Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, today I introduce legislation to amend the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act. I am introducing this legislation as the chairman of the subcommittee with jurisdiction over FEMA, the Clean Air, Wetlands, Private Property, and Nuclear Safety Subcommittee. I am joined today by my ranking member, Senator Graham, who has worked closely with me in drafting this legislation. It is our intention to move swiftly through the committee process with the prospect of floor action this fall. This bill has two main titles. The first authorizes the Predisaster Hazard Mitigation Program. This program helps communities plan for disasters before they strike which will reduce the post hazard costs associated with disasters. The second title provides a number of streamlining and cost reduction measures which will help bring into line the funds Congress ends up appropriating through supplemental budgets every time we have a major disaster. I would like to spend a few minutes discussing two key provisions in the Predisaster Mitigation Program that I believe are very important. They relate to the Project Impact Program which was thoroughly discussed in our recent Subcommittee hearing. Project Impact is an innovative program where FEMA is working with local communities to help them prepare for disasters. It began last year with seven pilots and was expanded this year to include one Project Impact community in every State. Our Bill authorizes funding for the program for five years, with a sunset at the end of the five years. Based on the costs of the first 50 pilots, the funds authorized will pay for an additional 300 communities. I expect FEMA to work on how best to devolve this program to the local communities over the next five years. If this program is going to be successful then it must evolve into a State and locally run program. Some may question why a sunset for a program like this is necessary, so let me explain. In the legislation we require the GAO to conduct a study of the program and report back to the Congress in three years. We also ask FEMA to report back on the success of the program. It is my intent that these reports make specific recommendations for the next phase of Project Impact. The House legislation only authorizes Project Impact for three years, I felt it was necessary to authorize the program for five years which will give Congress plenty of time to authorize the next phase of Project Impact. This program cannot be another Federal bureaucratic program that continues to mushroom without clear direction and with escalating costs. At this point no one has enough experience to predict how this program should look in five years. As FEMA says, this is not just another big government program, and Congress should not treat it as one. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, this morning the Senate will be in a period of morning business until 10 o'clock. Following morning business, the Senate will proceed to a cloture vote on the substitute amendment to the product liability bill. Following that vote, a second vote will occur on adoption of the IRS conference report. Following those two back-to-back votes, it will be the leader's intention to begin the Agriculture Export Relief Act or sanctions legislation. Hopefully, that bill will be considered under a brief time agreement of 2 hours. Following that legislation, it is expected that the Senate will begin consideration of the higher education bill under the consent agreement of June 25, 1998. Therefore, several votes will occur during today's session of the Senate, with the first two votes occurring back to back at 10 a.m.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senators have until 10 a.m. in order to file second-degree amendments to the product liability substitute.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, how much time do I have?

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from North Dakota, and if there is a minute remaining, I will take the minute after the other side has concluded their remarks.

Mr. INHOFE. One minute.

Mr. INHOFE. The Senator from Indiana is going to speak in opposition to my amendment; if you recognize the Senator from Indiana first, so I can close debate.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, it is my understanding, for clarification, that we have 10 minutes equally divided, and I would like to be recognized to close debate on my amendment.

Mr. INHOFE. It is my understanding that I made the request that I be recognized to close debate on my amendment.

Mr. INHOFE. First of all, there is not a person in this Chamber who has a stronger record for supporting defense than I do--not one Senator on the Democrat side or the Republican side has a stronger record in support of defense. No. 2, those individuals who are speaking against it, I wish we had a chance last night, we had a little bit longer for debate. This has nothing to do with base closures, because I approve of the BRAC process. Last night, I went into detail as to why I think that is the right process to use. No. 3, the Senator from Arizona talked about ``measuring" with civilian employees. That is current law. We are not changing that. That is already in the law. That law, by the way, was put on the books by the current Secretary of Defense when he was then in the U.S. Senate. So, I only say that we have covered all these bases. It is something that is significant. Yes, we do have excess infrastructure, but when we heard Secretary Peters and General Ryan say they didn't care what Congress said, they are going to go ahead and close the bases without going to Congress, I decided we had to do something to stop that. That is all this does--it makes them come to us instead of doing it without our consent or knowledge or without the BRAC process. I yield the remaining time to the Senator from North Dakota.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I agree with the very letter of what the Senator from Michigan said. He is right. It does make it more difficult for the Secretary of Defense to close the realigned bases without coming to Congress or without going through the BRAC process. I have to say, respectfully, to my colleague from Virginia that the letter he read from was referring to a previous version--a much stronger bill. We have moderated this language quite a bit. I also say that is the same individual that put this into law 20 years ago himself. Third, this doesn't stop the 2001 BRAC process. It does not stop. We can still do it. It just says we don't need to decide in this bill whether or not we are going to have a 2001, and it could just as well be done next year. Lastly, the comment that was made that this would draw a veto, this is used every year. I have very serious doubts that the President of the United States, on the defense authorization bill, is going to veto it on the basis of an amendment that is supported by both the majority leader, Trent Lott, and the minority leader, Tom Daschle. I yield the remainder of my time.

Mr. INHOFE. I would say to the Chairman that I hope he would agree to consider taking some stern measures in the conference committee if this study--which is now over four months overdue--continues to be kept from the Congress. One option that could be in order would be to ``fence'' the funds for the Office of the Secretary of Defense until such time as the AEGIS study is provided to us in both a classified and unclassified form.

Mr. INHOFE. Has the Senator any indication about the cause of the further delay?

Mr. INHOFE. Would the Senator yield? I want to commend the Senator from Arizona for his leadership in identifying and encouraging this important program. I too have, as a member of the Armed Services Committee, looked at the issue of our vulnerability to missile attack and concluded--as has my friend from Arizona--that it is one of the most serious shortcomings we have in our entire military posture. I too have concluded that there is nothing we could do that would be faster or more effective than the AEGIS Option in terms of defending our people against the sorts of threats we now read about practically every day--from the thirteen ICBMs China has pointed at our cities, to the possibility of an accidental Russian missile launch, to the Indian, Pakistani, Iranian and North Korean missile programs, to Saddam Hussein's VX never gas-laden missiles and so on. Does the Senator know why the Pentagon has not provided the information we requested last year? Our bill specifically said February.

Mr. INHOFE. I ask what the remainder of my time is.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield, as the chairman of the Readiness Committee, we have approved this, and we appreciate very much the way that the Senator from North Carolina has been willing to go into the planning phase so that we will have a chance to go into this project in an orderly fashion. And the funding should not be a problem, because it will be used with existing funds from the National Guard. I appreciate the cooperation of the Senator from North Carolina.

Mr. INHOFE. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield to the Senator from North Carolina. Amendment No. 3014, As Modified (Purpose: To authorize, with an offset, $8,300,000 for the construction of the National Guard Military Educational Facility at Fort Bragg, North Carolina)

