    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
    [October 5, 1999]
    [Pages 1685-1688]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Statement on Signing the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal
    Year 2000
    October 5, 1999

        Today I have signed into law S. 1059, the ``National Defense
    Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000.'' This Act authorizes FY 2000
    appropriations for military activities of the Department of Defense,
    military construction, and defense activities of the Department of
    Energy. Although I have serious reservations about some portions of this
    Act, I believe S. 1059 provides for a strong national defense, maintains
    our military readiness, and supports our deep commitment to a better
    quality of life for our military personnel and their families.
        The more we ask of our Armed Forces, the greater our obligation to
    give them the support, training, and equipment they need. We have a
    responsibility to give them the tools to take on new missions while
    maintaining their readiness to defend our country and defeat any
    adversary; to make sure they can deploy away from home, knowing their
    families have the quality of life they deserve; to attract talented
    young Americans to serve; and to make certain their service is not only
    rewarding, but well rewarded--from recruitment to retirement.
        This Act helps us meet that responsibility. It endorses my
    comprehensive program of improvements to military pay and retirement
    benefits, which add up to the largest increase in military compensation
    in a generation. The Act increases bonuses for enlistment and
    reenlistment, providing incentives needed to recruit and retain skilled
    and motivated personnel and to maintain readiness.
        The Act also helps make good on my pledge to keep our Armed Forces
    the best equipped fighting force on earth. It carries forward our
    modernization program by funding the F-22 stealth fighter, the V-22
    Osprey, the Comanche helicopter, advanced destroyers, submarines and
    amphibious ships, and a new generation of precision munitions. I commend
    the Congress for recognizing the need to improve the way we dispose of
    property at closing military bases. In April of this year, I requested
    the authority to transfer former military base property to communities
    at no cost if they use the property for job-generating economic
    development. This new policy of no-cost Economic Development Conveyances
    will allow us to speed the transfer of such property to local
    communities and minimize the time that the property lies fallow. In this
    way, we can give an economic jump start to affected communities and help
    to stimulate the investments necessary to attract new job-creating
    businesses.

