Space

NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 1997

(Senate - June 28, 1996)

ABM MULTILATERALIZATION

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I wish to enter into a colloquy with the distinguished Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Thurmond. Today we are agreeing to a unanimous-consent agreement concerning a number of items, including the substitution of sense of the Senate language for the binding language in this bill relative to the multilateralization of the ABM Treaty.

The issue of the treaty obligations of successor states to the former Soviet Union is of particular importance to the Senate because it concerns the Senate's unique constitutional responsibility to provide advice and consent to the ratification of treaties.

The unanimous-consent agreement provides for hearings on this issue because it raises the question of whether the many treaties with the USSR, relative to arms control, trade and other matters, which are acceded to by components of the former Soviet Union, now successor states, need to be re-ratified by the United States Senate. This issue has important ramifications for our relations with Russia and the other successor states, and also for American security in many other important ways.

While the bill, as amended by the unanimous-consent agreement, now states what the current sense of the Senate is, the Committee hearings provided for in the unanimous-consent agreement are important because they will assure the Senate's ability to fully and deliberately consider how we implement treaties with nations that split into separate sovereign states.

Would the distinguished Chairman of the Committee agree with this assessment?

Mr. THURMOND. The distinguished ranking Member of the Armed Services Committee fairly characterizes the situation. However, the hearings on this matter do not preclude, and should not be construed as a substitute for, the Senate's constitutional role in advice and consent to ratification of treaties and international agreements.

Mr. NUNN. I thank the Chairman.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I am pleased to rise in support of the Senate Armed Services Committee's recommendations contained in the fiscal year 1997 national defense authorization bill now pending before the Senate.

Overall, I believe this is an excellent bill, and I congratulate Chairman Thurmond for leading the committee through our markup of this bill. Let me also offer my sincere thanks to Les Brownlee and the staff of the committee for their professionalism and diligence in conducting a well-organized and very efficient markup process.

For the second year in a row, the Republican Congress has successfully increased the administration's inadequate defense budget request, slowing the too-rapid decline in defense spending which threatens to jeopardize the future readiness of our Armed Forces, The committee-reported bill authorizes nearly $13 billion more than the President's budget request for defense programs, with more than $7 billion allocated for procurement of additional weapons systems.

Although I am not completely satisfied with some of the committee's recommendations, the majority of this added funding is authorized for high-priority programs of the military services. The bill provides much-needed funding for essential tactical aircraft and missiles, improved communications systems, theater and national missile defense systems, and other high technology equipment which the Clinton administration failed to fund.

I am also pleased that the committee adopted most of the recommendations of the Readiness Subcommittee, including:

A provision to dispose of unneeded stockpile items which will reduce the deficit by $650 million;

A provision to terminate defense spending for a Justice Department-run center to gather intelligence on illegal drug activities; and

A provision requiring organizers of civilian sporting events to agree to reimburse the Department of Defense for the cost of providing security and other support services, but only if the event makes a profit; and

A provision requiring the military Service Chiefs to provide an analysis of an alternative readiness management system, called tiered readiness, which I proposed in a recent paper.

I appreciate very much the cooperation of my colleagues in formulating a compromise proposal to resolve the difficult issue of allocating workload between public and private maintenance depots. The provisions adopted by the committee revise the current 60-40 public-private workload allocation to a 50-50 formula, pending receipt of core workload data from the Department of Defense. The committee also adopted a requirement for competition at Kelly and McClellan Air Force Bases in advance of implementing any privatization-in-place proposal.

The committee also adopted several other amendments dealing with policy matters of particular importance.

First, the committee adopted an amendment to repeal provisions of the fiscal year 1996 Defense Authorization Act related to missing service personnel. These provisions were identified by the military leadership as burdensome and unnecessary. I appreciate the support of my committee colleagues in repealing these unworkable provisions, and I look forward to their support in our conference with the House of Representatives.

The committee also adopted an amendment to provide the Secretary of Defense with the authority to waive counterproductive `Buy America' restrictions which were adopted in last year's defense authorization bill. The new waiver may be exercised at the Secretary's discretion to allow the Department of Defense to purchase items from a firm located in a foreign country, if that country has a reciprocal defense procurement memorandum of understanding with the United States. The new waiver will once again allow free trade between the United States and our allies for defense contracts.

