[Senate Report 114-336]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
Calendar No. 572
114th Congress } { Report
SENATE
2d Session } { 114-336
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KOREAN WAR VETERANS MEMORIAL WALL OF REMEMBRANCE ACT
_______
September 6, 2016.--Ordered to be printed
_______
Ms. Murkowski, from the Committee on Energy and Natural
Resources, submitted the following
R E P O R T
[To accompany H.R. 1475]
The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, to which was
referred the bill (H.R. 1475) to authorize a Wall of
Remembrance as part of the Korean War Veterans Memorial and to
allow certain private contributions to fund that Wall of
Remembrance, having considered the same, reports favorably
thereon with an amendment in the nature of a substitute and
recommends that the bill, as amended, do pass.
The amendment is as follows:
Strike all after the enacting clause and insert the
following:
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Korean War Veterans Memorial Wall of
Remembrance Act''.
SEC. 2. WALL OF REMEMBRANCE.
(a) Authorization.----
(1) In general.--Notwithstanding section 8908(c) of title 40,
United States Code, the Korean War Veterans Memorial
Foundation, Inc., may construct a Wall of Remembrance at the
site of the Korean War Veterans Memorial.
(2) Requirement.----
(A) In general.--The Wall of Remembrance shall
include a list of names of members of the Armed Forces
of the United States who died in the Korean War, as
determined by the Secretary of Defense, in accordance
with subparagraph (B).
(B) Criteria; submission to the secretary of the
interior.--The Secretary of Defense shall----
(i) establish eligibility criteria for the
inclusion of names on the Wall of Remembrance
under subparagraph (A); and
(ii) provide to the Secretary of the Interior
a final list of names for inclusion on the Wall
of Remembrance under subparagraph (A) that meet
the criteria established under clause (i).
(3) Additional information.--The Wall of Remembrance may
include other information about the Korean War, including the
number of members of the Armed Forces of the United States, the
Korean Augmentation to the United States Army, the Republic of
Korea Armed Forces, and the other nations of the United Nations
Command who, in regards to the Korean War----
(A) were killed in action;
(B) were wounded in action;
(C) are listed as missing in action; or
(D) were prisoners of war.
(b) Commemorative Works Act.--Except as provided in subsection
(a)(1), chapter 89 of title 40, United States Code (commonly known as
the ``Commemorative Works Act''), shall apply.
(c) No Federal Funds.--No Federal funds may be used to construct
the Wall of Remembrance.
PURPOSE
The purpose of H.R. 1475 is to authorize a Wall of
Remembrance as part of the Korean War Veterans Memorial and to
allow certain private contributions to fund that Wall of
Remembrance.
BACKGROUND AND NEED
On October 28, 1986, Congress passed Public Law 99-572,
authorizing the construction of the Korean War Veterans
Memorial located near the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall
in Washington, D.C. The Memorial falls within an area known as
the Reserve. Congress created the Reserve in November 2003 (by
Public Law 108-126) to prohibit the addition of future
memorials within the area.
The Memorial commemorates the sacrifices of 5.8 million
Americans worldwide who served in the U.S. armed services
during the three-year period of the Korean War. The Memorial
also recognizes the participation of the 22 nations who served
as United Nations contributors. During the Korean War's
duration (June 25, 1950-July 27, 1953) 54,246 Americans died
worldwide. Of these, 8,200 are listed as missing in action,
lost, or buried at sea. An additional 103,284 were wounded
during the conflict.
H.R. 1475 authorizes the Korean War Veterans Memorial
Foundation to add a Wall of Remembrance with a list of names of
members of the Armed Forces of the United States who died in
the Korean War, as determined by the Secretary of Defense. The
Wall of Remembrance authorized by H.R. 1475 may include
additional information about the Korean War, including the
number of service members who were wounded in action, are
listed as missing in action, or who were prisoners of war
during the Korean War, as well as the number of members of the
Korean Augmentation to the U.S. Army, the Republic of Korean
Armed Forces, and other nations of the United Nations Command
who were killed in action, wounded in action, are listed as
missing in action, or were prisoners of war.
