[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 17481-17493]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



        NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2002

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now 
proceed to Calendar No. 163, S. 1438, the Department of Defense 
authorization bill; that once the bill is reported, I be recognized to 
offer a managers' amendment; that the amendment be agreed to and the 
motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. WARNER. Reserving the right to object--and I certainly will not 
object--I have joined with my distinguished chairman in preparation of 
the managers' amendment and will be a cosponsor of it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will report the bill.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 1438) to authorize appropriations for fiscal 
     year 2002 for military activities of the Department of 
     Defense, for military construction, and for defense 
     activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe 
     personnel strengths for such fiscal year for the Armed 
     Forces, and for other purposes.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan is recognized.


                           Amendment No. 1598

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the managers' amendment is at the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Michigan [Mr. Levin], for himself and Mr. 
     Warner, proposes an amendment numbered 1598.

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further 
reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Without objection, the amendment is agreed to, and the motion to 
reconsider is laid upon the table.
  The amendment (No. 1598) was agreed to.
  The amendment is as follows:

       At the appropriate place in the bill, add the following:

     SEC.   . AUTHORIZATION OF ADDITIONAL FUNDS.

       (a) Authorization.--$1,300,000,000 is hereby authorized, in 
     addition to the funds authorized elsewhere in Division A of 
     this Act, for whichever of the following purposes the 
     President determines to be in the national security interests 
     of the United States--
       (1) research, development, test and evaluation for 
     ballistic missile defense; and
       (2) activities for combating terrorism.

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, this is no ordinary time in our country. In 
New York and just across the Potomac in Virginia, our fellow citizens 
continue to sift through the ruins left by the most deadly attack ever 
against the United States. Our fury at those who attack innocents is 
matched by our determination to protect our citizens from more terror 
and by our resolve to track down, root out, and relentlessly pursue the 
terrorists and those who would shelter or harbor them. The President 
spoke eloquently and forcefully last night setting out those goals.
  Against this background, we bring the National Defense Authorization 
Act for Fiscal Year 2002 to the floor of the Senate. The bill 
authorizes the full amount requested by the administration for national 
defense, including the $18.4 billion requested by the President in his 
amended budget request. The bill also addresses a number of important 
priorities identified by the Armed Services Committee.
  I am pleased we were able to add a significant amount of money, over 
$700 million, to the budget request for compensation and quality of 
life.
  We added more than $1 billion to improve the readiness of the 
military services to carry out their assigned missions.
  We added a large amount of money to advance the transformation of the 
military services and to improve the capability of the armed forces to 
meet nontraditional threats, including terrorism.
  Even in advance of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and 
the Pentagon, we gave particular attention to the problem of terrorism 
as reflected in our bill and in the report that accompanies it. Not 
only did the committee fully fund the President's proposal for 
combating terrorism, we were able to add funds for a new combating 
terrorism initiative to improve the ability of the U.S. forces to deter 
and defend against terrorism, including additional funds for research 
by the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy on the 
detection, identification, and measurement of chemical and biological 
weapons, and funds to upgrade Army installations and make them less 
vulnerable to terrorism. Much more remains to be done in this area, and 
that has surely been dramatized by the events of September 11.
  We have already passed a $40 billion emergency supplemental for our 
war on terrorism. I understand the Department of Defense will be coming 
forward with an additional supplemental budget request in the next 
several weeks, and our committee will review any such request.
  The U.S. military is by far the most capable fighting force in the 
world. From Europe to the Persian Gulf to the Korean peninsula, the 
presence of U.S. military forces and their contributions to regional 
peace and security reassure our allies and deter adversaries.
  U.S. forces have excelled in every mission assigned to them, 
including

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the 1999 NATO air campaign over Kosovo and ongoing enforcement of the 
no-fly zones over Iraq, humanitarian operations from Central America to 
Africa, and peacekeeping operations from the Balkans to East Timor.
  The U.S. armed forces remain the standard against which all 
militaries are measured. Our armed forces are without peer today, and 
this bill will help ensure they remain so for the foreseeable future. 
At his confirmation hearing before the Armed Services Committee last 
week, Gen. Richard Myers, the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 
Staff, testified that we have military forces and capability that we 
need to respond to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and 
the Pentagon.
  We identified five priorities to guide our consideration of the bill: 
Continuing the improvements in the compensation and quality of life of 
the men and women of the armed forces and their families; improving the 
capability of the armed forces to meet nontraditional threats, 
including terrorism and unconventional means of delivery of weapons of 
mass destruction; sustaining the readiness of the military services to 
carry out their assigned missions; encouraging the transformation of 
the military services to lighter, more lethal, and more capable forces; 
and improving the efficiency of Department of Defense programs and 
operations.
  Let me briefly address each of those areas.
  One of our top priorities was to continue the improvements in the 
compensation and quality of life for our men and women in uniform. In 
this regard, we approved a pay raise of at least 5 percent for all 
military personnel and targeted pay raises of between 6 and 10 percent 
for enlisted personnel and junior officers, and we provided $17.9 
billion requested by the Department to fully fund the Defense Health 
Program, including the significant new benefits we authorized last 
year.
  The committee approved a number of other important initiatives to 
improve the quality of life for our military, and, in particular, the 
bill before us would authorize $30 million to improve retention efforts 
by allowing personnel with critical skills to transfer up to 18 months 
of unused benefits under the Montgomery GI bill to family members in 
return for a commitment to serve 4 additional years.
  Senator Cleland has been fighting for that initiative since he came 
to the Senate, and I am delighted we were able to include it in our 
bill this year.
  We added more than $450 million for family housing and other military 
construction to improve the facilities in which our military personnel 
work and housing in which they and their families live.
  We added more than $230 million to increase the basic allowance for 
housing and eliminate all out-of-pocket housing costs for service 
members and their families by the year 2003, which is 2 years earlier 
than the Department of Defense plan.
  Finally, the bill includes a set of provisions offered by 18 members 
of the committee, led by Senators Landrieu, Allard, Cleland, and 
Nelson, to ensure overseas voters and absent military voters have a 
meaningful opportunity to exercise their voting rights as citizens of 
the United States.
  Another top priority of our committee was to improve the ability of 
the United States and U.S. forces to deal effectively with 
nontraditional threats, including terrorism, unconventional means of 
delivering weapons of mass destruction, and the proliferation of 
nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. The Emerging Threats 
Subcommittee, under the leadership of Senator Mary Landrieu and Senator 
Pat Roberts, took the lead in this effort.
  Our committee added funds to the budget request to help address 
nontraditional threats. First, the bill adds funds for a combating 
terrorism initiative to improve the ability of U.S. forces to deter and 
defend against terrorism, including almost $100 million for research by 
the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy to detect and 
identify chemical and biological weapons in advance of their use, and 
more than $75 million to upgrade Army installations and make them less 
vulnerable to terrorism.
  I am particularly pleased that we were able to add $13 million to the 
budget for standoff explosive detection research and development, a 
proof-of-concept system for predetonation of explosive devices and hand 
held explosive detectors for the U.S. Navy, all fulfilling the 
requirements which were so urgently identified in the aftermath of the 
October 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole.
  If we can develop that standoff explosive detection, if we can come 
up with the technology to do that, learning the lesson which we learned 
to our great expense, cost, and horror with the attack on the U.S.S. 
Cole, we will make a very significant gain in the war against 
terrorism.
  The bill would authorize the full $400 million requested by the 
administration for cooperative threat reduction programs, to continue 
destroying and dismantling nuclear warheads and missiles in the former 
Soviet Union, and we added more than $50 million to Department of 
Energy programs to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass 
destruction and related expertise.
  Earlier this year, a bipartisan task force, chaired by former Senator 
Howard Baker and former White House counsel Lloyd Cutler, concluded the 
following: The most urgent unmet national security threat to the United 
States today is the danger that weapons of mass destruction or weapons-
usable materiel in Russia could be stolen and sold to terrorists or 
hostile nation states and used against American troops abroad or 
citizens at home.
  With this funding, the committee has placed itself firmly on record 
in support of the continuing effort to reduce the threats posed by 
offensive nuclear weapons, their delivery systems, and related 
material.
  Another priority of the committee was to sustain the readiness of the 
U.S. military. Toward that end, we added approximately $1 billion to 
the budget request to fund critical priorities of the military 
services. These additions included the following: Almost $250 million 
to improve the readiness of Army aviation, including additional Black 
Hawk helicopters, upgrades to Apache helicopters, and additional TH-67 
training helicopters.
  We added $125 million for upgrades to the B-2 and B-52 bombers and an 
additional $100 million to maintain B-1 bombers to ensure we will 
continue to have a ready, capable bomber fleet.
  We added more than $120 million to upgrade engines and reduce 
maintenance costs for the F-15 and F-16 aircraft, and we added almost 
$100 million for the maintenance of surface ships and Navy and Marine 
Corps equipment.
  The committee also added money to increase full-time manning in the 
Army National Guard, to upgrade the Navy's electronic warfare aircraft, 
to improve the operational safety and capabilities of the test ranges 
and space launch facilities, and to continue modernizing the training 
aircraft used by the Air Force and Navy for the training of new pilots.
  Again, I emphasize these additions to the President's budget request 
were all made before the events of September 11. There will be 
additional ones I will list in a moment, but we will be receiving in 
the next few days an amended budget request from the administration, or 
a supplemental budget request, to add additional funds to those I am 
outlining.
  We do not have that request before us yet, so we are unable to 
respond to it. Of course, it will be mainly an appropriations request, 
but we also hope as authorizers to have an opportunity to take a look 
at that request in the days ahead.
  The committee also gave priority to continued support for 
transformation of the U.S. military forces. To do this, we added more 
than $800 million to the budget request to advance the transformation 
efforts of the military to a lighter, more lethal, and a more flexible 
force. These additions included the following: Nearly $400 million to 
support Navy transformation, including more than $300 million to 
support conversion of four excess Trident missile

