John Spratt

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I would say that for those Members, like the gentleman from Washington and myself who support some form of ballistic missile defense, national missile defense, the way to go, the sensible approach is with a ground-based system. That is the near-term system that is attainable right now. This amendment is important because it keeps us focused on that with limited amounts of money to spend. If we are going to have a ground- based system, we can only accomplish it by staying focused and staying disciplined.

Mr. SPRATT. I yield to the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Dicks].

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

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment offered by my colleague from Oregon. I do so as a supporter of ballistic missile defense, both national and theater, and I do so as a supporter of the plus-up that the Committee on National Security and the appropriations subcommittee have given national missile defense. Used wisely, this extra sum of $300 million to $350 million will take us, I think, to the point in 3 years where we will have a ground-based interceptor to test, and once we have it to test, we can decide if we want to move forward with it and deploy it in 3 more years. A lot of people in this institution, this House, like the last speaker, decry the fact that we do not have ballistic missile defense. Let me tell my friends it is not for want of spending money. Since Ronald Reagan made his speech in March 1983, we have spent over $35 billion in pursuit of ballistic missile defenses, strategic defense. And a good bit of that, at least at the outset, was spent on space- based lasers. To start with, there was the x-ray laser, which was to be the coup de grace. It was to be the ultimate answer to ballistic missile defense. It did not pan out. Then there was the excimer laser, and the free electron laser, both of which would have been ground-based, but they could not propagate a beam through the atmosphere without gross corrections. And then there were three or four or five different kinds of chemical lasers, and none of them has yet come to fruition, proved its efficacy as a system that can be so-called weaponized. We have spent more money on space-based interceptors, something called Brilliant Pebbles. The idea once was to launch thousands of these cheap small satellites encircling the globe in low-earth orbit. We built Endo- and Exo-atmospheric interceptors. If there is any lesson learned from all of this, it is simply this: It is not for lack of funding but lack of focus that we do not have anything to deploy that we can call strategic or national missile defense today. And if there is anywhere that the lack of focus has cost us more, there is nowhere more that it has cost us and bought us less than in the area of directed energy systems or spaced-based laser systems. Now, I support a reasonable level of research on these space-based systems, on these directed energy laser systems. One day they may realize their potential. They may transform missile defense and other forms of military defense. But this amendment, the DeFazio amendment, does not preclude this kind of research. That is because this amendment does not cut the President's request for research in another ballistic missile defense account called the advanced technology line. It leaves that line untouched and unaffected. This amendment also does not prohibit or affect at all tactical laser systems, like the Nautilus, which we are pursuing jointly with Israel right now. That is because this is funded in the Army's R&D budget. This applies only to national missile defense and says as to it, we can do research but we cannot pursue national missile defense systems which include a space-based laser. The technology to make space-based lasers militarily useful is simply years, decades away from fruition, and the cost of developing and deploying lasers or interceptors in space is far beyond anything we can afford in this tight budget. If we try it, we will only drain dry our conventional military systems. So this amendment keeps us from going down a very costly and maybe ultimately fruitless road.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I began my last statement by saying I am a supporter of ballistic missile defense, and in years past when our side was in the majority, on several occasions I came to the floor when my own committee had cut the request for national missile defense and offered amendments which plussed it back up, which prevailed in the House. Mr. Chairman, I supported ballistic missile defense and support it now on the ground, because I think it is an attainable system. But I also think, and the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations knows well, that we have a terribly tight defense budget. If we are going to put national defense, missile defense in place by the year 2003, we have got to keep it focused on a basic system that we can, indeed, deploy. Mr. Chairman, we are very close to being able to deploy a ground- based system which is cheaper than a laser-based system. BMDO put our cost estimates in March of 1995, which placed the cost of space-based lasers at $20 billion, $30 billion, $40 billion. Those were extrapolations. Nobody knows for sure, because it is a very, very embryonic technology. We have years to go. There is another problem with space-based, or any kind of space-based systems, and that is their inherent vulnerability. Because once they are placed in space in fixed orbit, then they can be taken out in fixed orbit. They can be taken out by any country which is our adversary and can launch an ICBM that would truly be a threat to us. They can fire an ICBM against it, or they can use an antisatellite system which itself is space-based. They could even launch a space-based laser against it. So, Mr. Chairman, one of the reasons that BMDO abandoned space-based systems some time ago in preference for ground-based, at least as a first stages, is the inherent vulnerability of predeployed assets in space, lasers and interceptors. Mr. Chairman, I am against wasting more money on deployment; not on research. I specifically made that clear. This allows research to continue. But against pursuing the deployment of these systems, because they would preclude the one thing that is attainable in the near term: ground-based interceptors.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk, but I have decided not to ask for the amendment to be considered. Mr. Chairman, I withdraw the amendment.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, the Solomon amendment purports to condition Nunn-Lugar funding. In fact, we all know what it would do. It would stop it, stop it dead in the water, and I think that is a tragic mistake, and I strongly oppose it. Nunn-Lugar has three laudable goals, which I do not understand how anybody can possibly oppose, to destroy and dismantle weapons that were designed, developed, and deployed, the deadliest weapons in this world, to devastate this country. It is also designed to take the components of those weapons and make sure that they do not spread, fall into the hands of other countries, terrorist groups who might use them against us. And, astutely, it is also to be used so that the knowledge and the expertise of former Soviet scientists cannot be used by these same terrorist groups or rogue nations against us. This law is for our benefit, not for their benefit, and it is in our best interests. And let us see what it accomplished. First of all, all of the nuclear warheads deployed in the former Soviet Union, in Kazakhstan and Ukraine and Belarus, will be removed, gone from those three countries, leaving only one nuclear State in the former Soviet Union. Thirty-eight hundred warheads will be freed up, removed from the former Soviet Union, putting Russia ahead in implementation of the START-I Treaty. Thirty-two of those warheads, missiles, will be SS- 18's. That is 320 SS-18 reentry vehicles, more than any RV's, reentry vehicles, that we could possibly take out with any missile defense system we are going to develop in the near future. Eight hundred strategic launchers were removed; 200 missile silos removed. Now, what is the money that is coming in this bill? What will it do? Among other things, it will help us continue eliminating those SS-18 missiles. Thirty-two have been eliminated so far; 170 remain to go. It will help implement START-I, help ratify START-II, carry it out if it is completed. It will help destroy 10 mobile launch pads in Belarus, seal up 30 nuclear test tunnels in Kazakhstan, provide 150 United States-made containers to transport nuclear materials to save storage. And let me stop here and say that it is true that a lot of those components have not been destroyed. What we want to do is build a facility in Tomsk, Siberia; been built, the site has been chosen and the design is completed. It is under construction. This money will help to go toward the construction and completion of this facility where those components will be taken, they will be accurately accounted for and safely stored. Time does not allow me to keep on going, but I could iterate point after point about how we are protecting ourselves and protecting the rest of the world in this Nunn-Lugar program. It is a program of proven success, and it has much yet to be accomplished. It would be a tragic mistake in terms of timing, but in terms of our own self-interest and the protection of our country if we pass the Solomon amendment and terminated this program which has done so much to enhance the security of this country.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Chairman, this authorization bill may be the last of the big time spenders. It does plus up the President's request by a substantial amount, $12.9 billion, but it takes up defense spending next year by only $2.6 billion over the current fiscal year. From next year onward, defense spending, according to the budget program, does not go up in any year more than $2 to $3 billion. We are going into a future of very constrained defense budgets after this year. So the question that should concern us greatly in this debate as we add $12.9 billion to the Pentagon's request, is whether we can sustain, finish, in the out years what we are starting beefing up and speeding up next year. This question looms in particular over ballistic missile defense, national and theater, which was increased by $940 million in this bill. There are, as a consequence, out-year funding requirements which we simply may not be able to meet in a defense budget programmed to go up by no more than $2 to 3 billion a year. I rise to speak to just one small piece of that partly to illustrate the problem, but also to illustrate a very important problem, which I think needs correcting, and I will offer an amendment to that effect. The piece that I want to speak about is something called space and missile tracking system. I have an amendment that will deal with this, and let me explain the reason for it and the problem that we have in this bill. When deployed, these so-called SMTS, once called Brilliant Eyes, now called SMTS for space missile and tracking system, is a constellation of 18 to 24 satellites, all of them in low-earth orbit. They compliment satellites in higher orbit, including the DSP and geosynchronous orbit, which serve to spot missiles which might be launched against us and then hand off the data to the SMTS. These SMTS missiles circling the globe in low-earth orbit will acquire the incoming missiles or reentry vehicles, track them for a period of time, feed that data to ground-based radars and battle management computers, and these in turn will cue the ground-based interceptors and give them their initial target vectors to go get the oncoming missiles. All of these are components of what is called the space-based infra- red system, or SBIR's. They are vital programs, vitally important, and they have my full support. The Air Force, which manages the SMTS on behalf of the other services, first planned to deploy it in the year 2006, because they thought at that time it could be optimized and serve several different missions rather than just one. But last year in conference, the defense bill was changed to mandate deployment by the year 2003. We legislatively mandated an IOC, an initial operational capability. There were no hearings, there was no debate, there was no discussion of the consequences. Here are the consequences which we never weighed. First of all, by forcing the deployment schedule to a much earlier date, SMTS has to be downscoped in the words of the Air Force. For example, the more sensors can sense or see an object, trying to track it, the more accurate a track they can get on the object. This frequency is referred to as a revisit rate. The more often you ping it, the better the data you get back. By forcing deployment in the year 2003, the acquisition sensor revisit rate rate will be less than half the rate which was originally specified for mission effectiveness. Point two: The SMTS works well by itself, but it works best as part of an integrated system, high earth orbit satellites, geosynchronous satellites, ground-based radar. By forcing deployment in the year 2003, the data rate for crosslinking and downlinking information has to be reduced by 80 percent. Some call this dumbing down the system. Furthermore, the requiring that the system be deployed early, we will probably rob from it one of its essential missions. We wanted it to do three things: Provide sensors, infrared sensors in space for theater ballistic missile defense, provide sensors for national missile defense, and also through this network of low earth orbit satellites encircling the globe, provide technical intelligence data that we could use for battlefield characterization all over the world, vastly enhancing our technical intelligence sources. All three missions were to be wrapped into one system, but this cannot be done if we force the deployment in 2003, rather than waiting for the system to be developed. The design life of the satellites if we force early deployment will be cut nearly in half. The mean mission duration drops from 8.5 years to 5 years. Although everyone agrees, everybody agrees, that theater missile defense is the most immediate and pressing threat, national missile defense capabilities, because of last year's bill, are given priority over theater missile defense and these other roles and missions of this particular satellite system are simply put on the back burner. They will have to wait until later. To cap it off, to buy this diminished system, we will have to spend $2 billion more between now and 2003 to accelerate the program to meet the deadline that we legislated last year. Mr. Chairman, in general, I am opposed. I think we should all be opposed to Congress thinking it knows best and trying to legislate deployment dates or IOC's. We take the technical risk in increasing, we place mission cam capabilities in jeopardy, and we put program managers in untenable positions. They either break the law or field a system that is less than optimal. Last year's conference requirement is especially shaky. It not only usurped the Services' role in determining what was the right acquisition schedule, it ignored the Air Force's suggestions for accelerating this program. Last fall the Air Force proposed a faster schedule, one that would field the original design, the baseline system, in the year 2005. To meet the conference requirements, the Air Force will now attempt to field a limited system in 2004 at the expense of delaying full fielding of the baseline system until the year 2009. In a rush to deploy something, we are on line to get our best system 4 years late, in order to get a limited system 1 year early. The opponents of my amendment say it is an attack on the high segment of the space based infrared system. They are wrong. We do not mention that. They are still an integral part of it, just like a fully capable SMTS is an integral part of the overall system. Opponents also say it will disrupt or delay the acquisition system. It will not. My amendment does not direct the Air Force to change anything. If the services are dissatisfied with the block one capabilities, they can proceed with it. I thank the gentleman for the opportunity to explain this amendment.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose the rule. I recall when we opened this Congress the colleagues on the other side told us we were going to have open rules and free and open debate, and this is a protestation, a rule that has been mostly honored in the breach, and this rule is a classic example of it. This bill adds $12.9 billion to the President's request, the Pentagon's request for national defense. There was an amendment filed that would strike the entire $12.9 billion. In all candor, I probably would not have voted for it, but that is the overarching issue here. At the very least we should open the debate with how much money we are going to spend on national defense. If we do not want to debate $12.9 billion, a huge add-on, at least we could have taken up the Foley amendment offered by a gentleman from the other side of the aisle to strike $2.6 billion and keep defense spending flat next year with the level of spending this year. But that amendment, too was precluded by this particular rule. These two amendments, as I said, are the overarching issues. They address what we are going to spend and what we are going to allocate to defense. Deep within the interstices of this rule there are other things that are precluded that I think are good government amendments. I offered one. A simple amendment to strike $25 million in funding that was added to the budget to accelerate the production of plutonium pits that go into nuclear weapons. We have more plutonium pits than we can say grace over. If you want to restart production, $25 million is a spit in the bucket compared to what it is going to cost. My amendment to knock out this entirely unnecessary $25 million was not made in order. I am the ranking member of the R&D subcommittee on our committee. There is a provision here that precludes the use of this money for developing short takeoff and landing capabilities for the Joint Strike Fighter, which means it precludes its use for the Marine Corps. I know there has been some sort of compromise struck. Let us do it on the floor, do it in the well, put it behind us, and let us have that debate here and now. What are we going to debate then? We are going to debate social issue, totally peripheral to this bill, important maybe, but not as important as how much we spend on national defense. We are reopening gays in the military and HIV-positive serving, that is what this debate will be focused upon, not the key issues of how best to defend this country and how much to spend. That is why we should all oppose this rule and start over again.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I proudly sponsor this resolution because Ron Brown was a friend and a rare American. He was African-American, but he transcended race and color. He was a party leader, and one of the best because he resurrected our party, but there was nothing ever small or petty or partisan about him. He had this enormous affinity for people, and he led by bringing people together, not by splitting us apart. When he came before our committee to defend his embattled Commerce Department, he was a forceful advocate with the facts at his command, but he made his case without a trace of rancor or resentment. He could do that because he sat there as the single best argument for that embattled department. Ron Brown was a bridge-builder at a time when so many of our differences seem unbridgeable. His goodness and his decency and his energy and charm are assets we sorely need in the public life of this country. We can ill afford to lose leaders like him, before his time, still in his prime. But in the broadest sense, we have not lost Ron Brown, for he remains a lasting symbol of what America at its best can be. I extend to his family, and to the families of all those who perished in this tragic accident, my sympathy and our gratitude for the selfless service rendered our country in the cause of peace in a forlorn place.