Duncan Hunter

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Forbes).

Mr. HUNTER. When they moved across the line from Kuwait.

Mr. HUNTER. Every frontline troop had it when they moved across the line.

Mr. HUNTER. Every one. When they moved across the line, every frontline troop had it. Then what we did was we gave body armor over the last several months not only to the troops that were the frontline troops but every single troop.

Mr. HUNTER. Every frontline troop. That meant every troop that was in the front line had both types of body armor; that is, the old type of body armor and the new.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. This is great legislation.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman, the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo), for his great work in putting together this bill, particularly for a guy who represents the district where the Barona tribe have had major problems with water. They have had substantial water problems for the last several years. The tribe and the residents of the Old Barona Road have been working together to try to bring this pipeline up from the San Vincente reservoir, up over the saddle that separates the Barona Valley from the reservoir, and provide water in that area. It is expected that the rural residents of the Old Barona Road and the tribe will work together to make sure that there is a connection there off that main pipeline so that everyone can partake of this secure water supply that is not dependent on the well water level in that particular valley. I thank the chairman, and ask him if that is his intent with this legislation.

Mr. HUNTER. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks.) (Mr. DICKS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HUNTER. The gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt) is correct. The conferees in their joint report language agree that this section would ``authorize the Secretary to enter into a multi-year procurement program, using incremental funding.'' This language indicates that the multi-year procurement program authorized by section 135 would allow the Air Force to make payments as agreed to in the contract and that the Air Force would not be required to have the full budget authority required to purchase an aircraft in order to place an order for that aircraft under the contract.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, and we are going to describe during the general debate the great industrial base provisions, like the machine tool provision that we came out of this conference with, some excellent stuff. But with respect to titanium, we know that we have three major makers of titanium left in this country. Otherwise, you have to rely on foreign sources. I want to thank the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hayes) personally for putting together the working group between industry and the Air Force and Members who are interested, and putting together what we call the basket approach to titanium. The basket approach says basically this: If you are going to take a domestic system, like the planes that are candidates for this tanker operation, and you convert them into a military system, right now the Berry Amendment says you have to use American-made titanium on American military systems. We have agreed that since some of these civilian aircraft will have some foreign-made titanium, we got with the industry leaders and they agreed that they would take and require the same amount of American titanium, with in fact a 10 percent increase, and spread that across the rest of their lines to make up for the foreign titanium that was in those civilian aircraft. I have talked with industry leaders. They feel a strong commitment to that policy. I want to thank the gentleman for putting that in place. I think it is going to accrue to the benefit of not only our tanker program, but also the health of the titanium industry.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 437, I call up the conference report on the bill (H.R. 1588), to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2004 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.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. McHugh), who has a high responsibility of overseeing the total force of the military, our Reserves, our Active, our Guard, with respect to all the personnel issues, pay, personnel issues, family benefits, the chairman of the Subcommittee on Total Force. (Mr. McHUGH asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, first, I want to thank all of my colleagues who participated in putting this bill together from the earliest hearing that we had early in the year on the threat that America faces, on the status of our Armed Forces, and on what we need to do to give the President and our troops the tools to get the job done. My partner, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), is every bit a 50-50 partner in this operation, Mr. Speaker. When we really get down to what it takes to protect our freedom, there are no Republicans or Democrats, and we have a very bipartisan committee, and I am proud of that. I want to thank the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) as not just a friend, but a real full partner in helping to shape America's defenses, along with all of the members on the Democrat side on the Committee on Armed Services and, of course, our great, great folks on the Republican side, along with the subcommittee chairmen and ranking members who have done such a great job. Now, Mr. Speaker, we face a new era. This is an era of what I would call terrorists with high technology; and probably Jim Woolsey said it best when he said we have killed the big dragon, that is, we have disassembled the Soviet Union, but there are