[[Page 17483]]

submarines to carry Tomahawk cruise missiles; more than $200 million to 
increase the defense science and technology budget, including 
substantial increases for advanced materials and manufacturing 
technologies, nanotechnologies, and cutting-edge communication 
technologies. We added almost $200 million for Army transformation 
programs, including full funding for all of the objective force 
priorities on the Army's list of unfunded requirements in fiscal year 
2002, and more than $80 million to fund continued efforts to develop 
and field unmanned vehicles.
  I want to give special credit to our ranking member, Senator Warner. 
He has been an active advocate, for as long as I can remember, for 
putting additional funds in for our unmanned aerial vehicles and other 
unmanned vehicles. He has had a great deal of foresight in focusing on 
the importance of doing that, and I have supported those efforts, but 
the credit for the leadership really belongs to Senator Warner. The 
Nation is in his debt for that and so many other actions on his part. 
In future years and future decades, we will see the payoff for these 
kinds of investments now in these unmanned vehicles.
  The money that is needed to fund these priorities was obtained 
through management and other efficiencies identified by the committee. 
In particular, we determined the Department should be able to achieve 
significant savings through improved management of its purchases of 
services, including--I emphasize this--the increased use of 
performance-based service contracting, competition for orders under 
service contract, program review spending analyses, and other best 
practices commonly used in the commercial sector.
  In fact, the final report on an OMB pilot program 3 years ago 
concluded Federal agencies should be able to save as much as 15 to 30 
percent on their service contracts through the use of performance-based 
service contracting alone. There has not been much done in that area. 
There is a lot we can do, and we will harvest significant savings when 
we do so, as this bill provides.
  We are also able to achieve efficiencies by identifying programs in 
which the Department requested more money than it could wisely spend in 
fiscal year 2002. We approved a reduction of $592 million to the V-22 
tilt rotor Osprey aircraft program because of continuing concerns about 
the program and the recommendation of the V-22 review panel that 
production should be kept to a minimum sustaining rate in order to 
minimize the number of aircraft requiring retrofit after these programs 
have been addressed.
  Similarly, we approved a net reduction of about $250 million to the 
Joint Strike Fighter Program because of the likely delay of the launch 
of the engineering and manufacturing development phase of the JSF 
Program.
  The bill before us authorizes a new round of base alignments and 
closures for the year 2003, and that will produce a significant 
increase in the Department of Defense's savings that it has achieved 
the four previous rounds. The civilian and military leadership of the 
Department of Defense has told us for years, through two 
administrations, that the Department of Defense has excess 
infrastructure and needs a new round of base closings to free up funds 
for higher priority defense needs and to support the successful 
transformation of our military and implementation of the Quadrennial 
Defense Review.
  Senator McCain and I have been fighting for a new BRAC, as we call 
it, for more than 4 years. I am glad the committee endorsed by a 17-8 
vote the proposal the administration sent to us.
  Now we are asking the Department of Defense whether or not, in light 
of recent circumstances, there is any change in their position that 
they want the tool of reducing excess infrastructure in order to make 
savings so they can apply those savings in the years ahead to other 
vital needs of the Defense Department. That request has been sent to 
the Department of Defense to see what their current position is in 
light of the events of September 11. We will have discussions with our 
colleagues relative to this matter in the hours and days ahead, and 
with the Defense Department, because we do want to make sure the 
Defense Department position is still the same and that is still a tool 
they consider to be essential for them in waging a war efficiently and 
in having resources needed to wage future efforts, such as the long 
effort that is going to be needed in the war against terrorism.
  In short, we believe this is a strong and balanced bill that fully 
funds the amount requested by the administration for national defense, 
and it goes a long way to meet the urgent needs of our military. In 
light of recent events, we are obviously going to do more, as we have 
with the enactment of $40 billion emergency supplemental appropriations 
bill last week. On top of that, in the next few days we will be 
receiving a request for additional funds given the circumstances that 
have unfolded.
  As important as the funding that we provide is, there is something 
else that is critically important. That is the unity of purpose that we 
show as we enter into the current struggle. Debate on a bill such as 
this is an inherent part of our democracy. While our democratic 
institutions are stronger than any terrorist attack, in one regard we 
operate differently in times of national emergency. We set aside those 
differences that we cannot bridge. We try to resolve differences that 
we previously were unable to resolve. But in cases of other 
differences, we put them off for another day, where the effort or 
attempt to resolve them now would create dissent where we need unity.
  There are a number of these issues that were in this bill. One had to 
do with the question of national missile defense. We were able, by one 
vote in committee, to put into the original bill which came before this 
Senate a provision which would have required Presidential certification 
in the event that it was decided or determined there were activities 
that were going to be funded that were in conflict with the arms 
reduction and arms control treaty that we entered into. It was a matter 
of major seriousness, regardless of what position people took on that 
issue, to just about every Member of this body. Rather than to have the 
effort made to resolve that issue now, we decided we would withhold 
those provisions. That is why a few days ago I withdrew those 
provisions from this bill and introduced under rule XIV a separate bill 
which contained those provisions.
  Under that rule, today, that separate bill which contains these 
provisions relative to national missile defense is on the calendar of 
the Senate. It is available for the majority leader to call up, should 
he choose to do so, for debate by this body. If and when--and I 
emphasize the ``if,'' not just the ``when''--the administration 
determines that an activity for which it is using funds from this bill 
conflicts with the arms control treaty, the ABM Treaty, it would then 
be an option for the majority leader to call up the bill that is now on 
the calendar which would then provide the opportunity for us to debate 
whether or not we wanted to fund such activity. That was the way in 
which we preserved that option, delayed that debate that preserved the 
rights of people who feel strongly about that issue, including myself, 
to have such a debate should it be appropriate to do so.
  To summarize what we have done relative to those provisions, relative 
to national missile defense, the specific provisions relative to 
activities for which funds might be used from this bill in conflict 
with the ABM Treaty, the provision which is now on a separate bill 
would not have prohibited such activities but, rather, would have 
deferred a congressional decision on funding them until we had a 
determination from the administration as to whether the activities 
would be in conflict with the treaty.
  For some Members, that is very important information. As the author 
of that provision, I believe very strongly that we have a 
responsibility to determine whether or not a testing activity or 
funding conflicts with an arms control agreement. Some might vote to 
approve the funding without regard to that arms control agreement. 
Others would want additional information and

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the nature of the conflict between the treaty and the requested 
activity. Some Members would want to know the significance of the 
testing effort, to weigh whether or not the value of the test which is 
in conflict with that arms control agreement outweighs some of the 
negative circumstances which might be created by the unilateral 
withdrawal which would have to take place before such a testing 
activity occurred.
  It seemed to me, regardless of one's position relative to the issue 
of whether or not we should proceed with such activities in conflict 
with the treaty, that was important information for all Members to 
have. We don't have that information now. The Department has been 
unable to tell us whether or not any of the activities which funds are 
being asked for in this bill, and to be authorized in the bill, are in 
conflict with the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. They have been unable 
to tell us. The thought behind the language was that if and when the 
time comes when they do determine there is such a conflict, at that 
time Congress should have an opportunity to vote.
  Again, I emphasize that language, subject of much debate and much 
dissent, has now been withdrawn from this bill by myself and put into a 
separate bill which is now on the Senate calendar. This was a very 
difficult decision, I tell my good friend from New Jersey.
  While the Senator is presiding, I must say how extraordinarily moving 
he and Senator Torricelli were in New Jersey yesterday, as many 
Senators visited New Jersey after our visit to ground zero in New York 
City. It helped Members get a full picture by our visit to New Jersey 
with the presentations which were made to us by Senator Corzine, 
Senator Torricelli, by the Governor of New Jersey, and by so many 
mayors who helped to round out exactly what the effect was of that 
attack upon us on September 11. I know I speak for all who were present 
yesterday in New Jersey when our Presiding Officer, Senator Corzine, 
and Senator Torricelli made such an effective presentation. Many of us 
were not aware that perhaps half of the people killed in that terrorist 
attack were residents of New Jersey. While New York City was ground 
zero, and we had severe losses at the Pentagon, New Jersey and also 
many from Connecticut and I believe from as many as 40 or 50 other 
countries were attacked by those terrorists. There were many, many 
countries symbolized on that attack on the World Trade Center when 
citizens from so many countries were killed in that attack. I think 
Britain lost literally hundreds of its citizens.
  What was so dramatically presented to us yesterday was the fact that 
New Jersey's families are suffering in as great a number as any other 
place, including New York, as a result of that attack. I just wanted to 
thank Senator Corzine for his role in bringing us to New Jersey, along 
with Senator Torricelli. It makes a difference.
  Just as important as it is that we stand together in these days, 
coming together where we can on a bill which is so important to the 
defense of this Nation and to our security--and where we cannot agree, 
trying to defer those other issues to a different time and place--it is 
also important that our colleagues join us in trying to focus on issues 
that directly relate to this bill as this bill comes before the Senate.
  Obviously, amendments are appropriate. They always are appropriate. 
But there are some amendments currently being filed that really cannot 
be appropriately considered on this bill. It is going to require all 
the efforts of all of us to focus on the material in this bill and the 
subject matter of this bill if we are going to get a bill passed as it 
should be passed urgently; if not today, and that is unlikely--by 
Monday or Tuesday.
  (Mr. CORZINE assumed the chair.)
  Mr. WARNER. Today may be possible.
  Mr. LEVIN. Today may be possible, I am told by my good friend, 
Senator Warner. We should not even eliminate that possibility. But if 
we all cooperate in the kind of spirit which we have in bringing this 
bill to the committee and trying to avoid amendments which are not 
related to the subject matter of this bill, we have a chance of passing 
this bill as it should be passed, with great urgency and with great 
unity and with one voice.
  Senator Warner and I have spent a lot of time in the last few days 
working to do just that--to be able to bring a bill to the floor where 
we can say together that we, the members of the committee, all support 
this bill now.
  We hope other Members of the Senate will join in this debate, offer 
amendments as they must, which relate to the subject matter, but help 
us to pass this bill with the urgency which is required and the unity 
which, God knows, is appropriated in circumstances such as this.
  I want to say one other thing to my friend from Virginia before I 
yield; that is, how grateful this Nation is to him for his leadership 
in bringing to our attention the losses, the personal losses and the 
tragedies that were involved in the attack on the Pentagon. I was able 
to personally join with Senator Warner on a number of these visits that 
he has made. I know how many hours he has spent with, not only the 
families of those who have lost loved ones at the Pentagon but with the 
leadership at the Pentagon focusing on how to restore the Pentagon, to 
let the terrorists know we are going to restore New York, we are going 
to restore the Pentagon, and we are going to restore any other places 
they were able to damage.
  But I thank Senator Warner because he has played the leadership role 
in bringing to the attention of the Nation that the losses in New York 
are the largest losses numerically, assuredly, but that we had almost 
200 people between the people working in the Pentagon and the people on 
the airplane that hit the Pentagon, lost in Virginia. I know how his 
heart goes out to those families.
  I can only tell him--I know he already knows every Member of this 
Senate is with you and with your colleague from Virginia in your 
efforts to bring some peace and closure and then some restoration to 
those families and to your State. I thank you for that.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I thank my colleague. The morning of 
September 11 was a moving moment in the life of every American. Senator 
Levin and I, within a very short time after learning of the attacks 
both in New York and in Virginia, and of course the devastation that 
occurred in Pennsylvania and the peripheral tragic consequences that 
came upon the States of New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland and the 
District of Columbia, in close proximity to these attacks--I called my 
friend and I said I think you and I should show our support at this 
point in time for the men and women of the Armed Forces and for the 
President and for the Secretary of Defense.
  I made a call to the Pentagon which resulted in the Secretary of 
Defense saying, ``Your participation this day of the attack would be 
welcome and helpful.''
  The two of us met and went to the Department of Defense. Just a few 
hours after that attack, Senator Levin, the Secretary of Defense, and I 
stood right there, about 100 yards or so from where that plane crashed 
into that edifice, the Pentagon, which represents, to our men and women 
in uniform, the epicenter of the command and control of their destiny.
  I thank my colleague for joining me that morning in going to the 
Department. I think every time I have had the opportunity to address 
the Senate since that period, I begin by saying that all of us in the 
Senate have in our minds, in our prayers, the victims who were lost in 
these attacks and their families, no matter where they are, around the 
nation and around the world. Yes, we have them in our prayers. But, 
those prayers are combined with prayers for literally thousands of men 
and women: firefighters, policemen, rescue squads, hospital and Red 
Cross workers, construction workers--that realm of individuals that 
shun recognition but who selflessly responded to those sites, first in 
New York and then in a fraction of time in Virginia, to try to help at 
those sites where the attacks were inflicted.

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  That band of brothers and sisters, as one fireman said to me, whether 
they are in Virginia or New York or Pennsylvania, or from any of the 
many States and localities that sent help, represent the finest 
traditions of this great Nation about how we respond and help each 
other in time of need, all of us.
  Now the Nation is arm in arm united behind our President, moving 
forward--steadily, carefully, thoughtfully--to address the needs of the 
Nation and the means by which we, seeking justice, will bring about a 
redress of these criminal acts, perhaps with the use of force, which is 
likely to be necessary. Of course, last night, as our President spoke, 
I and others had in mind the men and women in the uniform of the United 
States Armed Forces and their families who will bear the brunt if and 
when that force is used.
  Mr. President, I thank my chairman. We have worked together in this 
chamber for 23 years and now we face another challenge. We are 
fortunate to have on our committee men and women who are absolutely 
committed to do what is necessary and proper to help this country in 
this hour of challenge and need.
  I think it is appropriate, following the President's magnificent 
address last night--and I know of no President in the history of the 
United States of America who has ever been faced with a more 
challenging, a more complex framework of international security issues, 
economic issues, and threats to the United States than has our 
President, President Bush--that we now take up and swiftly pass this 
Defense Authorization Bill for Fiscal Year 2002 that provides the 
President the resources he has asked for and that our armed forces 
need.
  The President not only rose to the occasion last night, but I think, 
if I may say, he exceeded in every way our hopes and prayers that he 
would take command--as he did--and deliver a very clear message.
  Today, as the Senate turns to the consideration of our national 
defense authorization bill for the year 2002, in this time of national 
emergency, it is time we provide our President and the men and women of 
the Armed Forces, and the thousands of civilians who support those men 
and women, the requirements that they have for the coming fiscal year 
as best we can judge them.
  The chairman indicated that the President would be forthcoming any 
day now with an amendment to the 2002 bill. Our committee and other 
committees of the Senate will immediately turn to that, upon receipt. 
It is my expectation that it can be incorporated in this legislation 
during the course of the conference between the House and the Senate.
  The events of September 11 have forever changed this world, and 
forever changed the United States. The one change that is clear is that 
we are a stronger nation today. That inherent strength emerged not a 
second after the infliction of these grave attacks. The 11th, when we 
saw the smoke billowing from our homeland, is a day forever etched into 
everyone's memory.
  The initial shock was followed by a surging sense of new purpose and 
strength and, a word that all of us understand--``patriotism''--love of 
country for the freedoms that we have.
  Now a responsibility and a challenge fall upon the Congress--a 
coequal branch our Government--to work with our President and to serve 
our citizens. It is vital that we very carefully--as we have done--and 
expeditiously address this bill and, hopefully, act on it. The 
leadership has been tremendously supportive of Senator Levin, myself, 
and other members of the committee throughout the course of the past 
few days as we have worked to bridge our differences and bring this 
bill to the floor.
  I hope we can pass this bill, for this bill will communicate a 
message to our citizens and to the world that the U.S. resolves to do 
whatever is necessary to protect our homeland and our forces abroad, to 
work with our allies for their mutual protection, and to address the 
full spectrum of threats that confront our Nation, the entire Western 
World, and, indeed, all of civilization. As we have all heard and felt, 
this was not just an attack on America, but an attack on the world and 
the fundamental principles of civilization.
  All of us in this Chamber have recognized the fact that this is an 
increasingly dangerous world. There will be a time to look back on 
events and how well we were prepared, and how we were not prepared, to 
deal with this crisis. But those debates are yet to come. Now is the 
time for unity. We have it here today in the Senate.
  I addressed my caucus this morning outlining what Senator Levin and I 
have agreed upon. He addressed his caucus. We bridged the one remaining 
difference early this morning between the hours of 8 and 9. This 
managers' amendment, which we have just adopted by unanimous consent, 
in my judgment, satisfactorily addresses the remaining differences we 
had.
  When the authorization bill was reported out by the Armed Services 
Committee almost 2 weeks ago, there was a division among its members. 
That was understandable because our side--the Republican side--was 
unified behind what we saw were clear and justified requests by our 
President. The bill, at that time, contained certain provisions which 
we believed might impede his ability under the Constitution as the 
chief architect of foreign policy to continue and, hopefully, conclude 
certain negotiations he has undertaken with Russia with regard to the 
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
  Further, we thought the dollar amounts which our President requested 
of the Congress for the purpose of initiating new research, development 
and testing with regard to our Nation's absolute necessity to prepare 
ourselves today, and most especially for future generations, against 
the threat of a limited attack on us, were inconsistent with what I 
believe are the President's justifiable requests. For that reason, we 
were not able to report out, as is the tradition of our committee, a 
bipartisan bill.
  But in the aftermath of the tragic events of September 11, the 
distinguished chairman and I, working with our Members on both sides, 
have now bridged these differences in large measure. We agree at this 
time, for reasons I have stated, that we feel that, in the aftermath of 
these attacks, the justification for moving forward with new ways to 
prepare this Nation against a limited attack of missiles is enhanced by 
what we saw on the 11th. It brought to us the realization that, yes, 
while there was some thought it was remote that a missile could attack 
this Nation someday, now we cannot ignore or eliminate any part of that 
full spectrum of threats that may be directed towards this country.
  So, as never before, we are strongly committed to support our 
President.
  In my own many years on this committee, I have worked as ranking 
member with Chairman Nunn, Chairman Stennis, and others. There were 
rare times when the chairman and the ranking member of the Armed 
Services Committee recognized, for whatever reason, that they could no 
longer have bipartisanship. I am reminded of two instances between 
Senator Nunn and myself. One was when we had a difference of view on 
the Tower nomination, and the other was the Gulf War resolution giving 
President George H. W. Bush the authority to utilize force in 1991.
  History reflects the outcome of those two events. But I remember that 
Senator Nunn and I shook hands. We recognized we had to go our 
different ways, and we did it. In the aftermath of both events, we 
rejoined as the chairman and ranking of the committee to work together. 
Senator Levin and I have likewise done so.
  There came a point in the course of our deliberations--it was 
actually last weekend following a joint appearance--when we were on a 
national television show that I told him I felt I had to go my separate 
way and introduce legislation which reflected very clearly what we 
Republicans perceived as the essentials that the Commander in Chief, 
the President, desired and needed. This included preserving his ability 
to continue negotiations regarding the ABM

[[Page 17486]]

Treaty and to prepare for a future, limited missile attack. Hopefully, 
God will never let that happen. Regardless, we must make preparations.
  For a while we went our separate ways. But then in due course, 
Senator Levin introduced this bill we are acting on today. I say to my 
colleagues that I believe, along with the managers' amendment, this 
bill satisfies the concerns we had with the bill originally reported to 
the Senate by the committee, with regards to the ABM Treaty and 
equitable funding for ballistic missile defense. After careful 
consultation with the Secretary of Defense, the Deputy Secretary, and 
many others--consultations I have had at length every day this past 
week--I can represent to our chairman and to all members that the 
administration now supports this bill as it is drawn.
  Proceeding on, we have, as managers of this bill, introduced 
legislation which we believe should meet the expectations of the Senate 
and that the Senate, hopefully, will act swiftly upon this bill. I did 
not realize we would have the opportunity to consider this bill today, 
and I thank our leaders for recognizing the importance and timeliness 
of this important legislation.
  I hope Members, having heard the deliberations in our caucuses this 
morning regarding this bill, know those areas in which they are 
interested. If they have amendments, they should bring them to the 
floor. Hopefully they will be germane to the provisions of this bill 
and respectful of the spirit of discretion our leaders have asked for 
so that we can move expeditiously on this bill.
  I urge my colleagues to join us in sending our President and our 
fellow citizens in the world a message of this resolve by passing this 
bill. I remember also Governor Bush, when he was a candidate, reminded 
us almost prophetically in the Citadel in the fall of 1999 that: ``The 
protection of America itself will assume a high priority in a new 
century. Once a strategic afterthought, homeland defense has become an 
urgent duty.'' In that same Citadel speech, he called for ``anti-
ballistic missile systems, both theater and national, to guard against 
attack and blackmail.'' He also called for strengthening our 
intelligence community and developing the technologies to detect 
chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons threatening our shores. The 
threat, as he perceived it then, required greater emphasis on homeland 
defense.
  Our committee, when I was privileged to be chairman several years 
ago, with the help of my now chairman, Senator Levin, established a 
subcommittee entitled ``Emerging Threats.'' The responsibility of that 
subcommittee was to provide the full committee with the wide spectrum 
of issues as they saw it with regard to known, anticipated, and 
unanticipated threats. This subcommittee examines whether the current 
elements of the national defense we have in place need to be 
strengthened or, indeed, new initiatives taken to strengthen, to 
hopefully deter, and, if necessary, to respond to these threats. This 
subcommittee has done a lot of valuable work. Senator Roberts was 
chairman; now Senator Landrieu is chairman. They have continued to 
provide very helpful assistance to the full committee, and the full 
committee has acted in many ways to protect our country from the 
growing threat of terrorism.
  When the bill was adopted by the committee this year--and I commend 
the chairman--the chairman actually, with his initiative, added another 
$200 million towards antiterrorist activities. As he mentioned earlier, 
part of that increase was expanding the scope of research and 
development of unmanned military vehicles. I thank the chairman for his 
recognition of my modest role in that. I assure you, I could not have 
achieved those initiatives as chairman without his support and that of 
the other members of the committee.
  The President of the United States has committed significant 
resources to deal with the types of terrorists threats we witnessed a 
week ago. For fiscal year 2002, President Bush requested $5.6 billion 
for the Department of Defense for activities to combat terrorism. This 
is a $1 billion increase over last year's level of funding. Again, the 
chairman added another $215 million, for which I commend him. With the 
committee's support, we clearly have a bill that addresses homeland 
defense, and supports this highest priority concern our President 
brought to the attention of the Nation in the fall of 1999 at the 
Citadel.
  Missile defense, in my judgment, is a critical component of that 
homeland defense. The President stands by his vision to prepare America 
and begin now to look at new options by which to prepare us to 
hopefully deter and then defend against a limited attack. This is 
clearly the time to stand by our President.
  I remember when the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, 
George Tenet, came before our committee. He has repeatedly warned us 
that ``America's superpower status does not bestow invulnerability upon 
us but in fact makes us a target for the angry and disaffected of the 
world.''
  That was in his testimony. We as a Nation have grown accustomed to 
being safe within our borders. While many of us recognized the growing 
vulnerability, this vicious attack on our homeland removed all doubts 
about the full spectrum of the capabilities, military and otherwise, 
that the terrorists can use to inflict damage upon us.
  We have heard incredible stories of courage and heroism amidst the 
tragedy of the past week and a half. Our Nation today, as the President 
said last night, remains in danger. All American citizens should 
understand that. I remember so clearly in my past experience with the 
military, there was occasionally that sign--the all clear, sound the 
all clear bell aboard ships. And at my airbase in Korea, the cold 
winter of 1951-1952: The all clear siren had blown--We could rest easy.
  Today, that siren has not blown. I don't know, nor does anyone else 
know, when that siren can be blown across this Nation. We are in danger 
at this moment. We remain in danger. But the world should know that we 
are a much stronger Nation, and we are prepared, with the men and women 
of the Armed Forces today and the other many resources that we have, to 
deter and hopefully not let another attack hit this Nation.
  I hope those Members who have amendments will come to the floor. I 
see other Members seeking recognition. I hope our members of the 
committee will likewise come and express their views about this bill 
and their active participation on the committee.
  Again, I thank our chairman. I thank all members of our committee and 
our magnificent staff, on both sides. We have produced a commendable 
piece of legislation which is deserving of prompt consideration and 
enactment by the Senate.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I thank both the chairman of the Armed 
Services Committee and the ranking Republican, Senator Warner, for 
their diligent efforts in reaching this compromise. It means a lot to 
me, to the State of Colorado, and particularly to the Nation. When you 
consider the events that happened just 10 days ago, those tragic 
events, it is imperative that we get a Defense authorization bill to 
move forward.
  The way the issue of missile defense started out in the subcommittee 
on which I am the ranking Republican, it was a rocky road. The chairman 
of that strategic subcommittee, Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, is a 
tremendous chairman. I like working with him. There are a couple of 
committees on which I serve with him, where he is the chairman and I am 
the head Republican. Our working relationship I describe as superb. He 
listens, tries to work with the minority side. I try and do everything 
I can to work with him. We have a very good relationship.
  It was with a heavy heart, when reporting out of that subcommittee 
our portion of the armed services bill, we had it reported out in a 
divided mode. We had a strict partisan vote, Republicans voting against 
it, Democrats

[[Page 17487]]

were for it, the chairman. It was over the issue of missile defense. 
Then the issue went to the full Armed Services Committee and that 
debate continued.
  I know when it got to that point in the debate, people began to lock 
in their positions, and we would still be tied up today if it would not 
have been for the tremendous leadership of our chairman of the Armed 
Services Committee, Senator Levin, as well as the ranking Republican 
working together on this most important issue.
  There are many other important issues in this bill. I am particularly 
pleased that we have moved forward with missile defense. I am pleased 
the restrictive language in missile defense was taken out and the 
funding is there with the flexibility to either use for missile defense 
or for terrorism. The President, in light of the recent changes in the 
last 10 days, needed that flexibility. I, for one, was more than 
willing to give it to him.
  I appreciate the efforts in the area of defense environmental 
management of my chairman, what has been in the committee; in 
particular, the support in the bill for closure sites which would 
benefit the sites' surrounding communities and the Nation as a whole. 
This would provide a clean and safe environment at the sites of former 
defense nuclear weapons facilities. It would free up scarce resources 
as these sites are cleaned up and closed down to help advance 
environmental cleanup and restoration at other environmental management 
sites.
  In my subcommittee, we had basically two functions.
  We have the armed services function, and then also we have the Energy 
Department function. So we deal with many of the nuclear programs, as 
well as the bombing programs and missile defense and defense 
intelligence. So I think this was important to the country as well as 
the State of Colorado.
  I also appreciate the efforts for the National Nuclear Security 
Administration. The National Nuclear Security Administration appears to 
be making important strides. There are still enormous challenges ahead, 
but I think the NNSA seems to be moving in the right direction. In 
intelligence matters, I was encouraged by the support for unmanned 
aerial vehicles, sensor capabilities, and commercial satellite imagery. 
I am still concerned, however, that other critical components of the 
intelligence architecture did not receive similar support.
  Processing and dissemination of intelligence products remains a 
weakness in the overall system. Current programs in intelligence are 
underfunded and would greatly benefit from increased support. 
Hopefully, we have taken care of much of that with some of the funding 
approved by the Senate in the past week.
  I was pleased with the support for greater Department of Defense 
involvement in the development of reusable launch vehicles. However, I 
should note that I was disappointed that the committee had opted not to 
implement any of the reforms of the Space Commission. This is an area 
of particular interest to me and to another former member of the 
subcommittee, Senator Bob Smith.
  There was a lot of hard work put into the Space Commission report. So 
I was very disappointed that there wasn't more consideration taken on 
those recommendations.
  I was also a member of another commission, the NRO Commission. Many 
of the provisions we recommended in our commission were adopted in the 
Intelligence Committee and then subsequently adopted in my subcommittee 
and the full Armed Services Committee.
  So I think we have set the stage for us to move forward at this point 
in time. I am supportive of the bill and am pleased the chairman and 
the ranking member could work out our differences and move forward. I 
look forward to the debate, and I thank the ranking Republican for his 
tremendous statement.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado yields the floor. 
Who seeks recognition?
  The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have been listening intently to our 
chairman, our ranking member, as well as the Senator from Colorado. I 
find myself in agreement with virtually everything that has been said. 
I think it is important for us to realize something that really has not 
been said, which is that on Friday, September 7, we met--the Senate 
Armed Services Committee. We passed out of the Armed Services Committee 
our Defense authorization bill. Four days later, we find ourselves at 
war. So there are some things that have changed; the dynamics have 
changed--those things which we know are urgent to our Nation's defense 
and to our national security. They weren't there back on September 7 
when we passed our authorization bill.
  I have around 14 amendments at the desk. It is not my intention to 
offer any of them now or call for a resolution to those. But I will be 
doing it when we get into the bill on Monday.
  One is to give the President the authority to waive sanctions against 
allies in our war on global terrorism. This was something we didn't 
really anticipate on September 7. It was just a matter of weeks ago 
that we passed sanctions against both India and Pakistan, which receive 
both military and economic aid. There are some conditions under which 
the President can waive these sanctions, but they are not too well 
defined. They put him in a position, when negotiating with countries, 
where he doesn't have that authority firmly planted within his powers 
to do it. So I am going to propose in an amendment, No. 1593, that we 
provide for notification in a 30-day period of time to Congress. But 
the President can say, if you do this, we are going to lift sanctions.
  You might argue that there are vehicles in place to lift sanctions 
right now. But if it happens that we are in recess at that time, if it 
happens that there is some ambiguity as to whether or not Congress 
would go along with it, this way he can say, yes, we are going to lift 
these sanctions or waive these sanctions. I don't think there will be a 
lot of opposition to this. It is something that would give power to the 
President, who last night, I believe, gave the defining speech of his 
career.
  Second, it deals with something more technical, but I think we need 
to look at it differently now, and that is depot maintenance. Depot 
maintenance refers to the type of maintenance of our military fighting 
equipment that has to be done in a publicly owned depot. The idea 
behind it, which has always been our policy, was we should have the 
capability of doing core maintenance--maintenance that would help us in 
times of war--so that we don't take the risk of being held hostage by a 
single supplier or contractor. So what I am going to be suggesting is 
to change our waiver policy. What we have done over the past several 
years is say, well, we do want the depots to have the capability of 
maintaining our vehicles.
  Take, for example, aircraft, the air logistics centers; there are 
three. There used to be five; now there are three. They are operating 
with equipment put in place back during World War II. It is outdated. 
We still have on the books a law that says 50 percent of the core 
maintenance has to be done in a public depot. So we have been operating 
on waivers now for several years. The waivers are put in there by the 
Secretary of the Air Force, in this case, or the Secretaries.
  This power should be changed so that there is a new accountability. 
We have gone waiver after waiver after waiver, with no hope that in the 
following year we would be able to do it without a national security 
waiver. I will suggest it be written into the bill that we give the 
President of the United States the authority to waive the performance 
of depot level maintenance instead of the Secretary of the Air Force. 
If the President signs the waiver, he must deliver a report that lists 
why the waiver is necessary and what will be done to prevent the waiver 
from being required in the future.
  The President, under the amendment I will be offering, may delegate 
this to another party. The President has that responsibility. This is 
what is missing because right now it goes from administration to 
administration without

[[Page 17488]]

any interest in really resolving the problem or saying what we are 
doing to increase the capability of our public depots in order to make 
the maintenance that is prescribed by law.
  There are several others. I want to say that even though I am hoping 
that the amendment I have filed--I have two, 1597 and 1596, that would 
attach to the Defense authorization bill an energy policy for America. 
Let me be critical not of Democrats, not of Republicans, but of both, 
going all the way back to the early eighties because then, when 
President Reagan was President of the United States, we tried to get 
him to have an energy policy. In fact, Don Hodel was Secretary of the 
Interior at that time, or in that timeframe.
  Mr. President, we had this dog and pony show where we went all around 
the United States--to the consumption States, not the production 
States--demonstrating clearly that the outcome of every war, back to 
and including the First World War, has been determined by who has 
control of the energy. That is still true today.
  Nobody believed it then. Since then we have gone through the Persian 
Gulf war. We realize we have enemies in the Middle East, and yet to a 
great extent we are reliant on the Middle East for our ability to fight 
a war. It is insane we should continue that policy.
  I know there are a lot of Members who are asking why it is an issue 
right now. It is an issue now because this is a readiness issue. I 
spent 5 years as chairman of the Readiness Subcommittee. It is now 
chaired by my distinguished colleague from Hawaii, Senator Akaka, and I 
am his ranking member.
  I can tell you right now that we are not ready in many areas to fight 
the war we are looking at right now. One of those areas is our 
dependency on foreign oil.
  Let me put up a chart. My amendment is not a partisan attack. I hope 
my colleagues do not take it as such. I have been urging Democrats and 
Republicans to deal with this for years, and they have refused to do 
it. Even George Sr., coming from an oil patch, said: Yes, we have to 
have an energy policy, the cornerstone of which would be the maximum 
percentage of the energy we need to fight a war.
  In the year 2000, 19.6 million barrels a day was used for the 
consumers of America. I guess what I am trying to say is, our need for 
petroleum consumption has been going up for a long time. From the year 
2000 to 2001, it is up to 19.7 million barrels of oil a day. That is on 
the rise.
  The second chart shows our domestic oil production has sharply 
decreased over the last 10 years. We have produced less domestic oil 
since World War II. In January of 1991, we produced 17.6 million 
barrels a day, and that has dropped down to 6 million barrels a day 
during this timeframe.
  On chart No. 3, we can see that our domestic oil production continues 
to decrease while our consumption continues to increase. This was not 
true in the days when we started calling this to the public's 
attention, but it is true today.
  That means we are getting oil from foreign sources, and that is what 
this chart shows. It shows our imports in that same year, January of 
1991, were 4.6 million barrels a day, and they went up to 8 million 
barrels a day. It has almost doubled since that period of time.
  Our dependence on foreign oil has dramatically increased since 1973 
and is projected to increase in the future. Currently, 56.6 percent of 
U.S. oil needs are met by foreign sources. This presents a real energy 
and national security problem. The military is equally dependent on 
foreign oil, as is the general public. We must seek to drastically 
increase a domestically produced, diverse energy supply, including 
nuclear, coal, oil, gas, and renewables.
  All these sources of energy are addressed in the House bill, and I 
have one amendment that would merely adopt the language in the House 
bill and also the language in the bill from the Senate Energy 
Committee.
  Looking at our dependence on foreign oil imports and how it has 
escalated, we are today at 56 percent. We were at 36 percent when I 
talked about going around the country alerting people to the 
seriousness of the problem. In the same progression, we are going to be 
up to 66-percent dependent upon foreign sources in our ability to fight 
a war.
  What is most startling is that we depend on nations in the Middle 
East, such as Iraq, to supply our oil needs. The Middle East supplies 
about 25 percent of our oil needs. What shocks an awful lot of people 
is that of that amount, we are importing 862,000 barrels a day from 
Iraq, a country we just defeated in a war 10 years ago, a country whose 
President made the statement that: If we had waited 10 years to march 
into Kuwait, the Americans would not have come to their aid because we 
would have the capability of lobbing a missile at them. That is the 
dilemma in which we find ourselves today. That is why I say this is a 
national defense issue.
  Iraq is the fastest growing source of United States oil imports. That 
is the same nation that we took military action against seven times 
last month, the same nation we know has links to bin Laden, who is the 
prime suspect in the horrible attacks in New York and Washington, as 
well as the U.S.S. Cole and both Embassy bombings in East Africa.
  This is a major national security problem. Energy will be critical if 
and when America engages in military action.
  Operating a modern war machine requires a lot more oil than it used 
to. A contemporary 17,500-soldier U.S. Army division uses twice as much 
oil daily than did an entire 200,000-soldier field army during World 
War II.
  The 450,000 barrels of petroleum products consumed daily by the 
582,000 soldiers in the Persian Gulf was four times the daily amount 
used by the 2 million allied soldiers who liberated Europe from the 
Nazis. Today it takes eight times as much oil to meet the needs of each 
soldier as it did during World War II, and the Department of Defense 
accounts for nearly 80 percent of all U.S. Government energy use.
  What I am saying is this is a very serious issue, and this is an 
issue that directly relates to our readiness, relates to our ability to 
defend America, and relates to our ability to carry on the war which we 
are in right now. It is very important that we pass an energy package. 
I don't care if it is the House wording, I don't care if it is the 
wording that came out of the Senate Energy Committee, but it directly 
relates to our ability to fight a war.
  It will be perfectly acceptable to me if we make an arrangement 
whereby we agree to passing a comprehensive energy policy by the end of 
this year and not having it as a part of the Defense authorization bill 
because it would complicate things. It is very important we pass our 
Defense authorization bill and get it into conference and signed into 
law in a very short period of time.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks recognition?
  The Senator from Hawaii.
  Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, I rise today to support the Armed Services 
Committee actions on the fiscal year 2002 Defense authorization bill. I 
also commend the chairman, Mr. Levin, and ranking member, Mr. Warner, 
for their part in leading the committee, as well as guiding the 
committee, in their efforts to bring about a bill that will give 
confidence to the people of our country.
  My friend and partner, Senator Inhofe, and I have worked closely to 
ensure that the Readiness Subcommittee's actions support the full 
committee's five goals for this bill. As Chairman Levin has described, 
these goals are: One, to continue improvements in the quality of life; 
two, to sustain readiness; three, to encourage transformation; four, to 
improve the capability of the Department of Defense to meet 
nontraditional threats; and five, to increase the efficiency of 
Department of Defense operations.
  Our subcommittee worked together to make contributions in all five 
areas, and these actions are reflected in the bill we present to you 
today.
  In the area of improving quality of life, the bill takes strong steps 
to improve the facilities in which our military personnel work and the 
housing in

[[Page 17489]]

which they and their families live. This bill supports the $10.0 
billion administration request for military construction and family 
housing for fiscal year 2002, which is a 10-percent increase over 
fiscal year 2001 levels. This funding will, according to Department of 
Defense calculations, reduce the current 192-year replacement cycle for 
military facilities to 101 years. While this is a significant 
improvement, this figure is still nearly double the standard of 
approximately 57 years accepted in the private sector.
  The bill invests an additional $451 million from savings and 
efficiencies achieved elsewhere in the budget to make further 
improvements in military facilities, including projects to enhance 
mission performance, build additional unaccompanied housing and family 
housing, purchase key tracts of land at military installations to 
prevent future encroachment problems, and adequately fund legally 
binding cleanup requirements at facilities closed by previous base 
closure rounds.
  The bill also includes an increase of $40.0 million for personal gear 
for military members to improve their safety and comfort in the field.
  The committee's second theme was one that I and the whole committee 
care deeply about: sustaining the readiness of our Armed Forces.
  This bill supports the funding increases contained in the 
administration's budget request to more accurately reflect the 
increased use of spare parts and the higher prices for spare parts 
associated with older weapons systems. In addition to the requested 
increases, the bill provides almost $100 million in additional funding 
for maintenance work on surface ships and other Marine Corps and Navy 
equipment. These funds will increase the availability of equipment to 
units and allow them to spend more time training.
  The bill also supports the budget request for an increase of seven 
percent in real terms for facilities sustainment, restoration and 
modernization over fiscal year 2001 levels. I believe that these 
additional funds will provide critical improvements to service members' 
places of work, allowing for greater productivity and increased job 
satisfaction.
  I also believe that further advances in sustainment, restoration and 
equipment maintenance are possible, in particular by increasing 
attention to corrosion prevention technologies and products. As I know 
from the military facilities in Hawaii and elsewhere in the Pacific, 
maintaining military equipment and facilities in wet, salty, and hot 
environments is a significant challenge. I believe progress can be made 
on this critical issue that will both improve the service life of our 
property and the lives of our service members who have to maintain this 
property.
  This bill includes a $7.4 million increase for anti-corrosion product 
testing and treatments, and directs the Department of Defense to 
coordinate anti-corrosion research and testing across the military 
services. The bill also supports small increases in a limited number of 
ammunition programs to reduce training and war reserve shortfalls and 
enhance troop safety.
  The committee's third goal was encouraging transformation. This bill 
includes small increases to support necessary training for the Army's 
new Interim Brigade Combat Teams (IBCTs), a critical step in the Army's 
transformation to a lighter, more rapidly-deployable force. Other 
actions taken by the Readiness Subcommittee to improve efficiency 
should also result in savings in both the current and future budgets, 
savings that can be redirected to the necessary process of transforming 
our armed forces.
  The committee's fourth priority was to improve the Department of 
Defense's capability to meet non-traditional threats, the importance of 
which was made painfully and sorrowfully clear to us all last week. 
Many of my colleagues will speak forcefully on this issue, and I share 
their sentiments of outrage and extreme sadness as we cope with this 
horrendous attack. The committee looks forward to bringing further 
recommendations to our colleagues on this critical issue in the near 
future. Until this occurs, the bill before us will provide funding for 
the requested improvements to bases and installations that will 
increase the safety of our forces at home and abroad.
  The fifth theme of our bill this year was to improve the efficiency 
of DOD programs and operations. This is a goal the committee shares 
with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and we look forward to 
working with him closely to make further progress on this in the 
future. The bill presented here today takes important steps to help us 
along the path.
  In the area of acquisition reform, the bill includes a number of 
provisions to improve the acquisition of equipment and services. One 
provision would require the Department to set up a management 
structure, management information system, and program review structure 
for the Department's contracts for services. A related provision would 
establish savings goals for services contracts and goals that would be 
achieved through the application of best commercial practices, 
including competition, performance-based contracting, and spending 
analyses.
  Another provision strengthens requirements for competition for 
multiple-award contracts to purchase products and services, and would 
require approval for sole-source awards. The bill also includes 
provisions enabling DOD to shorten the acquisition cycle for weapons 
systems by codifying a technological maturity requirement for key 
technologies to be incorporated into new systems.
  Other provisions of the bill address acquisition workforce issues and 
aim to ensure that the defense components have sufficient staff to 
manage requirements in a cost effective manner. I was impressed by the 
work of the Acquisition 2005 Task Force's recent report, ``Shaping the 
Civilian Acquisition Work Force of the Future.'' I intend to confer 
with the Task Force to further define the extent of the problem. As the 
chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on 
International Security, Proliferation, and Federal Services as well as 
the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness, the issues raised 
by the Task Force are of great interest to me.
  This bill also takes steps to improve financial management within 
DOD. Specifically, it includes a provision that would refocus 
comptroller and auditor resources on addressing systemic problems in 
DOD financial systems rather than wasting resources on reviews of 
financial statements. Another provision codifies the Department's 
Senior Financial Management Oversight Council and financial feeder 
systems compliance process to provide top-level guidance in addressing 
financial management problems.
  Though the committee finished its work just days prior to last week's 
terrible attacks in New York and at the Pentagon, I believe that the 
bill we produced is just as relevant today as it was then. This bill 
lays a firm foundation to fortify our armed forces, takes many 
important actions to sustain and improve their readiness in both the 
short- and the long-term, and represents a product which I commend to 
my colleagues. I urge your support for this bill.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for 
the quorum call be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I was going to make a statement on an 
amendment I had filed. I did not know the Senator from Georgia was 
about to speak now. I will be happy to yield to him.
  Mr. CLELAND. Mr. President, I am glad to work with the distinguished 
Senator from Texas, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I want to speak briefly on an 
amendment I offered to the armed services bill. It relates to survivor 
benefits for

[[Page 17490]]

people in the military who are killed in the line of duty. I had 
offered this amendment with Senator Inouye actually before September 
11, the day that changed all of our lives, because I thought there was 
an injustice in the law as it deals with our military personnel; that 
is, if someone died in a training accident or in the line of duty but 
had not yet retired, he or she would not be entitled to any retirement 
benefits, even the benefits already earned. So if someone died after 10 
years of service and had not had the opportunity to serve the full 20 
years, the survivors would have no benefits.
  I do not think that is the way to treat our military families, so I 
have been working on a piece of legislation that would allow those 
people who die in the line of service while on active duty to have the 
retirement benefits for their survivors--just what they have already 
accumulated. It would not give them the full 20 years, but it would 
give them the 5 years they served or the 10 years they served. This is 
something that now takes on an even bigger, more important role as we 
are dealing with the issues of September 11 because, as we know, over 
100 of our military personnel were in the Pentagon and were killed in 
the line of service while on active duty.
  So I am offering this amendment, once again, to the armed services 
bill. I hope it will be accepted. I hope both sides will agree that all 
those who were in the Pentagon at the time should have the survivor 
benefits to which they are entitled by their years of service.
  The interesting thing about this is that the very parts of the 
Pentagon where this particular issue was being worked is the part that 
was hit.
  I want to specifically mention a couple of the people who were in the 
Pentagon and who are now missing who were really pushing for my 
legislation to go forward--not for themselves because they were already 
retired. But they knew about the dangers of not taking care of our 
people. They were in the Pentagon talking to the personnel about the 
necessity of this particular piece of legislation. COL Gary F. Smith, 
who was the Chief of Army Retirement Services, and Army MSG Max Beilke 
were working on this legislation. Those two men were in the Pentagon 
and are now missing as of September 11, 2001. LTC Smith wrote to my 
staff about this legislation on June 15 saying:

       Those of us who work on these issues daily know how 
     important this will be. We'll keep our fingers crossed and 
     hope it will get into law.

  That was written to Jimmie Keenan, who is an Army nurse on my staff 
detailed to me as an Army fellow. She is an expert in this area and has 
worked tirelessly on this issue. She has worked long hours. It was 
because of her experience in working with her fellow members of the 
military medical corps that she realized there was something wrong. 
Many times in a training accident, for instance, we go through an 
elaborate procedure to medically retire someone who is already dead. 
That is what we have been doing--where we could--if someone died in a 
training accident. Before we declare a military person dead, we go 
through a process that medically retires that person.
  My staff says this isn't right; why would we go through this process 
when the family is already in trauma and the people around the person 
who has died are in trauma? Why do we have to go through that? Why 
don't we just say when someone dies in the line of duty, for heaven's 
sake, they should have the benefits to which they are entitled by the 
number of years they serve?
  She went to work. It is a great idea. Another fellow knew what was 
needed. And they worked on this for almost a year.
  It just happens that the people who were working on it with her in 
the Pentagon will not be able to see this bill pass. But what they will 
get is the comfort of knowing that their families are going to be taken 
care of in a much better way than before.
  I am asking the managers of the bill to put this provision in the 
managers' amendment. I think it is a very important part of taking care 
of all members of the military--not only the ones who have died before 
and not only the ones who died on September 11.
  I think this is an important message to the members of our military 
who are getting ready to be called up. Many are already called up. Many 
are waiting for those orders. That is what our military does. They wait 
until they are called up to serve their country. They are waiting to be 
called to service today as we speak and as we are seeing the 
preparations to enact the war against terrorism that our President so 
eloquently laid out for the people of America.
  As we know, the brunt of carrying out the President's orders is going 
to be on the men and women of our military. I want them to answer the 
call knowing that if anything does happen to them, their survivors will 
be entitled to the benefits of their retirement for whatever number of 
years prorated they would be entitled to under the preretirement laws.
  I thank Jimmie Keenan and Ray Ivie in my office, along with Michael 
Ralsky and David Davis who have also helped on this issue.
  In memory of LTC Gary Smith and MSG Max Beilke, I ask that this 
amendment be accepted.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia is recognized.
  Mr. CLELAND. Mr. President, it has been an incredible 10 days.
  I was reading in the New York Times today a marvelous quote of John 
Kennedy that I think is appropriate for where this country stands as we 
face our future.

       Only in winter can you tell which trees are truly green. 
     Only when the winds of adversity blow can you tell whether an 
     individual or a country has steadfastness.

  In so many ways over the last week and a half, it has been my honor 
and personal privilege to be a part of this great body, to see its 
steadfastness in the face of adversity, and to see the wonderful staff 
people come back to work even though they knew they were at least for a 
moment in time a target of the terrorists.
  It has been encouraging to see the steadfastness of my own people in 
my own home State of Georgia as they rally for the cause.
  It has been a marvelous thing to experience, watching television and 
seeing the experience of New Yorkers who rose to the occasion to honor 
their firefighters, and to honor their policemen, and who did what it 
was difficult to do in dealing with that terrifying situation which 
still goes on this day.
  But one element of steadfastness we are showing is that this 
legislative process continues. The Senate Armed Services Committee was 
busy buttressing the defense of America before the attack. We are busy 
today buttressing the defense of America after the attack.
  I would like to discuss today this pending legislation--the Defense 
authorization bill for fiscal year 2002.
  Just 2 short weeks ago, the Senate Armed Services Committee completed 
its markup of this authorization bill, which I heavily support. After 
the tragic events of last week, in a very timely fashion, we bring this 
measure to the floor to begin the process of providing our military men 
and women with the resources they will need to respond in this crisis.
  As all of us are aware, last week people and property of the United 
States were attacked in a vicious, deliberate, cowardly, and inhumane 
fashion. The full cost of this attack is only now becoming clearer.
  In the days that followed the attack, I was often asked what I 
thought was the historical meaning of this moment. I have often quoted 
Admiral Yamamoto who planned and executed the attack against Pearl 
Harbor. Afterwards, he was quoted as saying he feared he had only 
``awakened a sleeping giant.'' In so many ways I think that is exactly 
what has happened to our country. We have become awakened. This 
sleeping giant called America is now awakened.
  What is also clear to the perpetrators of this crime, while being 
unified against our country, is that we are now unified against them. 
The President spoke eloquently and with great

[[Page 17491]]

strength last night in that regard. But I will say that the U.S. 
military will not be alone in this fight. Indeed, I have spent some 
time this morning listening to testimony before the Governmental 
Affairs Committee regarding how we ought best to support the 
President's establishment of a National Office for Homeland Security. 
In that hearing, it was the unanimous consent of the witnesses that the 
current effort of the myriad agencies involved in the fight against 
terrorism, including the Department of Defense, must be better 
coordinated.
  The Government Accounting Office report recently released--actually 
released yesterday--sums up the issue succinctly. ``Current Federal 
efforts,'' the GAO says, ``to combat terrorism are inherently difficult 
to lead and manage because the policies, strategies, programs, budgets, 
and activities are spread across more than 40 different Federal 
agencies.''
  Since the problem appears to be one of coordination--and the GAO has 
fingered that--I believe the President's Office of Homeland Security is 
an excellent solution. It promises to adapt our Government to 
accomplish more effective counterterrorism coordination and assign 
responsibility for measurable results.
  It is simple enough to be rapidly implemented--and that is 
important--without disrupting the operations of the agencies which are 
affected.
  I join the distinguished chairman of the Governmental Affairs 
Committee, Senator Lieberman, in his desire to move quickly to support 
the President's action with appropriate legislation.
  Notwithstanding the fact that our response to terrorism will involve 
many agencies, it will be our military that will be on the cutting 
edge--the tip of the spear, so to speak. It will be our military, our 
young men and women, that will wage one of the most visible and 
dangerous attacks that we have seen in many, many years. They are on 
the cutting edge of this war on terrorism. For many around the world, 
the performance of our military will characterize our success or 
failure in the war on terrorism.
  As the military carries out its critical part in the war, we must 
also continue to provide for our military men and women in terms of 
their security as they protect our national security. This bill does 
that.
  Prior to the recent terrorist attacks, the Senate Armed Services 
Committee increased the original budget request for combating terrorism 
by well over $200 million. This increase includes over $100 million to 
support research and development aimed at detecting, defending against, 
and responding to the use of weapons of mass destruction. The other 
half of this increase--over $100 million--would increase the ability of 
U.S. forces to deter and U.S. installations to defend against a 
terrorist attack.
  Within this latter total, the committee determined that the Army had 
an unfunded mandate for installation security, and we provided an 
additional $778 million to address this need.
  The committee also added funding of almost $14 million for U.S. 
special operations for the special operations command. Though we expect 
additional requests and will identify future needs, the measure pending 
before the Senate continues this committee's bipartisan efforts to 
provide a solid foundation for combating terrorism.
  Just one anecdote: On the last day of consideration of this massive 
bill, authorizing over $300 billion to be spent for our defense, one of 
the questions I asked my fellow committee members was: Defense against 
what? What is the threat? This was 2 weeks ago.
  Senator Pat Roberts, the distinguished Senator from Kansas, for the 
last couple years has been the chairman of the Subcommittee on Emerging 
Threats. Senator Mary Landrieu from Louisiana is now the chairman of 
that subcommittee. I asked both of them in their research, in their 
hearings, in their study of the real threat against America: What is 
it? What are we defending against?
  Both agreed the most likely threat to the country was a terrorist 
attack, a stealthy attack, with no known address, no return to sender 
address, especially biological or chemical attack. That was the threat 
No. 1. Threat No. 2 was cyber-warfare against our Internet, against our 
computers to, in effect, shut us down in terms of our communications 
and our data processing.
  I thought about that last Tuesday when we had the terrifying attack 
on this country. We were zeroing in on the fact that the real honest to 
goodness threat against this Nation was going to be a terrorist attack.
  Today I had the pleasure of visiting with two former Members, Senator 
Warren Rudman and Senator Gary Hart, part of the Hart-Rudman 
commission, who months ago identified the chilling fact that it wasn't 
a question of whether this country was going to get hit by a terrorist 
attack but when. Lord knows, we have learned that lesson.
  As we proceed in the days and weeks and months ahead to consider 
additional counterterrorist efforts, I cite an editorial that appeared 
in Monday's Atlanta Journal Constitution.
  In that editorial, former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn, in whose seat I now 
sit, whose position I now have in the Senate and position I have on the 
Senate Armed Services Committee, coauthor of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative 
Threat Reduction Act, who currently serves as cochairman of the Nuclear 
Threat Initiative, clearly summarized the threat we face and outlined 
some key elements that should be included in our response.
  Senator Nunn points out that the terrorists' murderous deeds are 
limited only by the weapons they are able to employ--limited only by 
the weapons they are able to employ. He notes that the disintegration 
of the former Soviet Union left many thousands of tons of nuclear, 
biological, and chemical weapons, along with the scientists who worked 
with those weapons, adrift in an eroding infrastructure of inadequate 
controls and depressed economies.
  We must prevent terrorist groups from exploiting this situation to 
obtain weapons of mass destruction, weapons materials and know-how. As 
we have only narrowly averted some attempts by terrorists to purchase 
these materials in recent years, I call on my colleagues to act on the 
recommendation of the bipartisan task force that called for a fourfold 
increase in the funding of programs aimed at reducing the threat of 
inadequately safeguarding weapons, materials, and know-how in Russia.
  As Senator Nunn correctly states:

       We must develop a comprehensive defense against the full 
     range of threats based on relative risk and supported by 
     strong alliances around the world so that the pain of today 
     will not be known by the children of tomorrow.

