[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 20]
[House]
[Pages 27308-27313]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 2559, MILITARY CONSTRUCTION APPROPRIATIONS 
                               ACT, 2004

  Mr. KNOLLENBERG. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 429, I 
call up the conference report on the bill (H.R. 2559) making 
appropriations for military construction, family housing, and base 
realignment and closure for the Department of Defense for the fiscal 
year ending September 30, 2004, and for other purposes.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Shays). Pursuant to House Resolution 
429, the conference report is considered as having been read.
  (For conference report and statement, see proceedings of the House of 
November 4, 2003, at page H10253.)
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. 
Knollenberg) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) each will 
control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Knollenberg).
  Mr. KNOLLENBERG. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to present to the House the conference 
report on H.R. 2559, the fiscal year 2004 military construction 
appropriations conference report. This legislation provides funds for 
all types of construction projects on military installations here in 
the United States and abroad. These projects include family housing, 
barracks, training ranges, runways, aircraft hangars and fitness 
facilities.
  I would in particular like to thank my ranking member, the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Edwards), for all the great work that he has worked 
with me on, all the great activity. I also wanted to thank all members 
of the committee. Let me thank, in addition, the committee staff, 
including, and I am going to run down the list, Valerie Baldwin, Brian 
Potts, Kim Reath, Mary Arnold, Tom Forhan, John Conger, Jeff Onizuk and 
Lieutenant Commander Scott Gray for their support in producing this 
report. I would also like to sincerely thank Chairman Young and the 
chief clerk Jim Dyer for their assistance in bringing this negotiation 
with the other body to a close. Further, I would like to acknowledge 
the advice and counsel provided by the House Committee on Armed 
Services. The bill is the culmination of a joint effort with 
subcommittee chairman Hefley and full committee chairman Hunter.
  The conference report today totals some $9.316 billion which complies 
with the 302(b) allocation for budget authority and outlays. This 
recommendation is $199 million more than the President's request. These 
additional funds address critical infrastructure and quality-of-life 
requirements above and beyond that request. Excluding funds provided 
for the global war on terrorism and the Iraq/Afghanistan supplementals, 
the conference report is nearly $1.4 billion, or nearly 13 percent 
below fiscal year 2003 enacted levels. This year there were significant 
differences between the House's military construction bill and that of 
the other body. While we sought to preserve funding for military 
construction in Europe and Korea and to support the quality of life and 
operational readiness of our forces abroad, the other body chose to 
significantly reduce overseas funding to support projects here in the 
United States.
  I am pleased to inform my colleagues that this conference report 
strikes a balance between both these approaches. We preserve the most 
critical overseas requirements for the services, but brought the 
balance of the funding for other overseas projects back to the United 
States to fund critical infrastructure here. While the House 
aggressively supported the President's request and the priorities of 
the combatant commanders in this conference report, we share the 
concern of the other body about funding overseas projects in light of 
the ongoing review of our overseas footprint. The review currently 
being conducted by the Department of Defense will determine our long-
term overseas basing strategy and will thus help us set funding 
requirements to support our forces abroad. It will be absolutely 
essential for both military construction subcommittees to have the 
completed plan prior to moving forward with the military construction 
appropriation for fiscal year 2005. We look forward to receiving this 
plan in the very near future.
  Though this conference report is below the fiscal year 2003 enacted 
levels, we are fully supporting the military's mission critical 
infrastructure needs and quality-of-life initiatives. We are able to do 
so in large part because we are getting far more ``bang for the buck'' 
through innovative programs such as the Military Housing Privatization 
Initiative, barracks privatization and utilities privatization. These 
programs are enabling the services to rapidly replace family housing 
and infrastructure at a cost that is dramatically lower than what we 
could ever have afforded through traditional military construction 
appropriations. Our motto is to let the military do what they do best, 
which is defending America.
  In short, we are doing it smarter, not harder, and the beneficiaries 
are single soldiers, military families, men and women serving our 
country around the world and the U.S. taxpayers. We have and will 
continue to support sweeping

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quality of life improvements for those in the military.
  This conference report was forged through the compromise of both 
bodies of this Congress. This report directly supports the men and 
women in uniform, fully funds projects vital to our national security, 
provides critical infrastructure support to ongoing operations 
worldwide, and fully funds our efforts to improve the quality of life 
of our military personnel and their families. It is a fair report. I 
encourage my colleagues to support it.

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  Mr. KNOLLENBERG. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to 
the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), chairman of the committee. I 
just want to say again without Chairman Young's support, we may still 
be slogging it out, but frankly rising to the occasion as he will and 
has done numerous times, he helped bring this thing to a closure.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding 
me this time. I will be very brief. It is a good bill. There is more we 
could have done if we would have had more funds available, but we did 
not. But I wanted to say to the House that this was probably one of the 
most difficult conferences that we have had in a long, long time. I 
really rise to say congratulations and compliments to the strong 
leadership that the gentleman from Michigan provided during this very 
difficult period of time, and also the gentleman from Texas, the 
ranking member. They were strong supporters of the effort to preserve 
the position taken by the House which we thought was a much better 
position than that of the other body. These two gentlemen and the staff 
did an outstanding job. I just wanted to take a couple of minutes to 
compliment them because their leadership was extremely important to get 
us where we are today, to have this bill on the floor as a conference 
report.
  Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this conference report. It does 
many good things for our service men and women, providing better 
housing, health care clinics, day care clinics, training facilities, 
not only here in the continental United States, in our 50 States, but 
throughout the world as well, wherever American troops might be 
training or serving their country. I want to especially compliment the 
gentleman from Michigan, the chairman, in his first term as the 
chairman of this important subcommittee, a committee that does work 
that makes such a difference in the quality of life for our service men 
and women to whom we know we can never repay our debt of gratitude to 
them.

                              {time}  1445

  At all times the gentleman from Michigan (Chairman Knollenberg) put 
as his first priority what is best for the service men and women. He 
was fair. He was thorough. He fought hard for military families, our 
service men and women, as well as their families, and did a magnificent 
job in working with the other body and kind of working our way through 
a maze of very difficult issues; and I really salute the gentleman from 
Michigan (Chairman Knollenberg) for his leadership along with his very 
fine staff. I also want to join with the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Young), chairman, in thanking the chairman of the full committee for 
his involvement and support in this effort to see that we not only 
fight for quality of health care and training facilities for our troops 
here at home but that we also should not forget about the sacrifices 
made by our service men and women serving overseas that are thousands 
of miles away from their families, oftentimes in harm's way, risking 
their lives in duty to country; and I thank the gentleman from Florida 
(Chairman Young) for his many years of leadership in the area of 
national defense but particularly his deep personal commitment, aside 
from his title, his deep personal commitment to our service men and 
women.
  Mr. Speaker, I also want to send a message to the administration 
about this bill today. While the leadership of this committee did a 
tremendous job in making the most good out of a budget that was 
underfunded, I would remind the administration for next year that there 
is an old proverb, I believe it is a Chinese proverb, ``Be careful what 
you ask for because you just might get it.''
  What happened is the administration, probably with a heavy hand from 
OMB, asked for a $1.5 billion cut in military construction funding 
compared to last year. I think that is unconscionable to ask for a 14 
percent cut in military quality-of-life and training programs at a time 
when so many American service men and women are at war and, yes, even 
risking their lives. Because of the good leadership of the gentleman 
from Michigan (Chairman Knollenberg) and his staff and our staff, we 
were able to take those inadequate funds and stretch them as far as 
anybody could stretch them. The RCI housing program, the Residential 
Community Initiative, is an example of trying to take a limited amount 
of dollars and stretch them a long way to improve quality of life in 
terms of housing for our service men and women.
  But I hope the administration and the Pentagon and OMB are on notice. 
Do not play this game of sending to Capitol Hill what they know is an 
unfair, inadequate budget for military construction with the assumption 
that somehow magically we are going to find an extra $1.5 billion. We 
did not find an extra $1.5 billion. Had it totally been up to the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Knollenberg) and the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Young) and me, I think we would have somehow found that 
money; but that was above our pay grade, that decision on how much 
money we had to deal with. And I think as someone who has the privilege 
of representing 42,000 Army soldiers at Fort Hood in Texas, 17,000 of 
which are presently serving in Iraq, I think it sends a terrible 
message to them if next year we were to inadequately fund military 
construction once again.
  So all of that having been said, not a word of it takes in any way 
anything from the tremendous leadership of the gentleman from Michigan 
(Chairman Knollenberg) and the bipartisan effort with which he led this 
effort. If anything, being given such an inadequate funding request 
from the Pentagon and the administration and OMB, it even adds more 
respect from me to him for the leadership he showed to get this bill 
passed, as it will pass in just a few minutes.
  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, this Member rises in strong support for 
the conference report on H.R. 2559, the Military Construction 
appropriations bill for fiscal year 2004. This Member would like to 
offer particular thanks to the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Military 
Construction Appropriations, the distinguished gentleman from Michigan 
(Mr. Knollenberg), and the Ranking Minority Member on the Subcommittee 
on Military Construction Appropriations, the distinguished gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Edwards) for their work on this important bill. 
Furthermore, this Member would like to thank the Chairman of the Armed 
Services Subcommittee on Military Readiness, the very distinguished 
gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Hefley), and the Ranking Member of the 
Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Readiness, the distinguished 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Ortiz), for their critical work in 
authorizing this appropriation.
  Furthermore, this Member is very appreciative that the Committee has 
approved the appropriations of $3 million for the frontage levee 
segment protecting the Nebraska National Guard Camp at Ashland, 
Nebraska.
  Mr. Speaker, the Nebraska National Guard Camp Frontage Levee Segment 
is a central element of the Clear Creek portion of the Western Sarpy 
Levee project. Completion of the Guard camp segment must coincide with 
the other elements of the Western Sarpy project to assure mutual 
protection and support from the beginning of the project to its 
completion. Indeed, without building this section of the levee along 
the Platte River, the entire levee system will not work; there would be 
a gap in the levee that would only accentuate the flooding risks and 
flood volume that would affect the Nebraska National Guard Camp unless 
this project moves forward with the rest of the levee construction 
project.
  Previously, the Clear Creek Project was authorized at $15.6 million 
in the Water Resources Development Act of 2000 (WRDA 2000) to provide 
protection to the City of Lincoln's water supply, I-80, and U.S. 6, 
BNSF RR (Amtrak Line), telecommunication lines and other public 
facilities. In the fiscal year 2003 omnibus appropriations bill, 
Congress included $500,000 for construction start-up costs.
  The Nebraska National Guard Camp at Ashland, Nebraska, provides 
training for Nebraska and other States' Army guard units to maintain 
mission readiness. The Guard camp levee is an essential element of the 
Clear Creek structure on the western side of the Platte River since it 
also is that part of Clear Creek nearest to the Lincoln wellfield. 
Planning and design funds for the Guard's segment have been previously 
provided by the Congress to the Department of Defense through the 
Military Construction appropriations bill. Planning has resulted in 
development of a more cost-effective

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frontage levee to replace a previous ring-levee approach.
  In closing, Mr. Speaker, this Member urges his colleagues to vote in 
support of the conference report for H.R. 2559.
  Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I 
yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. KNOLLENBERG. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, 
and I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Terry). Without objection, the previous 
question is ordered on the conference report.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the conference report.
  Pursuant to clause 10 of rule XX, the yeas and nays are ordered.
  Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further proceedings on this question 
will be postponed.

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