[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 11283-11295]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2003--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: It is the 
understanding of the Senator from Virginia that the time between 2:15 
and 2:30 is to be equally divided between the distinguished Senator 
from Massachusetts, the distinguished Senator from Wyoming, and myself.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Who yields time?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself 3 minutes.
  Mr. President, under our amendment, the public workers and private 
contractors alike will have a chance to compete for Department of 
Defense contracts. It will represent approximately $100 billion. Only 
about $1 billion of that is competed for. We believe competition is 
good. We believe competition will get the best product at the best 
price, which will reflect the unanimous recommendations of the recent 
study. Fewer than 1 percent of these Department of Defense service 
contracts are done in that way at this particular time.
  I don't understand for the life of me why there should be resistance 
or reluctance to these various proposals. This kind of proposal was 
considered by the Commercial Activities Panel on improving the sourcing 
division of the Government, which was chaired by the Comptroller of the 
United States.
  In this particular proposal, one of the recommendations, which was 12 
to 0, was the amendment we are offering today. If our Republican 
friends have trouble with that, why wasn't there some opposition to 
that in this report? There was none. It is a unanimously favorable 
report. This wasn't Democrat and this wasn't Republican. These were 
contractors, representatives of the public, employees, and accountants, 
talking about how the U.S. Department of Defense could get the best buy 
for its money. It was said for years that we couldn't go ahead with 
competition until we finally got the Commercial Activities Panel 
report. That took a year and half and 11 different hearings with public 
comments from all over.
  This was unanimous. It was not 8 to 4; this proposal was unanimous. 
They believe as a result of their proposal that DOD is going to get the 
best services--the American taxpayers are going to get the best buy, 
the best service, and the men and women of the military are going to be 
best served.
  Why in the world the resistance to that argument?
  I withhold the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Corzine). The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I yield myself 5 minutes of our time. We 
have 7\1/2\ minutes. I yield myself 5 minutes out of our 7\1/2\ 
minutes.
  I want to respond to the Senator. He asks, who opposes this? Let me 
give you some idea of who and why.
  One, the amendment will increase costs to DOD by $200 million a year. 
Secondly, he talks about the report of the General Accounting Office. 
There were 10 recommendations that were put out. His deals with one. 
That is a reason to oppose this.
  The amendment would adversely affect DOD's mission. It would mandate, 
for the first time, that the Federal Government compete with the 
private sector for work not concurrently performed.
  It has problems with the A-76 issue. The Secretary of Defense opposes 
the Kennedy amendment. The administration has indicated that his 
proposal goes against the President's governmental performance tasks.
  Let me share with you, very briefly, a couple of other comments. This 
is from the Executive Office of the President, from Mitchell Daniels, 
who was quoted yesterday as supporting it. He says:

       I am writing to express deep concern over the possible 
     Kennedy Amendment.

  He goes on to say:

       We must focus our agencies on performance and 
     accountability. Now--when our nation is at war against 
     terrorists of global reach--is not the time for the Secretary 
     of Defense to have fewer options, for the sake of moving more 
     functions into government hands.

  That is why people are opposed to it. The Secretary of Defense, in a 
letter, says:

       I am writing to express my strong opposition to the draft 
     amendment proposed by Senator Edward Kennedy.

  Then he closes the letter by saying:

       The proposed amendment would increase Department costs and 
     dull our warfighting edge.

  Then, just in numbers, we all mentioned the Secretary of Defense and 
OMB. We also have organized labor. The Seafarers International Union, 
the Industrial Technological Professional Employees, International 
Union of Operating Engineers, the International Brotherhood of 
Boilermakers--these are some of the folks who have found that this will 
not help implement what we are seeking to do; that is, to be able to 
utilize the members of the military and the things they do at a time 
when it is more difficult to fullfill those responsibilities. To shift 
some of those responsibilities back to the military away from the 
private sector seems to be absolutely contrary to what we are seeking 
to do.
  I urge all Members of the Senate to oppose this amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself another 2 minutes.
  I have listened to my friend and colleague. He says they are opposed 
because of cost. The fact is, how do they say it is going to cost more 
when we are going to get competition? We are going to get competition.
  The fact remains we have the unanimous recommendation of the group 
that studied this issue, and they believed the taxpayer would be best 
served, and DOD would be best served as well with that recommendation.
  What is the current situation? Under the current situation, I 
understand if you are able to get the contracts, you do not want to 
change the system. That is what is going on on the floor of the Senate. 
They do not want competition. They have their contracts. They have the 
sweetheart contracts, and they are saying no.
  Listen to this: The GAO found that the costs of nearly 3,000 spare 
parts purchased by the military increased by 1,000 percent or more in 
just 1 year. If you have that kind of contract, why do you want 
competition?
  There it is. Taxpayers are the ones losing out. One small part, a 
hub, estimated to cost $35, was sold to the Government at the 
contractor's price for $14,000. If you have that kind of deal, why do 
you want competition? That is the issue, plain and simple.
  It is not just the belief of the Senator from Massachusetts, that is 
the unanimous recommendation of those who have studied it, contractors, 
workers, and all. Most of us believe that competition does improve the 
services and the quality of the products. So you find out that is the 
result.
  We have heard time in and time out about the various kinds of 
products that have been produced, and the costs and the escalation of 
those costs. I have a sheet right in my hand. This is the GAO 
oversight. These are the costs on it.
  Hub, body, estimated to cost $35, sold for $14,000; transformer, 
radio, $683 was the unit price, but they charged $11,700; The list goes 
on and on.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used 2 minutes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself another minute.
  I have not heard from the other side the answer to these questions. 
Why don't we have something other than just reading a letter from some 
people who are serving the interests of those contractors and explain 
to me why they cannot do it? We have not heard it. It is going to be 
difficult. It is going to be awkward. Yet we have the very important 
statements that have been made by people, even within the current 
administration, who say this can result in competition that can result 
in important savings.

[[Page 11284]]

  That is what we want to do. That is what this amendment is about.
  I reserve the remainder of my time.
  Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. One minute 20 seconds.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I reserve the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time in opposition?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, how much time does the other side have?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The opposition has 3 minutes 52 seconds.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself my remaining time.
  Mr. President, on September 11, the brave men and women who work in 
the Pentagon faced a great tragedy. When that airplane plowed into the 
Department of Defense, our fellow citizens working there lost coworkers 
and joined in the valiant effort to save the injured and tend to the 
Defense Department families shaken by this act of terrorism.
  This amendment is about giving these Americans a chance, a chance to 
show they can do a good job and deserve the work, if they can do it 
better and more efficiently than a defense contractor, a chance to 
embrace the American spirit of competition and free enterprise by 
competing for Government contracts on the same basis as private-sector 
companies.
  And this amendment is about our values as Americans. Our country was 
built upon our ingenuity, fueled by the spirit of free enterprise. If 
you can make a better product at a lower cost than the other guy, then 
you deserve the business. That is the American way. And it is that 
spirit of entrepreneurship that makes America the envy of the world.
  My amendment lets that American spirit thrive. It puts real 
competition into defense contracting and, in the process, gives a real 
boost to the taxpayers and to our own values as Americans.
  I urge the Senate to support my amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, have the yeas and nays been order?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. They have not.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  Mr. WARNER. And I would simply say to my good friend from 
Massachusetts, what has been omitted from this discussion is the tens 
upon tens of thousands of Government employees doing superb work in the 
public shipyards, in the rework centers in several States. Somehow we 
have looked at a very narrow segment of the overall business of the 
Department of Defense without referring to the magnificent 
contributions by hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Government 
employees.
  So, Mr. President, at this time I move to table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator yield back his time?
  Mr. WARNER. All time is yielded back on this side.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Massachusetts yield the 
remainder of his time?
  Mr. KENNEDY. I believe my time has expired.
  I believe we need to ask for the yeas and nays on the motion to 
table; am I correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  Mr. KENNEDY. On the motion to table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is a sufficient second.
  The question is on agreeing to the motion.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. 
Helms) is necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 50, nays 49, as follows:
  [Rollcall Vote No. 162 Leg.]

                                YEAS--50

     Allard
     Allen
     Baucus
     Bennett
     Bond
     Breaux
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burns
     Campbell
     Chafee
     Cochran
     Collins
     Craig
     Crapo
     DeWine
     Domenici
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Fitzgerald
     Frist
     Gramm
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Hatch
     Hutchinson
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Kyl
     Lott
     Lugar
     McCain
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Nickles
     Roberts
     Santorum
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith (NH)
     Smith (OR)
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stevens
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Thurmond
     Voinovich
     Warner

                                NAYS--49

     Akaka
     Bayh
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Byrd
     Cantwell
     Carnahan
     Carper
     Cleland
     Clinton
     Conrad
     Corzine
     Daschle
     Dayton
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Edwards
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Graham
     Harkin
     Hollings
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Mikulski
     Miller
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Nelson (NE)
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Stabenow
     Torricelli
     Wellstone
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--1

       
     Helms
       
  The motion was agreed to.
  Mr. DASCHLE. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to 
lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.


                UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST--S.J. RES. 34

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I know we have a lot of work to do on the 
Defense authorization bill. I believe we are making good progress. I 
know Senator Daschle is going to have to make a call sometime today 
about whether or not we are going to be able to get a lockdown list or 
whether he files cloture. I am interested in discussing that with him 
before he makes a final decision because we want to be helpful in 
getting the work done.
  I had indicated earlier also that we hoped we could get a time 
agreement and understanding and all Senators would be on notice as to 
when we would proceed on the issue involving the Yucca Mountain 
disposal site. I ask, notwithstanding legislative or executive business 
or the provisions of rule XXII, immediately following completion of the 
Defense authorization bill but no later than July 9, the majority 
leader or the chairman of the Energy Committee be recognized in order 
to proceed to Calendar No. 412, S.J. Res. 34, and in accordance with 
the provisions of section 115 of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the 
Senate then vote on the motion, with no further intervening action or 
debate.
  I further ask that the motions be agreed to, the Senate consider the 
joint resolution under the statutory procedure set forth in the Nuclear 
Waste Policy Act; further, that once pending, the resolution remain 
before the Senate to the exclusion of any other legislative or 
executive business; and finally, upon conclusion of floor debate and a 
quorum call, if requested, as provided by the statute, the Senate vote 
on H.J. Res. 87 without further intervening motion, point of order, or 
appeal.
  Mr. DASCHLE. I object.
  Let me simply say, I reiterate what I have said on several occasions. 
As the Republican leader knows, a unanimous consent request in this 
case is not necessary. The statute allows any Senator to bring the bill 
to the floor and make a motion to proceed. It is not debatable. The 
vote occurs. If it is successful, the debate, under the statute, is 
required for a period no longer than 10 hours. Any Senator is capable 
of doing that.
  I object today simply because, of course, we have to finish our work 
on the Defense authorization bill. We are

[[Page 11285]]

not sure yet what the circumstances will be with regard to the 
supplemental. I hate to have this legislation supplant an emergency 
supplemental dealing with our Armed Forces and dealing with the 
emergency needs of counterterrorism. That is exactly what this proposal 
would do. It would supplant it if that were the pending business. We 
are hopeful we can accommodate the priorities of the country and the 
Senate in a way that recognizes the importance of proper sequencing of 
legislation including the supplemental. As I say, it certainly also 
recognizes any Senator's right to bring it to the floor.
  I am personally very opposed to the Yucca Mountain legislation as is 
presented. I oppose it and urge my colleagues to oppose it as well. We 
have a large majority of our colleagues on this side of the aisle who 
oppose it. However, for that reason as well as for the procedural 
reasons I have just described, I do object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader.
  Mr. LOTT. If I could use leader time to comment further, I understand 
why the Senator would object at this time. However, I make it clear to 
all the Senators on both sides of the aisle and both sides of the 
issue, we will make every effort to make Senators aware of when this 
issue might come up, give them maximum opportunity for the majority 
leader or the chairman of the Energy Committee to call up this issue, 
and also so that Members know when we are actually going to get to the 
issue itself.
  The way this is set up under expedited procedures, once we go to it, 
once the motion to proceed is agreed to, there will be 10 hours of 
debate and we will go to the final vote. I think that is the right 
scenario. However, I caution Senators, there is a deadline. Under the 
law there was a certain amount of time this legislation could be 
pending in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and there was a 
certain specified period of time during which it could be available for 
the Senate to act. If we do not act by July 27, the veto of this issue 
by the Governor of the State involved will hold. The worst of all 
worlds would be not to act in a responsible way with a clear vote in 
the prescribed amount of time we have available. By going to this issue 
the first week we are back, everybody will know when to expect it to 
come up, and it will be assured that we get it done before the 
expiration date of July 27.
  We will continue to speak about the importance of this issue. We have 
been working on it many years, and we have spent an awful lot of 
taxpayers' money. It is time we make a decision and move forward with 
this repository.
  I am happy to yield to Senator Murkowski.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. I certainly urge the two leaders to proceed and 
recognize the obligation we have to bring this matter to a vote. It 
would be a grave reflection on the Senate to not take up this matter 
prior to July 27. The House has done its work and spoken with an 
overwhelming vote in support of proceeding with Yucca. To allow this 
matter simply to die through inaction is a grave reflection on what was 
intended to be a balanced procedure, giving the Governor of the State 
of Nevada an opportunity to present the opinion of the State of Nevada, 
yet allowing for both the House and Senate to vote on the issue.
  I encourage the two leaders to give us the assurance that we would 
have an up-or-down vote, that it would simply not be allowed to die in 
the course of events that clearly are going to take a great deal of 
time and effort as we proceed with the calendar.
  July 27 is the drop dead date for the procedure, as the minority 
leader indicated. He will be forced to vote on the motion to proceed 
followed by 10 hours of debate and then the final disposition. I remind 
my colleagues of the fiscal responsibility we have in light of the 
realization that the Federal Government entered into a contract, a 
contract with the utility companies that develop nuclear power in this 
country, to take that waste in 1998. The ratepayers have paid in the 
area of $16 billion to $17 billion to the Federal Government. The 
Federal Government is derelict in not being responsive to contractual 
commitments or contractual agreements, with the possibility of 
potential litigation, to the taxpayers of this country, somewhere 
between $40 billion and $70 billion for the failure of the Federal 
Government to honor the terms of that contract.
  The longer we delay this process--when I say ``delay,'' I am talking 
about just that: Proceeding with the process that would basically lead 
to a time sequence that would not allow us to dispose of this issue is 
irresponsible. As a consequence, I encourage the two leaders to give us 
the assurance that we will have an up-or-down vote, we will be allowed 
to have 10 hours of debate, prior to July 27. To not do that, indeed, 
would be a very grave and negative reflection of this body--simply 
ducking its responsibility.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, it will be better if I yield the floor and 
allow the Senator to get time on his own so he will not have to think 
he is being inconsiderate of me by the time he takes.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Carper). The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I thank the majority leader for objecting 
today, and I appreciate his opposition to this project.
  The junior Senator from Alaska talked about an obligation to move 
this legislation. I think there is never an obligation to do the wrong 
thing.
  I believe that proceeding on the issue of Yucca Mountain would be the 
wrong thing for this country for several reasons. There are a lot of 
misconceptions when it comes to Yucca Mountain. It is said we have a 
contract with the utility companies. That is simply because this 
Congress decided to enact a law based on politics and not based on what 
the country actually needed.
  Over the time of studying Yucca Mountain, we have a process that has 
become extraordinarily expensive, so much so that during the 1980s they 
dropped two of the sites they were studying because the costs were out 
of sight. Now, in the late 1990s or early 2000, the costs are going out 
of sight again. The latest cost estimate for Yucca Mountain is close to 
$60 billion. That is as much money as the cost of all 12 of our 
aircraft carriers.
  The stated purpose is so we can make nuclear power more viable in the 
future, if we have a solution for the waste. I submit to my colleagues 
that Yucca Mountain will not make nuclear power more viable because of 
the expense.
  We talk about the trust fund, that the ratepayers are paying into 
this trust fund. They paid in approximately $11 billion. When you count 
interest on that money in these phony trust funds that we have set up 
the trust fund is somewhere around $17 billion. We have spent about $8 
billion of that so far, $4 billion on Yucca Mountain, constructing 
Yucca Mountain.
  People have no idea. Because they go out there and see this very 
impressive hole in the ground, they think we are almost done. We have 
hardly even scratched the surface. It is a huge project, hugely 
expensive. It is going to come out of the general revenues. That means 
taxpayers across the country who do not have nuclear power in their 
States are going to be paying for Yucca Mountain for years and years 
into the future.
  I will close. It is talked about that any Senator can bring this 
legislation to the floor. That is true. It says right in the act that 
any Senator can bring this legislation to the floor. Under the rules of 
the Senate, any Senator can bring any legislation to the floor, but the 
precedent and the history and the tradition of the Senate is that only 
the majority leader brings legislation to the floor of the Senate. 
There have been five pieces of legislation that had similar language to 
the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, where it specifically stated that any 
Senator could bring the legislation to the floor. However, in that 
history of those five pieces of legislation, three of them were brought 
to the floor by the majority leader, and regarding two of them, the 
majority leader actually got them not brought forward to be considered 
in the Senate.
  If somebody besides the majority leader brings this legislation to 
the

[[Page 11286]]

