John Warner

Mr. WARNER

Mr. WARNER. I had consulted with the Senator from New Mexico. I was told I could have a minute. Obviously, I am in error. I apologize to my distinguished colleague, and I withdraw my comments.

Mr. WARNER. I have it filed at the desk.

Mr. WARNER

Mr. WARNER. I want to ask my questions on my time. Perhaps he could just be given another minute or so to respond to the question. Is that agreeable? On his time?

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, let us proceed on the second part of my question.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I recognize this Senator was one of the first to say there is a need for a supplemental, even at the time when my respected President wasn't totally in agreement with what I was saying, but now there is thinking within the department that this supplemental will be necessary and will be forthcoming. But I don't want anybody coming tonight thinking that supporting the Landrieu amendment is going to provide for the 2001 shortfalls which this Chamber will have to address at some point in time when the Appropriations Committee brings to the floor a supplemental. I think my good friend slightly misspoke. I wanted to correct it in a very polite way. If I could move on to the second part of my question-- --

Mr. WARNER. If I may continue the colloquy--but go right ahead.

Mr. WARNER. Did I understand the Senator to say his interpretation of the amendment is that it covers the fiscal year 2001 for the supplemental? I bring to the attention of the Senator the amendment. I do not find that provision in it.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question? I will ask him on my time.

Mr. WARNER. I yield the floor.

Mr. WARNER. No, I am not saying that. I am dead serious. But I think we will pace ourselves, and it is a little early to begin to think about the magnitude of the budgets associated with missile defense. I didn't hear my distinguished colleague from Louisiana mention missile defense in the course of her direct testimony unless I missed it.

Mr. WARNER. Certainly that would be satisfactory.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, the distinguished Republican manager wishes to address a unanimous consent request which I think meets the objectives, such that our valued colleague from Louisiana can get the first vote, then my second-degree would be the second vote. I wonder if the managers would refer to that.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: Would it be appropriate----

Mr. WARNER. I thank all colleagues. Basically, I sought recognition so the Senate will understand there will be an amendment of some type which will be, in a sense, in opposition to my distinguished friend and colleague from Louisiana.

Mr. WARNER. I yield to the distinguished managers. They are handling this bill. I want to hear from the Senator from New Mexico on that.

Mr. WARNER. In the nature of a substitute, yes.

Mr. WARNER. Parliamentary inquiry: It is the intention of the Senator from Virginia at the appropriate juncture to offer an amendment in the second degree. I value greatly the participation of my distinguished colleague on the Armed Services Committee. I find myself in a position of requiring to express my views and those of others in the form of a second degree. My amendment would be very simple. It would ask for an $8.5 billion increase solely for 1 fiscal year, which is 2002, and at the appropriate time I will give further details. Could I inquire of the leadership, I want to be very careful with the protocol toward my good colleague, and presumably I can put the amendment at the desk now, but I wish to have the Senator complete her opening remarks first, and at that time if I might inquire of the distinguished managers, what would be their desire with respect to a second degree? I would need but 15 minutes to describe it. There may be others who would like to speak.

