C. Young

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order against the amendment.

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

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the remainder of the bill through page 36, line 10, be considered as read, printed in the Record, and open to amendment at any point.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I have the great privilege of representing a congressional district that has more people receiving Social Security checks every month than almost everybody else in this Chamber. I can promise Members that I would not cast a vote or take a position here that in my opinion would be detrimental to the Social Security program. To the contrary, I recall a few years back when Ronald Reagan was President, we had a very large tax increase to save the Social Security, and despite much criticism from many people in my district, I voted for that as a commitment to Social Security. Tomorrow we are going to be debating the budget resolution where we talk about how much we will set aside for Social Security. I am going to support every effort to protect the Social Security program and to set aside all of the FICA tax because that is why we created that tax in the first place. We are dealing with fiscal year 1999 money here. We are not dealing with next year's budget surpluses or anything like that. We are dealing with fiscal year 1999 money. I ask my colleagues to oppose this amendment. The bill as presented by the committee which the House has supported to this point is a good bill. The offsets are reasonable and responsible. I am concerned, as I said just a few minutes ago, that we would begin the precedent over again of offsetting from our defense requirements and our defense needs and the needs of the men and women who serve in our military. I do not want to begin the precedent of offsetting their extraordinary deployments that they are required to attend. Mr. Chairman, I ask for not only opposition to this amendment but I ask for support of the bill. Let us get this bill into conference and let us get the bill to the President and let us get the support to our friends in Central America where the commitments have been made. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Yes, that is correct.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the remainder of the debate on this amendment be limited to 15 minutes and that the time be equally divided, with the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt) controlling 7\1/2\ minutes and that I would control the other 7\1/2\ minutes.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, I wonder if I could inquire whether this relates to the debate. It is getting late. There are other amendments to be considered. I am not going to object if it relates to the debate that we are having, but if it is on a personal matter, the gentlewoman might want to take it up with the Member in question.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I think we are coming to the end of this debate. I hope so because we do have other amendments. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. I would have to say that I am somewhat reluctant because the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt) is a very important member of our conference, a very important member of the Committee on Appropriations, and a very thoughtful and studious Member. And I do not disagree with what he is trying to do here by way of offset. But I have to tell my colleagues that I do disagree with what he is offsetting. For some years now, starting in fiscal year 1995 up through 1999, we have had deployments of American forces overseas in my opinion some very questionable deployments that have been very costly to the American taxpayer. In that time period, we spent $5.2 billion in Iraq, and that is after Desert Storm was over. $9 billion in Bosnia. That was a deployment that was supposedly going to last for a year but is still going on today. It was supposedly going to cost a billion dollars. It has already cost us $9 billion. In Haiti, Somalia, Rwanda, Cuba, Korea and others we have spent another billion dollars for deployments of U.S. forces. In the fiscal year 2000 budget sent here by the White House, there is another $1.8 billion for Bosnia, another $1.1 billion for Iraq. That does not include the $300 million that we used in Desert Fox in that 3- day campaign against Saddam. And this total does not include what is going on in Kosovo today. And this whole thing in Kosovo could cost as much in one deployment as all these other numbers that I have mentioned because the situation in Kosovo could become far, far more dangerous and serious than what we have dealt with so far. The point I am making here by reciting these numbers, we were asked to offset most of these monies and most of them were offset from the budget of the Army and the Navy and the Air Force and the Marine Corps. We already have a declining investment in our national security. We already have many airplanes that cannot fly because of a lack of spare parts. We have housing needs for our troops that are terrible, places that Members would not let one of their kids live and they would not live but some of our kids in the military are living. We have 11,000 of our kids on food stamps. That is not right. We need to do more for our military and the men and women who serve in the military. I have stated as chairman of this committee, I am going to object to offsetting money for the Defense Department when it is used in a national security deployment or an emergency other than for our own national defense requirements. And so I would say to the gentleman from Kansas that I do not really like to oppose his amendment, but we have got to make a stand somewhere on the issue of national defense. Our party in this Congress has made a strong statement on national defense. Tomorrow during the debate on the budget, Members will find that there is a very serious problem with national defense, not so much from the standpoint of budget authority but the outlay figure is going to be unworkable. We have got to put a stop to offsetting anything from the defense budget. We need to be increasing our investment in our national defense. I do not want to set the precedent that we are going to offset these type of deployments. This was a true emergency. American soldiers went to Central America, and they saved lives and they made it possible for people to have sanitary conditions. They made it