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DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS ACT
, 1997 (House of Representatives - June 13, 1996)

AMENDMENT OFFERED BY MR. DEFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.

The text of the amendment is as follows:

Amendment offered by Mr. DeFAZIO: At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the following new section:

Sec. . None of the funds provided in this Act for the National Missile Defense program may be obligated for space-based interceptors or space-based directed-energy weapons.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that all debate on this amendment and all amendments thereto close in 20 minutes and that the time be equally divided.

The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Florida?

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, we talked about 30. Did the gentleman just say 20?

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I said 20, and that was my preference.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, when I discussed it earlier with the ranking member----

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. All right, Mr. Chairman, I withdraw that request, and let me offer another unanimous-consent request.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that debate on this amendment and all amendments thereto close in 30 minutes and that the time be equally divided, and, hopefully, we will not use all the time.

The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Florida?

There was no objection.

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Oregon [Mr. DeFazio] and the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Young] will each be recognized for 15 minutes.

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Oregon [Mr. DeFazio.]

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The amendment before the House is quite simple. It says, and I can read it because it is so brief, `None of the funds provided in this act for the national missile defense program may be obligated for space-based interceptors or space-based directed energy weapons.'

The intent of this amendment is to have the Pentagon focus on effective missile defense; that is, theater missile defense and other national missile defense initiatives which have great promise, and not to spin off back into space in the fantasy of star wars once again.

As we know from our last experiences with star wars, it has an infinite capacity to consume funds. We have had much debate here today about scarce resources at the Pentagon, and I believe adopting this amendment will help the Pentagon to focus more effectively on the technologies that have the most promise to defend the United States of America and defend our allies.

It will not impact theater missile defense; it will not impact the Nautilus program, which is being developed in concert with Israel; it will not impact the Navy Upper Tier program; it will not impact the three-plus-three BMDO proposal; it will not impact the LEAP proposal of the Navy; it will not impact the EKV proposal of the Army. But what it does, within the context of this bill, which will provide $3.2 billion for missile defense programs of all types, it will prevent movement and dispersal of scarce funds into space-based fantasies.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Thornberry].

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Chairman, I would like to begin by putting this amendment in a little bit of context, because I think the American people do not understand exactly where we are with regard to missile defense.

There are missiles that threaten people in the United States today. There are some now and there will be more in the future. There gets to be a debate about how quickly we will have more and how quickly other countries will have this capability, but there will be more and nobody denies that.

Second, there is absolutely nothing that we can do today to stop a missile from hitting the United States. That is a fact. The children in this country are absolutely vulnerable, as is everyone else, to a missile attack by a country that has missiles now or someone that may have missiles in the future.

This amendment asks us to tie one hand behind our back as we seek to find the best way to meet that threat in the future. The truth is this is not the area where most of the work is going on now. It is not the area that offers the best possibility for an immediate kind of protection against a small sort of launch, but it is something we should explore.

We ought to look ahead to the kinds of threats we will have in the future and the best and most effective ways to prevent it in the future, and that is why I think it is foolish for us to tie one hand behind our back as this amendment seeks to do. We should explore all the options and we should take advantage of the best option to protect our people and our children, because I think that is the first obligation of this Congress and the defense that we are responsible for.

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Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spratt].

(Mr. SPRATT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment offered by my colleague from Oregon. I do so as a supporter of ballistic missile defense, both national and theater, and I do so as a supporter of the plus-up that the Committee on National Security and the appropriations subcommittee have given national missile defense.

Used wisely, this extra sum of $300 million to $350 million will take us, I think, to the point in 3 years where we will have a ground-based interceptor to test, and once we have it to test, we can decide if we want to move forward with it and deploy it in 3 more years.

A lot of people in this institution, this House, like the last speaker, decry the fact that we do not have ballistic missile defense. Let me tell my friends it is not for want of spending money. Since Ronald Reagan made his speech in March 1983, we have spent over $35 billion in pursuit of ballistic missile defenses, strategic defense. And a good bit of that, at least at the outset, was spent on space-based lasers.