The committee also adopted a proposal directing the Department of Defense to follow a uniform policy with respect to military personnel who have illnesses that prevent them from serving overseas. In my view, it is unconscionable that military personnel infected with the AIDS virus would be treated any differently than others who cannot deploy for health reasons. This provision would ensure uniformity in the Department's discharge policy for nondeployable personnel. I sincerely hope we are able to maintain this fair and compassionate position in our conference with the House.

Again, I offer my sincere thanks and congratulations to Chairman Thurmond and Senator Nunn and the committee staff for their hard work in successfully crafting a balanced defense bill. However, I am sorry to note that the practice of pork-barrel spending is still evident in the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Mr. President, in past years, defense bills have been filled with pork-barrel projects which did little to enhance our military capabilities. Last year, the Congress wasted nearly $4 billion on pork-barrel projects like the Seawolf submarine, B-2 bomber, and other wasteful projects. This year, I am pleased

that the practice of adding funds for Members' special interests seems to have declined significantly. However, there are several programmatic recommendations in this bill which, in my view, constitute pork-barrel spending.

First, and most egregious, the Committee added almost $600 million in unrequested military construction projects. The close attention focused on military construction pork in the past at least forced greater scrutiny of the add-on list this year. All of these projects met the established criteria for add-ons, and most of them were included on the military Services' priority lists. However, I cannot accept the apparent assumption that projects planned for construction in the next century are as high a priority as projects planned for next year's budget, and I had hoped that the Committee would focus on adding money for projects planned for 1998 or 1999.

The military construction projects added by the Committee were not included in my Subcommittee's mark, and I strongly objected to their inclusion in the Committee bill. At the appropriate time, I will offer an amendment to strike these projects.

Another perennial favorite is the addition of hundreds of millions of dollars for unrequested equipment for the National Guard and Reserve. This bill includes an additional $759.8 million in the National Guard and Reserve Equipment account, plus as much as $242 million in additional unrequested equipment earmarked for the Guard and Reserve in the regular Service procurement accounts. Within this amount is $284 million for 6 unrequested C-130J aircraft for the Guard and Reserve--a tactical airlift aircraft that the active Air Force has not yet been able to afford.

The active Air Force did request funding to procure one C-130J tactical airlift aircraft. However, the Committee decided not to authorize this asset for the active Air Force. Instead, the Committee recommended $204.5 million for an additional three C-130Js, including funding to modify these aircraft to a weather reconnaissance role, and then transferred all four aircraft to WC-130 weather reconnaissance squadron in Mississippi. It is inexplicable to me why the Committee would choose to divert these aircraft from the active Air Force, where they would have replaced aging C-130E models, and instead use them to replace newer C-130H models in a weather reconnaissance unit. Further, the Air Force plans to eliminate nearly 90 aircraft from its current C-130 fleet to conform with the Mobility Requirements Study, yet the Committee recommended adding these 4 aircraft plus 6 more C-130s for the Guard and Reserve.

The Committee's rationale for adding these aircraft, reflected in the report language, appears to be that the weather reconnaissance mission could benefit from near-term modernization. That argument, in my view, could easily apply to the thousands of Service priorities which were not included in this bill and which, in my view, would contribute much more to our national defense than an upgraded weather reconnaissance capability.

Mr. President, I am well aware of the argument that the active military Services do not adequately provide for the needs of the Guard and Reserve, but I do not believe the Congress, or the individual Adjutants General, can properly prioritize their needs. The Senate Armed Services Committee has repeatedly urged the Services to include Guard and Reserve requirements in their budget requests. I think we should enlist the obviously widespread support of our Senate colleagues and the State Adjutants General to ensure that Guard and Reserve priorities are included in the budget formulation process, rather than continuing to impose on the Guard and Reserve our own politicized judgments about specific weapons systems and projects.

Another questionable add-on in this bill is a $15 million increase for the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, or HAARP. This program has benefited from congressional add-ons since 1990, costing a total of $76 million in just seven years, with another $115 million required before the project can be completed in 2001. Yet it remains unclear what military benefit might accrue from the construction of a facility to study the aurora borealis.