  In the trials to come, we must remember our military might springs 
from the willingness of our people to serve. I have always thought, 
since I was a young serviceman in Vietnam, 35 years ago, the key to our 
defense is our defenders. They are the military and civilian personnel 
who make up the Department of Defense. They are our defenders.
  As chairman of the Personnel Subcommittee of the Armed Services 
Committee, I am pleased to inform the Senate that this authorization 
measure is a good bill and the provisions that address the needs of our 
military men and women and their families enjoy the full and bipartisan 
support of all members of our committee.
  Some of the personnel provisions in this legislation include: total 
funding for personnel-related items at a level of $106 billion, about 
$7 million over the original budget request; and support for the 
recommended active duty end strength requested by the administration. 
This includes an increase of over 3,000 personnel in the Navy and 
almost an increase of 2,000 in the Air Force. This bill provides an 
increase in the full-time manning end strength by almost 2,000 
personnel. This is the first installment of an 11-year plan to increase 
full-time manning, which is one of the top readiness priorities for the 
Reserves.
  As we now know, some 50,000 reservists have already been called up. 
All of our State adjutant generals have said to us that they need help 
with the

[[Page 17492]]

shortage in full-time support that they receive from the active duty 
force.
  This bill also provides a significant pay raise--well above the rate 
of inflation--for all military personnel.
  Mr. President, again, for our troops in the field, military 
personnel, there is a significant pay raise in this bill, well above 
the rate of inflation. We recommend a targeted pay raise that ranges 
from 5 percent to 10 percent, beginning in January of 2002. It is 
between 5 and 10 percent. Enlisted personnel and junior officers will 
receive a pay raise of at least 6 percent or more.
  We also extend the special pays and bonuses that are so important for 
recruiting and retention. As someone who has served on the Personnel 
Subcommittee over the last 5, 5\1/2\ years, and now chairs that 
subcommittee, as you know, we have been struggling with recruitment and 
retention. I am pleased to report the military services have seen a 
burst of recruitment around the country. That is another sign that the 
steadfastness of this country is sound, particularly when we are 
threatened.
  Acceleration by 2 years of the existing plan to gradually increase 
the basic allowance for quarters to eliminate average out-of-pocket 
expenditures for off-post housing by 2005--accelerate that by 2 years--
the BAH will cover median housing costs by 2003. We have capped the 
average out-of-pocket expenditures for 2002 at 7.5 years.
  The bill authorizes a significant increase in funding for the defense 
health program, which includes full funding for TRICARE for Life. That 
is for the military retirees over 65. This is the retiree benefit that 
this committee initiated. The bill includes an authorization of an 
expanded benefit for disabled dependents of active duty personnel. This 
benefit includes comprehensive health care, home health care, and case 
management services for the disabled family member and respite care for 
the primary caregiver to the disabled family member. We recognize that 
providing for the special needs of disabled family members increases 
the capability of service members to perform their military mission.
  The bill also includes two new initiatives to help retain service 
members with critical skills. As a matter of fact, I was surprised to 
actually learn that part of the report recommended a focus on terrorist 
attacks and an emphasis on homeland defense. This report by Senator 
Rudman and Senator Hart also included recommendations to dramatically 
upgrade the Montgomery GI bill. Some of those recommendations were 
already in this authorization bill.
  These initiatives include my own initiative, which I worked on for 3 
years with my staff, to allow service members to transfer up to 18 
months of unused Montgomery GI bill benefits to family members and 
Senator Hutchinson's education savings bond initiative. Both of these 
help the educational package now available to service men and women.
  The bill also authorizes retired service members with a service-
connected disability to receive both military retired pay and veterans 
disability compensation, contingent upon the President proposing and 
Congress authorizing an offset.
  The bill also authorizes pilot programs with the VA for a joint 
program of graduate medical education, and for the VA to conduct 
separation and retirement physicals.
  Finally, the bill authorizes $35 million for impact aid and $5 
million for impact aid for children with severe disabilities. Not only 
is this bill good for our service members, but this year's Defense 
authorization bill provides critical resources to sustain and improve 
the strength of America's Armed Forces, from funding initial production 
of the world's most advanced fighters, such as the F-22, to addressing 
infrastructure concerns, to adding to our airlift capabilities, and 
providing extra C-130s--shortfalls that DOD identified, and it 
guarantees that we as a nation are continuing the strong tradition of 
supporting our military, as well as preparing for the threats of the 
future.
  In conclusion, I thank Chairman Levin for his leadership and hard 
work on this bill and the ranking Republican, Senator Warner--he and 
his staff. They have made a strong contribution to this year's 
authorization bill.
  I think we should all commend these two gentlemen for their 
tremendous dedication to our Nation's military and their continued 
example of true bipartisan cooperation and accomplishment.
  Mr. President, I will conclude with a line that I came across when I 
was going through Reserve Officer Training Corps school as a young 
cadet, written by one of Wellington's troops after the Battle of 
Waterloo, after the glory of the battle had long since faded. He wrote 
once that:

     In time of war and not before,
     God and the soldier men adore,
     But in time of peace, with all things righted,
     God is forgotten and the soldier slighted.

  Mr. President, over the last 10 days, this country has in many ways 
rediscovered our God and certainly has rediscovered our soldiers, our 
service men and women. This bill is in their interest. I urge my 
colleagues to adopt it.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, a number of our colleagues have been 
calling both leaders asking for some update on the schedule for the 
day. I wanted to notify Senators that the negotiations on the airline 
legislation have just been concluded. So it is my expectation that we 
will take the bill up within the next hour and a half.
  All Senators should be on notice that we will attempt to get a 
unanimous consent agreement to move to the bill shortly after the 
legislation has been drafted, and it would be my expectation to take 
the bill up immediately. There would be most likely a rollcall vote 
before the end of the day. I guess, in the 3:30 to 4 o'clock range we 
will take the bill up. I am not sure about the length of the debate. We 
will have a rollcall vote on that legislation before the end of the 
day.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri is recognized.
  Mrs. CARNAHAN. Mr. President, I associate myself with the remarks of 
the chairman and the ranking member, as well as the eloquent statement 
that my colleague, Senator Cleland, has just made.
  This is a good bill. It is one that strengthens our military and 
enhances the quality of life for our Armed Forces and prepares our 
Nation to confront terrorism.
  One group of Americans will be on the front line of the new war on 
terrorism: our reservists and National Guard members. President Bush 
has authorized a callup of 50,000 of these citizen soldiers. They may 
soon leave their families and civilian jobs and, at a great personal 
sacrifice, report to active duty. They will be among those who will 
confront our enemies, defending our freedoms in a shadowy and 
potentially brutal war.
  Our Nation must do all we can to support these brave men and women 
and their families. There are many things we need to do to address the 
issues for reservists' quality of life. One of those is to ensure that 
those who are called to duty and their families have access to 
uninterrupted health care coverage.
  Currently, when reservists are called up, they are temporarily 
considered active duty components. While they are in harm's way, 
members of the Reserves and National Guard and their dependents are 
entitled to the same military health care coverage as other military 
personnel, with what is called TRICARE. Reservists who have deployed 
for more than 30 days during a major contingency may extend their 
military health care coverage for 30 days after they return.
  I have discussed this issue at length with several reservists and the 
leadership of the Missouri National Guard, and I can tell you 30 days 
simply is not enough. Oftentimes, civilian employers are unable to 
restore the reservists' health care benefits immediately. In other 
cases, Reserve members have quit their jobs before deploying and have 
no source of insurance when they return home.
  On Monday I will offer an amendment on behalf of myself and Senators 
DeWine, Leahy, Landrieu, Johnson,

[[Page 17493]]

Breaux, Bingaman, Dodd, and Thurmond. The amendment is based on 
legislation I introduced with Senator DeWine earlier this year with 
seven co-sponsors. Our amendment will allow reservists returning from 
deployments without health care, to extend their TRICARE coverage for 
up to 180 days or until their civilian health insurers return their 
coverage to them.
  This legislation would address the circumstances faced by reservists 
like Capt. Terri McGranahan. She volunteered to be a part of our 
peacekeeping mission in Kosovo. During her service, she worked in a 
health clinic that had been newly painted with a toxic sealant. Working 
in this clinic had made her very ill, resulting in pneumonia. 
Eventually, she developed a spot on her lung. She did not detect this 
condition right away. When she finally sought medical treatment, the 30 
days of TRICARE coverage had already expired.
  When she returned home, her private health insurance company refused 
to cover her. She asked the Army for help, but was turned down. Captain 
McGranahan has fallen through the cracks of two health care 
bureaucracies.
  We have to do better than this.
  Mr. President, my amendment will provide comfort to thousands of 
reserve families whose loved ones risk their lives defending our 
Nation. But more important it would be part of our national effort to 
unite behind our troops during this time of national crisis.
  The bill on which the amendment is based has been endorsed by 28 
organizations across the country, including the Reserve Officers 
Association, National Guard Association, Enlisted Association of the 
National Guard, the Air Force Association, the Association of the U.S. 
Army, and several other organizations promoting quality of life for our 
service men and women.
  Over 50,000 reservists may soon be called into service. As President 
Bush himself has said, ``We're talking about somebody's mom, or 
somebody's dad, somebody's employee, somebody's friend, or somebody's 
neighbor.''
  Our initial cost estimate for our original bill was just 5 million 
dollars a year. This proposal is not extravagant in a $343 billion 
defense budget. It is the right thing to do, and it is needed right 
now. This is not a permanent solution. We need a full health care 
program for these service men and women. The Defense authorization bill 
requires the Pentagon to study this issue, and I look forward to 
reviewing it. But in the meantime, I am pleased to offer this amendment 
in the name of our Missouri's National Guard and Reservists, as well as 
our country's other citizen soldiers.
  General Eisenhower once said:

       Leadership cannot be exercised by the weak. It demands 
     strength--the strength of this great nation when its people 
     are united in purpose, united in a common fundamental faith, 
     united in their readiness to work for human freedom and 
     peace.

  Mr. President, let us assure our citizen soldiers that when they 
return home, they will not be denied health care because of their 
military's service. They deserve no less. I thank the Chair.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. LEVIN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________