Curt Weldon

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, today we honor America's domestic defenders, the 1.5 million men and women across the country who serve every one of our communities in responding to every type of disaster known to mankind. This evening, 2,000 of their leaders are assembled here for the eighth annual national dinner to honor the fire and EMS personnel. When I started this effort 8 years ago, Mr. Speaker, it was to give proper recognition to these unsung heroes, and tonight we continue that tradition. We will be joined by the Honorable Senator Bob Dole, who will give a keynote address, along with the Vice President of the United States, Al Gore, both of whom have strongly supported, in a bipartisan way, the efforts of these brave men and women. We will also honor the brave firefighters of the Long Island fire departments who provided such valuable service last year in responding to an unbelievably large incident in Long Island. Mr. Speaker, today is the day when our colleagues can join together and pay appropriate tribute to these brave men and women by showing up at the dinner this evening and by meeting with them in their offices as the 2,000 leaders of the fire service address Capitol Hill and plead their case for more support and more recognition.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I am saddened today to bring to your attention the recent passing of one of this Nation's finest, most caring, and gentlest women--my mother. Catherine C. Weldon, as she is known to others, was a devoted mother. And devoted she had to be to be put up with raising myself, my six brothers, and my two sisters. Yet she cared for each of us as if we were an only child, giving every one of us the individual attention that children need from their mother. And she did so happily and from the bottom of her heart. One would think that simply raising the nine of us would have been a full-time job, yet she still found time to become an activist in our church. There she volunteered her time at the Sunday school and various other church activities. She also was the founder and leader of the Pioneer Girls of Marcus Hook Baptist Church. My mother served her community in other ways as well. She was a regular volunteer for the Red Cross and their local bloodmobile. Additionally, she served on the Parent-Teachers Association at Marcus Hook Elementary School, the school my brothers, sisters, and I attended. She was married to the late Stephen Weldon, Sr., mother of 9 children: Harry Weldon, Dick Weldon, Kay Weldon Nass, Don Weldon, Betty Weldon Doyle, Bob Weldon, Paul Weldon, myself, and the late Steve Weldon, Jr; 37 grandchildren: Stephen W. Weldon III, Lillian Weldon Speakman, Doris Weldon, Catherine Weldon LeMand, John Weldon, Jennifer Weldon Higgins, Harry Weldon, Jr., Earl Weldon, Lisa Weldon Cowper, Paula Weldon Chaplin, David Weldon, Richard Weldon, Jr., Kerry Weldon McDermott, Timothy Weldon, Craig Weldon, Robert Nass II, Curt Nass, Scott Nass, Tracy Nass Brown, the late Christopher Nass, Donald Weldon, Jr., Glen Weldon, Sandra Doyle Moon, Sharon Doyle Freeman, the late Robert Weldon II, Jeff Weldon, Greg Weldon, Julie Weldon, Clay Weldon, Clint Weldon, Chad Weldon, Christie Weldon, Karen Weldon, Kristin Weldon, Kimberly Weldon, Curt Weldon, Jr., and Andrew Weldon; 54 great- grandchildren, and 2 great-great grandchildren. Her funeral service will be held at Marcus Hook Baptist Church, in Linwood, PA, on April 2, 1996, at 11 a.m. Friends may call from 9:30 a.m. until 11 a.m. at the church. Internment will follow the service at Lawncroft Memorial Cemetery in Linwood. The Catherine Weldon Christian Education Fund has been setup to receive donations in lieu of flowers. Contributions will be used to provide educational funding for children of families throughout the area. Donations can be sent to the Catherine Weldon Christian Education Fund, c/o the First National Bank of West Chester, P.O. Box 523, West Chester PA 19381. My mother was truly a remarkable woman. Words cannot express how deeply she will be missed by her friends, neighbors, and relatives.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Michelle Lin Byrd, Rosalind Newsholme, John Davison, Jenni Kirkhoff, and David Rourke, the winners of the Phoenixville Area Chamber of Commerce President's Day Essay Contest. I am submitting for the record each of their winning essays. Each of these students has composed a remarkable essay applauding a President who had to make a necessary, but unpopular decision, such as the decision made by President Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. Other winning entries included Truman's decision to fire MacArthur, his decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan, Ford's pardoning of Nixon, and Roosevelt's introduction of the New Deal. Each of these controversial decisions was, in retrospect, in the best interests of the American people despite being initially met with uncertainty and opposition. The leaders of our time are met with the same difficult decisions, and we must continue to act in the best interest of the American people. One of the most important decisions that faces us today concerns education. However, the decision to cultivate the education of our children should not be met with controversy or skepticism. As a former teacher and the father of five, I believe the highest priority for our school system is teaching our students about the rich history of America. Learning about the history of the United States, including the mistakes of our Forefathers and their great triumphs, is the key to good citizenship and involvement in Government. George Santayana once said that ``those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'' By understanding the actions and events of our ancestors, we can create a better future. I hope that all of the entrants of the Phoenixville Area Chamber of Commerce President's Day Contest, not just the students recognized here, will gain a new appreciation for the importance of our history. Perhaps some insight gained through their research will influence some of these students to become involved in their government. Mr. Speaker, I commend these students for their achievement and I know that my colleagues join me in honoring the success of these outstanding students. I would like to thank the Phoenixville Area Chamber of Commerce for offering this opportunity to the students of Phoenixville, and I would also like to thank The Phoenix for printing the winning essays and for promoting the contest. Harry S. Truman Harry S. Truman, our thirty-third president, was born on May 8, 1884 in Lamar, Missouri. He was a member of the democratic party and was in office from 1945 to 1953. Truman worked his way up in politics from judge to senator to vice president and finally to president of the United States. When Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945 Truman became president. He had a difficult task of learning to be effective in his office because Roosevelt had made no effort to train him for his future responsibilities. He learned simply by dealing with the problem that faced him. Truman tried to carry out the politics that Roosevelt had begun to establish. This included the unconditional surrender of Germany on May 8th and the establishing of the United Nations. Truman then had to make a decision about the World War II. He had to make a decision that might end up being unpopular. Truman decided to use the atomic bomb against Japan. He believed that this would end the war quickly and save lives. He thought that it would put the United States in a position to help revolutionize Japanese life. When people look back at the situation now there seems to have been other ways to end the war, such as negotiated settlements, but these options were not as obvious back then. Truman made the decision he thought that would be the best decision. Presidents of the past, the present and the future have and will make choices that will be unpopular but necessary. I believe that of the choices of the past have made the United States the great country that we are privileged to live in today.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute and honor Cardinal John Krol. One of the Philadelphia region's dearest religious leaders, Cardinal Krol passed away early Sunday morning at his home in Pennsylvania. Born on October 26, 1910, in Cleveland, OH, Cardinal Krol's beginnings were humble and his aspirations never lofty. All that he ever wanted was to be a priest so that he could better serve God and people. During his 27 years as Archbishop of Philadelphia, the Nation's sixth largest archdiocese, Cardinal Krol accomplished that goal, helping to create a better life for the residents of the Delaware Valley and everyone whose lives he touched. As Archbishop, his accomplishments in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia were great. During his tenure, over 100 new churches were built, the Catholic school system was extended far into the suburbs, and services for refugees, the elderly, youth, and the hungry were expanded. Best known for his strict conservatism on matters of Church doctrine, such as his opposition to the ordination of women and his strong stand against abortion, Cardinal Krol was steadfast in his beliefs. However, he also pursued a social policy that championed the rights of workers and the poor. Additionally, Cardinal Krol reformed the confusing and cumbersome annulment process in the archdiocese for Catholics who were trapped in marriages without love. Cardinal Krol is also well known as being a close friend of Pope John Paul II, and by some accounts was instrumental in his election as the first Polish pope by the Cardinal College in 1978. While Pope John Paul II is credited by some as playing a pivotal role in freeing Poland and Eastern Europe from communism, Cardinal Krol also worked to achieve those same goals. Of Polish ancestry himself, Cardinal Krol often made Polish-language broadcasts on Radio Free Europe. Additionally, Cardinal Krol, like Pope John Paul II, supported Lech Walsea and Solidarity in their ultimately successful anti-Communist activities. A great religious and spiritual leader, Cardinal Krol will be remembered in the hearts of the people of Delaware Valley for many years to come. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I ask my colleagues to join me in paying tribute to the late Cardinal John Krol. He will be greatly missed by his family, friends, and all of the people of the Philadelphia area.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding to me. Let me just say, Mr. Speaker, that there is no one that the members of the Pennsylvania delegation would fear more in coming back to our State and running for elective office than Jim Bunning, because he is adored by all of our constituents, whether they be in the district of the gentlemen from Pennsylvania, Tom Foglietta, Chaka Fattah, or Bob Borski's district, or whether they be over in the district of the gentleman from New Jersey, Rob Andrews, or the district of the gentleman from Delaware, Mike Castle, or in our suburban districts around Philadelphia. Jim is adored because the gentleman from Kentucky, years ago, and I will not say how long ago, was my boyhood idle when I was a Phillies fan growing up in the suburbs. I have told him that many times. But Jim Bunning, years ago, represented the same ideals that Cal Ripken stands for today. Mr. Speaker, while we acknowledge Jim Bunning's leadership as a professional baseball player, let us also acknowledge his stature as a human being and as a father and as a husband and a man. As the proud parent of nine children, and who knows how many grandchildren, Jim Bunning really epitomizes what is right with this country. I am proud to call him not just a colleague, but someone that all of us can look up to in this country as a true role model for America. Congratulations, Jim. The people of Philadelphia are real proud to call you their own.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening for a brief period of time to discuss an unfortunate incident involving the Clinton administration. As the chairman of the Research and Development Committee for the Committee on National Security, my responsibility is to oversee the funding for the research and development component of our national defense. That amounts to approximately 30 billion-odd dollars a year. One of our top priorities, Mr. Speaker, is to review the missile defense capabilities of this country, to provide for the common defense of the people of this Nation from a deliberate or accidental launch of a cruise or ballistic missile from any place or spot in the world. It is a very important topic, and one that resulted in strong bipartisan support in the 1995 calendar year, as Democrats and Republicans joined together in providing one of the single biggest differences in the Clinton administration's defense request. In the House committee, our bill, which plussed up the missile defense accounts by $800 million, the bill passed by a vote of 48 to 3. On the House floor, in spite of what the President had requested for missile defense, Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives and moderates, joined together with a 300-vote margin in approving the changes we provided for in the committee. So there was strong bipartisan support in this Congress. In the end, Mr. Speaker, however, the administration and the President vetoed the bill, because he said what we had done in the area providing a national missile defense would in fact violate the ABM Treaty. That was not in fact true, and we knew it at the time, but the President said it will anyway. Starting this year, Mr. Speaker, we agreed we would bring in the witnesses from the administration to tell the story as to whether or not we could build a system that was within the ABM Treaty, at a relatively low cost, that was doable and would protect the American people. Mr. Speaker, today we were scheduled to hold a hearing, my subcommittee, at 10 a.m. A total of 12 members showed up, 10 Republicans and 2 Democrats, and zero witnesses. The witnesses who were supposed to be at the hearing included Gen. Mal O'Neill, who heads the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, Clinton's point person on missile defense, General Garner, who is the Army's missile defense spokesman, and General Linhard, who is the Air Force's point person on missile defense. Interestingly enough, Mr. Speaker, they were all anxious to testify. In fact, I have their testimony. Each of them submitted it to us as if they were there. As I hold up the testimony they were going to give to us, it is very interesting. In fact, I will provide this to any Member of Congress, and anyone who is watching us today, Mr. Speaker, can obtain copies of this testimony, because it is unclassified, from any Member of Congress who would in fact contact my office or the administration to get it. But they could not show up. Why did they not show up and why could they not? Because the Clinton administration imposed a gag rule. Unbelievable as it may seem, Mr. Speaker, today for the first time, to my knowledge, in the history of this country, the Pentagon and the administration and Bill Clinton imposed a gag rule on generals in our Army and our Air Force who were asked to come before this Congress to talk about an issue of vital concern to this country, and that is missile defense. Now, why would not these generals have been allowed to come forward to this hearing to testify before Democrats and Republicans? Was there some reason? Well, Mr. Speaker, there were two issues that were cited, and I would like to refer to both of them. First of all, the administration claimed that they could not come forward, they were not allowed, and this was not decided until yesterday late in the afternoon, because, as Deputy Secretary of Defense White said, we did not want anyone on the Hill from the Pentagon testifying prior to Secretary Perry and Dr. Kaminski coming in and testifying before the Congress on this year's fiscal request. That was what they said was the reason why they could not appear. That is somewhat unbelievable, Mr. Speaker, because yesterday the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Owens, appeared before the Senate Committee on National Security, gave written testimony, and answered questions about missile defense. So the policy in fact was not upheld, and that was merely an excuse by the administration to try to justify why they would not let these three generals come in. Now, the second reason they gave, Mr. Speaker, was that they were willing to give us a briefing, but not allow testimony to occur. In fact, the only briefing that took place this week was the briefing of administrative officials to Democrats only. Republicans were not invited. One of our staff members was called the day before the briefing and was told that he could receive a similar briefing. He was similarly called the day of our hearing and was told that Members of Congress could come in for that from both parties. Obviously the schedules were already made up for that day and the rest of the week. So why then, Mr. Speaker, would this administration not want generals in our Air Force and our Army to come before Congress and the American people? Very simply, Mr. Speaker, it is because their testimony would prove that this administration has once again lied. Mr. Speaker, as pure and simply as I can put it, again these generals would prove that this administration lied to the American people. This administration said that we could not build a national missile defense system that would protect all 50 States and be compliant with the ABM Treaty. In fact, General Garner was prepared to state on the record, as his outline summarizes, that he has a plan that can be completed in 4 years at a cost of less than $5 billion using existing capabilities that would give us a level of protection that we have never had before in this Nation. General Linhard was prepared in his statement to say the Air Force could give us a similar capability using existing technology for a cost of less than $3 billion from a single site that would give us, agian, a limited protection that we have never had for the people of this country. These two systems would give the American people the same protection that the Russian people already have with the world's only operational ABM system which surrounds Moscow and which protects 80 percent of the Russian people. Now, these two generals who work for the taxpayers, but who, unfortunately, report to Secretary Perry and ultimately Bill Clinton, were gagged. They were told in personal phone calls, ``You can't come up to the hill.'' I chatted with Speaker Gingrich earlier today about this, and he was outraged. I chatted with the gentleman from Louisiana, Bob Livingston, chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, the gentleman from Florida, Bill Young, chairman of the Defense Committee on Appropriations, and the gentleman from South Carolina, Floyd Spence, chairman of the Committee on National Security, and they were all outraged. Let me say this, Mr. Speaker: This administration can run, but it cannot hide. They may have prevented three generals from coming up on the Hill today, but it will not happen again. I say this, Mr. Speaker, to you as our voice to the administration: The next time this administration denies our request to have a witness, we will issue a subpoena. And we will have those generals up at the table where they will be able to tell the American people and this Congress the facts. This administration is not going to be able to distort and twist things to suit their ultimate political objectives. That is what occurred today. And if this President and this Secertary of Defense think that they will again be successful in denying the public and Members of this Congress the ability to understand and know the facts as they are, then they are very shortsighted. Mr. Speaker, I say to you tonight that we will again hold these hearings. We will have General O'Neill again requested to come before our committee next week and I assume he will be there. But beyond that, we will again have General Linhard, and we will again have General Garner before our committee where they will be allowed to tell their story. I would say this, Mr. Speaker, they will be allowed to speak freely. They will be asked questions directly, and there will be no one to filter nor intercept or try to interpret what it is they say. And in the end, the Members of this body and the people of this country can determine why the administration did not want these three generals to appear before our committee. Because in the end the people of this country will see that once again this President and this administration has done what they do so well, and that is distort the facts, change the truth, deny reality, and attempt to sway public opinion for political purposes while in fact jeopardizing the security of the people of this country. Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that this incident had to occur today. It is unfortunate that what was a legitimate attempt to have the Members of this body get factual information on which they can base their decisions was circumvented by an administration so worrisome about the truth getting out in terms of the facts that are out there and the evidence provided by the generals that we hold responsible for the lives of our troops and for the safety of our people. I say to you, Mr. Speaker, it will not happen again.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, is it not correct under special orders, the individual managing the time is supposed to be here in the Chamber when the special order is underway?

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to speak, perhaps not for an hour but certainly for some time, on the issue of missile defense and partially in response to the administration's announcement of a little over a week ago in regard to their missile defense program for this fiscal year and the request to Congress which we anticipate receiving in the next several weeks. tribute to mc lean stevenson Mr. Speaker, before I get into that, let me make a few comments about the unfortunate passing during the February work period of McLean Stevenson. Most of our colleagues in this Congress and most of the people around the country know McLean Stevenson as a Hollywood star who made his fame primarily through the program ``M.A.S.H.'' However, I want to speak briefly about McLean Stevenson and his commitment to fire and life safety issues. McLean Stevenson, at a young age, was rescued from a house fire by a group of firefighters in his hometown, and because of that incident had a lifelong interest in promoting the welfare of firefighters in general and promoting the issue of fire and life safety. It was not until he retired from the M.A.S.H. series that he devoted his full time to working on these issues. In that context, many of us who are involved in the fire and emergency services caucus here on the Hill came to know McLean Stevenson. For the past 3 years he has been a regular attendee at our national fire and emergency services dinner. We have held seven of them here in the Nation's capital, and in the last three of those dinners McLean Stevenson was not just an attendee but one of our speakers, and for the most part one of our most popular and funny speakers. He intertwined with his humor the basic lessons of life safety and concern, the importance of installing smoke detectors in individual residences and multifamily dwellings and talked about his effort nationwide to promote these issues to people both young and old. McLean Stevenson was to have been, again, a guest at our dinner at the end of April this year, as he was last year when we had President Clinton as our keynote speaker, and honored the Oklahoma City Fire Department for their heroic efforts in response to the Oklahoma City disaster. Unfortunately, McLean Stevenson died on the operating table. He was a friend, he was someone who was beloved by the entire fire service of this country, and whose true mark in terms of his life will be remembered in terms of the lives that he helped save by his efforts in promoting fire and life safety issues. So it is with a deep sense of sadness that I rise to wish his family well and to say that certainly McLean Stevenson has left his mark on all of us. At our dinner in April we will pay appropriate tribute to our friend McLean Stevenson. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight, in addition, to respond to the administration's press conference of a little over a week ago, which in itself was a travesty. Many of us had been in contact with the administration in terms of the fiscal year 1997 budget request for missile defense and where the priorities would be in terms of programs. I in fact wrote to both Secretary Perry and Deputy Secretary Kaminski, as well as to General O'Neill expressing my interest in meeting with them before any final decisions were made from a program standpoint relative to missile defense funding for this next fiscal year. In fact, that issue was repeated both verbally and in written form. What really bothered me, Mr. Speaker, was that the administration saw fit, Secretary Perry and Dr. Kaminski, to hold a press conference at 3 o'clock on a Friday afternoon right before a 3-day holiday break, giving no advance word to Members of Congress except for an attempted phone call to myself the day before and other senior members of the defense committee and a call that I received on the day of the conference by General O'Neill. So there was no attempt in a bipartisan way to reach out to this Congress to work together on the issue of missile defense. That is especially troubling, Mr. Speaker, because the single biggest change to the Clinton defense budget made by this body and the other body last year was in the area of missile defense. We plussed up the missile defense accounts by approximately $800 million because of the threat, both the near-term threat and long-term threat. We plussed up the national missile defense accounts, the theater missile defense accounts, as well as ballistic missile defense and Brilliant Eyes, space-based sensing program. Those changes were made with strong bipartisan support in this House. In fact, when the bill left committee, it had the strongest vote in the 10 years I have been here, 478 to 3. When the bill was brought up on the House floor, for the first time in my 10 years we had 300 Members of the body vote in favor of the defense authorization bill, and that is with the significant changes from the Clinton administration relative to missile defense. So we thought it would be important to establish this new year in a bipartisan tone, working with the administration to try to find common areas. Unfortunately, that did not occur. The press announcement that was held basically announced this administration's continuing policy to decimate defense spending as it relates to missile proliferation and the threat of missile attack, either accidently or deliberately. The mismatch relates between rhetoric and reality, and it is large and growing. In fact, and I hate to make the statement on the House floor, but after looking at this issue as I have as a member of the National Security Committee and the chair of the Military Research and Development Subcommittee, I am firmly convinced this administration has no commitment to defend America whatsoever and under President Clinton never has. Even the sacred programs now that the Clinton administration said it supported, namely the theater missile defense programs, have been plundered to pay for other modernization needs. The outrage here, Mr. Speaker, is that we have boxed our Joint Chiefs into a corner. As we have decimated defense spending, we have driven the leaders of each of our services to look to cut other areas beyond those programs that are important, parochially important to their own services. That has in fact caused the Joint Chiefs to come in and make recommendations, to have draconian cuts in the vital programs important to our national security from the standpoint of missile proliferation. In addition, the press conference and the announcements of the program by Secretary Perry in fact are in major violation with the law that this Congress passed, most specifically section 234, which provides for specific dates relative to theater missile defense systems. In fact, we right now on the committee are considering whether or not to take legal action in suing the administration over these disconnects with the law. Mr. Speaker, the concern that I have is that this administration has just not been serious in dealing with the American people and this body on the growing threat that is posted to this Nation and other free nations from the threat of missile proliferation. That is in spite of requests by the leaders of this administration. Mr. Speaker, also during the February break there was an article in the Washington Times, which I will include as a part of my statement. The article that was in the Times, Mr. Speaker, cites a letter that was sent, a communications by General Luck. General Luck, Gary Luck, is our commanding officer in Korea. He sent a letter to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Shalikashvili, pleading for an enhanced funding profile for the THAAD missile defense system. Why did he make this plea? Because there are serious concerns on his part as our commanding officer in South Korea relative to the threat posed by North Korea as they develop their state of the art missile systems, the No Dong and the Taepo Dong-II systems. These systems are sophisticated and pose a real and genuine threat, not just to South Korea and our troops in South Korea, but in fact as Secretary Deutch, the head of the CIA, mentioned in Senate testimony last week, even to the State of Alaska by the year 2000 and beyond. General Luck made the case to General Shalikashvili that we needed to be able to deploy at least two batteries of THAAD systems at the soonest possible time. General Shalikashvili wrote back to General Luck, and this article which I have asked to put in the Record has the exact quotations from General Shalikashvili, that he is not able to fully fund the THAAD Program at what they thought was going to be the deployment program established last year by the Congress, and also a priority of this administration, because of the budgetary pressures and the need to fund other priorities in the military. So here we have the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mr. Speaker, acknowledging in a letter to General Luck in South Korea that we cannot give hem the resources he needs, not because they are not warranted, and General Shalikashvili even mentions he fully supports the THAAD development, but because we have boxed the leadership of the military into a corner where they cannot fund the most basic priorities, and therefore have to cut wherever possible. Mr. Speaker, this is outrageous. In fact, this communications and this request by General Luck and the negative response by General Shalikashvili reminds me of a situation that occurred several years ago. That situation was when our commanding general in Somalia sent a communique back to the Pentagon, which ultimately went to then Secretary of Defense Les Aspin. That communique, Mr. Speaker, said that the commanding officer in Somalia said that he needed additional backup support to protect the welfare of our troops. That request for additional support was denied. It was only after 18 of our young troops were killed in a massacre in Mogadishu that Secretary Aspin came up on the Hill along with Secretary of State Warren Christopher and addressed a bipartisan group of over 300 Members of the House and Senate assembled in one of the Capital meeting rooms, and under questioning Secretary Aspin said that he denied the additional support for the troops requested by the command officer in Somalia because of the political climate in Washington. This is the first time, Mr. Speaker, since Vietnam, that we have had an administration say that it has denied the support to protect American troops for a political reason. That is exactly what we are seeking here in Korea. Out commanding officer in South Korea is concerned about the safety of our troops. He has communicated that to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, and the response by the administration is we agree with you, we would like to help you, but there is just not enough money, so we will have to risk the lives of those troops in terms of protection from a missile attack by the North Koreans. Mr. Speaker, that is outrageous. Mr. Speaker, during the debate of the defense authorization bill last year, we went to great lengths to work with the administration on missile defense. Mr. Speaker, as the chairman of the Subcommittee on Research and Development, I made sure that at every possible opportunity we were not forcing something down the administration's throat that they could not live with. Some in my party, Mr. Speaker, as you know, wanted to have language in the defense bill that would have immediately caused a problem with the ABM treaty. They wanted multiple site language for deployment of a national missile defense system in the bill. I argued against that, Mr. Speaker. The ultimate compromise bill that we presented to the President did not contain any language that would have violated the ABM treaty. In fact, everything we did in our bill, Mr. Speaker, General Malcolm O'Neill, the administration's point person on missile defense, acknowledged publicly would be in compliance with the ABM treaty. But what did President Clinton do when he vetoed the bill? He said that he had concerns about the possible impact of our bill on the ABM Treaty. Mr. Speaker, that statement was absolutely outrageous. What we did in the bill is said that we should look to those threats that are there now. The most immediate threats, Mr. Speaker, are those posed by countries that either have the capability now, like North Korea and China with the SCSS-2 and SCSS-4, that have the potential in a few short years to have their missiles reach the shores of Alaska or Hawaii; or to have the threat posed by the Russians aggressively selling off the SS-25 architecture, which is currently their mainstay in their missile system. An SS-25 has a range of 10,000 kilometers and it is mobilly launched. The Russians are now actively marketing that system to any nation that will buy it as a space launch vehicle. Once a rogue nation gets an SS- 25, Mr. Speaker, without the nuclear tip on it, bit perhaps with a chemical, biological or conventional weapon, that poses an immediate threat to the mainland United States for which we have no system today that can shoot down one of those missiles. The American people, when you tell them that, they are amazed. They cannot believe that with our focus on defending this country, we today have no capability to shoot down an incoming ICBM. But the fact is, Mr. Speaker, we do not. A further outrage is the Russians do. Under the ABM Treaty, each of the two signatory countries is allowed to have an operational ABM system that can be operated from a single site. The Russians have had an operational ABM system around Moscow that protects 80 percent of their population for the last 15 years. In fact, Mr. Speaker, the Russians have upgraded that system several times. When I was in Moscow last month, I asked to visit one of the ABM sites. They told me if I came back a week later, I could visit it, but they would not let me visit it the week I was there. But we all know and they know and acknowledge publicly they have an operational ABM system. We do not, Mr. Speaker. We do not have an operational ABM system. We have no capability if, in fact, a rogue nation deliberately or accidentally launches one missile aimed at America. Now, it doesn't matter whether it is aimed at New York and hits Miami, the fact is that we have no protection against a rogue launch against this Nation. Now, the administration said they didn't want to support the bill because it would violate the ABM Treaty. So we were very careful and we came up with provisions in the bill that said, OK, two branches of our services today have acknowledged publicly that they can build a system compliant with the ABM that, in fact, would protect all 50 States. Nothing in the way of violating the ABM Treaty. And that is exactly what we called for in the bill. It wasn't until after President Clinton vetoed the Defense authorization bill the first time that Mal O'Neill, the head of BMDO for the Clinton administration, came out publicly and verified what I had been saying all along. And that is, yes, the Army has a variant of an existing single-site system. And the Air Force has a variant of the current Minuteman system at Grand Forks, ND, that with a modest upgrade over 4 years can provide a limited protection for all 50 States. Totally treaty compliant. Cost? The administration and President Clinton has railed on about numbers in the $20 and $30 billion range. Mr. Speaker, I have had briefings. The Army says it can deploy a modified system in 4 years for a cost of less than $5 billion. The Air Force says they can modify the Minuteman, again a single-site system, again deployable in 4 years for a cost of less than $3 billion. Mr. Speaker, there you have it. Working with the administration's own leadership and the military, we put together a scenario where we can protect the American people and we can do it at a cost of less than $4 to $5 billion and deploy it within 4 years. Each of those systems would provide a thin layer of protection against incoming missiles up to 10 with a 90-percent effective rate. Today we have no such system. And under the administration's revised program, we won't have a system. They are talking about a 3-year option and then making a decision and maybe 3 years down the road. Mr. Speaker, we can't wait 6 years. We can't wait 6 years, Mr. Speaker. When the administration finally realized that we had, in fact, dealt with the ABM compliance issue and that we had, in fact, offered in our bill language to take existing technology, which the Air Force and the Army says they can do for the cost that I have mentioned, they realized they no longer had an ABM issue, even though President Clinton got up and said that. Everyone who knows the issues technically knew that he didn't know what he was talking about, and the ABM Treaty was not, in fact, jeopardized by our actions in the bill. Even his own people said so. So they raised a new issue, Mr. Speaker. They then said through people like Bob Bell for the National Security Council at the White House, they said, well, there is no threat, we don't see a threat emerging. In fact, for the first time since I have been here, they politicized an intelligence study that was released early to minority Members in the other body that said that the Defense authorization bill had overstated the threat. Now, that was in early December, Mr. Speaker. On December 15--actually before December 15, I requested the briefing, the closed briefing, security briefing of the NIA, the updated assessment from our intelligence community. I was so embarrassed by the briefing and so outraged by the lack of depth in the briefing, and I had staffers from both the National Security Committee and the intelligence committee with me, that I got up and said to the briefer, Dave Lazius from the CIA, that it was not worth my time to sit through. They did not answer the most fundamental questions upon which the results of the briefing were based. In fact, Secretary Deutch later agreed with me the briefing was not what it should have been and has asked me to sit through a rebrief which I have agreed to do. Mr. Speaker, the brief, parts of which have been leaked to the media, not by the Congress but by the administration itself, made the case that there is really no threat, we don't have to worry. Less than a week after the administration deliberately in a political manner leaked out parts of that what is supposed to be a secret brief on intelligence relative to the threat from rogue nations. Less than a week later, the Washington Post, on December 15, ran a story. Now, Mr. Speaker, this story is important. It is important because it gets to the heart of what we are talking about here. The Washington Post story documented that the Jordanian intelligence agency, working with the Israeli intelligence agency, had intercepted a shipment of sophisticated advanced accelerometers and gyroscopes. Now what is so important about a shipment of advanced accelerometers and gyroscopes? And I can't divulge the exact number. It is a classified number. But we know how many were confiscated in this country. Mr. Speaker, those advanced accelerometers and gyroscopes were going from Russia to Iraq. In fact, that is where they were intercepted. Mr. Speaker, the items in question can only be used for a long-range ICBM. Now Mr. Speaker, we have been told that there is no threat from a long- range intercontinental ballistic missile coming from Iraq. Then why would there be advanced accelerometers and gyroscopes going to Iraq from Russia? And should we not question the Russians about why this technology transfer was taking place? Because if, in fact, they were taking place, that is a violation of the missile control technology regime. So Mr. Speaker, when I was in Russia for a week back in January, on my seventh trip there, meeting in the Kremlin with Yeltsin's key defense advisers, Mr. Kortunov and others and meeting with Ambassador Pickering and our staff at the Embassy in Moscow, I asked the question, what is the Russian response to the technology transfer of equipment that can be used for a long-range ICBM from Moscow to Baghdad? Ambassador Pickering said we haven't asked them yet. And the Russians said, we don't know what you are talking about, even though it was a story in the Washington Post, even though we had the devices now in our hands since they had been confiscated by the intelligence community in both Jordan and Israel, that no one knows about this. I can't believe it, Mr. Speaker. Here we have a technology transfer that is a direct violation of the missile technology control regime that only has one fundamental end purpose, and that is to give the Iraqis the capability for the long-range missile that we know Saddam has been after for a decade and we haven't even asked the Russians how it happened. Now here is the problem, Mr. Speaker. If those items were stolen from Russia, that is a problem because that means the Russians don't have adequate controls over the advanced technology that would help Iraq or another nation build a long-range ICBM. But, Mr. Speaker, if the Russians did know they were being transferred and being sold to Iraq, that is a problem because that is not allowable under the MTCR. And perhaps, Mr. Speaker, that is why the administration hasn't asked the question. Because this administration, back in August and September of last year, without a lot of fanfare, very quickly, without much attention from this Congress, although I asked questions of the administration at that time, rushed Russia into the MTCR. Because they wanted Russia to become a player of those countries who would abide by the controls put into place by the missile technology control regime. The problem this administration knows, Mr. Speaker, is if they ask the question about the technology being transferred, they then have no recourse but to apply economic sanctions against Russia. And if they apply economic sanctions against Russia, that means we undermine Boris Yeltsin's leadership and perhaps cause turmoil inside of Russia and instability in this, an election year. Mr. Speaker, that is absolutely the worst reason not to question the Russians about the transfer of technology that could ultimately pose a threat to our country. And it further undermines our confidence in the intelligence community assessing for us in a logical way without sanitization which is really occurring in terms of missile proliferation and technology proliferation around the world. I wrote a three-page letter to President Clinton asking him, and I would ask unanimous consent at this time, Mr. Speaker, to include my letter in the Record.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I am saddened today to bring to your attention the recent passing of Frederick Julian Becton, a retired Rear Admiral of the United States Navy. A true hero, Admiral Becton demonstrated his courage and mettle many times over throughout his 35 years of military service. A World War II hero, Admiral Becton passed away in his hometown of Wynnewood, PA, on Christmas Eve at the age of 87. No episode better portrays Admiral Becton's tenacity and bravery than when he refused to abandon his ship during one of the most punishing attacks of the war. Admiral Becton was later awarded the Navy Cross for extraordinary heroism as Commander of the USS LAFFEY in action against Japanese forces off Okinawa, on April 16, 1945 . . . with his ship under savage attack by 30 hostile planes.'' I would like to submit for the Record an article that appeared on December 26, 1995 in the Philadelphia Inquirer regarding Admiral Becton. When you read this article, I am sure that you too will come to understand what a fine gentleman and hero that America has lost. I know that my colleagues join me today in mourning the passing of Admiral Becton, an American hero. F. Becton, Navy Hero in WWII (By Larry Fish) Frederick Julian Becton, a retired rear admiral who was awarded the Navy Cross for refusing to give up his ship after one of the most punishing attacks of World War II, died Sunday in Wynnewood at age 87. A native of Arkansas and a 1931 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Adm. Becton was a lieutenant when the war broke out. He was to see action in the Atlantic and Pacific Theaters and would win many decorations and medals for his exploits. The most dramatic came in April 1945, when the destroyer USS Laffey, commanded by Adm. Becton, was off Okinawa on radar picket duty. The Laffey was a relatively new ship but had already been bloodied--in June 1944, when it supported the D-Day invasion of Normandy and participated in the bombardment of Cherbourg, France. Among its scars from that engagement was an unexploded 8-inch shell lodged in the superstructure. By this late stage of the war, the Japanese had begun to expand the use of Kamikaze attacks, the suicidal crashing of armed planes into Allied ships. For the Laffey, the attack began shortly after sunrise April 16 with a formation of four planes. The kamikazes split up to make it more difficult for the crew to keep guns trained on them, and the assault was on. It was to last 79 minutes, and eventually, 22 planes drew a bead on the Laffey. Adm. Becton, wearing a steel helmet and life vest, stood in the open to better see the action. Planes seemed to come from every direction and altitude, he said in an Inquirer interview shortly before the 50th anniversary of the battle this year. Though the Laffey's gunners and those from nearby craft were aided by U.S. warplanes, some of the kamikaze inevitably found their mark. ``Each time one crashed, there was always a flood of gasoline from the plane--and one hell of a fire,'' Adm. Becton told The Inquirer. The guns took out at least eight of the planes, but five hit the destroyer, jamming its rudder and spreading fire everywhere. ``Near the end of the action, one of my officers, Frank Mason, came to me and said, `Captain, we're in pretty bad shape aft. Do you think you'll have to abandon ship?' ``It never entered my mind to abandon ship. The ship might sink under us. We might not be able to sail her. But I wasn't going to abandon her. ``So I said, `No, Frank, I'll never abandon ship as long as a gun will fire.' '' Thirty-one crew members died, and the Laffey had to be towed to Seattle, where a newspaper reported that it was ``riddled like a sieve above the water line.'' The citation for the Navy Cross praised Adm. Becton's ``extraordinary herosim'' in keeping his ship afloat and in action. He was promoted to captain in 1951 and to rear admiral in 1959, and was assigned to the Bureau of Naval Personnel and other posts. When he retired in 1966, he and his wife, the former Elizabeth Hilary Reuss, moved to her hometown of Wynnewood. He wrote a book on his experience--The Ship That Would Not Die--and kept in touch with many former crew members. He is also survived by two daughters, Hilary Becton Wagner and Julie Bradford Becton. A viewing will be held at 10 a.m. Jan. 3 at Ardmore Presbyterian Church, Montgomery Avenue and Mill Creek Road; a service will follow at 11 a.m. Burial will be 11 a.m. Jan. 4 at Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Va.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I was very happy to yield to our good friends in continuing the special order in honor of one of the Nation's great leaders. I join with them, as a Member of the Republican Party, in paying tribute to the late Barbara Jordan for all the fine work she did, not just on behalf of the constituents that she represented in Texas, but for people all over this country who had the highest respect for her leadership in this Congress and after she left this Congress. Mr. Speaker, my special order this evening is going to focus on a recent trip that I took last week to the former Soviet Union, to Russia, to talk about events that unfolded there; some special initiatives that I was able to convey to the new speaker of the Russian Duma, and to an assessment of what is happening politically inside of Russia. Mr. Speaker, earlier today I was on the House floor in a very emotional speech discussing the recent efforts by the Committee on National Security to remove National Missile Defense considerations from our defense authorization bill. As the chairman of the research and development subcommittee, I fought hard to include language in that bill originally, that was vetoed by President Clinton, that would have allowed this country to move forward in terms of developing an allowable missile defense capability similar to that the Russians already had under the ABM treaty. Unfortunately, and I think largely because of misinformation, we were never able to accomplish that, and had to pull that section from the bill. In my discussions, I talked about some of the problems that exist between our country and Russia. With that in mind, I rise tonight, Mr. Speaker, to talk about a recent trip and the broader efforts that I have undertaken to build a base, a foundation, if you will, between the people of Russia, between members of the Duma and the Federation Counsel in Russia and Members of this Congress. Mr. Speaker, my interest in Russia goes back to my college days where my undergraduate degree is in Russian studies. Twenty years ago, I spoke the language fluently and studied the culture, the people, the history, the government, and all the various aspects of Russian society. My language skills are not so competent today, but I can still communicate fairly well with Russian leaders. Over the past 20 years, I have been able to host a number of visiting Russians on trips to this country, and I have had the opportunity to travel to the former Soviet Union, and Russia in particular, on six or seven occasions. During my tenure in Congress, Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Committee on National Security, I would characterize myself as a hard- liner when it comes to military and foreign policy relations with the former Soviet Union, now Russia. However, I take great pride in the efforts to reach out and establish a solid base of understanding and a cooperative effort at working with the Russians to achieve the common objective of stability for the people of Russia and the surrounding former Soviet republics. As a matter of fact, 3 years ago Congressman Greg Laughlin, then a Democrat, and I formed the FSU American Energy Caucus. The purpose of this caucus is to foster improved relations in our Congress, we well as in the Russian Duma, to support joint venture agreements with American energy companies wanting to do business in the former Soviet States. Over the past 3 years, we have worked with the major energy corporations and have helped complete agreements on both Sakhalin I and Sakhalin II, the two largest energy deals in the history of the world that are currently underway in the area around Sakhalin Island in Eastern Siberia in Russia. Those two projects, along with Sakhalin III which is now under negotiations, will see between 50 and 70 billion dollars worth of western investment go into Russia to help them develop the one resource that they have significant amounts of, and that is their energy resources. Mr. Speaker, these deals are not just good for Russia in helping them bring in the hard currency they need and create jobs they need and helps them stabilize their economy, but it is also good for America. It reduces our dependency on Middle Eastern crude and allows us to create joint ventures to obtain new sources of energy that we can use in this Nation. The energy caucus has also allowed us to form direct ties with elected members of the Russian Duma as well as elected parliamentarians in the other energy-rich republics, namely Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan and Tajikistan and some of the other republics where there are valuable energy resources. Two years ago, in an effort to reach out to the Russians on another issue, I joined the GLOBE, Global Legislators for a Balanced Environment to focus on energy initiatives with the elected leaders inside of Russia to show that we can work together for common environmental problems. In fact, we have focused particularly on our concerns relative to the practice of the Russians over the past 30 years of dumping their nuclear wastes in the Arctic ocean, the sea of Japan, the Bering Sea, and other coastal waters that border various parts of Russia and the former Soviet States. To that end, Mr. Speaker, GLOBE has established a working group, which I chair, on the oceans involving legislators from the Russian Duma, the Japanese Diet, and the European Parliament. We meet on average twice a year and look to find ways that we can work together, again, on environmental issues, but again bringing elected parliamentarians together so that we can establish a base of understanding and cooperation that can help us deal with some of the more difficult issues that confront our two nations. Just last spring, a group of Russian Duma members visited Washington who belonged to the Duma defense committee and along with my chairman, the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Spence, and my colleagues, the gentleman from California, Duncan Hunter, and the gentleman from Louisiana, Bob Livingston. We met behind closed doors for about 2 hours to discuss relations with Russian Duma members who are involved in defense and foreign policy issues with members of our defense and foreign policy concerns. We had very frank and candid discussions about everything from the ABM Treaty to the START II Treaty to conventional weapons to NATO expansion, missile treaty issues and anything you could think of in that realm. They were very worthwhile discussions. I proposed at that time that we establish a formal process that Members of Congress meet regularly with members of the Russian Duma defense committees. Mr. Speaker, there were three areas that we focused on in an effort to build a stable working relationship with members of the Russian parliament, the Duma. Especially with the elections just occurring in December, it was all the more reason why we in this Congress have to work to better understand where Russia is going and the mind-set of the Russian people and its leadership. With those thoughts in mind, Mr. Speaker, I approached you back in December of last year and suggested that you take a leadership role and write to the new speaker of the Russian Duma, who would be elected in January of this year, offering to establish a formal Russian Duma to Congress study group modeled after our Congress-Bundestag study group that works so closely with the German Bundestag. The purpose of this effort would be to have the Speaker to our Congress and the Speaker of the Russian Duma agree that it would be in the interests of both countries to have our elected parliamentarians work together in a very close way on a number of issues, namely, energy, the environment, business issues, defense issues, foreign policy issues, but even going beyond that to issues involving perhaps domestic policy considerations. Not only can we discuss particular issues and try to find common solutions, but work to develop relationships that can allow us to understand each other and also to deal with these tough issues where we, in fact, are going to disagree: Some of the treaty issues for instance, that we discussed on the House floor earlier today. With that in mind, Mr. Speaker, you drafted a letter that I was able to hand deliver to Moscow as a part of my trip last week. I will document the process that we went through to deliver what I think is one of the most innovative initiatives that has come out of this Congress in terms of working to stabilize relations with the elected officials inside of Russia. We also, in that letter, carried your suggstion, Mr. Speaker, to establish a new direct computer linkage between Members of the American Congress and Members of the Russian Duma, ultimately elected parliamentarians around the world, so that we have access through a worldwide web of communication instantly to knock down some of the misconceptions, some of the half-truths, and some of the problems that occur from time to time when misinformation gets into our hands and perhaps when misinformation gets into the hands of the Russian elected officials. Those were the suggestions that were contained in your letter that I delivered on your behalf, and I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, the response that I got in Moscow last week was extremely positive to both of the suggestions. Hopefully, very quickly, we can work to turn those into reality. But let me backtrack a minute, Mr. Speaker, and talk about the first part of the trip and what we set out to accomplish. Arriving in St. Petersburg on Sunday, the small group that was traveling with me, which included Air Force liaison Steve Bull, Colonel Bull, and full committee staff member Dave Trachtenberg. We were to become participants in the conference sponsored by the ACPS organization. ACPS is the Advisory Council on the Protection of the Seas. This assemblage of approximately 175 leaders from most of the nations that border the seas of the world was designed to provide a particular focus on the problem of Arctic nuclear waste dumping. As the Vice President of ACPS for the United States, my job was to represent our country and to convey the message that we in this Congress not only wanted to work with our colleagues and other nations involved with ACPS, but that we felt it of the highest urgency that Russia deal with this issue of disposing of their nuclear waste in a safe manner. Mr. Speaker, we are all aware of the Yablakov report. It was developed written and released by Alexi Yablakov, a friend of mine and perhaps one of the most outspoken Russian activist on environmental issues in the country. He has been a member of President Yeltsin's National Security Council and a key advisor to Yeltsin on environmental issues and prior to that was an advisor to Gorbachev. It was under President Yeltsin's leadership that Yablakov was able to document for the first time the worst fears about what Russia and the former Soviet Union had been doing in terms of dumping its nuclear waste into the open seas. The conference in St. Petersburg, Mr. Speaker, allowed us to focus in a positive way with the Russians. Two-thirds of the attendees there were Russian leaders, including leadership of the Russian Navy, to focus on a common solution working together to allow us to convince the Russians to stop dumping their waste in the oceans and to stop the uncontrolled pollution, especially from their nuclear waste that has occurred for the past three decades. While there were a lot of technical sessions that were held during the three-day conference, the end result was that we received some limited assurances from the Russians that for the time being they will in fact abide by the London convention. They did not say they would actually sign the London convention, which would allow them to take a formal step to acknowledge they would no longer dump, but they agreed to as much as possible hold off on dumping of nuclear waste. Also at the conference, Mr. Speaker, we outlined steps that we are taking in this country, through the cooperative threat reduction program, to assist the Russians in disposing of their nuclear waste. They do not have the technology. They do not have the resources. And part of what we have done through the Navy over the past 3 years is that we have provided approximately $30 million that we have controlled that has allowed the Russians to assess the impact that the disposal of that nuclear waste has caused on the seas, both in the northern area where the northern fleet is headquartered and out in the eastern part of Siberia in the Sea of Japan. The leverage that we were able to obtain by putting that relatively small amount of money up to help deal with a very serious world problem has now seen the Japanese and the South Koreans come forward with money that is allowing them to help finance a similar solution for Russia's nuclear waste out on the Pacific fleet and in the area of Vladivostok. And the Pacific fleet itself. So the good news coming out of the ACOPS conference was that we have a working relationship with Russia that we can build on, that the leadership of the Russian Duma, that the leadership of the Russian military understands that it is in both of our interests to work together to find common ways of preventing additional dumping of this raw material into the seas of the world. Why is this so important to America? Obviously for those who live in Alaska and Hawaii, the potential threat from polluted materials and polluted marine environment from coming into the waters off Alaska is real and it is significant. That is why over the past several years Senator Ted Stevens and Congressman Don Young and Senator Frank Murkowski have been outspoken leaders in both houses of this Congress on the issue of working with the Russians to help deal with this problem of nuclear waste disposal. So all in all, our efforts in St. Petersburg, I think, were worthwhile and will lead to further efforts to assist the Russians in acknowledging the past practices that have caused worldwide environmental problems and to keep their feet to the fire in terms of helping them find solutions that will prevent these kinds of shortsighted actions taking place in the future. While in St. Petersburg, Mr. Speaker, we visited the Baltic shipyard. The Baltic Shipyard is the largest shipyard in St. Petersburg, currently employing about 8,000 workers. It is the shipyard where much of the construction of the Soviet Navy took place. In fact, it is where all of the Kirov-class warships were built. While we were there, we were able to go up and stand next to and see the latest warship built by the Russians, the Peter the Great, which is a nuclear powered cruiser, very capable ship that is the newest ship in the Russian fleet, just launched this past year, and which has just completed its first sea trials. We had some very frank discussions with the management of the Baltic Shipyard about their capabilities. We were given a comprehensive tour of that shipyard, both inside and out, propeller shop, inside construction facilities, to see firsthand what is taking place there. In addition to those visits, in a meeting that we held with the leadership of the Baltic Shipyard on Tuesday, we delivered a report that was the result of an effort a year earlier where Members of this Congress went to Russia with the idea of helping to find a way to convert that shipyard away from building warships and into the field of environmental decontamination so that the Russians could take all of their surplus navy vessels that are heavily contaminated with PCB's, with ozone-depleting gases, with carcinogenic paints, with sludge material on the bottom of their hulls, to show their workers, who used to build these ships, that we could employ them or they could be employed in new technologies to clean them up. Then once the ships were clean, that the scrap value of those ships would allow them to be taken apart in Russian shipyards, perhaps the Baltic shipyard itself or in shipyards in America that have been hurting for work. We delivered the report to the Russian leadership and with it came the recommendations for the next step in helping to move that project forward. I am optimistic, Mr. Speaker, that we can work with the Russians to help continue to convert that Baltic shipyard into more nondefense uses, especially in the environmental decontamination area. Leaving St. Petersburg, Mr. Speaker, dealing with environmental issues, we traveled to Moscow and the second part of our trip focused on relations with the new Russian Duma members and to assess the situation as the Duma met in fact on that Monday that we arrived there for the first time ever. Mr. Speaker, the election results in terms of who won the Duma were quite interesting and certainly point up the fact that we in this Congress need to understand which parties in fact are in control right now in Russia. While we were in Moscow, I was able to meet with leaders of the four major parties who were successful in the December elections. As we all know, Mr. Speaker, the Russian State Duma has 450 elected officials. Control of that entire Duma was up in the December elections. And even though Boris Yeltsin made a very impassioned plea to maintain the control of the Duma with that party most aligned with his position on key issues, that in fact was not the case. It was not the outcome of the elections. In fact, Mr. Speaker, as we all know, the Communist Party, making a resurgence in Moscow, dominated the local elections and, in fact, were able to elect 158 members to the new Duma, far and away more than any other faction politically in Russia. Coming in second was the Liberal Democratic Party, that party headed by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, someone with whom the West has got to interact and understand because of some of the radical positions that he has taken in the past. Zhirinovsky's party, Mr. Speaker, did not do as well as he had hoped and certainly that is good news for us, but in fact did garner 51 seats in the new Duma. In addition, another major party winning significant support in the Duma was the Our Home is Russia Party, which is the party of Viktor Chernomyrdin and the party most closely aligned with Yeltsin. That party was only able to secure a total of 54 votes in the Duma elections. And finally, the fourth major party getting a significant seat in terms of the Duma and in terms of the factional interests was the Yablakov Party, headed by Grigory Yavlinsky. That party is also more of a mainstream party, and they only achieved 45 seats in the Duma. Following those four key parties, a number of smaller parties, the Agrarian Party, the Women of Russia Party received lesser votes, but because of the requirement in the Russian constitution that for full recognition a party had to achieve 5 percent of the electorate in the Duma elections, none of them were able to make that cutoff. So while they have Members in the Duma, they do not have the status that the four major parties that I just mentioned have. In fact, the Independents, with 77 members, are a very large bloc but they are not organized and they are not recognized because they represent various independent factions. The point is, Mr. Speaker, that with your effort in mind, with the two-page letter that you gave me to hand deliver to members of the Russian Duma, I was able to meet with each of the various political factions to discuss with them your ideas and the notion that I put to you back in December about establishing this new interactive network between members of the Russian Duma and the major political factions and Members of our Congress, both Democrats and Republicans. Mr. Speaker, we met with Zhirinovsky's top aide, Mr. Mitrofanov, who is a member of the Russian Duma and in fact is now chairing the party dealing with worldwide issues. We had a very frank and candid discussion with him. And I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, the response that he brought to us from Zhirinovsky's party was extremely supportive, wanting to reach out and work in a positive way with both of the suggestions that were contained in your letter. The suggestion about the permanent Duma to Congress forum and the suggestion about the worldwide internet we would establish starting off with our Congress and their Duma. The second meeting with Mr. Averchev, Vladimir Averchev, who is a member of the Yablakov party, a close associate of Mr. Lukin. And Mr. Averchev was very enthusiastic about the suggestion you made and offered his personal support to help build the coalition of members of the Duma from the various political factions to turn your suggestions into reality. And on the following day of our visit to Moscow, I had a chance to meet with Aleksey Arbatov, a leader on the Duma defense establishment. He, too, was extremely excited about the possibility of implementing both of your suggestions. I also had a chance to visit the Kremlin and to meet with President Yeltsin's key advisors on defense issues, particularly treaty issues, ABM, START II. And each of those key advisors, in particular, Mr. Kortunov, were extremely excited about the initiative that you have put forth. So, Mr. Speaker, I can tell you today and report back to you and to our colleagues in this body and to the people of America that you have, I think, created a landmark effort, very early on in this new Russian Duma, to reach out in a clear way to establish a working relationship that will help us establish a base of operation and understanding between our parliamentarians but, more importantly, to be able to deal with the difficult issues where we will not be in such agreement, and some of those were discussed on the floor of the House today relative to our defense bill. So the ball is now in the Russians' court. We anticipate a response from the new speaker in a matter of weeks and, Mr. Speaker, we hope that that response will be very positive. A word about the new speaker. While we were in Moscow, we had a difficult time delivering your letter, Mr. Speaker, because it was not until Thursday evening that the Duma could, in fact, agree on who the new speaker should be. As you know, Mr. Rybkin has been the past speaker in the Russian Duma. Mr. Rybkin represents more of the traditional political groups that have supported President Yeltsin's policies. In the first vote, Mr. Rybkin only achieved a total of 116 votes. Mr. Seleznyov, who was the candidate for the Communist Party, Gennadi Seleznyov received a total of 216 votes, and the third party candidate, Mr. Lukin, from the Yablokov Party, received 56 votes. No one achieved the required number of 226 votes to be named Speaker of the new Russian Duma. Therefore, it was impossible on Wednesday to deliver your letter. On Thursday evening, after a lot of political give and take and a lot of horse trading in terms of committee leadership assignments, the various factions were able to come together and in fact elected a new Speaker for the Russian Duma. By a vote of 231 for the Speaker of the Russian Duma, Gennadi Seleznyov is in October the new Speaker, someone to whom your letter was delivered and whom I hope you will have an ongoing relationship with. Now, it scares many in this country that the new Speaker of the Russian Parliament is a Communist. And it certainly is something that we have to look at. But the word that I got from those who know him and from those around him is that he is someone that we can deal with. I think it is going to be very difficult for him to revert back to the pre-Russia days and the days of the former Soviet bloc status, but he is in power. He represents the largest party faction, and we need to make sure that we work with him and, as we have done on your behalf, Mr. Speaker, reach out to him in a hand of friendship to say, let us work together. Coming in second in that vote again was Mr. Rybkin with 150 votes and in third place again was Mr. Lukin with 50 votes. As a matter of fact, I was with Mr. Lukin as he went down to cast his vote. He knew he would lose. But in working a deal, the Yablakov Party was able to preserve two of the most powerful committee assignments in the Russian Duma. Mr. Speaker, they were able to keep control of the Committee on International Relations, and they were also able to keep control of the Committee on the Budget. So it was, in fact, a brokered election. Mr. Seleznyov is, in fact, the new speaker. In fact, I wished him well and gave him your letter, and we now await his response. Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned, the response from the Duma members that I met with was extremely positive. I had a chance to travel the halls of their Duma, much like our halls around our Congress, to interact with members and their staffs, to see firsthand the early days of the Duma organization. I implore you, Mr. Speaker, as soon as we get the official nod, to allow us to begin this process of aggressive interaction. Mr. Speaker, what I envision are a series of subgroups focused on energy issues, on environmental issues, on defense and foreign policy issues, on issues involving adoption. One of our meetings was on that very subject with Mr. Lukin's top aide, to try to clarify some of the adoption laws for those Americans who want to adopt Russian native children but who are prevented right now because of the laws in their country; working on issues involving education, issues where we can find common ground, not necessarily to reach full agreement but, in the end, to build better understanding and a better foundation. Mr. Speaker, I had some other meetings I want to briefly highlight while we were there. In terms of the energy caucus, we did meet with the major energy companies who have a presence in Moscow. I spoke to them at our breakfast meeting. They are very excited about the production-sharing agreement that was just approved by the Russian Duma in December that is allowing us to move forward with joint ventures. The only thing I would say is that the Russians have to understand that they cannot keep changing the rules of the road while these deals are being developed. In face, Mr. Speaker, I will submit a chart for the Record showing that much of the efforts that we have put forward to establish these joint initiatives have been hampered by the Russian legislature changing the rules along the way, resulting in significant increases in taxes that have caused some of our American companies to have second thoughts about this Western investment of private sector dollars. We also had a chance to meet with Ambassador Pickering to discuss a wide range of issues involving our joint relations. Then I had a chance to meet with the leading defense experts and think-tank leaders in Russia to talk about issues involving the ABM Treaty, START II, and Russian-American relations. Along that line, as I mentioned, I met with 3 of Yeltsin's top advisors on defense and foreign policy issues, headed up by Mr. Kortunov, who, in fact, is going to be the executive secretary of a new 20-member panel that Mr. Yeltsin is convening to review all the nuances of the ABM Treaty for the Russian side. In fact, Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that we ask President Clinton, along with you and Senator Dole, to convene a similar 20-person panel to look at our concerns with the ABM Treaty and to interact with this effort that is going to be headed up from the standpoint of actual operation by Mr. Kortunov. Let me get into a couple of issues involving the treaty. Mr. Speaker, I have given you all of this documentation about relations because I want our colleagues to know that we are not about sticking it in the eye of the Russian leaders and people. In fact, we are doing more to reach out to the Russians and the members of their Duma than any other Congress has done in recent history in the area of the environment, in the area of energy, defense, foreign policy, and each of these other relationships. But we also, Mr. Speaker, have a common agenda that says we cannot overlook the reality of what is happening with those leaders in the Russian military who, in many cases, were there when it was the Soviet military, and whether it comes to treaty compliance or whether it comes to nuclear weapons or whether it comes to conventional arms sales, we need to understand the mindset of what is occurring in that country. To that end, Mr. Speaker, I had some very serious discussions with both the think-tank experts, the policy people from the USAK Institute, as well as Yeltsin's key advisors. I related to them the concern in this Congress, in this country, that Russian right now has a distinct advantage. Under the ABM Treaty, each country is allowed to have one missile defense system, and as they reiterated to me, Russia has the world's only operational ABM system. Even though we are allowed to have one under that treaty, we do not have one. They have one that protects 80 percent of the population of Russia. That treaty is operational, it has been upgraded three times, and in fact, I tried to visit one of the ABM sites. I was told if I stayed over a second week they would take me to one of the ABM sites, but could not fit it into their schedule the week that I was there. I also tried to meet with General Sergev, who was the chief of strategic rocket forces, who heads up their missile capability. I also could not get a meeting with him, but I will return to Russia at some point in time, and I will meet with him. He is the equivalent to our Mal O'Neill, General O'Neill who heads our BMDO. The point is, Mr. Speaker, that I conveyed to the Russians that I am not about sticking it in their eye, that I want to work with them to convince them that missile defense is as much in their best interests as is ours, because the threat of attack from a rogue nation is probably more against them than it is us because of who borders their country. They expressed a desire that we cannot get away from the theory of mutually assured destruction, and I convinced them that we have, in fact, the capability, under the existing treaty, to build a system, just like they have in Moscow. The American people do not even realize that. When you ask the American people if we are allowed to have a system to protect us against a launch of an incoming missile, they would think we did, and frequently I have to tell them no, we do not have any such system, because our leadership, primarily our liberal leadership in this Congress and in the White House right now, will not allow us to implement what Russia already has, which I cannot understand, Mr. Speaker. I cannot understand that notion. Again, I say, this as not someone who is attempting to tweak the Russians, but as someone who devotes a good part of his time to building strong relationships with the Russian people, with their leadership and their Duma. I would tell you this, Mr. Speaker, despite the rhetoric we heard coming out of the White House this week, the leaders that I have met with in terms of the Russian think-tanks and the advisors to Yeltsin were more concerned from a START II standpoint, with President Clinton's goal of expanding NATO, than they were with the prospect of America developing a treaty-compliant missile defense system much like they have around Moscow, but you never hear President Clinton talk about that. Mr. Speaker, he only talks about what we want to do in the Congress of a date certain system as being something that could jeopardize START II. I think that is a red herring. I do not think that is the case. We are going to make that case this year politically, as Mr. Clinton attempts to prevent us from moving forward with what I think we need, and that is the capability much like the Russians have today. Mr. Speaker, besides the issue of the existing ABM system in Moscow and the treaty, I raised the notion with the Russians that I understand the importance of the ABM treaty politically to them, but that we now have a responsibility in a world that is no longer bipolar of protecting our people against a rogue attack. This is extremely important, Mr. Speaker. Some in our Congress, particularly on the Democrat side, the more