C. Young

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham), a member of the Subcommittee on Defense. (Mr. CUNNINGHAM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize an outstanding Marine Corps officer, Lieutenant Colonel Chester A. Riley who for the past three years has served with distinction as the Commandant of the Marine Corps and the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Financial Management and Comptroller as a Principal Assistant and Deputy in the Appropriations Matters Office. It is a privilege for me to recognize his many outstanding achievements and commend him for the superb service he has provided to the Marine Corps, the Department of the Navy, the Congress, and our great nation. During this tenure in the Appropriations Matters Office, which began in October 1996, Lieutenant Colonel Riley has provided members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense as well as our professional and personal staffs with timely and accurate support regarding Marine Corps plans, programs and budget decisions. His valuable contributions have enabled the members of the Subcommittee, which I had the privilege to Chair the past four years, the Marine Corps and the Department of the Navy to strengthen its close working relationship and to ensure the most modern, well trained and well equipped fighting force and naval presence in the world for our great nation. Mr. Speaker, Chet Riley and his wife Licia have made many sacrifices during his career in the United States Marine Corps and as they embark upon the next great adventure beyond their beloved Corps, I call upon my colleagues to wish him every success and to thank him for his long, distinguished and ever faithful service to God, country and Corps. Semper Fidelis Lieutenant Colonel Riley.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize an outstanding Naval officer, Commander Mark M. Leary who for the past three years has served with distinction as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Financial Management and Comptroller as a Principal Assistant and Deputy in the Appropriations Matters Office. It is a privilege for me to recognize his many outstanding achievements and commend him for the superb service he has provided to the Navy, the Congress, and our great nation. During his tenure in the Appropriations Matters Office, which began in January 1996, Commander Leary has provided members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense as well as our professional and personal staffs with timely and accurate support regarding Navy plans, programs and budget decisions. His valuable contributions have enabled the members of the Subcommittee, which I had the privilege to Chair the past four years, and the Department of the Navy to strengthen its close working relationship and to ensure the most modern, well trained and well equipped naval forces in the world for our great nation. Mr. Speaker, Mark Leary and his wife Paula have made many sacrifices during his naval career and as they embark once again on that greatest adventure of a Naval aviator's career, commander of a helicopter squadron, I call upon my colleagues to wish him every success as well as fair winds and following seas.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, yes, we are. I would respond that we completed the legislative markup several days ago. We are almost through with the agriculture markup. We would go back to the ag markup probably at about 4:30 or 5:00 at the latest and complete that. We will postpone the markup of the Treasury Postal until the Chair calls for a new markup schedule because of the lateness of the ag bill now, because we do not want to mark up both of them at the same time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I would simply say that if we do not have something to vote on tomorrow early enough tonight to get a rule, the leadership would be advised of that and advise the Members about tomorrow. That would be a leadership decision.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior) for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I have not had a chance to talk with the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) about this so this will be new, but we are going to reconvene the conference in about 15 minutes. We believe that we have worked out a resolution to settle the differences. We expect to have the paperwork done later this evening, early enough to file tonight, and possibly have the Committee on Rules meet tonight, which would possibly give us the opportunity to have a vote on the floor tomorrow. We have broken through some of the obstacles that were there, so we will reconvene in about 15 minutes; and, hopefully, we can get this good bill to the President.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order on the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss).

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert). (Mr. BOEHLERT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. One of our speakers said that history will record our activities today. I am not so much concerned about history as I am the young Americans who are serving in uniform, those in the Army and the Navy and the Air Force and the Marine Corps and the Coast Guard who go to war when America goes to war. Those are the ones that I am trying to look after today and that this bill tries to look after. The gentleman from Wisconsin has just raised the issue of JDAMs again. Over the 4 years that I had the privilege of chairing the Subcommittee on Defense, the biggest battle I had on this floor in developing a bill that could be signed was because I added more money than the President asked for.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Fowler) a member of the Committee on Armed Services.

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

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. For JDAMs. To show Members how conservative this committee is, JDAMs last year was not ready to go into full production because JDAMs had some technical problems. And so there was a program slip, and we did reduce the amount of money because of the program slip. We are not going to pay for a program that is slipping. JDAMs are being used today, and we are running out of them.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, the bill we bring to the floor today was approved by the Committee on Appropriations just last week. The bill is designed to meet the emergency requirements of the War in Kosovo and to provide for other readiness-related items that are being exacerbated by the War in Kosovo. Mr. Chairman, this war has stretched our military resources terribly thin. Mr. Chairman, the President sent his request to the Congress, the committee reacted to that request quite expeditiously, and we made some changes. We provided the items that were identified by the President, but the committee, working in a nonpartisan way with our relative subcommittees, and I want to compliment the chairmen and ranking members of the subcommittees who were involved here in this particular bill, the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis) from the Subcommittee on Defense, the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan) from the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hobson) from the Subcommittee on Military Construction, and also the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers) who had an important part of this bill relative to embassy security; and these chairmen, plus their ranking members, did really an outstanding job. I want to call special attention to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha) who played such an important role in helping us put this bill together. It was a good bipartisan effort, and I hope that the vote today will reflect the bipartisanship with which we bring this bill. As we provide for the replacement of the air-launched cruise missiles, or the JDAMs munitions or the various other weapons that have been fired, bombs that have been dropped, aircraft that have been lost, we have a very clean bill that is related strictly to these issues of national defense and specifically relative to the Kosovo war, and, Mr. Chairman, it is a war. At this point it is basically an air war, it is a war, and the sorties are numerous, the targets being hit are numerous, and it is important that we move this bill quickly. Now, Mr. Chairman, one of the things that we added to this bill that has made some controversy has to do with pay, pay for those serving in our uniform who are risking their lives today in the Kosovo region and who are prepared to risk their lives in other regions of the world where they have been deployed for whatever their mission might be should something erupt, for example, in Korea with the North Koreans in southwest Asia, with Saddam Hussein and the Iraqis, and the money we put in for this pay raise is subject to authorization by the authorizing committee. It was a commitment that we made to our authorizers that they could write the rules, but we wanted to make the money available today. Mr. Chairman, I was happy to see the President on TV last night from an air base in Germany telling the American military folks there that we were going to do some good things in this bill including a pay raise, so I suspect what little controversy there might have been about that issue hopefully would have gone away overnight. Also, we addressed the problem of the redux having to do with retirement. We are having a real problem with retention of forces. We are having a real problem with recruiting. We think it is important to do something for the men and women who wear the uniform and who go to war, many of whom are at war today. I am going to leave the details of the bill to the subcommittee chairman. After the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) takes his time, I am going to call on our subcommittee chairman to present the details of the bill. The bill before the House includes $12.9 billion for military operations relating to Kosovo and Operation Desert Fox and for refugee assistance. In developing this bill we consulted with the authorizing committees, the minority, the Pentagon, and our military commanders in the field. The bill has four parts--the largest of which is with the Defense Subcommittee's jurisdiction. For these activities the bill includes $11.24 billion, $5.8 billion above the President's request. The increases are all in areas of identified shortages (weapons procurement, spare parts, depot maintenance, recruitment, training, and base operations). In addition, the bill includes funding for increased military pay and retirement benefits at $1.8 billion subject to authorization and a presidential emergency declaration. The bill includes $1 billion above the President for military construction; $830 million is for mission-related items, $240 million for the NATO security investment program. This funding is directly related to troop readiness. It goes to our European bases. It is executable in 1 year, and it is mission directed. It is not pork. Third, the bill fully funds the President's request for refugee assistance. These funds are redirected away from reconstruction to refugees only. There is not reconstruction money in this bill for Serbia. There is $105 million in assistance to the front line states: Albania, Bosnia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Montenegro. There is a burden-sharing requirement. Finally, the bill includes a relatively small amount of money ($70 million) for security at U.S. Balkan missions and for repairs at damaged embassies. Mr. Chairman, this is a very good bill. Some will say it's too much. Some will say it's too little. But we have developed a bill that does what I believe we should be doing: (1) We have expeditiously moved to support our troops and fund the administration's request to prosecute the war. (2) We have addressed critical shortfalls in our defense preparedness: shortfalls that hinder our security and embarrass us for not adequately supporting our military. (3) We have sent a powerful, morale-boosting signal that we want to increase pay--while giving the authorizers a major role in that decision. (4) We have met the needs of helpless women and children whose tragedy is our tragedy. (5) We have provided funds to help meet the security needs of our people in the Balkans. (6) We have sent a message of support to the front line states whose help we must have it we are to succeed. (7) Because the funds over the President's request are designated as contingent emergencies--it is the President who must make the decisions about whether or when to spend. But we have given him the tools to succeed. Mr. Chairman, this is the right bill for this situation. I urge all members to support it and send a strong signal to our troops and to Milosevic. Mr. Chairman, at this point in the Record I would like to insert a table reflecting the details of the reported bill. [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH06MY99.000 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH06MY99.001 Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer), the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Personnel of the Committee on Armed Services.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Chairman, I want to respond to the gentleman as I did in the meeting during the Committee on Appropriations. There is no military pork in this bill. I do not know where he comes up with that argument. There is no pork in this bill. This is as clean a national defense bill as this House has ever seen. There are no Member requests added to this bill, either when we wrote the bill or when we went to the full committee. It is just not the case. The gentleman says that the way we are spending money we are going to run out of targets before we run out of ammunition. The gentleman is not paying attention to what is happening in Kosovo. The gentleman should look closely at what General Hawley said just a few days ago when he pointed out that we were running short of not only air launch cruise missiles, we were running short of JDAMs, we were running short of all kinds of ammunition; and if they were called on to do another MRC somewhere in the world they could not do it. This is the general who has the responsibility to get there if we have to get there. Mr. Chairman, today's message is a real message. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) talks about the votes last week. Those were votes that gave Members an opportunity to voice their opinion in resolutions that were not truly binding. This is the real message. This is a message to Milosevic that we are serious. This is a message to our troops that we are serious in providing them with what they need to accomplish their mission and to give themselves a little protection while they are at it. This is a good bill. The amendment that the gentleman is talking about is not even before the House yet. It will be later. It is a good bill. It is a clean bill. Just one last point, Mr. Chairman. If the President decides that the items that we have recommended in this bill are not truly emergencies, do Members know what he has to do to stop them from being spent? Nothing. Because, Mr. Chairman, unless the President determines that these items are emergencies, they do not get spent. The investment is not made.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis), the chairman on the Subcommittee on Defense of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Frelinghuysen), a member of the Subcommittee on Defense Appropriations. (Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I am happy to yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan), chair of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. It is really interesting to me. This bill is not about any political gamesmanship, and it has not been politicized. This bill is a true, clean national defense bill that provides what the national defense establishment needs to protect our Nation and to protect our troops. The only partisanship that I have heard in this debate today has come from that side, accusing this side of being partisan or of politicizing or of political gamesmanship. I want to assure the gentleman that there is no politics in this at all. For speakers on the other side to try to create the atmosphere that this is somehow political is just not right. We have gone overboard to make sure over the years that national defense issues were not political and there were no political games being played on them. I want to call attention just one more time to the fact that the only issue of politicization or political gamesmanship is coming from over there. And the fact that they say it does not make it true, and I insist that it is not true. This is a clean national defense appropriations bill. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hobson), chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Construction of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spence), the very distinguished chairman of the Committee on Armed Services. (Mr. SPENCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula), the chairman of the Subcommittee on the Interior. (Mr. REGULA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays).