Samuel Nunn

Mr. NUNN

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum, and I ask unanimous consent that the time be equally divided.

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I believe the Senator from Michigan, Senator Levin, had been on the floor and would like to speak. But he is not here now.

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I yield 2 minutes to Senator Exon, and then 10 minutes to Senator Dorgan.

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, following Senator Coats' remarks, I will yield 10 minutes to the Senator from New Mexico, Senator Bingaman.

Mr. NUNN

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I believe Senator Conrad from North Dakota wanted to speak. We had set aside certain time for him. The debate was originally scheduled to conclude at 12:30. I wanted to serve notice that Senators on our side of the aisle or on this side of the question that would like to speak, they need to come over momentarily so that we can get back to the original time schedule, which is 12:30. I reserve the remainder of my time and yield the floor.

Mr. NUNN

Mr. NUNN. The Senator from Georgia is suggesting that there are a number of people in this body--and I am sure, whether it is 36, or 40, or 25, or 15--who want to make sure that we pass the chemical weapons treaty, or at least vote on it. It requires a two-thirds vote. If there is a one-third part against it, it will not pass anyway. And I say there are a number of people who would indeed tie those two together since both are deemed by a number of people with different reasons and different perspectives as important to national security.

Mr. NUNN. I hope the Senator from Arizona will not exclude the possibility of continuing to have a dialog in this area to see if we can reach something that can be signed by the President this year. That is my goal. I think that is possible. But it is not likely the way we are going at this point in time. I also add that, as the Senator may know, there has been an offer at least from some of us on this side. I will be careful how I word this. I am not sure who has signed off on it. That is at the leadership level now--an offer to have a vote on this bill so we do as the Senator indicated and come to some conclusion even if it goes to the White House and is later vetoed; but also to get a similar agreement on the chemical weapons treaty which has come out of the Foreign Relations Committee by a bipartisan vote. I think there are substantial numbers of Republican Senators who support that treaty. It is of enormous importance to a number of people in this body. I think myself it will enhance our ability to deal with the growing threat of chemical weapons. And there is certainly a willingness by many people on this side of the aisle--certainly I speak for myself--to make sure that we get a vote on both of these bills this year; that is, the missile defense and the chemical weapons treaties. I might add though that if there is no movement on the chemical weapons treaty and getting some time certain to deal with that, I think it is unlikely that there is going to be much movement by a number of our colleagues to have a vote on the National Missile Defense Act and substitutes thereto. I would like to get it up myself because I would like to debate the substitute as I have outlined here today. There may be another substitute that is pretty much identical to the administration's proposal. My substitute will differ in certain respects from the administration's preposition. So it is my hope that we can get both of these matters--both the National Missile Defense Act, as well as the chemical weapons treaty, up. I hope the Senator will work toward that end also.

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, last year the subject of national missile defense proved to be one of the most difficult issues we faced during the consideration of the defense authorization bill for fiscal year 1996. This year, we may face similar challenges as a result of provisions in S. 1635, the proposed Defend America Act, which was introduced by Senator Dole and others on March 21, 1996, as well as certain provisions in S. 1745, the Defense Authorization Act reported by the Armed Services Committee. In my judgment, it would be relatively easy to develop a consensus in the Congress as to what measures we should authorize in fiscal year 1997 to address the requirements of a sound national missile defense program. Difficulties arise, however, when we focus on decisions which do not need to be resolved at this time, but which assume a great symbolic importance to a number of Senators and a number of commentators. Today, I would like to review last year's actions on missile defense, discuss the proposals that have been introduced to date, and set forth at least my own views as to how the Nation should proceed in both the short term and long term on the subject of missile defenses. Last year's bill, as reported by the Armed Services Committee, proposed to legislate a requirement that the United States deploy by the year 1999 a prototype national missile defense system which, because of the compressed time, would have necessarily had a very limited capability. The bill further required the United States to deploy a multiple-site ABM system with an initial operational capability by the year 2003. The bill also proposed the system would be augmented to provide a layered defense against a larger and more sophisticated type attack. In addition, the proposed language would have established in permanent law a specific demarcation between what we call theater missile defense and strategic missile defense or national missile defense, as the term is used in this debate. It also prohibited negotiations, or other executive branch actions concerning clarification or interpretation of the ABM Treaty and the line between theater and strategic defenses. In my judgment, and that of many other Senators and of the administration, the language in last year's bill was unacceptable. The requirement for a multiple-site system was clearly inconsistent with the ABM Treaty which limits parties to a single site. The mandate for a layered system, which would require deployment of space-based systems, also was inconsistent with the treaty. The statutory demarcation between theater and national missile defense systems, and the prohibition on negotiations by the administration, also raised difficult constitutional questions about the authority of the Congress to impinge on the President's negotiating authority, as well as his role as Commander in Chief. When it became clear during the debate that there was insufficient support for the bill as passed by the committee to also pass the Senate, the majority leader, Senator Dole, and the minority leader, Senator Daschle, designated Senators Warner, Cohen, Levin, and myself-- two Democrats, two Republicans--to attempt to develop a bipartisan substitute, and that we did. The result was a bipartisan amendment which provided extensive guidance to ensure that the United States would develop a more focused Missile Defense Program than the administration's then-current National Missile Defense Program. Mr. President, if any of our colleagues would like to look at a sound proposal that was negotiated--every word of it was negotiated--they will do well to review that in reviewing this debate before we vote on these matters. The bipartisan amendment stated that it, ``is the policy of the United States to develop for deployment a multiple-site national missile defense system that: First, is affordable and operationally effective against limited, accidental, and unauthorized ballistic missile attacks on the territory of the United States, and second, can be augmented over time as the threat changes to provide a layered defense against limited, accidental, or unauthorized ballistic missile threats.'' The bipartisan amendment required the Secretary of Defense to: ``develop an affordable and operationally effective national missile defense system to counter a limited, accidental, or unauthorized ballistic missile attack, and which is capable of attaining initial operational capability [IOC] by the end of 2003.'' The bipartisan amendment also set forth the understanding of the Senate as to the demarcation between theater and ballistic missile defense systems, and established a prohibition against the use of funds: ``to implement an agreement with any of the independent states of the former Soviet Union entered into after January 1, 1995. that would establish a demarcation between theater missile defense systems and antiballistic missile systems for purposes of the ABM Treaty or that would restrict the performance, operation, or deployment of United States theater missile defense systems except: First, to the extent provided in an act enacted subsequent to this act; second, to implement that portion of any such agreement that implements the criteria in subsection (b)(1); or third, to implement any such agreement that is entered into pursuant to the treaty making power of the President under the Constitution.'' That amendment, developed by two Democrats and two Republicans, was approved overwhelmingly in the Senate by a vote of 85 to 13 and, interestingly enough, only one Republican voted against the amendment. Most of the votes against the amendment were on the Democratic side by people who felt the amendment went too far toward a national missile defense. Only one Republican, as I recall, voted against it. Despite this overwhelming approval, the bipartisan amendment was abandoned in conference, which was puzzling to me at the time and remains puzzling, to say the least, since it would clearly define our national missile defense goals and give renewed bipartisan emphasis to the importance of national missile defenses. The bipartisan amendment also had the added advantage that it would have been signed into law by President Clinton, not an insignificant step if your motive is to get something done. Instead, the majority conferees decided to mandate a specific requirement to deploy a national missile defense system by the year 2003. There is a difference here between ``develop for development'' and ``deploy.'' ``Develop for deployment,'' which was in the bipartisan agreement that passed the Senate, is a different term than ``deploy,'' because ``develop for deployment'' indicates a further decision has to be made after the development has taken place before you decide to deploy, whereas ``deploy,'' as used then and as used in the act before us--that will perhaps be before us that is now the subject of debate--``deploy'' means deploy. It means you are making a decision now to deploy a system that will be developed over a period of time and be, hopefully, ready in 2003. The Clinton administration expressed strong opposition to the conference report, particularly in terms of its impact on Russian consideration of the START II Treaty, which has not been ratified in Russia, which is designed to produce a second major reduction in United States and Russian nuclear weapons, including, I might state, Mr. President, getting rid of MIRV'd weapons which has been the goal, to get rid of multiple warhead missiles aimed at the United States which has been the goal of Democratic and Republican Presidents for many years. The administration also expressed concern that the language could lead the Russians to abandon other arms control agreements if they conclude that it is United States policy to take unilateral action to abandon the ABM Treaty. And reading the act as it was proposed last year, I find it inescapable that that is what the Russians would conclude. In a letter to Senator Daschle dated December 15, Secretary of Defense Bill Perry stated, and I quote from that letter: [B]y directing the NMD [National Missile Defense] be ``operationally effective'' in defending all 50 States (including Hawaii and Alaska), the bill would likely require a multiple-site NMD architecture that cannot be accommodated within the terms of the ABM Treaty as now written. By setting U.S. policy on a collision course with the ABM Treaty, the bill puts at risk continued implementation of the START I Treaty and ratification of the START II, two treaties which together will reduce the number of U.S. and Russian strategic warheads by two-thirds from Cold War levels, significantly lowering the threat to U.S. national security. Ending the quote from Secretary Perry. As a result of those concerns, and other considerations, the President vetoed the bill. That was the main defense authorization bill that was vetoed. When the conferees reconvened, the majority decided to drop all language dealing with missile defense. Again, from my perspective, a very curious position, because we had already shown overwhelming bipartisan support, including every Republican, but one, in the U.S. Senate for what I would call the Nunn-Levin-Cohen-Warner amendment which passed the Senate. So why we did not go back to that as a substitute after the vetoed bill is still puzzling to me. If the motive was to accelerate national missile defense, why would the majority not choose to insert the bipartisan amendment passed overwhelmingly in the Senate and agreed to by the President? I still have that question today. We could have passed that. We would be 1 year further along with a national consensus on where we go with national missile defense. But here we are, again, fighting over this issue. It seems to me some would rather fight over the issue than resolve it. Nevertheless, that is from my perspective. The Dole-Gingrich bill let me just address briefly. On March 21, 1996, Senator Dole introduced S. 1635, entitled Defend America Act of 1996, on behalf of himself and 19 other Senators. I might stipulate at the beginning that I agree in defending America and I think my record indicates that over the years. So the title of the bill is not my problem. Speaker Gingrich and others introduced an identical version in the House. The Dole-Gingrich bill would mandate deployment of a national missile defense system by 2003 and selection of a particular architecture for that system a few months from now. I believe the date is March of next year. It gives the President 1 year from its enactment in which to negotiate modifications to the ABM Treaty to permit the chosen architecture to be developed and deployed. So this is a very compressed timeframe, based on all technical assessments from the program managers, as to where we are now, particularly the items of selecting the architecture and in terms of negotiating an ABM Treaty amendment, which is not going to be a quick, easy matter, as everyone who has ever negotiated with the Russians knows. A critique of the Dole-Gingrich bill is set forth in a recent speech by Robert Bell, the Senior Director of Defense Policy and Arms Control on the National Security Council. Mr. Bell takes the Dole-Gingrich proposal to task on several particular points. First, he notes that the Dole-Gingrich bill requires a deployment decision today well before we have a system to deploy. Second, he suggests that the Dole-Gingrich bill appears to be a ``stalking-horse'' for the resurrection of the old SDI program intended to defend against much larger scale attacks than a limited national defense could cope with. Incidentally, the threat has changed immensely since those days because of START I and START II, at least the prospect of START II, in reducing the number of warheads, if these amendments go through, reducing them very substantially from what existed in the 1980's when President Reagan proposed the original so-called star wars program, which was an accelerated program of larger scope than we had in existence in terms of research and development. Third, Mr. Bell indicates that the Dole-Gingrich bill would constitute an ``anticipatory breach'' of the ABM Treaty. Finally, Mr. Bell suggests strong Russian opposition to the 1-year deadline in the Dole-Gingrich bill for negotiating changes in the ABM Treaty acceptable to the United States. Mr. President, I agree with many of Mr. Bell's criticisms of the Dole-Gingrich bill. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of that speech be printed in the Record following my remarks.

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office was asked to estimate the acquisition cost for the NMD system required by the Dole-Gingrich bill. On May 17, 1996, the Congressional Budget Office provided the Armed Services Committee with that cost estimate. CBO estimates that the total acquisition cost for the Dole-Gingrich bill through the year 2010 would range from $31 billion to as much as $60 billion. As the CBO report notes: The wide range in the estimate reflects uncertainty about two factors--the type and capability of a defensive system that would satisfy the terms of the bill, and the cost of each component of that system. Mr. President, CBO is right. There is a huge range because no one knows the system that we in this bill, if we pass this bill, would be by law saying had to be deployed. So if we pass this bill as is, we would be making a deployment decision on a system that is not developed, that will cost, according to CBO, anywhere from $30 to $60 billion. In a period of time where we are trying to get our budget under control, to pass into law something that mandates the deployment of a system that could range in cost from $30 to $60 billion is, to say the least, puzzling for a Senate that has talked about fiscal prudence. Just a little $30 billion swing there in terms of what we are talking about. In its present form, Mr. President, I believe there is no question that the Dole-Gingrich bill, if and when passed by the Congress and sent to the President, will be vetoed just under the speed of light on both cost and arms control grounds. I emphasize, however--and I think certainly this is important, from my perspective--that I support a number of the concepts underlying the Dole-Gingrich bill, concepts that I believe are imperfectly presented in its text, in other words, flawed. Like the sponsors of that bill, I do not believe we can assume that no ballistic missile threat for the United States will emerge over the next 15 years. Like the sponsors, I believe there is some preemptive and deterrent value to deploying a national missile defense system to defend against limited--I emphasize ``limited''--missile attacks even before the threat, certainly the rogue nation threat, has fully emerged. To understand the unwarranted cost of delay in deploying a limited national missile defense system, I think we need only look at the difficult situation today in the theater missile defense area. Our theater missile defense systems arrived well after the short-range missile threat in the Middle East had emerged. When the Persian Gulf war began, Iraq had hundreds of short-range ballistic missiles at its disposal, while we had a very limited antimissile capability essentially grafted onto the Patriot air defense system. We were grateful for what we had. The results from Patriot defenses are still in some dispute--and certainly psychologically there was a big plus in having that system, and also militarily--but it is clear that the Patriot's performance did not resemble the ``astrodome'' defense that many missile defense enthusiasts envision. We are still playing catchup ball in the theater missile defense area, and we continue to do so today. Mr. President, there are three parts to the threat that encourage us, from my perspective, to move forward on a prudent basis on a national missile defense system. First, there is a potential at some future time for deliberate, long- range missile attacks from rogue nations. You can debate whether that is going to be in 5 years, 10 years, 2 years, 4 years. We all know that if certain powers in the world decided they wanted a rogue nation to have a missile and a nuclear warhead, it could happen overnight. I do not think that is likely because I do not think it is to Russia's benefit or China's benefit, or anyone else that is a nuclear power, to deliver a missile delivery system or a nuclear warhead to a rogue nation. The second threat is the threat of accidental launch from existing nuclear powers. That accidental is exactly what we are talking about here. We are not talking about deliberate in the second threat, but accidental. There is a threat of unauthorized launch from existing nuclear powers. Since the threat of accidental and unauthorized launches of long- range missiles from both China and Russia exist today, I have no qualms about advocating the development and deployment of an accelerated but sensible--and I underscore both words, ``accelerated but sensible''-- basis of a limited national defense capability. The cost of that deployment can be viewed as a very reasonable insurance premium, if it is a prudent program against the catastrophic damage, the unimaginable loss of life that would result from even a single accidental or unauthorized nuclear missile aimed at an American city. I must add, however, the caution that everyone contemplating an insurance policy has to weigh the cost of the insurance premium against the risk of loss. Then you have to decide whether the risk warrants the premium. That is the way you have to decide a number of things, both in everyday life as well as in the defense arena. Today, as the CBO report makes plain, the cost of the Dole-Gingrich bill's insurance premium for national missile defense is quite high. Therefore, these have to be weighed carefully, each, in my view, separately but also collectively. For all of these reasons, Mr. President, I have some sympathy for some of the underlying concepts of the Dole-Gingrich bill. Unfortunately, as drafted, the demerits of the Dole-Gingrich bill far outweigh its good features. Once again, as with last year's abortive national missile defense provisions, the Dole-Gingrich bill contains a series of egregious provisions that have nothing to do with getting on with the deployment of this national defense system to defend America from limited attacks and much to do with the implied hopes of a few in this body that the entire thrust of arms control and cooperation with the Russian federation can be reversed. I certainly do not attribute that to everyone who supports this bill. But I think there are some who believe we would be better off--and they believe this sincerely--if we tossed out START I, tossed out START II and simply went all out to provide defenses that would certainly have to be much more comprehensive, because the threat would grow greatly in comparison to what would happen if we do carry out these arms control agreements that are underway. Mr. President, I do not understand the logic that finds any advantage accrued to the United States from our acting to destroy the START II Treaty well before it enters into force and take down with it the ABM Treaty and probably the START I Treaty as well. I do not understand that logic. Before START, the former Soviet Union had over 13,000 strategic nuclear warheads aimed at us; once START II enters into force, that total will be reduced to only 3,000 to 3,500 warheads. Mr. President, as I have already mentioned, the threat that we are talking about has three prongs. One is, rogue nation. That is the debating point about where that will develop. The other two prongs are already here--accidental and unauthorized launch. Does it not stand to reason there is much less chance of having an accidental or unauthorized launch if the Russians have moved down from 13,000 warheads to 3,000 or to 3,500, even with a military that is demoralized to some extent? Managing 3,000 to 3,500 warheads, if START II goes into effect and is implemented, is certainly a much more manageable situation than managing 13,000 and greatly reduces the threat that this national missile defense is aimed to prevent. There is a direct connection between the START agreements being implemented and the reduction of threat that the National Missile Defense Act is aimed at. If we can get a major reduction in threat by carrying out arms control agreements, why would we want to disrupt that pattern? These agreements were negotiated and signed not by President Clinton or by President Carter but by President Reagan and by President Bush. Mr. President, does the Senate believe our defense budget will be smaller if START II fails? Does the Senate believe a U.S. national missile defense system sized to defend against START I force levels-- which will be the levels if we disrupt the reduction; that will be what we will be left with--do we believe missile defense systems sized to defend against the force levels will be paid for by the Congress and the American people? If so, it will be far bigger than any $30 to $60 billion. That is for a limited system. That is for a limited system. If we go back to START I levels or START II levels you can take that figure and you can put a multiple on it. Does the Senate think the way to deploy limited missile defense capability is to pass, on a party- line vote, a bill that is certain to be vetoed? Is that somebody's idea of how you sustain a long-term program that will cost $30 to $60 billion? In my opinion, that is not the way you proceed. Primarily, what we will do if we pass this bill and it is vetoed, we will be in a posture where a number of people can issue press releases, while yet another legislative year passes. How many ballistic missiles can press releases defend against? Not many. Even if all the egregious language were removed from the Dole- Gingrich bill, we would still be left with another fundamental problem. The Dole-Gingrich bill violates most precepts of sound acquisition policy. The Dole-Gingrich bill says we are going to decide today to deploy ``something'' that can perhaps shoot down enemy long-range ballistic missiles that might be launched at U.S. territory by the year 2003. The preferred NMD system is not even defined in the Dole-Gingrich bill. No prototype hardware exists. There is no test data to support a cost and effectiveness analysis. We have, at best, back-of-the-envelope cost and ``schedule'' estimates provided by NMD developers to the ballistic missile defense organization. These developers' cost estimates are much lower than those provided by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. I have seen a lot of weapons procured, and I have never seen a weapons developer overestimate the cost of the weapon. Just the reverse. I have seen almost every developer underestimate what it will cost. Of course that is their incentive. Let me ask my colleagues, would we rely on defense contractors to tell us the cost of a new aircraft program, a new submarine program, or a new armored vehicle program? Would we rely on contractors, unchecked, solely, to tell us how soon the system would be operational? Would we legislate procurement of aircraft, ships, or armored vehicles, without knowing the outcome of research, development, testing, and evaluation? Would we commit to deployment without independent review of the testing done by the developer? Of course not. Of course we use the information a developer gives us, but we do enough testing and evaluation so we get an independent analysis. That is the only sound, prudent way to buy any system, let alone a system that has this kind of revolutionary technology. Yet many of our colleagues appear ready to buy the Dole-Gingrich bill's proverbial pig in a poke, based on the back-of-the-envelope calculations, with no test data on any aspect of the system in hand today. Mr. President, it would be a sad day for this body if we abandon our commitment to fly before we buy. Why would the Senate abandon its requirement that it will commit major funding to deploy complex major weapon systems only after adequate test and evaluation has been conducted? I do not understand how anyone can argue that the deployment mandate in the Dole--Gingrich bill constitutes responsible oversight and stewardship of the taxpayer dollars. Mr. President, I also would like to address the administration's NMD Program which may be offered as a substitute to the Dole-Gingrich bill. Despite all the sound and fury that will accompany the debate over the Dole-Gingrich bill, the fact is that the end points of it and the administration's ``3-plus-3'' --3 years of development followed by 3 years of deployment--these programs are really quite similar. Both support extensive R&D on national missile defenses. Both provide the prospect of a deployed national missile defense system by the end of the year 2003. The main differences are that the administration plans to carry out the development and testing of the components of an NMD system for 3 more years while complying with the ABM Treaty and then consider whether or not to deploy that system, while the Dole-Gingrich bill commits us by law to a deployment decision on a noncompliant system today. By ``noncompliant'' I mean with existing treaty obligations of the countries. While I am in agreement with much of the administration's program, I find that there are several omissions that, were they included, would materially strengthen the proposal. My major concern with the administration's proposal is the absence of any real criteria for evaluating 3 years hence whether or not the time has come to end development and start deployment. Significant among the considerations of that point should be, it seems to me, whether the threat--and by this, I mean one-third of the threat, the rogue nation threat--has matured as rapidly as we expected it would. Certainly we will know more as the years unfold. We recognize additional time spent in development usually leads to improved system performance, but it can also lead in many cases to much cheaper ways of achieving the desired objectives. For example, the administration's program also does not portray how much more effective or how much cheaper an NMD system might be if we were to defer deployment for an additional finite period, say 3 more years, if they were to conclude that the severity of the threat--in my view, the rogue nation threat, although the administration, which is where I differ significantly, they define the threat as only the rogue nation threat; I define that as one of the threats, the other two being accidental and unauthorized, and that threat is already here--if they were to conclude the severity of the rogue nation threat does not require an immediate deployment. Mr. President, we have to consider all of these threats in assessing whether the risk is worth the premium or whether there are other ways we could spend the premium money to enhance our security more than will enhance it with this type system. That is the balance that is missing in this bill. Mr. President, earlier I used the analogy of buying insurance in discussing the threat to the United States from attack by nuclear weapons delivered by long-range missiles. I noted that one must consider the cost of the insurance premium and the risk of loss. Many view the creation of nuclear weapons a half-century ago as the event that cracked open Pandora's box, allowing evils to escape, namely nuclear weapons. Increasingly, however, we are recognizing that the end of the cold war has ripped the lid off the box. We have seen an attempt to use chemical weapons during the World Trade Center bombing, we have seen actual use of sarin gas in the Tokyo subway. In our subcommittee, Senator Roth and I had a substantial number of hearings on that subject. We have seen the ugly face of domestic terrorism in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and the tragedy that ensued from that, the Chechen rebels in Russia conceal deadly radiological sources in a Moscow park, in effect, making a very clear and visible threat of using radiological weapons. That is, nuclear weapon materials being dispersed without an explosion. We have seen a sharply growing number of arrests of shady characters bringing fissionable materials out of Russia and other member States of the