C. Young

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, we bring back a good conference report today. It is a bipartisan conference report providing for the national defense of our national readiness today, midterm and longterm. The total of the bill is $243.3 billion. That is $1.7 billion more than fiscal year 1995, but it is $746 million less than the House-passed bill. Mr. Speaker, we had a very difficult conference. We had over 1,700 items in disagreement with the other body. Those complications were further complicated by a further reduction in our 602(b) allocation during the conference of $858 million. We were able to work out all of the issues. It required some compromise on both sides; compromise that maybe at times was not exactly pleasant to all of us, but we managed to work out those issues and I want to thank the people that served on the subcommittee as conferees and the members of the staff for the tremendous work that was done. Mr. Speaker, I speak to the Members on my side of the Chamber. One of the major cornerstones of our Contract With America was to revitalize our national defense, to make a change in the 11-year reduction in providing for our national defense. This bill does that. This bill is a basic part of our Contract With America. This keeps faith with our troops. We provide quality-of-life funding in this bill above the President's budget request, such as housing allowances, and we add additional money for barracks renovation. Some of the barracks in our military were so poor, we would be ashamed to see them. We are making additional money available to correct this. Mr. Speaker, this bill emphasizes readiness and adds over $170 million for training shortfalls that developed because of unplanned contingencies. We add $647 million for unfunded operations that are going on in Iraq today. This is the first time we have been up front with the taxpayer and up front with our colleagues saying we will pay for these contingency operations as they go, rather than waiting for an emergency supplemental later on. Outside of our scope, we added $300 million for the Coast Guard. The breast cancer provisions and funding that this House took was included in the conference report. No change. Modernization; we were strong on modernization, not only for today but for mid-term and long-term readiness. During the hearings, we identified many, many items of shortages that were not in the budget request because they did not have a lot of political appeal. They did not really appeal to the media. We provided money for replacing some things that were broken and to repair some things that needed to be repaired. In addition, we have a robust program for our F-15's, F-16's, F-18's and the AV-8B. Mr. Speaker, at this point, I am going to reserve the balance of my time. There are many other things we can discuss that are in the bill. It is a good bill and it deserves the support of the Members today. Mr. Speaker, I submit the following for the Record. introduction Mr. Speaker, I bring to the House the conference report on the Defense appropriations bill for fiscal year 1996, H.R. 2126. This conference agreement: Totals $243.3 billion in new budget authority; it begins a revitalization of America's Armed Forces; it enhances the quality of life of our troops who have been deployed to distant lands so frequently in recent years; and it aggressively addresses current and projected modernization shortfalls. Mr. Speaker, today's vote is the culmination of a 9-month-long legislative process which we began in January with hearings on the high tempo of operations and the frequency of unbudgeted contingency operations. Throughout the hearing process this year, we focused on the issue of ``the serious shortfalls that exist in the areas of equipment, training, maintenance, and quality of life.'' The original House bill included funds to at least partially take care of these shortfalls. I am pleased to report that the Senate agreed with us on many of those House initiatives and thus this bill makes an important contribution to overcoming these shortfalls. The media coverage of this bill has focused on big ticket items such as the B-2. I want to bring to the attention of the House the fact that a significant portion of the initiatives taken in the conference agreement is for unglamorous but essential items such as trucks, ammunition, and communications gear. For example, during hearings on the C-17 aircraft we found that the off-load/on-load equipment for air transport aircraft was up to 23 years old and breaking down about every 10 hours. We added money to address that problem. I could give many other examples. conference Mr. Speaker, it was a long and arduous but highly productive conference. When the conference began we had over 1,700 items in disagreement. In the spirit of compromise there were a few instances where the House had to meet the other body half way on issues which the House felt very strongly about. However, difficult decisions must be made to produce an end product. Mr. Speaker, this conference agreement provides an increase of $6.9 billion above the budget request. But let me put that in perspective. The procurement account requested in budget was at the lowest level in 45 years when measured in constant dollars. Statistical and anecdotal evidence indicated that morale and readiness has been declining. A year ago, three Army divisions declined to a C-3 readiness level, which means they had decreased flexibility, increased vulnerability, and required significant resources to offset deficiencies. Defense manpower has declined by over 1.2 million personnel for the Active Forces, Guard and Reserve, and civilians employed by the Department since 1987. We held innumerable hearings over many months to determine what was the appropriate funding level and program mix to reverse this steady erosion. I believe the results speak for themselves and we have produced an excellent bill. The conferees had three main objectives in this legislation: First, ensure that our forces remain the best fighting force in the world. Second, proceed with a modernization program that addresses current shortfalls and provides for future security needs. Third, ensure that we get the optimal return for the Defense expenditures by eliminating programs of marginal military value and reducing or reforming other programs which have encountered technical problems. This legislation attains those objectives. The funding provided in this bill fulfills the constitutional obligation of the Congress to ``provide for the common defense.'' [[Page H 9699]]