To start with, there was the x-ray laser, which was to be the coup de grace. It was to be the ultimate answer to ballistic missile defense. It did not pan out. Then there was the excimer laser, and the free electron laser, both of which would have been ground-based, but they could not propagate a beam through the atmosphere without gross corrections. And then there were three or four or five different kinds of chemical lasers, and none of them has yet come to fruition, proved its efficacy as a system that can be so-called weaponized.

We have spent more money on space-based interceptors, something called Brilliant Pebbles. The idea once was to launch thousands of these cheap small satellites encircling the globe in low-earth orbit. We built Endo- and Exo-atmospheric interceptors.

If there is any lesson learned from all of this, it is simply this: It is not for lack of funding but lack of focus that we do not have anything to deploy that we can call strategic or national missile defense today. And if there is anywhere that the lack of focus has cost us more, there is nowhere more that it has cost us and bought us less than in the area of directed energy systems or spaced-based laser systems.

Now, I support a reasonable level of research on these space-based systems, on these directed energy laser systems. One day they may realize their potential. They may transform missile defense and other forms of military defense. But this amendment, the DeFazio amendment, does not preclude this kind of research. That is because this amendment does not cut the President's request for research in another ballistic missile defense account called the advanced technology line. It leaves that line untouched and unaffected.

This amendment also does not prohibit or affect at all tactical laser systems, like the Nautilus, which we are pursuing jointly with Israel right now. That is because this is funded in the Army's R&D budget. This applies only to national missile defense and says as to it, we can do research but we cannot pursue national missile defense systems which include a space-based laser.

The technology to make space-based lasers militarily useful is simply years, decades away from fruition, and the cost of developing and deploying lasers or interceptors in space is far beyond anything we can afford in this tight budget. If we try it, we will only drain dry our conventional military systems.

So this amendment keeps us from going down a very costly and maybe ultimately fruitless road.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SPRATT. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman's yielding. I just want to associate myself with the gentleman's remarks.

I believe that we should move forward with a treaty compliant ground-based system. I am not at all opposed to doing research on advanced systems, but I think any effort to procure them or to move ahead rapidly to a space-based system violates----

Mr. SPRATT. I yield to the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Dicks].

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, as I said, that would violate the ABM agreement and would be a very serious mistake.

I appreciate the gentleman, all his hard work and his effort and expertise on this matter, and, in my judgment, a ground-based system could be effective; and, frankly, I think the real threat to America is terrorism and, in my judgment, we should be doing more about that. I think that is more of a threat than a ballistic missile attack from an enemy.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I would say that for those Members, like the gentleman from Washington and myself who support some form of ballistic missile defense, national missile defense, the way to go, the sensible approach is with a ground-based system. That is the near-term system that is attainable right now.

This amendment is important because it keeps us focused on that with limited amounts of money to spend. If we are going to have a ground-based system, we can only accomplish it by staying focused and staying disciplined.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, the other thing is, our first priority has to be theater missile defense and CorpsSAM. When we deploy troops, we have to be able to defend those troops, and I think the priorities the administration has are correct on this.

[TIME: 2000]

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], chairman of the Committee on Appropriations.

(Mr. LIVINGSTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I think it is interesting just to listen to that conversation that just preceded us. The two gentlemen were talking past each other. One was talking about the ground-based system and the other was talking about some system that is out there in the hinterlands for a theater-based defense, and they are not necessarily the same. So, they were not necessarily in agreement.

Look, the liberals have been saying since Gen. Daniel Graham came out with what they called the star wars system, they have been saying it does not work. Technology is not capable of delivering such a system. You cannot possibly shoot down an incoming missile. They said that all the way through the eighties.

All of a sudden, in the nineties, we started developing these systems and they started realizing, well, so much for that argument. It is gone. Because it is technologically capable. Then they said, well, we cannot develop a space-based system or lasers will never work.

