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NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT
FOR FISCAL YEAR 1997

(Senate - July 10, 1996)

[Page: S7514]

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the hour of 11:30 a.m. having arrived, the Senate will now resume consideration of S. 1745, which the clerk will report.

The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

A bill (S. 1745) to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 1997 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe personnel strengths for such fiscal year for the Armed Forces, and for other purposes.

The Senate resumed consideration of the bill.

Mr. THURMOND addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Frist). The Senator from South Carolina is recognized.

Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, the Senate has completed many long hours of debate on S. 1745, the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 1997.

I would like to thank the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Armed Services, my good friend Senator Nunn, for his insight, wisdom, and devotion to our Nation. He and I have always worked to provide our Armed Forces with the direction and resources they need to carry out their difficult responsibilities. Our future collective efforts will be diminished by his absence.

Senator Nunn was named chairman of the ad hoc Subcommittee on Manpower and Personnel in 1974 and he served in that capacity until 1981. In 1983, he became the ranking minority member and in 1987 he became the chairman of the committee. He served with distinction in that capacity for 8 years, and earned the respect of leaders around the globe for his wisdom, statesmanship, and insight. A hallmark of his tenure, and a basis for his effectiveness, was the trustworthy and bipartisan manner in which he conducted the committee's business. Our Nation owes Senator Nunn its deepest appreciation for his truly distinguished service.

I would also like to recognize the outstanding contributions of Senators Cohen and Exon, who are departing the Senate. They have worked and fought hard to preserve our national security, and provide for the well-being of our men and women in uniform.

Mr. President, I want to extend my deep appreciation also to the distinguished majority leader, Senator Lott, who has been most helpful in every way in bringing this bill to final passage. He is a fine and able leader of whom the Senate can be proud.

I also want to thank all the members from both sides of the committee, and particularly Senator Warner and Senator McCain, for their leadership and assistance on the floor.

In addition, I would like to commend the entire staff of the Committee on Armed Services for their dedication and support. I would like to recognize each of them individually for their effort on this bill. I will soon ask unanimous consent that a list of the committee staff be printed in the Record.

I also want to recognize and thank Greg Scott and Charlie Armstrong, the legislative counsels who crafted the language of this bill.

We have achieved a number of important successes in this bill, and I commend my colleagues for their good judgment. Among these successes are:

Increasing the budget request by $11.2 billion to revitalize the procurement, and research and development accounts, which form the core of future readiness;

Significantly improving quality of life programs for our troops and their families, including funds for housing, facilities, and real property maintenance;

Authorizing a 3-percent pay raise for military members and a 4-percent increase in the basic allowance for quarters, to arrest part of the decline in compensation;

Establishing a dental health care insurance program for military retirees and their families, to keep faith with those who have kept faith with our Nation;

Increasing the level of funding requested in the President's budget for Department of Defense counternarcotics activities, to combat the flow of illegal drugs;

Authorizing increases for the Space and Missile Tracking System, cruise missile defense programs, and ballistic missile defense advanced technologies;

Accelerating the Department of Energy's phased approach to tritium production, and upgrading tritium recycling facilities; and

Providing funding for essential equipment for the Active, Guard, and Reserve components.

These are important achievements that reflect significant bipartisan effort, both within the committee and on the Senate floor. I urge my colleagues to endorse this bill with a solid vote of approval, to support our men and women in uniform who go in harm's way every day to protect our Nation.

I ask unanimous consent that the list of staff I referred to earlier be printed in the Record.

There being no objection, the list was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

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Armed Services Committee Staff

MAJORITY

Les Brownlee, Staff Director. Charles S. Abell; Patricia L. Banks; John R. Barnes; Lucia M. Chavez; Christine K. Cimko; Kathie S. Connor; Donald A. Deline; Marie Fabrizio Dickinson; Shawn H. Edwards; Jonathan L. Etherton; Pamela L. Farrell; Cristina W. Fiori; Larry J. Hoag; Melinda M. Koutsoumpas; Lawrence J. Lanzillotta; George W. Lauffer; Paul M. Longsworth; Stephen L. Madey; John Reaves McLeod; John H. Miller; Ann Mary Mittermeyer; Bert K. Mizusawa; Lind B. Morris; Joseph G. Pallone; Cindy Pearson; Sharen E. Reaves; Steven C. Saulnier; Cord Sterling; Eric H. Thoemmes; Roslyne D. Turner; Mary Deas Boykin Wagner; Jennifer Lynn Wallace.

MINORITY

Arnold L. Punaro, Staff Director for the Minority. Christine E. Cowart; Richard D. DeBobes; Andrew S. Effron; Andrew B. Fulford; Daniel B. Ginsberg; Mickie Jan Gordon; Creighton Greene; Patrick T. Henry; William E. Hoehn, Jr.; Maurice Hutchinson; Jennifer Lambert; Michael J. McCord; Frank Norton, Jr.; Julie K. Rief; James R. Thompson III; DeNeige V. Watson.

Mr. NUNN addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I thank Chairman Thurmond very much for his gracious remarks concerning my participation in this bill and also my participation over the last 24 years in the Defense authorization process and matters affecting our national security.

I also say to my friend from South Carolina that I identify with and completely support his remarks about two outstanding members of our committee, Senator Exon on the Democratic side and Senator Cohen on the Republican side. These two individuals have made truly enormous contributions to our Nation's security.

I have worked with Senator Exon on many different matters over the years. He has been a stalwart on strategic matters, and really has made immense contributions to our overall security.

Senator Cohen and I have joined together time after time in working on matters of great importance, including the special operating forces where he truly has been an expert and a leader. Senator Cohen is an expert on Asia and also has all sorts of legislative interests beyond the Defense Committee. But he has made tremendous contributions to the men and women who serve our Nation and to the taxpayers of our Nation. These two individuals, Senator Cohen and Senator Exon, truly will be missed.

In the brief time allotted to us today, I will defer my detailed expression of appreciation to members of the committee and staff for their dedicated service in securing passage of this legislation until we act on the conference report.

But I would like to summarize my thoughts at this time.

First and foremost, I would like to thank our distinguished chairman, Senator Thurmond. Through his leadership, his strength, and his steadfast and dedicated commitment to the national defense, this bill is about to pass. It is my honor and privilege to work with him on all of the committee matters, and indeed have had the great pleasure of working with him over the years. I know that his service will continue with the strength and leadership that he has had in the past.

I am also grateful to all of the other committee members on both sides of the aisle who have dedicated themselves to this important bill. Our subcommittee staff have done yeomen service on this bill. They deserve much credit for the passage of the bill. We brought a sound, good defense bill to the floor.

There were a number of concerns that have now been ironed out. I think of such as demarcation, as in the ballistic missile and theater missile defense area, and also regarding the ABM Treaty; the multilateral provision that was in the bill. Both of those have been greatly improved on the floor. It is my strong impression that this bill will be acceptable to the administration.

We have a real challenge in the House-Senate conference because there are a number of provisions that clearly would not be acceptable to the administration. In the House bill, we have to prevail upon those issues if we are going to have a Defense bill signed into law this year.

The Senate also adopted a provision sponsored by Senator Lugar, Senator Domenici, and myself to bolster our defenses against weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, both at home and abroad. We need no reminder that we are in an era of terrorism now. We spent all day yesterday in the hearing regarding the tragedy that took place in Saudi Arabia. Of course, our heart goes out to all of the families and to the men and women involved in that who were serving our Nation.

The provision that passed the Senate in this bill improved existing programs, such as the Nunn-Lugar program designed to stop proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons at its source, primarily the former Soviet Union. But the primary new threat is on domestic preparedness against terrorist use of weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical, biological, and nuclear.

It is very, very clear by the hearings that we have had in the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, as well as other hearings, that we are not prepared as a nation to deal with chemical or biological attack. We have a long way to go in the overall area of getting our policemen, our firemen, and our health officials able to handle one of these threats, if it ever comes. But primarily our effort must continue to be to stop the sources of this proliferation at the very beginning before they leave the country where the weapons are, where the scientists are, and where the technology is; and also to make sure, if that does happen, that we stop those weapons at our own borders before we have to deal with the attacks. But we have to have a tiered defense against this growing threat.

I think we will have an even stronger bill in conference since the Senate has taken action on the floor. I urge my colleagues to support this important defense measure.

The cooperation and help exhibited by all Senators, floor staff, parliamentarians, clerks, the Reporters of Debates, attorneys, and the Legislative Counsel's Office is very much appreciated by this manager of the bill. I am sure the chairman feels likewise.

Finally, Mr. President, I have to express my appreciation to the superb committee staff on both sides of the aisle, and to our two staff directors, Les Brownlee with the majority and Arnold Punaro with the minority. They have done a magnificent job of managing and motivating in order to keep this bill on track and moving.

I particularly want to express my appreciation to Les Brownlee, who has just become the staff director, although he has been a stalwart both in his service to our Nation in the Army as well as his service on this committee. But he has truly done a tremendous job as staff director on this bill. We have enjoyed very much working with him in his new capacity, as we did in his former capacity.

I appreciate the hard work of both of the staffs. I will have more to say about them when we get the conference report back. They are not through working yet. So I do not want to overcongratulate them until we get through with the bill and we actually have it ready for conference.

I thank the chairman for his dedication.

I thank all of the members of our staff for their sacrifices which they have endured, and their families, in order to bring this bill to the floor.