floor, we are breaking with the traditions of the Senate. Because we do 
not have a Rules Committee that says how legislation will come to the 
floor in the Senate, the same way the House has a Rules Committee, I 
believe we are setting a very dangerous precedent for the majority.
  On this side of the aisle we happen to be in the minority right now. 
Someday we would like to be in the majority. I think it sets a 
dangerous precedent for us on this side of the aisle, if we are going 
to be in the majority someday, for this type of legislation to go 
forward without the majority leader bringing the bill to the floor. He 
has announced his opposition, and we appreciate that. But I remind my 
colleagues it is said, because this legislation is so important, that 
we need to set this kind of precedent; that people do not believe, 
because of the importance of this legislation, that we are setting that 
precedent.
  I say, to the contrary, there are a lot of pieces of legislation that 
we look at around here that we say are very important. If a majority of 
Senators get together, regardless of which side of the aisle they are 
on, and offer a motion to proceed, they can control the floor of the 
Senate and thereby become the majority in and of themselves.
  I thank the majority leader for the work he is doing in trying to 
defeat this legislation. My colleague from the State of Nevada, the 
senior Senator, has done yeoman work over the years, and I appreciate 
all his efforts. We are going to continue to fight this legislation, 
not just because we believe it is bad for our State but, more 
importantly, we believe this legislation is wrongheaded for the United 
States of America.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I wanted to speak to the Defense 
authorization bill and was curious as to whether we are back to regular 
order on the Defense authorization. We are back to regular order?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is pending.
  Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I thank my subcommittee chairman on the 
Strategic Subcommittee on Armed Services for his leadership. On this 
particular subcommittee, we do not always see eye to eye, and I 
appreciate his willingness to reach out and work with us. I value our 
working relationship with my chairman on the subcommittee.
  There is certainly much in the committee bill I am able to support. 
One of my particular interests for several years has been the use of 
commercial imagery to help meet the Nation's geospatial and imagery 
requirements. I do not believe the Department of Defense has been 
aggressive enough either in crafting a strategy or in providing funding 
for this purpose.
  I am gratified that the committee bill includes a substantial 
increase for commercial imagery acquisition and some very helpful words 
in report language that I suspect will drive the Department toward 
establishing a sound relationship with the commercial imagery industry.
  I also appreciate the support of the new Department of Energy 
environmental cleanup reform initiative that will incentivize cleanup 
sites to do their important work faster and more efficiently. The 
accelerated cleanup initiative will reduce risk to the workers, 
communities, and the environment, shorten the cleanup schedule by 
decades, and save tens of billions of dollars over the life of the 
cleanup. The bill adds $200 million to this initiative, and I expect 
the Department of Energy will make tremendous strides.
  In both of these areas, I believe the bill makes excellent progress. 
However, early in the process of crafting this bill, I made it very 
clear that one of my top priorities was to assure that ballistic 
missile defense programs are adequately funded. I am deeply 
disappointed that the committee bill, by the margin of one single vote, 
reduces missile defense programs by more than $800 million. This 
represents an 11-percent decrease to the missile defense request for 
fiscal year 2003, a request, I might add, that was already less than 
what was appropriated for fiscal year 2002, by some $200 million.
  I believe reductions of this magnitude are unjustified and will do 
deep and fundamental harm to the effort to develop and deploy effective 
missile defenses as efficiently as we can.
  In the wake of the events of September 11, I believe missile defense 
is more important than ever. As the Director of Central Intelligence 
George Tenet testified before our subcommittee, we don't have the 
luxury of choosing the threats to which we respond. Missile threats 
have a way of developing faster than we expect.
  I opposed the bill in committee because of these reductions, and I 
intend to support, as vigorously as I can, efforts on the floor to 
restore the funding. I am disappointed we could not find an acceptable 
compromise on this issue in committee, and I look forward to working 
with my chairman in a continuing effort to find an acceptable 
resolution to this disagreement.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the soon to be 
laid down amendment by Senator Warner on missile defense. This is a 
major topic for the body to consider. It is a major topic for the 
country. I want to address it from a number of different perspectives 
but primarily from the perspective of the threat we are facing in the 
international community today.
  We are seeing now what is taking place in Iran. I wish to draw 
special notice to what is occurring there. We are seeing terrorism 
being supported greatly from that country. We are seeing them 
supporting terrorist threats and terrorist efforts and funding and even 
providing arms to terrorists in a number of countries throughout the 
region. They are supporting it in Lebanon. They are supporting it in 
central Asia. They are developing the missile capacity in Iran.
  Iranian missile capacity has developed substantially now. They are 
expanding their sphere of influence to the extent of how far the 
delivery of their weaponry is that they can go with the missiles they 
have.
  Iran, as the President identified, is one of the countries comprising 
the axis of evil. They seek to do away with the Israeli State, they 
seek to expand substantially their threat in the region, and they are 
no friend of the United States. They also have no reservation 
whatsoever about using the weapons of mass destruction that they have, 
even targeted toward the United States.
  Here is a country that clearly means us harm. Here is a country that 
is developing and expanding its missile capacity. Here is a country 
that has some capacity for weapons of mass destruction already and is 
trying to obtain nuclear capacity, nuclear weapon capacity, which some 
countries believe they will have in the next several years. That is 
Iran.
  We see what is taking place in North Korea. North Korea has developed 
and has missile capacity. They have a missile with a substantial range 
of influence and threat. They share those with a number of other rogue 
regimes around the world. North Korea has weapons of mass destruction. 
We don't know about their nuclear capacity and development. They are 
probably trying to pursue it. That is a country that also means us 
harm. This is a nation that is a failed state.
  Our estimate is that over the last 5 to 7 years at least 1 million 
North Koreans have died of starvation. At the same time they are 
developing this massive missile and weapons capacity, there are people 
fleeing North Korea today. In the last week, we saw that there were 27 
people, I believe, from North Korea seeking refuge in the embassies in 
China to get out of the repressive regime in North Korea. The state has 
failed. Buildings are collapsing in that state. When people are caught 
in that building, they get crushed. North Koreans are fleeing from that 
failed state. They are trying to get out.
  This country is maintaining a missile capacity that threatens a 
number of U.S. allies and could potentially in the near future threaten 
the United States.

[[Page 11287]]

  With both of these known examples in Iran and North Korea, why on 
Earth would not the United States develop a missile defense system when 
we know these threats are there?
  These are state sponsors of terror. By our own account, they are one 
of the seven countries that are state sponsors of terror. They are 
doing this financially, with weaponry, and by some accounts with their 
own officers. They are selling these missiles around the world, as we 
know is the case with North Korea.
  Why wouldn't the United States as rapidly as possible develop our 
missile defense capacity when we know this is taking place?
  The first order for our defense is to provide for the common defense. 
That is the reason we created the Federal Government.
  When we know these things are being developed by two countries that 
mean to do us harm, why would we not as rapidly as possible use our 
efforts to develop a missile defense system? Clearly, we should be 
doing this. This should be of the highest order for us. If one of these 
could reach U.S. shores--and they may be able to do so in the near 
future with the development of what is taking place in these two 
countries, and where they are offering to sell their missile capacity--
it could cause enormous harm and death in America.
  They currently threaten a number of our allies. They would cause 
enormous death in those nations.
  We should be developing a missile defense system as fast as possible. 
Unfortunately, the Senate Defense authorization bill is hindering the 
effort with what is currently in the bill. That is why I am supporting 
Senator Warner's effort to amend this bill so we can move forward with 
a missile defense system on a very rapid basis.
  The bill which passed out of the Senate Armed Services Committee 
includes a $814.3 million reduction to the budget requested for 
ballistic missile defense. The Warner amendment would provide the 
authority to transfer up to $814 million within the request to be used 
for ballistic missile defense and DOD activities to combat terrorism, 
as the President determined. The administration supports this budget 
request and opposes the reductions put forward in the committee bill 
for the Missile Defense Program. This is a reasonable position for the 
administration to take given the needs that we have for missile 
defense. It is one we should support, and it is one for which we should 
be having a robust missile defense program moving forward.
  For my own State's perspective, this Warner amendment would restore 
$30 million to save a spot on the production lines for the second 
airborne laser aircraft. The acquisition of the second ABL aircraft is 
essential to the continuation of the program. The first aircraft, which 
I have seen, is a very impressive aircraft that I think is going to be 
used in not only missile defense but in other capacities as well.
  The Senate Armed Services Committee's version of the bill is not 
amended to include additional missile defense funding. Secretary 
Rumsfeld has stated that he will recommend to the President that he 
veto the fiscal year 2003 National Defense Authorization Act. That is 
from the Secretary of Defense--a recommendation to veto.
  The Missile Defense Program that was developed is a balanced effort 
to explore a range of technologies that will allow the United States to 
defend against the growing missile threat facing this country and our 
forces, friends, and allies.
  I just articulate two countries that we know of that are problematic.
  What if things occur in other countries? For instance, we are 
developing and should grow in our alliance and work with Pakistan. This 
is a very difficult country. What if President Musharraf is not 
successful and more radical elements take over in Pakistan? That is a 
country with both nuclear and missile capacity. This is not one of 
those far-flung possibilities. This is a very real possibility that 
could take place. We hope we are working against it. I support 
President Musharraf. This country is very supportive of him. He has 
done a lot of excellent work. Recently, he helped in reducing tensions 
between India and Pakistan.
  It is a very real possibility for which we should be preparing. If 
that eventuality happened, and the United States said, OK, now we need 
to build a missile defense system to offset what is taking place in 
someplace such as Pakistan, it is too late.
  According to Secretary Rumsfeld, the $814 million shortfall in 
funding would impose a number of burdensome statutory restrictions that 
would undermine our ability to manage the Missile Defense Program 
effectively.
  The amendment provides the President flexibility to determine which 
use of the funds is within the national interest. The funds could be 
corrected to meet any new terrorism threat that may evolve.
  The ballistic missile defense reductions in the bill are considerable 
and will impair the ability of the Department of Defense to move 
forward in its effort to develop and deploy effective missile defenses.
  The Warner amendment is consistent with the National Missile Defense 
Act of 1999, which passed the Senate, I remind the body, by a vote of 
97 to 3--virtually unanimous--that set out a goal of deploying an 
effective missile defense for the territory of the United States as 
soon as technologically possible.
  That was the standard we put forward. With the Warner amendment, we 
could meet that. Without it, we will not. We will not have the funding 
necessary to meet what we can do technologically. There will be 
restrictions of what we can do.
  In addition, the National Missile Defense Act of 1999 set a goal of 
further negotiated reductions in nuclear weapons programs from Russia.
  The amendment provides the opportunity to make more rapid progress in 
developing and deploying effective missile defenses, a goal endorsed by 
97 of our colleagues.
  The Warner amendment provides an offset based on anticipated 
inflation savings and will have no impact on other programs.
  Even though the Warner amendment would boost the bottom line of the 
bill, it is protected from a budget point of order because it would 
authorize discretionary spending--not mandatory spending.
  The amendment will keep the defense budget within the amount 
requested by DOD.
  We have a number of possibilities for harm that could come to the 
United States--possibilities of nuclear, radiological, chemical, or 
biological weapons capability. And we have possibilities that would be 
enormous disasters.
  We know the al-Qaida network is pursuing these means of destruction 
on the United States. U.S. intelligence uncovered rudimentary diagrams 
of nuclear weapons in an al-Qaida safehouse in Kabul. This year, the 
CIA reported that several of the 30 foreign terrorist groups and other 
nonstate actors around the world ``have expressed interest'' in 
obtaining biological, chemical, and nuclear arms. Such weapons of mass 
destruction can be delivered on ballistic missiles aimed at U.S. forces 
and our friends. We cannot let this happen.
  Today, our security environment is profoundly different than it was 
before September 11. Perhaps I should say it is not profoundly 
different, but we realize how incredibly vulnerable the United States 
is, and we should have realized that prior to September 11.
  The challenges facing the United States have changed from threat of a 
global war with the Soviet Union to the threat posed by emerging 
adversaries in regions around the world, including terrorism. In the 
wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, we need 
to look at the threat posed to us as a nation and how we should best 
utilize resources, which certainly includes an effective Missile 
Defense Program.
  For those reasons, I strongly support the amendment soon to be laid 
down by the Senator from Virginia, Mr. Warner.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.