The Wall of Remembrance is to be constructed in accordance
with the Commemorative Works Act. Additionally, the Wall of
Remembrance will be financed solely through non-governmental
funds.
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY
Representative Sam Johnson introduced H.R. 1475 on March
19, 2015. On February 3, 2016, the House Natural Resources
Committee ordered H.R. 1475 reported. The House of
Representatives passed H.R. 1475 under suspension of the rules
by voice vote on February 24, 2016.
Senators Cardin and Boozman introduced similar legislation,
S. 1982, in the Senate on August 5, 2015. The Subcommittee on
National Parks held a hearing on the measure on March 17, 2016.
In the 113th Congress, Representative Ralph Hall introduced
H.R. 318 on January 18, 2013. The Subcommittee on Public Lands
and Environmental Regulation held a hearing on the bill on June
10, 2014.
The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources met in open
business session on July 13, 2016, and ordered H.R. 1475
favorably reported as amended. The bill was placed on the
Senate Calendar on July 14, 2016 (Cal. No. 572).
COMMITTEE AMENDMENT
During its consideration of H.R. 1475, the Committee
adopted an amendment in the nature of a substitute to authorize
a Wall of Remembrance as part of the Korean War Veterans
Memorial and to allow certain private contributions to fund
that Wall of Remembrance. The amendment also made the Wall of
Remembrance subject to the Commemorative Works Act.
COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATION
The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, in
open business session on July 13, 2016, by a majority voice
vote of a quorum present, recommends that the Senate pass H.R.
1475, if amended, as described herein.
SECTION-BY-SECTION ANALYSIS
Section 1. Short title
Section 1 contains the short title.
Section 2. Wall of Remembrance
Section 2(a) authorizes the Korean War Veterans Memorial
Foundation, Inc. to construct a Wall of Remembrance at the site
of the Korean War Veterans Memorial. The Wall of Remembrance
shall include a list of names of members of the Armed Forces of
the United States who died in the Korean War, as determined by
the Secretary of Defense. The Secretary of Defense is directed
to establish eligibility criteria for the inclusion of names on
the Wall on Remembrance and provide the final list of names to
the Secretary of the Interior for inclusion on the wall. The
Wall of Remembrance may include other information about the
Korean War; including the number of members of the Armed Forces
of the United States, the Korean Augmentation to the United
States Army, the Republic of Korea Armed Forces, and the other
nations of the United Nations Command who were killed in
action; were wounded in action; are listed as missing in
action; or were prisoners of war.
Subsection (b) clarifies that the Wall of Remembrance is to
be constructed in accordance with the Commemorative Works Act.
Subsection (c) clarifies that no federal funds may be used
to construct the Wall of Remembrance.
COST AND BUDGETARY CONSIDERATIONS
The following estimate of costs of this measure has been
provided by the Congressional Budget Office:
U.S. Congress,
Congressional Budget Office,
Washington, DC, August 8, 2016.
Hon. Lisa Murkowski,
Chairman, Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
Dear Madam Chairman: The Congressional Budget Office has
prepared the enclosed cost estimate for H.R. 1475, the Korean
War Veterans Memorial Wall of Remembrance Act.
If you wish further details on this estimate, we will be
pleased to provide them. The CBO staff contact is Jon Sperl.
Sincerely,
Mark P. Hadley,
(For Keith Hall, Director).
Enclosure.
H.R. 1475--Korean War Veterans Memorial Wall of Remembrance Act
H.R. 1475 would authorize the expansion of the Korean War
Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Under the bill, the
memorial would be expanded to include a ``Wall of Remembrance''
that would commemorate U.S. and United Nations forces who were
killed, wounded, found to be missing in action, or were taken
as prisoners of war during the Korean War.
Under the bill, construction of the project would be funded
with private donations. However, the National Park Service
(NPS) would be responsible for maintaining the addition once it
is completed. Based on information from the NPS, CBO expects
that the project would not be completed for a few years because
funds are not currently sufficient to begin construction.
CBO estimates that implementing the legislation would have
an insignificant cost to the federal government over the 2017-
2021 period, mostly because maintenance costs would not be
incurred until the memorial has been completed. Because
enacting H.R. 1475 would not affect direct spending or
revenues, pay-as-you-go procedures do not apply.
CBO estimates that enacting H.R. 1475 would not increase
net direct spending or on-budget deficits in any of the four
consecutive 10-year periods beginning in 2027.
H.R. 1475 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector
mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act and
would not affect the budgets of state, local, or tribal
governments.
On February 19, 2016, CBO transmitted a cost estimate for
H.R. 1475 as ordered reported by the House Committee on Natural
Resources on February3, 2016. The two versions of the
legislation are similar and CBO's estimates of their budgetary
effects are the same.
The CBO staff contact for this estimate is Jon Sperl. The
estimate was approved by Theresa Gullo, Assistant Director for
Budget Analysis.
REGULATORY IMPACT EVALUATION
In compliance with paragraph 11(b) of rule XXVI of the
Standing Rules of the Senate, the Committee makes the following
evaluation of the regulatory impact which would be incurred in
carrying out H.R. 1475. The bill is not a regulatory measure in
the sense of imposing Government-established standards or
significant economic responsibilities on private individuals
and businesses.
No personal information would be collected in administering
the program. Therefore, there would be no impact on personal
privacy.
Little, if any, additional paperwork would result from the
enactment of H.R. 1475, as ordered reported.
CONGRESSIONALLY DIRECTED SPENDING
H.R. 1475, as ordered reported, does not contain any
congressionally directed spending items, limited tax benefits,
or limited tariff benefits as defined in rule XLIV of the
Standing Rules of the Senate.
EXECUTIVE COMMUNICATIONS
The testimony provided by the National Park Service at the
March 17, 2016, Subcommittee on National Parks hearing on H.R.
1475 follows:
Statement of Peggy O'Dell, Deputy Director for Operations, National
Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, thank you for
the opportunity to present the views of the Department of the
Interior on S. 1982, a bill to authorize a Wall of Remembrance
as part of the Korean War Veterans Memorial and to allow
certain private contributions to fund that Wall of Remembrance.
The Department appreciates the effort to recognize the
service men and women who gave their lives during the Korean
War, but we oppose S. 1982 because it would significantly alter
the character of the existing Korean War Veterans Memorial, and
it is inconsistent with the Commemorative Works Act.
S. 1982 would amend Public Law 99-572 to expand upon the
original purpose and design of the Korean War Veterans
Memorial. The bill adds new subjects for commemoration and
would require the display of certain information at the
memorial about members of the United States Armed Forces who
served in the Korean Conflict Also, the bill would require the
display of information at the memorial about members of the
Korean armed forces and other Korean military personnel as well
as the 20 other non-U.S. forces that were part of the United
Nations Command who served in the Korean Conflict.
The Korean War Veterans Memorial commemorates the
sacrifices of over 5.7 million Americans who served in the U.S.
armed services during the three-year period of the Korean War.
The Memorial also recognizes the participation of the 22
nations who served as United Nations contributors. During the
Korean War's relatively short duration from June 25, 1950, to
July 27, 1953, 54,246 Americans died. Of these, 8,200 are
listed as missing in action, lost, or buried at sea. In
addition, 103,284 were wounded during the conflict.
The Memorial was designed, constructed and completed by its
legislatively designated sponsor, the American Battle Monuments
Commission (ABMC) and the Korean War Veterans Memorial Advisory
Board, with public involvement throughout. It was dedicated on
July 27, 1995.
