Ted Stevens

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, this is a technical amendment that transfers funds from one account to another to assure that the contingency operations of the Department will be met. Amendment No. 4589 to Amendment No. 4439 (Purpose: A second degree amendment to amendment number 4439 filed by Mr. Stevens)

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I now send to the desk an amendment which was proposed by Senator Inouye and introduced on Friday.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Does Senator Feingold seek time on this amendment?

Mr. STEVENS. There is no objection.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I am constrained to say that if the Senator's amendment were to be adopted, our bill would be subject to a point of order. I hope that will not happen. So I move to table the Senator's amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, is there a time limit?

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I must express some surprise at the Senator, in view of his position on the Armed Services Committee, and in view of the fact that today we have already, at the request of Senator McCain and Senator Levin, transferred, subject to authorization, $14 million to the Department of Defense for the purpose of antiterrorism activities. Now, that is subject to authorization. The effect of Senator Levin's amendment now would be to transfer money that is authorized for F-16's to more money for the antiterrorism activities, and it is not authorized either. They have not received authorization for the first $14 million we put up for this antiterrorism program. That is not even defined yet. It is not defined by the authorization committee or by the Department. Now, we did that in the spirit of bipartisanship and cooperation with the Armed Services Committee members. I find it very difficult to understand this amendment now, when the Chief of Staff of the Air Force came to see me, General Fogleman. He listed to me personally, as one of his highest priorities, getting these F-16's. The F-16's--all four of them, not just two--really are our weapons system for cooperation between the Air Force and the Army now, which is the close air support fighter that works in conjunction with ground troops in combat. I say to my friend from Michigan that nowhere in the world can you see that so vividly as in the joint training exercises in my State of Alaska. We use the F-16's along with our Army forces there, and army forces from throughout the world come to participate in the training in my State in order to develop the ability to really use these new close air support fighter and ground troop accommodations. This is really one of the great things about our Defense Department now. This is a team. The Air Force and Army are now a team because of the F-l6. I think this is the message General Fogleman brought to us. These F-16's are needed. As a matter of fact, we have gone from the concept of trying to meet the Soviets anywhere in the world--a worldwide concept of defense to a concept of two major regional contingencies being what we will plan for. We plan for our ability to meet two major regional contingencies. If we carried out the plans that were previously approved by the authorization committee to do so, to meet two major regional contingencies, the Air Force would need 114 more F-16's. The Air Force is not fully supplied with aircraft to meet the plans to carry out their missions in the event of two major regional contingencies. Now, we are trying to move along in this way as best we can. The Senate passed an authorization bill that included eight F-16's. Our committee has funded that request from the Armed Services Committee. We have not added funds for unauthorized F-16's. As a matter of fact, if you want to talk to the budget, we have $10 billion more money in this bill than was requested in the budget, and that is a battle we are going to have to face later with the administration to see whether they really want to maintain that figure. Our bill, I point out once again, is $1.2 billion over last year's bill, but in terms of actual items covered, last year we did not fund the contingencies. This year we did fund the contingencies. So, if you look at our bill fairly, we are below the level of 1996. This bill, despite the fact we have increased more than $10 billion over the budget, is less than we are spending now for defense. I think the recent events in Saudi Arabia, the fact that we have troops in Bosnia, and we have the crises that we are facing in the Pacific, God knows. I hope we are right. We believe we can get by with what we have in this bill. But I fear for the future of this country if we are wrong. The Department budgets approximately $1 billion for military security forces. Antiterrorism is their primary mission. We have added $14 million to the $1 billion already budgeted, and the Senator wants to add more before there is even a plan to spend what we have budgeted now. I say, with all good grace, to my friend that I am just surprised at this, after we have already agreed to the amendment that he and Senator McCain already delivered to us on the subject of antiterrorism. I can just state categorically that I oppose the amendment of the Senator from Michigan. I yield the remainder of my time to the Senator from Hawaii.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I believe there are still some amendments.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I regret the disagreement with the Senator from Iowa. It appears to me the process we are following is one that has been worked out by the authorization committees, by the Appropriations Committees, and by the administration. It is really a nonpartisan area we are dealing with of trying to assure the survival of the defense industrial base and maintain that at the lowest possible cost to the taxpayers. I do believe they have had some profits and there are profits that are coming back, primarily because they are writing off a lot of losses. They are abandoning a lot of buildings, selling buildings at a lot less than they paid for them. I expect we will see a period of time where there is some recouping of losses through tax advantages. That is another subject. I do think that is one of the incentives toward the restructuring, to try and take the losses and take advantage of them while there is still income from existing contracts. I can reassure the Senate when we are paying 60 percent less than we were 10 years ago for procurement, we are not expanding the industrial base. This restructuring is reducing it. It is downsizing it. I hope we will end up by maintaining what we need. I move to table the amendment of the Senator from Iowa, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, we