Well, if lasers never work, how come the Israelis want one right now that has been utilized in the deserts of Arizona or New Mexico and actually shot down incoming targets? And Israel says that is so neat, we would like to have it.

The liberals are saying, oh, my goodness, we cannot have a space-based laser. They are not saying it is not technologically possible. They are saying it is not treaty-compliant. What treaty are they talking about? The ABM Treaty. The treaty that was confected between the United States and a country that used to be called the Soviet Union, a monolithic totalitarian government comprised of some 16 entities, some of which do not even exist today, and certainly that entity does not exist today.

Mr. Chairman, even if we were compliant with that treaty, which was probably bad news back then, it certainly did not apply to this highly technological age of ours today where the North Koreans, the Chinese, the Iranians, the Iraqis and everybody else who is of ill will in the world will have the capability of putting ballistic missiles together with nuclear warheads, chemical warheads, or biological warheads and dropping them on New York. And we are going to say we are not going to deploy those space-based opportunities because we do not want to spend our money?

Everybody knows the ground-based system that the gentleman already talked about is the most expensive system we already have. The space-based system actually is the cheapest. The one in between is the Navy system, which probably could be deployed by the year 2000.

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman has amended the Republican plan which would call for deployment by the year 2003 by saying, well, he has got a better amendment. We can develop a system in the year 2000 which may or may not be deployed by 2003.

Weasel words. We will never deploy it if it is up to the gentleman who proceeded me in the well. The fact is he does not want an antiballistic missile system. He does not want to protect the American people. He is willing to hide behind words and good thoughts as much as he possibly can, but he does not want a missile defense system that will protect the American people or our troops, as was indicated was the preference of the gentleman from Washington.

Now, we are going to have to have a system. We can deploy a system. And whether it is space based or sea based or land based, whether it is lasers or whatever it is, it ought to be the most effective system that money can buy, and it ought to be the most cost-effective system that we can get. We should not be standing here in the well of this House of Representatives and saying one technology is off limits for whatever reason.

Mr. Chairman, that is insane. We might as well be saying we are going to tie our hands behind our backs and not defend the American people. Is that what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want? If that is what they want, they should vote for DeFazio. If it is not what they want, they should vote against it.

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Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spratt].

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I began my last statement by saying I am a supporter of ballistic missile defense, and in years past when our side was in the majority, on several occasions I came to the floor when my own committee had cut the request for national missile defense and offered amendments which plussed it back up, which prevailed in the House.

Mr. Chairman, I supported ballistic missile defense and support it now on the ground, because I think it is an attainable system. But I also think, and the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations knows well, that we have a terribly tight defense budget. If we are going to put national defense, missile defense in place by the year 2003, we have got to keep it focused on a basic system that we can, indeed, deploy.

Mr. Chairman, we are very close to being able to deploy a ground-based system which is cheaper than a laser-based system. BMDO put our cost estimates in March of 1995, which placed the cost of space-based lasers at $20 billion, $30 billion, $40 billion. Those were extrapolations. Nobody knows for sure, because it is a very, very embryonic technology. We have years to go.

There is another problem with space-based, or any kind of space-based systems, and that is their inherent vulnerability. Because once they are placed in space in fixed orbit, then they can be taken out in fixed orbit. They can be taken out by any country which is our adversary and can launch an ICBM that would truly be a threat to us. They can fire an ICBM against it, or they can use an antisatellite system which itself is space-based. They could even launch a space-based laser against it.

So, Mr. Chairman, one of the reasons that BMDO abandoned space-based systems some time ago in preference for ground-based, at least as a first stages, is the inherent vulnerability of predeployed assets in space, lasers and interceptors.

Mr. Chairman, I am against wasting more money on deployment; not on research. I specifically made that clear. This allows research to continue. But against pursuing the deployment of these systems, because they would preclude the one thing that is attainable in the near term: ground-based interceptors.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DeFAZIO. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I want to say to the distinguished gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], that the gentleman from South Carolina and myself, the former chairman of the Senate Arms Services Committee, are all people who are committed to deploying a system. We think that a thin system that is treaty-compliant is the right way to go because we think it is attainable. We think it does not start an arms race with the other side, and it will be less expensive.

