Norm Dicks

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. As the gentleman well knows, any time you do a salvage sale, there is going to be some green sales at the periphery of the sale. But they will do that and try to minimize the taking.

Mr. DICKS. I yield to the gentlewoman from Oregon.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to this amendment. I am from Bremerton, WA. I was born about 250 yards from the current facility in the Puget Sound Naval Base Hospital. There are no recreational facilities within 1 hour's walk of the shipyard. We have 8,000 sailors in Bremerton, with the Nimitz coming back in a few months with another 3,500. It is so easy to get up here and to take on a project like this. I called the base commander and I asked him, I said, ``Admiral Designate Yount, is this project required?'' He said, ``It is absolutely required.'' He said, ``I don't have the facilities for these young men and women. We now have women on every one of these ships that is in Bremerton, seven ships, so we have to have new facilities for the women as well.'' ``And the pool here was built in 1922.'' I mean, it is absolute disaster. And this is one of those things where we have just got to try to do the right thing. We have got to, I think, support our committees. We have had people here from both the authorization and appropriations committee who looked at it. I called the Naval Audit Service who had just been out there 2 weeks ago and I asked them, ``You guys look at these things independently, right?'' And they said, ``Yes, for Secretary Perry, we look at them independently.'' And I said, ``Is this physical training facility needed?'' And they said, ``Congressman, it was an embarrassment to look at this facility. It is needed.'' And I said, ``Well, that is good enough for me.'' I have seen it. It is in my community. There are no facilities that have been mentioned that have any space available for additional people. I just hope we can support our committee leadership. This is why we have a committee system here. Both the authorizing and appropriations committee support it. Let us vote down this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I rise this morning to strongly object to this amendment which would eliminate funding for a critical fitness facility center at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. This is unfortunately a cynical attempt by some of my colleagues to kill what is a legitimate program in an effort to gain some cheap, short-lived notoriety for being alleged budget cutters. This is outright demagoguery and I believe it is time to set the record straight on this matter. Let me begin by clearing up a couple of assertions being thrown around by the authors of this amendment. First of all, the gentlemen offering this amendment have stated that the Navy has not identified this as a priority. Not true. The fitness facility is in fact budgeted and is included in the Navy's 5-year defense plan. Moreover, a recent study done by the Navy audit service which assesses the legitimacy of Navy MILCON projects has determined that this project is needed and that current facilities are woefully inadequate. Another internal Navy document says that if the fitness facility is not constructed ``* * * personnel will continue to be forced to use the extremely overcrowded facilities. Access to recreational activities will be greatly restricted producing a negative impact on the morale and physical conditioning of Navy personnel.'' The chairwoman of the MILCON subcommittee has advised that additional money spent on MILCON beyond what was requested by the President be used for projects [[Page H 6128]] that both improve the qualify of life for Armed Forces personnel and that are supported and required by the Services. This project meets those two criteria. So let me set the record straight in this regard by saying that the assertion that the Navy does not consider this project a priority, does not have it in their budget plan, or does not want it, is all patently false. The second assertion made by the authors of this amendment is that this facility is not really needed because the sailors can go to one of four private fitness facilities in the surrounding area. Here are the facts. There is not one fitness facility that is less than a 1 hour walk from the base. And of the fitness facilities in the area, only one--the Kitsap County Golf and Country Club--has no waiting list for those who wish to join. This may be fine for the officers stationed at the shipyard, but 85 percent of the young men and women stationed there are of enlisted rank. I would suggest to my colleagues that we cannot have it both ways. We cannot pay our enlisted men and women the paltry salaries that we do and at the same time expect them to finance a membership at the local country club. Mr. Chairman, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard was designed and constructed to be just that, a shipyard. What exists today however, is more on the order of a homeport, with seven ships berthed in what had initially been a busy overhaul and repair yard up until 1987. Before then, the number of military personnel residing at the shipyard numbered less than 1,000. Since the assignment of the Nimitz carrier in 1987, the number of military personnel in the shipyard has risen to between 7,000-8,000. This number will continue to rise as the Puget Sound area accepts more and more personnel as a result of BRAC realignment. Because of the intended mission of PSNS, there is simply not the kind of infrastructure on the base to accommodate anywhere near the number of personnel that exist there now. As such Mr. Chairman, I have done my best over the past couple of years to see to it that the sailors stationed there have access to adequate housing, medical, day care, and other quality of life facilities that Secretary Perry has deemed so critical to the readiness of our Armed Forces. Access to fitness facilities is clearly something the Defense Department considers to be