liberal Members, would say that, ``The intelligence community says there is no threat in the next 15 years.'' I wrote to Gen. Mal O'Neill today to get his views on the most recent intelligence estimate, which I had a classified briefing on about a month ago. I think I was the first Member to have that. I walked out of the briefing, because it was so poor. Mr. Speaker, our intelligence community, in the most politicized effort I have seen in my 10 years here, has said that Russia has not changed in 5 years. Despite cutoffs of power to their strategic nuclear force headquarters, despite no housing for the military, despite military personnel not being paid for months, despite tremendous morale problems, and despite the leakage of technology, both deliberately and accidentally, out of Russia, our intelligence agency comes forward and says that nothing has changed. That to me is unbelievable. In the first quarter of this year, Mr. Speaker, I will chair hearings in the R&D committee, and we will expose what I think is a consistent pattern of sanitizing intelligence data. This, to me, is outrageous. As someone who spends the bulk of his time working on building and improving Russian-American relations, I find it unconscionable that anyone would attempt to sanitize information that would allow us to make an objective decision about what the threat is. As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, while I was in Russia, while I met with the embassy staff in Moscow and then had a private meeting with Ambassador Pickering for an hour and then met with the leading advisors to President Yeltsin, I asked them about an incident that occurred in early December of last year. The Jordanians, Mr. Speaker, as documented by the Washington Post on December 15, confiscated the most advanced telemetry equipment that would only be used in a long-range ICBM, intercontinental ballistic missile. These accelerometers and gyroscopes only could be used in a long-range missile. They were from Russia and they were heading to Iraq. The Jordanian and Israeli intelligence confiscated them. We now have in our possession some of these items that have been photographed by the Washington Post. I asked everyone I met within Moscow, ``How do you explain, if there is stability here, how do you explain the most advanced technology that can help the Iraqis develop a long-range missile that could threaten any American city, how do you explain that leaving Russia?'' Because either answer is a problem for us: If the Russians say they know nothing about it, that is a problem, because it means they do not have control of their technology base; and if they say it was a legitimate sale, that is a problem, because it means they are exporting technology that, down the road, in Saddam's hands will threaten American interests. Mr. Speaker, we are not talking about pie-in-the-sky ideas. We are talking about reality. Mr. Speaker, what bothered me most was when I talked to the Russians who advise Yeltsin. One, by the way, is a good friend of mine. I have been on three or four delegations with him over the past 10 years. I was active with him when he was a member of the Young Communist League, the Comsomol; he is a member. He just wrote a book on missile proliferation. When I asked him, ``How do you explain this incident,'' he said to me, ``We don't know anything about it.'' That was reported in the Washington Post. I would invite any Member of this Congress to request a classified briefing they can receive as a Member of this body on the evidence that we have in our hands on this advanced technology going to Iraq for a long-range ICBM, not just one delivery, but evidence of other deliveries coming out of Russia. Mr. Speaker, the ABM Treaty does not protect us against Iraq having a long-range missile. It does not protect us against China's CSS-II. It does not protect us against North Korea's No Dong or Taepo Dong-II missile, which now has ranges close to Hawaii and Alaska. Mr. Speaker, we have to address these issues up front and candidly with the Russians. They respect that. In all of my dealings with Russia over the past 20 years, in hosting over 100 Members of the Duma in my office last year, the one thing Russians respect, including my good friends over there, is when you are honest with them. That is why they, in the end, liked Ronald Reagan. They always knew where he was coming from. But if, in fact, they see that our policy is set first and then we sanitize all of the information we get so it does not undermine the policy, that is not something they will respect. It is not something that is going to be in our best interests. Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, I sense that is beginning to happen now. It scares me. In the hearings that we will hold this year, we will look at that issue. We will look at the intelligence relative to Russian command and control. Let us get back to the issue of the technology being transferred. Is it not strange, Mr. Speaker, that no one would even tell me that we had questioned the Russians on how this material was being transferred? I think I know why, Mr. Speaker: Because when we expose the facts and when we get on the record that Russia has, either directly or indirectly, legally or illegally, transferred this advanced equipment to Iraq, it is going to be a violation of the missile control technology regime, which Russia just entered this past fall. Guess what, Mr. Speaker? When Russia is in fact in violation of the MTCR, this country must take actions. Those actions could lead to sanctions. Is this administration so naive that it would ignore what the Russians are doing, so we do not have to impose sanctions or even discuss it, so we do not talk about this? Mr. Speaker, I am not going to let that happen. I raised this issue with the Russians directly at the same time I talked about helping them with their energy, with their environment, with their defense, with adoption and all the other issues I talked about. But I am not going to ignore reality when it comes to what people in the Russian military may be doing on their own. We have got to understand that, Mr. Speaker, because this administration does not want to confront reality. They are so bent on bolstering up Yeltsin, whom I support and whom I hope succeeds. Even though the most recent polling data in Russia shows he only has 8 percent support in the entire Russian electorate, I want to see Yeltsin succeed. I want to see democracy succeed. I want to see economic reform succeed. But I do not want to do it in a vacuum, and not protect the people of this country. I also proposed the question to those that I debated from the think- tanks and from Yeltsin's key advisory group on defense and foreign policy issues, how they would explain to me their concern with any treaty without them understanding our mindset, and our mindset is very important, that they have to understand as well as we understand theirs. I related a story to them, Mr. Speaker, of my first session in this Congress, in 1987. My first amendment on the floor of the House was an amendment offered on the defense authorization bill that was very simple. It was offered at the time that the liberals were telling then- President Reagan that we should adhere to the strictest possible interpretation of the ABM Treaty. My amendment was very simple and said, ``The Russians,'' at that time the Soviet Union, ``had violated the ABM Treaty by the installation of the Krasnoyarsk radar system where it was installed.'' My amendment passed the House in a recorded vote 418 to 0. No Member disagreed with me. But the liberals said, ``It is not an important violation. It is a trivial violation.'' That radar is really being used for space-tracking purposes. It is not for missile defense, and it is not for a national missile defense system. I argued and many of our colleagues argued that, in fact, it was deliberate, and it was being placed there so that Russia could eventually have the option of breaking out of the ABM Treaty. Mr. Speaker, last year I read the Russian media every day as a student of Russian relations. Last year I read the Journal of Russian Military History, and an article in it written by General Voitinsev. General Voitinsev for 18 years was the leader of the Russian Air and Space Command effort, the top guy. General Voitinsev in his article, his memoirs, on the record publicly said he was ordered to leave Krasnoyarsk radar where it was, knowing full well it was a deliberate violation of the ABM Treaty, knowing full well its ultimate purpose was for a tracking system to develop a capability to break out of the ABM Treaty. Now, this is not a Republican conservative saying this, this is not some think tank expert in America; this is the Russian general responsible at the time for overseeing the placement of the Krasnoyarsk radar system. He went on to further state, and I will provide this to any Member of this body who wants the detailed wording from the article, he further said he was ordered to place the radar there by General Ogarkov, General Ogarkov was being ordered by the Politburo, and told Voitinsev that if you do not place it where we tell you, which is the Krasnoyarsk, in direct violation of the ABM Treaty, you will be removed from your post. I confronted the Russians with that, and they did not deny it, because they know it is true. But the important point is, Mr. Speaker, that both sides have to approach these issues in a frank, open and candid manner. Neither side should bury their head in the sand and ignore reality. And I say that not as an alarmist, but as somebody who delivered your letter to the new speaker of the Russian Duma, Mr. Seleznyov, who met with the Duma leadership, who met with Zhirinovsky's party, who met with the Yablakov party, the Russia Is Our Home party, and the Communists, to convince them that we want to work with them, but we cannot do that in a vacuum. Mr. Speaker, we cannot allow the intelligence community of this country to be sanitized by anyone in the White House. I am not just talking about the President; I am talking about key policy advisers or anyone else who may have an ultimate objective and who says we can't allow anything to get in the way of that objective. That is not the purpose of the intelligence community. We who are the elected representatives of the people of this country need data based on fact, and we are going to get that data. It really bothers me that as the chairman of the Committee on National Security, Subcommittee on Research and Development, that I have to go out and establish an ad hoc advisory group made up of former intelligence officials, and Russian experts and Soviet experts to advise me, because I questioned some of the data I am getting and the lack of answers I am getting from our own intelligence community. Mr. Speaker, that is outrageous. Is it not outrageous that we have an incident that we cannot even get detailed response from what the Russians' position is on transferring sophisticated technology and equipment to Iraq? Is it because we do not want to jeopardize their membership in the MTCR? That is outrageous, Mr. Speaker. I again invite every Member of this body to ask for the classified briefing that is available today on what happened in December and what the results of the evidence that we have are in terms of this material being transferred to Iraq and the implications that has for Iraq's capabilities of developing one long-range missile. Furthermore, I also, Mr. Speaker, had a chance to meet with a Russian company, Rosvoorouzhenie. We talk about arms sales. This is the new company that has been formed in Russia; this is their slick marketing brochure. They gave me all of their copies of them, of anything I wanted. I met with the leadership of this company that has as its total purpose the marketing of arms all over the world, and where basically we can buy anything and everything that the Russians are making today. What concerned me most is not their ability to sell their helicopters and their guns and these other armaments, because companies do that in this country, even though we can limit that. It is the fact, where does it stop, Mr. Speaker? One SS-25 with a range of 10,000 kilometers on a mobile launch system pulled by a tractor, basically pulling the back of a truck, can reach any city in America, one SS-25; and the Russians have probably 500 SS- 25 launchers. One SS-25 removed from Russia and taken to a Third World nation presents an immediate threat to this county. That is a possibility, Mr. Speaker. In hearings that I chaired last year, the CIA said on the record it would be possible to take one battery out without us knowing it. I am not talking about a nuclear weapon being on the tip of that missile. I am talking about a conventional weapon. It could be a chemical or biological weapon, or it could be just the threat itself. Mr. Speaker, these are the threats that are there. This is reality. And for us to have a lasting relationship with the Russians that works in both of our interests to build trust and understanding, and help them economically and socially, we must base our discussions on factual information and we trust be willing to share the bad stories. When I was in St. Petersburg speaking at the ACOPS conference, talking about the Russian dumping of nuclear waste, I started off by saying, you know, we come from America and we are quick to criticize you for problems that we think only you have. I remember a hearing that I called for in the last session of Congress when I was the ranking member of the Oceanography Subcommittee, and I was listening to a Navy official testify about the problems of the Komsvolez, a Russian submarine that went down off the coast of Norway, that is sitting on the bottom of the sea, that has nuclear missiles and also has a nuclear rector on board. And I said to that Navy official when he was done, I am concerned about the Komsvolez, but let me ask you a question. Can you tell me about the Thresher and the Scorpion, the two American submarines that are on the bottom of the ocean, nuclear power with nuclear weapons. He said to me, Congressman, we cannot discuss that in an open session. I said, you expect us to be critical of the Russians for accidents they have had, but not to be critical of ourselves for accidents that perhaps we have had. Mr. Speaker, in this era of a new dialog with members of the Russian Duma, above all, we have got to be candid. When we have problems, we have to acknowledge them, and when they have problems, we have to confront them. To do anything less is a disservice to our country and to the people of Russia. Mr. Speaker, Russia has changed a lot. The Duma is in place now; the Federations Council largely appointed by Yeltsin is in power. Yeltsin is having a terrible problem right now as he is appointing a lot of reactionary leaders, Kremkov to replace the most recent foreign minister. He is changing and checking up his cabinet to try to get back support from the nationalists who won the election in December. But, Mr. Speaker, in the end, for us to maintain solid relations, we have to be candid with one another. The Russian military is still led by some of the same leaders who were in the leadership positions when it was the Soviet military. I read a series of articles recently by one of the commanders of one of the major Russian fleets. I believe it was the North Fleet, where he talked about Russia being involved in world war III. This is just a recent article that appeared 3 weeks ago. I will be happy to provide it for any of our colleagues. This Russian admiral, who is now in a key position of the Russian Navy, talked about Russia already being involved in world war III with the West, that it was not the traditional war, it was a velvet war where America was attempting to undermine Russia, and that the only way Russia was going to eventually succeed was to eventually have the use and capability of its nuclear arsenal. As much as we want to brush away those kinds of statements and those kinds of positions, we have to confront them head on, Mr. Speaker. We have to confront the elected officials in Russia head on. If they have problems with us and what we have done, then they should