former Soviet Union. In summary, Mr. President, America's citizens today face an array of potential and actual threats from many kinds of weapons of mass destruction, not simply being delivered by ballistic missile. Some of these threats can emerge at home, others can come from abroad, by a variety of means and in many guises. This Nation, today, is singularly unprepared for any sort of terrorist threat employing chemical, biological or radiological weapons of mass destruction. We have all sorts of vulnerabilities that we are just beginning to pay some attention to. Mr. President, this raises, again, the question of what risks America can afford to pay to insure against, and how much America can afford to pay for insurance of all kinds. What are the priorities we should attach to improving our capabilities to defend against each of these threats, including but not limited to the threat of long-range missiles armed with nuclear weapons? Are we providing funding to deal with each of these different threats in accordance with our level of preparedness and the imminence of the threats, or are we overfunding some of the threats while starving and completely ignoring others? Does the Dole bill represent the equivalent of an expensive life insurance policy that only ensures against death from shark attacks and lightning strikes, but does not provide coverage against more fundamental problems, such as heart attack and cancer? Since we are spending so little and are so unprepared for terrorist attacks on our cities, using chemical, biological, or radiological weapons, should we not be checking out the costs of a more comprehensive and less expensive insurance policy than the Dole- Gingrich bill? In fact, Mr. President, Senator Lugar, Senator Domenici, and I have spent a great deal of time in recent months and years, and we plan to introduce an amendment on the fiscal year 1997 defense authorization bill when it is brought up on the floor later this month to address many of these areas of America's unpreparedness in a comprehensive way, dealing particularly with the domestic threat of chemical and biological weapons being used against our cities and against our citizens. Mr. President, also--and this is a separate matter that Senator Lugar and Senator Domenici are not involved in, and I want to make that clear--I intend to offer a substitute during this debate if the Dole- Gingrich bill is considered by the Senate. My substitute will include a number of modifications and omissions I have previously noted in this presentation today, including--and this is just the highlights or the fundamental parts of this substitute--No. 1, the specification of a treaty-compliant national missile defense system to be developed for deployment at Grand Forks, consistent with an additional operation capacity in 2003. Again, the words ``developed for deployment'' is different from deployment, and that is a fundamental difference. It means develop so we can be prepared, with logical reasoning, to decide whether and when to deploy--after we know whether it will work, after we know how much it is going to cost. By the way, that would be, as I said, a treaty-compliant system because, under the ABM Treaty, we are allowed to have a missile defense system at Grand Forks, and, of course, the Russians have had one around Moscow for some time. No. 2, a statement of the criteria to be considered in any future deployment decision, including the threat, the cost and effectiveness of the deployed system against that threat based on demonstrated test results, the cost differential and gain and effectiveness of the deployed system, if it were to continue to be developed an additional period of 1 to 3 years. In other words, can we make quantum leaps in effectiveness and in reducing costs if we take another year or two to develop it? That has to be measured against a threat at the appropriate time. We cannot make that judgment now. Also, the effect on deployment of reducing the threat against the United States through arms control measures: Should we not consider the effect on START I and START II? Should we think about that? And also including our relative preparedness for other contingencies involving the threat and use of weapons of mass destruction, including, as I mentioned, chemical and biological attacks against American cities. The third part of this substitute will be an inclusion of a provision establishing a procedure to permit a vote by both Houses of the 106th Congress on the deployment of the treaty-compliant national missile defense system described in my proposal, with that vote constructed as a privileged motion under expedited procedures. Mr. President, this would say that at a time certain we will vote, we will decide, but we will do it on a time scale where we have the information before we make the decision, not after we make the decision. No. 4, a provision urging that the President seek, cooperatively with Russia, to rescind the 1974 protocol to the ABM Treaty and make modest conforming changes to allow both sides 2 national defense sites and up to 200 interceptors. Mr. President, that was the original ABM Treaty, and the protocol cut 2 sites and 200 interceptors to 1 site and 100 interceptors. This would be saying to those who believe that the ABM Treaty and everything about it is sacred--and I do not--we will go back to the original ABM Treaty, which permitted 2 sites and 200 interceptors. This would greatly improve the effectiveness of the United States and Russia against limited attacks by long-range ballistic missiles, without threatening either side's deterrent capabilities or either side's perception of having deterrence to a first-strike by the other side. Mr. President, the fifth provision is a provision urging continued cooperation with Russia and other States on the full spectrum of threats involving weapons of mass destruction. Mr. President, we have just received word that the last nuclear warhead has been taken out of the Ukraine and moved to Russia. This is the best example of reducing the threat against the United States by means other than military hardware. We are using the so-called unn-Lugar money to reduce the threat. If anybody thinks it is easier to deal with four nuclear States, four different hands on the nuclear trigger, four different command and controls, four different sets of officers, all aiming missiles at the United States or at other allies in the world, then I think they need to rethink their position. What we have been able to do in the last 2 or 3 years, with stalwart work by Secretary Perry and others in the Department of Defense, we have been able to get three of the former parts of the Soviet Union that ended up with nuclear weapons--Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine-- to give up all their nuclear weapons. The Ukraine's last warhead has just moved out. I think that demonstrates the comprehensive kind of approach that we have to have in dealing with this problem. Finally, Mr. President, a sixth component, and a very important part of this overall substitute, would be calling for greater United States- Russian cooperation in such areas as sharing improved missile detection and warning data. If successful, this cooperation, particularly joined with the amendments to the ABM Treaty, which should be mutually agreed on--we always have the right to basically serve notice that we are getting out from under the treaties if Russia will not negotiate in good faith--but, if successful, the combination of having the ability to go back to the original ABM Treaty and have two sites, and also joint development programs for advanced theater missile defense systems, since we and Russia face similar theater missile defense threats--Russia probably greater than we face that kind of threat--that kind of combination could put us on the road to a different kind of relationship with Russia. Obviously, the extent of such cooperation may well be dependent upon the outcome of the Russian elections and the future direction of the Russian Government. At this point, that is unknown. Mr. President, in summary, I believe my amendment, when it is introduced, can provide the basis for a strong, bipartisan bill, allowing us to move forward with the national missile defense capability against limited attack. I have no doubt that some in this body will not support this approach because it does not have enough of a flavor of immediate deployment before we know cost affordability, technical systems, and how they work. So some people will not favor it because of that and also because it does not lead to necessarily abandoning the ABM Treaty. Others will dismiss, from the other point of view, all threats of missile attack on the United States, and they will oppose it because this substitute is too forward leaning. We could end up, on this substitute, with only one vote, and that might be mine. It may be one of those classic squeezes where everybody is opposed to it for different reasons. I hope that is not accurate. I hope that many in the coalition that supported last year's bipartisan amendment, by a vote of 85 to 13, will be able to support this amendment, which I think can provide us the right road to reduce the overall threat against the United States, to provide for an orderly and logical sequence of decisionmaking in the national missile defense area, and also provide for a method of retaining the constructive parts of the ABM Treaty, by having modest amendments to that treaty in a cooperative way, and also providing for increased cooperation between the United States and Russia, in recognizing that we both, to some extent, face the same kind of threat. It would behoove both of us to work together in protecting our people and our citizens. Mr. President, for a long time to come, the Russians, even if we get START I and START II, are still going to have enough capacity, in 30 minutes to an hour's time, to destroy most of the United States. I think in considering that equation--and that is even if we pass the Dole-Gingrich bill, and even if everything works out and it is affordable, even if it is technically feasible and even if we begin deploying it in 2003, we are going to have a period of many years while we remain vulnerable to an attack by the Russians against the United States. For that reason I think everybody better pay careful attention to the way we go about reducing this overall threat of rogue nations and accidental unauthorized launch. The way we go about it can produce a much safer America. But it can also, if we go about it in the wrong way, cause a great deal of increased risk to our citizens because of the continuing threat of existing nuclear powers, and, even if we have arms control and if it works perfectly, that threat is going to remain for a long time to come. Mr. President, many people do not realize it. But, if we were to agree right now with the Russians, the Chinese, the French, the British, and everybody else in the world to abolish all nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth, it would take years and years and years to be able to negotiate something that would be verifiable. And then it would take years and years to reduce the number of warheads and missiles. It would take a long, long time. So we are going to be living with this nuclear equation for a long number of years to come, even under the best of circumstances. And I think it is in our interest to proceed in a very logical and a very prudent fashion as to how we go about protecting America's national security and protecting the land that we love. [Exhibit 1] Defending America Against WMD (By Robert G. Bell, Senior Director, NSC) It is always a pleasure for me to come back to the Hill, and a special pleasure to be here only a week or so before ``Defend America Week'' in the House and Senate. The Administration is delighted that both Houses are going to take time out of their busy schedules to focus on the state of our Nation's defenses. But I want to make it clear that for the Administration, defending America is not something we concentrate on one week out of the year. Defending America is what we're about day in and day out. This morning I would like to address one important aspect of our strategy for defending America, and that is defense against the growing danger of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). On April 25th the Secretary of Defense addressed this topic in a comprehensive fashion in a speech at George Washington University, and I recommend that speech to you. As he noted, the Administration has erected three lines of defense against weapons of mass destruction. I agree with the point Senator Cochran makes in his Post op-ed today that there should not be an ``either/or'' choice between these three lines of defense: we need all three. The first line of defense is prevention--or what Secretary Perry has called ``defense by other means.'' This line of defense includes ratifying and entering into force START I and START II, which together will remove from active inventories two-thirds of the strategic nuclear weapons that threatened us at the height of the Cold War. It includes ratifying the Chemical Weapons Convention, which we look forward to seeing on the Senate floor in the near future now that it has been overwhelmingly approved by the Foreign Relations Committee. It includes achieving the indefinite and unconditional extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, strengthening the IAEA and MTCR, negotiating the nuclear framework accord with North Korea, and signing two nuclear-free zone treaties which, together with the Antarctica and South American agreements, now mean that over half the land area of the earth is denuclearized. These agreements, in tandem with the ``true-zero'' Comprehensive Test Ban treaty we intend to have ready for signature by September, establish strict restrictions on the further proliferation of nuclear weapons. It includes the US/Russian detargeting agreement the President reached with President Yeltsin, which ensures that if--God forbid--a nuclear missile should ever be launched accidentally, it would cause no harm. And it includes the invaluable Nunn-Lugar program for directly removing nuclear capabilities. As Michael Krepon has underscored in testimony and in his published writings, it is unfortunate that while Congress is increasing budget accounts for missile defense by hundreds of millions, many on the Hill have restricted or even cut funding for these preventive programs, and some have staunchly opposed the arms control treaties I mentioned. The second line of defense against weapons of mass destruction is deterrence, both at the conventional and nuclear level. Any rogue nation foolish enough to contemplate using nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against the United States, its Armed Forces or our allies must not be confused about how we would respond. As Secretary Perry stated, it would be ``devastating'' and ``absolutely overwhelming.'' The President has made clear in three successive annual National Security Strategy Reports the plain fact that this Administration believes, fundamentally, in maintaining a robust and credible nuclear deterrent. Not because we believe Russia is going to attack us today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year. But because we face an uncertain future and an uncertain world, and keeping our nuclear forces strong is a prudent hedge. That is why we decided to maintain the triad. That is why we decided to backfit the D-5 SLBM into our Trident submarines. And that is why the President recently decided that we are not going to go below START I levels until Russia ratifies the START II treaty. The third line of defense is compromised by our theater and national missile