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Appropriations and a member of the subcommittee and a member of the conference. (Mr. LIVINGSTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on the conference report on H.R. 2126, and that I may include extraneous and tabular material.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond to my good friend, the gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan]. He and I and many members of this conference committee are all pro-life voters, 100 percent. This bill provides the Dornan language with a caveat. We did not particularly want to accept that caveat, but we were in conference and were put in a position of having to accept the caveat, but we did maintain the Dornan language. Now, I would say to my friend, the gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan], that we had the same problem in our conference that he has in the conference that he is a member of, and his conference is basically deadlocked over this issue. We could not afford to deadlock because we had the end of the fiscal year approaching us, and that is, of course, the end of the fiscal year, September 30. So we did not do as much as the gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan] wanted, but we did more than has been done for a long time on the issue of abortion on this bill. I think those of us who are pro-life can say we got a partial victory, not everything we wanted, but a partial victory.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, on Saturday, October 7, the 1995 Florida Folk Heritage Award will be presented to my constituent Willie Eason of St. Petersburg, FL, at a program at the Norwood Baptist Church. This award is presented by the Florida secretary of state to outstanding folk artists and advocates whose contributions have added to Florida's culture and heritage. Born in Georgia in 1921, Willie Eason began playing his brother's steel guitar at an early age, and quickly distinguished himself as one who makes the guitar talk. Willie Eason used that talent to become not only one of the most influential steel guitarists in the House of God, a Holiness-Pentecostal Church, but also the one person who directly or indirectly influenced most of Florida's gospel steel guitarists. Willie Eason's career includes recording several records, and he has participated in a countless number of concerts, benefits, and revivals. Although his personal life includes tragedy, personal pain, and sacrifice; Willie Eason is filled with faith, with courage, and above all with love. While it is hard for Willie Eason to explain the impact his music has on those who sing with him or just claps their hands to the beat of his music, what is readily evident is that it comes from God. Even in retirement, Willie Eason serves as a model, his music an inspiration, and I salute him and the State of Florida for bestowing upon him the 1995 Florida Folk Heritage Award.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time, and I take this time just to maybe clear up a misperception that the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] might have created in his statement. We are within the budget limits. As a matter of fact, if the gentleman will recall when the bill was on the floor, we were $2.2 billion below the armed services authorized level. When we went to conference, actually during the conference, we were presented with an additional cut in our 602(b) allocation, so we have been coming down, since the first of the year, from the numbers that we thought we should have. We have been coming down in a very dramatic way. The gentleman talked about several areas where we could do this or that if we did not build a particular airplane or ship or whatever. Let me make this case. If we were to freeze the level, as he suggested, what that would do is keep us basically at last year's level and provide for the pay raise that we have promised our men and women who serve in the military. If he wants further cuts, the Defense Department would like to cut the program for breast cancer. They do not want to spend the breast cancer money for the purpose we appropriated. We are going to insist that they spend it. Mr. Speaker, just in the interest of time, and the Members have other things to do today, I would like to say this. We can stand here with a long list of things that we could do if we did not have a Defense Department or if we did not built a ship or if we did not buy an airplane or if we did not pay the troops an increase in their salaries. But most of those things can actually be done by the State governments through block grant programs with their own funds or by the local governments. But, Mr. Speaker, if there is one thing that State governments cannot do, or one thing that local governments cannot do, that is to provide for the national defense, the national security and the intelligence requirements of the United States of America. The Congress and the President, as Commander in Chief, that is our obligation. And the bill that this rule provides for meets that obligation in a very straightforward way. Mr. Speaker, this is not a political bill. There are no big pork projects in here. There was a rule that I applied at the subcommittee level that any item in this bill had to have military application, number one, or there had to be a requirement for it. Military application by itself would not do it, there also had to be a requirement. Mr. Speaker, this is actually a good bill. This is a good defense bill, and there is no reason why it cannot pass the House and the Senate and be signed by the President, who, incidentally, his press aide today, in a press conference, indicated they had not decided to veto this bill. We have reason to believe that we can persuade the President, who claims to be a strong national defense President, to sign this bill because that is what this bill is.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table the bill H.R. 2126, making appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1996, and for other purposes, with a Senate amendment thereto, disagree to the Senate amendment, and agree to the conference asked by the Senate.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I might consume and simply say that, when the bill was before the House, we accepted the gentleman's amendment, and we accept his motion to instruct today, and, unless he has further speakers, I am prepared to yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker I ask unanimous consent to vacate the proceedings of September 13, 1995, in which the House of Representatives disagreed to the Senate amendment to the bill, H.R. 2126, making appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1996, and for other purposes and agreed to the conference requested by the Senate; provided that the order of the House of Representatives of the same day enabling closed meetings of the conference remain in effect.