Mr. WARNER. Madam President, I send to the desk an amendment. It is a first-degree amendment. As I understand, under the UC there will be sequential votes.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I say to my distinguished colleague, when I addressed the letter from Senator Levin, I put it in its entirety into the record. I didn't in any way try to deceive the Senate as to his feelings about a different approach than my distinguished colleague from Louisiana, his approach being that we should begin to plan for the outyears, but it wasn't sort of a mandatory $10 billion for the outyears. It was more in the nature of some sort of a reserve fund. The key to it is, who is going to run defense? The Constitution of the United States says very clearly that the President is the Commander in Chief. It is the function of the executive branch to make the determination with regard to the needs and the requirements of our Armed Forces. As Senator Levin said very explicitly, he supports the reviews, and he says in absolutely clear language: And Congress, before we make our final decisions on the shape and overall funding levels for our future, let's hear from the President. That is consistent with the Constitution. That is the way we have done business. I think that is the way we should continue to do business. It may well be in the year 2003 we need additional funding over and above the 10, but the subsequent fiscal years may require less funding. I say with all due respect to my colleague, let us follow the constitutional mandate: The Commander in Chief, the President, proposes; Congress disposes. Someone far brighter than I in the history of this venerable institution, the Congress of the United States, made that statement. And it has been with us for these years. Let our President propose, as he is entrusted to do under the Constitution, and then each year we will go through the normal cycles that we do year after year. What is here is a means by which to reduce the President's tax bill. I respect the difference of opinion on this side of the aisle where I find myself very comfortably ensconced for the remainder of this debate. We should respect your views. But if you are going to do it, let's knock out all the business about defense and say you want to knock down the tax bill by $100 billion, and put the issue straight before the Senate. But as it relates to defense, I don't think we want to start a radical departure. I have been associated with defense for a number of years, starting in the Navy Secretariat in 1969, and now 23 years here. I have never seen the Congress allocate specific sums of increases without the budget request from the President of the United States, which has to be justified. You are speculating--and it may be correct--that we will need increases for one or more fiscal years. But I don't think it is our responsibility now to subvert the Constitution, which says the President is the Commander in Chief. The President will propose and, in due course, the Congress will dispose. With all due respect to my colleague, I certainly support the basic thrust of 2002. Our bills parallel in many respects. Mine takes care of 2002, lets the President finish his studies, and lets Congress analyze them and then makes the decision.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I simply say to my colleague, we have had a good debate. We have framed the issue very clearly. My posture is we should proceed to let the Commander in Chief conduct his studies. There is nothing in this debate to refute Mr. Levin. He said, ``. . .before we make final decisions on the shape and overall funding levels for our future defense programs,'' we should have those studies. I am saying that we are encroaching on what my distinguished ranking member said in clear English language. I say that with respect to the Senator. I yield back any time I have.

Mr. WARNER. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. WARNER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. WARNER. In the 106th Congress, an overwhelming majority of the United States Senate agreed, and approved a bipartisan pay parity amendment by a vote of 94 to 6 during consideration of legislation I introduced providing important pay increases for the military--S. 4, the Soldiers', Sailors', Airmen's, and Marines Bill of Rights. I know that Chairman Domenici supported that Federal employee pay parity amendment, and has been an advocate for pay parity through his position on the Budget Committee.

Mr. WARNER. Madam President, I first pay tribute to my two colleagues, members of the Committee on Armed Services. As I listened very intently to their comments, there is not much with which I can disagree with respect to the need for additional funds. Where we differ, I say with due respect, is that we have a new President, a new Secretary of Defense, and there are a number of Members in this Chamber on both sides of the aisle who have commended President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld in their initiatives to go back and reexamine the entirety of America's defense posture and to give greater emphasis to the emerging and ever-changing threats poised against our Nation and providing everyday risk to the men and women of the Armed Forces who are posted beyond our shores standing watch in the cause of freedom. This amendment prejudges the end result of these studies and prejudges the Bush administration and how they are going to reorient our defense posture for the outyears. It lays out a 10-year program; in a sense it allocates the 10 for each of the years. My amendment addresses but 1 fiscal year, 2002. It is the budget which we are working on now. President Bush, when he came to office, looked at the Clinton budget and decided to add $14.2 billion for this particular fiscal year. That was done very early on when he arrived into office. Subsequent thereto, the work of our committee produced papers, an analysis which showed that even funding of 14.2 falls short of what is desperately--I use that word very cautiously but very truthfully--needed by all the military departments to get our military through the 2002 fiscal year, to maintain its readiness, to maintain the quality of life for the men and women of the Armed Forces, and to hope to strengthen the ability of the services to retain. I cannot emphasize too strongly the need to retain middle-grade officers and senior enlisted men and women. We are falling short in those areas, and we now realize we must do more. Whether it is pay, housing, medical, hopefully less deployment, but we are falling short in that way. Every time we lose a pilot, the American taxpayers lose several million dollars of investment in the training that he or she has received through the years. Only a small amount of money, only a small amount of improvement in housing, only a small amount of improvement in health care could well have retained that highly skilled aviator and/or the maintenance chief down on the line working night and day to repair and keep the planes flying. This amendment by my two colleagues really prejudges what our President and Secretary of Defense will come up with. I would like to hypothetically put this to my colleagues. I think we should give this President the opportunity to make his judgments and to come back in subsequent fiscal years to the Congress and say: This is precisely what I need, or I don't need the full 10 billion, should this amendment become law. Stop to think about that. It could be in fiscal 2003 that our President wishes to increase the defense budget by 20 billion and represents to the Congress at that time, absent unforeseen contingencies, the following fiscal year he could have level funding and/or maybe just a billion or two additional funding. This President is reorienting the budget more and more towards the threat, beginning to scale down the number of deployments and hopefully improve the retention. On the committee--I speak of the committee in terms of its staff because we worked on this in a bipartisan way; I presume my colleague, Mr. Levin, will join in this debate--the figures that were worked up were produced in conjunction with analyses supplied by the Department of Defense. We broke out the following amounts in various line items, all in the 05, which is the readiness account: Three-tenths of a billion for force protection. More and more we recognize that our bases overseas are subjected to terrorism. We have experienced very serious accidents this year, the U.S.S. Cole being the most severe. So we need three-tenths of a billion to help augment those expenditures. Six-tenths of a billion for personnel. Again, special pay, pay directed at those specialties, whether it is flying or maintenance or medical or computers or the like, where we are having difficulty retaining those individuals with the competitive forces in the private sector. Energy costs. It simply requires that we have this to maintain the barracks, to maintain the housing, to maintain the office buildings, to maintain the hangars, to maintain the ships. Our energy costs have gone up not unlike those being experienced by the civilian sector. Maintenance. The Senator from Louisiana put up a chart with which I agree. Deterioration of the base infrastructure all throughout our services, Seven-tenths of a billion for that. Base operations. Again, we were underfunded in the accounts. That brings in another nine-tenths of a billion--nine-tenths of a billion in real property maintenance, the buildings. We will, hopefully, go through a base closure piece of legislation within the next 24 months to complete that. But in the meantime, it is absolutely essential to maintain the infrastructure we now have in a condition so that it protects the airplanes in the hangars and protects the personnel in the barracks. Then we go to the direct health care system. We passed historic legislation last year--TRICARE. It was something that the retired community has wanted for many years, something they were really promised when they joined the military services. Now that is going to be a significant cost item. In years past, we had not even funded TRICARE to the levels that were needed to maintain the costs before our legislation takes effect. As a consequence, we were drawing funds out of the major military hospitals. I went by and visited both Bethesda and Walter Reed recently in connection with seeing friends there, and the commanding officers, all in a very respectful way, said: Senator, we do not have sufficient funds to maintain these hospitals that are taking care of the active duty, primarily--some retired--and their dependents. And that requires $1.2 billion. But that ties directly to retention. The degree that we properly care for the families and the active-duty personnel reflects the degree to which we can retain these valuable people in uniform. Fuel. This is different from base. This is for flying the aircraft. This is manning the ships. This is training in the trucks, in the tanks, the artillery pieces, mobile. This is where the fuel is needed. That is a significant cost. Then, of course, in addition, it is for flying hours and the spares. I expect every Member of this Senate has learned of the cannibalization going on, where you take parts from perfectly good equipment and put them in other pieces to make them run. That is no way to run a first-class military. But, regrettably, those dollars associated with the normal maintenance and the spares have been inadequate for a number of years, and we are asking $1.6 billion to put back on the shelves sufficient spares to enable our troops to train and keep their equipment in readiness. This was very carefully documented. It is interesting; in the amendment of my distinguished colleague-- the Senator from Louisiana--she has the exact sum. My guess is that she, quite rightly, has access to the same information. I must ask that in the form of a question at an appropriate time. But she predicated 2002 on this figure. I say the proper course of action is to be respectful of the fact that this President has taken an initiative to study our military very carefully, analyze the threat, and then to put together carefully a plan to make such revision as he deems necessary for this year and our outyears under the normal 5-year fit-up program--not 10. I think, in fairness, he should be given that opportunity. I will leave it to others to address the question of how this reduces the overall proposed tax cut, how it goes to other areas of the budget. But my responsibility as chairman of the Armed Services Committee is simply to stick, at this moment in the debate, to those facts as they relate to how this Nation should go forward in providing for the men and women of the Armed Forces. I say out of respect for this President, we should give him the right, the authority, to go ahead and do the studies. We augment, by my legislation, a single fiscal year for necessities, and I don't think anybody can dispute the need. I would be anxious to hear from the proponents of the other legislation. I think the 2002 figure is direct and for the right reasons. For the years beyond 2002, let our President come forward--it may be greater in 2003, and 2004 could be less--and we go about our responsibility under the Constitution to maintain our Nation strong and free, in accordance with the wishes of this President. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. WARNER. Madam President, the Senator is correct.