lots of poisonous snakes out there, and we are seeing those poisonous snakes and the effect of their bites every day around the world, not just in the theatres in Afghanistan and Iraq, but elsewhere. And I think probably the American people since 9-11 still have an acute understanding of the venom and the poison that is manifest in that capability of our adversaries in this new era of terrorists with high technology. Our job is to meet that threat, and our job is further, in meeting that threat, to shape the U.S. military and our defense apparatus to meet the threat, to defeat it, and to equip it; to give it the tools that it needs to do its job most effectively, and this bill does that, Mr. Speaker. I wanted to talk about a number of issues with respect to this bill. This is a sweeping bill; and it does a number of reforms, a number of changes, a number of things that I think are important to change our military as we move into this new era. Let me talk about, first just talk about the last subject that came up during the rule, and that is the tankers. Because, yes, the tanker agreement is in this bill. Let me tell my colleagues a little bit about that. First, anyone who does a security analysis or a briefing on potential threats around this world and present threats understands that tankers are extremely important. I just might add that I undertook a series of classified and unclassified briefings, as have most members of the Committee on Armed Services over the last many years, and paramount to our ability to project power is American air power. Whether we are talking about B-2 bombers that can fly literally from Whiteman Air Base to strike a target in Kosovo with precision munitions, or talking about tactical aircraft flying off a carrier and hitting targets in Afghanistan or Iraq, we need tankers. Tankers, that big gas station in the sky that the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt) talked about, are necessary to project American air power. If we have American air power and, specifically, if we have stealth, and we couple that stealth with precision munitions, that is, instead of carpet- bombing a bridge, we send in that one precision munition, it hits one strut on that bridge and brings the whole bridge down, if we have that combination and we have the legs to get it there over the target in whatever remote part of the world we are operating in, we can project American power, we can protect our military forces, and we can drive them in a blitzkrieg attack against the enemy target, whether it is enemy forces surrounding Baghdad or some other area of the world; and Americans now understand that. So we have to have tankers. If we do scenarios around the world, every single scenario requires lots of American tankers and, I might say, Mr. Speaker, more than we have now, newer than we have now, more capable than we have now. That is the reason we are putting the tanker deal together, and that is the reason that this is being carried in this bill. Now, let me tell my colleagues, with respect to personnel, we have had some arm wrestling over this. But I think that the guy with whom we are trusting millions of young American lives, the Secretary of Defense, can be trusted with reshaping our personnel system in civil service in the Department of Defense to be more effective, and I think be more rewarding for those workers. I think they like the idea that we are going to be able to hire people right out of that job fair instead of telling them, in 3 months, maybe the Federal Government can hire you, while IBM and the private concerns are picking them up immediately. I like the idea that they are going to be able to be qualified for a job within a few days instead of after 3 or 4 months of bureaucracy, and that will allow them to take jobs that military people are doing now. When we have tested these things in places like China Lake, a majority of the workers, the workers have voted that they like this new system, this new flexible personnel system. This is an important new part of shaping the military. So I think that is good. Freedom to train, Mr. Speaker, we have talked about that. We have to give our young people the freedom to train, and once we make that agreement that the bird hatchery is going to be over here and the rifle range is going to be over here, we cannot let groups then go sue to close down the rifle range on the basis that they want to get that one too. We have to allow a balance to be maintained. One Marine said it best. He said to our members of the Committee on Armed Services, he said, for years we have done work-arounds. He said, we cannot work around it anymore, there is no land left to work around. So we need to have this. This is very, very important legislation, freedom-to-train legislation, Mr. Speaker. Let me talk about the industrial base. We have got in this bill a great foundation for bringing back and maintaining the industrial base of this country, and the centerpiece of this is what I think is the centerpiece of American production, the machine tool industry of this country, which used to be second to none. We have a provision in this bill, it is not a mandatory provision, so it is not going to make anybody have to go in and take out billions of dollars of machine tools, but it says that if you are an American contractor bidding on a DOD job, if you use an American machine tool instead of a foreign machine tool, you are going to get points in the competition. And I think that is going to incentivize some of our companies, big and small, to say instead of looking at another foreign-made machine tool, let us call up that American company and see what they have. Maybe we can use that machine tool. And that is going to, I believe, Mr. Speaker, start to bring back this base of machine tools upon which a lot of our defense manufacturing capability was founded. We do a lot of other great things in our industrial-based provisions, Mr. Speaker; but that is the centerpiece, and I think it is a very important foundation. Now, we also reauthorize for 10 years the maritime security program. This is a program that brings in the strong right arm of America's maritime unions and makes sure that they are the ones that are moving men and materiel across the ocean into theaters of action instead of having to rely on rental operations where we are taking unions and working people from other countries and having to rely on foreign personnel to move the wherewithal for military victories around the world. That is what is going to bring our maritime unions, our ship- builders, and our maritime operators back into preeminence; and we have worked hard on that, Mr. Speaker, and that is a great aspect of this bill. Concurrent receipt is very important, Mr. Speaker. We started out last year by saying people who are actually hit in combat, people who have won the Purple Heart, are going to get now two checks. They get the full check for everything that they have been disabled, for all of their disability, and they get the full check for their retirement for everything that they have done to serve the U.S. military. We now also say, and incidentally, I see the gentleman from New York (Mr. McHugh) here, our chairman of the Subcommittee on Total Force, who very much has been a leader in putting this thing together. We also now are going to give full concurrent receipt, that is that full disability check, to all of those people who are wounded in the combat area or who are disabled or hurt in the combat area, who are hurt or disabled while training for combat. Maybe that guy who is jumping out at the 82nd Airborne, with the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg hurt his back, he is going to get it; and also people who are hit by instrumentalities of combat, like people who are hit by agent orange, Mr. Speaker. Then we go to the entire population of veterans who were not hurt in combat, were not hit by enemy bullets, were not hurt while training for combat but, nonetheless, have disabilities. And all of those people who are over 50 percent, Mr. Speaker, are going to receive both checks. Now, that is going to bring in about 250,000 people, new people into the system. It is a big, big victory for veterans. It is a wonderful thing. Mr. Speaker, let me just say, too, along with the gentleman from New York (Mr. McHugh), the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), obviously, the guy that I call the father of concurrent receipt, it has been a big part of his career. And the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt), lots of great people; I might say that Senator Warner also, working on Purple Heart Plus last year, had a good hand in starting to put this thing together, lots and lots of people. Lots of our veterans and veteran supporters in this House have been involved in putting this program together. This is a great program. Mr. Speaker, this is a great bill. It is a far-reaching bill. It gives the President and the troops the tools to get the job done. Let us pass this bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time. Let me congratulate my colleague, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), my good partner on the Committee on Armed Services, and all the Members, Republican and Democrat, who helped to put this bill together. I want to thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Myrick), the chairman on the committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), who gave us a lot of time and attention, and all the members of the Committee on Rules. Let me just say a word or two about what this bill does because this bill makes what I consider to be some sweeping reforms and it is a great bill. It covers a number of major areas, and along with what I call the ``people issues''; that is, the pay raise that has been mentioned, the additional monies for housing that brings down the amount that a service member has to pay out of their pocket, all of the things that go to quality of life for personnel. It also covers some major areas that have needed reform. One aspect of that is what I call freedom to train, and today if you go to a place like Camp Pendleton, I have used that as an example, it has some 17 miles of shoreline. Only a very small area can actually be utilized for Marines who basically practice Iwo Jima. They practice assaulting a defended beach area. They can only do that practice in a very, very limited area of about one kilometer because of environmental considerations. And if you go to bases around the country, rifle ranges, air space for our Air Force and our other services to undertake integrated training with multiple aircraft, all of that is being hindered and obstructed because of a collision with our environmental laws. Now, we have an answer to that, and the answer is a management plan called an inramp, and that is where the military gets together with State Fish and Wildlife and Federal Fish and Wildlife and they make an agreement. They make an agreement and they say, okay, the habitat for the gnatcatcher will be over here, we will set aside this 400 acres, and the Marines will have this area for rifle training or the Army will have this area for tank training or the Air Force will have this area for aircraft training. Once you make that agreement and you put it in place, it is not open for groups to come in and sue under the Endangered Species Act to close down that rifle range, to close down that tank range, to close down that air space that is so vital so that our people can survive in theaters like Iraq and Afghanistan. So this is offered under the proposition that the real endangered species here is a 19-year-old Marine rifleman who needs the very best training that he can get here at home before he projects American power overseas, and in this bill we put together this balance between conservation and military requirements. Also, with respect to allowing our submariners to utilize the best of their sonar devices that will keep them alive when they are in the littorals, in shallow water areas around the world, where they will be faced with very quiet diesel submarines which are now being proliferated in certain adversaries' navies. We say that, whereas before the standard was that if a mammal, maybe a sea lion, was potentially disturbed that military training could not take place in his neighborhood. Now we say he has to actually be significantly disturbed. He has to actually be disturbed or that disturbance has to be significant enough to alter the way he migrates or feeds or the way he goes about his daily life. So we are trying to give as much value to the sailors' survival as we have given to the sea lions' survival. I think that is a good balance. In this case we put the sailor ahead of the sea lion. I think the American people want that. With respect to personnel, right now we are facing a war that is a new war. It is a war in which we see terrorists with high technology. We have to be flexible. We have to move quickly, and that involves people who not just wear the uniform of the United States, it also involves people who wear the civil service uniform. So we are empowering Mr. Rumsfeld with the ability to reshape his civil service so that instead of taking 4 or 5 or 6 months to go through the bureaucracy to qualify a civil servant to work at a job so you get to the point where you just direct a sergeant to go do it and he salutes and goes and does it, we will now be able to quickly move civil servants into that job. We will be able to hire them quickly, and when people show an extraordinary ability to work and an enthusiasm and dedication that rises above the community, that they will be rewarded for that. And we have tested these ideas in pilot projects around the country, and the members who have participated in the pilot projects have voted that they like it. So we are undertaking important reforms in this bill. We are giving the military the tools they need to fight this new type of war. I would urge everyone to support the rule and support the bill.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is correct. Section 135 of the conference report does authorize a tanker acquisition program as did the Fiscal Year 2002 Defense Appropriations Act.

Mr. HUNTER. The gentleman is again correct. Section 131 codifies an agreement reached with the administration. The conferees relied upon a letter sent on November 5, 2003, to the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Armed Services in the other body by the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Mr. Wolfowitz, in coming to agreement on the tanker acquisition program authorized by section 135.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. HUNTER. The gentleman is correct. Section 135 authorizes the Air Force to enter into one contract for 100 aircraft, 20 by lease and 80 by purchase, or more than one contract for the same combination of aircraft.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton), who is chairman of the Subcommittee on Unconventional Warfare, Terrorism and Capabilities and oversees these very important special operations forces who are doing such a great job for our country. (Mr. SAXTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time, and I want to thank my colleagues for cosponsoring this resolution and for the initiative of the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Davis) on this resolution. And, Mr. Speaker, I thought I would lead off simply by reading the names of the people who lost their lives in this fire. Steven Rucker, Galen Blacklidge, Christy-Anne Seiler Davis, Edward Downs, Nancy Morphew, Mary Peace, Asleigh Roach, Stephen Shacklett, James Shohara, Solange Shohara, Randy Shohara, Robin Sloan, Jennifer Sloan, Ralph Westy, Charles Cunningham, James McDermith, Chad Williams, Gene Knowles. And there are some other names which have not yet been released, and we will recount them when they are released. Mr. Speaker, this was a time of enormous disaster and tragedy for our colleagues and for our neighbors and friends who lived in our communities who have lost so much, some who have lost their lives. It is also a time of great heroism. And I was reminded as the stories came in of the firefighters and the valiant stands that they were making as they were trying to keep these fires from advancing into our neighborhoods. I was reminded that all the heroism that is displayed by uniformed services in this country are not just being displayed on the battlefields of the Middle East, but rather in these battles that we undertake in the West, especially all over the country, but for some reason during this season in the West and those Santa Ana winds come up, those battles are to protect our communities against fire. And it was very moving to be out yesterday and the day before when we carried the body of Steve Rucker, who was the Novato firefighter who has been so eloquently described by my colleagues, when we carried his body to the C-130 to take him home. And I rode in the procession with Maureen McDonald, who is the wife of Doug McDonald, who was Steven's partner, who also was caught by this fire, and who was burned over 30 percent of his body and is currently doing well in San Diego in the hospital. And I was taken by the great bravery and the eloquence of this lady, this Maureen McDonald whose own husband was in very difficult condition, but