be able to confront us and we should openly discuss it and debate it. But we should never allow anyone in Russia to give us false information or, worse yet, to give us no information about problems and concerns that we have with events that are unfolding in terms of defense policy and foreign relations in particular. I think the Russians will ultimately respect us for that position, and hopefully, this process that we have established will allow us, through your good efforts, Mr. Speaker, to have an ongoing relationship, and open dialog will occur in both countries. That is the only way that, down the road, irregardless of who the President of either country is, that we can build long-term trust and understanding. We have key concerns. We have a need to protect our people, and we ought to be able to address those issues directly with the Russian leaders. The Russians have concerns with perhaps where we are going. They may think that our purpose in trying to get rid of the ABM Treaty is just to gain an advantage with them, when in fact our major purpose is to protect us from another rogue launch; not necessarily an all-out attack from Russia, it is from the peril of an Iraq getting a long- range missile, or from China, or North Korea or from some other rogue nation. The ABM Treaty does nothing to protect us from those instances. With the Russians offering to sell the SS-25 as a space launch platform or from a variation of that, with the Russian marketing efforts underway to market their missile systems around the world, we need to be more vigilant than ever. I would make the case, Mr. Speaker, that Russia today militarily is more destabilized than it ever was under Communist leadership. Central command is not what it was. During our hearings in the first quarter, we are going to look at the central command, we are going to look at the command structure; we are going to look at the potential for a breakdown in the control of that nuclear arsenal, and we are going to confront it in an intelligent manner. It really galled me last night to see President Clinton stand up right behind us, right behind me in this podium, and tell the American people for the second time that he can say no longer are Russian missiles pointed at American children. That is the most outrageous statement this President has made, among many outrageous statements. Any expert who knows anything about missiles, including the Russian military expert who controls those missiles, as he said on ``60 Minutes'' when he was interviewed, those missiles can be retargeted in a matter of seconds and minutes, and that is exactly what can occur. And to the American people some kind of false sense that all is well and there are no problems is the absolutely worst thing that this administration could be doing. We in the Congress are not going to let that happen. We are going to be vigilant, we are going to be aggressive; we are going to pursue issues that we want answers to like the transfer of this technology to Iraq and why it occurred and how it occurred. We are going to pursue questions about the sale of sophisticated weaponry, the leakage of nuclear materials, the breakdown of command and control in the Russian military, but we are going to do it openly and honestly; and we are also going to work with the Russians to stabilize their economy, to help them environmentally with their energy issues and every other area where they have common concerns. In that regard, Mr. Speaker, we can achieve ultimate success. I applaud you for the leadership role that you have taken in this new initiative with the speaker of the Russian Duma. For those who would be critical of you, I would say, here is another example where you have created a new effort in the Congress and in Washington to achieve a new level of relationship with Russia that we have never had before. I am optimistic it will be successful, and I am optimistic that in the end, we can in fact peacefully coexist if we are both honest and candid, one with the other. I would ask unanimous consent, Mr. Speaker, to insert support documentation of my trip in the Record, as well as the letter itself from you to Speaker Seleznyov, and would invite my colleagues to follow up on this issue if they have particular issue areas they want to focus on, to let them know that we will be trying to form these focus areas once we get the word from the Russian Duma that they are ready to proceed with this exciting new opportunity. I thank my colleagues for bearing with me as I provide this report on the trip and our relations with Russia. House of Representatives, Office of the Speaker, Washington, DC, January 17, 1996. Hon. Gennady Seleznyov, Speaker, State Duma, Russian Federation. Dear Mr. Speaker: I am writing to seek your assistance and support for a project that I feel will have long-term benefits for both Russia and America and our respective legislatures. I propose that we establish a standing Duma- Congress Study Group composed of members of the Russian Duma and U.S. Congress to develop an ongoing relationship between our legislatures. I have asked Congressman Curt Weldon, who first brought this proposal to my attention, to personally deliver this letter to you and brief you in greater detail on the Study Group. Congressman Weldon has focused much of his work in the Congress on a range of Russian-American issues, including energy development, the environment, and arms control. These are just a few of the many important issues that confront our two nations, and I am convinced that an effective way to develop greater understanding between our two nations and make real progress on these issues is to establish a mechanism for a long-term dialogue between our two legislatures. Many formal linkages already exist between our two Presidents and executive branches, but no formal organization exists to facilitate communication between our legislators. I believe such a legislature-to-legislature organization would complement, rather than hamper, the bilateral activities of our executive branches. The Study Group, as I envision it, would consist of eight to ten members from each of our legislatures who would meet for three to five days two times each year, once in Russia and once in the United States, to discuss a range of key Russian-American issues that would be agreed upon in advance. The goal would be to make the sessions somewhat informal so as to develop the sort of personal relationships that lead to frank and candid discussions. In a related area, I am very enthusiastic about a larger project to link legislators around the world via a computer network. This effort, called the 21st Century International Legislator's Project, under the directorship of General Charles Boyd (USAF Ret.), will produce information transfer among legislators around the globe at an unprecedented rate. Participation by Duma members will be important to the success of this project, and I will provide for you by separate communication the details of this historic effort to share with your fellow members as the initiation date nears. I would appreciate your careful consideration of the proposal to establish a Congress-Duma Study Group. If you agree that such an organization should be established, I would ask that you appoint a member of the Duma to serve as a point of contact for Congressman Weldon to work with in developing the Study Group. Sincerely, Newt Gingrich, Speaker of the House.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield such time as our friend may consume for the purpose of continuing his remarks. tribute to barbara jordan

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule for the consideration of the authorization conference report and ask for support for the bill. I would like to address my comments, in closing, to the issue of missile defense and what we did as authorizers on the conference committee to bring forth a bill that this administration would hopefully sign into law, in spite of the objections they raised earlier this year and last year in terms of the missile defense provisions. Some would say that perhaps we negotiated too far and that in fact we no longer have as a priority the issue of national missile defense. I am here to say, Mr. Speaker, nothing could be further from the truth. This is not the end of the fight, this is the beginning of what promises to be a war in this country, in this session of the Congress, on the fate of the future of protecting the people of America from missile proliferation and the threat of a rogue attack. Mr. Speaker, we have heard the administration say they tried in good faith to negotiate with us. Mr. Speaker, I say, hogwash, disingenuous, totally misleading and totally self-serving. I was in those negotiations, Mr. Speaker, with three other Members of the Congress. In fact, no other House Members were present. It was Senator Nunn, it was Senator Thurmond, and it was Senator Lott. We invited the administration over in the form of Bob Bell, and we in good faith addressed the 12 specific issues that he raised. But, Mr. Speaker, it was like negotiating with a bowl of jelly, because in the end the administration had no intent on coming to grips with this issue of whether or not to protect America from the threat of a rogue attack. We in good faith in fact compromised in each of the 12 areas. We made a good faith effort to change language to give the administration the changes they asked for. But, Mr. Speaker, in the end the President did not want a bill and would not agree to the bill because we finally held his feet to the fire and said we want to deploy a system by a date certain. Where was this date certain picked from? It was picked from the recommendations of the President's own administration. Now, Mr. Speaker, we heard a lot of rhetoric during the debate on the floor. We heard this was going to violate the ABM Treaty. Guess what, Mr. Speaker? A week ago Monday, the administration's point person on missile defense said that we can protect the entire 50 States from a single site by either using the Air Force or the Army program, which would in no way violate the ABM Treaty. All of a sudden the administration has no more argument that our efforts would have in fact violated ABM, because in fact the administration's own point person said that is not the case. Then the administration shifted gears and said it might jeopardize START II. Mr. Speaker, I just spent 7 days in Russia where I met with the leaders of the Yeltsin administration on proliferation and on arms control issues. They were not pressing me on the issue of an allowable program under the ABM treaty. They are pressing me on expansion of NATO. Why has this President not chosen to speak to the issue of Russia's concern with expanding NATO? If they want to know the real cutting edge issue that will cause START II to be delayed in Russia, it is not what we want to do, it is the administration's rhetoric about NATO and what it wants to do. We did not hear that in the debate on the House floor. Then we heard, Mr. Speaker, the administration finally resort to a last ditch argument, because they could not make the argument on the ABM Treaty alone, because this bill originally did not attack the ABM Treaty. It did it in compliance with the treaty, even though many of us feel the treaty has outlived its usefulness and ultimately has to be changed. They then said there is no threat. Get this, Mr. Speaker: The administration comes out with the most politically biased intelligence brief I have ever seen in my 10 years here, gives Senator Levin a political letter from the Deputy Director of the CIA for use in debate on the Senate floor, saying there will be no threat in 15 years, even though we requested this information for months. Two weeks later we are able to get advanced telemetry equipment the Russians are sending to Iraq to be used for a long range ICBM. The treat is there, it is real, and the battle for a national missile defense system is just beginning.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, briefly I would ask our colleagues on the other side that perhaps they should start the conversation of increased spending with the man in the White House. We talked about the $7 billion item. It was President Clinton who signed the appropriation bill, which my understanding is, it contains $7 billion more. To my amazement, in California, President Clinton gave a speech where he talked about seeing the need for more B-2's. This is President Clinton, the champion of cutting defense. I can guarantee Members he will be at every shipyard where there are funded programs for new ships being constructed this year. Unfortunately, we have a disingenuous White House. Let me talk about missile defense for a moment, because what we have heard has been nothing but rhetoric and hogwash. Mr. Speaker, it is a shame that General O'Neill did not confirm my statement on the floor until a week after we voted on the defense bill. When my colleagues on the left said we could not build a low-cost missile defense system from a single site without violating the ABM, General O'Neill says on the record we can. The Air Force can do it for about $2.5 billion over 4 years. The Army can do it for $5 billion over 4 years, and both of them can do it in compliance with the ABM treaty. This is all in the public record, I might add. Also, Mr. Speaker, we heard our colleagues talk about no threat. I was in Russia last week. I want to tell Members, when I was at the Kremlin meeting with Yeltsin's advisors on proliferation, I asked them a simple question, Can you explain to me how the advanced telemetry equipment for a long-range ICBM was obtained going from Russia to Iraq? Do my colleagues know what they said? We know nothing of this incident. Mr. Speaker, we have the devices in our hands with the Russian markings on them. Do Members know why the administration does not want to confront this issue? Because it is a direct violation of the MTCR. This administration would rather bury its head in the sand than to face the Russians on a direct violation of the missile technology control regime. This administration has sanitized intelligence more than any other administration in the history of this country. The most outrageous thing about what this President is doing is undermining the ability of this country to protect our people. That is outrageous. When I asked Ambassador Pickering for an answer, he said, We did not ask the question yet. That is outrageous, and we will get to the bottom of that story in the appropriate hearing scenarios.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. I thank my friend and colleague for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I would just add we did make an attempt, although it may have been a last minute attempt, to broker a deal with the White House and with the Senate Democrats on missile defense, and thought we were moving in that direction. The meeting we had with Bob Bell where we attempted to and in fact agreed to 12 specific changes, as I mentioned to my colleague, we thought was moving us in that direction. Evidently we did not move far enough. So I would just hope that, as our friend and colleague the gentleman from California [Mr. Hunter] mentioned, that the White House would engage us directly in this process so that we get clear signals in terms of what is acceptable and not acceptable, because we thought we were doing that in the negotiation on missile defense that led up to that bill that finally came to the House floor which the President threatened to veto.