a high priority in order to ensure a desirable quality of life for our young men and women serving in the Armed Forces. Moreover, in addition to quality of life considerations, fitness is now a mission requirement for all navy personnel with each sailor required to pass a physical fitness test twice annually. The current facility--built in 1942--does not even begin to meet the needs of the sailors in the shipyard. It is dilapidated and woefully inadequate in size to accommodate the 8,000 personnel stationed at PSNS. In fact, over 50 sailors are turned away from the facility each day because of space considerations. In my judgment, this is no way to treat our young men and women serving their country. As we continue to ask those serving in the Armed Forces to do more with less, we must provide them with access to facilities that provide the best possible quality of life. That is what the military constructions subcommittee has attempted to do and I commend the gentlewoman for her efforts. Don't listen to those who--for purely political purposes--would turn their backs on the quality of life of our soldiers and their families. Vote with the MILCON mark and vote against the Minge-Royce amendment.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. (Mr. DICKS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I want to compliment our new chairman of the Military Construction Subcommittee for the outstanding job that she has done in this new responsibility. She has been a long-time member of this subcommittee, and the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Hefner], the ranking Democrat. For many years, I served on the Military Construction Subcommittee and we had cut to a minimum, and I think cut too deeply, into the funding for military construction and for quality of life, and if we are talking about the readiness and the training of our people, you have got to have the physical facility on these defense bases. You have got to have housing. You have got to have the educational and training facilities. You have got to have physical training facilities. These things all are important to the sailors, to the Army, the Marine Corps people, and the bottom line here is you can make some very big mistakes by cutting back on these kinds of things, these quality-of-life items. What happens is the people then bolt, and they leave the services, and you have a major retention problem. I can remember Admiral Hayworth coming up in 1979 to the defense subcommittee, which I have been a member of for 17 years. He says, ``I am here to talk about what we have got to do to keep people in the services, and if we continue to let these facilities get worse and we do not deal with these problems in housing, physical training, all of these things that are important to the modern-era sailor and the modern-era person in the military, then they leave the services.'' So I urge today that we support this bill, that we oppose the amendments that are aimed at taking out housing and training facilities, foundry at Philadelphia, so essential to maintaining some ability in the Government sector to producing propellers that is crucial to doing that important kind of work. Let us support the committee and vote down these ill-considered amendments.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, first of all, everybody, I believe the Cominsky study was fatally flawed when it said we are going to have 14 days of warning. We did not have 14 days at Pearl Harbor. We did not have 14 days in Korea. We did not have 14 days in Desert Storm and Desert Shield. What we are talking about tonight is real value. The stealth bomber, with smart conventional weapons, can be enormously effective. Look at this comparison. On that side of the chart we have bombers with unguided munitions versus what we can do with the B-2. And this package over here, 76 air crew at risk, 37 aircraft, could not get the job done, because they were nonstealthy. The F-117's in the gulf war could go into the targets, knock out the most heavily defended targets, and our kids came back alive. When we are talking about stealth technology, it means with a bomber like the B-2 you can go a third of the way around the world and attack Saddam's division coming in. The Rand study showed that with the B-2 and the centrifuged weapon, three B-2 companies could have knocked out 46 percent of Saddam's mechanized vehicles before they got into Kuwait. Now, that is enormous, revolutionary capability. The gentleman talks about stand-off weapons, but he does not tell you that those stand-off weapons cost $1.2 million apiece. The weapons on the B-2 JDAM cost $25,000. A precision guided munition, 40 times as expensive. That is why it makes sense to buy the B-2, and now is the time to buy it. The line is open. If we shut the line down and come back to it, it is going to cost $10 billion just to reopen the line. That does not make any sense. Then you have got the cost of these expensive stand-off weapons. You have got to think about it, who are we sending out there? We are sending our own kids. Wouldn't you rather have the kids in a B-2 or in the F-117 or a stealth aircraft, rather than having them go in with a B-1 or B-52 that is going to get shot down? They are nonstealthy. They cannot penetrate. And that is why it is an ineffective bomber force. Eight secretaries of defense, including Dick Cheney, who made the decision to take it to 20, wrote President Clinton not to shut down this line. This is the most important defense vote we are going to make. If you want to reorganize priorities in the defense budget, let us do it. Let us get rid of some of these things over here that cannot get the job done, and buy the new weapon with the new technology that can get it done. That is what we are talking about here. We are talking about advanced technology that will save American lives, and actually will save dollars too. Because if we do not do it, we are going to pay a terrible price in life and in loss of bombers because they are not stealthy.

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

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the former chairman, the distinguished ranking member, yielding time to me. I want to say to my good friend from California, I have always supported programs in this House of Representatives based on the merits of the arguments and for no other reason, and I think we run a great risk when we start looking at motives or trying to suggest motives. I support this program, and I want to make it clear why I support it. I believe the B-2 bomber with conventional submunitions offers a potential to stop enemy divisions from being able to go into Kuwait or South Korea. The Rand study shows that the B-2 with the sensor fused weapon, about 1,200 bomblets per airplane, three of them, could have stopped Saddam's division before it got into Kuwait. This is a revolutionary conventional war-fighting capability. I believe that if we had enough B-2's, and every study that has been done, reputable study, says we need between 40 and 60 of these planes. I asked Colin Powell at the White House just a few weeks ago, ``What did you recommend to Dick Cheney?'' He said, ``I recommended 50 B- 2's.'' I would point out that Dick Cheney now regrets his decision. He is one of eight Secretaries of Defense who has written President Clinton and said do not stop the industrial base, keep those planes coming, we need more B-2's. Why do I feel so strongly about this? Because stealth technology proved itself in the gulf war. The F-117's were able to go in, take out the most heavily defended targets. They can knock out the surface-to- air missiles, and it allowed us to win the air war quickly, saving American lives, saving American treasure. I can see a day in the future, if we had the 40 to 60 B-2's that I would like to see, if we could put 15 to 20 at Diego Garcia, 15 to 20 at Guam, 15 to 20 at Whiteman Air Force Base, where we could have a conventional deterrent. If that in fact was a reality and we did not have to fight the war in the gulf, then we would not have had to spend the $10 billion to move our forces to the gulf and the $60 billion to fight the war. That is why I think this is important. There are so many things we are paying for in the defense budget that do not have the value of the stealth bomber. This is an incredible revolutionary capability. I am not talking about the Soviet Union, by the way. I am talking about Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Having the potential to stop those divisions before they move into the country is something that I think is of high military value. And I would say to all of the Americans who are watching Captain O'Grady, Captain O'Grady did not have to be shot down. If he was in a stealth aircraft, an F-117, he would not have been shot down. When he was shot down, then we had to sent these kids in to rescue him, putting them in harm's way. The value of stealth is that it allows you to go into the most heavily defended areas, get the job done, and save Americans lives. This is worth thinking about and fighting for.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in very strong support of the funding provided in the House Committee on Armed Services bill for long-lead funding for three additional B-2 bombers. I served on the Defense Subcommittee for 17 years and remember well when President Carter and Secretary Brown made the decision to go ahead with the stealth bomber. I am convinced that in the Gulf War one of the reasons that we were able to win the war quickly and convincingly is the effective work of the F-117, the stealth attack aircraft. It was able to go into the most heavily defended areas and with 2,000 pound precision-guided munitions take out enemy surface-to-air missiles. That is an amazing capability. The B-2 has 8 times the carrying capacity of the F-117. It can go 6 times as far. I am convinced that in the future it presents us with the potential of a conventional deterrent. If we load it up with smart conventional weapons, we can stop an enemy division from invading in the future into Kuwait. So, Mr. Speaker, I hope we will support the committee and oppose the Kasich amendment.

Mr. DICKS

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

Mr. DICKS. I rise in support of this substitute amendment. This case occurred in--Tacoma case is in my district and it affected a dam up on the Olympic Peninsula in the State of Washington, and I have thought about this at some great length, and in my judgment we have to have some way to resolve this. I say to my colleagues, You can't have the States being able to completely block. I mean that the FERC should consider the States' objections, they should give them very thorough consideration and that there should be--as I understand the bill, there is basically you're saying that, unless the FERC can show that it's inconsistent with the Federal Power Act, basically it has to go along with the State objection. It seems to me that is fine, but to have this--to have these two processes where both of them are kind of State FERC's and a national FERC I think is a big mistake, and I think this is a good compromise. I think it's well-thought-out and very balanced, and I would hope that it would be adopted.

Mr. DICKS. I would point out this does mean this is kind of a strong Federal system, but I think in this case it is warranted.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing the Landfill Technical Improvement Act of 1995. This is the same legislation that my former colleague Al Swift and I introduced late in the last session of Congress. I am introducing the legislation again this year because the ill- advised and outmoded regulation which prompted this bill still exists at the expense of small domestic companies who seek to compete in the growing national and international environmental technology markets. Of course, Congress did not intend this result when we passed the Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments in 1984--over one decade ago. This act required the Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] to issue regulations restricting the disposal of organic sorbents in hazardous waste landfills. Since that time, natural absorbents made from reclaimed/recycled materials have been developed which actually outperform traditional sorbents produced from fossil fuels and chemicals. As well, normal landfill conditions are anaerobic, and studies show that no biodegradation occurs in this anaerobic environment of RCRA landfills. A small company in my State is among those companies who produce this type of material. They take a local paper mill's sludge, garbage, and produce useful, organic sorbents. This disposition issue, however, continues to threaten the existence of these American companies and the new technologies they have developed. As it now stands, this regulation effectively shuts out these new technologies from landfill disposition. The administration has repeatedly stated its support for American manufacturers of new environmental technologies as they attempt to compete in the world marketplace. This regulation, however, is highly detrimental to these stated goals. This bill would reverse this injustice by allowing this new technology to be utilized to its fullest extent, thus providing American jobs while advancing our national environmental goals.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that we have 3 additional minutes to make the time.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I want to stand and strongly support this legislation. In the Pacific Northwest, we have seen harvest levels reduced by almost 95 to 100 percent over the last 4 years. We have been under a court injunction. At the same time, we have had blowdown, we have had burned timber, bug-infested timber that could be salvaged, and we could take that and sell it and bring money into the Treasury at a time when housing prices for lumber are sky high. It has added $5,000 to $7,000 per house because of the shortage of lumber. Mr. Chairman, I would urge my colleagues to stick with the committee. The committee almost unanimously approved this amendment, and we did it with environmental sensitivity. Every sale has to have an environmental assessment. Every sale has to have a biological opinion. If they violate that, you can still go to the Federal Court for an injunction. What we tried to do was expedite the process. Why? Because dead, diseased, dying, bug-infested logs only last for 2 or 3 years, and then they are gone. So if we went with the normal process, we would simply not get to it. What are we doing here? We are not raping anything or tearing anything apart. We have said we will not go into wilderness areas. What we are doing is doing this in a very responsible way, that will restore forest health. The ecologists have looked at this and said this is a good way to go. There are 18 to 21 billion board feet of it laying out there over the country. The administration wants to do 3 billion. We are saying go out there and try to do 3 additional billion, or one-third. So two-thirds of it is going to be left, dead, dying, diseased on the ground for the ecosystem, for the bugs, to help the spotted owl recover, and all those other good things. But this is good common sense. We need the lumber, we need the chips for our pulp and paper mills. This is an amendment that makes sense. We ought to bipartisanly back it and help out an industry that has been badly hurt over the last 4 years.

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

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, even if it is a salvage sale, we have got to do a complete EIS. That takes 3 years. It takes the Forest Service 3 years to prepare a single sale. This is an emergency. If we do not do it rapidly, the timber is going to rot and is not going to be useful. That is why we have to do an EA instead of an EIS.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, yesterday the House Committee on Appropriations took very dramatic action to deal with a very serious environmental problem in our country. Yesterday the House Committee on Appropriations directed the Forest Service to double their salvage program from approximately 1.5 billion board feet up to 3 billion board feet over the next 2 years. What that will do in essence will be to expand this program that is used to go out and take down dead, dying, diseased, bug-infested, and burnt trees that are going to rot and will be of no use to us over the next 2\1/2\ years. What we said is, this is an emergency. We need to go out and do a good out and gather in those burnt, bug-infested trees. And that we could, if we did this, probably bring in about a billion dollars over the next 2 years in additional revenues to the treasury. Also we would be protecting the forest health. It is clear in my mind and all the experts say this, if we do not get rid of these dead and dying trees, then we are going to be faced with the problem of increased forest fires. Last year we spent in fighting forest fires in the west $1 billion. So we passed this emergency program yesterday and in it we created expedited procedures. We said that for the next 2 years, every sale will have to have an environmental assessment. There will have to be a biological opinion done, in which you look at the effect on endangered species, and if an agency, the Forest Service or the BLM are arbitrary and capricious, you can go into Federal court and stop that sale, that there will also be a period of time for administrative review. So we have created expedited judicial procedures and expedited environmental review, because if we do not act, if we do not get those trees while we can, we are going to lose this potential revenue to the Federal taxpayers. Now, how much salvage is out there in the entire country? The Forest Service estimates that there is somewhere between 18- and 21-billion- board feet of this salvage that is out there. And today our lumber mills need saw logs. Our pulp and paper mills need chips. We have seen a dramatic reduction in harvesting of our Federal forest lands. And because of that, our mills are going out of business, particularly in the Pacific Northwest. So I hope that the American taxpayers and the American people will support the Committee on Appropriations, will support the Taylor-Dicks amendment, which will allow this to happen. I am glad that we had a bipartisan approach to this. The gentleman from North Carolina, Congressman Taylor, is a forester. He knows a lot about these matters. I have been working on these issues and trying to urge additional salvage for many, many years. I think this is a win-win. We can protect the forest health by getting rid of these dead and dying trees, because if we do not do it, if we leave it out there, then we will have increased forest fires next year and we will have to spend billions more fighting the fires out in the west. We also, by the way, the home builders of our country support this, because the cost of lumber in an ordinary $135,000 has gone up by $5,000 a house, because of the shortage of lumber. This will give additional lumber supply and hopefully will reduce those prices. So it has a positive effect on housing as well. I regret that we have to take this emergency step. I regret that we had to do this in the Committee on Appropriations. But I want you to know that the chairman of the Committee on Resources and the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, the two committees with authorizing jurisdiction, approved this measure, because they recognize the emergency. In my own State of Washington, we have seen a dramatic reduction in timber harvesting of our Federal lands over the last several years. Many of the people who I grew up with, went to school with, have lost their jobs, have gone into bankruptcy because they used to depend on logs off our Federal lands and they cannot get them any longer. And they come to me and say, ``Norm, can't we please have those dead and dying trees, the ones that are burnt, that are going to rot and we can't use them after two or three years? Can't we go out there and get them?'' So this amendment will allow that to happen, and I hope when it comes to the floor that we will have unanimous support, as we did in the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives.