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first of all, let me clarify something. I do support the process. It happens that I was elected to the other body in 1986, and that is when Representative Dick Armey from the State of Texas came out with the whole idea that we have got to close down some of the infrastructure that is no longer needed. We understand that. But we can't do it because of the politics that are there. So he devised a system, and that system was devised to take the politics out of it, and it worked. If there were time, I would read the statement he made on the floor of the House of Representatives when he found out he had to do something that was bad for his State of Texas, and he was willing to do it to save the system, the integrity of the system that was designed to take politics out of it. Now, as the Senator from Washington said, politics were reinserted, and when that happened I think several of us felt we had to ensure that did not happen again. And so some of the people, wisely perhaps, said that, well, we can do that by waiting until after this President is no longer in office, 2001. My concern there is I don't know who is going to be the Republican nominee or who is going to be the Democratic nominee or who will ultimately be the next President of the United States. But if that President should be inclined to do so, it would be a tremendous temptation for him to use the same politics that President Clinton used, because if he doesn't do it, he is not using the full force of his office. That is a precedent that has been set. We are trying to stop that now. I would like to respond to the distinguished Senator from Michigan. He made the statement about money being saved. I have supported every effort to increase our defense spending. For 15 consecutive years now we have actually reduced defense spending when many people a lot smarter than I am agreed with the statement that I have made when I said that I feel the threat that is facing America is greater today than it was even during the cold war because of the nonpredictability, the unpredictability of the threat that is out there, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the fact there are missiles out there right now that can reach all the way to any city in the United States of America. And it has been recently disclosed by some newspapers that there are, in fact, some missiles, some CSS-4 missiles in China that are targeted at the United States. Now, I anticipate the President will come back and say, I accomplished the retargeting of these things. However, if you remember the Anthony Lake hearings, we documented the fact that retargeting can take place in as short as 3 minutes. So anyway, I would say this as far as money being saved by base closures. It is bleeding right now. We need to have as much money right now in order to try to help our defense system survive. Modernization, force strength, quality of life, all of these we are having very serious problems with. We have the lowest retention rate right now we have had in the history of some of the services, including the Air Force. It costs $6 million to put someone in the seat of an F-16 and yet we are losing the pilots. I heard an unofficial report today it is not a retention of 25 percent. It is now down below 20 percent. That is very serious. But let's look at where we can really fund the services. The first thing I would do, if I were responding to the Senator from Michigan, is get us out of Bosnia. Right now, that was supposed to cost us some $1.2 billion. Now it is over $9 billion direct, and I suggest about twice that much money in reality. I would also comment that as far as Senator Cohen's statement that this might draw a veto, I find it very difficult to believe that a bill that is supported by the number of Democrats that are supporting this bill, including the minority leader, Tom Daschle, is going to draw a veto. This is a threat that is always there. And I would also comment that Secretary Cohen, when he was Senator Cohen, would have been right up here with me supporting this amendment. And if anyone questions that, I can document that. Thirdly, when you talk about the courage to do a BRAC, yes, we need to do it. We have to first protect the integrity of the system. That is what the Senator from Washington is saying, and that is exactly what I want to do. I want to reduce more infrastructure. I made that statement. I have said that we need to do it professionally and it needs to be done out of politics. Lastly, when the Senator from Virginia talked about taking politics out of the process, I really think the distinguished Senator from Virginia gave a pretty good argument for my amendment. So I understand that tomorrow we are going to have--my time has expired, but we are going to have 10 minutes equally divided. Senator Dorgan and some other Senators who are not here tonight have asked to have that time, which I will yield to them tomorrow. I yield back the remainder of my time and yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Senator from Washington. I would like to inquire how much time I have remaining?

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first of all, I have so much respect for both the Senator from Arizona and the Senators from Michigan and Virginia. I have to say, I am sure the Senator from Arizona would agree that there is no stronger proponent for a strong national defense than I am. We work hard. One of the big problems I have is that we need to look at the overall picture. All this talk about base closings is important. I support base closures. I made it very clear that we have time on this. If we do not have base closures until the year 2001, there is no reason to be addressing base closures in this bill. Certainly--I also respond to the Senator from Arizona--what he referred to was a sense-of-the-Senate portion of this bill. It says, ``Notwithstanding any other provision of the law,'' no action would be taken, and no funds appropriated, and so forth, as you read. However, if we should authorize another BRAC process, that would have precedence over this and this would not be in effect. It is my understanding that the Senator from Washington has a request for a couple, 3 minutes and I would like to yield to him, and then I will respond to the rest of the comments that have been made. Mr. GORTON addressed the Chair.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I want to clarify the time of the minority leader.

Mr. INHOFE. That is correct.

Mr. INHOFE. I have been on the floor.