Now, what I said, and I think the gentleman misunderstood me, is that it is crucial. First of all, if we are going to send 500,000 troops to the Gulf again, I want them to go with theater missile defense, PAC-3, THAD, and using Navy ships with the standard missile. I think that is a good approach to defending our troops in the field. To me, that should be the highest priority.

Mr. Chairman, when we are sending men and women into combat, they have to have protection from scud missiles and other launchers. That should be first.

And then, second, we should keep working on deploying this system. We are prepared to go in that direction, and we should continue to do the research on the other, more exotic layered systems, but I think we should not deploy them; as long as we are going to maintain the ABM agreement, I do not think they should be deployed.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], chairman of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, three points. First of all, the gentleman that preceded me is talking about the use of existing technology, which means we could deploy that right now. We have that equipment. That is not the issue.

The gentleman is trying to substitute existing technology for future technology. The fact, is in answer to the gentleman who preceded him, Mr. Spratt, the fact is any system is vulnerable to some degree. I mean, you could take out a ground-based system; you could take out a sea-based system; you could take out a space-based system. They are all vulnerable. The point is, are we going to provide some umbrella of protection for the American people?

Mr. Chairman, I happen to think we should look for the best technology at the best available price, and we should not start blocking out certain technologies just because they happen to be exotic for somebody who never believed in them in the first place. That is exactly the position of the author of this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I would hope that Members would understand, we are not the experts. Let us develop the system. Actually, I have read the language very carefully, from the gentleman from South

Carolina [Mr. Spratt] to the ballistic missile defense program or the bill that we have offered on the floor, and he does not commit to deploying. The gentleman says he looks forward to developing a system that may be deployed by the year 2003.

Mr. Chairman, we say we will deploy by the year 2003. There is a gulf of difference between those two positions. I say we should be deploying and we should be looking forward to the best, cheapest, most effective system to protect the American people. Anything less than that is an abdication of our responsibility to them, our constituents.

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Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Dicks].

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, the question is, what are we going to deploy? What is there to deploy? Are we going to fly before we have done the technology and worked it out and proven it will work? That is a prescription for throwing money at the problem in a ideological overreaction.

Mr. Chairman, let us try to go with technology that we know something about that will work, that will give us limited protection, because that is all we are going to get.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Edwards].

Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Chairman, star wars is the Freddie Krueger of defense. It simply will not die.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment is very simple. If Members oppose star wars, vote `yes' on this amendment. If they want to revive star wars, an ill-fated taxpayer boondoggle that has never done anything for the American people's defense, then oppose this amendment. It is very simple.

Mr. Chairman, if Members think it was not enough to take $30 billion of taxpayers' money to put into this program that never proved out, was never able to be deployed in the 1980's, then vote `no' on this amendment. To spend more money on star wars is like spending more money on the Edsel. It simply will not work no matter how hard we try. It is very simple.

Finally, if we want to take limited defense dollars and ultimately put them in a space-based system that is unproven, rather than military construction, military pay raises, theater missile defense, if Members want to take money out of their terribly important defense programs and put it once again into star wars, which I thought my Republican colleagues said in the defense bill debate right on this floor last year they had no interest in, if Members want to do all of that, they should vote `no' on this amendment.

If my colleagues think it is time to put a stake in the heart of this modern-day Dracula known as star wars, then vote `yes' for this amendment.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, could I inquire as to the remaining time?

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Oregon [Mr. DeFazio] has 4 1/2 minutes remaining, and the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Young] has 8 minutes remaining.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Woolsey].

(Ms. WOOLSEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Chairman, just when we thought star wars was relegated to the video rental store, it comes back as national policy.

Mr. Chairman, It is unbelievable that in the same week that the Gingrich Congress passed a budget that hurts seniors, hurts children, and hurts the environment, we are considering spending $245 billion on the military. This bill that we are talking about now will accelerate the space-based star wars program and wind up costing $30 billion to $40 billion by the time the project is completed.

That is not science fiction, folks; it is double-feature horror show: yesterday's conference report and today's defense bill.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the DeFazio amendment because the Nation cannot waste $30 billion to $40 billion on a space-based star wars system.

When our seniors are losing the guarantee of high-quality health care, this Nation cannot afford to waste $30 billion to $40 billion on a space-based star wars system when our young people cannot afford to go to college.

This Nation cannot afford to waste $30 billion to $40 billion on a space-based star wars system when poor children are losing the guarantee of basic health care.

Mr. Chairman, let us ground ourselves in reality for a moment. The United States spends as much on the military as all of our allies combined. We spend 100 times more money on the military than Iraq. Iraq, which is the biggest spender among the rogue nations.

This Nation cannot afford to waste $30 billion to $40 billion on a space-based star wars system when the threat of a missile attack has been reduced by the end of the cold war.

Inventing a threat in order to justify this star wars gravy train for defense contractors is simply irresponsible.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I remember the debate last year when the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Edwards] stood on this side and a Member on the other side kept saying, `I wish you would not say star wars.' We are not talking about star wars. We are not going back to star wars. Star wars was a failure. We are talking about ballistic missile defense and things that are workable.

Mr. Chairman, here we are now a year later, and we want to open that door again. As we heard so ably discussed by the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spratt] and the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Dicks], there is technology out there which exists, which can potentially defend the United States against these threats that we hear so much about, the rogue nations and the single or the few multiple missiles.

But what we are talking about here, if this amendment is defeated, is opening the door again to the star wars fantasy to spend another $30 billion to $60 million, which is estimated by the majority's own Congressional Budget Office. They came up with the $30 billion to $60 billion estimate for star wars.

[TIME: 2015]

That is why the bill was pulled about a week and a half ago from the floor of the House. So let us focus our scarce resources on something that might provide benefit for the United States of America in terms of defending our own Nation against rogue nations, which might, in fact already has defended our troops when they are deployed overseas hopefully defend some of our allies overseas in the co-development with Israel of the Nautilus program.

This amendment allows the TMD, the Nautilus, the Navy Upper Tier, the 3 plus 3 BMDO, the LEAP, the EKV; all those programs can go forward. They are all technologies that have a good chance of working.

What it does say is that we are not going to move ahead to deployment of a $30- to $60 billion boondoggle that will not do anything to defend our Nation.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Chairman, I wish you could understand how silly it sounds, all these references to star wars, to talk about all these other theater missile defense systems that are working. Where do my colleagues think all that technology came from?

This is simply a funding limitation, doing something to ourselves that no other Nation is doing to itself. This is an R&D program, and to not spend this, and this is why I am shocked by some of the strong Democrat defense eagles on the other side, not clearing the air here. Stop this silly rhetoric, and let us not hamstring ourselves in a dangerous world. Do my colleagues not take questions at townhall meetings that indicate that this country is still undefended from a rogue missile?

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, the author of the amendment has suggested all the things that we can do under his amendment. But there are some things that we cannot do. We restrict the ability under this amendment to move into some types of technology that really look like they might be very promising and very clean and very efficient.

I would give the example, the U.S.-Israeli program referred to as Nautilus, a laser program missile defense program. It seems to have a tremendous amount of promise, and we are funding it in this bill. Except for the range involved, it is not unlike the type of laser that we might be talking about. The point is that may or may not be the system that we would deploy eventually. But we should not deny ourselves the opportunity to investigate, to search out, to find out what really would be the best way to defend our Nation against a rogue attack or in the future, who knows, against an intentional attack.

We know the threat is growing. The point is that we do not have the ability to defend this Nation against an incoming missile. We all know that in this Chamber. There may be some who do not believe that. But that is the fact.

The gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Murtha] and I, because of the positions that we hold in this Congress, have the opportunity to know whether we have that kind of a protective device or not. The answer is we do not.

It is interesting. Just about 3 weeks ago I was talking with a group of business people, some of who were involved in military industry. And one of the persons who really should know said to me: Look, I do not care what you guys say. I know you have something out there to defend us if the enemy should send a missile or whether it should come by mistake or however it might come.

Of course we know that the North Koreans are developing longer-range missiles all the time. We know that Libya and Iraq and countries like those are and have been developing weapons of mass destruction that could easily fit on a North Korean No Dong missile.

We also know that Iran is willing to put up plenty of money to harass the United States and our interests. So the threat is there, and the threat is growing.

We ought not to deny ourselves the opportunity to really find out what is the best way to defend our Nation. The administration says we do not have to worry about this for at least 15 years. I disagree with that. I think the capability on the part of a rogue nation will be there long before the 15-year period, and I think even the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Dicks] would agree with that.

Here is what I want to tell Members. Despite the gentlemen in industry who told me we really have something, in your town hall meetings, in your meeting with children in schools, the question comes up about defending America from missile attacks. Most of the people in our country believe that somewhere, someone has the answer, has something to pull out of the magic hat to defend our Nation. The fact is we do not.

When Pearl Harbor was attacked, I was just a little kid. I was growing up in a small coal mine town in western Pennsylvania. We did not have television back then, so we did not know too much about what was happening. But the radio accounts and the newspaper accounts were frightening to young kids who wondered if we were going to be invaded next week or next month because we had suffered such a devastating blow in Pearl Harbor.

As I began to learn more about what was happening, as our Nation rebuilt after Pearl Harbor, we had time in those days; we would not have time today. I began to realize that in America someone was looking out for me and all the other little kids in my same generation. And they did. They came back and rebuilt the armies and the navies and the air forces. After a tremendous struggle, tremendous sacrifice, tremendous loss of life, we won World War II. Today those kids in those schoolrooms where you go to visit believe that we have the capability to defend your Nation against an incoming missile. They think in their hearts, like I did when I was a kid, and I will bet many of you did, that, OK, so there is a threat out there; but someone somewhere is going to make sure that we have whatever it is we need should the time ever come.

Mr. Chairman, that is us. We are the ones that those young kids of today believe have something somewhere to take care of the Nation should that attack ever come. That is us. And that vote is here today on this amendment.

Vote no on this amendment, and let us prepare this Nation to defend itself should the time ever come.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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AMENDMENT OFFERED BY MR. DICKS TO THE AMENDMENT OFFERED BY MR. DE FAZIO

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment to the amendment.

The Clerk read as follows:

Amendment offered by Mr. Dicks to the amendment offered by Mr. DeFazio: On line 2, add at the end `for the deployment of'.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to explain my amendment for 1 minute.

The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Washington?

There was no objection.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I want to make it perfectly clear that what we are talking about in this amendment is the deployment of a space-based system, not that we are stopping the obligation of money for an R&D approach. There are legitimate R&D programs that should go forward, and I would urge the chairman and the ranking member to accept the amendment, and my colleague from Oregon.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DICKS. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, is this intended to be an amendment to the amendment or an amendment to the bill?

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, it is an amendment to the amendment.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, the amendment says, at the end of the bill before the short title. It does not say amendment to the amendment.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, it is added at the end of line 2, `for the deployment of'.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I object. Mr. Chairman, I object.

The CHAIRMAN. The amendment has already been reported and is pending. The unanimous-consent request of the gentleman from Washington was for time to debate the amendment.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I ask for a vote on my amendment.

The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Dicks], to the amendment offered by the gentleman from Oregon [Mr. DeFazio].

The amendment to the amendment was agreed to.

The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Oregon [Mr. DeFazio], as amended.

The question was taken; and the Chairman announced that the noes appeared to have it.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote and, pending that, I make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, further proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Oregon [Mr. DeFazio], as amended, will be postponed.

The point of no quorum is considered withdrawn.