[[Page 11288]]

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have been listening to the Senator from 
Kansas. He makes eminent sense. He demonstrates a frustration that we 
have been living through now for certainly the last 10 years.
  He mentioned the Missile Defense Act of 1999. There was an act that 
was passed. It was passed by a huge margin, and certainly was a veto-
proof margin, so the President did sign it. But then, after that, we 
did not comply with the act. We have been living since--that was signed 
in 1999--outside the law in terms of taking the action to deploy ``as 
soon as technologically possible.'' I think the excuse that was used at 
that time was the ABM Treaty. I am very thankful that finally we have 
crossed that bridge and we have gotten that behind us.
  I have often looked back to 1972--and of course that was a Republican 
administration, and I am a Republican--when we had Henry Kissinger. And 
at that time they said: There are two superpowers, the Soviet Union and 
the United States of America. The whole thrust of that was mutually 
assured destruction. You won't protect yourself; we won't protect 
ourselves. You shoot us, we will shoot you, and everybody dies, and 
everybody is happy.
  That was a philosophy that everybody believed at that time. That was 
not the world of today. Sometimes I look wistfully back to the cold 
war. We had two superpowers. At least there was predictability. We knew 
what they thought and what their capabilities were. That is not true 
today. We have a totally different world.
  Even Henry Kissinger, who was the architect of that plan, in 1996, 
said it is nuts to make a virtue out of our vulnerability. That is 
exactly what we have been doing.
  I regretted each time President Clinton vetoed the Defense 
authorization bill. I remember the veto message. It said: I will 
continue to veto any authorization bill or any bill that has money in 
it for a threat that does not exist--implying, of course, that the 
threat did not exist: A nuclear weapon, a warhead being carried by 
missile, hitting the United States of America. That was in 1995, his 
first veto.
  Yet when we tried to get our intelligence to come up with some 
accuracy as to when the threat would exist, the National Intelligence 
Estimate of 1995 was highly politicized and said we were not going to 
have this threat for another 15 years. At that very time our American 
cities were targeted by Chinese missiles. At that time, of course, that 
was classified. It is not classified anymore. The threat, nonetheless, 
was there.
  I share the frustration of my friend from Kansas. I have 4 kids and 
11 grandkids. I look at the threat that is out there. I was very 
pleased when the Rumsfeld commission established, in 1997, that the 
threat was very real, the threat was imminent, and the long-range 
threat could emerge without warning.
  I was, as the years went by, trying to get some information to shock 
this institution and other institutions into the reality that the 
threat was imminent.
  I recall writing a letter to General Henry Shelton, Chairman of the 
Joint Chiefs of Staff, and asking him if he agreed with the Rumsfeld 
recommendations. He said the rogue state threat was unlikely, and he 
was confident the intelligence would give us at least 3 years' warning. 
This was at a time when we also included in this letter: Would you tell 
us when you think North Korea would have the capability of having a 
multiple-stage rocket? He said that that would be in the years to come. 
That was August 24, 1998. Seven days later, on August 31, 1998, North 
Korea launched a three-stage rocket that had the capability of reaching 
the United States of America.
  So all of that is going on right now. All of that has been happening. 
We are finally at the point where we are going to vote on something--
the missile defense capability was taken out of the Defense 
authorization bill, and now we have an opportunity to put it back. 
Singularly, this is the most important vote of this entire year, giving 
us this capability to meet this threat that is out there.
  When I talk to groups, I quite often say--particularly when there are 
young people in the audience--I would like to see a show of hands as to 
how many of you saw the movie ``Thirteen Days.'' Of course, most of 
them saw it. I saw it. It was about the Cuban missile crisis in the 
early 1960s, how the Kennedy administration was able to get us out of 
that mess. All of a sudden we woke up one morning and found out cities 
were targeted by missiles, and we had no missile defense.
  In a way, the threat that faces us today is far greater than it was 
back in the 1960s because at least that was all from one island that 
you could take out, I believe, in 22 minutes. Now we are talking about 
missiles that are halfway around the world that, if deployed, would 
take some 35 minutes to get here. And we do not have anything in our 
arsenal--we are naked--to knock them down. That is the threat we are 
faced with today. It is out there, and it is a very real threat.
  I often think about September 11 and the tragedy of the skyline of 
New York City when the planes came into the World Trade Center. It was 
a very sad day in our country's history. But I thought, what if that 
had been, instead of two airplanes in New York City, the weapon of 
choice of terrorists--in other words, a nuclear warhead on a missile. 
If that had been the case, then there would be nothing left in that 
picture of the skyline but a piece of charcoal, and we would not be 
talking about 2,000 lives; we would be talking about 2 million lives. 
It sounds extreme to talk this way, but that is the situation we are 
faced with right now.
  When you say, well, of course China is not going to do this, North 
Korea is not going to do this, and Russia is not going to do this--they 
are the ones that have a missile that can reach us--let's stop and 
realize--and it is not even classified--that China today is trading 
technology and trading systems with countries such as Iran, Iraq, 
Syria, and Lebanon, so it does not have to be indigenous to be a 
threat. The threat is there whether they buy a system from someone else 
or whether they make it themselves.
  After the Persian Gulf war, Saddam Hussein said: If we had waited 10 
years to go into Kuwait, the Americans would not have come to their aid 
because we would have had a missile to reach the United States of 
America.
  I suggest to you here it is, 10 years later. The threat is imminent. 
We are way past due in doing something about it. Today is a significant 
day when we can set out to do that, something that would defend 
America. That is the primary function of what Government is supposed to 
be doing. We have an opportunity to do that today.
  So I encourage all my colleagues, for the sake of all of their people 
whom they represent back home, and for the sake of my 4 kids and my 11 
grandkids, let's get this thing started and pass the Warner amendment.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, this morning I had the opportunity to 
address the issue of missile defense from my perspective as the 
chairman of the Strategic Subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee.
  In the course of our deliberations over many months, with many 
hearings, hours of testimony, and more hours of briefings and staff 
contacts, we looked very closely at the proposed budget for missile 
defense this year by the Department of Defense. We supported many of 
their initiatives.
  We are recommending $6.8 billion of new funding for fiscal year 2003. 
But let me put that in a larger context. For fiscal year 2002, the 
Department of Defense estimates they have only spent $4.2 billion of 
previously authorized money, leaving approximately $4 billion of 
carryover funds for fiscal year 2003. So our recommendation, together 
with carryover funds, will give the Department of Defense more than $10 
billion of available funding for fiscal year 2003.
  That is a staggering amount of money. It is the largest 1-year 
funding source for missile defense I think we have ever had in our 
history. It is the

[[Page 11289]]

combination of not only what we authorize this year for fiscal year 
2003, but what has been authorized and not spent for fiscal year 2002.
  Mr. ALLARD. Will the Senator from Rhode Island yield on that point?
  Mr. REED. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. ALLARD. My understanding is they actually did not get into the 
spending, because we were in session late last year, until the second 
quarter. So when you get into second-quarter spending on a full year's 
allocation, obviously you are not going to have the opportunity to 
spend all the dollars. It is not because the need is not there, it is 
just because we were in session so late last year, in December, and 
that is the reason those dollars that were budgeted did not get spent. 
I have all the confidence in the world we probably will catch up with 
that.
  Mr. REED. I thank the Senator, my colleague, the ranking member from 
Colorado, for that point. I do not disagree with that point, but I am 
making a different point, which I will make again; which is, regardless 
of what caused them not to spend the money last year, that money seems 
to be entirely available this year, together with our proposed funding 
level, and gives the Missile Defense Agency over $10 billion to spend 
on missile defense in fiscal year 2003. That is robust funding by any 
definition. The suggestion that we are cutting out the heart of funding 
for missile defense is, I think, erroneous.
  We are supporting very strongly a missile defense program, but we are 
not supporting it without looking carefully at its components and 
making tough choices about priorities of spending.
  That is why, as a result of our proposed reductions, we were able to 
move significant amounts of money into shipbuilding, which every Member 
of this body strongly recommends, commends, and supports. In addition, 
we were able to move some money into Department of Energy security for 
their nuclear facilities, which is very important. We also have, in 
fact, provided a bill that robustly supports missile defense.
  We did reduce the overall recommendation of the Department of Defense 
for missile defense, but we also added funds into specific missile 
defense programs which we believed were underfunded. For example, we 
added an additional $30 million for test and evaluation of missile 
defenses. One of the persistent criticisms of our missile development 
program is that they have not had realistic testing, that they have had 
tests but they didn't really represent in any meaningful way the type 
of actual environment in which the missiles must operate. We added 
additional resources. This is one of the recommendations of everyone 
who has looked at the Missile Defense Program.
  We have added $40 million for a new, powerful, sea-based radar for 
the Navy theater-wide system. Again, this is a system which General 
Kadish, director of the Missile Defense Agency, announced 10 days ago 
or so was a likely candidate for contingency deployment in the year 
2004.
  That was not suggested or recommended by the administration, but we 
believed very strongly that an additional $40 million to develop this 
radar was key to developing the Navy theater-wide system which could be 
the major element of the sea-based system.
  We have also added $40 million for the Arrow missile defense system. 
That is a joint United States-Israeli program to develop and field--and 
it is far into the development phase--a theater missile system that 
will protect not only Israel but United States forces, too, because we 
hope we will emphasize interoperability as we go forward with the 
development of that system.
  Many colleagues have said the danger of terrorists obtaining missiles 
is acute in the Middle East, and we are putting more money into the 
system than was requested by the Department of Defense to ensure that 
our allies and our forces in that region have an effective missile 
screen. That is a plus--not a minus--that we added, that the 
administration did not request.
  We have also included $22 million for an airborne infrared system 
which could be used as a near-term, highly accurate detection and 
tracking system for national or theater missile defense. Again, this 
was not requested by the administration but supported and included by 
our deliberations at the committee level because we do in fact want to 
see an effective missile defense system fielded at an early time.
  Let me talk about some of the reductions we made. Before I get into 
details, we asked some basic questions: What are you going to spend the 
money for? What is the product? What do you want to buy? When do you 
plan on deploying such-and-such a system? Frankly, the answers we got 
were very vague, very ambiguous. The Missile Defense Agency seems to be 
in the process of redefining their role, which is incumbent upon this 
new agency. But in that phase of redefinition, they were not able to 
provide the kind of specific data we requested. In fact, in some cases 
they just plain refused to provide any really adequate information.
  One example is that in last year's authorization, we requested, 
required by law in the report language, that they report to us on the 
life-cycle costs of any system going into the engineering phase. THAAD 
was in that engineering phase, and THAAD is a theater ballistic missile 
being developed right now. Rather than reporting to us the life-cycle 
costs, they simply administratively took THAAD out of that engineering 
phase, which suggests to me that either they don't have these life-
cycle costs or they were unwilling to share them with the Congress.
  We have to know these things. We have to make judgments about 
critical systems, not just missile systems, shipbuilding, the 
operational readiness of our land forces, our air forces. All of these 
are tough choices with scarce resources. At a minimum, we have to know 
how much these proposed systems will cost. In the case of missile 
defense, it is very difficult, if not sometimes impossible, to get that 
information.
  We looked at programs and expected they would be justified and 
detailed in concrete ways. Frankly, we found many programs that 
appeared to be duplicative, ill-defined, and conceptual in nature. And 
these programs were not inconsequential. We are not talking about a 
couple of million dollars to do a study, we are talking about hundreds 
of millions of dollars; in the case of the Navy theater-wide, $52 
million to do a study of concepts for sea-based midcourse naval 
defense.
  So that was the approach we took: Look hard at all of these programs, 
with the purpose of trying to ensure that missile defense development 
goes forward but also to ensure we had resources for other critical 
needs of the Department of Defense.
  One of the areas that appeared to us to be the least well justified 
was the area of the BMD system cost--approximately $800 million--used, 
as they say, to integrate the multilayered BMD system. First, there are 
a couple of timing issues. The various components of this BMD system 
have not yet been decided. As a result, they have an awesome challenge 
to integrate components that have not been decided upon. That is just 
an obvious starting point. Again, there was not the clear-cut 
definition of what they were doing, and $800 million is a great deal of 
money to spend on simply contracting for consultants, engineers, and 
systems reviews, particularly when the architecture of the components 
is not yet established.
  We also found out, as we looked back at last year's authorization, 
which included a significant amount of money for this BMD system, that 
the Department of Defense, as of midway through the year, had only 
spent about $50 million. We were informed that throughout the course of 
the year they are expected to spend about $400 million, leaving about 
$400 million of resources in this one particular element, BMD systems, 
that is available for fiscal year 2003 spending. So even with our 
reduction in BMD systems, they will still have a significant amount of 
money, upwards of $1 billion, for fiscal year 2003, in this one 
category of BMD systems.
  Again, if you ask them what are they doing: We are integrating 
systems. We are planning, and we are thinking.

[[Page 11290]]

  All of that is very fair, but is that a sufficient justification for 
$1 billion when we have other pressing needs for national defense in 
this budget?
  As we go forward, we looked, again, very carefully, at all the 
different elements. We made adjustments that we thought were justified 
by the lack of clear program goals, by duplicative funding, poorly 
justified funding, and then we looked at other issues.
  For example, the THAAD Program. THAAD is a theater missile defense 
program that has been under development for several years. It had its 
problems years ago. It was, frankly, off course. One of the conclusions 
of the Welch panel that looked at the THAAD Program was that they were 
rushing to failure. They were trying to do too much too fast. They were 
abandoning the basic principles of developing a system, good 
requirements, moving forward deliberately, testing carefully. As a 
result, the program was in danger of being canceled. The program is 
back on track now, with better engineering, commitment by the 
contractors. They are moving forward.
  But what the administration would like to do now is to go ahead and 
purchase 10 extra missiles for the THAAD Program. The problem is that 
the first flight test for the THAAD is in fiscal year 2005. We fully 
fund this flight test, $895 million for the THAAD for developing the 
missile, for flight testing in 2005. But ask yourself, why would we buy 
10 unproven missiles several years before the first flight test?
  The administration talks about a contingency deployment. That is 
nice, but the first real flight test is several years from now. And in 
a scarce, tough budgeting climate, why are you buying 10 extra missiles 
that appear to be unnecessary before they follow through with the first 
test flight. So we made a reduction of approximately $40 million for 
those extra missiles.
  Now, we also looked at some of the funding for what they described as 
boost phase experiments--$85 million. We found these very ill defined 
and conceptual. That is a lot of money for ``experiments,'' without 
other explanation.
  Then we looked at the proposal to buy a second airborne laser 
aircraft, $135 million. The airborne laser is an interesting system, 
designed to mount a laser in a 747 and use that to knock down a missile 
as it leaves the launch phase in its boost phase. It is very 
complicated technology, challenging just in the simple physics, let 
alone the hardware that you have to construct. I am told that the 
prototype laser is twice the size of a system that can fit on a 747. I 
am also told that the 747 that they are outfitting has yet to have been 
flown operationally in this capacity in a test.
  So you ask yourself, when you have not developed a laser, when you 
have not used it on the aircraft to actually engage targets, when you 
are working on basic optics problems and physics problems, why do we 
have to buy a second airplane in this year? When, for example, you have 
people complaining that the real chokepoint in our airplane fleet are 
tanker aircraft to support our ongoing operations. This is an example 
of expenditure we thought was unjustified. As a result, we suggested 
and recommended that there be reductions in this program.
  Now, I wish to mention one other point in conjunction with the 
airborne laser because I think it is important. One of the things we 
discovered in our deliberation was that the Department of Defense has 
not only totally revamped the Missile Defense Agency, but it is trying 
to give it an autonomy that exists for few, if any, other defense 
programs. It has effectively eliminated review of its activities by the 
JROC, which is chaired by the Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, the 
warfighters who eventually will use all this equipment. We believe, as 
with most other programs, that it is required for these people to have 
a say whether and how missile defense is being developed.
  We found out that the Joint Chiefs of Staff were not consulted about 
this budget that was submitted from the National Missile Agency for 
missile defense in general; that they did not have an opportunity to 
say you are spending too little or too much. They were frozen out. 
Those are the senior uniform leaders of our Armed Forces and they 
didn't get a say in determining what should be spent on missile 
defense.
  As we develop these systems, we have to think, even at this point, 
how are we going to use these systems? The airborne laser has real 
potential in a tactical situation where you are going against theater 
missiles. If it is going to be used in a national missile situation, 
where we are trying to back down an aggressor that threatens us with an 
intercontinental missile launch, a couple issues should be considered: 
first, this is a 747 doing circles close to the airspace of a hostile 
nation. If we believe they have the capacity and the will to shoot an 
intercontinental missile at us, we have to assume they have the 
capacity and the will to knock down a 747 as it circles in the air 
waiting for the blastoff. So our first reaction militarily, I think, 
would be that we would have to dominate the airspace, send our fighters 
in to preempt the attack so they won't have to send the 747. Why don't 
we preempt the launch by attacking?
  These are some of the operational issues that are being addressed. 
All we are speaking about here is technological possibilities, but 
until they are integrated in with the coherent advice of the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff and JROC, the weight of that advice and of these 
proposals, I think, has to be questioned. That is our job.
  Now, we spent a great deal of careful time reviewing all of these 
systems. As I said, we support robust deployment of systems. The PAC-3 
system is a theater system that is well on the way to operational 
readiness. It is being tested right now. We have made some substantial 
and robust expenditures for the THAAD Program. Navy theater-wide is a 
program we are supporting in terms of its testing and evaluation. We 
support the ABL concept. We are funding it but the question before us 
is, Is it time to buy a second airplane now? I think the answer is no.
  The midcourse, the land-based national defense system in Alaska, has 
been robustly funded. A few days ago the administration announced that 
a test bed has been started in Alaska for five missiles. That is fully 
supported in this legislation that we bring to the floor--even though 
there are real questions about its utility for anything more than a 
test bed, or even for a test bed.
  A contingency deployment would be likely directed against those 
nations identified as the ``evil empire.'' It turns out that the radar 
that the system being used in Alaska, the COBRA DANE radar, does not 
face in the direction of Iraq and Iran. It would be impossible to track 
those missiles. It has partial coverage of North Korea, but it would be 
difficult to cover with that radar. The administration has rejected a 
proposal supported under the Clinton administration to build an X-band 
radar in conjunction with the Alaska test bed. One of the reasons that 
the X-band radar was so important was indicated by General Kadish and 
others in their testimony.
  One of the real challenges for a midcourse interception is to 
identify the warhead from all of the clutter, including decoys that 
would likely be launched. To do that, you have to have a finely 
discriminating radar. The X-band is much more finely discriminating 
than the L band, which is COBRA DANE. The administration says forget 
that, we are not doing that. Yet we have funded this proposal fully 
because we recognize that the X-band radar is an important aspect of 
defending the country. Yet we also recognize we don't have a blank 
check. We have to make tough judgments about what we spend.
  So the idea that we are sort of blithely cutting programs and 
eviscerating missile defense is, I think, wrong on its face. There is 
$6.8 billion in this year, coupled with almost $4 billion of funds, 
that can be used from this year, meaning the fiscal year 2003 budget, 
coupled with almost $4 billion still available from the fiscal year 
2002 budget, is robust funding for missile defense.
  My last point is something that I think is important to emphasize in 
the

[[Page 11291]]

context of not just this program, but the overall challenge we have. 
When Secretary Rumsfeld came up to the Appropriations Committee to 
argue for the cancellation of the Crusader system, he made the point--
which I think in his mind was very clear--that we face a defense bow 
wave of epic proportions as we go forward. If we fund all the programs 
that we are proposing right now, we are going to have some very hard 
choices. One of the problems with Secretary Rumsfeld's evaluation is it 
doesn't go as far as I think it should because, as far as I know, he is 
not including the cost of the deployment or operation of any missile 
defense system in the bow wave.
  As we consider the long-term implications, we must consider that we 
cannot just add funds. We have to be careful about it, and we have to 
be very careful about what these funds will be used for. We have done a 
very thorough, detailed review of these programs. We have made 
suggestions based upon the review. There are other pressing needs. The 
most glaring to me is homeland defense and antiterrorism expenditures.
  There, the possibility for extra spending probably exists. Here I 
think we have made sound choices about priorities that will help 
enhance the defense of the country. I urge my colleagues to consider 
carefully the proposals that Senator Levin might make but ultimately 
to, I hope, agree that the bill we brought to the floor contains robust 
spending that will enhance our defense through wise expenditures with 
respect to missile defense.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the two managers of the bill are two of the 
most experienced legislators we have on Capitol Hill, and so I have 
absolute confidence in both of them. They certainly know how to handle 
legislation. I have to say, though, it is 4 o'clock. It is Tuesday. We 
have the July recess coming up soon. I do not know what the leader will 
do, but I suggest to the leader that he should file cloture on this 
bill because it is obvious to me we are not going to be finished with 
this bill tomorrow, and I think we are going to have trouble finishing 
the bill on Thursday.
  The decision is that of the majority leader, but I say to my two dear 
friends, the senior Senator from Michigan and the senior Senator from 
Virginia, the manager and ranking member of this most important 
committee, that would be my recommendation to the leader, that he file 
a cloture motion sometime this afternoon. It seems to me that is the 
only way we are going to finish this bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, last night I provided Chairman Levin with 
a draft of my missile defense amendment and then we discussed it at 
length this morning. At approximately 2:35 or 2:40, the Senator 
provided me with a proposal the Senator from Michigan had. So he had my 
amendment for a number of hours. I have only had his for about an hour 
and 30 minutes.
  I have a lot of people with strong beliefs over on my side, and it 
seems to me it is not unreasonable given the amount of time that I was 
able to provide for the chairman and the leadership on his side, that I 
would require just a bit more time to resolve good, honest differences 
of opinion on my side.
  Mr. REID. I am wondering if I could ask my friend from Virginia and 
my friend from Michigan, maybe we should go to some other amendment 
then?
  Mr. WARNER. I ask the indulgence of my good friend to enable me to 
work a bit and see whether or not we can proceed to a clear 
understanding for a procedure such that the Senate can address the 
views of the chairman and the views of the ranking member.
  Mr. REID. As I said when I started this statement this afternoon, I 
have the greatest confidence in the two managers of this bill. That 
being the case, 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. ALLARD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I want to make a few comments in response 
to my colleague's comments earlier about trying to justify the cuts 
they had in various parts of the Missile Defense Program.
  I rise in support of the amendment that is going to be offered by the 
ranking Republican in the Armed Services Committee, Senator Warner, and 
myself, where we are restoring $814 million for missile defense and 
activities of the Department of Defense to combat terrorism at home and 
abroad. This is an important amendment. It will allow the bill to move 
forward on a bipartisan basis, and I believe it deserves the support of 
every Member of this body.
  The committee bill dramatically reduces the President's funding 
request for missile defense. This bill actually makes a billion dollars 
in reduction and then adds back to the ballistic missile defense budget 
in areas where the funding was not requested. I confess that I am 
baffled and deeply disappointed that the committee majority insisted on 
these reductions.
  The missile defense request this year was both reasonable and modest, 
in my view. At $7.6 billion, it was less than the request for fiscal 
year 2002 by about $700 million and less than what was appropriated in 
fiscal year 2002 by $200 million. If the committee bill is enacted, 
missile defense will be funded a billion dollars below last year's 
funding level.
  Many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle can accept this 
because they look at missile defense as a drain on resources that can 
be better spent on other priorities. This point of view says a missile 
attack is the least likely threat the Nation must face and that every 
dollar spent on missile defense is a dollar we cannot spend on more 
likely threats.
  Let us examine this point of view. The contention that a missile 
attack is the least likely threat the Nation will face is simply false 
on the face of it. Ballistic missiles pose the most likely threat that 
we must face. Indeed, we face it today and every day. Missiles and 
weapons of mass destruction are meant to deter. I know our colleagues 
on the other side of the aisle believe this. They have often argued 
that our own nuclear force levels are too high and that effective 
deterrence does not require that many weapons.
  According to the latest national intelligence estimate on missile 
threats, our Nation faces a likely intercontinental ballistic missile 
threat from Iran and North Korea and a possible threat from Iraq. 
Dozens of nations have short- and medium-range ballistic missiles 
already in the field that threaten U.S. interests, military forces, and 
our allies. The clear trend in ballistic missile technology is toward 
longer range and greater sophistication. Once deployed, these missiles 
threaten the United States, its allies, its friends, and deployed 
troops. No one has to fire them to be effective. They are effective by 
their mere presence.
  The most recent national intelligence estimate concludes that nations 
hostile to U.S. interests are developing these capabilities precisely 
to deter the United States. We already know that our adversaries 
believe we can be deterred from pursuing our interests. Earlier this 
year, the Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee received some 
remarkable testimony from Mr. Charles Duelfer in his capacity as the 
Deputy Executive Chairman of the U.N. Special Commission on Iraq. He 
had the opportunity to interview senior Iraqi Ministers about Saddam 
Hussein's perception of the gulf war. Many of us are aware that the 
United States threatened Iraq with extraordinary regime-ending 
consequences should that nation use chemical or biological weapons 
against coalition forces during the conflict. The use of this threat 
has been seen as a triumph of deterrence, but according to Mr. Duelfer, 
Iraq loaded chemical and biological warheads on ballistic missiles.

[[Page 11292]]

  Authority to launch those missiles was delegated to local commanders 
with no further intervention or control by higher Iraqi authorities 
with orders to launch if the United States moved on Baghdad.
  We never attacked Baghdad. The Iraqi regime survived and survives 
this day, and they attribute that survival to the deterrent effect of 
missiles and weapons of mass destruction.
  Furthermore, the national intelligence estimate also concludes that 
the likelihood that a missile with a weapon of mass destruction will be 
used against U.S. forces or interests is higher today than during most 
of the cold war and will continue to grow as the capabilities of 
potential adversaries mature.
  We have had testimony from many witnesses this year attesting to the 
seriousness of the threat. General Thomas Schwartz, then the Commander 
in Chief of U.S. Forces Korea, told the Armed Services Committee:

       As a result of their specific actions, North Korea 
     continues to pose a dangerous and complex threat to the 
     peninsula and the WMD and missile programs constitute a 
     growing threat to the region and the world.

