C. Young

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman is correct. The language which is included in the explanatory tables provides $145 million for termination liability, or for continued system development and demonstration if certified by the Secretary.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I would say to the gentleman, Mr. Chairman, that it is the intent of the committee to provide that flexibility. In fact, it is my hope that the Department exercises this flexibility to finish SDD activities and get something usable for the $3 billion investment that we have already made. Here is a unique opportunity for a win-win situation. The Marines want to cancel the program, and they would normally pay a $145 million termination fee. Here is an opportunity, and we believe the contractor is agreeable, to forego the payment of the $145 million to them, but use that money to continue the program so that we at least get something for the $3 billion that we have already appropriated. If I might expand on the colloquy, one of the problems that we have in our defense budgeting is that we too often start a program, spend a lot of money on it, and then decide to terminate it and get little or nothing for what we already did. So I believe it is important for the Department to have this flexibility as they negotiate the remaining activities for the fiscal year. It is my hope the Department would be able to reach an agreement which would provide for an orderly conclusion of the fiscal year 2011 SDD activities and ensure the Marine Corps is able to harvest the advances in technology and beneficial equipment from the program, should the program not be continued.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. The gentleman knows that he and I are on the same page on this issue. We want to get something for the money we've already spent, and we think this is a way out.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I thank the gentlelady for raising the question. It's something we should discuss more and more, and in fact, we have an obligation to our troops and our warfighters and our veterans. I would say that Mr. Dicks and I worked long and hard to come up with the savings that we were instructed to come up with, and I can guarantee the gentlelady, we did not create anything that would have an adverse effect on our warfighters. It would not have an adverse effect on our Nation's readiness, would not have an adverse effect on their training and their preparation for war. So I say to the gentlelady, I share her very strong commitment, and I thank her for her strong commitment, and our subcommittee has the same strong commitment. So I can assure her.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. My understanding is the $34 million would be to complete the research and the development of the program and to develop the new innovations to this particular vehicle.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. For the purpose of entering into a colloquy, I yield to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Akin).

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I want to congratulate and thank the gentleman from Washington for bringing this matter before the House today. It is something that Mr. Dicks and I have worked with ever since these wars began--something that we cannot overlook, something that is extremely, extremely serious--a major debt that we owe to the men and women who serve our country as warfighters. And so I would say again to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Reichert), thank you very much for bringing this matter before the House today.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment. Mr. Chairman, I'm not going to debate the issue of the war in Afghanistan. The fact is we're there, our soldiers are getting hurt every day, and too many of them are dying. So we're not going to debate that particular part of the war. What we're going to debate is this amendment. I've said in the last 3 days, a number of times, we're not going to do anything in this defense appropriations bill in the savings that would have an adverse effect on the war fighter. This amendment would affect the war fighter, especially those in Afghanistan. This $10 billion that the gentleman would leave in the fund to finance the operations in Afghanistan, that's already been spent. In the first quarter of this fiscal year, the Afghanistan operation cost $16 billion, and he would only leave 10, which means we're already in deficit of $6 billion during the first quarter of the year. What kind of confusion would there be in Afghanistan immediately? What would our troops be thinking? Where would they have to go? What would they have to do? What would the rules of engagement be? You can't do this to our soldiers, our war fighters who are in Afghanistan. Don't look at this amendment because of the political tone relative to feeling that we should be in Afghanistan or we shouldn't be in Afghanistan. The fact is we're there. Our soldiers are fighting. They're getting hurt. They're dying. The fact is we can't let them hang out there without proper funding. Now if you want to bring the troops home from Afghanistan, the truth is $10 billion won't even accomplish that. It will take more to bring everybody out of Afghanistan that we have deployed there, with the equipment, with the infrastructure, with the headquarters, would cost them much more than the $10 billion the gentleman would leave just to redeploy them back to the United States of America. This amendment does affect the war fighter. I will not support any part of an appropriations bill or an authorizing bill that has an adverse effect on those who stand to fight for America. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I would say to the House, in the $14.8 billion that the subcommittee recommended which is in this bill, a reduction in the defense budget, a very large amount of that was reducing the research and development program. But you can't reduce research and development too much. I don't care what the best weapons system you have is or that you are planning on having or that you have in the process, in the conceptual stage even. It never gets to where the soldier and the sailor and the airman and the marine needs it without research and development that makes it possible and feasible to build it and deploy it. We have already cut a substantial amount out of R&D. We can't put a soldier on the battlefield, and if his system that he is working with doesn't work, we can't recall it like you can an automobile or a medicine or pill or something like that. It has got to work. I don't want to see an American trooper on the front line, whether he is on the ground, whether he is in the air, whether he is on the sea, whether he is under the sea, that has a failed system because we failed to properly research it during the development stage. So I understand that there are some who would cut defense just to cut defense. If you are going to reduce the defense budget, there ought to be a good reason. There is not a good reason for reducing this account. We have already reduced the Defense Department $14.8 billion, and I just hope that nobody is tempted to vote for this just because it is a cut. I yield back.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Do we have an amendment before the House at the present time?