The Memorial's design, and each of its features down to its
plantings, is symbolic. The Memorial is the culmination of
years of work by the ABMC, and careful reviews, followed by
revisions, and ultimately approvals reached by the National
Park Service and other federal entities including the National
Capital Planning Commission and the U.S. Commission of Fine
Arts. This painstaking and public process began with the
competition design, and resulted in the completed Memorial we
know today. The Memorial should not now be changed to include
the engraving of names of Americans who died in that conflict.
The opportunity to mimic the design characteristics present at
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was purposefully avoided when the
design was requested during an open, international design
competition.
The concept of engraving names at this Memorial was
considered extensively when the Memorial was being designed.
The ABMC and the Korean War Veterans Memorial Advisory Board
with the Department's concurrence, advised against the
incorporation of engraved names at the Memorial. Both agencies
arrived at this decision upon reflection of years of experience
with the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Inscribing names is a
lengthy and painstaking process even when it goes smoothly. But
more important, as the Vietnam Veterans Memorial experience
showed, there is not always agreement on those names to be
included and those names that are not, and this has led to
public contention and controversy. Choosing some names and
omitting others causes a place of solace to become a source of
hurt. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial honors all who served in
that conflict, but only the names of those killed within the
combat zone, and confirmed by the Department of Defense, meet
the criteria to be engraved on the Wall. This means that those
killed by a fire on a Navy ship just outside the zone are not
eligible to have their names engraved on the wall--a difficult
message for their survivors to accept.
The ABMC and the Department felt the lessons learned at the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial must not be ignored, that a different
type of commemoration must occur at the Korean War Veterans
Memorial, and that the Memorial should be representative in
design and not include individual names. As a compromise to the
Korean War veterans who wanted the names engraved, ABMC created
the Korean War Honor Roll, which is an electronic registry of
names. Visitors have access to this registry from the Internet
or at the kiosks at the Memorial. A kiosk containing the Korean
War Honor Roll stands at the west entrance of the Memorial. It
is serviced by a National Park Service ranger, who provides
assistance to visitors. The Honor Roll computer contains the
names of all military personnel who lost their lives during the
Korean War, including the individual's name, service, rank,
service number, date of birth, hometown or county of entry into
the service, cause of death, and date of death. If the
information is furnished to ABMC, the Honor Roll includes the
serviceman's unit, his awards, the circumstances surrounding
his death or his going missing in action and a photograph. The
ABMC also has the names of those missing engraved at the Courts
of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial.
The Korean War Veterans Memorial is located near the
Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in
an area designated by Congress in the Commemorative Works Act
as the Reserve an area in which no new commemorative works
shall be located. As Congress noted in the law creating the
Reserve, ``. . . the great cross-axis of the Mall in the
District of Columbia . . . is a substantially completed work of
civic art; and . . . to preserve the integrity of the Mall, a
reserve area should be designated . . . where the siting of new
commemorative works is prohibited.'' The Korean War Veterans
Memorial is a completed work of civic art in this special
landscape of the Reserve. Moreover, we cannot ignore the
practical effect of this legislation. Essentially, the Memorial
wall would be a second Korean War Veterans Memorial,
effectively thwarting the intent of the Commemorative Works Act
to prohibit new memorials within the Reserve and would be an
addition that would significantly alter the character of the
existing Memorial. And this second memorial would have the
effect of violating the Commemorative Works Act prohibition on
interfering or encroaching on an existing memorial.
We feel very strongly that the Korean War Veterans
Memorial, like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, exists to recall
the exemplary service and sacrifice of outstanding Americans,
and this memorial has already been completed as it stands
today. The Korean War Veterans Memorial is a place of honor and
dignity and we should avoid any intrusions that will become a
source of contention or controversy.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. I would be happy
to answer any questions that you or other members of the
subcommittee may have regarding this bill.
CHANGES IN EXISTING LAW
In compliance with paragraph 12 of rule XXVI of the
Standing Rules of the Senate, the Committee notes that no
changes in existing law are made by the bill as ordered
reported.
[all]