  And Admiral Dennis Blair, the Commander in Chief of Pacific Command, 
testified that he is ``worried about the missiles that China builds . . 
. which threaten Taiwan and . . . about the missiles which North Korea 
builds . . . to threaten South Korea and Japan.'' General Richard 
Meyers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a letter to me 
dated May 7, 2002, wrote that ``the missile threat facing the United 
States and deployed forces is growing more serious . . . Missiles 
carrying nuclear, biological or chemical weapons could inflict damage 
far worse than was experienced on September 11.''
  In light of the consistency of views expressed by our intelligence 
community and our military commanders, I just cannot fathom the point 
of view that disregards the missile threat. And yet we hear that other 
priorities, such as homeland security, are so much higher than missile 
defense that deep reductions to funding for missile defense are 
justified. Let us put this view in perspective as well.
  First of all, I would note that missile defense is, quintessentially, 
homeland defense. Defenses against long-range missiles will protect our 
people and our national territory, our shores and harbors, our cities, 
factories, and farmlands from the world most destructive weapons. 
Defenses against shorter range missiles will protect our allies and our 
deployed forces that are fighting for our freedom.
  Secondly, approving the missile defense budget request will not 
impair military readiness. General Meyers recently wrote to me he fully 
endorsed the President's missile defense request, and stated 
unequivocally that ``military readiness will not be hurt if Congress 
approves the . . . President's budget.''
  Third, I would note that the missile defense program is not a single 
program activity. The $7.6 billion request funds about 20 sizable 
projects in the Missile Defense Agency and the Army.
  Finally, the missile defense request is a modest one when you realize 
the magnitude of other defense efforts. The missile defense request for 
fiscal year 2003 is $7.6 billion. This is a mission we have never done 
before. In essence, we have almost no legacy capability. Contrast that 
with the more than $11 billion we will spend on three tactical aircraft 
programs in 2003. We will probably spend about $350 billion on these 
three programs over their lifetime. And we have tremendous legacy 
capabilities in this area. Our tactical aircraft are today the best in 
the world. Another example: We will spend close to $40 billion in 2003 
on other homeland security programs. These are all important programs 
and address vital national security needs. But in light of the size of 
these programs, the view that the missile defense request is wildly 
excessive or out of line is misleading at best.
  Consequently, I believe, as does the President, the Secretary of 
Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the theater commander in 
chief, that the missile defense budget request is fair and reasonable. 
In combination, these reductions represent a frank and potentially 
devastating challenge to the administration's missile defense goals and 
how the Department has organized itself to achieve those goals.
  The administration established the Missile Defense Agency and 
expedited oversight processes. The committee bill would cut literally 
hundreds of government and contractors employees that work at the 
Agency's headquarters and for the military services that serve as 
executive agents for missile defense programs. These are the people who 
provide information technology, services, security, contract management 
and oversight for missile defense projects, and they are vital to good 
management.
  The administration seeks early deployment of missile defense 
capabilities. The committee bill eliminates funds that could provide 
capabilities for contingency deployment.
  The Missile Defense Agency established a goal of developing multi-
layered defense capable of intercepting missiles of all ranges in all 
phases of flight. The committee bill reduces or eliminates funding for 
boost phase intercept systems and cuts funding for defenses against 
short, medium, and intermediate range missiles by more than $500 
million.
  The Missile Defense Agency established a goal of developing a single 
integrated missile defense system. MDA established a government-
industry National Team to select the best and brightest from industry 
to determine the best overall architecture and perform system 
engineering and integration and battle management and command control 
work for the integrated missile defense system. The committee bill 
reduces by two-thirds funding for BMD system SE&I and BM/C2 and 
virtually eliminates funding for the National Team.
  The amendment offered by Senators Warner, Lott, Stevens, and I could 
potentially restore the $814 million net reduction to missile defense 
and reverse these unjustified committee actions. We all recognize, 
however, that missile defense is part of the larger picture of homeland 
defense. This amendment provides the flexibility to the President to 
direct this funding, as he see fit, to research and development for 
missile defense and for activities of the Department of Defense to 
counter terrorism.
  I personally believe that the President would be completely justified 
in using the funding for missile defense. But to comfortably with the 
idea that President can direct these funds according to the Nation's 
needs as he sees them. If the terrorist threat should take an 
unexpected turn, these funds could be valuable in the effort to assure 
that a new threat can be contained. If such is not the case, he can 
direct the funds to missile defense.
  I believe that this is a reasonable and fair compromise that will 
allow the bill to move forward on a bipartisan basis. The gap between 
the two sides on the missile defense issue is substantial. I recognize 
that. This amendment is an honest and fair attempt to bridge that gap 
in a manner that can satisfy both sides. I urge my colleagues to 
support this important amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Johnson). The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. COCHRAN. I compliment the distinguished Senator from Colorado for 
his statement. He is a member of the Armed Services Committee which 
reported this bill to the Senate. He has been a leader in the effort to 
develop and deploy an effective national missile defense system.
  I strongly support the effort being made by Senator Warner, the 
ranking Republican on this committee, to amend the bill, to authorize 
appropriations as requested by the President, for missile defense. It 
is clear to me that the reductions to that program contained in this 
bill are designed to prevent the successful development of effective 
missile defenses. The reductions proposed in the committee bill 
obviously have been carefully selected to do the maximum amount of 
damage to the President's plan to modernize these programs. These 
reductions do not trim fat. They cut the heart out of our missile 
defense effort.

[[Page 11293]]

  The President has embarked on a fundamental transformation of these 
programs which was made possible by the withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. 
That treaty had led to restrictions on our efforts to develop 
technologies to conduct tests and to develop effective missile defense 
capabilities. The treaty outlawed promising basing modes, and it 
imposed stringent curbs on the types of technologies we could use to 
defend ourselves against missile attack.
  The President plans to transform the separate missile defense 
programs into an integrated missile defense system which makes the most 
of the progress we have already made but which is supplemented with new 
capabilities and new technologies such as the ability to destroy 
missiles in their boost phase and to base missile defenses at sea. The 
President's budget request begins to make this transformation a 
reality.
  The committee bill, on the other hand, cuts $362 million from the 
request for the ballistic missile defense system, under which 
fundamental engineering that is necessary to achieve this goal will be 
undertaken. This cut will eliminate two-thirds of the funding for 
system engineering and integration, and virtually eliminate the 
national team which would integrate the various system elements.
  The report accompanying the bill erroneously claims that these 
efforts are redundant with system engineering performed in the 
individual programs. This is not the case. The engineering work this 
bill would eliminate is both distinct and vital.
  The bill also cuts $108 million from program operations, again on the 
erroneous assumption that this effort is redundant. In fact, according 
to the Missile Defense Agency, if this cut stands, 70 percent of the 
civilian workforce at the Agency would be eliminated.
  The bill also guts the efforts to exploit new technologies and basing 
modes which previously were prohibited, as I said, in the ABM Treaty, 
but which we may now pursue. For example, $52 million is cut from the 
sea-based midcourse program. That program had a successful intercept 
just last week, its second in two attempts. But this bill would reduce 
funds for testing and delay our ability to build on the recent 
successes.
  The airborne laser program, which will provide the United States not 
only its first airborne missile defense system but the first to use a 
directed energy weapon, it is reduced by $135 million in this committee 
bill, leaving the program with only one aircraft.
  And the cuts go on: $55 million from the sea-based boost phase work; 
$30 million from space-based boost; $10 million from the space-based 
laser. All of these cuts would severely hamper or eliminate work on 
promising new basing modes or new technologies, just as we have been 
freed by the withdrawal from the ABM Treaty to fully undertake our 
research and investigations.
  The bill also cuts efforts for which even longtime defenders of the 
ABM Treaty and missile defense critics have always professed support. 
For example, critics have said that our missile defenses need more 
testing, and outside experts have agreed with that.
  So what have they done in this bill? Eliminated 10 test missiles from 
the THAAD Program--not named for me. This is the THAAD--Theater High 
Altitude Air Defense is what it stands for--Program.
  Year after year, the generals in charge of our Missile Defense 
Program have testified that their testing has been ``hardware poor.'' 
They did not have enough of the missiles that they needed, the test 
missiles. They have had so little test hardware that when something 
goes wrong, as inevitably and occasionally is going to happen in a test 
program, they are forced to bring the program to a stop while they look 
for other hardware or try to deal with the problem in some other way.
  Congress has been asked by this administration to provide more 
hardware so that testing can continue when problems develop so that 
these problems can be corrected. General Kadish has called this 
``flying through failure.'' You have to keep testing to find out how to 
solve the problems, and many of our efforts along this line have been 
successful and problems have been solved.
  We have seen test after successful test in not only the THAAD Program 
that we mentioned, but in the longer range higher velocity missile test 
programs.
  But this bill cuts from the THAAD Program 10 flight test missiles 
that will help ensure our ability to fly through failure and keep the 
program on track.
  In the past, opponents have also criticized the program generally as 
being too risky--which means there is a lot of chance for failure. It 
doesn't mean that it is risky in that it will not work, it is that you 
will have failures along the line. But if you go back in the history of 
our Defense Department and look at new product development--the Polaris 
Missile is an example or the Sidewinder Missile is an example--they had 
more failures by far in those early days of testing than these missile 
defense programs have had. So failures are expected.
  But the good news is that we are making very impressive progress. 
Now, right on the brink of the transformation of the programs into a 
modernized, fully authorized program, this committee goes through and 
cuts out just enough--and in some cases more than enough--of certain 
activities that are involved in the integrated Missile Defense Program 
to guarantee its failure, to guarantee that we will not be able to 
succeed in deploying an effective missile defense to protect the 
security of Americans here at home.
  While applauding homeland defense as a necessity, we are, on the one 
hand, saying it is a good idea and saying we are going to work with the 
President to make that be an effective way to defend ourselves more 
effectively than we have in the past, and then, on the other hand, 
eliminating authorization for funds that are absolutely essential for 
an effective missile defense program.
  They cut $147 million from the midcourse defense segments. The 
committee eliminated funding for the complementary exoatmospheric kill 
vehicle, which would reduce the risk of relying on the single design 
now being tested.
  Opponents have claimed that missile defenses will be vulnerable to 
countermeasures. But guess what. This bill takes the funding away from 
testing against countermeasures. Can you believe that? I have read 
article after article in papers, the Union of Concerned Scientists 
saying: Well, missiles can hit a missile in full flight. But if there 
were an extra balloon or a decoy or two, they would not be able to 
differentiate the difference between the decoy and the actual missile 
that is attacking us.
  We have proven in tests over the Pacific that it can be done, that 
the intercept missile has differentiated between the missile and the 
decoy. Then the scientists say: Oh, but that was just one decoy. It was 
not sophisticated. What if a potential enemy deploys a lot of decoys?
  Here the administration plans to do just that as it gets more 
sophisticated and proves that one thing can work, and how complicated 
can an enemy be--we will find out whether we can defend against that. 
But they cut the money so we can't do that. The opponents of the 
missile defense effort are playing right into the hands of the critics. 
I guess next they will say there is no money for the additional decoys 
and the countermeasures. Of course there isn't. They took the money out 
of the bill.
  I am hopeful Senators will look at the details and not just assume, 
OK, the Democrats think the President is spending too much on missile 
defense, the Republicans want to spend more.
  We are trying to support the President. At a time when our country is 
under threat from terrorists, we are confronted with nation states 
building more sophisticated intercontinental ballistic missile 
capability, testing those missiles, as North Korea did and as other 
nation states are doing. And you can get the intelligence reports. We 
get them routinely, on a regular basis. And we have public hearings on 
those that can be discussed publicly.
  In those hearings it has become abundantly clear that there is a 
proliferation of missile technology in the