Mr. DICKS

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

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I want to commend the gentleman from Florida. We have a crisis here. We have to replenish these accounts or we are not going to have money in the fourth quarter for the readiness of our troops. Anybody can vote whatever way they want on the Obey amendment, but we have to pass this supplemental. So we will have our vote on Obey. But I want to compliment the gentleman for being out in front trying to get this thing done, because if we do not get it done by the end of this, we are in serious trouble in terms of readiness of our troops. The Comptroller called me this morning and said, Norm, we have got to get this thing through the House. So let us vote on this after we vote on the Obey substitute.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I want to indicate my support for section 512 of the bill which will permit the continuation of intelligence- sharing with the United Nations. I think our history shows on certain occasions, the Cuban missile crisis for one, recently a situation in Iraq where sharing intelligence information, satellite imagery, has been vitally important to United States security interests. I want to compliment the gentleman from Texas. We were able to work out our bipartisan concerns and differences on this legislation. We are working to develop a compromise which I felt was in the best interest of the country. I only regret that this was not achievable in other aspects of the bill. I think we have worked out most of the concerns that the intelligence community has. We have worked out a sharing relationship which will be on a case-by-case basis with the United Nations, which gives us the option of saying we do not want to share in certain instances, which I think is important. There is one last concern that I have that I hope we can address in conference, and that is that part of the responsibility here is given only to the President, and it said he cannot delegate this. I understand the concerns of the majority, but I hope that we can work this out so that it will be more acceptable to the President and to the administration. And I hope we can look at that again in the conference committee. But, on section 512, I think we showed that we can have bipartisan support and cooperation. There are many other reasons I will not be able to support the bill, but one of them clearly is not section 512. I will include the remainder of my statement in the Record. The statement referred to follows: The imagery shared with the United Nations revealed to the world the threatening activities of the Soviet Union and forced the Kremlin to acknowledge its placement of offensive missiles in Cuba despite its previous denials. More recently, it was the United States' contribution of intelligence to the United Nations which proved crucial in assessing Baghdad's post war disarmament activities and to the U.N.'s decision to maintain sanctions against Iraq. The National Security Revitalization Act as introduced contained a provision which would have required the President and the United Nations Secretary General to enter into a written agreement prior to any U.S. intelligence being provided. The Intelligence Committee received testimony from witnesses representing the State Department, the CIA, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff who were adamant in their opposition to that provision, noting that it would remove the flexibility which currently permits U.S. intelligence to be provided on a case-by-case basis. Additionally, the Acting Director of Central Intelligence informed the committee by letter that the requirement for a written agreement meant that ``the proposed legislation will make it difficult, if not impossible, to provide meaningful intelligence support to those U.N. activities which are supportive of U.S. foreign policy goals.'' Based on the information it received, the Intelligence Committee rewrote the provision. In its current form, section 512 requires the President to ensure that the Director of Central Intelligence, in consultation with the Secretaries of State and Defense establishes guidelines governing the provision of intelligence to the United Nations which shall protect intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure. The Director of Central Intelligence has already established such guidelines and is under a statutory duty to protect all intelligence sources and methods from compromise. The Intelligence Committee is aware of no instance in which the current procedures governing the provision of intelligence to the U.N. has resulted in a compromise of any intelligence source or method. Nevertheless, the committee believes it is important that it be advised if a compromise of intelligence sources or methods should occur. To this end, section 512 requires the President to report to the congressional intelligence committees any unauthorized disclosure of intelligence information provided to the United Nations within 15 days after the disclosure becomes known to the President. Additionally, periodic reports describing the types of intelligence provided to the United Nations and the purposes for which such intelligence was provided are required. These periodic reports must be submitted to the designated committees at least on a semi-annual basis. While I support section 512, which is the product of a bipartisan effort of the Intelligence Committee, I want to note a separation of powers issue which the section raises, and which is of concern to the administration and several members of the committee. Section 512 establishes certain duties for the President which are made non- delegable. While I believe it is essential that the committee be assured that these duties are discharged in a manner which reflects their importance, I hope that we can agree on compromise language in conference which addresses the administration's constitutional concerns. Mr. Chairman, section 512 represents a substantial improvement over the manner in which this issue was treated in the original version of the National Security Revitalization Act. Although the bill as a whole is still objectionable to me, at least in the narrow area of intelligence support to the United Nations, this legislation, if it passes, will do no harm to a system which is currently working well in support of the national interests of the United States.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I want to compliment the gentleman. A ground-based system is treaty compliant. Anything that we do in space would abrogate the antiballistic missile agreement. This would then lead to a reconsideration by the Russians of the START I-START II agreements, which called for a two-thirds reduction in our offensive ballistic missiles on both sides. They are not going to go out and approve START II if we are rushing to deploy a space-based system. So I think we made a lot of progress with the Spratt amendment, and if we could get this amendment through, I think we would have done a good job for our country. I believe a space-based missile system is extremely expensive, is not treaty-compliant, it violates the ABM agreement on a prime facia basis, and it is not something we should do on this point.

