[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Pages 3893-3895]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                VIEQUES

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, we are all concerned about the plight 
right now of Puerto Rico and what is happening over there financially. 
And later on this week I will revisit the

[[Page 3894]]

issue of the 4-year battle of Vieques that took place from 1999 to 
2003. I am very much concerned that we might have an opportunity here 
to rectify something that was done that should not have been done back 
in 2002.
  The island off of Puerto Rico called Vieques had been an integrated 
training center for many years--about 60 years--up until 2002. For 
purely political reasons at that time, it became quite an issue. First 
of all, joint training took place on the island of Vieques. Joint 
training means you have different branches of the military trying to 
accomplish something together that they couldn't do individually. In 
the case of Vieques, it was the Marines, the Navy, and the Air Force. 
We were able to do the type of training we couldn't do anyplace else.
  It sounds kind of ridiculous, but when they were talking about doing 
away with using Vieques for a military center--what they had been doing 
for 60 years--it was all around an establishment called Roosevelt 
Roads. Roosevelt Roads was a major naval station. We had about 7,000 
sailors there. They added something like $600 million a year to the 
economy of Puerto Rico.
  Anyway, we found out there was a great effort by a lot of people who 
I will always suspect wanted to ultimately develop that island for 
private purposes and to financially gain from that. Consequently, with 
no regard for the contribution it made to our defense, they started a 
major problem. One person was killed in 60 years on that island, and 
because that happened to have taken place, they used it as a reason to 
try to shut that down. It became quite a political football at that 
time. I know Al Gore was very much involved in that, and there were 
some great benefits, I am sure.
  From World War II through the operation in Kosovo, our military has 
been ready to execute combat operations due to the training they were 
able to get on the island of Vieques. In fact, during Kosovo they used 
those individuals to conduct successful operations. They were all 
trained at no place other than Vieques. The reason for that is if they 
were going into Kosovo, as our Air Force was going in, they would have 
to be able to draw coordinates from a high enough elevation that the 
surface-to-air missiles would not be able to reach them, for their 
safety. And if we hadn't had all those guys over there who were trained 
at Vieques, it was speculated that they would not have been successful.
  Secretary Richard Danzig, who was then the Secretary of the Navy, 
said that ``only by providing this preparation can we fairly ask our 
servicemembers to put their lives at risk.'' Admiral Johnson, then 
Chief of Naval Operations, and General Jones, then Commandant of the 
Marine Corps, said that Vieques provides integrated live-fire training 
``critical to our readiness'' and that the failure to provide for 
adequate live-fire training for our naval forces before deployment will 
place those forces at an unacceptably high risk during deployment. 
Those are quotes from those two individuals.
  Admiral Ellis, then director of operations, plans, and policies on 
the staff of the commander in chief of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, said 
during his confirmation hearing--and I was there at that time--to be 
commander of Strategic Command, ``Those types of facilities, 
particularly those in which we can bring together all of the naval, and 
that means both Navy and Marine Corps, combat power for integrated and 
joint training, are particularly useful elements of the overall 
warfighting preparation.''
  At the time we felt there was a problem, I personally went around the 
world to every place that might have been a substitute for Vieques. I 
went to Cape Wrath--I always remember that--which I think is in 
northern Scotland, and I went to Southern Sardinia in Italy, and none 
of those places were adequate and none could provide the same type of 
support.
  Admiral Fallon, then commander of the Navy's Second Fleet, and 
General Pace--remember Peter Pace--the commander of all Marine Forces 
in the Atlantic, testified that the United States needs Vieques as a 
training ground to prepare our young men and women for the challenges 
of deployed military operations.
  GEN Wes Clark, the Supreme Allied Commander at that time, said: ``The 
live fire training that our forces were exposed to at training ranges 
such as Vieques helped ensure that the forces assigned to this 
theater''--and he was talking about Kosovo. That is when we had to be 
ready on arrival to fight and win and survive, which we did.
  CAPT James Stark, then the commanding officer of Roosevelt Roads 
Naval Station--there were about 7,000 of our sailors there--said:

       When you steam off to battle you're either ready or you're 
     not. If you're not, that means casualties. That means more 
     POWs. That means less precision and longer campaigns. You pay 
     a price for all this in war, and that price is blood.