[[Page 11294]]

world today and a lot of nation states that say they are out to destroy 
us and to kill Americans wherever they can be found are building these 
systems and testing these systems.
  We need to proceed to support our President in this legislation. Of 
all times to start nitpicking a request for missile defense and go 
about it in the way that is undertaken in this bill and say: We have 
left a lot of money here for missile defense. The President has asked 
for billions--for $7 billion. We just have taken out less than a 
billion, $800 million.
  But look where the money is coming from. The money that is being 
taken away from the programs is designed to prevent the full-scale 
development of a modern missile defense capability. That is the result 
if the Senate does not adopt an amendment to change these reductions, 
to eliminate these reductions and give the President what he is asking 
for. And that is a capability to integrate all of the systems into one 
engineering and development program, for efficiency sake--for 
efficiency, to save money in the long run so we will not have to have 
redundant engineering programs. We won't have to have engineering 
contracts to the private sector. We will not have to have redundant 
contracts with the private sector. We can bring it all together and 
have a layered system that would be a lot more efficient and a lot more 
effective.
  There is more to this than politics. We are talking about a threat to 
our Nation's security, to the livelihood and well-being of American 
citizens, to American troops in the field, and to the ships at sea in 
dangerous waters and in dangerous areas of this world today.
  Is this Senate about to take away the opportunity to defend those 
assets, those resources, our own citizens, our own troops, and our own 
sailors? I am not going to be a part of that.
  This Senate needs to hear the truth. The truth is looking at the 
details of the proposal that this committee is making to the Senate. 
Don't let them do this. We will pay dearly for it in the years ahead by 
having to appropriate more money than we should for individual programs 
or in catastrophes that could have been avoided.
  As I said, opponents have claimed that missile defenses will be 
vulnerable to countermeasures, yet the reductions in this bill 
eliminate funding for counter-countermeasure work that would address 
this problem.
  One could be forgiven for concluding that the goal here is not to 
improve the missile defense system, but to ensure it is continually 
vulnerable to criticism.
  In the past, disagreements about missile defense in the Senate have 
been largely over whether to defend the territory of the United States, 
and then mostly because such defenses were prohibited by the ABM 
Treaty. At the same time, there has been near unanimous support for 
missile defense capabilities that will protect our troops deployed 
overseas. Yet, this bill would take hundreds of millions of dollars 
from our theater missile defense programs, even as our troops are 
deployed in what we all acknowledge will be a long military effort in a 
part of the world that is saturated with ballistic missiles. It is both 
baffling and troubling that the Armed Services Committee would so 
severely reduce funding for these programs--at any time, but especially 
now.
  For example, the revolutionary Airborne Laser Program is reduced by 
$135 million, restricting the capability to just one aircraft. Having 
two or more aircraft means that one can be grounded for service or 
upgrading without losing the capability altogether. But with a single 
aircraft, this important theater defense capability will be 
unnecessarily constrained.
  The THAAD Program will provide the first ground-based defense against 
longer-range theater missiles like North Korea's No Dong and its 
derivatives, such as Iran's Shahab-3. The No Dong is already deployed--
our troops in Korea and Japan are threatened by it today, but this bill 
cuts funding for THAAD by $40 million.
  The Medium Extended Air Defense System--or MEADS--is a cooperative 
effort with Italy and Germany to field a mobile theater missile defense 
system; it is reduced by $48 million.
  The sea-based midcourse program--formerly known as Navy Theater 
Wide--will provide the first sea-based capability to shoot down 
missiles like the No Dong. The program had its second successful 
intercept attempt just last week, but this bill would cut the program 
by $52 million.
  The Space-Based Infrared--or SBIRS-Low--Program will provide 
midcourse tracking of both theater and intercontinental missiles. The 
program has just been restructuring by the administration, but this 
bill's reduction of $55 million will force it to be restructured again, 
further delaying this essential capability.
  The arbitrary cuts to the systems engineering efforts and the program 
operations of the Missile Defense Agency will fall just as heavily on 
theater missile defense programs as on our efforts to defend against 
long-range missiles. Altogether, some $524 million of the missile 
defense reductions contained in this bill fall on our efforts to defend 
against the thousands of theater ballistic missiles our deployed troops 
face today. This is irresponsible and unconscionable.
  This bill isn't just micromanagement of the missile defense program, 
it is micro-mismanagement. The reductions contained in this bill have 
been carefully tailored to undermine the missile defense program and 
compromise its effectiveness. If the general in charge of the program 
tried to manage it the way this bill does, he would be fired.
  President Bush's courageous act of withdrawing from the ABM Treaty 
has freed our Nation--for the first time in over three decades--to 
pursue the best possible technologies to protect our citizens and 
deployed troops from missile attack. If allowed to stand, the 
reductions contained in this bill would squander that opportunity by 
crippling the efforts to transform our missile defense program in ways 
impossible until now. The Senate should reject these irresponsible cuts 
and give the President a chance to make this program work. I urge 
Senators to support the Warner amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, the United States completed its withdrawal 
from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty on June, 13, 2002, and the 
Pentagon has shifted into high gear its efforts to deploy a rudimentary 
anti-missile system by 2004. The drivers of this missile defense hot-
rod are doing their best to make it look as good as possible, and they 
are spreading the word of its latest successes on the test track.
  But I am not alone in wondering what this vehicle, with its $100 
billion purchase price, really has under the hood. Does it have the 
souped-up engine that we are being promised, or is this another 
dressed-up jalopy? And, more importantly, as this missile defense hot-
rod charges down the road with its throttle wide open and the Anti-
Ballistic Missile Treaty in the rear-view mirror, is the scrutiny of 
Congress and the American people being left in the dust?
  As part of its normal oversight duties, the Armed Services Committee 
has requested from the Department of Defense information relating to 
cost estimates and performance measures for various components of the 
missile defense research program that is underway. This kind of 
information is essential to allowing Congress to render its own 
assessment of whether these programs are on-budget and meeting 
expectations.
  As the Armed Services Committee began hearings on the fiscal year 
2003 Defense budget request in February 2002, we requested basic 
information from the Department of Defense on its proposed missile 
defense program. We asked for cost estimates, development schedules, 
and performance milestones. But the committee has not received the 
information. It is as though the Department of Defense does not want 
Congress to know what we are getting for the $7.8 billion in missile 
defense funds that were appropriated last year.
  On March 7, 2002, at an Armed Services Committee hearing, I 
questioned

[[Page 11295]]

the Pentagon's chief of acquisition, Under Secretary Pete Aldridge, 
about the delays in providing this information to Congress. He answered 
my questions with what I believed was an unequivocal statement that he 
would make sure that Congress gets the information it needs.
  Three and a half months later, we still have not received the 
information that we requested. It also seems that the Pentagon is 
developing a new aspect of its strategy in its consultations with 
Congress and the American people. On June 9, 2002, The Los Angeles 
Times ran an article entitled, ``Missile Data To Be Kept Secret.'' The 
Washington Post ran a similar story on June 12, ``Secrecy On Missile 
Defense Grows.'' The two articles detail a decision to begin 
classifying as ``secret'' certain types of basic information about 
missile defense tests.
  These missile defense tests use decoys to challenge our anti-missile 
system to pick out and destroy the right target, which would be a 
warhead hurtling toward the United States at thousands of miles per 
hour. According to the newspaper articles, the Pentagon will no longer 
release to the public descriptions of what types of decoys are used in 
a missile defense test to fool our anti-missile radars. This 
information will be classified.
  Independent engineers and scientists who lack security clearances 
will have no means to form an opinion on the rigor of this aspect of 
missile defense tests. No longer will the experts outside the 
government be able to make informed comments on whether a missile 
defense test is a realistic challenge to a developmental system, or a 
stacked deck on which a bet in favor of our rudimentary anti-missile 
system is a sure winner.
  I do not think that it is a cooincidence that independent scientists 
have criticized the realism of past missile defense tests because the 
decoys used were not realistic. I cannot help but be left with the 
impression that the sole reason for classifying this kind of basic 
information is to squelch criticism about the missile defense program.
  Should this basic information about our missile defense program be 
protected by the cloak of government secrecy? If the tests are rigorous 
and our anti-missile system is meeting our expectations, would it not 
be to our advantage to let our adversaries know how effective this 
system will be?
  But perhaps this national missile defense system is not progressing 
as rapidly as hoped. Then would it not be to our advantage to encourage 
constructive criticism in order to improve the system? In either case, 
I cannot see how these secrecy edicts will promote the development of a 
missile defense system that actually works.
  The bottom line is that Congress and the American people must know 
whether the huge sums that are being spent on missile defense will 
increase our national security. Since September 11, we have been 
consumed with debates about homeland security. What is this system 
intended to be but a protection of our homeland?
  Do we believe that American people can be entrusted with information 
about their own security? I certainly think so. Without a doubt, we 
need to carefully guard information that would compromise our national 
defense, but public scrutiny of our missile defense program is not an 
inherent threat to our security.
  In April, the Appropriations Committee heard testimony from a number 
of people with expertise in homeland security. We heard many warnings 
about the peril of losing public trust in our Government. No matter if 
the threat is terrorists with biological weapons or rogue states with 
missiles, we must not jeopardize the trust of the American people in 
their Government. If the missile defense system does not work as it is 
supposed to do, and we hide its shortcomings inside ``top secret'' 
folders and other red tape, we will be setting ourselves up for a sure 
fall. We ought to have more, not fewer, independent reviews of our 
antimissile system.
  So I oppose the amendment to increase missile defense funding in this 
bill by $812 million. The Department of Defense has shown it is more 
than willing to delay and obfuscate details about what it is doing on 
missile defense, and I cannot understand the logic of increasing funds 
for an antimissile system that is the subject of greater and greater 
secrecy. It does not make sense to devote more money to a system of 
questionable utility before there is a consensus of independent views 
that an antimissile system is technologically feasible. The missile 
defense system that we are developing needs more scrutiny, not more 
secrecy, more assessment, not more money.
  In the next few days, the Senate will vote on this bill and authorize 
billions of dollars in missile defense funds. While the Pentagon will 
continue to portray these programs as a hot rod that is speeding toward 
success, one thing is certain: this hot rod is running on almost $8 
billion in taxpayer money this year. Talk about a gas guzzler! If 
Congress is not allowed to kick the tires, check the oil and look under 
the hood, this rig could fall apart and leave us all stranded.

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