have faced a dilemma. As we have reduced defense procurement by more than 60 percent in the last 10 years, that has led to significant overcapacity in the defense industry. But at the same time, we have had the difficulty of trying to ensure the preservation of an industrial base capable of maintaining the strongest military power in the world. Now, without restructuring this industry, that overcapacity would have led to higher overhead costs that would have increased the price of defense goods and services and continued the downward spiral, really, of the amount actually available for acquisition of systems that we need to assure our men and women of the armed services that they have the best in the world to be prepared to defend us with. Restructuring of this defense industry, in my judgment, has reduced the unit prices. We have lower unit prices, and we now have long-term savings for the Department of Defense and the taxpayers as a result of the restructuring. Our committee has urged and fostered that restructuring. A contractor must negotiate restructuring costs with the Department. Not all costs of restructuring are paid by the Department. The Department of Defense policy that has been laid down by the Congress and the Department is such that if the restructuring plan, and its allowable costs, do not save the taxpayers money, the Department of Defense will not agree to pay any of the restructuring costs. In the past 3 years, the Department of Defense has reimbursed contractors $300 million in these restructuring costs, and we estimate that will save $1.4 billion in defense costs. That is a 450 percent return on the contribution of the Department of Defense to the restructuring plans. I might add that if there are plans that are approved, restructuring costs that benefit employees would not be allowed if the amendment of the Senator from Iowa is adopted. It would not allow severance pay for employees. It would not allow early retirement incentive payments for employees. It would not allow employee retraining costs. It would not allow relocation expenses for retained employees, and many times they are moved to different locations. I know several significant examples of very long movements for those who have retained. Those clearly ought to be a cost to be repaid by the Department when it results in a lower cost to the Government. The amendment of the Senator from Iowa would not allow the repayment of outplacement services for employees helping them find new jobs. Above all, it would not allow continued medical, dental, life insurance coverage for terminated employees for the period of time involved. We believe the amendment of the Senator from Iowa goes in the wrong direction. We have adopted now by consent the Bradley amendment, which the Senator from Iowa mentioned. It does require the comptroller general to give us a study by early next year--I believe it is by April 1--on the analysis of these restructuring costs. Under current procedure, the costs that are not allowed are incorporation fees of the new entity, the merged entity; attorney, accountant, broker, promoter, organizer, management consultant, investment banker, or investment counselor fees cannot be paid, and those are the substantial costs of restructuring; interests or other costs of borrowing to finance an acquisition or merger are not recoverable from the Department of Defense; any payment to employees of special compensation in excess of the contractor's normal severance pay practice are not recoverable; any payment to employees of special compensation which is contingent upon the employee remaining with the contractor for a specified period of time following a change in management control are not payable by the Department of Defense; and any cost deemed unreasonable or excessive by the Department are not repayable. Mr. President, as I said, in my judgment, we face a very difficult task. We look forward to the report that we will get from the Bradley amendment. But in other areas, we are actually paying money to maintain industrial base. We had the President, contrary to my judgment, decided to buy the Seawolf. Why? Because we had to maintain the industrial base to build submarines. We have had other instances where we actually paid industries to keep going in order to maintain the industrial base for the future. The restructuring process brings together and merges industrial parts so that the successor entity is capable of producing for the Government at a lower cost under the circumstances that we are buying smaller amounts and we are buying different types of equipment. I really do believe restructuring is in the best interest of the taxpayers of this country. I look forward to the study, but I oppose the Senator's amendment. This is not a question of a hammer or toilet seat or coffee pot. This is a question of maintaining the industrial base of the United States so that we can continue to be the leader of the world. We are exporting, as we said this morning, some 14 billion dollars' worth of industrial products that are made by these industries. They are sold overseas. The fact that they are constructed by these industries and produced by these industries and sold overseas yields us a lower unit price for the taxpayers of this country to allow us to continue to replace, I do not care what it is, tanks or ships or aircraft. We need to maintain those to maintain the defense of this island Nation. I say to the Senator from Iowa, with all good will to him and what he is trying to do, it is wrong to put this concept of restructuring costs in the same category as those fees which we all condemned which were wasteful. These are not wasteful costs, Mr. President. They are the costs of downsizing the production units that we built up during the cold war in order to maintain our freedom. Now we are downsizing those units so that we can continue to be able to defend our freedom in the future. I spent a lot of my personal time going over some of these plans to try to assure that they are, in fact, in the public interest. We have had conversations with the Department of Justice on them and with other entities, industry and Government, to make sure it is on the right course, because of the fact that we know there are going to be increased costs down the line in the future because we are, in fact, going to acquire fewer units for our own use. Our policy should be to assure the survival of an industrial base that is capable of meeting demands throughout the world in order that we, too, may continue to have the advantage of prices based upon substantial production and not the limited production to meet our own needs. Does the Senator from Hawaii have any comments? I yield the remainder of my time to the Senator from Hawaii.