defense programs, on which the Defense Department is spending $3 billion a year. As Secretary Perry stated, our ballistic missile defense program starts with a sober and clear-eyed look at the missile threat. What is that threat? First, there is the short-range missile threat, which is here and now. That threat includes SCUDs and other missiles with ranges below 1000 kilometers. To defend against such attacks we have deployed upgraded Patriots in various theaters around the world and are poised to deploy in the next few years more advanced PAC-3 and Navy Lower Tier TMDs. Second is the emerging threat of more advanced, longer- range theater ballistic missiles. To counter these expected threats we are developing the Army THAAD and the Navy Upper Tier TMDs, with deployment planned after the end of the decade and, in the case of THAAD, a contingency deployment of 40 prototype interceptors available as soon as two years from now. As this audience well knows, Congress and the Administration have disagreed over the pace of these two programs and our approach to the arms control dimension of both systems. Congress wants to go faster; we say we have the time to get it right. We say we should not build so much concurrency into the programs that we increase technical risk inordinately. On the arms control front, we are trying, in a cooperative fashion with Russia, to make clear that the ABM Treaty does not restrict TMD systems that have a hypothetical capability under certain scenarios to intercept certain strategic ballistic missiles. In this regard, we were encouraged by the understandings on ABM/TMD demarcation reached at last month's summit in Moscow. But as Secretary Perry emphasized, ``our bottom line is that we will not give up the right to defend our troops from attack by theater ballistic missiles.'' The third threat is the prospect that a rogue state will obtain a strategic ballistic missile that could threaten our homeland. When do we expect that could occur? This brings us to the recent National Intelligence Estimate--the now-famous NIE. That NIE says, as has been stated in open testimony, that the intelligence community does not believe it is likely that we will face an ICBM or SLBM threat from a rogue nation to the continental United States (CONUS) within the next 15 years. In the special case of Alaska and Hawaii--which we obviously recognize as full partners in this union of fifty states--the CIA has said, in a public letter to Senators Levin and Bumpers, that the intelligence community does not think that the North Korean Taepo Dong II, which might have the range to reach western Hawaii or parts of Alaska, will be operational within the next 5 years. Let me take each of those cases in turn. First, why ``15 years'' in terms of a threat to CONUS? It is important to understand that this was not a case of building the threat from the bottom up, of starting now and going out in time year by year to see how far you could go before everyone agreed a threat was likely to emerge. Rather, the analysts decided that the 15 year mark was the most relevant point in time in terms of being useful to the policy and acquisition communities. They could have picked the 10 year mark, but since weapons systems have a 12-15 year acquisition period, that would have been too soon. And they could have picked 20 or 25 years, but that would have been too speculative. So they decided to ask themselves what they thought the situation would look like in 15 years. Did the NIE ignore possible short-cuts that a country might pursue as an alternative to an indigenous, bottom-up ICBM or SLBM development, test and acquisition process? No. It looked at such alternatives as a rogue state buying, stealing or otherwise getting possession of a complete missile. They did not say it could not happen; that it was impossible. But they did judge that possibility to be remote or very low. Did the Administration take comfort from the 15 year estimate and conclude we did not need to do anything before then? No. We are developing an NMD deployment option that could be fielded by 2003, eight years--I repeat, eight years, in advance of the estimate. I will have more to say about our program in a minute. Did the NIE ignore the Alaska/Hawaii threats? No. That analysis is in there. In this case, the picture is less clear. But both the Air Force and the Army have on their own initiative put together quick response, treaty-complaint, relatively low cost deployment options that could defend Alaska and Hawaii against an attack involving just a few warheads. These options would be uniquely effective, and I would say exclusively effective, against just this kind of scenario: a North Korea that acquires a handful of missiles sooner than expected. Finally, was the NIE ``politicized'', as has been charged? I will tell you categorically that the answer to that is ``no.'' I say that for two reasons. First, the first I knew that there was an NIE coming out on this issue was when I came to work one morning and found it in my in-box. Anyone who thinks that someone at the White House could call up the CIA and order them to produce a ``helpful'' NIE without the NSC knowing about it knows nothing about how the Executive Branch works. The second reason is that the 15 year estimate was a unanimous judgment among the various elements of the intelligence community. This was not a case of a ``footnoted'' estimate, where some organizations said one thing and others said another and the Administration decided to pick the most favorable view. Rather, all organizations that participated in the NIE were in agreement, and it was not a close call. So, that it is our plan and our program. But our critics are supporting another approach, embodied now in the bill introduced by the Majority Leader and the Speaker, and we are about to engage in a great debate on this issue. I want to be clear about the critical differences between the Dole-Gingrich bill and the substitute that Mr. Spratt offered that lost narrowly in committee and will be voted on again on the floor, and the substitute bill that I understand Senator Nunn is preparing for introduction in the Senate. The first critical difference, as Secretary Perry emphasized in his speech at GW, is a question of timing. The Dole-Gingrich bill says choose the NMD architecture now and deploy it independent of what happens with the threat. Our plan is to develop a deployment option, assess the threat in three years, and examine the deployment requirement on a year-by-year basis starting in 2000. Either approach would allow a system to be fielded by 2003. But ours offers the prospect, if the threat does not materialize sooner than we expect, of saving the large sums now and across the Future Years Defense Plan (FYDP) that would be required to build and deploy a national missile defense. How much would we save? Frankly, it is hard to say. Senator Dole said he did not know how much his plan would cost. That is because the Dole-Gingrich bill embraces such a wide range of possible architectures that it is impossible to estimate what the bill would cost. But if you take the most conservative option--that is, a two-site land-based ABM defense--that would cost on the order of $20 billion in acquisition and operating and support costs. That is $20 billion that is not in the FYDP or the Military Services' outyear budgets. That is $20 billion that would compete with Service procurement requirements that we and the Chiefs agree have a higher priority. That is why the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Chiefs oppose any significant increase in spending on ballistic missile defenses and have recommended that current levels be maintained. I think it is interesting that some Members have held up copies of leaked memos from General Shali and read from those portions in which he and the Chiefs made recommendations with regard to procurement levels, but then have not gone on to read those portions in which the Chairman and the Chiefs recommend against spending more on missile defenses. The second critical difference, quite frankly, is that, at least for some of its backers the Dole-Gingrich bill is a stalking horse for a return to a Reagan-era SDI, and our program is not. Let me illustrate that with five points. Point One: The bill specifically embraces much of the Reagan-era ``Star Wars'' scheme. The bill would direct the Secretary of Defense to deploy a national missile defense (NMD) by 2003 that includes one or more of four ABM interceptor options, three of which involve putting ABM weapons or sensors in space in violation of the ABM Treaty: The bill recommends that the Secretary consider an NMD based on space-based laser (SBLs). To ``defend America'' with SBLs would require, at a minimum, a constellation of 17 orbiting weapons platforms, at a cost of tens of billions of dollars that is not in the FYDP. In addition, there is at present no launcher in the U.S. inventory capable of placing a platform of this size and weight in orbit, thus billions more would be required to develop and produce such rockets. Although the SASC plussed up the SBL line in its version of the FY 1997 defense authorization act by $101 million, BMDO believes that even if money were unlimited, the SBL technology is currently so immature that we could not expect to be ready to carry out the first test of a full-scale prototype for a decade. Yet the Dole-Gingrich bill suggests we would conduct a first ``integrated systems test'' of the entire system in two years and complete the deployment of the whole constellation in seven. A second option the bill recommends to the Secretary is space-based kinetic-kill interceptors. To ``defend America'' with such orbiting rocket launchers would require resurrection of the SDI-era ``Brilliant Pebbles'' program, which was terminated several years ago. As with SBLs, an NMD that provided nationwide coverage from Hawaii to Maine would require deployment of a large constellation of orbiting weapons platforms that would cost tens of billions of dollars. If the ``Brilliant Pebbles'' program was reactivated today, BMDO believes the first interceptors would not be tested for three years and deployment would take much longer, yet the bill suggests there is a viable option to have a complete space-based kinetic kill NMD defense in place by 2003. Sea-based ABMs: This third option would also violate the ABM Treaty. The bill recommends the Secretary deploy such a defense by 2003, yet we do not even have such an NMD program in R&D. Navy Upper Tier is a TMD, and upgrading it is an ABM would require development and deployment of space-based ABM battle management satellites that could replace the radars on the Aegis-clear ships. Such ABM ``components''-- which were a central element of Reagan-era SDI architectures--would violate the ABM Treaty. Point Two: Ignoring the space-based options in the bill requires a willing suspension of disbelief. The only one of the four options recommended to the Secretary for deployment by 2003 that is allowed under the ABM Treaty and coincides with current DoD NMD development programs is ground-based interceptors. Deployment of 100 such interceptors at a single site is permitted. But if a ground- based ABM is what the sponsors of the bill want the Secretary to develop, why doesn't the bill just say so? Why does it also endorse the other three options? The answer is that there are influential defense experts backing this bill who fervently believe that land-based ABMs would be a mistake and that putting weapons in space is the only way to go. For these experts, the original Reagan plan was right, and everything that has happened since, including President Bush's downgrading of SDI to a limited-defense oriented ``GPALS'' has been a mistake. Point Three: The bill requires that the initial NMD deployment ``will be augmented over time to provide a layered defense against larger and more sophisticated ballistic missile threats''. The reference to a ``layered'' defense against ``larger'' threats is code for a return to the original Reagan-era ``astrodome'' SDI concept for stopping even an all-out Russian nuclear strike. Point Four: The bill would state that ``it is the policy of the United States to seek a cooperative transition to a regime that does not feature an offense-only form of deterrence as the basis for strategic stability.'' This text restates vintage Reagan-era SDI ideology: the idea, often articulated by the former President, that Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) is ``immoral'' and that we should replace it with an impenetrable missile shield that would allow us to dramatically reduce strategic offensive arms. In its most extreme form, we would ``give'' SDI to the Russians so we could both erect such shields in space and eliminate all our nuclear weapons. Point Five: The bill concedes that the NMD that it requires be deployed by 2003 requires amendment of the ABM Treaty, but it mandates that if Russia does not agree to such amendments ``within one year'' we consider withdrawing from the Treaty: The bill requires a ``highly effective'' defense that ``optimizes'' protection of CONUS, Alaska and Hawaii against limited missile attacks, including accidental or unauthorized launches. Acknowledging that these criteria cannot be satisfied within the Treaty as now constituted, the bill directs the President to obtain amendments that would allow an NMD of this level of effectiveness to be deployed. The one-year deadline in the bill to achieve these amendments is not arbitrary, since, as noted, the bill requires a full-up systems integration test in two years of the NMD system that is to be deployed by 2003, and such tests could only take place after we had entered the development phase of the acquisition process. Any development or test of a space-based laser, space-based kinetic kill interceptor, sea-based ABM or multiple-site ground-based ABM system would violate the Treaty. Thus the time-lines established in the bill could, in the case of at least three of the NMD options it recommends the Secretary consider, only be met if the U.S. obtained the necessary treaty relief within a year. In light of clear Russia opposition to any such amendments, the bill would be seen by Russia as tantamount to an ``anticipatory breach'' of the Treaty, thereby putting at immediate risk Russia reductions of strategic offensive arms under START I and START II. By holding a gun to the Russians' heads and demanding amendments within a year, the bill reflects an antipathy to the ABM Treaty reminiscent of Reagan-era ``Star Wars'' thinking. But in so doing, we stand to forfeit what otherwise would be a two-thirds reduction in Russia's strategic nuclear arsenal. In conclusion, let me say that I spent eighteen years on the Hill: six at CRS working for both parties, four on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee working for a Republican majority, and eight on the Senate Armed Services Committee working first for a Democratic minority and then a Democratic majority. And the hallmark of those years was a spirit of bipartisanship and compromise when it came to important issues affecting our national security. I know that that spirit was still alive on the Hill as recently as last August, when Senator Nunn and Senator Warner, joined by Senator Levin and Senator Cohen, worked out a bipartisan compromise on missile defense policy that was supported by the Administration. That compromise passed the Senate with 86 Senator voting ``aye.'' As we begin Defend America week, I hope we will not be debating a bumper sticker slogan. Rather I hope we will have an honest and objective debate on missile defense policy and that a spirit of bipartisanship and compromise will again be evident. Thank you. Mr. KYL addressed the Chair.