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of Bentsen-Spratt-Dingell. There is a lot on our agenda about which the American people are undecided or divided, but clearly they want us to change the way that health insurance in this country is written. They want the law to say that if they lose their jobs or leave it, they can take their health insurance with them; if they have an illness or an injury, they can keep their insurance and not be ostracized by carriers as having preexisting conditions. Mr. Speaker, there is something else the American people want. They want an end to partisan bickering. Our substitute goes to both goals. It is not just a chance to change health insurance. It is a chance to do something bipartisan. We make health insurance portable. We take care of people with preexisting conditions, and we do it in a bipartisan bill, a clean bill that is unencumbered by pet provisions. Mr. Speaker, the differences between the base bill, H.R. 3103, and our substitute, which is essentially Kennedy-Kassebaum-Roukema, are seemingly small but the differences are potentially insidious. First of all, let me just cover a couple. The base bill in our substitute says that if you lose your job, you can convert from group to individual coverage once your extension under COBRA has expired. But in the substitute, we say that when you convert, you have the right to pick among the policies that an insurance company offers. In the base bill, people lose this flexibility. They have got a Hobson's choice. That is because the base bill has been amended to let the States restrict individuals to a single policy, and that one policy is bound to become the high-risk pool for all the rejects and bad risks. That will make the premium cost excessive, probably beyond the reach of most people who need it, and we are not giving health insurance availability unless we give health insurance affordability. There is another provision very deep in this base bill which differs from the substitute. Both of us permit small employers to band together to purchase insurance, and, banded together, they can broaden their risk pool and get better rates. So far, so good. But the base bill goes on to exempt multiemployer health plans from State regulations that govern other multiemployer health plans and places these under the Department of Labor. You got it. The Republicans want to give the Federal Government the power to regulate these insurance, self- insurance plans, and take it away from the State government. Here, do not take it from me, listen to what Mr. Gradison, a very respected member of this body from the other side of the aisle, now head of the Health Insurance Association of America, says about that particular provision of the main bill before us. He says, We strongly oppose the provision contained in the House leadership bill which we believe will undermine the progress States have made in reforming their small employer insurance markets and leave an unstable health care market in its wake. Mr. Speaker, we have a chance to pass a bipartisan bill, to keep this bill on track and I urge support for the bill. Mr. Speaker, there is much of our agenda about which the people are undecided or divided. But clearly they want us to change the way health insurance is written. They want the law to say that if they lose their job or leave it, they don't have to lose their health insurance--they can take it with them. And if they have an illness or injury, they can keep their insurance, and not be ostracized by carriers for a ``preexisting condition.'' There's something else people want: They want an end to partisan bickering. Our substitute goes to both goals. It is not just a chance to change health insurance, it's a chance to do something bipartisan. We make health insurance portable; we take care of people with preexisting conditions; and we do it in a bipartisan bill, a clean bill, unencumbered by pet provisions and special concessions. The differences between the base bill, H.R. 3103, and our substitute, which is the Kennedy-Kassebaum-Roukema bill, are seemingly small but potentially insidious. First of all, both the base bill and our substitute say that if you lose your job, you can convert from group to individual coverage once your 18-month extension under COBRA has expired. But in the substitute, we say that when you convert, you can pick among the policies a company offers. In the base bill, you lose this flexibility. That's because the base bill was amended to let the States restrict individuals to a single policy; and that one policy is bound to become the high-risk pool for all the rejects and bad risks. This will make the premium cost excessive, probably beyond the reach of most who need it. Our substitute guarantees individual coverage, but it does not limit that guarantee to one insurance policy. The person who converts may still have his premium rated, adjusted upward for a preexisting condition; but he can also buy into an insurance pool with lots of other people who are ordinary, unrated risks. And while this bill gives that no one protection against higher premiums, our substitute leaves the States the power to regulate premiums, as many already have. And if you are in an insurance pool with ordinary risks, the States can limit the rated premium you have to pay for your policy, say, to 50 percent of the standard premium. But if you end up in a risk pool with all bad risks, there is no way to spread the cost and mitigate the premiums. Next, the base bill, as well as our substitute, permits small employers to band together to purchase insurance. In banding together, they can broaden their risk pool and get better rates. But the base bill exempts multiemployer health plans from the State regulations that govern other multiemployer plans, and places these under the Department of Labor. In by-passing State laws, particularly on what constitutes an adequately capitalized plan, the base bill, in the words