John Spratt

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, CBO scored it, I have a letter and I put it in the Record, at $343 million. That is the accurate scoring for this, and that is the question I am raising. For that sum of money, why put U.S. Airways flying into jeopardy?

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

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, it is my understanding that CBO has scored this particular provision as saving temporarily for this fiscal year $343 million, that is all, under the Credit Reform Act. It is not the full amount of the loan. It is the likely loss on the loan that is scored as an expenditure on the loan this year. However, this is nothing but an obligational delay, so it does not really save anything. What it means is that what would be obligated in the remaining few months of this fiscal year will instead be obligated after October 1. Why go through shenanigans like that and send a message to the lenders that U.S. Air will not be able to take down the cash it needs to survive until after October 1? Sure, it can complete its loan application, but it cannot get the cash it needs, and that message will go out again tonight. It will chill the atmosphere for lending. My colleagues know the Transportation Stabilization Board will not want to process anything for fear that Congress is about to undercut it. Why are we doing this? What sense does it make? It does not save a dime.

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

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, it is my understanding that USAirways has indicated that it needs this loan guarantee so it can get loan proceeds by August 1. But under the bill as presented to us, nothing will be payable until October 1, the first day of the next fiscal year and this is sooner than it could possibly be paid. It would be soon after that, that is the soonest possible date, and that is too late according to their indication, is it not?

Mr. SPRATT. But that is for 4 months.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, if I could simply ask, am I wrong? I believe the $343 million is exactly what CBO scored it as, and number 2, does this really save anything? If this is just an obligational delay that says that the money cannot be obligated during the summer, but come October 1 it can be obligated, it does not save anything, why do this? Why go through shenanigans like this just to claim a credit that is not really a credit? It is not a savings. If I am wrong, I will stand corrected.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this rule for many reasons, and not because I am opposed to defense funding. If this were a clean increase for the war in Afghanistan, it would be passed unanimously. First of all, this rule deems what the House could not do directly. It deems the budget resolution and sets the discretionary spending ceiling at $759 billion. That is $9 billion less than the other body. Mark my word, that $9 billion discrepancy will cause us problems before this fiscal year is out. The second reason to get the votes necessary for passage, the rule claims $1.2 billion in savings to offset the amendments that the committee added in the supplemental over and above the President's request. The largest amount of these comes from obligational delays. They are not saying they are obligational delays. The rule would prevent the Air Transportation Stabilization Board from guaranteeing any more airline loans for the rest of this fiscal year, but beginning the next fiscal year, they could make those loans. Someone may say that is harmless. Not for U.S. Air. It is a matter of life and death for U.S. Air because they told us they need funding by August 1. So it saves no money, but it does not do U.S. Air any good at all. Most of all, I am really upset with this rule because it gets too clever by half, much too coy when it comes to something that is gravely serious, and that is the debt owed by the United States of America. We are creeping up on our statutory debt limits, and rather than face up to this issue squarely, this rule makes passing reference to the statutory debt ceiling just enough to have this matter originate in the House and leaves the heavy lifting to the other body. What it seeks to avoid most of all is a direct vote on this very important issue, and our constituents need to know where we stand. Now, we would have offered, if the committee had made it in order, an amendment that would have offered a suitable procedure for undertaking something this serious. It simply would have provided that if we take up the debt ceiling, we can increase it by $250 billion, but if we increase it by any more we must have in place a budget resolution that will put the budget in balance in 5 fiscal years. That amendment was not made in order, which is another reason to vote against the rule.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I want to call to the attention of the House the bravery of Chris Haas, a sixth grader who is captain of the Safety Patrol at North Hartsville Elementary School in Hartsville, South Carolina. Last December, Chris saved a fellow student from serious injury. Because he was on the alert, he noticed a girl's book bag and shirt caught in a car's rear tire, and saw that she was being pulled under the car before the driver knew what was happening. Chris jumped in front of the moving car and stopped it. His bravery saved the young girl from serious harm. Students like Chris Haas report for duty on Safety Patrol every school day at North Hartsville Elementary School. Dressed in orange safety hats and belts and silver badges, they can be found helping students get safely across the street, and in and out of cars. I want to salute Chris Haas for his courage and recognize all the other members of the Safety Patrol for helping make North Hartsville Elementary School a safe place to learn.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. I thank the gentleman for the clarification. The space- based interceptor, as some know, has gone through a couple of iterations, both of which have eventually been discarded. I think the Missile Defense Agency has already a full plate. It ought to stay focused on ground-based and ship-based interceptors. For that reason, with this clarification, I can support the amendment.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman). (Ms. HARMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee). (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner), in whose district the PAC III is built.

Mr. SPRATT. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), the ranking member of our committee.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I will indeed. I do, however, Mr. Chairman, still wish to reserve my time so I can recognize others to make comments upon the amendment.

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

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The purpose of this amendment, Mr. Chairman, is to move $135 million within the ballistic missile defense account. Not outside it, not away from it, not to take a dime out of the top line, but to rearrange $135 million within the $7.8 billion account in the following manner: First, we would move $65 million into production of 24 additional PAC-3 missiles. The PAC-3, the most advanced missile, the only missile defense system that we will really deploy for nearly the next 5 years, is woefully short in supply at the present time. We could very well need it in the near future. And so this would move $65 million into the PAC-3 line and allow 24 additional PAC-3s to be purchased. There is an economic effect. By buying more, we buy more efficiently. We run the plant at a higher and more efficient rate; and as a consequence, these 24 missiles will cost nearly $1 million a copy less than they would otherwise cost if we were buying fewer. Secondly, this amendment would move $70 million out of other accounts into manufacturing and development for the Arrow missile, which is being manufactured at a plant in Alabama, a Boeing plant in Alabama. Once again, this would provide us with a system which may be needed in the here and now, in the near future. This is a system that is ready to go but is not fully funded for production. Now, where does this money come from? Under my amendment, we would take first of all funds out of space-based interceptors. Mr. Chairman, we have in the past, since the inauguration of SDI in 1983, we have developed at least two iterations of a space-based kinetic kill interceptor. The original space-based interceptor was based on a satellite. A number of different interceptors would have been garaged on a single satellite and deployed from that satellite. Because such a satellite is a highly valuable and highly visible target in a fixed orbit circling the Earth at given times constantly, it becomes an easy target to take out. Because of its vulnerability, it was discontinued. Actually, it was defeated here on the House floor; discontinued the next year by SDI. In its place, SDI proposed something called Brilliant Pebbles. The idea was to make these interceptors single autonomous satellites and so prolific they would be too prolific for any adversary to take out enough to make a difference. Well, Brilliant Pebbles II, after the expenditure of several hundred million dollars, was abandoned and discarded. What I am proposing here tonight, Mr. Chairman, is that we have a full plate already for the Missile Defense Agency. We are trying to bring to fruition the mid-course interceptor. We are trying to develop a boost-phase intercept for the Navy. We are trying to develop a mid- course intercept system based upon a Navy ship. We have an airborne laser system. Given the full plate that the MDA, Missile Defense Agency, already has for the systems it has started up or is starting now, it does not need to complicate its problems with an additional space-based system, particularly after we have already abandoned two iterations of it. Secondly, we would deplete the funding except for $10 million for further feasibility and concept definition studies of the space-based laser, a truly futuristic and, in my opinion, highly dubious system. We take the money out of those systems; and we put it in theater missile defense where the danger is clear, present, and imminent. That is the purpose here, to rearrange money. Not to take money out of missile defense, but to rearrange it and to accomplish some near- term needs of systems that we very well may have to call upon in the near future. The gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) has an amendment that would rearrange my rearrangement. He would leave in place the allocations I have made, but he would allow General Kadish to determine which systems would be debited in order for these two systems to be plussed up. And I can live with the gentleman's amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, how much time is remaining?

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, this is a good compromise and a good bill, and I urge support for it on both sides of the aisle. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I would like to engage the gentleman from Massachusetts in a colloquy about his amendment. The gentleman from California was just showing us a number of space- based systems, satellites and sensors, that are in one way or another connected with ballistic missile defense. Is it the gentleman's intention in this amendment to prohibit funding for space-based sensors that are instrumental to the airborne laser and ground-based and sea-based ballistic missile defense systems?

Mr. SPRATT. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. SPRATT. So, specifically, your amendment would not prohibit or affect funding for what we call SBIRS-High, space-based infrared sensors, SBIRS-High or SBIRS-Low sensor programs like this?

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. I am, in its present form, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.