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        I am pleased with the Act's support for missile defense
    capabilities. The Act authorizes important funding for both theater and
    national missile defense. I am particularly pleased that the Act
    authorizes full funding for the Medium Extended Air Defense System
    cooperative program with Germany and Italy, authorizes funding for
    national missile defense military construction planning and design, and
    helps fix cost growth problems in the Patriot Advance Capability-3 and
    Navy Area Defense programs. The Act's requirement to develop Theater
    High Altitude Area Defense and Navy Theater Wide systems concurrently is
    being taken into account in the Department's review of its acquisition
    strategy for these upper-tier programs.
        Although I believe most provisions of the Act--especially the
    quality of life enhancements--are beneficial and support a strong
    national defense, I have strong reservations about a number of
    provisions of S. 1059.
        The most troubling features of the Act involve the reorganization of
    the nuclear defense functions within the Department of Energy. The
    original reorganization plan adopted by the Senate reflected a
    constructive effort to strengthen the effectiveness and security of the
    activities of the Department of Energy's nuclear weapons laboratories.
    Unfortunately, the success of this effort is jeopardized by changes that
    emerged from the conference, which altered the final product, making it
    weaker in enhancing national security. Particularly objectionable are
    features of the legislative charter of the new National Nuclear Security
    Administration (NNSA) that purport to isolate personnel and contractors
    of the NNSA from outside direction, and limit the Secretary's ability to
    employ his authorities to direct--both personally and through
    subordinates of his own choosing--the activities and personnel of the
    NNSA. Unaddressed, these deficiencies of the Act would impair effective
    health and safety oversight and program direction of the Department's
    nuclear defense complex.
        Other provisions of S. 1059 have been faulted by the Attorneys
    General of over 40 States as placing in question the established duty of
    the Department of Energy's nuclear defense complex to comply with the
    procedural and substantive requirements of environmental laws. Moreover,
    the Act removes from the Secretary his direct authority over certain
    extremely sensitive classified programs specified in the Atomic Energy
    Act, and establishes in the NNSA separate support functions--such as
    contracting, personnel, public affairs, and legal--that are redundant
    with those now within the Department. This redundancy even extends to
    the counterintelligence office reporting directly to the Secretary that
    was established in accordance with my Presidential Decision Directive
    61, and which was designed to be the single authoritative source of
    counterintelligence guidance throughout the Department. The Act
    establishes a companion counterintelligence entity within the NNSA,
    compounding simple redundancy with the blurring of lines of authority
    that can too readily result because the NNSA is largely immunized from
    outside direction within the Department.
        Experience teaches that these are not abstract deficiencies. As the
    Hoover Commission concluded half a century ago, the accountability of a
    Cabinet Department head is not complete without the legal authority to
    meet the legal responsibilities for which that person is accountable.
    The Act's provisions summarized above skew that authority. These
    provisions blur the clear and unambiguous lines of authority intended by
    Presidential Decision Directive 61, and impair the Secretary of Energy's
    ability to assure compliance at all levels within the Department of
    Energy with instructions he may receive in meeting his national defense
    responsibilities under the Atomic Energy Act.
        The responsibilities placed by S. 1059 in the National Nuclear
    Security Administration potentially are of the most significant breadth,
    and the extent of the Secretary of Energy's authority with respect to
    those responsibilities is placed in doubt by various provisions of the
    Act. Therefore, by this Statement I direct and state the following:
        1. Until further notice, the Secretary of Energy shall perform all
    duties and functions of the Under Secretary for Nuclear Security.
        2. The Secretary is instructed to guide and direct all personnel of
    the National Nuclear Security Administration by using his authority, to
    the extent permissible by law, to assign any Departmental officer or
    employee to a concurrent office within the NNSA.
        3. The Secretary is further directed to carry out the foregoing
    instructions in a manner that assures the Act is not asserted as having
    altered the environmental compliance requirements,