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spence], our distinguished chairman, for yielding, and I thank the distinguished gentleman from California [Mr. Dellums], ranking member, for his cooperation in this effort to reopen the conference to attempt to come to some agreement on some very important items that we, as authorizers, feel have to be addressed in this session of the Congress. Mr. Speaker, while all of us are aware that there were areas of passionate disagreement in the final context of the bill that was on this floor not many days ago, there is also a lot more area where there is agreement. All of us on the authorization committee, and I think all of us in this body, understand the importance of passing an authorization bill to authorize and set the parameters for those programs that are going to be funded through the appropriation process. Mr. Speaker, it would be a terrible tragedy not to implement the acquisition reform items that are in this bill. It would be a terrible tragedy not to pass the pay raise, and to deal with the Guard and Reserve issues that were supported by Members of both sides of the aisle. Even in the area of such contentious issues as missile defense there are areas where we agree, where we can come together and try to find some middle ground. We in this conference may continue to disagree in this area, but we will commit ourselves to work together and try to get a bill out that not only can this body support, but the other body will support and that this President can sign into law so that we can, in fact, complete our process as required under the Constitution and the rules of this Congress whereby the authorizers set the overall parameters for defense spending. Mr. Speaker, I applaud the leadership on both sides of the aisle for this commitment. As I have told our chairman, I am prepared to work night and day until we reach an agreement for a defense bill that we all can agree on. I would ask our colleagues to work with us in this process and to understand that there are many more areas of agreement than there are areas of disagreement. Even though we may have to do some compromissing here, that does not mean that we will not be back for another battle another day in this area on those issues that we could not get in this particular authorization bill.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to point out a very, very important fact I think every American should be aware of. We passed a continuing resolution today that simply says all the President of the United States has to do is submit a budget that is balanced in 7 years as scored by the CBO, the Government will open up. But shamefully the President, before the ink was even dry on that bill, announced that he would not do it. The emperor has no clothes. We now know that the President does not want to balance the budget. There is no pretense. There is no disguising it. He has admitted to the public that he does not want to balance the budget and that he will not balance the budget. What we are about doing is getting this Government opened up and running, despite a President who is determined to do everything in his power to make sure that we do not balance the budget. What the President is doing, in my opinion is wrong. I ask all my colleagues to work with us on both sides of the aisle to try to get this Nation back up and running.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, we have heard from the President that this shutdown in the Federal Government has been caused by freshman Republicans. I rise as a 5-term Republican who on many occasions has broken with my party to support the President on labor and environmental issues. But I will not break ranks with our party in this case, because the credibility of this administration in my mind is at question. I think the Philadelphia Inquirer, Mr. Speaker, summed it up best in their lead editorial today entitled, ``Your Turn, Bill.'' I will read the last paragraph, Mr. Speaker. Congress should pass stopgap funding as soon as the President provides the missing ingredient of serious bargaining: a credible White House plan to balance the budget in 7 years. To my liberal friends, I would say the Philadelphia Inquirer is not exactly a bastion of conservation politics. I would urge this President and my liberal friends to heed the advice of the Philadelphia Inquirer, and I will join with them in supporting a stopgap CR when this President lives up to the commitment of his words a few weeks ago. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the editorial mentioned earlier. Your Turn, Bill ``Enough is enough.'' That was the gist of Bob Dole's argument for passing a new, stopgap funding bill, even though there's no deal yet on a balanced budget. The partial shutdown is a wasteful exercise that could have ended yesterday if House Republicans hadn't rejected the idea. Yet Newt Gingrich & Co. can rightly shout ``enough is enough'' at President Clinton. In the agreement that ended a shorter shutdown in November, the President promised a serious plan to balance the budget in seven years. The country is still waiting for his plan. House Republicans have rejected short-term funding--and taken the heat for it--out of a legitimate concern that federal businesses-as-usual lessens pressure on Mr. Clinton to bargain seriously. So the stalemate drags on. The most aggrieved folks are nearly half a million ``essential'' workers in unfunded departments and agencies: They are being forced to work but won't be paid until Congress and the President agree on funding. Yesterday, a federal judge turned down the plea of two unions to bar the government from making their members work without pay. No matter how this fiasco plays out, requiring people to work with out pay if fundamentally unfair. How would Republican lawmakers like to work without pay? They voted that idea down in the House, as Majority Whip Tom DeLay got all huffy about how he wasn't a federal employee, but ``a constitutional officer.'' Well, la-dee-dah, Mr. DeLay. Another 260,000 ``nonessential'' workers are missing paychecks, but at least they're getting time off--and have been promised back pay for doing nothing: Ridiculous? There's a middle way out of this morass that's less stubborn than the House GOP, but doesn't let Mr. Clinton off the hook as Mr. Dole did. Congress should pass stopgap funding as soon as the President provides the missing ingredient of serious bargaining: a credible White House plan to balance the budget in seven years.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Regular order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise to take this 5-minute special order to discuss the budget and my concerns with the lack of progress and really the lack of response from the administration. We have heard continuously from some of those Members on the minority side that this really has been caused by a group of so-called radical freshmen Republican Members. Well, I rise as a five-term Republican who over the 10 years I have been in Congress have supported and worked with my colleagues on the other side on labor issues, even opposing NAFTA when my party and this President supported NAFTA; working with Members of the other side on issues like family and medical leave; issues involving reform of Davis-Bacon that is acceptable to the labor unions and the working people of this country; and working on environmental issues and environmental legislation, opposing the riders that were attempted to be inserted in the bill. So I am not someone who rises as someone who has always been against the President. To the contrary, I have been supportive of some of the issues that this administration has supported. But, Mr. Speaker, that is not what this debate is about. This debate really is about this President finally being called to task to live up to commitments that he has made publicly. He has gotten away with saying one thing and doing something else on numerous occasions that I cannot cite here today. But in this instance, Members on our side, even those of us who have worked with the President on key issues, are saying ``We want to see this President simply come forward and do what he said he would do, and that is to provide for us a detailed seven- year plan to balance the budget.'' Now, why has he not done that? It is because he is reading the political tea leaves and polls. He knows if he comes out with a 7-year plan in detail, he is either going to offend senior citizens or offend those business groups where he told them he would support a capital gains tax cut, or he is going to offend those veterans who he has told he will not have any changes in the way we fund veterans programs, or he is going to offend those defense workers by having to say we need additional cuts in defense, even though he was out in California last week and even made the case, and I cannot believe this, as the Republican who opposed the B-2 bomber, this. He even went so far as to say ``Yes, we may need more than 20 B-2 bombers.'' Talk about ultimate irony, for this President to make that statement. You see, if this President comes out with a detailed 7-year plan that lays out specifics like we have, he is going to take some heat, and this President does not like to take heat. Mr. Speaker, the time for this rhetoric and demagoguery has ended. As I said earlier today, the Philadelphia Enquirer, no bastion of conservative politics in this country, said it best today in one of their lead editorials. The headline is, ``Your turn, Bill. Clinton must offer the serious budget he promised.'' I will insert this editorial in the Record, Mr. Speaker, but let me read the final paragraph of the editorial. Congress should pass stopgap funding as soon as the President provides the missing ingredient of serious bargaining: A credible White House plan to balance the budget in seven years. Even the Philadelphia Enquirer has now read through the demagoguery of this President. Now, Mr. Speaker, we hear opponents on the other side say ``You are offending the American people. They do not buy what you are doing. It is wrong.'' That may be the case. But let me just remind them of one plain and simple fact: Since Bill Clinton took office 3 years ago, there have now been as of today 182 publicly elected officials switch parties in this country; 182, Mr. Speaker. All 182 who switched parties, from Maine to Washington State, to the southern States, were Democrats who switched to the Republican Party. All 182 publicly elected officials, including 7 Members of the U.S. Congress, have now distanced themselves from this President. So my colleagues on the other side may be right. Maybe the President has it all right and in the end this game of smoke and mirrors and images and perceptions will win. I think not. I think the American people are smarter than that, and these 182 elected officials who have switched parties and joined the Republican Party agree with us that this President must finally do what he said that he wants to do, and that is give us a detailed plan. If he does that, I will join with the Philadelphia Enquirer tomorrow, or tonight, and I will vote for a CR to get the Federal employees back to work, but I want to see the President's detailed plan. Where is it and when will we see it? Now is the time, Mr. President. Provide us your detailed plan for balancing the Federal budget.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I rise to, in the strongest possible terms, express that if Members want to vote to sustain the President's veto, do not buy the rhetoric that somehow we are doing this because it will in any way violate any treaty. This bill in no way violates any treaty to which this country is a party, and my colleagues on both sides of the aisle know that. What offends me most about this debate, listening from home, one would think that perhaps those on the other side do not support this bill, when in fact on the House floor 86 Democrats supported this bill, and when the President threatened to veto, 58 Democrats voted with us on this bill, because this is a good bill. This does not violate the ABM Treaty in any way, shape, or form, and I will debate anyone at any time for any length of time on the detailed specifics that are debated here in 1-minute and 2-minute sound bites, and my colleagues know that. And the talk about costly expenses to implement an ABM Treaty? The Air Force has said they could do a system for $2.5 billion in 4 years. The Army has said they could do one for $4 billion in 5 years, and these figures were not contrived by some contractor. These were done in a special task force requested by Secretary Perry himself. Why do our colleagues not admit the facts as they are? Then our colleagues get up and say that it is going to violate the START treaty. If our colleagues would read the Russian media on a daily basis, their concern is not about this bill and its impact on the ABM Treaty. Their concern is about this administration's plans with NATO. That is what is going to jeopardize START II in the minds of the Russians, not the ABM provisions in this bill. But what really upsets me about my liberal colleagues and the President on this issue, Mr. Speaker, is they want to fund the world's first ABM system with United States tax dollars to protect the people of Israel. Because this country will do that with the Arrow system, and, by the way, I support that. My liberal friends will pay to protect the people of Israel but will not spend the money to protect the people of the United States. That is what is so outrageous.

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, will be gentleman answer for the record the total cost of the Arrow system, the total percentage of American dollars that will fund the first total, complete nationwide ABM system for a country in the world? Will the gentleman provide those for the record, the total cost, not this year, total cost?

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, let us call it like it is. This President does not want a defense bill. He only signed the appropriations bill and allowed it to become law to get support for the funding of troops in Bosnia. He never wanted this bill. Did we try? Mr. Speaker, I was in meetings with Senator Nunn and Bob Bell, the Assistant to the President for National Security, for one entire day on missile defense. Mr. Bell raised 12 specific points. I will put in the Record, Mr. Speaker, the fact that we resolved all 12 points to his satisfaction. Senator Nunn raised four points, Mr. Speaker, and we resolved all four points to Senator Nunn's satisfaction. Mr. Speaker, in the end this President does not want a bill because this President does not support our military. I urge an override of the President's veto. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the following information: Net Result of Changes Made To Accommodate the Minority and the White House (1) Virtually all the complaints lodged against the BMD provisions in the SASC-reported (prior to the compromise) and House-passed bills related to the ABM Treaty and the President's prerogatives in the area of arms control negotiations. All of these concerns have been eliminated by the conference action. Two areas, in particular, have been fixed: In dropping the House demarcation language and adopting language virtually identical to the Senate-passed language, the conference report will not constrain the President's right to negotiate and will not impose a unilateral interpretation of the treaty. In eliminating the requirement to deploy a multiple-site NMD system, we eliminate the argument that the bill contains an ``anticipatory breach'' of the ABM Treaty. The requirement to deploy an NMD system by a date certain is not a treaty issue since we are permitted to deploy a single site under the treaty. Therefore, concern that this will upset the Russians and START II should be eliminated. After all, the only operational ABM system in the world is around Moscow. (2) The other argument or concern that has been raised is that the Senate-passed language is particularly important since it was carefully negotiated, agreed to by a large majority in the Senate, and is acceptable to the Administration. The fact of the matter is that the conference action incorporates an overwhelming majority of the Senate compromise. The structure of the conference agreement is virtually identical to the Senate-passed bill. One section (cruise missile defense) was split off as a free-standing provision and one non-controversial section (cooperation with allies) was added. Although there have been changes made to the Senate-passed language, there is more identical than different. With the exception of the three NMD variables (deploy, multi-site, and date), which have been negotiated with the Minority and the White House, the underlying structure and content is overwhelmingly the Senate language.