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

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I think what we are missing here is, we are talking about what our priorities should be. And I think the Spratt amendment makes it very clear. Our priorities should be readiness and theater missile defense. I was out with the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Murtha, now ranking minority member, to the Gulf War twice. And it was very apparent to me that when we deploy our kids to the Gulf, maybe someday it will be the gentleman's children, we want to have for them theater missile defense to defend them against incoming SCUD missiles which would carry chemical, biological warfare weapons. That is a priority. Readiness is a priority. And we would argue that we are spending $400 million of the taxpayers' money to do research and development about a national ballistic missile defense system. That seems to me to be a rational program. We ought to stay with that program. The problem is, we have passed a balanced budget amendment. The comptroller of the department of defense tells us that under the most favorable scenario, defense will be cut by $110 billion over the next 7 years. Under the worse case, if there are no tax increases and if there are very cuts in entitlements, the cuts in defense will be up to $520 billion over the next 7 years. So what we are saying is, we have got to take care of business first. The most important thing we have learned over the years is to have our troops ready and prepared so that if they have to go into harm's way, they can do an effective job as they did in the Gulf. And second, if we are going to send them to the Gulf, then we have to protect them against the threats that they could face. And theater missile defense is crucial to that. I believe that out of the 400 million and what we are learning about theater missile defense, we someday will have the capability to give the country a treaty-compliant land-based system. The question is, should we rush out and say within 60 days we are going to have demand from the secretary of defense for a plan to deploy some system? And I am told if there were such a system to be deployed, it would have to be something that would not be treaty compliant. I think that is a mistake, because we are at the very point when we are asking the Russians to dismantle two-thirds of their land-based ICBM's. And believe me, that is the biggest threat that is out there. Let me remind all of my colleagues of something else that we forget, that even though we do not have a national ballistic missile defense system, we still possess tremendous offensive nuclear capabilities against these countries. So if somebody attacks us, they better think through whether they want to completely destroy their country because it would be my judgment that the President, the commander in chief, would retaliate using nuclear weapons against somebody who used that kind of a weapons system against us. What I am arguing is that this amendment today is a good one. It puts us in a position where we can go forward, do the development for a land-based missile defensive system. And it is treaty-compliant. It makes sense. To rush out and try to do some space-based thing today would get us in trouble with Russia, undermine our arms control agreements, cost of a lot more, return us to a cold war fronting with the Russians. It does not make any sense. I think the Edwards amendment should be adopted.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, it is the Congress that ultimately has the responsibility for the common defense. So I think the gentleman has a good amendment. The buck should stop here on this issue. It will get rid of any kind of special interest problems but protect Congress' prerogatives to maintain the common defense, and I want to commend the gentleman who has been one of the most thoughtful experts on defense policy in the House.