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the managers on the part of the House may have until midnight tonight, September 14, 1995, to file a conference report on the bill (H.R. 1817) making appropriations for military construction, family housing, and base realignment and closure for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1996, and for other purposes.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 2126.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 1655, the Intelligence authorization bill for 1996. A great deal of hard work has gone into the production of this bill. As a member of the Intelligence Committee and chairman of the Defense Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee, I can tell you that it is no easy task reconciling the competing demands of national security and fiscal responsibility. In fact, this is one of the major themes of our intelligence authorization bill for 1996: To provide essential intelligence capabilities while demanding cost-efficient solutions to intelligence problems. Another theme of our bill is the need to maintain a responsible balance between collection, processing, and dissemination of intelligence information. When any of these three areas is out of balance, it reduces the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the entire system. Historically, we have devoted more attention and resources to collection without [[Page H 8821]] adequately providing for the less glamorous requirements to process that collected information and get it to the customer when and where he needs it. In our bill, we have made cross-program efforts to bolster our processing capabilities, particularly of imagery and signals intelligence. As our chairman stated earlier, we reviewed each program on its merits and added resources where we considered them necessary. At the same time, however, we eliminated efforts we considered redundant or unproductive, and we considered the long-term affordability of every change we made. We also made every effort to engage in dialog with the administration concerning those areas where we felt constructive change was required. The result is an authorization that will help meet both the intelligence and fiscal challenges of the future. Although our authorization for fiscal year 1996 is slightly above the President's request, we are confident that we have created no unsustainable budget-busters in the outyears, and that our bill provides a balanced program designed to meet our short- and long-term intelligence needs. The intelligence budget has declined enough over the last 8 years. I urge you to support H.R. 1655.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 2126) making appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1996, and for other purposes, with a Senate amendment thereto, disagree to the Senate amendment, and agree to the conference asked by the Senate.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, all of us hope and pray that in the future that the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich] referred to, Americans never have to go to war again, whether on the ground or in the air or under the sea or on the sea. But the way the world looks, it does not look like that is going to be a real choice. Mr. Chairman, while we were on recess, there were major bombing campaigns taking place in which the United States is by far the major player in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We do not know when or where we may be called upon to deploy military forces. If and when we do, I believe this Congress under our constitutional mandate has the responsibility to provide those people that we send to war the best training possible and the best equipment possible and the best technology possible to let them accomplish their mission, do their job, and give themselves a little protection while they are doing it. This type of stealthy technology may not be ready to fly today. It is in a development process still, as every other airplane program has been and every future airplane program will be. But when this airplane flies, it will give our troops protection from the air that they would love to have. If you do not believe it, check with anybody who served in Desert Shield-Desert Storm when the F-117 stealthy airplane flew into Baghdad and disrupted Saddam's ability to conduct the war, and they did so without any casualty, without any loss of aircraft, because of the technology that we had invested in. Mr. Chairman, on the question of the F-117 and the technology, the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Dicks] wants me to remind everyone about the former Secretaries of Defense who supported the B-2. They also supported the F-117, except to a point about 10 years ago when the Department of Defense decided they did not need any more F-117's, and in fact they suggested we cancel the program. It was our subcommittee and this Congress who decided that, regardless of their objection, we would not terminate the F-117 program. Where is there a better success story today? The Congress was right. We filled out the squadrons of the F-117's. We gave the pilots who flew those airplanes the technology to do an effective job against Saddam Hussein and to protect their lives while they were doing it. So again, join me; hope and pray that we never have to send an American into combat again. But today, Americans are flying combat missions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, so we cannot guarantee that they never have to go again. But if they do, let us have our conscience clear, that we did the best job that we could to make sure they had the technology necessary, the training, and the ability to do their job as they protect their lives.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that in the engrossment of H.R. 2126 the clerk be authorized to correct section numbers, punctuation, cross references, and to make other conforming changes as may be necessary to reflect the actions of the House today.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the instruction of the House, I report the bill H.R. 2126 back to the House with an amendment.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I would like to say to the gentleman that we are very aware of this issue and it makes a minor change. We are proposed to accept the gentleman's motion to recommit.

