[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 9]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 12367-12368]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    RUSSIAN ENERGY SECURITY THREATS

                                 ______
                                 

                             HON. DON BACON

                              of nebraska

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, July 28, 2017

  Mr. BACON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call attention to the growing 
national security risk to our overseas military facilities posed by the 
Russian Federation.
  For the last three years, we have watched with alarm as Putin's 
Russia has adopted an aggressive and adversarial posture towards the 
U.S. and our allies. Putin armed the so-called separatists in eastern 
Ukraine. He aggressively annexed Crimea. He is intervening in the 
Syrian Civil War on the side of a brutal dictator. He blatantly 
threatens allied nations in Europe and close to home we know he used 
cyber weapons to destabilize our democratic process. Moscow's hostility 
to our interests grows stronger and more apparent by the day.
  The military dimension of Russia's strategy is obvious and you can 
see it covered in the nightly news. What is less obvious however is the 
non-military aspect of Russia's national strategy. Today one of the 
most serious threats to our European allies--and our military 
installation in Europe--is Russia's corner on natural gas and oil. 
Putin constantly threatens to use these resources as means to exercise 
political and economic control on those who heavily rely on Russian 
fuels as their primary source of energy.
  It is for these reasons that I was proud to join my friend and 
colleague from South Carolina, Representative Joe Wilson, in shining a 
light on this threat in the House Armed Services Committee report to 
accompany the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act.
  Just as we focus on the risk to our forward-based troops, aircraft 
and ships, we must not overlook the risk to the installations from 
which they operate. The energy we rely on to power these facilities 
supports our troops, their families, and their vital mission.
  As a matter of strategy, our military installations overseas require 
secure and reliable sources of energy. Today in Europe--particularly in 
Germany--our military facilities receive furnished heat and other 
utilities from commercial or private power stations. In many cases, 
these energy facilities are fueled by German natural gas distribution 
systems which are heavily supplied with natural gas from the Russian 
Federation.
  Our growing exposure to Russia's ability to disrupt our energy supply 
lines is clearly seen in our network of military installations in 
Germany. I wish to call attention to one such facility: the U.S. Army's 
future medical complex at Rhine Ordnance Barracks, nearby Ramstein Air 
Base where I was the installation commander. At an authorized cost of 
nearly $1 billion, this vital new facility will replace the Landstuhl 
Army Regional Medical Center and serve the combat needs and family 
requirements of military personnel on three continents.
  Mr. Speaker, I am gravely concerned that our current energy supply 
strategy will actually increase our exposure to harmful Russian 
influence over time. Under no circumstances should we construct and 
operate critical military installations overseas where the only source 
of energy comes from Russia. We must take immediate and deliberate 
steps to adopt a strategy of energy resilience through mixed-fuel 
diversification such that not one single source--such as Russian 
Federation gas--should serve as a primary supply of energy.

[[Page 12368]]

  It would be financially irresponsible and strategically reckless to 
appropriate nearly $1 billion for a state-of-the art military medical 
center to serve our troops and families overseas, only to have the 
design of the new facility compromise the very reason it exists by 
relying on the Russian Federation to supply natural gas as the primary 
fuel source. There are local mixed-fuel energy supply options readily 
available and it would be inexcusable not to make them part of the 
design of this project. This is good strategy, good economics and just 
plain common sense.
  We simply cannot allow ourselves to be put in a situation where 
Russia has the ability to cut off energy to our forward bases, 
especially when we could have averted this tragic vulnerability ahead 
of time.
  The seriousness of the Russian energy threat to our overseas military 
installations is addressed in the 2018 House Armed Services NDAA report 
which directs the Secretary of Defense to make a comprehensive 
evaluation of these risks and report his findings and recommendations. 
I am pleased to see my colleagues in the House Appropriations Committee 
also took up this issue with similar language in the Military 
Construction Appropriations and Defense Appropriations bills that 
passed the House.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues in the House and Senate--and 
especially all Members of the Armed Services and Appropriations 
Committees--to join me in exercising aggressive oversight of this real 
and serious threat to our national security.

                          ____________________