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. NUNN. Will my friend yield briefly?

Mr. NUNN

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I would like to take a moment today to discuss the current hold that has been placed on military nominations that are pending on the Senate Calendar. There are today 25 military nominations pending before the Senate. These are nominations for promotion or appointment of men and women to the flag and general officer grades in each of the military departments. These are people who have each performed in the service of our country with great distinction for over 20 years. They are individuals who will continue to serve at the highest leadership levels in our military. Some examples of the kinds of nominations that are pending include the appointment of the next Commander of U.S. Air Forces in Japan; the appointment of the next Commander of U.S. Central Command Air Forces; the appointment of the next Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy; and the promotion of 19 officers in the Navy to the grade of rear admiral. Each appointment and promotion list has been considered by the Armed Services Committee and the committee has favorably reported each nomination to the Senate recommending confirmation. Some of these nominations were reported to the Senate on May 2; others on May 14. Although some of these nominations have been pending for 3 weeks, the Senate is not acting on them because they have been put on hold by one Senator. I want to be clear here that I do not object to the long-standing Senate practice that permits a Senator to hold a nomination when there is a problem with a nomination. Even this should only be done when there is sufficient cause. This is certainly not what is happening here. I strongly object to the tactic of putting a hold on military nominations in order to gain leverage on an issue that is totally unrelated to either the nominees themselves or the positions for which they have been nominated. This is the announced purpose of the Senator's hold. The Senate has had a strong tradition of not involving our military nominees in the politics of the Nation or in the politics of the Senate. That tradition is being ignored here and I think it is wrong. There may be some that say that the holding up the nominations of men and women in uniform is an appropriate way of getting the attention of the Department of Defense. In my judgment, it is inappropriate and I would recommend the Pentagon leadership not react to this type of blackmail because, once they do, all military nominations would be at risk. And anyone that thinks it is appropriate to use military servicemembers as a bargaining chip for whatever reason does a tremendous disservice to those brave men and women who volunteer to serve our Nation in uniform and it does a tremendous disservce to this institution. How do you tell a patriot who has served almost half his or her life in uniform, frequently in harms way, that they are not being confirmed for promotion because a United States Senator wants to get the attention of someone in the administration? We are talking here about people nominated to hold the positions of the highest responsibility in our military services at a time when that military is committed in harms way around the globe. Additionally, the unnecessary delay of military nominations has some very real consequences for the individuals and their families that I want to mention. The spring and early summer months are traditionally the periods of the highest turnover for military personnel. Every effort is made to effect transfers during the summer months in order to cause as little disruption to families during the school year. The reassignment of a senior military officer upon Senate confirmation is often the lynchpin of a series of reassignments that moves like a ``daiseychain'' down through the ranks. Accompanying one 3-star appointment can be a series of nine or ten other moves. So, unnecessarily delaying confirmation has a tremendous effect on a number of officers--and their families--far removed from the nominee. These families have to plan their moves, their travel and leave time. They can not move until the individual at the top moves. And the individuals at the top can not move until they are confirmed. One reason for this is that the Senate does not want nominees to take any actions that presume the outcome of the confirmation process. Additionally, it is important to note that some of the military nominees pending before the Senate could be promoted immediately if they were confirmed. Therefore, holding up their confirmation is actually taking money out of the pockets of these officers. Surely, we do not want to require a military officer to pay literally for a political disagreement in which he or she has no part. If a Senator need to get someone's attention; if one Senate committee needs to work out some difference with another Senate committee; if someone needs to gain support for a legislative proposal; there are ways to do this without placing the military service members in the middle and adversely affecting them and their families. Each day we ask these men and women to make tremendous sacrifices for our Nation. Sacrifices that no one in any other walk of life is asked to make. These men and women have earned the promotions and appointments for which they have been nominated. We do them a disservice when the confirmation process is used as a tactic to gain advantage in the Senate or in other circles. Mr. President. I ask my colleagues to understand the effect that holding military nominations has on the men and women caught in the middle and to refrain using military nominations as hostages. I would hope that the Senator will release his hold so these nominees can be confirmed prior to the Memorial Day recess.