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. The amendment sounds good. But unlike the Flake amendment, which sounded good, and we'll learn more about it, that was a small amount of money. This is a half a billion dollars. A lot of people are of the opinion that government has the answer to everything. Government doesn't even have the questions to everything, let alone the answers. And how many people in this Chamber have any idea how much technology our warfighters are using today? Whether it's on the battlefield or whether it's in training, whatever it might be, how many people know how much was created by small business or large business? American industry produces good ideas most of the time. And much of what we see on the battlefield today and in the Armed Services came about because of innovations from small business and big business. Who knows? If somebody can tell me how much of those great systems that we create for our soldiers, how much of that came from innovation, how much of it came from the government, then I might change my mind. But we don't know today. You give the committee an opportunity, we'll find out. We'll find out how much this innovative, the SBIR, how much it provides compared to industry, large and small. But today we don't know the answer. And for a half a billion dollars, we need to know the answer. So I don't object to the gentleman offering the amendment, really. But I do object to the gentleman's amendment because we don't know what the effect of it would be. We'd like to find out, and we think we owe it to the Members of this House who are responsible for the national defense to find out for them. I yield back.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Madam Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Madam Chair, America is at war. We have soldiers fighting, losing their lives, having serious injuries not only in Afghanistan but in Iraq and, before that, in Kosova and in Bosnia. We have known war for a long time, and cutting the defense budget was unheard of. Yet the subcommittee has been able to recommend $14.8 billion in a very short period of time that we don't think has any negative effect on the national defense. The idea of the Flake amendment may be a good idea. The subcommittee would like to be able to analyze it to make sure that it doesn't have any kind of a negative effect. It may be, as we go through our process for this year, that we would include that, but the subcommittee would very much like to have an opportunity to review this recommendation by the Flake amendment.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. Some of our Members have made some very eloquent statements why this is not a good amendment, so I am going to be very brief and just say very simply, this amendment could possibly have a serious adverse effect on the soldiers and the Marines who are operating in and around the mountains of Afghanistan who need what the V-22 can provide them. If it is not available, if it is not there, they could be in serious trouble. So this is not a good amendment, and I don't think we should support it in any way. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I thank the gentleman for his comments. Like I said, the subcommittee would really like an opportunity to really review this to make sure that we don't make a mistake and cut something that is important. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mainly, what I'm opposed to is the fact we're not sure what boards or commissions this amendment would deal with. I think it's probably a good idea, but I think the subcommittee will really like to have an opportunity to investigate whether or not a board is necessary or is doing some positive function for the Department of Defense. We'd like to have time to look into that. We agree with the gentleman that we should find all the savings, all the waste we can, and we did. We reduced the request for this year by the $14.8 billion. I think we did a pretty good job. On the gentleman's comment about the process, I had the privilege of serving as chairman of this Appropriations Committee for 6 years. I never brought an appropriations bill to the floor under a closed rule. It was 6 years that any germane amendment could be offered.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, Chairman Rogers deserves an awful lot of credit for having been able to put together this H.R. 1, that saves $100 billion over what many expected we would spend this year. The largest part of this bill is the defense part. The defense part of this bill is not a CR. It is not a continuing resolution. It is an actual, honest-to-God appropriations bill, one that under the leadership of Chairman Dicks during last year we put together; the subcommittee worked hard, many hearings, a really good bill. We worked with our Senate counterparts and we had agreement on this bill. We had agreement on this bill from the Defense Department, and we were just really disappointed that here we are 5 months into the fiscal year and we are just now getting this bill to the floor. It is no fault of Chairman Dicks. He worked hard, and I know the pressures that he tried to apply and that I tried to apply to get permission to put this bill on the floor. But, anyway, here it is and we have it today. It is a good defense bill. It is $516 billion. It is a lot of money; but our warfighters, they need training, they need salaries, they need pay, they need medical care, they need weapons, they need equipment, they need technology; and this bill, for the most part, provides that. The $516 billion is $14.8 billion less than was requested for this fiscal year. That $14.8 billion didn't come about easily. We saved that by going line by line the best that we could in the time that we had to find program changes, to find budget changes, to find slush funds that we didn't think were necessary, and a lot of other ways that we saved the $14.8 billion. But we have a good bill here, and I am hopeful that the House will support this today. One thing that is different from the bill that we thought we were going to have on the floor is 1,200 earmarks aren't there any more. We took out the earmarks, nearly $3 billion worth of earmarks. So we have a very clean Defense bill here for you today. I know that there are many who would like to have more, and there are more things we could do. We could reach out into the future, but the world we live in today shows a growing deficit, and it is important that we are willing to contribute to solving it. It is crucial to the future of this Nation that we solve this deficit problem, because if we don't, I hate to think what might happen to our economy, what might happen to our currency, what might happen to our standing in the economy of the world. I would ask the Members, if this bill came on the floor during Jack Murtha's chairmanship, we would have probably passed this bill in about 10 minutes. That is the way that he did business when he was in the majority. We didn't quite do that. We have an open rule. We have an open rule here that anybody can offer an amendment that is germane to the bill. If it makes it better, fine, we will agree to it. If it doesn't make it better, we will not agree to it. We understand that there are some that will be subject to a point of order, and we will raise those points of order, but we will allow the Member that offers the amendment to discuss it before we raise the point of order as a courtesy to them. Anyway, again, I want to congratulate Mr. Dicks for the work that he did during the time that he was chairman. As he said in the general debate, he and I have worked together for over 30 years on the national security and intelligence affairs of our Nation. He is very honorable, a very hardworking individual, very much determined to do a good job for our Nation; and he shares the same feeling that I have here that while we may have to make reductions and have to come up with savings, we will not approve anything that has an adverse effect on the warfighter. We will not do anything that has an adverse effect on the readiness of our national security effort. It is a commitment that I made many years ago and that Mr. Dicks made many years ago. When we made these cuts we did not affect the warfighter. We didn't cut his pay. One of the largest portions of our Defense bill is military personnel, the cost of salaries. We did not cut that. We didn't get into that at all.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment.