than 
in 1995. We include a 2-month slip in the timetable of the whole 
process in 2005 to allow a new administration time to decide whether 
they want to have a base-closure process and to make its appointments 
to the commission.
  As our friend from Arizona pointed out, this process we would 
authorize is simply that--we authorize the process. The President would 
decide whether or not to trigger the process by the appointments of the 
members of the base-closing commission and then would have a fail-safe 
mechanism to reject the recommendations of the commission.
  The second exception to the general rules that were followed in the 
last rounds' process is this amendment also includes the language to 
address the problem of privatization in place for future BRAC rounds. 
It would allow the Secretary of Defense to privatize in place the 
workload of a closing military installation only when it is 
specifically recommended by the Base Closure Commission. That would 
address the issue which has been raised about the previous round when 
some thought that round was politicized when there was privatization in 
place, which was allowed. This cures that problem by saying no 
privatization in place unless the Base Closure Commission itself 
specifically recommends that course of action.
  The third main difference between this and the previous rounds is 
that this amendment specifies we look at the costs and savings not just 
of the one agency but total costs and savings to the Federal 
Government. That is important so that we do not simply save money in 
one Federal Government pocket but cost money in another Federal 
Government pocket; that we look at the costs and the savings to the 
entire Government from a proposed closing when these recommendations 
are made and not just to the Department of Defense.
  In 1997, the Congress mandated there be a report on base closures. 
Secretary Cohen, in compliance with that, issued a report in April of 
1998. That report, which we insisted on, contains a convincing analysis 
of 1,800 pages of detailed backup material. It is responsive to those 
who said last year that we needed a thorough analysis before we could 
reach a decision on the need for more base closures.
  What that report reaffirms is that the Department of Defense simply 
has more bases than it needs. Since 1989, we have reduced the total 
active duty military end strength by one-third, but even after four 
base-closure rounds, DOD's base structure in the United States has been 
reduced by only 21 percent. We have a disconnect. We have too much 
structure. There are too many bases and facilities which are operating 
which we can no longer afford to operate and which must be 
consolidated.
  Each of us in States that have faced those closures understand the 
short-term pain involved. We have lost all of our Strategic Air Command 
bases in Michigan. We understand what is needed in the aftermath to 
cushion the impact of those so-called realignments, which were 
closures, of our three SAC bases, but we succeeded. We are on our way 
back in all three areas.
  The Department of Defense is telling us they have 23-percent excess 
capacity in current base structure. It seems to me we cannot hold our 
heads up and talk about the need of additional resources for the 
Department of Defense if we are not willing to close or at least put a 
process in motion which would fairly recommend the closure of some of 
this 23-percent excess capacity which the Department of Defense 
analysis says we have.
  Mr. President, in relation to the excess capacity we have in our 
defense structure, the Department of Defense analysis concludes that we 
have 23 percent excess capacity in its current base structure. Just a 
few examples now of that excess capacity which I think are 
indefensible, again, particularly for those who are urging additional 
resources in the defense budget.
  How do we justify the Army having reduced classroom training 
personnel by 43 percent while classroom space is only reduced by 7 
percent? What we are doing by not allowing additional rounds of BRAC is 
telling the Army: You have to maintain all that classroom space even 
though you have no personnel to run it. So the classroom training 
personnel is reduced 43 percent; classroom space is only 7 percent 
reduced.
  The Navy will have 33 percent more hangars for aircraft than it 
requires. We are telling the Navy--unless we allow these additional 
rounds of BRAC--you have to maintain those extra hangars even though 
you do not have the aircraft or the need for it.
  The Air Force has reduced the number of fighters and other aircraft 
by 53 percent since 1989, while the base structure for those aircraft 
is 35 percent smaller. So they have to keep 18 percent more base 
structure than they need because we have been unable to show the 
political will to allow the military to do what they are pleading with 
us to allow them to do.
  The chiefs come over here, the Secretary of Defense comes over here, 
year after year, and they say: We need additional rounds of base 
closures. So far, for the last few years at least, since the last 
round, we have been unwilling to show that political will to make those 
savings possible.
  The report of Secretary Cohen has demonstrated some significant 
savings. People say: What about the savings? Can you really demonstrate 
savings? First of all, it seems to me, there is a commonsense 
demonstration that if you have four stores and you are making a profit 
in three, you are going to close one of those stores.
  So many of us always tell the Defense Department they ought to 
emulate the private sector more, to act a little bit more as a 
business, be a little bit more businesslike, to show some savings in 
order to make it possible for us to fund some other things needed in 
the defense budget.
  The Department of Defense estimates--these are not ours, these are 
the Department of Defense estimates--that BRAC, so far, has saved us 
$14.5 billion net. After 2001, when all of the four BRAC actions must 
be completed, what we call steady state savings, the savings will be 
$5.7 billion per year. Those are not our estimates; those are the 
Department of Defense estimates: $5.7 billion every year saved, 
starting after 2001, as a result of the four rounds we have had so far.
  The CBO and the GAO reviewed the Department of Defense report. So our 
Budget Office and our General Accounting Office reviewed that report, 
and they agreed that base closure saves substantial amounts of money.
  Based on the savings from the first four BRAC rounds, every year that 
we delay another base closure round, we deny the Defense Department, 
the taxpayers, and our Nation's defense about $1.5 billion in annual 
savings we can never recoup.
  Again, I know base closings can be painful. I know that probably as 
well as anybody because all three SAC bases, as I said, in my home 
State have been closed, and we are still working hard to overcome the 
economic blow to those communities. But we are working successfully. 
There is no question that the BRAC process is the fairest, most open, 
most objective way to close bases. Without it, we are not going to 
close bases. That is what history has shown.
  Furthermore, in last year's bill we took steps to make the conveyance 
of BRAC property even easier for local communities. We have taken care 
of the objectionable part which surfaced last time when there was 
privatization in place which many thought had not been provided for by 
the Base Closure Commission but which the administration nonetheless 
allowed. We have cured that in this bill by saying the next Base 
Closure Commission must specifically authorize privatization in place 
for a closed facility or else it cannot occur.
  Our forces need quality training. They need precision weapons. They 
do not need extra military bases. We just simply have higher priorities 
for our defense dollars than funding bases we no longer need.

[[Page 9685]]

  As the Senator from Arizona said, we have paid a lot of attention, 
and should pay a lot of attention, to the chiefs' unfunded requirement 
lists. We should give, and do give, great weight to them. The Senator 
from Arizona listed the shortfalls the chiefs listed, totaling 
approximately $20 billion.
  There are a number of ways to fund those unfunded requirements. One 
is to use some of the surplus we have worked so hard to achieve by just 
simply adding to the budget for the Defense Department, to the so-
called top line. But we are not limited to that approach, and it is a 
difficult approach.
  Whether or not we pay down the national debt, whether or not we 
protect Medicare, whether or not we have a tax cut, or whether or not 
we spend some of that on education, there are very important competing 
interests for the surplus. We don't have to simply say: We will use the 
surplus and add money to the defense budget. We can find savings and 
reapply those savings to higher priorities. That is what past BRAC 
rounds are already doing for us, and that is what the BRAC rounds in 
this amendment will do for us in the future, if we are willing to do 
what the Secretary is asking us to do, not for himself but for his 
successors and, more importantly, for the men and women who will be 
serving under his successors.
  Secretary Cohen said recently that his biggest disappointment as 
Secretary has been that the Department of Defense still has too much 
overhead and he has not been able to persuade his former colleagues, 
meaning us, to do what needs to be done to have more base closures. We 
all know Secretary Cohen. He was a colleague of most of us. I think 
every one of us trusted his judgment. We all know that BRAC affected 
him and his State when he served in this body, so this is not a request 
Secretary Cohen makes lightly. He knows what he is talking about and 
what he is asking of us.
  We can't have it both ways. We can't say we want additional billions 
for health care, which we said today with the Warner amendment. We 
can't say we want additional billions for disability compensation, 
which was provided for in Senator Reid's amendment. We can't talk about 
an additional pay raise for the military and all the other things we 
rightfully talk about and are concerned about and at the same time we 
maintain in place unneeded bases and structure. It is inconsistent. We 
can't have it both ways. It is an issue of political will and 
overcoming back-home concerns, understandable concerns but nonetheless 
overcoming those concerns to meet our long-term security needs.
  Are we willing to do the necessary thing, the right thing to avoid 
the wasteful spending which is inherent when we maintain base structure 
we don't need, when we have reduced the size of our force by a third 
but our base structure by only 20 percent, and when we have classrooms 
and hangars that are no longer needed, a hundred other things that are 
no longer needed, because we don't have the political will to put in 
place an outside base-closing commission whose recommendations can be 
totally rejected if they are unfair by either the President or by us? 
That is a reasonable amount of political will for which to ask in order 
to achieve the billions of dollars of savings that will be achieved by 
additional rounds of base closings.
  I yield the floor and thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sessions). The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, we now have a unanimous consent request. 
Piece by piece we are working and succeeding in putting forth UC 
requests to keep this bill moving forward.
  I ask unanimous consent that at 3 p.m. on Thursday, June 8, the 
Senate temporarily lay aside any pending amendments and Senator Daschle 
and/or his designee be recognized to offer his amendment re: HMO, and 
that there be 2 hours, equally divided, prior to the vote in relation 
to the amendment, with no second-degree amendments in order prior to 
the vote.
  I further ask consent that during today's or tomorrow's session, 
Senator Inhofe be recognized for up to 10 minutes and Senator Snowe be 
recognized for up to 30 minutes, each for general debate on the bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I urge all Senators--we are trying to move 
towards a 6 o'clock deadline tonight with respect to first-degree 
amendments. We are making considerable progress on both sides.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I say to the manager of the bill, I have 
been working with our manager. We are working very hard to come up with 
a finite number of amendments. It is as the Senator indicated. The 
average number of amendments on this bill is about 111, and 5 and a 
half or 6 days on the bill. We would certainly hope to beat that 
record. But at the present time we are trying to get a list of 
amendments. We hope to have that sometime later tonight or the first 
thing in the morning.
  Mr. WARNER. Let's continue to work toward 6 o'clock tonight. I think 
it is important we do so. So many Senators have plans, and we want to 
accommodate them.
  Mr. REID. We will do our best.
  Mr. WARNER. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, on behalf of the manager, I yield myself 
such time as I may need.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time which 
is utilized by the Senator from Oklahoma come from the side of the 
opponents of this amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is the understanding. Without objection, 
it is so ordered.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I wouldn't want anything I say to be 
misinterpreted by anyone as to how I am going to be voting on the 
defense authorization bill under consideration. I am going to strongly 
support it, although it is strongly inadequate for the needs we are 
faced with right now. I am realistic enough to know that when we get 
into a rebuilding program, that is going to have to happen under a 
different administration than the administration we have had over the 
last 7\1/2\ years.
  I was elected to the House of Representatives in 1986; my first term 
was 1987. It happened that a very smart young Congressman from Texas 
named Dick Armey made the decision that we were going to have to do 
something about excess infrastructure and devised a way, this smart guy 
who got his Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma, to take politics out 
of the base realignment and closing process. I strongly supported him.
  The first round voted on, I believe, in 1987, to be implemented in 
1989, about which I spoke on the floor of the House and supported, was 
one that I felt this country did need. So for the first two of the four 
rounds we have already had, it was cherry-picking time. Yes, we closed 
bases and installations that resulted in a tremendous savings, and it 
was good.
  The third and the fourth rounds didn't work out that way. We have to 
keep in mind that it had always been virtually impossible politically 
to close installations because of the politics involved. There are 
always Members of the House and Senate who don't want anything closed 
in their States. Consequently, this system that was devised, this BRAC 
process, was to take politics out. Everyone agreed, even though they 
didn't like the results, that there had to be a process free from 
politics to do that. It worked out for the first four rounds.
  The last round that came through in 1995 was one where, among other 
things, the BRAC committee evaluated the air logistics centers. There 
are five of them in the United States, and each one was operating at 
that time at 50-percent capacity. Any logical business conclusion would 
demand that we close two of them and transfer the workload to the 
remaining three. I heard the distinguished Senator from Michigan talk 
about the process, about the fact that privatization in place is 
something that would be precluded in the next BRAC round, if he is 
successful in getting that authorized. I suggest that if

[[Page 9686]]

somebody in the White House wants to violate the integrity of this 
process, it is not only privatization in place that will happen. He can 
find out some other way of doing it.
  We are going to have, it now appears, one of two people as the next 
President of the United States. It will either be Vice President Al 
Gore or George W. Bush. In the case of Vice President Gore, let's 
remember what happened in the 1995 round. They made the recommendation 
to close two and transfer the workloads of the remaining three. They 
evaluated all five air logistics centers and determined that the two 
least efficient ones were at McClellan Air Force Base in California and 
Kelly Air Force Base in Texas.
  That being right before the election and both being in vote-rich 
swing States, the President and the Vice President went to McClellan 
and then to Kelly and said: Don't worry; even though they said that we 
are going to close your bases, we are not going to let that happen. We 
are going to--and just out of the air he grabbed a phrase--``privatize 
in place.'' Well, that made it very clear that if you really want to 
figure out a way to politicize the system, you can do it.
  Who was it at that time who made the announcement out at McClellan in 
California and at Kelly in Texas? It wasn't President Clinton. It was 
Vice President Al Gore. I said when I began that one of those two 
individuals, Gore or Bush, is going to be the next President. I will 
fight to the bitter end, until at least the time we know who the next 
President is going to be, before I will vote to authorize future BRAC 
rounds in that one of the candidates, Vice President Al Gore, has 
already demonstrated that he will induce politics back into a system 
that is supposed to be free of politics. I think that has to be 
considered.
  The second issue is, in this rebuilding process, I believe that if 
the next President of the United States is George W. Bush, having had 
personal conversations with him, he recognizes that we are in the same 
hollow force situation we were in in 1980 when Ronald Reagan became 
President and had to start a massive rebuilding program.
  What is a massive rebuilding program today? The Joint Chiefs have all 
said, in testimony before our committee, with Senator Levin and myself 
present, that we need to have an additional $140 billion over the next 
6 years to reach the minimum expectations of the American people. What 
are the minimum expectations of the American people? It is to defend 
America on two regional fronts. This has been a concept most Americans 
think we can do today, and we cannot do that simultaneously.
  So if we start this rebuilding process and it is going to be as 
significant as we think it is going to be, then we need to be looking 
at what our infrastructure needs will be then, not what they are today. 
If we have artificially lowered our force strength in this country to 
an artificially low level, we don't want to bring our infrastructure 
down to the same level because when we start to rebuild, we don't know 
what our infrastructure needs will be.
  That is the whole point. We will know with the new administration, 
and we will be able to project in the future what that is going to be. 
The argument is used that we can't have it both ways and we need to 
have more money. That is true. I think we need to have a lot more money 
than we have right now. In fact, we have testimony from the service 
chiefs that, even with the budget we have today, we are still 
inadequate to the degree of about $11 billion-plus a year in order to 
start the rebuilding process and get to the point we just described.
  Why would we be in a hurry to do this? When they talk about the fact 
that we are going to have savings, we know those savings aren't even 
going to take place in the best scenarios until, at the earliest, 2008. 
In fact, I will read out of a March 2, 2000, news article that quotes 
Bill Cohen. He said it will be somewhere between 2008 to 2015.
  Now that is beyond the point, hopefully, that we have a crisis in 
this country. Our crisis is here today. There are a lot of people who 
would like to believe there is not a threat out there because the cold 
war is over. I look wistfully back to the days of the Cold War. At 
least we knew who the opposition was. We had two superpowers, and we 
had good intelligence on both sides. We knew what they had, and they 
knew what we had. We were able to address it. Today, we have all these 
rogue nations that all have weapons of mass destruction. We have 
countries that possess missiles that will reach to the United States of 
America, China, Russia, North Korea, and maybe others--warheads that 
could blow us up.
  I come from Oklahoma, and I think most of the people realize it was 
just 5 years ago in April that we had the most devastating domestic 
terrorist attack in the history of America. It happened in Oklahoma. 
When you saw the pictures of that Murrah Federal Office Building, you 
saw parts of bodies that were stuck to the wall in that flaming 
building and the absolute devastation, and you stopped to realize that 
the smallest nuclear warhead known to man today is 1,000 times that 
powerful.
  So here we are vulnerable, with no defense system at all on an 
incoming missile. Secondly, we are at one-half the force strength in 
1991 during the Persian Gulf war. We have one-half of the Army 
divisions, one-half of the tactical air wings, one-half of the ships 
floating out there. Our force strength is down. At the same time, under 
this administration, we have had more deployments in the last 7 years 
than we had in the previous 40 years collectively. They have been in 
areas where we don't have national security interests. So we are taking 
these rare assets we have, and we are putting them into places such as 
Kosovo and Bosnia, where we should not have gone in the first place.
  So facing that 1980 dilemma our rebuilding is going to have to start 
immediately for national security reasons. I would like to think that 
by 2008 we would be back where we were in 1986 after the rebuilding. I 
have no way of knowing that for sure, but let's hope that is the case.
  Anyway, while the Senator from Arizona said it is not at all sure, he 
said, to be perfectly candid, that we are going to be able to save $20 
billion over that period of time. There is one thing I suggest we are 
sure of, which is that the cost over the next 5 years is going to be 
$2.6 billion. That means it is going to be negative during this time 
that we have to start the rebuilding process. Things, right now, are in 
a much more deplorable condition than America wants to believe.
  As chairman of the Readiness Subcommittee of the Armed Services 
Committee, I have had occasion to go to all the military installations 
around the world, and I don't like what I see. We have RPMs, real 
property maintenance accounts, that are supposed to be done 
immediately, taken care of, and they are not doing it. We have barracks 
in Fort Bragg where when it rains--and I was there when it rained--the 
roof has been leaking now for years. They are unable to fix that 
because they don't have the money to do it. Our troops are actually 
lying down over their equipment to keep it from rusting. It is a 
crisis.
  You can go to the 21st TACOM over in Germany and look at our M-915 
trucks. Many of them have over a million miles on them. They are 
spending as much in maintenance on each one over the next 3 years as it 
would take to buy a brand new truck. It is a crisis that we don't have 
the money to buy new trucks when we need them. It is not feasible to do 
it that way, but that is our only choice.
  We don't have spare parts for airplanes. The cannibalized rate is 
higher than ever before. That means they bring in a crated F-100 engine 
to be put into an F-l6, and in order to keep the F-l6 there running 
with a fairly recent engine, they have to rob parts from this. It is 
highly labor intensive. Consequently, we are having a problem in 
retention that is not only with pilots, which is an-all time low, but 
also the mechanics putting those parts in.
  Our pilot retention in the Navy right now is below 20 percent. It 
costs between $6 million and $9 million to train each one of them. Yet 
over 80 percent

[[Page 9687]]

of them are leaving and not taking the second full tour of duty. The 
mechanics fixing the planes are leaving, too. I have talked to these 
people, and they say this country has lost its sense of mission. It is 
not keeping its strength. We can't buy bullets for guns. Talk to the 
Air Force people who go out to the red flag exercises at Nellis in the 
desert. They have cut them down so they don't believe they are getting 
the necessary training to be combat ready and to compete.
  Look at our modernization program. Now we have been cutting back on 
the Crusader Program, which the Army believes is the crown jewel--that 
thing we have to have for our launching capability on the ground. Look 
at our modernization program in airplanes. I was never more proud of a 
four-star general than I was the other day when he stood up and said 
America needs to know that the Russians now have the SU-34, an air-to-
air, air combat vehicle that is better than anything we have, including 
the F-15.
  The average American would say we are fine and we have the very best 
of equipment. We used to, but we don't now. Look at the ranges we have 
now. We are faced with an issue of having to close--temporarily, I 
hope--the firing range on Vieques. That is going to have a dramatic 
effect on which installations to keep open. We won't have anyplace to 
have live fire training. We will lose such ranges as Cape Wrath in 
Scotland, Capo Teulada in southern Sardinia. Why? Because there is no 
justification to allow us to fire our artillery if we are not willing 
to do it on our own lands.
  All of these things form a crisis. When I said I look back wistfully 
at the days of the cold war, it isn't just me. I was redeemed the other 
day at our subcommittee meeting when we had George Tenet, the Director 
of Central Intelligence, there. This happened to be telecast live on C-
SPAN. I said:

       Right now, we are in the most threatened position that we 
     have been in as a Nation in the history of this country since 
     the Revolutionary War. Would you respond to that?

  He said:

       Absolutely correct. We are in the most threatened position.

  It is because of the combined reasons of deployments, force strength 
and, of course, not having the national missile defense systems. All 
those will be elements of rebuilding. Who knows what our needs are 
going to be when we start this rebuilding. I hope the next President 
will be a Republican, and that we will be in a position to rebuild our 
defense system. When that happens, we don't know what the elements of 
that system are going to be.
  Lastly--and I don't want to overdo the time here--we are asked this 
question by the distinguished Senator from Arizona: I challenge my 
colleagues to name any military expert who says we should not have 
another BRAC round.
  You can name a lot of them.
  The Assistant Secretary of Defense under Ronald Reagan said in an 
article in the Washington Post on May 14, 1998, when we were having the 
same debate, that Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen is correct when 
he says that the Department of Defense needs the support of Congress to 
have a cost-effective national defense. But the Secretary is blaming 
Congress for problems that are not of its making. More importantly, 
Cohen is ignoring the administration's own complicity in creating 
funding difficulties for defense and vastly is exaggerating the 
potential problems that could occur if Congress fails to heed his 
advice. Cohen wants Congress to authorize two new rounds of base 
closures to free up an additional $3 billion a year for buying badly 
needed new weapons. But what Cohen has not stated is that these savings 
would not begin until a decade from now.
  I think that is the significant thing. These savings would set in 
after a period of time that we would be going through this rebuilding 
process.
  I hold him up as one expert who says we should not do a round at this 
time.
  Another is the Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Jim Jones, who 
said that he knew of no Marine installation he would recommend for 
closure. He said: We cannot give it away or we will never get it back.
  I don't think anyone is going to say that Gen. Jim Jones is not a 
military expert. He has one of the most distinguished careers of any of 
them.
  Adm. Jay L. Johnson, the CNO, said his view was ``not far'' from that 
of Jones. He said he is concerned about permanently losing training 
ranges, air space, and access to the sea.
  The Chief of the Army, General Shinseki, said he would support some 
closures in the future but said that the Army needs to decide what its 
future force level is going to be before it can judge base 
consolidation with certainty.
  We have three of the four chiefs of our services saying if we are 
going to do it we should wait and do it after we determine what our 
force strength should be in the future and not do it before that time.
  For the combination of those reasons, there is certainly no rush to 
do it and do it in this bill. Certainly I would be willing to talk 
about this after the next administration comes in. It wouldn't make any 
difference anyway because the first round wouldn't be until 2003.
  I think Dick Armey did a wonderful job back in 1987. I think it 
served a very useful purpose--particularly the first three BRAC rounds 
that we were able to accomplish. They saved a lot of money. We are now 
enjoying some of the savings. However, the amounts that we saved have 
far exceeded what we lost by the cleanup costs. I don't think those 
estimates would be anymore accurate if we were to go through two new 
rounds.
  Keep in mind that every succeeding round is going to yield fewer 
benefits than the round before. I certainly think the Senator from 
Rhode Island, with his background and experience, knows that if you are 
going to start a closing process, you pick off the cherries to start 
with and accumulate those savings.
  I conclude by saying that we need to look at them in the next 
administration after we find out what our force strength is going to 
be, and after we find out what degree of rebuilding we will have to 
undergo in order to protect America and meet the minimum expectations 
of the American people.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I seek to be recognized under the time of 
Senator McCain.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I am authorized to yield the Senator from 
Rhode Island whatever time he may need.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. REED. Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. President, I rise in support of this amendment to authorize two 
rounds of base closings in the years 2003 and 2005. I commend 
particularly Senator McCain and Senator Levin, the prime sponsors of 
this legislation.
  We all realize that base closing is a very sensitive issue because it 
affects dramatically all of the communities that have military 
installations. My home State, as some States, has not been immune to 
base closings. We had a significant presence of the Navy in 
Narragansett Bay. That presence has been diminished over the last 
several years. But we still have a strong and vibrant naval presence in 
the form of the Naval War College, and the Naval Underseas Warfare 
Laboratory. All of these contribute significantly not only to our 
national defense but to our economy in Rhode Island.
  We approach this understanding that it is a very sensitive issue. But 
it is an issue that we must address. It is an issue that requires 
determination at this point so we can, indeed, free up the resources 
that are necessary for the modernization of our services.
  The reality is quite compelling that we have excess capacity in our 
military establishment in terms of infrastructure. We have reduced the 
force structure by 36 percent since 1989. Yet we only managed to reduce 
the infrastructure--the buildings and the facilities--by 21 percent. 
This mismatch is obvious. This mismatch causes us to continue to spend 
in maintenance and operational expenses hundreds of millions of dollars 
a year minimally for facilities that we don't need. As a result,

[[Page 9688]]

I think we have to recognize that we should authorize another round of 
base closings. The Department of Defense estimates they are maintaining 
23 percent of excess infrastructure which is sapping resources that 
they could use for a host of critical needs--modernization, training, 
and quality of life for servicemen and servicewomen throughout our 
military.
  Indeed, we hear so often that one of the persistent complaints is 
that Government should be as business; that Government should be run as 
efficiently as business. No business would suggest that it reduce its 
personnel dramatically and not make comparable reductions in the 
infrastructure and the facilities that have been in place for more than 
50 years, in many cases.
  We still have the residue of the World War II buildup. There were so 
many posts put up because we had to at that point train millions of 
soldiers, sailors, airmen, and coastguardsmen to staff an Army that was 
many, many times larger than it is today and a Navy that was comparably 
larger. Yet those facilities are still on our rolls because we had been 
unable to effectively initiate base-closing rounds after our first few 
rounds.
  We know that the base-closing process yields savings. It has been 
estimated by the Department of Defense that past closures will produce 
net savings of about $14 billion by the end of the fiscal year 2001, 
and they estimate annual savings thereafter will be about $5.7 billion. 
This is the result of decisions we already made, base-closing rounds 
that have already taken place, and the bases that have already been 
closed. That is a lot of money, particularly as we all are concerned 
about additional resources for defense.
  Another way to look at that is to consider how much more difficult it 
would be to buy new platforms, to provide pay increases, and to enhance 
the quality of life through improved houses and through improved health 
care if we were still maintaining and spending billions of dollars on 
these facilities that have been closed.
  The Department of Defense estimates that two additional rounds of 
base closings would generate annual savings of about $23 billion after 
they are implemented. Again, those are significant resources that can 
be used for programs that we consider to be critical to the defense of 
the Nation and the well-being of our men and women in uniform.
  Both the Congressional Budget Office and the GAO agree that the 
Department of Defense continues to maintain excess capacity and that 
base closings will result in substantial savings. These are objective 
analyses of the current situation with respect to bases in our country.
  The argument has been made that, well, we go out and we close these 
bases, and all of the savings are just eaten up by environmental 
remediation. I remind everyone that the requirement to remediate the 
environment is not a function of closing the bases. It is an ongoing 
responsibility of the Department of Defense. It is mandated regardless 
of whether a base remains open or closed. It is part of our law.
  The Defense Department, as every other Federal entity and private 
entity, has responsibilities to restore degraded environment.
  What happens in a base closing is, as part of the process not only to 
close the base but also to make the base useful for civilian pursuits 
and community economic development, this environmental cleanup is 
accelerated. One could argue that accelerated environmental cleanup 
simply discharges a duty that already exists and also, importantly, 
makes these facilities much more amenable to economic development and 
private benefit for the local communities, which is a plus, not a 
minus.
  The issue before the Senate should be addressed, as we so often 
address it, in the context of advice we have received from individuals 
charged with the administration of our military policy. The Secretary 
of Defense, the service secretaries, and many others have commented 
upon the desirability of the additional base closing rounds. In his 
testimony before the Armed Services Committee on February 8 of this 
year, General Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs stated: We continue 
to have excess infrastructure, and any funds applied toward maintaining 
unneeded facilities diminish our capacity to redirect those funds 
towards higher priority modernization programs.
  At the same hearing, Secretary of Defense Cohen requested funding to 
implement two more BRAC rounds, so that: scarce defense dollars will 
not continue to be spent on excess infrastructure; rather, on the vital 
needs of our Armed Forces.
  Some of my colleagues argue that the base-closing process is 
appropriate, the need is there, but the base-closing process in 1994 
was politically tainted; that politics and not sound defense policy 
dictated what would stay open, what would be closed, and the schedule 
for closures.
  This amendment clearly obviates the potential for that by declaring 
that the base-closing rounds will take place in the year 2003 and in 
2005. There will be a new administration. Any aspersions to the 
operations of this administration should have no effect whatever when 
we consider the legislation included in this amendment.
  I believe we can go forward with the notion that if we act today, we 
will have a much firmer picture of our strategic challenges, our 
strategic posture by the year 2003, so that we will in fact be 
anticipating those strategic decisions by giving our military leaders, 
both civilian and military, the tools to implement their concepts to 
meet the new challenges, the new threats we see all around the world.
  This issue, as I said, is difficult. It impinges on the communities 
we all represent. Anytime we authorize a base closing round, 
essentially we put all of our facilities in play. We all run the risk 
of losing a facility which is a vital part of our community, disrupting 
our community. But that is the very narrow view, a very parochial view.
  The broader national view is that we need to eliminate the excess 
capacity. We need to free up resources for higher priority initiatives 
of the Department of Defense. We need, also, to move away from this 
essentially still World War II infrastructure to a much more reduced 
but more efficient logistical and facility base for the future of this 
new century. Until we are able to eliminate some of these older posts, 
some of these posts that were designed for and that were extremely 
important in World War II and throughout the cold war years, we will 
not have the resource to do what we have to do to face the future.
  I suggest we adopt this amendment because it gives us the ability to 
fund higher priority functions. It gives us the ability to eliminate 
unnecessary facilities. We simply can't have it both ways. We can't 
continue to argue for modernization, for enhancement of the quality of 
life for our troops, for additional training dollars, and still cling 
to facilitates that are not needed, still insist that we maintain a 
World War II and cold war infrastructure as we face the challenges of 
this new century.
  I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, give our defense 
leaders the tools to reduce their overhead as they have reduced the 
force structure, so that we have a more efficient, more effective 
military force for this new century.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. LEVIN. How much time do the proponents have?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Eight minutes.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield 6 minutes to the Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. VOINOVICH. I rise today to support the amendment offered by my 
distinguished colleagues, Senator McCain and Senator Levin.
  Between fiscal year 2000 and fiscal year 2001, defense spending in 
our Nation will increase by more than 6 percent, nearly three times the 
rate of inflation. Under normal circumstances, I would likely oppose 
legislation that would increase defense spending at such a rate. 
However, we have a crisis in the military right now with respect to 
readiness, recruitment, retention, procurement, modernization; and the

[[Page 9689]]

crisis must be met immediately. I will support more money for defense.
  Having said that, I believe in the long term the Defense Department 
must focus on those activities that will help bring down their overall 
costs. Part of the problem we run into in this body is our inability to 
admit that priorities can and should be established by the Department 
of Defense. We need to focus on ways in which the Department can cut 
back on some of its expenditures and use the moneys allocated more 
wisely. In other words, we need to get a bigger bang for our buck. We 
need to work harder and smarter, and we need to do more with less.
  One of the ways we can do that is to eliminate those military 
facilities that no longer serve a useful purpose. I know that is not 
easy. We have experienced the pain of closing bases in Ohio with the 
closure of Newark Air Force Base, Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base, 
and the Defense Electronic Supply Center. Even with the closures and 
the pain we went through, we understood that it was necessary if we 
were going to allocate resources where they were really needed in the 
Department of Defense.
  According to a 1998 Department of Defense report, and as stated by 
Secretary of Defense William Cohen, our Armed Forces currently have 23 
percent more military base capacity than is needed in this Nation. 
Think of that, 23 percent. Keeping this much extra capacity adds up. 
Right now, we spend billions of dollars annually. We will keep on 
spending that money until we acknowledge that we have excess capacity 
and exercise the will to shut it down.
  As difficult as this may sound, we have been through this process 
before. We know that. The Department of Defense reports that because of 
the base closings that have been conducted, we will have saved $14 
billion a year by the end of 2001. The projected net savings, annual 
savings, for the first four rounds have been estimated at nearly $5.7 
billion in fiscal year 2001, a savings that should occur annually. We 
have that money, and it has been reallocated.
  This amendment initiates another two rounds of base closings in 2003 
and 2005. In his testimony earlier this year before the Armed Services 
Committee, Secretary Cohen stated that if we initiate two more rounds 
of base closings, this will save about $3 billion per year that we can 
use for some of the needs we have today in our Defense Department.
  I am here today to urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I 
think there are those who say we ought not to do it at this time. I 
think we all know that if we don't get started now and start the 
procedure and do it today, do it this year, we are not going to be able 
to move forward in 2003 and 2005 when we project the base closings will 
occur.
  I say again, I know this is a tough amendment to support for some of 
my colleagues, but for the good of our Nation I urge my colleagues to 
support this amendment.
  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I rise today in strong opposition to this 
amendment that seeks to authorize two additional BRAC rounds in fiscal 
years 2003 and 2005.
  I have been a steadfast opponent to future BRAC proposals. This 
Administration has proposed BRAC legislation for the last 3 years. Each 
year, this administration has asked us to address the same issue. Yet 
over the last three years, nothing has changed.
  First, the estimated savings achieved by closing bases are just 
that--estimated; and second, the inconsistent application of the BRAC 
process--which this Administration so readily demonstrated after the 
1995 round, will result in lost training areas or access to airspace or 
the sea space by our military forces. This will result in degraded 
force readiness and will be to the overall detriment of our Armed 
Forces.
  Advocates of base closures allege that billions of dollars will be 
saved, despite the fact that there is no consensus on the numbers among 
different sources. These estimates vary because, as the Congressional 
Budget Office explains, BRAC savings are really ``avoided costs.'' 
Because these avoided costs are not actual expenditures and cannot be 
recorded and tracked by the DoD accounting systems, they cannot be 
validated which has lead to inaccurate and overinflated estimates.
  For example, as revealed by the General Accounting Office, land sales 
from the first base closure round in 1988 were estimated by Pentagon 
officials to produce $2.4 billion in revenue, however, as of 1995, the 
actual revenue generated was only $65.7 million. That is about 25 
percent of the expected value. And what was the real up-front cost to 
generate these so called savings? No one really knows.
  This type of overly optimistic accounting establishes a very poor 
foundation for initiating a policy that will have a permanent impact on 
both the military and the civilian communities surrounding these bases.
  I also want to address the issue of the up-front costs involved in 
the base closure process. This appears to be noticeably absent from the 
debate. The facts reveal that there are billions of dollars in costs 
incurred to close a base.
  This includes over $1 billion in Federal financial assistance 
provided to each affected community--a cost paid by the Federal 
Government, not through BRAC budget accounts, and therefore is not 
counted in the estimates. And more significantly, there is $9.6 billion 
in environmental cleanup costs as a result of the first four BRAC 
rounds--a conservative figure according to a December 1998 GAO report--
a number that will continue to grow.
  The administration and proponents of additional BRAC rounds are quick 
to point out that reducing infrastructure has not kept pace with our 
post cold war military force reductions. They say that bases must be 
downsized proportionate to the reduction in total force strength.
  However, this thinking is based on the 1997 Quadrennial Defense 
Review. Since the end of the cold war we have reduced the military 
force structure by 36 percent and have reduced the defense budget by 40 
percent. But now I ask you how much are we employing that force?
  Let me point out that although the size of the armed services has 
decreased, the number of contingencies that our service members have 
been called upon to respond to has dramatically increased--the Navy/
Marine Corps team alone responded to 58 contingency missions between 
1980 and 1989, and between 1990 and 1999 they responded to 192--a 
remarkable threefold increase!
  During the cold war, the U.N. Security Council rarely approved the 
creation of peace operations. The U.N. implemented only 13 such 
operations between 1948 and 1978, and none from 1979 to 1987. Since 
1988, by contrast, 38 peace operations have been established--nearly 
three times as many than the previous 40 years.
  In hearing after hearing this year, the Armed Services Committee has 
heard from our leaders in uniform how our current military forces are 
being stretched too thin, and that estimates predicted in the fiscal 
year 1997 QDR underestimated how much the United Sates would be using 
its military. Clearly, the benefits of the peace dividend are not being 
realized.
  So, we are seeing first hand that the 1997 QDR force levels 
underestimated how much our military force was intended to be used, 
that our military force is being called upon now more than what 
military strategies estimated, and that our forces are being stretched 
to cover a wide range of operations.
  These force levels have to be revisited, and if the trend for current 
deployments remains true, I would expect that these force levels may 
have to be increased. So would we then go and buy back this property 
that we have given up in future BRAC rounds to build new bases--I think 
not.
  Before we legislate defense-wide policy that will reduce the size and 
number of training areas critical to our force readiness, the 
Department of Defense needs a comprehensive plan that

[[Page 9690]]

identifies the operational and maintenance infrastructure required to 
support the services national security requirements. The peacekeeping 
and humanitarian missions clearly require a greater force structure 
than expected.
  It has become clear that we are committing more military forces--and 
more often--than we had planned or anticipated. There is no straight 
line corollary between the size of our forces and the infrastructure 
required to support them.
  We must realize that once property is given up and remediated, it is 
permanently lost as a military asset for all practical purposes. In the 
words of the Chief of Naval Operations, ``we cannot give it away or we 
will never get it back''.
  In the full committee hearings and the subcommittee hearings that the 
Armed Services Committee held this past year, the Chief of Naval 
Operations and fleet commanders testified that the QDR established 
force levels are not sufficient to support their operational 
requirements. A report released earlier this year by the Chairman of 
the Joint Chiefs of Staff concluded that the submarine force levels 
needed to be raised from the 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review and I 
anticipate that the next QDR will support an increase in the ``300 
ship'' Navy as well.
  Therefore, given the elasticity in the QDR numbers, it would be 
premature and costly to base permanent BRAC decisions on estimates that 
we know are not being realized.
  Finally, it would be hypocritical to say that opponents of additional 
BRAC rounds are politicizing the process. Politics weigh heavily on 
both sides of the debate. In December 1998, the General Accounting 
Office reported that of the 499 recommendations made by the four BRAC 
commissions, 48 were amended and removed from the closure list. And we 
are all well aware of the Administration's ``intervention'' in the last 
round that resulted in the ``privatization-in-place'' of the McClellan 
and Kelly Air Force Base depots instead of their closure.
  I want to protect the military's critical readiness and operational 
assets. I want to protect the home port berthing for our ships and 
submarines, the airspace that our aircraft fly in and the training 
areas and ranges that our armed forces require to support and defend 
our Nation. We cannot degrade the readiness of our armed forces by 
chasing illusive savings.
  I reaffirm my opposition to legislation authorizing additional BRAC 
rounds and encourage my colleagues to join me to vote against it. I 
urge my colleagues to defeat this amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, Senator Inhofe, I believe, desires some 
time, and then I will yield to Senator Hatch for 10 minutes.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, if I can respond to a couple of the 
statements of the Senator from Ohio and the Senator from Rhode Island, 
first of all, I know the Senator from Rhode Island is sincere when he 
says this would not take place until 2003; it would be a new 
administration. But we have to keep in mind that administration could 
very well be a Gore administration. It was Vice President Gore who was 
very instrumental in politicizing the system before. I think that is 
significant.
  I would say also to my friend from Ohio, while there are savings that 
would be effected, the savings, according to Secretary Cohen, would not 
even start until 2008. By that time, we are hoping we will have been 
able to use every available dollar to get us out of the situation we 
are in right now. I think that is very significant. Our crisis is now. 
Our crisis is a rebuilding program for the next 4 to 5 years.
  I yield.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, as somebody who lived through the last BRAC 
process, and lived through it in a very intensive way, I have to say 
the process did not work. Everyone lost: the taxpayers, the workers in 
Utah, as well as those in the losing states of California and Texas, 
and the Air Force's state of military readiness. The process was too 
politicized, as I elaborate upon in my later remarks. It was a pitiful 
exercise, in many respects.
  There were some good things about it, I have to acknowledge, but most 
of it was not.
  Utah had the Air Force's highest rated air logistics command in the 
nation, bar none. Nobody could compare with it. It was listed No. 1. It 
made the top of every chart. The workforce and its achievements were 
models of efficiency. But, after the President finished tampering with 
the BRAC results, we had to fight like dogs against raging wolves to 
prove repeatedly what the BRAC had already determined.
  No sooner did we get through all that process--time after time 
appearing at hearings, appearing at major meetings considering BRAC, 
and considering what should be done, making our case over and over, and 
winning, winning, winning--this administration came in and immediately 
undertook questionable steps to sully the BRAC process.
  My experience gives me little confidence in this process. And it's 
not done yet: we won't have the process completed until late 2001, six 
years after the BRAC decision. I do not care who is in charge. When you 
politicize the base closing process, it just leads to the type of 
anquish I and my colleagues are expressing here today.
  How can we forget the major problems between San Antonio and 
McClellan, both of which were installations important to their 
respective States but did not reach the high standards of Utah's Hill 
Air Force Base. If Hill Air Force Base had come in last, I would not be 
here arguing today, nor back then, to keep it alive.
  Let's not forget that we need high military readiness--it is a 
deterrent that allows for peace through strength. But that means having 
a system that accentuates everything that is good about our military, 
like Hill Air Force Base. I would not back a base that was not doing 
the job.
  But in this particular case, McClellan had been judged by the Air 
Force and the BRAC commssion as deficient, as was the San Antonio Air 
Logistics Center at Kelly Air Force Base, Texas. Yet, we wanted to help 
Kelly, if we could, because it had a high percentage of Hispanic 
workers. But the brutal facts showed that Kelly could not measure up. 
Neither did McClellan.
  Then came the administration's misguided and downright wrongful 
attempts to save some of those jobs.
  Mr. President, Ronald Reagan immediately comes to mind when I 
consider today's debate on BRAC . . . ``Here we go again.'' We're being 
asked to engage in the same type of taxpayer deception that 
characterized the 1995 BRAC. We promise savings, and deliver nothing. 
All BRAC produces is a politicized outcome that makes a mockery of the 
independent commission process.
  We need to remind ourselves why we sought a BRAC in the first place: 
It was because we did not feel Congress could be trusted. In fact, it 
was the President who couldn't be trusted. Let's look at some facts, 
facts especially painful to states which lost bases, and those that had 
to defend what they had won again, again and again. I refer to Utah's 
Ogden Air Logistics Center at Hill AFB--three times we had to compete 
for workloads that the BRAC awarded us, but which the President delayed 
sending to Utah.
  The President intervened in the BRAC 95 process to secure 
California's 54 electoral votes in the 1996 election. My good friends 
from California--Senators Boxer and Feinstein--publicly stated that 
they would get relief from the White House after BRAC decided to close 
McClellan Air Force Base in Sacramento. They succeeded, and at the cost 
of work that ought to have gone to Georgia and Utah, but which was 
delayed.
  The President called the BRAC decision to close McClellan an 
``outrage'', in a Rose Garden statement. He actually rejected the 
decision of his own independent commission. In its place, the President 
put great pressure on the Air Force to sully an already messy 
situation. He called this ``privatization in place.'' He attempted to 
keep the jobs which were intended to be distributed to Utah, Oklahoma 
and Georgia in California by forcing a public-private

[[Page 9691]]

competition that GAO rejected as unfair. It had the effect of leaving 
in California as many as 3,200 jobs for as long as six years after the 
BRAC decision, or conveniently after the year 2000 Presidential 
election.
  The BRAC monies designated to move jobs and equipment to Utah and 
elsewhere were mismanaged. They were spent to improve the very 
facilities at McClellan AFB that the BRAC had intended to close! This, 
the President and his gang thought, would make it easier for the base 
to attract private contractors to perform the privatized work in place.
  The delay caused by this contrived competition cost the taxpayers an 
additional $500 million, according to GAO, to sustain the bases' 
workloads in place, despite the decision of BRAC to ship the workloads 
to the other Air Force depots.
  In May 1998, as many of you will remember, the Secretary of the Air 
Force was embarrassed by a memo written by his office urging that the 
Lockheed-Martin bid for the California work win the award. This 
behavior, to my mind, remains one of the most egregious violations of 
the Ethics Reform Act I have seen in my 24 years in the Senate. This 
act prohibits precisely the type of collusion in which the Secretary of 
the Air Force participated.
  It was so outrageous that Secretary Bill Cohen, to his everlasting 
credit, removed the Secretary of the Air Force from the selection team 
that would oversee the public-private competition for the McClellan 
workload.
  But this was not the end of the Clinton Administration's meddling: 
they directed the Air Force to deny the GAO, the congressional watchdog 
agency responsible for overseeing the expenditure of taxpayers' funds, 
access to the cost-data and other information used by the Air Force to 
put together competition for the McClellan workload.
  As might be expected, the long-term effect of this mischievous 
meddling had a cost on readiness. Delays in workload transfer were 
directly responsible for a severe F-16 parts shortage in 1999. Also, 
there is a suspicious relationship between the delayed workload 
transfer and the KC-135 tanker problems early this year when the fleet 
was grounded because of a rear stabilizer malfunction, a problem akin 
to the cause of the Alaskan Airline aircraft off the California coast. 
My personal inquiry into the KC-135 issue demonstrated that if the 
entire KC-135 team responsible for the repair of this part of the 
aircraft had been transferred to Utah in a timely way, as directed by 
the BRAC, the design flaw would probably never have occurred.
  There is an answer to BRAC: let Congress endorse the decisions of the 
military services, without the filter of presidential intervention, 
whether by a BRAC-like commission or any other procedure. The military 
services know better than any other body the best and the worst of 
their installations, the ones that pay their own way, and the ones that 
drain the taxpayers' pockets. After my state's experience with the BRAC 
process, I am more inclined to trust this body to evaluate the 
services' recommendations.
  I see that we have a very important guest. I will be happy to yield 
the floor at this time for Senator Helms.

                          ____________________