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    both procedural and substantive, previously imposed by Federal law on
    all the Department's activities.
        4. In carrying out these instructions, the Secretary shall, to the
    extent permissible under law, mitigate the risks to clear chain of
    command presented by the Act's establishment of other redundant
    functions by the NNSA. He shall also carry out these instructions to
    enable research entities, other than those of the Department's nuclear
    defense complex that fund research by the weapons laboratories, to
    continue to govern conduct of the research they have commissioned.
        5. I direct the Director of the Office of Personnel Management to
    work expeditiously with the Secretary of Energy to facilitate any
    administrative actions that may be necessary to enable the Secretary to
    carry out the instructions in this Statement.
        The expansive national security responsibilities now apparently
    contemplated by the Act for the new Under Secretary for Nuclear Security
    make selection of a nominee an especially weighty judgment. Legislative
    action by the Congress to remedy the deficiencies described above and to
    harmonize the Secretary of Energy's authorities with those of the new
    Under Secretary that will be in charge of the NNSA will help identify an
    appropriately qualified nominee. The actions directed in this Statement
    shall remain in force, to continue until further notice.
        I am concerned with the tone and language of a number of provisions
    of S. 1059 relating to China, which could be detrimental to our
    interests.
        China is undergoing a profoundly important but uncertain process of
    change, and I believe we must work for the best possible outcome, even
    as we prepare for any outcome. The Act's provision requiring annual
    reports on Chinese military power, similar to those previously produced
    on Soviet military power, assumes an outcome that is far from
    foreordained--that China is bent on becoming a military threat to the
    United States. I believe we should not make it more likely that China
    will choose this path by acting as if the decision has already been
    made. The provision establishing the Center for Study of Chinese
    Military Affairs is troubling for the same reason. The Secretary of
    Defense will ensure that the Center is held to the highest standards of
    scholarship and impartiality and that it explores a wide range of
    perspectives on the Chinese military.
        Our long-term strategy must be to encourage China to grow into a
    more prosperous and open society; to integrate China into the
    institutions that promote global norms on proliferation, trade, the
    environment, and human rights; to cooperate where we agree, even as we
    defend our interests and values with realism and candor where we do not.
    We cannot do that simply by confronting China or seeking to contain it.
    We can only do that if we maintain a policy of principled, purposeful
    engagement with China's government and China's people.
        I intend to implement the China provisions of the bill in a manner
    consistent with this policy, including, where appropriate, combining
    several of the reporting requirements.
        Further, I am disappointed that S. 1059 contains damaging
    restrictions on our threat reduction programs in the former Soviet
    Union. Since 1992, these programs have helped to deactivate almost 5,000
    nuclear warheads in the former Soviet Union; eliminate nuclear weapons
    from Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan; strengthen the security of
    nuclear weapons and materials at over 100 sites in the region; tighten
    export controls and detect illicit trafficking; engage over 30,000
    former weapons scientists in civilian research; and purchase hundreds of
    tons of highly enriched uranium from dismantled Russian weapons.
        Restrictions on the Cooperative Threat Reduction program and new
    certification requirements on the Nuclear Cities Initiative threaten to
    slow the pace of Russian disarmament, which is contrary to our national
    interests. I urge that future appropriations for the Nuclear Cities
    Initiative not be conditioned on this certification. I also urge the
    Congress to reverse its current ban on chemical weapons destruction
    assistance to Russia.
        In order to avoid any confusion among our allies or elsewhere
    regarding the new NATO Strategic Concept, I feel compelled to make clear
    that the document is a political, not a legal, document. As such, the
    Strategic Concept does not create any new commitment or obligation
    within my understanding of section 1221(a) of the Act, and therefore,
    will not be submitted to the Senate for advice and consent.
        I am concerned about section 1232, which contains a funding
    limitation with respect to continuous deployment of United States Armed

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    Forces in Haiti pursuant to Operation Uphold Democracy. I have decided
    to terminate the continuous deployment of forces in Haiti, and I intend
    to keep the Congress informed with respect to any future deployments to
    Haiti; however, I will interpret this provision consistent with my
    constitutional responsibilities as President and Commander in Chief.
        A number of other provisions of this bill raise serious
    constitutional concerns. Because the President is the Commander in Chief
    and the Chief Executive under the Constitution, the Congress may not
    interfere with the President's duty to protect classified and other
    sensitive national security information or his responsibility to control
    the disclosure of such information by subordinate officials of the
    executive branch (sections 1042, 3150, and 3164). Furthermore, because
    the Constitution vests the conduct of foreign affairs in the President,
    the Congress may not direct that the President initiate discussions or
    negotiations with foreign governments (section 1407 and 1408). Nor may
    the Congress unduly restrict the President's constitutional appointment
    authority by limiting the President's selection to individuals
    recommended by a subordinate officer (section 557). To the extent that
    these provisions conflict with my constitutional responsibilities in
    these areas, I will construe them where possible to avoid such
    conflicts, and where it is impossible to do so, I will treat them as
    advisory. I hereby direct all executive branch officials to do likewise.
        Finally, S. 1059 provides for participation in the Thrift Savings
    Plan by full-time members of the uniformed services and reservists, but
    subject to my proposing and the Congress' passage of separate
    legislation to pay for the costs of their participation. I shall
    consider this proposal when determining my Fiscal Year 2001 Budget.
        Notwithstanding the concerns noted above, I believe that the
    National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000, as a whole,
    will enhance our national security and help us achieve our military and
    related defense objectives. By providing the necessary support for our
    forces, it will ensure continued U.S. global leadership well into the
    21st century.

                                                          William J. Clinton

    The White House,

    October 5, 1999.

    Note: S. 1059, approved October 5, was assigned Public Law No. 106-65.