who was focusing all of her attention on the Rucker family. When I asked her to talk a little bit about how she had gotten to know the Ruckers, she said something that will always stick with me: She said, ``I met them in the glow of the birth of their first child.'' So she had met them right after they had that first baby, and that was Kerstin, who now is some 7 years old, Wesley is now 2. But for me that personalized this fire. And this country enjoys not only great freedoms, but a wonderful, wonderful way of life. I mean, every part of this country has great charm, but for us in California, most of us can go to the ocean fairly easily, fairly quickly, one can go to the desert within a couple miles from almost any part of southern California, one can go to the mountains, those great, beautiful mountains. You can raise your family in these wonderful, wonderful surroundings. And yet we have some dangers and some tragedies that we are protected from by those people that wear the uniform of the various firefighting units and communities. And I noticed as Steve Rucker's body was being carried to the C-130 that that community is one community as they all lined up. It was indeed seamless. There were not individual areas or districts represented. They were all firefighters. They were all people who gave so much so that we might have this great wonderful life that we enjoy in California and other places. So, Mr. Speaker, I saw the coming together of the firefighters, all these units they came in to honor Steve Rucker. And also it was good to see the President come out with the outgoing Governor of California, Gray Davis, stand side by side with him and the incoming Governor, Mr. Schwarzenegger, and to see them all together after some heavy duty political arm wrestling to all unite in common cause. And the common cause was to thank the people that wear firefighting uniforms. I think that the language of the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Davis) in this resolution very eloquently expresses that, and, certainly, I want to thank her and everyone who participated in putting this resolution together.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize an important business in my district celebrating it's 50th anniversary. In 1953, Bert Gross, James Lowry and Daniel Brimm joined together to start Chemtronics, Inc., a local small-business specializing in technology that could remove metal in a very rapid and controlled manner. Chem- tronics, Inc. was incorporated in October 1953, with company offices and chemical etching facilities set up in rented World War II surplus barracks on Gillespie Field in El Cajon, California. Early sales efforts were focused on aircraft frames and skins but they soon realized that the chemical milling process could be applied advantageously to jet engine components as well. With this new opportunity, the company embarked on a campaign to earn a contract with General Electric Co., working on their TF-39 jet engine. From the middle 1960's into the early 1970's, Chem-tronics Inc., built around nine hundred of these parts. By the early 70's, tools and trained personnel were developed for repairing and accurately reforming titanium fan blades for jet engines utilizing a process patented by the company. This activity has expanded in scope and size over the years and is now a major element of the business with its own specialized management and marketing staff, known as Aviation Repair, also located in El Cajon, California. Chem-tronics, Inc., while still small, was becoming recognized as a high quality product-producing, vertically integrated, one-stop-shop facility. By 1975, Chem-tronics had products on space launch systems, most of the larger commercial airframes, and several of General Electric Co. and Pratt & Whitney Co.'s larger commercial jet engines. During this same period of time, Daniel Brimm, who had bought out his earlier partners, developed a unique integral stiffening feature with chemical milling that he patented called Unistructure. This was a critical turning point in the success of Chem-tronics, Inc. Since 1976, Unistructure stiffened light-weight products have been designed and built for virtually every new By-pass Outer Duct for every military jet engine built in the USA. Driven by a company commitment to provide each customer with a one-stop-shop, Chem-tronics began to supply complete product design services in 1978, which included computer aided design and computer, aided manufacturing. The trend of expanding Chem-tronics' technology has continued over the years with increasing levels of production, factory floor space, manpower and facilities. Major customers include General Electric Co., Pratt and Whitney Aircraft, Rolls-Royce-Allison, Allied Signal, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Boeing. Through these customers, Chem-tronics' products have become an important part of military and commercial aircraft, such as the B-1B and B2 Bombers, Joint Strike Fighter, F22 Raptor, as well as the space shuttle and various space launch systems. The current president, James Legler, joined the company in 1978. Through his leadership, Chem-tronics, Inc. has continued to grow as an aerospace industry leader in technology, quality products, and commitment to customer satisfaction. My fellow colleagues, Chem- tronics, Inc. represents the small-business spirit that made America great. Join me in congratulating this company for their success in creating jobs, providing critical services and products to our country's national security, and making the San Diego community proud for 50 years.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2755) to authorize the President to issue posthumously to the late William ``Billy'' Mitchell a commission as Major General, United States Army.