  Admiral Murphy, then commander of the Sixth Fleet of the Navy, said 
the loss of training on Vieques would ``cost American lives.'' And it 
has cost American lives, and that has been since 2002. We are talking 
about American lives unnecessarily put at risk if they are not fully 
trained for combat operations.
  I remember one person back at that time talking about the analogous 
situation of a football team where you have all the quarterbacks 
training over here, all the backs over here, and all the defensive 
people training over here, but never training together, and then they 
go and lose. You have to have integrated training. We don't even have 
that today. We have tried to find and to replicate that effort, and it 
isn't there.
  This week, I understand--and the reason I came down quite unprepared 
is because I didn't know this was coming up--the House Natural 
Resources Committee is going to consider legislation that provides 
bankruptcy powers to Puerto Rico while subjecting it to the authority 
of a Federal oversight board. This is something that is going to become 
very controversial. There will be a lot of people around saying: Why 
are we doing this? And once you provide these benefits to Puerto Rico, 
there is no reason why others won't line up and want the same thing.
  I really am concerned that Puerto Rico, apparently--and I don't know 
if this is true, but they are saying it--owes some $73 billion in 
government debt. In January, Puerto Rico started defaulting on part of 
that debt.
  Section 411 of this legislation--we are talking about the legislation 
that will be discussed tomorrow over in the House--would turn over 
approximately 3,000 acres of Department of Interior conservation zones 
that were formerly part of Vieques.
  What happened in 2002 was that the land that had been used for the 
training range was turned over to this department. Now they are talking 
about taking it out, I suppose, for people to develop.
  I remember so well the time when we were talking about closing 
Vieques. I was the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee 
Readiness Subcommittee. Puerto Rico's Governor Rossello came. He is not 
in office anymore. But he made all kinds of threats: It is just a bluff 
that it would be closing.
  I made the statement that if we are denied the opportunity to use the 
island of Vieques for joint training, then we were going to lose 
Roosevelt Roads.
  Governor Rossello sat there and said: Inhofe is not telling the 
truth. We are not going to lose that.
  Of course, they did lose it. So in 2003 the total impact from the 
Navy was estimated to be $600 million a year. The departure of the Navy 
also impacted business and contracts, as we know.
  I was visiting with Miriam Ramirez just today. At the time, she was 
in the State Senate in Puerto Rico and was talking about the disastrous 
economic effects if they closed Vieques. She is still concerned about 
that, and many of the people who were the strongest opponents of my 
efforts at that time to keep Vieques operating are now saying we should 
have left it open.
  So I think any kind of a deal that is made has to include 
consideration that the training is still available. There is still no 
range like Vieques anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. What can be

[[Page 3895]]

done in Vieques cannot be done in one location by a joint force. I 
understand firsthand both the importance and the significance of having 
a range in your home State.
  I remember a popular TV show at that time called ``Crossfire.'' I was 
on the show in May of 2000. Juan Figueroa was the president of the 
Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, and we were debating 
this on live TV.
  He said: Well, how would you, Inhofe, like to have a live range in 
your State of Oklahoma?
  I said: Let me tell you about Fort Sill. They train 360 days out of 
the year, 24 hours a day, and they make all kinds of noise. It is 
within 1 mile of a population of 100,000 people--at that time, Vieques 
was within 9.5 miles of 9,000 people--and there are all these people 
who hear this noise down there. They were in town last week. They said: 
When we hear that noise, it is the sound of freedom.
  Here is something interesting. They opened up what is considered to 
be the most modern, most progressive elementary school. They call it 
Freedom Elementary School. They named it after that phrase: It is the 
sound of freedom.
  So this is what is happening. I am very much concerned that we are 
going to stumble and pass up an opportunity that might still be there. 
We have an opportunity to actually go back and use that for some of our 
joint training.
  So later this week I am going to go back and relive the history on 
the 4-year battle of Vieques. Hopefully, this might be an opportunity 
for us to save American lives and to have integrated training, which we 
still don't have today and which we had back in that time.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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