Mr. STEVENS. A minute on each side.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I am aware of the efforts of my colleague, and understand that if the Congress authorizes the demonstration program in fiscal year 1997 some funds may need to be appropriated. Since we do not yet know how much funding could be required, it is impossible for the subcommittee to act at this time. I assure my colleague that the subcommittee supports Medicare subvention and we would be willing to work with my colleague from Texas and the administration to expedite the reprogramming of 1997 funds if the Congress authorizes a Medicare subvention demonstration program in fiscal year 1997.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Pennsylvania for his comments. I agree that the CERT provides a critical function for the Defense Department at a time when our computer systems and networks are being attacked by computer hackers. I will work to provide an appropriate level of funding for CERT activities.

Mr. STEVENS. I would be pleased to join the distinguished Senator in strongly encouraging these DOD organizations to establish demonstration programs in order to more closely examine the potential of this program.

Mr. STEVENS. This certainly appears to be a worthwhile program. I would like to join the distinguished gentleman in encouraging Department of Defense organizations to participate. In your opinion, what would be the most efficient method for gaining their participation?

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, if there are no further amendments, I ask that we stand in adjournment in accordance with the previous order.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on final passage of the bill itself tomorrow.

Mr. STEVENS. For the information of all Senators, there is a rollcall vote at 9:30 on or in relation to the Harkin amendment to the defense appropriations bill. There now will be three votes--two votes on amendments and one vote on final passage. There will be 2 minutes before each vote on amendments. Following those two votes, there will be 5 minutes for Senator Dorgan and 5 minutes equally divided between the Senator from Hawaii and myself. We will then go to final passage under the previous unanimous consent agreement that all of the arrangements concerning the transfer to the House bill and the passage of that bill have already been agreed to. Following the votes, the Senate will begin consideration of the reconciliation bill. Additional votes can be expected throughout the day and into the evening in order to make substantial progress on that bill. There is a statutory limit of 20 hours on the reconciliation bill. However, the leader expresses the hope that we may be able to yield back some of that time and complete action on that bill as early as possible. Let me ask the Parliamentarian. Do I have to do anything further to assure that we follow the procedure outlined under the previous unanimous-consent agreement for the passage of the House bill?

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Reserving the right to object, I might add this confirms the nomination of Charles Clevert, Jr, of Wisconsin, and the nominations placed on the Secretary's desk are in the Public Health Service area.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Will the majority leader yield?

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Let me answer that, respectfully. When we tried yesterday to get to the defense bill, nuclear waste was not on the screen. We tried to get on it this morning, did get on to it, and immediately we have a filibuster because of nuclear waste. The leader did what he should do. He made the motion to call up nuclear waste, and filed the cloture motion so there will be a cloture vote on the motion to proceed to that bill. The Senators from Nevada not only have the right to insist on a cloture motion on the motion to proceed, but they also have a subsequent right to a cloture motion on the final vote on the bill, they then have the right to cloture motion on appointment of conferees on that bill. I can tell the Senators, if I were the Senators I can guarantee the Senate would not vote on this bill you oppose this year. But that has nothing to do with my bill. That has nothing to do with my bill. You have every right to protect your own interests with regard to your bill, but you are delaying the defense interests, the basic concern of the defense of the United States, in my opinion. I am telling you, you lose no rights. I should not address the Senator directly. I apologize. The Senator from Nevada loses no rights, neither Senator, by allowing our bill to proceed. And by consenting to that unanimous-consent request, we would vote either before or after the cloture motion, the bill would go to conference, the defense bill, and we have a chance--a chance of finishing this year with a bill signed and approved by the President. Mr. President, I cannot deal with this much longer without displaying some of what some people have called an unruly temper. It is not an unruly temper. I know how to use it. So I would say to my friend from Nevada, I am sorry this is the case. It is my understanding the distinguished assistant minority leader has duties. Mr. President, under the circumstances, I yield the floor.

Mr. STEVENS. I know Senators have objected to unanimous consent requests on legislation that was preceding an issue they were concerned with. I think that is done. I do not know of any situation where, after a cloture motion has been filed on the subject of the Senator's interest, where a Senator has then tried to delay any other legislation in order to try to protect a right that he perceived. Because I can perceive no right in such delay after the cloture motion is filed. We either get cloture or we do not get cloture. The Senator's rights are protected either way, under cloture rule or postcloture--the handling of the bill if cloture fails. I do not remember any such circumstance.

Mr. STEVENS. Yes.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, let me respond to this first now. I want to make it clear--and we stand out here and say these are our friends in the Chamber. The Senators from Nevada come from a small State like I do in terms of population. We are friends. But I disagree. We currently have an order we will vote on the cloture motion on the nuclear waste disposal bill on Tuesday. There is absolutely nothing that can be lost, in terms of rights of the two Senators from Nevada with regard to that bill by letting our bill go forward. As a matter of fact, letting it be voted on before, we could have it finished before that cloture vote. I understand the idea of trying to delay getting to a bill in terms of trying to delay the bill ahead of it. But that is past, as I said. Once the cloture motion was filed, the time runs under the rule from then, and there is nothing that can be done to harm the position of the Senators from Nevada with regard to that bill by proceeding with the pending business. I respectfully say again, we have a strange situation this year with regard to this bill. We know we are presenting a bill that is beyond the request of the President. We are working on a strategy to present the President a bill we think he will sign. That will take time. In any event, we need to know if the bill is to be signed. If it is not to be signed, then--if he wants to veto it--then we have to go back and finish that process. But we have to do it all within the period of September in order to finish, and this year is an election year. This is the second year of a Congress. We will go out of session in October. I am saying again to the Senators, the worst thing that could happen to the defense of the United States is to act under a continuing resolution. We must get a bill for this subject, on defense, or else we cannot enter into long-term contracts. We cannot enter into contracts that save the taxpayers' money. We pointed out here today, on three occasions, what we will save by virtue of this bill; $1 billion in one acquisition alone, we will save. It is certified by the GAO. Everybody knows we are going to save money by changing the way we handle some of this acquisition for our defense forces. We cannot do that under a continuing resolution. The whole Government can act, perhaps, on a continuing resolution. The Department of Defense loses money, the taxpayers pay in excess for their defense every time we have to go through a continuing resolution. I say to my friend, there is no way we are going to get back here and have another bill for defense if the President in fact vetoes the bill in September and we do not get the bill again to him in September. We cannot get through the defense bill in 2 weeks. We are going to be dealing with a continuing resolution. Every single portion of the Department of Defense loses and the taxpayers lose, if we try to operate the Department of Defense on a continuing resolution. I am pleading with my friend from Nevada to let go of our bill. They will not lose any of their rights. Again, I will be pleased to respond to any question the Senators have. I do think I do know these rules. I challenge anyone to challenge what I have just said, because there is no right the Senator from Nevada will lose by letting us proceed with the pending business with regard to anything they have the right to. They do have the right to do what they are doing, I agree. But they do not lose any rights by letting us go ahead.

Mr. STEVENS. To have the Senators ask a question.