possible to get medical care. This money is to replace the funds that they spent. At this point in the Record I want to insert a letter from General Wilhelm describing the trip that our delegation took to Honduras. It provides insight into the terrible conditions there and the great job our troops did. I have eliminated some portions of his letter as a matter of confidentiality. Mr. Chairman, I must reluctantly oppose the Tiahrt amendment on the principle of we are not doing enough today for our national security effort, we need to do more, and we have got to stop raiding the budget as it relates to national defense deployments. Department of Defense, U.S. Southern Command, Miami, FL, March 8, 1999. Hon. C.W. Bill Young, Chairman, Majority Members, Committee on Appropriations, Washington, DC. Dear Chairman Young: Mr. Chairman, I am deeply grateful for the personal interest that you have taken in our humanitarian and disaster relief operations in Central America. I regret that other obligations prevented you from traveling to the region this past weekend, but the committee and its interests were well represented by Congressmen Hobson, Tiahrt and Farr. I wanted to take just a moment to share with you my impressions of the visit and the status of Department of Defense humanitarian assistance/disaster relief operations. While enroute to Honduras on Friday, I gave the delegation a detailed overview of DOD activities in the region to date. I started with our life saving and life sustaining activities during the first 30 days of the crisis when members of our Armed Forces plucked 1,052 men, women and children literally from death's door, delivered three and a quarter million pounds of food to communities cut off from the rest of their countries and the world by flood waters, and provided 65 tons of medical supplies and the clean water needed to successfully stave off feared epidemics of cholera, typhus and vector borne diseases which would have claimed many more lives. To place the disaster in an historic perspective, I mentioned that the 17,000 plus dead and missing in Central America equate to all of our losses in the Korean War. I stressed, however, that these grim statistics are parts of a closed chapter in our humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations. I emphasized that four months have passed since Hurricane Mitch unleashed as much as seven feet of rain in less than five days on portions of Northern Honduras and turned it into an inland sea; that the waters have subsided, the dead have been recovered and buried, and that Hondurans, Americans and the international community have been working around the clock to replace despair with hope and restore some degree of normalcy to the region. The bottom line as I expressed it to the delegation was that rather than the absolute desolation and devastation that they would have seen during late October and early November, they would see an unfolding success story as key infrastructure is restored or recreated. Over the next two days, as we drove through Tegucigalpa and overflew or visited hundreds of miles of the North Coast, I hope these observations were reinforced. Upon our arrival in Tegucigalpa on Friday we immediately boarded helicopters and conducted an aerial and ground tour of key bridge and other rehabilitation sites in and around the Capital City. The members were given a bird's eye view of a representative sample of the projects that were undertaken to reconnect Tegucigalpa with the rest of the country. This was an early priority for forces from the U.S., Mexico and other international participants in the relief effort. The effort in and around the Capital was sustained by the U.S. after withdrawal of other international contingents in mid-November. Among other projects, the members viewed the Juan Molina Bridge which will be a key point of interest during the Presidential visit. Upon landing, the USAID representative gave the CODEL a guided tour of temporary resettlement housing, after which we proceeded to the Presidential Palace for an extended and very significant meeting with President Flores that I will discuss later in some detail. On the second day of the visit we again boarded U.S. Army and National Guard Blackhawk helicopters, one of which was piloted by a Chief Warrant Officer who had flown some of the critical early life saving missions. His inflight commentary was invaluable. During our lengthy overflight of the north coast the delegation was able to view at least a cross section of the infrastructure repairs that have been made throughout Central America during the second or ``rehabilitation'' phase of our operations. We landed and walked across bridges built by our engineers. We watched commerce laden 18-wheel tractor-trailers rumble over culvert bypasses that U.S. troops have built over rivers pending the reconstruction of permanent bridges. The members took the time to flag down passing pickup trucks and talk about conditions in Honduras with the simple people from the countryside who have been most affected by the disaster. I'm sure they will pass along to you the comments made by ``mainstream'' Central Americans about our presence and what it has achieved. Later in the day, we landed in northeastern Honduras and the members had the opportunity to visit a base camp established by members of the Guard and Reserve who are supporting the third and final phase of our engagement, the expanded New Horizons Exercise program. During this phase approximately 23,000 engineers, medics and support personnel from the Guard and Reserve will deploy to the region in two- three week increments during which they will build 33 schools and 12 clinics, drill 27 high capacity wells, repair and rehabilitate more bridges, bypasses and secondary roads and conduct medical, dental and veterinary outreach programs that will touch from 70,000 to 100,000 Central American men, women and children in remote parts of the countryside. I expect the members will describe to you the outstanding organization of the base camps, the uniformly high morale and positive attitudes of the troops involved in this undertaking, and the relevance of the work they will do. I would like to mention two specific events that took place during the visit that I considered to be particularly meaningful. The first was the CODEL's visit with President Flores on Friday evening. I was pleased and surprised when the 45-minute planned visit by the CODEL stretched out for an hour and a half, going well into the evening. I have never seen the President as relaxed, cordial or communicative as I saw him Friday night. Congressman Hobson speculated that perhaps this was because he found himself in the company of fellow elected officials as compared and contrasted with career diplomats and senior military officers. In sum, I think the members of the Delegation built a remarkable instant rapport with President Flores, put him at ease, and received from him a very personal, open and unabridged assessment of conditions past, present and future in Honduras. The second event was a ``casual conversation'' that Congressman Hobson and I had with * * *. This exchange was significant because it involved a member of the private sector, well placed in the business community, with no real personal or professional ties to the Flores administration. Congressman Hobson asked * * * very directly what he, as a businessman, thought the United States should and should not do for Honduras. I found * * * 15 minute answer very instructive and more than a little bit reassuring from a DOD standpoint. * * * stated emphatically, that our emphasis should be on infrastructure repair and development. He mentioned specifically reinstallation of bridges and repair of secondary and tertiary farm-to-market roads. He stated emphatically that we should not give Honduras ``checks''. In his words ``we are lousy managers,'' and he went on to assert that between local politics and bureaucracy there was reason for concern that this type of aid would not accomplish the purposes for which it is intended. I should add that * * * had absolutely nothing disparaging to say about the Flores administration. In fact, he later volunteered to me that he thought this was a fundamentally honest government doing its best to cope with a difficult situation. Congressman Hobson and I took these comments on board with considerable interest because this gentleman had no ax to grind. This was another example of the value of congressional visits. The conversation between Mr. Hobson and * * * was essentially one that took place between two businessmen. They spoke the same language and it provided some unique perspectives on the issues and decisions that confront us. I believe that my testimony before Chairman Lewis and the members of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee last week was timely and their questions were very relevant. This visit was a useful adjunct. I'm sure that the points that I emphasized at the hearing and to this CODEL will come as no surprise. First, I think DOD resources are being applied in precisely the right way in Central America. We arrived in force on the front end of the crisis and provided the emergency support and assistance that only DOD can provide. We are now concluding the second phase of our involvement during which we have exploited our unique expeditionary capabilities, assisting the host nations to regain their equilibrium and restoring their ability to provide for the essential health and welfare needs of their people. Finally, as the third phase unwinds we will revert to our normal engagement activities but at a higher tempo and intensity. At the end of this phase we will resume normal activities in the region and complete the DOD disengagement that has occasionally eluded us at other times in other places. I am firmly convinced that if we skillfully play this hand out, at the end of the day we will emerge with a significantly strengthened posture in the region and with a ``good will account'' on which we may be able to write checks from some time to come. Mr. Chairman, as you know better than most, none of this has been free. During the three phases of the operation, DOD will write checks totaling about $215.3M. I hope that you will be able to provide supplemental funding for these unanticipated and unfunded requirements. If required to provide offsets, I'm afraid there will be little recourse other than to extort funds from our readiness accounts and other programs that support and sustain our regional strategies. As you know, time is of the essence because at this moment important accounts that support other crucial worldwide engagement programs have been frozen to underwrite our expenses in Central America. As examples, because the $50M Overseas Humanitarian Disaster and Civic Aid (OHDACA) account is encumbered, we lack resources to pursue important, high visibility humanitarian demining programs throughout our region and around the world. Because the $20M CINCs Initiative Fund (CIF) is similarly committed, I have been unable to proceed with the publication of a crucial human rights handbook and training program that is designed to help the Colombian military overcome its deficiencies in that very contentious area. These are merely illustrative of stalled initiatives in Southern Command. The list could go on and on with other examples for EUCOM, PACOM, CENTCOM and ACOM. I learned this morning that you are considering a visit to the region, perhaps during the third week of this month. I hope this can be arranged and I am clearing my calendar to accompany you, assuming I can wrangle an invitation. I believe you would gain valuable insights by observing what has been done and what is being done by DOD and others to help Central America get back on its feet. As I mentioned to Congressmen Hobson, Tiahrt and Farr on several occasions, it is important that we not lose sight of the fact that during the decades of the 70's and 80's Central America was engulfed by civil wars and was anything but a bastion of democracy. Today, all the nations are led by heads of state who serve at the pleasure of the people and all have market economics. However, these institutions are fragile and immature. We need to help them over the rough spots, and there is more than a little self-interest at stake. As I asserted in my annual posture statement, ``In a larger strategic context, this unparalleled theater engagement opportunity may stem waves of migrants who might otherwise seek to rebuild their lives in the United States or neighboring countries.'' Again, many thanks for your interest in our region and for your support of DOD. Very respectfully, C.E. Wilhelm, General, U.S. Marine Corps, Commander in Chief, U.S. Southern Command.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the bill through page 15, line 15 be considered as read, printed in the Record and open to amendment at any point.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I wish the gentleman from Maryland would not.

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

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, we have a number of other amendments that we have to consider this afternoon, and I am not going to object, but I think I will notify the Members that I have been very generous in allowing time extensions and in allowing Members to speak more than once on the same subject. I think in any future request on this amendment I will have to object, but I will not object to this one.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I would like to say to my friend that there is nothing in this bill that was done for that purpose. I want him to know that.

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

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding to me once again, because I wanted to respond to the comments the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) just made when the gentlewoman yielded to him, about the agricultural request and what we should be doing and should not be doing. Here is a copy of the communication from the President of the United States. He signed the letter on the first page. This bill does what the President asked for in the agricultural program. He asked for a specific amount of money, and that amount of money is in this bill.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentlewoman yielding to me, and I am looking at testimony here by Keith Kelly, who is the Administrator of the Farm Service Agency, and he talks about ``The 1999 budget provides a total program level of $979 million for PL-480, foreign food assistance.'' The Congress raised that to $1.1 billion. According to his testimony, he says, ``This will ensure the availability of adequate resources to meet the most serious food assistance needs.'' So even with this rescission, we leave more money in the PL-480 program than the administration asked for in their hearing.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. The key issue here is how much money is left in Title I of the PL-480 fund. The funds that are left there, in our opinion, are substantial. Now, when we go to the CBO scoring issue, this is something that the gentleman and I are going to have to work with very diligently over the next few weeks and few months because CBO scoring, as the gentleman well knows, is very much different than OMB's scoring. We are going to have to deal with this great difference between the scoring of the OMB and the CBO. We are not going to solve that problem here today. We will talk more about that tomorrow when we deal with the budget resolution, but the gentleman is correct. CBO scoring is a serious problem that we are all going to have to face up to, especially since it is so different than OMB, but we will discuss that tomorrow. This rescission is less of a rescission than the White House would make, and I am satisfied that there is more than enough money left to carry out the intent of the PL-480 program.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I am not sure that I understand exactly the point that the gentleman is trying to make. All I am saying is that our rescission is less of a rescission than the administration asked for when they sent their budget up here.

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

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I think we actually could have gone ahead with a vote because we really have debated these issues all morning long. I am going to speak to just one of the issues and then other Members of the Committee on Appropriations will address several of the others. The concern that the gentleman has expressed about the PL-480 program, this bill includes a $30 million rescission this program and as I have repeatedly said throughout this debate this should not cause any problem on that side of the aisle, certainly not at the White House. In fact, there have been very substantial carryovers in this account for the last few years. In fact, in 1999, there was a $40 million carryover in the PL-480 account. The administration, the White House, has proposed cutting Title I funding in half for the past 3 years, and Congress has restored most of the program each year. So even with this rescission, the program will be operating substantially above the requested level. For fiscal year 2000, the administration has again proposed to cut Title I in half and to reduce the other two food aid programs, Title II and Title III. In testimony before the Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies in recent weeks, the administration said these cuts would not cause any problems, in part because the administration has created a new food aid program for Russia of more than $700 million using funds from the Commodity Credit Corporation. So ours is a responsible rescission, and we still have more money in the fund than the White House would have. The White House would certainly not attempt to cut these funds if they thought it was going to hurt the program, because it is a good program, and I support the PL-480 program and I always have, even back years ago when the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and I used to debate on callable capital almost every day of our lives. I support the PL-480 program, and we do not do any damage to it because there was a $40 million carryover. So I would suggest that this is not a real argument.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, we do not fully offset it, and we will discuss where we do not fully offset it in a further debate. The gentleman is absolutely correct, we do not offset the amount of money that we appropriate in this bill for the Army and the military services who immediately responded to that emergency in Central America, the same ones is pulled the kids out of the mud, who pulled the people out of the flooded rivers, who brought potable water to the area so that people could have water to drink that was sanitary. That is correct, we are not suggesting that we offset that because that is a true emergency, and we will debate that later. But we do not need to offset defense appropriations any more. We have already done damage to our military over the years by reduced budgets and by making us offset deployments of American troops that are sent all over the world. I am going to strenuously object to offsetting any more funds that the Defense Department is required to spend because they are sent on a mission, no matter where it might be, whether or not it deals directly with the security of our Nation.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield to me, I was in the middle of my explanation so only half of it is finished. The other part is that I have no objection to saying that this is an emergency. We are responding to an emergency. So having the emergency designation in the bill, as requested by the President of the United States, does not give me any heartburn at all. I think we should say that we are responding to an emergency. We just go a step further, and we say that we should offset and pay for this emergency. That is the difference. If the emergency designation is there or is not there, I do not think it is going to have any effect on this bill, at least as it is before the House today.