Mr. NUNN

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the so-called centrist coalition's substitute for the fiscal year 1997 budget resolution. I congratulate Senator Chafee and Senator Breaux for their leadership in bringing this substitute before the Senate. As Senator Chafee and Senator Breaux have indicated, this bipartisan substitute is offered by 22 Senators--11 Republicans and 11 Democrats. The substitute is the result of many months of bipartisan work. I believe it is a sustainable package which if enacted would bring the Federal budget into balance in 7 years. We offer this Chafee-Breaux substitute in the spirit of compromise. Each one of its sponsors can point to elements which he or she disagrees with. However, on the whole, we believe it to be more realistic than the proposals offered by the White House or the Senate Budget Committee. For instance on entitlement reform, the substitute reduces the expected growth rates for Medicare, Medicaid, welfare and other mandatory programs more than the proposal President Clinton offered in January, but less than reductions offered by the Senate Republicans in the underlying budget resolution. The same is true with respect to the proposed tax cuts included in the substitute. For the record, I question the necessity and the wisdom of a tax cut at this time. For Congress to propose to enact a tax cut which runs concurrent with or actually precedes the spending reductions set forth in the budget resolution is akin to the board of trustees for a bankrupt company declaring a dividend before it begins the necessary steps to bring the company's operations into balance. However, I realize that compromise is an essential part of this process and I support the Chafee-Breaux substitute's tax provisions. These provisions call for a net tax reduction of $105 billion over 7 years--which is roughly two-thirds the size of the proposed cuts in the Senate budget resolution, but larger than those cuts proposed by the President. The areas where the Chafee-Breaux substitute diverges dramatically from either the Budget Committee proposal or the White House's proposal are: First, the change in the calculation of the consumer price index [CPI]; and second, the proposed reductions in discretionary spending. With respect to the CPI calculation, the Chafee-Breaux substitute calls for a reduction of .5 percent per year every year for 7 years. Such a change would produce $126 billion in savings over 7 years. Almost every economist agrees that our current method of calculating CPI overstates inflation due to substitution bias, the difficulty in measuring changes in quality, and other factors. The Boskin Commission, headed up by Michael Boskin, the chief economic advisor to President Bush, believed that the CPI should be reduced from between .7 percent to 2.0 percent annually. I realize this component of the substitute will not be popular with many of our colleagues and our constituents, but such a step is necessary not only to reach our short-term goal of balancing the budget in seven years but in order to sustain a balanced budget in the longer term when the ``baby boom'' generation begins to retire. The budget resolution before the Senate proposes to reduce discretionary spending by over $296 billion over 6 years. I do not believe such reductions are realistic or sustainable. This figures amount to a hard freeze plus about $30 billion in additional discretionary spending cuts. If enacted, I foresee future Congresses faced with the choice of devastating popular domestic programs like Head Start or the space station, or foregoing the defense modernization needed to make sure our military maintains its technological edge in the next century. The Chafee-Breaux substitute calls a reduction of $268 billion in discretionary spending over 7 years. These are significant, but sustainable savings. I would like to add a final note. If we do enact this proposal and get the budget balanced in 7 years, we still have a long way to go. This Congress and this country will have to look at a 20- to 30-year fiscal picture. We will have to set in motion today reforms that can be implemented very gradually and very slowly. We have to reform Social Security. We have to reform Medicare. We can do both gradually so that retired people or people about to retire are not harmed, but we must address these issues now for the generations that will follow us. Mr. President, the Chafee-Breaux proposal is the last train in the congressional station if we are going to enact a balanced budget proposal this session. The proposal shows that a bipartisan agreement on balancing the budget is achievable--we only need the willpower to achieve it. An agreement is within reach. If we fail to act, it will only make future efforts more difficult. Our forefathers worked and toiled to provide us with our current prosperity. If we fail to do the same, by continuing to ignore the deficit problem, our legacy to our children and grandchildren will be a higher debt and a lower standard of living. But if we succeed, once we get beyond the difficulties of adjusting our spending down to what we can actually afford, we will start to reap the benefits that flow from a balanced budget: higher investment, higher productivity, more economic growth, and higher standards of living.

Mr. NUNN. I will wrap up in 30 seconds. Pete Peterson has spoken out on this subject and been a stalwart in trying to bring these matters to the attention of the American people. He had a recent article, and I will quote from the Atlantic Monthly article: The long great wave of baby boomers retiring could lead to an all-engulfing economic crisis unless we balance the budget, rein in senior entitlements, raise retirement ages and boost individual and pension savings. Yet politics of both parties say that most of the urgently necessary reforms are off the table. Mr. President, we have to take these matters and put them on the table. That is what we seek to do here today. I have great faith in the American people. I think they have good judgment. With the facts, I think they will make fair judgments. I believe if we present the American people with the facts about our future, they will support sensible and fair conclusions what we must do today if we are to preserve the future for our children and for our grandchildren.

Mr. NUNN. I thank the Senator. Mr. President, today there are now only 3.3 workers per recipient. Thirty years from now, the ratio will be two to one. And this ratio will continue to decline. My friend from Nebraska, did----

Mr. NUNN. I thank the Senator. Mr. President, I know there are many people who will debate this in an emotional fashion, but, in my view, this is not a Democratic or Republican philosophical debate. It is not about philosophy. It is not about anything but basic actuarial statistics and arithmetic. That is the way it ought to be debated. I know people get off on an emotional binge on this, and I know that it is considered the third rail of politics, but the facts are the facts. Two and two is four. The actuarial basis of any kind of a retirement program has to be taken into account. I know that many question what will happen if we do nothing. Certainly I do. As our former colleagues, both Senator Tsongas and Senator Rudman, correctly noted not long ago, and I quote: If we ignore our mounting debt, if we just wish it would go away and do nothing about it, it will grow and grow like a cancer that will eventually overwhelm our economy and our society. The interest we owe on the debt will skyrocket. We will continue our vicious cycle of having to raise taxes, cut spending and borrow more and more to pay interest upon interest. Our productivity growth will remain stagnant; more of our workers will have to settle for low-paying jobs; and our economy will continue its anemic growth. America will decline as a world power. Mr. President, this means, in short, that if we refuse to act now, future generations will have two choices. The Senator from Colorado has alluded to this and my other colleagues have, but it bears repeating. The choices will be to drastically cut benefits for people who are about to retire or already retired; or the other choice is to increase taxes on the working Americans to unsustainable levels to support the retiree. I do not know of any other choices. Taxes at the required level would not only be a political albatross; it would break our economy. Mr. President, the sooner we act, the more choices we have, the easier it will be over the long run. The longer we wait, the stronger the medicine will have to be. The amendment before the Senate is one set of choices. Others might come up with a better approach. If so, they should come forward with their own amendment. But now is the time to join this issue. It needs to be joined. We have to know where we are going in the future. We have to make tough decisions. Everyone who has studied this challenge realizes that we must reduce the future costs of our entitlement programs. We must do so without damaging our elderly population and those about to retire. We do not pretend here today to have the only approach. We are certain, however, that even if we get only five votes--and that is entirely possible, I recognize this--the issue must be joined. The national debate on entitlements must begin. For many years now the word in political circles is--and we all know it--the word is, do not talk about entitlement restraint during an election year. At least do not do anything about it seriously. Nor can you do anything in the year before an election. Mr. President, every year is either the election year or the year before the election. So that means you never do anything. That means we never do anything but talk in very general terms about entitlements. Politicians of both parties are reluctant to believe the American people will ever understand or agree that these programs must be restrained if our children are to have a future. With this amendment, we attempt to frame the debate and return our Nation to the same path our forefathers blazed for us. While the Senate cannot amend all the actual statutes needed to implement these changes in a budget resolution, the proposals contained in this amendment represent strong but lifesaving medicine. We propose the following: First, to adjust the Medicare eligibility age to correspond with the Social Security retirement age. This adjustment would add 2 months to the Medicare eligibility age each year beginning in the year 2000. Not any real big problem for any individual. By the year 2003, the Medicare eligibility age would mirror that of the Social Security system. Once Medicare and Social Security retirement ages are equal, the Medicare eligibility age would mirror the increases in retirement age planned for the Social Security system. Current Medicare eligibility age is frozen at 65 years. The second major step we would take: to accelerate the date of the Social Security eligibility age by eliminating the 12-year plateau in the law now and increasing the rate of the eligibility age by 2 months per year. Eventually, the Social Security and Medicare eligibility retirement age would increase to age 67 in 2012 and 70 in the year 2030. Current law increases the Social Security retirement age to age 67 in 2026 and does not propose to increase beyond that age. Again, current law for Medicare eligibility age is frozen at age 65. Third, and this one would apply now. We would limit the full cost-of- living--COLA's--cost-of-living increases to the first $50,000 in Federal retirement benefits. That will affect everybody in this body, likely, that retires. It will affect all of the people who retire with a very large benefit. For example, if a Federal retiree is eligible to receive $60,000 in Federal retirement next year, our proposal would allow this retiree to receive a cost-of-living increase on the first $50,000 in retirement but not on the other $10,000. It seems to me that is a modest and a fair step higher-income retirees can be expected to take. The fourth thing we would do would be to reduce the Consumer Price Index [CPI] inflation calculation by 0.5 percent each year for years 1996 through 2003. This is identical to the CPI recommended by the so- called centrist coalition. The fifth thing we would do is adjust the civil service retirement age by allowing full retirement at age 60 with 30 years of service, age 62 with 25 years of service, age 65 with 5 to 25 years of service. Mr. President, this compares to current law with civil service retirement that provides full benefits at age 55 for 30 years of service, age 60 for 20 years of service, age 62 with 5 years to 25 years of service. This does not apply to anyone who is currently in or has been in the civil service. It would apply to new people coming in. Again, a very fair proposal. The same with the military retirement change which is a modest proposal that applies to everyone coming into the military after this proposal becomes law, if it does. We would adjust active duty military retirement by allowing active duty personnel with 20 years of service to retire with full benefits at age 50. Benefits would be discounted if the person begins drawing them before age 50. There would be no change in Reserve retirement. Mr. President, this compares to current law for military retirement which provides full retirement benefits after 20 years of service, regardless of age. This means that some people coming into the military can retire when they are 36 years old. Many of them retire when they are 38 or 40 years old. That has been based on the old military, where people had to move up or out, and you had to have everybody young and vigorous. Today we are in an age of technology. It is, fundamentally, time. Military has to adjust time in grade and make other adjustments. We do it over a long period of time so the military can make those adjustments without really having any harm on people who are nearing retirement, or with the grandfather provisions on anyone who is in the military today. Both the civil service and military retirement changes would be prospective. Again, would apply only to new civilian and military personnel entering Federal service. When you think someone retiring at age 36 will live until they are 76 years old on average, or something in that neighborhood, they will draw retirement for 40 years. Now, we just cannot afford that kind of retirement system to continue on and on. Seven, we establish a personal investment plan which would allow workers to divert 2 percentage points of their monthly payroll taxes to their own personnel investment plans. It is our intent to allow the personal investment plan to be enacted in a fashion which does not adversely impact Social Security long-term solvency. Mr. President, this is modest medicine. Some may consider it strong medicine. I believe it is required to save the fiscal life of the future generations of American citizens. I believe it is fair medicine. We offer this amendment in good faith, but we realize we are asking our colleagues to join in programs touching the so-called third rail of politics in America, the rail which provides programs that affect people who are elderly. However, my colleagues should understand that this amendment, with the exception of providing a more accurate calculation of the Consumer Price Index and the COLA increase adjustment for retirees receiving more than $50,000 in Federal benefits annually, does not impact current retirees or those about to retire. We grandfather and grandmother our constituents who fall into these categories. Our amendment maintains the important commitments between generations that form a foundation of Social Security, Medicare, and other programs. Most importantly, this amendment offers a hope that these programs and benefits will continue to exist in the future, for future generations. I say to my colleagues, if you think these choices are unpopular, wait until you see the choices you will face if we continue to ignore these problems. These problems are not going to go away. They are not going to go away. They are not going to get any easier. Arithmetic is not going to change.

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, would the Senator yield me about 5 minutes off the bill?

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I am pleased to be able to be here on the floor and listen to my colleagues and join them in presenting this amendment to our Senate colleagues today. I certainly subscribe to the comments made by the Senator from Colorado, Senator Brown, as well as Senator Kerrey, Senator Simpson, and Senator Robb in offering this amendment which provides immediate and long-term budget reforms that are absent from the budget resolution before the Senate or is absent from any other resolution before the Senate that I am aware of. In the 1995 Kerrey-Danforth Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform report, the Commission identified the following principles for its approach to long-term reform. These principles were: No. 1, we must plan for the future by addressing and solving our long-term fiscal problem head on. That is exactly what this amendment does. No. 2, we must lead by example. Congress cannot be exempt. That is also what this amendment does. No. 3, we must plan for the aging of America's population, and that is precisely, again, what this amendment does. No. 4, we must address rising health care costs by emphasizing market incentives and personal responsibility. Again, what this amendment does. No. 5, we must fulfill our promises to today's retirees and ensure the long-term solvency of Social Security. Again, right on point. No. 6, we must design a solution that is fair to all Americans. I am not sure we will ever have anything every American considers absolutely fair, but we have strived toward that goal. No. 7, we must act now to give people time to plan for the future and to avoid significant future revenue increases or benefit reductions. Again, as the Senator from Colorado laid out, that is what we are doing. We either take these steps now in modest steps, in doing what everybody who has studied this series of problems and challenges knows is inevitable, or we will wait longer and longer and longer, as we have been doing, and then the medicine will have to be more and more disagreeable in years ahead and even dangerously disagreeable. Senators Kerrey, Simpson, Brown, Robb and I are offering an amendment which lives up to the principles of the Kerrey-Danforth Commission and to put before the Senate and the American people some of the hard choices that have to be made in the near term if we are to have any hope of fiscal soundness over the next 20 to 30 years. A proposal to balance the budget in 6 or 7 years is a necessary start, but it is only the beginning step, and that is what we are debating on the underlying resolution. We can balance the budget in 2002. If every projection works out as envisioned, whether it is under the proposal presented by the Budget Committee or whether it is under the President's proposal or whether it is under the Chafee-Breaux proposal--which I support. Even if we do that, however, and get a balanced budget in 2002, we will still have a dismal fiscal picture for the years following 2002, particularly for our children and children's children, because the cost of our entitlement programs, which are already the major cause of our persistent budget deficits, will become completely unaffordable when the baby boom generation begins to retire 20 years from now. The Chafee-Breaux proposal, I think, is a solid proposal and a solid beginning for the first 7 years. This proposal is entirely consistent with that, indeed is consistent with the other alternatives, because it goes further. It talks about what we call the outyears, but these are the crucial years, and these steps have to be taken, in my opinion, now. To give my colleagues some idea of the challenges ahead of us in America, consider the following. In 1963, mandatory programs, entitlement programs plus interest on the debt--and make no mistake about it, these are the popular programs that are supported by the American people--in that year, 1963, this spending represented 29.6 percent, or about 30 percent of total Federal spending. Ten years later, 1973, mandatory spending represented 45 percent of overall Federal spending. In 1983, mandatory spending represented 56.3 percent of Federal spending. In 1993, mandatory spending consumed 61.4 percent of the Federal budget. In 2003, 7 years from now, the mandatory spending, or entitlement programs plus interest on the debt, is projected to consume 72 percent of the Federal budget. We have gone from 1963, 30 percent, to 2003, 72 percent, of the Federal budget. In 2012, less than 20 years from now, mandatory spending is projected to consume 100 percent of Federal revenues as the programs are now structured. Unless things change significantly, Mr. President, before 2012 there would be no Federal funds left for the defense of our Nation, no Federal funds left for education, no Federal funds left to have a Federal court system, environmental protection, transportation, prisons, Border Patrol, housing, foreign aid, cancer research, disease control, or any other appropriated account. All of these would be gone. That is what we are talking about within 20 years. The entire cost of all these basic functions of Government which Congress provides each year through the appropriations process, as opposed to mandatory spending, would have to be financed by deficit spending at the very point in time when Social Security itself will start to run huge deficits on its own. In 2013, as the baby-boom generation begins to retire en masse, beneficiary payments for Social Security recipients will exceed receipts from working Americans. In 2030, when all the baby-boom generation will have reached age 65, Social Security alone will be running a cash deficit of $766 billion per year--not million, but billion. Or consider the following. Because Social Security has been considered off limits for so long, the program has not changed with the times and with demographic realities the way many other programs have had to, and certainly the way the private sector has had to. When Social Security was established by law in 1935, the elderly were eligible to receive retirement benefits at age 65. In 1935, the life expectancy of the average American was 61.4 years. Today, the retirement age for full Social Security benefits remains the same: 65 years. Today, the average life expectancy is almost 76 years. Thirty years from now, average Americans, based on projections, will live to almost the age of 79. Mr. President, if we had this same actuarial plan that President Roosevelt and the New Dealers had when they started this important Social Security Program, the retirement age for Social Security recipients would be almost 80 years old today. We certainly do not suggest that, but we do suggest fundamental and modest adjustments. The current Social Security Program is unaffordable in the 21st century because this increase in life expectancy is occurring at the same time as the number of workers supporting each Social Security beneficiary is decreasing. I know the American people believe that when they pay into Social Security, it all goes into a little account, that money sits there and draws interest and waits for them to retire. Mr. President, it has never been that way. It never will be that way. Perhaps that is the way it should have been set up. It was not set up that way. We all know it was set up based on today's workers paying for today's retirees. In 1950, there were approximately 15 people working to support each Social Security retiree or recipient. By 1960, there were five people working to support each Social Security recipient. Today, because of demographics, because of health care, there are now only----

Mr. NUNN

Mr. NUNN. I thank my friend from Nebraska. I join my colleagues in being both shocked and deeply saddened by the sudden death of Adm. Mike Boorda, Chief of Naval Operations. Admiral Boorda had a truly remarkable career in the Navy. Many people do not recognize it and do not realize it, but Mike Boorda rose from the lowest enlisted rank to become the most senior officer in the Navy. He never forgot where he came from. The welfare of the men and women of the Navy were always foremost in his thoughts and in his actions. He never let us forget that when he testified before the committee. The men and women of the Navy were first for him. He was always looking for additional ways to help the Navy families and, particularly, the people who served in the Navy and those who are directly affected by that service. Admiral Boorda was well-known to Members of the Senate, and to the Armed Services Committee, for his devotion to the Navy and the ideals of military service. He was always available and helpful. Never have I asked a single question when he was not responsive immediately, if the information were available. I had the opportunity to work closely with Mike Boorda over the years on a wide variety of projects and programs, particularly during his service as Chief of Naval Personnel, as commander of Joint Task Force Provide Promise, which was responsible for the mission throughout the Balkans, and as Chief of Naval Operations. Many of us have been briefed by Admiral Boorda when he was head of that task force in a very tough period during the Balkans problems. I visited him overseas when he was planning the Bosnia operations, and I relied on his wise counsel many times. Mr. President, I could go on and on about Mike Boorda. I will summarize it by saying that he was a superb military commander and a true friend. Admiral Boorda was an inspiring leader and a man of vision. I extend my deepest sympathies to his wife, Bettie, to his children, David, Edward, Anna and Robert, and to his many friends and admirers in the Navy and throughout this great country. I thank the Chair and my colleagues.

Mr. NUNN

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I am not sure that I need that much time. I do not believe the Senator has that much time, if I am looking at the clock correctly and dividing the time in half. I will take just a couple minutes. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the Grassley amendment to reduce the defense spending levels in this budget resolution. For several years I have been expressing my concern that the projected declining budgets in defense are not sufficient from four standpoints: First, to maintain the current readiness of our forces; second, to provide the standard of living that military personnel and their families expect and deserve; third, supporting the force structure necessary to carry out the full range of missions that we expect our military to perform; and, fourth, to provide for the modernization that is the key to the future capability and future readiness of those forces. Mr. President, modernization today is our greatest deficiency. We are living off the capital of previous investment. The men and women in the military continue to perform superbly every time they are called on. We call on them all the time, as we can see every day. We owe it to them to give them the support they need to do the job. We also have to ensure that the men and women who will be called on 5, 10 or 20 years from now will have the same advantages vis-a-vis their potential opponents that our military forces have today, including technological superiority. That latter point is where we are having problems today. You can live off the corpus for awhile. I think our force structure has been brought down about right. We have done a superb job in bringing it down, the military has, and keeping up the morale of our people. The readiness of our forces is in good shape today. I do not agree with those who say that we have declined in readiness. I think our readiness is in good shape. What we are really doing, though, is borrowing from the future. We do not have enough money in the outyears of defense projections to be able to maintain the kind of research and development and procurement that we must have. I do believe that the Budget Committee has it about right. I think this amendment would take the defense number down too low. It is important for all of us to realize that even with the Budget Committee number, which is higher than the President's, it is less in real dollar terms than last year. When we are talking about this budget increasing defense spending, we are talking about relative to the President's budget, not relative to real dollars last year. This is still a defense cut, but it is moving toward stabilization. I think we do need to move toward stabilizing the defense budget in real dollar terms. I urge my colleagues to vote against the Grassley amendment. While I believe the funding levels requested for readiness, military pay raises, and quality of life initiatives in the President's budget are about right, I think there are clearly insufficient funds going into modernizing our force. Modernization, for the most part, is delayed into the outyears under the current future years defense program. And we all know from experience how illusory these budget projections become 4 or 5 years down the road. For the past few years, the Air Force has bought virtually no new fighter aircraft. The Air Force has no bomber modernization program. The Navy is not buying enough ships to modernize even a 300 ship Navy. The Marine Corps is years away from having a replacement for its aging amphibious assault vehicles. For the Army it would probably be quicker to list the modernization programs they do have left than to list the ones they don't. The fiscal squeeze on the defense budget is already intense. As we seek to balance the budget--especially if we try to enact tax cuts at the same time, which I hope we will not do--the pressure will get even more intense. This gives me even less confidence in the outyear funding predictions that show funds for defense modernization increasing. In my view, we need to increase the defense topline now, to restore the balance to our defense program. We also need to preserve the firewalls that the Senator from New Mexico has included in both last year's budget resolution and in the budget resolution that is before the Senate today to protect any defense increases we are able to achieve and to provide some stability in the defense budget. Firewalls have not and will not mean defense cannot be cut, but they ensure that if it is cut the savings go to reducing the deficit and not to spending on other programs. We have been reducing the defense budget for a long time. The current buildown started during President Reagan's second term, even before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and continued, accelerated, throughout the Bush administration and the current administration. However, the time has come to stabilize the defense budget as much as possible, since the defense budget has already made a greater contribution to deficit reduction than any other part of the budget. Modernization Funding Should Be Increased The future readiness and future capability of the Defense Department requires modernization and it requires research and development, and those are the programs that have been cut most deeply during the defense drawdown. The pressure to achieve and maintain a balanced budget will make it very difficult to increase the defense budget above current levels, yet current levels are still somewhat artificially low as we work our back toward a normal level of procurement and a normal level of infrastructure investment. Because we were reducing the size of the force and were able to keep the most modern equipment as we downsized, a temporary decline in procurement was appropriate. But we are now reaching the point where we have to get our modernization budget back up to a long-term level that will sustain our forces for the future. We have to start increasing the procurement budget to prevent the average age of our weapons technology from reaching unacceptable levels. Similarly, during the BRAC era we underinvested in facilities modernization because nobody wanted to waste a lot of money modernizing facilities we might be about to shut down. But now that we have made those decisions and the BRAC process is over we are going to have to put more money in modernizing and maintaining the facilities we have left. So our challenge will be to have a budget that is slightly larger than the ones now planned, if we are going to balance the budget it is unrealistic to plan for more than a slight increase, and the budget plan in this resolution only increases the budget by about 1 percent over the levels in the administration's request--in order to have adequate funds for capital investments in weapons and facilities. This is why I oppose this amendment which would eliminate the increase in the defense topline number that the Armed Services Committee has recommended. This increase has gone almost entirely to modernization. I think my colleagues will find that the funds the Armed Services Committee added to the modernization accounts have gone mostly, not completely, to programs the service chiefs have requested, and generally these are things the administration was already planning to buy. In conclusion, Mr. President, many of my colleagues share my concern that we have cut the defense budget too far, too fast and that we are mortgaging our future by sacrificing the capability of our forces 10 years down the road in order to fully fund current readiness. This amendment would eliminate our ability to fund modernization programs vital to the future capability of our military forces, and I urge my colleagues to reject it.

Mr. NUNN

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, today a grateful nation paid tribute to one of its true patriots and finest soldiers, Lt. Gen. Calvin A.H. Waller, U.S. Army (Retired), who died last Thursday. I was privileged to be at the Fort Myer Chapel today for General Waller's memorial service, conducted by Chaplain (Major General) Donald W. Shea, with Chaplain (Colonel) John Kaising. The homily was presented by Chaplain Shea, and eulogy were offered by General Waller's son, Mark, and General Waller's friend Lt. Gen. Julius W. Becton, Jr., U.S. Army (Retired). General Waller was then interred in Arlington National Cemetary. It was a very moving and inspirational service. Born in Louisiana, General Waller was a product of the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps [ROTC] program at Prairie View A&M University in Prairie View, TX. It is approximately 45 miles from the place General Waller called home--Houston. His dad was also a Prairie View graduate, and General Waller attended college to study veterinary medicine, entering in 1955. Because Prairie View was a land grant college--part of the Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College system--the first 2 years of ROTC were mandatory. In 1957, young Cal Waller signed up for Senior ROTC status. As his friend and fellow Prairie View classmate, retired Lt. Gen. Marvin Brialsford, says, ``Being a senior cadet at A&M had a certain attractiveness to it; it was prestigious, and we all could put the $27.90 a month we were paid as senior cadets to good use.'' A life in the Army, however, was far from his mind. After being commissioned into the chemical corps and detailed into the infantry, then-Lieutenant Waller attended the basic infantry officer's course at Fort Benning, and then served in the 8th Infantry Regiment at Fort Lewis, WA. Before his initial tour of duty was over, Lieutenant Waller had decided that the Army had the potential for a career, or, as Secretary of the Army Togo West puts it, ``Fortunately for us, he took a liking to the Army.'' To better utilize his love of science, Cal Waller returned to the chemical corps, serving at Fort McCellan, AL; he went on to serve in the Eighth Army in the Republic of Korea; and in the 82d Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, NC. It was in the 82d Airborne, the All American division, that the Army realized what a natural leader and exceptional planner he was. Cal was one of the youngest officers in Army history to be selected for the Army's Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, KS, and upon graduation was immediately assigned to the staff of the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam. After a tour in Washington, then-Major Waller began his career as an armor officer--a tanker in Army jargon. He attempted to stay assigned with soldiers and combat-ready units and served in the Federal Republic of Germany, Fort Carson, CO, Fort Stewart, GA, and Fort Bragg, NC. In those assignments, his natural leadership abilities blossomed. A former Army Chief of Staff Gordon Sullivan noted, ``Cal Waller loved soldiers. He had a natural touch with soldiers, and soldiers loved him. I believe there are some men who have the ability, by their very presence, to calm the waters in crisis situations. Cal Waller was such a man.'' In 1987, it was time to return to the Federal Republic of Germany and command of the 8th Infantry Division (Mechanized). It was there that I first met Cal Waller. I traveled with my staff director from the Senate Armed Services Committee, Arnold Punaro, and then-Colonel Frank Norton of the Army Senate Liaison, who I am now fortunate to have on my staff. We visited General Waller in Baumholder. After visiting soldiers and observing training on the multiple launch rocket system, we then had lunch together with some local German supporters of the U.S. Army. It was obvious they held Cal Waller in high esteem. For my part, I was greatly impressed with Cal Waller's professionalism and confidence, his technical acumen, his caring attitude for his soldiers and their families, and his wonderful, self-depreciating sense of humor. We developed a friendship, and I was grateful that our paths crossed on a number of occasions during his career and each time I was with Cal, I learned from him. After his most successful tenure as Commander of the 8th Infantry Division, General Waller returned to Fort Lewis as the Commanding General of I Corps. He continued to be assigned to I Corps while deployed from Fort Lewis to serve as Deputy commander in Chief of the U.S. Central Command, with General Norm Schwarzkopf, for Operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm. General Schwarzkopf writes of his relationship with General Waller in his autobiography ``It Doesn't Take a Hero.'' He says (pg. 392): In mid-November Lieutenant General Cal Waller had reported to Riyadh as my deputy commander in chief: now I had someone to help me ride herd. Cal was a friend who had worked for me in two previous commands. Shrewd, soft-spoken, and given to quoting sayings he'd learned from his grandmother in Louisiana, he was also tough and effective. He'd been my first choice for the job: he'd come up through the Army as an armor officer and understood logistics; also I knew I didn't intimidate him at all. We trusted each other to such an extent that he could walk into my office and say point-blank, ``Hey, something's all screwed up, it's your fault, and you need to know about it.'' After the success of Operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm, General Waller returned to command I Corps, Washington, and began making plans to retire. His Army service spanned 32 years; he had gone from a platoon leader commanding 40 soldiers to commanding general of I Corps and Fort Lewis, where he was responsible for over 100,000 personnel. After retiring in 1991, General Waller returned to his love of science and was active in environment restoration efforts for a number of companies. I last saw Cal in August 1995 at a conference in Aspen, CO. He drove down from Arvada, CO near Denver, where he made his home. He was, as always, in a great mood and enjoying life. We played a round of golf, and had the opportunity for a lengthy visit. He noted how he was both enjoying and contributing in his second life. But he never really left the Army, and the Army never left him. As Army Chief of Staff Denny Reimer notes, ``The performance of our soldiers throughout the world * * * have their roots in (his) concerned leadership--making sure soldiers were properly trained for the task at hand and ensuring their families were well-cared for while they were gone. He was a patriotic American, a consummate soldier and a wonderful human being.'' His friend and fellow soldier, Gen. Colin Powell says, ``His ability to touch the lives of so many in such meaningful ways was legendary. We will miss him greatly.'' I certainly agree. Mrs. Waller and her sons Michael and Mark know better than any of us the great loss our Nation has experienced. They bear their grief with dignity and courage--I know that Cal Waller is proud of them. His unselfish service to the Army and our Nation is a testament to Cal Waller's sense of duty and honor. Our military forces have been strengthened by his contribution, and America has been enriched by his many accomplishments. I can offer no farewell to Cal Waller better than that extended by his son mark in his eulogy: ``Ride swiftly, great Buffalo soldier.''

Mr. NUNN

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I would like to take this time to bring to the Senate's attention an exciting movement which is currently under way in Poland. It is a movement to create and develop credit unions for the benefit of Polish citizens. A unique partnership now exists between the Polish National Association of Cooperative Savings and Credit Unions and the Georgia Credit Union Affiliates. Georgia-based credit unions will provide assistance in the development and implementation of new credit union services and products for the benefit of Polish credit union members. This relationship provides the opportunity for the exchange of information, experience, and expertise which is critical to the formation of sound financial institutions. Many Polish citizens now enjoy some of the same benefits of credit union membership that many here in America have long taken for granted. One of the more important benefits is the ability to play a role in the appointment of the credit union's officers through direct election. This democratic function instills greater confidence and trust in the credit union by insuring that its officers are responsive to the members' concerns and interests. It also provides hands-on experience in local democratic institutions, which are the building blocks of strong national democracies. Along with the personal benefits associated with credit union membership comes the more important collective benefit of capital formation. Financial institutions such as banks and credit unions have always served an important function in providing capital for new businesses and in turn economic growth. This is based on the fundamental relationship between savings and investment. Greater individual savings leads to greater business investment. This investment leads to more productivity and greater competitiveness, and we know that greater competitiveness means better jobs and higher standards of living. The bottom line is that a critical component to Poland's prospects for long-term economic development and growth must be the assurance that all Polish citizens have access to sound financial institutions for their hard earned savings and that these institutions serve their communities well. I applaud the ongoing efforts to build and strengthen Poland's private financial institutions. In particular, I want to recognize Grzegorz Bierecki who has been instrumental in the development of the credit union movement in Poland. I also want to thank Mike Mercer, president of the Georgia Credit Union Affiliates, for bringing this matter to my attention. I believe this movement is worthy of the Senate's attention and support.

Mr. NUNN

Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I will try to take less time than that. I congratulate Senator Chafee, Senator Breaux, and others who have worked on this proposal. It is truly a bipartisan proposal. This is the last train in town. If this does not go, if we do not get people to rally around this, then we are not going to get a deal this year. It does not have to be every word of this. But this is a framework, and I think our colleagues recognize that. Mr. President, I will add one other word. If we get the balanced budget for 7 years, as this proposal would do, we have still a long way to go. This Congress and this country has to look at a 20- to 30-year fiscal picture. We will have to set in motion things now that can be implemented very gradually and very slowly. We have to reform Social Security. We have to reform Medicare. We can do it very gradually where people do not get hurt, and also for those who are near retirement and certainly for those who are already retired. But we have to address it for generations. To balance the budget by the year 2002 is not enough because it can get out of balance right after that and be back in the same picture. I thank the Chair. I particularly thank Senator Chafee and Senator Breaux for their sterling leadership.