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

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from California for yielding this time to me, and I want to make this one last point: This bill appropriates $2.2 billion less than this House authorized on the defense authorization bill earlier this summer, $2.2 billion less.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, that may be the argument of the gentlewoman. That is not the way the amendment reads, and we have to go by the way the amendment is offered before the House. ``Each amount appropriated or otherwise made available by this act is hereby reduced by 3 percent.'' That means you go through the bill, pick out the items that are not mandatory, that are not entitlements, and they will be reduced by 3 percent. All of the debate will not change that, and I say again that part of those accounts are O&M and personnel. $4.5 billion of this reduction would be applied to those two accounts. That is where the pay raise comes from. What else comes from that? Barracks. We have heard all year long about the sad condition of so many of our barracks. Pentagon officials who testified told us if you drive your kids up to college and their dormitories looked like these barracks, you would put them in the car, take them home; you would not let them stay. That is not fair that your military personnel have to live in facilities like that. During the break I had a chance to visit some of the military bases, and I have seen some of the barracks that go back to World War II. The tiles are falling off the ceiling. The pipes are leaking. The money is not there to either rebuild them or refurbish them. So they are in poor condition, and they need to be corrected. What about promotions? This would, in effect, stall a lot of promotions that are already scheduled. The members of the military are already starting to spend the money in their mind. Some of the promotions are not going to be able to go forward. As we put this bill together, we did not add a lot of new money for procurement. We did not start up any nice, new, big programs. But what we did, we looked at all of the services, and we tried to isolate and identify those areas where there were real shortages of items that we have to have, and what called this to my attention was that at one of our earlier hearings this year we were talking about airplanes and buying new airplanes, and the witness who was testifying told us, ``We are not so much worried about the airplanes. We are short of tugs to draw the airplanes from the hangars out to the runway,'' and it got me thinking, I wonder how many items there are out there like that that nobody has ever heard about that could actually stop the operation of our military forces. So I assigned the staff of the subcommittee to identify for me items that nobody has ever heard about but that are essential and important to the conduct of our military forces, and with the help of this page I am going to unravel this long list of items you have never read about in the newspaper, you have never heard about on television, because they are not politically sexy, but they are things that are essential to maintaining our military. Now here is where we added money, and, if we have to take a 3-percent reduction, we are going to lose a lot of this, things like trucks. I visited one Army facility. They had trucks that go back to Harry Truman's Presidency. We have added additional money in this bill to buy some new trucks to replace those old trucks that cost more to maintain than to try to use them. What were some of the other shortfalls? Believe it or not, ammunition, shortfalls in ammunition. We are correcting that. We are adding additional money to buy ammunition. What about rifles? Who would ever think that the U.S. Army would be short on rifles? But we are. Certain types of rifles the U.S. Army has a shortage. Look at the testimony the Army testified today. Real property maintenance, depot maintenance; those are the kind of things we put in this bill. As I said, we did not create a lot of new programs, we did not start any massive new procurement programs or weapon systems. We are trying to enhance those that we have; we are trying to take care of the nuts and bolts to keep the machinery working. Mr. Chairman, it reminds me of a statement that my grandmother taught me many, many years ago, and I have later learned that she was not the author, but she related it to me. and that was for the want of a nail the shoe was lost, and for want of the shoe the horse was lost, and for want of the horse the rider was lost, and it goes on to tell how the battle was lost. Well, this list I have just unrolled here, these are my horseshoe nails. We want to make sure we did not lose anything important because we did not provide for the horseshoe nail. This 3-percent across-the-board cut is going to cut into the increases that we made in some of those nonsexy, nonpolitical, but important, issues relative to those who serve in the Armed Forces, and again, Mr. Chairman, the gentlewoman would argue that her amendment does not do that, but in fact it is exactly what it does.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that 2 minutes be added to my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield to the gentlewoman from Colorado.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. [[Page H 8656]] Mr. Chairman, the way the amendment is written, each amount provided by this act is hereby reduced by 3 percent. In other words, every account in here, other than the mandatories, would be reduced by 3 percent. That is what the language says. The problem here is that a large portion of that, almost two-thirds of that reduction, would come from operation and maintenance and military personnel. Let me tell you what we would be cutting out of military personnel: the pay raise. Do not the people that serve in the military deserve a pay raise?