Proponents of the program argue that it should be a part of the counter-proliferation program of the Department of Defense because it will be able to detect underground tunnels and structures. However, the Air Force, which manages the program for the Department of Defense, noted in April of last year that the research is not sufficiently mature to warrant its inclusion in the nonproliferation and counter-proliferation program.

Proponents also argue that the program will have application for communications, navigation, and surveillance missions. Yet, the Department of Defense did not include this $15 million in its budget request for fiscal year 1997, and it was not included on their priority lists for additional funds. That indicates to me that, in competition with other militarily relevant programs, HAARP is not a high priority for the military.

Mr. President, in my view, the Congress should stop compelling the military Services to pursue research programs that do not meet their requirements. Spending hundreds of millions of defense dollars to study the energy of the aurora borealis is, in my view, and unconscionable waste of taxpayer dollars. This program should be turned over to a privately funded university, research institution, or other organization where it could be pursued as a purely scientific endeavor.

The Committee also included a provision in the bill that establishes a cumbersome and expensive new bureaucracy to coordinate the Navy's oceanographic research activities. The addition of $99.4 million for two new oceanographic ships does not trouble me, since these ships were included in the Navy's shipbuilding plan. Nor does the addition of $6 million to replace worn equipment used by the Navy in its oceanographic survey and research activities. In fact, I do not necessarily dispute the assertion that Navy oceanographic research is underfunded. However, I see no need to establish a multi-tiered organization to ensure that the Navy has access to all Federal and civil research in oceanography.

The bill sets aside $13 million to fund a new bureaucracy which would, in my view, only hinder the efficient and effective expenditure of Federal funds for militarily relevant oceanographic research. In addition, the criteria and processes for appointment to these various new entities seem vague, as do the particular responsibilities and authorities of these seemingly overlapping organizations. Finally, the outyear funding requirements for this new bureaucracy are unknown, and I question whether the Navy can afford this potential funding drain in the future.

Mr. President, I believe the committee would have been better served to increase the funding available to the Navy for its oceanography program, together with specific legislative authority for the Navy to explore private sector efforts which might be of utility to the Navy. In this way, the Navy would be spared the burden of a new bureaucracy and, at the same time, would be able to benefit from privately funded research and other activities.

Finally, again this year, the committee included legislative language and additional funding for the New Attack Submarine program which is designed to ensure that the first two, and perhaps four, of these submarines are allocated equally between the two competing shipyards. The legislative language is essentially the same as that adopted last year, which earmarks at least one submarine each for Newport News and Electric Boat shipyards. The bill includes an additional $701 million for advance procurement for the second new attack submarine to ensure that Newport News receives its fair share of this program.

Mr. President, I did not support this approach last year because it defeats any pretense at competition between the yards, earmarks multi-billions of dollars for each of the yards, and is based on a faulty assumption that the Nation requires two shipyards to ensure its nuclear submarine industrial base. I still question why the Navy is retiring SSN-688 submarines early in order to accommodate the Seawolf and new attack submarines in a drastically reduced attack submarine fleet, and I do not understand why we are buying New Attack Submarines, which are less capable than Seawolf submarines, when they cost as much as Seawolf submarines--about $2.5 billion each. I think the committee should consider deferring this funding until it is necessary and allocate this $701 million to other Navy priorities.

Mr. President, these pork-barrel projects add up to more than $2 billion. I am astonished that, once again, after fighting hard to sustain a much-needed increase in the defense budget, the committee chose to spend these funds on pork.

Last year, we wasted $4 billion, or more than half of the total Defense budget increase, on pork-barrel projects. I suppose this year's bill shows progress of a sort--we are only wasting $2 billion.

But, Mr. President, I will say again that the American people will not stand for this type of wasteful spending of their tax dollars. If we in Congress refuse to halt the pork-barrelling, it will be more and more difficult to explain to the American people why we need to maintain adequate defense spending.

Mr. President, recent polls indicate that national defense will probably not be an issue in the Presidential campaign. Less than 5 percent of those polled indicated that defense is an issue of concern to them in considering their vote. Instead, Americans are concerned about balancing the budget, reducing taxes, and improving their quality of life, among other things.

So how do we explain to the citizens of this country why we need to spend $11 billion more for defense this year, when we waste $2 billion on pork? How do we explain why we need to maintain a strong military to ensure our Nation's future security? How do we credibly argue that this added $11 billion is necessary for national defense, when $2 billion is spent for projects that do little or nothing to contribute to our security?

Mr. President, we have made progress in reducing the amount of defense pork-barrelling. But we have a long way to go--$2 billion, to be precise. For the sake of ensuring public support for adequate defense spending in the future, we have to completely eliminate pork-barrel spending now.

Mr. President, let me conclude by saying, again, that I believe this is, overall, a very good defense bill, and I voted in favor of reporting the bill to the Senate. However, with the budget resolution conference completed, this bill will have to be reduced by about $1.7 billion to stay within the budget targets for defense. To meet this target, I urge my committee colleagues to look carefully at these pork-barrel add-ons. We must protect the high-priority military programs in this bill which contribute to the future readiness of our Armed Forces. We should cut out the pork first.

[Page: S7285]

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, the clarion call of this Congress, and the current administration, has been to balance the budget. To reduce the Federal deficit and balance the budget. I believe that, with the passage of this bill, the Senate takes a step away from that goal. The fiscal year 1997 Department of Defense authorization bill authorizes a total of approximately $265.7 billion for national defense programs, which is more than $11.2 billion more than the administration requested. I have to question the sincerity, and certainly the logic, of those who ardently advocate for a balanced budget while refusing to look realistically at defense spending.

When we speak of health care, education, and foreign aid, the self-professed fiscal conservatives rave about how the public must be prepared to sacrifice today to preserve the future. About how the Federal Government must cut costs and eliminate waste. And about how there is not one extra penny to spare for even the most essential domestic programs. Yet, when we even broach the subject of significantly reducing military spending, these same fiscal conservatives take to the floor and raise the specter of national security as justification for maintaining an unconscionable level of funding.

Congress and the administration must share the blame for the failure to significantly reduce defense spending. Over the next 6 years, both the administration's and the Congress' budget plans call for $1.6 trillion in military spending. This would mean that during the decade of the 1990's, the United States Government will have spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.7 trillion on its military. This, when we haven't even yet begun to pay off the tremendous debts incurred during the massive military build-up of the 1980's.

For fiscal year 1997, the Senate has added $11.2 billion dollars to the administration's request for the Department of Defense. Much has been made of the fact that each of the Joint Chiefs came to Capitol Hill earlier this year and presented a list of additional programs and projects they needed beyond the initial request. These soon became referred to as their wish lists. And, of course, Congress dutifully added the funds for those items.

President Eisenhower, one of America's most celebrated and dedicated military leaders, used to say that military strength is only the sharp edge of the sword. The strength of the blade, and therefore of the sword, is based on the economic might and political freedom of the American people. Today, the United States leads the world in military power, yet we lag behind other developed nations in literacy, per capita income, infant mortality, doctor-patient ratios, and other important indicators of a society's strength.

We must realize that our national security is not solely dependant on our military might. The prevailing consensus around here seems to be that if it doesn't fly, shoot, float or explode, then it isn't relevant to the security of our country. But unless we can enjoy a strong economy, adequate housing, good nutrition, educational opportunity, satisfying employment, and the liberties on which our Nation was founded, we are not truly secure, no matter how many arms and men we can muster against an enemy. This broader definition of `national security' must be kept in mind when considering the allocation of our financial resources in the federal budget. In my opinion, the Senate has failed in its responsibility to do so today by authorizing over $267 billion dollars for military spending at the expense of much needed domestic programs.

We must examine our military requirements carefully, so that we don't rob ourselves of the resources necessary to provide a high standard of living for every American. This bill fails in that regard, and therefore I cannot support it.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the DOD authorization bill for fiscal year 1997. This is a responsible bill that provides continued national security and properly funds modernization and operating accounts.

As the front page of any newspaper in this country today reminds us, we continue to live in a dangerous and uncertain world. Civil and international conflicts can begin by the assassination of a national leader, the blockade of shipping lanes, or ethnic strife. Our military response to these conflicts can vary from peacekeeping, humanitarian, and peace enforcement operations to full scale deployment. Because we continue to ask our military to participate in more and more operations other than war, we not only must plan and prepare to send our troops to an international border to protect our allies or our citizens living overseas, but to protect foreign civilians in peacekeeping and humanitarian operations.

While the fiscal year 1997 DOD authorization bill is nearly $12 billion higher than the President's budget request, it keeps total defense spending $5.6 billion below last year's inflation adjusted level. Although some of my colleagues may think this a negligible reduction, this is the 12th year in a row where the U.S. defense budget is less than it was the year before; $7.6 billion of these additional funds were allocated to modernization of our weapons systems to that the men and women of our Armed Forces have access to the best technology and safest equipment possible.

At a time when we are asking our soldiers to do more and more with less, we must strive to provide them with reliable systems that are capable of carrying out a variety of missions.

Concern over the funding levels for the new military equipment was noted by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Shalikavili, is especially worrisome in the area of procurement and research and development. During their testimony before the Senate Armed Service Committee, General Shalikavili and the service chiefs recommended that the procurement account be funded at $60 billion in fiscal year 1997.

This bill also increases funding in the service's day-to-day operating accounts. Reduced funding threatened to limit the ability of the services and Guard and Reserve forces to carry out the airlift, support, medical, and counterdrug tasks asked of them. For example, the committee increase funding for the Air National Guard by $76 million to ensure that it could carry out its aircraft and mission support operations. The committee also rightly increased the level of funding for the Defense Department's counterdrug activities. These missions, especially those carried out by the National Guard, have had a substantial impact on reducing the flow of drugs into this Nation. As a Senator from California, where illegal drugs are an epidemic, I am very pleased with this action.

This year's defense bill also recognizes the needs of our men and women in uniform. I believe the committee wisely included additional military construction projects, a 4-percent increase in the basic allowance for quarters, and a 3-percent pay raise to better our uniformed military's standard of living.

I do not, however, support all the extra funds that were added to this bill. I felt it important to support Senator Dorgan's amendment to cut $300 million from national missile defense funding. I believe that a national missile defense is a laudable goal, and I certainly want to see different Anti-Ballistic Missile [ABM ] Treaty compliant national missile defense systems studied. But, the cold war is over. There is no immediate or even midterm threat to U.S. security that suggests the need for an immediate development and deployment of a national missile defense system. Only Russia and China have nuclear armed ICBM's that can reach the United States--and China has no more than a dozen or so of these weapons. There is consensus within the national intelligence community that it is very unlikely that additional countries can or will build ICBM's within the next two decades. In addition, the Pentagon's Joint Requirements Oversight Council [JROC] believes that with current and projected ballistic missile threats, the funding level for developing a national missile defense system should be no more than $500 million per year.

Funding at this level will allow the United States to continue to field critical theater missile defenses and national missile defense systems to meet projected threats, save money, and achieve an affordable ballistic missile defense. Should threats to the United States materialize, it will give us sufficient lead time to respond to those threats, at that time and as necessary, with appropriately higher funding and a more aggressive national missile defense program.

I also supported the Wellstone amendment to transfer $1.3 billion--just 10 percent of the $13 billion increase in funding from the President's request--from DOD to higher education and employment and training programs. California is one of the most heavily impacted States by the cuts. This amendment would have provided the needed extra funding for education and job training programs.

Senator Wellstone's amendment would have transferred $806 million from DOD's coffers for Pell grants, Perkins loans, and direct student loans. Employment and training programs for dislocated workers, summer youth jobs, school-to-work, and one-stop job training centers would have received a total of $504 million. All of these programs are as important to California as adequate defense spending and I am sorry that the Wellstone amendment did not pass.

In conclusion, Mr. President, I would like to make special note of a major victory for the women who serve in our armed forces. I am speaking of the passage of the repeal of current law that prohibits abortion at an overseas U.S. military facility even if the woman paid for the procedure herself. Forcing a woman to fly to the United States to obtain an abortion creates a double standard that is not only unjust, but potentially dangerous to the health of our women in uniform and military spouses. I am very pleased to see this amendment pass.

[Page: S7286]