of the Health Insurance Association of America, sets up ``a very flimsy safety net for employees with self-insured, federally regulated coverage.'' It puts the insured in peril of being in an unsound plan and not having coverage when it is needed. Our bill respects the competency of the States in this field, and leaves multiemployer insurance plans subject to State law. Next, the base bill includes Medicare fraud and abuse provisions, and claims savings back into Medicare to boost the solvency of the Part A trust fund. Instead these Medicare funds are used to offset the tax revenues lost by allowing MSA's. This comes from the group that for the past year has told seniors that deep cuts in Medicare were needed to keep the trust fund solvent. Next, the base bill raises the tax deduction allowed the self- employed to 50 percent of the premiums they pay, but reaches that level only in year 2003. On this subject, our substitute departs from Kennedy-Kassebaum-Roukema; it too increases the tax deduction for the self-employed, but we go to 80 percent by the year 2002. I am not altogether opposed to MSA's, but I would much rather use the tax offsets to cover the revenue losses to pay for a higher rate of deductibility. More small business people, more self-employed Americans, will benefit from being able to deduct 80 percent of their health insurance premiums than will benefit from medical savings accounts. Finally, the base bill repeals current laws that we put in place to regulate the sale of policies that duplicate Medicare coverage. These protections were enacted to protect unsuspecting seniors from purchasing coverage that they already have under Medicare. The base bill opens a loophole that would allow insurers to sell Medicare beneficiaries a policy that is not identical to Medicare coverage, say offering additional homecare visits, but include a rider in the policy that denies payment for any service covered by Medicare. Mrs. Roukema tonight, and Senator Kassebaum several days ago, have all warned against overloading this bill with extraneous stuff, like medical savings accounts and malpractice reform. I am not opposed to all those add-ons; I've voted for malpractice reform; but what I favor most is moving this bill. It is a shame to bog it down with controversial provisions, and a shame to blow this opportunity to do something bipartisan for a change. Let's keep this bill on track; let's keep it clean and make it bipartisan. Vote for the Bentsen-Spratt-Dingell substitute.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I would like to rise in support of this amendment and say that it is the result of nearly 2 years of investigative effort by the General Accounting Office, a committee hearing by the gentleman's Subcommittee on Government Reform, and it is fully warranted. Now I understand that it also meets with the approval of Treasury Department. We made changes to accommodate them. This deals with a potential problem which needs attention, and we give a mandatory charter to a task force that already exists, but we give them broader authority. We also ask this task force to report periodically to the Congress, which is a time-honored way of getting the executive branch's attention. This warrants support. And I appreciate the gentleman yielding.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, when I spoke in favor of sustaining the President's veto of this bill, I said that 1 week of earnest negotiation could produce an acceptable bill. I want to give credit to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. They were flexible on the three issues most opposed by the administration. We now have a bill I think which on balance is worthy of support. I congratulate my friend and my colleague, the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spence], for navigating this difficult bill through a difficult conference. I am happy with the pay raise, with the increased housing allowances. I think all Members of this House should be, and I am hopeful that these payments will not be any longer delayed. I am pleased, too, to see that there are provisions here that will ensure that there is a timely COLA for military retirees. They earned it; they are entitled to it. So I will vote for this conference report and I will encourage my colleagues to do the same. But I do have concerns that I want to express. I am concerned that this bill is not the long-term blueprint for the defense budget which we need. I want to sound a friendly caveat to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. If we do not discipline the add-ons in the next defense bill more diligently, we have a train wreck coming just down the track. This bill makes costly commitments like more B-2's, and I voted for the money, but it makes costly commitments like that without tackling any of the tradeoffs necessary to carry those commitments through in the years ahead. This bill starts up an antisatellite weapon, expensive, a space-based laser, expensive, dubious technology, four prototype submarines, without resolving just where all this money is going to be found to carry these programs to fruition. This bill speeds up existing programs like the Navy's Upper Tier, the Navy's Lower Tier theater missile defense systems, the Army's Comanche helicopter, the Air Force space and missile tracking system, so-called Brilliant Eyes. It is doubtful we can maintain the speed in the years ahead. Unlike the appropriation bill, this bill mandates milestones, program milestones, dates when things have to be done, deadlines for a host of different programs. This is congressional micromanagement. It is a practice that is often questioned, often decried by those very Members who are practicing it here right in this very bill. I, Mr. Speaker, see no way to sustain funding for all these initiatives in the outyears. Between now and the year 2002, it is true that the Republican budget for national security will add some additional money over and above the Clinton defense budget, but it is only $18.4 billion plus 1 percent of the total amount to be spent on national security in the next 7 years. If we follow through with all the systems that this bill either starts up or spends up, we will need a lot more money than $18.4 billion. If we do not come up with that additional money, we will have to slow down or stop in future years that which we are starting up or speeding up this year. That is not an efficient way to spend the scarce dollars that we have for national defense. It is also not good precedent to authorize $821 million for national missile defense with nary a word about how Congress wants this program structured and how this money should be spent. I know that striking all the national missile defense language was the best we could do, if we wanted an authorization bill, and I hope this year when we do the bill we can settle on common ground and not repeat this precedent of authorizing $821 million without any direct examination or guidance. I know that those who wanted the national missile defense provisions, the language in this bill, think that the ABM Treaty is outdated and a barrier to ballistic missile defense development. They have got a point. The ABM Treaty is 23-years old, but the ABM Treaty does not bar any particular development that we will do this year or in the immediate future. And if we imply, even imply in an act of Congress that we would possibly violate or even want to abrogate or renegotiate the ABM Treaty, then we may put ratification of START II by the Russia Duma in even greater risk that it faces now. START II will reduce Russia's nuclear arsenal by some 5,000 warheads. The missiles that carry these will be dismantled. The silos will be filled with concrete. The warheads will be stored in a facility built according to U.S. specifications in Tomsk, Siberia. And as to these 5,000 warheads, if this comes to pass START II will give us 100 percent defense effectiveness. So for the sake of ballistic missile defense, we should concentrate now on ratification of START II and later, when it is necessary and the time is propitious, then we can concentrate on amendments to the ABM Treaty. Mr. Speaker, every year since 1959, we have had an authorization bill. A lot of Members do not understand that we really did not have an authorization process prior to that date, and it has built up since then. It is more necessary than ever, now that we are in a period of changing national defense years. This is an important bill. We should not break precedent and fail to pass it this year. Since we settled the three most contentious issues, the pay raise for the troops is here, the increase in the housing allowance, all rides on this bill, I will vote for it and I encourage my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. SPRATT

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

Mr. SPRATT. As soon as practicable, and there is plenty of time between now and then to go back to the ABM Treaty once we have ratified START-II and to deal with the issues that we have to deal with, plenty of time to develop a system and then work out those issues.

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

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, let me make clear to my friend, as I think he knows, I am for building and deploying a ground-based system that is treaty-compliant to start with. I candidly acknowledge that before we are finished with it, we will probably want to go back to that treaty, change it significantly, so we can allow space-based sensors and multiple site deployment. What I am saying now is if you push that issue, if you force it now, you are going to risk ratification of START-II. If START-II is not ratified, then ballistic missile defense against 8,000 warheads as opposed to 3,000 warheads is a much different thing. I do not know where we are coming up with the money to maintain START-level offensive systems without, and at the same time to pay for, the development and deployment of a ballistic missile defense system. That is a coherent position. I am for protecting ourselves against ballistic missiles that may be launched against this country.

Mr. SPRATT. Reclaiming my time, this is for a demonstration of the validity of the system. It is an R&D and development program. There is no money for deploying such a system. We have not reached that decision. We have not funded it. Out of a total budget of $3.8 billion, $56 million for this; we fund it because we think there are complementaries and commonalities that will teach us something about our other systems.

Mr. SPRATT. I was getting ready to take that up right now. I thank the gentleman for bringing that up. I will admit that this draft that we have before us does smooth the sharpest edges off the original earlier drafts that dealt with ballistic missile defense and the ABM Treaty. But this bill would require the President to renegotiate the treaty with the Russians now, when START II has yet to be ratified, and the politics in Russia are hardly propitious for ratification. Second, it would imply that the United States should break out of the treaty if the Russians do not agree to the amendments we want, permitting multiple sites, unlimited interceptors, and space-based sensors, and it would require the testing of a chemical laser in orbit in 1999, which would be a violation of the treaty. I believe that we should develop and deploy a ground-based missile defense system. The gentleman referred to some of us who had voted for that before. I voted for it. Frankly, before that system is finished, I think we will want to deploy interceptors at more than one site. We will need to. I think we will also want to deploy space-based sensors, and I think that both of these features, plus more, will probably require changes and revisions in the ABM Treaty, but nothing requires us to negotiate those changes just now, right now. If we force the administration to renegotiate the ABM Treaty now, with START II not yet ratified, we will risk the ratification of START II. And if START II is not ratified and our warheads are not reduced from 8,000 to around 3,500, and we have to maintain the deployment of nuclear weapons at START I levels, additional costs in operations and maintenance by the year 2000 are going to be $5 to $8 billion. If we have to find these additional billions of dollars each year for offensive missile deployment and maintenance, where are we going to find the additional billions for defensive missile systems? Where will we find the billions needed to deploy missile interceptors and ground- based radars at multiple sites, to fast-track the space-based sensors, to field four theater ballistic missile systems at the same time? One particular point. Dig deep into title II of this bill, research, deployment, and testing for the Air Force, and you will see where this bill simply does not ask the hard questions about where is the money going. Here we say in this particular section that the Air Force should step up the deployment of so-called Brilliant Eyes or the Space and Missile Tracking System. We now plan on deploying one first operational shot in the year 2003. The cost estimated for that is $5.5 billion, to do one operational shot in 2003. Of that cost, only $800 million is now programmed in the Air Force's budget. If we want to fast-track these space-based sensors so that all 18 satellites can be deployed in 2003, which is what title II calls for, that will mean billions of additional dollars in R&D over the next 7 years plus billions of additional dollars more to produce and launch 18 satellites, and the bill does not breathe a word about where this money is coming from. That is why these provisions in this bill make for more of a political statement than a ballistic missile defense plan that can be paid for and carried out over the next 6 to 7 years. Mr. Speaker, we need an authorization bill. We need it to provide additional pay for our troops. We need it to authorize military construction. We need it to authorize end-strength, we need it for lots of reasons. But we can sustain this veto and still have a bill because I am convinced that in 1 week, 1 week of earnest work and reasonable compromise, we can bring forth a bill that the President will sign and almost all of us will vote for.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I voted for this bill when it passed the House. I thought the parts of it I objected to would be cured in conference. Some were, some were not. So I decided reluctantly to vote against the conference report, and today I vote reluctantly to sustain the veto. I want to address the very provisions that the gentleman just in the well took up, namely, the parts of the bill to which the President objected and singled out that deal with ballistic missile defense and the ABM Treaty. This year, Mr. Speaker, each House adopted in the authorization bill what amounts to a special chapter devoted solely to ballistic missile defense and the ABM Treaty. In the Senate, this chapter was painstakingly worked out, and in the end it represented a compromise that almost everyone agreed to, the Clinton administration included. The Senate vote in favor of it was overwhelming: 85 to 13. So in conference, on the Democratic side, we offered a straightforward, simple, efficient solution. We said we would take the Senate provisions in toto, completely. Now in 12 years of going to defense conferences, this is the first that I can recall where the House conferees or some of us said to the Senate, we will buy your language lock, stock, and barrel, only to have the Senate conferees say to us, sorry, it is not for sale anymore. That is exactly what happened in this conference. Having cut a deal on ballistic missile defense, having voted for the deal and the bill that contained it, Senator Dole and others in the Senate decided that they had to have more. Senator Nunn told us in conference, look, you can have it one way or the other. You can have a defense bill or you can make a political statement, but not both, and the Republican conferees in the House and Senate chose to do the latter and refused to compromise further; and so here we are in January without an authorization act.

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

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I want to respond quickly to the statements made about the Arrow missile defense system in the well just a few minutes ago by my colleague, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Weldon]. That system is being funded in this budget at $56.5 million in an account called Other Theater Ballistic Missile Systems, which is totally funded at $460 million. This $56 million compares to about $2 billion we are spending on upper-tier and lower-tier for the Navy, and Impact Three, and it is considered a theater ballistic missile defense system. It compares to $770 million. None of it is for production, procurement and deployment. That issue is yet to be reached.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I voted for this bill when it passed the House. I thought then that the parts of it I found problematic might be scrubbed out in conference, but it still comes from conference with some problems and, I think, still can be resolved. So, in the hope that it might be put through the scrubber one more time I will vote against the conference report today. Mr. problem, by and large, with the bill is the same problem I have with the appropriation bill. Though I voted for it, I think it is the worst problem in the bill because I do not think that either bill is realistic about the future. I think we have a mismatch between defense plans and defense budget, and I think this conference report adds to the problem. My colleagues see between fiscal year 1996 and fiscal year 2002 the Republican budget calls for a national defense spending budget authority to increase from $265 billion in 1996 to $280 billion, going up about $15 billion or in increments of about $2 billion to $3 billion a year. That is going to be a hard line to toe in a budget that takes discretionary spending from $548 billion down to $513 billion in 2002. During this same 7-year period, the Clinton budget allocates $20 billion less to defense. This too will be a tough path to follow; it will call for a lot of tradeoffs; but in the last 2 years, the Clinton budget is more realistic than the Republican budget about funding for national defense. In 2001 and 2002, the Clinton budget actually allocates $15 billion more to defense than the Republican budget. What happens in this Republican budget is a truncation in those outyears to squeeze it into their plan to balance the budget by the year 2002. The Clinton budget, on the other hand, realistically recognizes that in those outyears systems like the F-22 are going to be coming to fruition, and it rises to accommodate the cost of these systems. Despite their austerity, this truncation in the outyears, this Republican budget in the short term, this bill, is loaded down with more systems, four prototype submarines, two DDG destroyers, up to 20 B-2 bombers, new systems like space-based lasers, ASAT. The Navy's Upper-Tier system has risen from being just a testing prototype system to being a full up core TMD system. Mandated IOC's, a practice we have rarely done, but here we have mandated an initial operational capability date for missile defense system, for theater missile defense system, for Lower-Tier, Upper-Tier, for PAC-3, and we speeded up the milestones for Brilliant eyes. This is not a budget that looks toward an austerity period coming ahead of us. It only raises the risk of a train wreck down the path, and I do not think it can be accomplished in the long run on the spending track that is laid down in the overall Republican budget. Let me just speak a minute to BMD, ballistic missile defense, because I happen to know something about that. This budget contains a $450 million plus-up for national missile defense. The mandated IODC or deployment date is 2003. I am basically supportive of that. If we deployed just at Grand Forks this is realistic, but it will still add $3 billion to the budget that we are working on because of the deployment date. However, if we deployed at several sites, which this report anticipates, then the cost goes up and it goes up astronomically, about $5 billion a site. Though it is in this budget, it is nowhere provided for in the overall budget. Mr. Speaker, buried in this conference report also is a $50 million plus-up for space-based chemical lasers. That is not terribly objectionable by itself, but tagged onto it is a mandate for an on- orbit test of a demonstration system by the end of 1999. That is not far away. This seemingly innocuous direction, added to the report without any discussion in conference to my knowledge, carriers with it a price tag that would easily run to $1 billion. That is low-balling the estimate. That is why I say this conference report needs another scrub in order to make it realistic within the budget we pretend to be operating upon.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me. Mr. Speaker, I oppose the Hefley bill, and not because I support the deployment of American troops in Bosnia. I voted for Buyer-McHale and, frankly, I remain skeptical. But if checks and balances are part of our Constitution, so is comity, and the circumstances here demand it. This is not the time to bind the President's hands; not the time to doom the peace in Bosnia before we even know the terms of the peace agreement. During most of the years I have served here in the House, my party has been in the majority. And though we were often tempted, we never preempted President Bush or President Reagan in the way this bill would. President Bush sent 500,000 troops to the Persian Gulf, and long before most of us decided that we would give him the power to take those troops to war, we cut him the slack he needed to stand up to Saddam Hussein, and to bring the Security Council and rest of the world around to our position. President Clinton deserves no less. The Constitution gives Congress the power to decide when our troops will be dispatched in a foreign theater and put in harm's way. But history has taught us that we have to be practical; and as a practical matter, we cannot expect the President to huddle with Congress before calling every play in foreign policy. We have to and can send the President strong signals, as we did when we passed McHale-Buyer, 315- to-103. But this bill is more than a warning signal; it flat-out prohibits the President from sending any U.S. ground troops to Bosnia as part of any peacekeeping operation unless funds are specifically appropriated. Several problems came to my mind, just as a result of the drafting. For example: Hefley could prevent U.S. troops from being sent to pull out U.N. personnel, and NATO allies, should the talks falter and the fighting resume. You may say that this is not the intent of the language, but if not, why not explicitly say so? Hefley does not bar United States airstrikes, it is true; but it might stop a significant number of United States troops from being brought into Bosnia to search for and rescue American fliers who get shot down. And what happens if a peace agreement is agreed to, and embraced by all the parties, and a majority of Congress finds it to be a genuine peace, one we can implement and not one we have to impose; but then, the appropriation gets attached to a bitterly contentious bill--like an omnibus budget reconciliation act? After all, nothing in Hefley says that this appropriation must be sent to the President clean, or stand-alone, so we could see a Bosnian peace agreement bound up with the resolution of totally unrelated disputes in the Congress. I know that these problems may never come up. But eliminate them, and the biggest problem still remains, and that is timing. If this bill passes, at this time, it is bound to cast a pall on the peace talks. I have yet to be persuaded that sending American troops to Bosnia is a good idea or a necessary move. But I am willing to reserve judgment; willing to give the President and the parties the chance to produce an agreement that is workable and worthy of our support. In the end, I may cast my vote against sending United States ground troops to Bosnia--I reserve that right. But with the peace talks moving forward, and an agreement coming together, now is not the time to pass this bill.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I support the Whitfield amendment, and urge others to do the same. Mr. Chairman, I support the Whitfield amendment, which protects railroad workers when their railroads merge or sell. For years, the Interstate Commerce Commission [ICC] has reviewed and approved mergers and acquisitions. As part of its role, the ICC has had extraordinary authority: it has been able to change collective bargaining agreements to help transactions happen when it finds them in the public interest. In connection with this power, Congress gave the ICC discretion to require 6-year severance payments to rail workers displaced by mergers or acquisitions. This is a power rarely used, but it has had an indirect effect: It has been a disincentive to radical changes and an incentive to railroad lines, especially in rural areas. The bill before the committee would transfer the ICC's power to amend collective bargaining agreements to the newly created Transportation Adjudication Panel, but it would not transfer the associated authority to grant labor protection to workers on Class 2 and Class 3 railroads. The supporters of this bill argue that this change is necessary to allow medium and small railroads to survive in a competitive environment; and insofar as the smaller, class 3 railroads are concerned, the Whitfield amendment agrees. But for the larger, class 2 railroads, the Whitfield amendment would grant the adjudication panel the discretion to grant 1 year's severance pay to workers displaced by rail mergers or line acquisitions, in lieu of 6 years, which the law now provides. Trading from 6 years down to 1 year's severance pay strikes me as more than fair for class 2 carriers. This is a good deal for carriers and compromise rail workers have agreed to accept. I urge adoption of the Whitfield amendment.