Congressional Record: September 15, 1999 (House)
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CONFERENCE REPORT ON S. 1059, NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR
FISCAL YEAR 2000
Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I
call up House Resolution 288 and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follow:
H. Res. 288
Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be
in order to consider the conference report to accompany the
bill (S. 1059) to authorize appropriations for fiscal year
2000 for military activities of the Department of Defense,
for military construction, and for defense activities of the
Department of Energy, to prescribe personnel strengths for
such fiscal year for the Armed Forces, and for other
purposes. All points of order against the conference report
and against its consideration are waived.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Ewing). The gentlewoman from North
Carolina (Mrs. Myrick) is recognized for 1 hour.
Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the
customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost), pending
which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration
of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.
Yesterday the Committee on Rules met and granted a normal conference
report rule for S. 1059, the Fiscal Year 2000 Department of Defense
Appropriations Act. The rule waives all points of order against the
conference report and against its consideration. In addition, the rule
provides for 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled between
the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Armed
Services.
Mr. Speaker, this should not be a controversial rule. It is the type
of rule that we grant for every conference report we consider in the
House. The conference report itself is a strong step forward as we work
to take care of our military personnel and provide for our national
defense.
I have always admired the patriotism and dedication of the young men
and women in the armed forces, especially given the poor quality of
life that our enlisted men and women face. But today, we are doing
something to improve military pay, housing, and benefits.
It has always been kind of sad, we ask these young people to
technically give up their life for their country, but yet we really
have not treated them in the way that most of us would like to be
treated. Their pay has not been good. They live in housing that has
been virtually World War II almost, substandard housing in some cases.
A lot of them have had to take second jobs just to exist because they
are married and they cannot make it on their pay.
So we are helping to take some of this load off of them, and we are
helping to take some of them off of food stamps with this bill by
giving them a
[[Page H8296]]
4.8 percent pay raise. We have added $258 million for a variety of
health care efforts.
We are boosting the basic allowance for housing, as I said,
increasing retention pay for pilots, which is another big problem we
have had. We are having a very difficult time retaining good pilots in
the military. We are prompting the GAO to study how we can do better.
But along with personnel, we have taken care of our military
readiness. We live in a dangerous world today, and Congress is working
to protect our friends and family back home from our enemies abroad.
We are providing for a national missile defense system, something
that we have never had and that a lot of people think we have. A lot of
people think we are protected if a warhead comes in from China or North
Korea or Iraq or Iran, but, no, we are not. So with this bill, we are
going to provide the beginnings of that protection for this country if
that day ever comes.
In light of the recent news about security breaches at our weapons
laboratories, we are creating a National Nuclear Security
Administration to prevent enemy nations from stealing our nuclear
secrets. We are boosting the military's budget for weapons and
ammunition. We are providing $37 billion for research and development
so our forces will have top-of-the-line equipment for their job.
I urge my colleagues to support this rule and to support the
underlying conference report because now more than ever we must improve
our national security.
Mr. Speaker, I graciously yield such time as he may consume to the
gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton).
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina
for allowing me to speak at this point.
As my colleagues know, I am the ranking member of the Committee on
Armed Services. From the beginning of this year, the very first
hearing, I said that this should be the year of the troops. To the
credit of the Committee on Armed Services, on a very bipartisan effort,
it is the year of the troops.
We have had, as my colleagues know, serious recruiting problems and
even more serious retention problems. I am not just talking about
pilots; I am talking about young men and young women who have put
several years into the military and decide to get out.
The old saying is, and it is so true, "you recruit soldiers" or in
the case maybe Marines, sailors, airmen, "but you retain families."
For instance, the Army has been cut some 36 percent, but the
operational tempo has increased 300 percent. We are wearing the troops
out.
I had breakfast about a year and a half ago with some noncommissioned
officers of the United States Navy, and they told me about the
dispirited attitude of the young men and women who work with them, the
feeling that they were not remembered. This bill is a tribute to them.
This bill is one where truly we do remember them.
It is our job under the Constitution to raise and maintain the
military and to write the rules and regulations therefor, and we have
done a magnificent job. I am very proud of it. I am very proud of the
bipartisanship. I am very proud of the effort made. I especially
compliment the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spence), our
chairman, for his outstanding efforts.
This is a good bill. The Department of Energy portion that deals with
nuclear weapons is under our jurisdiction. That has been a very
important part of our effort.
To some, it will not meet with their full approval. But I think we
took a giant step forward. I am for this bill, for the troops, for the
families.
I might say, in addition to the pay raises, the pay raise, the pay
tables, pension reform, we have done superb work for the barracks,
family housing. I think it deserves great, great support.
Regarding the Department of Energy effort, I think it is good. Could
it be better? Sure. But legislation is a matter of compromise. So I
support the bill and all of its portions. I hope this rule will be
adopted overwhelmingly because this is a major step in the national
security of our country.
Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, let me state at the outset that it is my intention to
support this conference report. The National Defense Authorization Act
for Fiscal Year 2000 contains a number of provisions that are critical
to the maintenance of our national defense forces. Most important among
them is a 4.8 percent basic military pay raise and additional pay
raises targeted to mid-grade officers and NCOs to improve retention and
hopefully stem the loss of some of the best and brightest and most
valuable members of our armed services.
The quality-of-life issues addressed in this package are, in a word,
essential to the men and women who serve in uniform and to their
families. As Members of this body point out repeatedly, it is
unconscionable that service men and women should be paid at rates so
low that they depend upon food stamps to feed their families, or the
military housing is oft times decrepit or substandard.
This bill may not resolve all of those issues, but at least it puts
us on the road to fixing a problem that cannot and should not be
tolerated.
This conference report is not without controversy, however. The
ranking member of the Committee on Commerce has raised some serious
concerns about the provisions in the conference report, which establish
a new National Nuclear Security Administration to manage DOE's weapons
programs.
The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) is especially concerned
that this provision was added in conference over the objections of the
Committee on Commerce and Committee on Science who have jurisdiction
over this matter; and he has indicated that it is his intention to
offer a motion to recommit to strike language from the conference
report.
{time} 1030
Members should listen very carefully to his arguments against these
provisions which are opposed by the Secretary of Energy, the National
Governors Association, and the National Association of Attorneys
General. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) will also voice
strong objections to the process by which these provisions were
included in this conference report. His views deserve the attention of
the House, and I urge Members to pay close attention. There will, of
course, be Members who will oppose his motion to recommit because they
do not want to put any barriers in the path of the passage of this very
good bill. His objections do not, however, lie against the remainder of
the bill, and those provisions deserve the strong support of the House.
This conference report authorizes $8.5 billion for military
construction and military family housing programs. It authorizes full
funding for a proposed program to construct or renovate over 6,200
units of military family housing, and the construction or renovation of
43 barracks, dormitories and BEQs for the single enlisted. The
conference report also increases authorization amounts for procurement
accounts to provide for a total of $55.7 billion as well as for
research and development to provide for a total of $36.3 billion.
This increased funding will provide $171.7 million for further
development of the B-2 fleet, $252.6 million to procure F-16C aircraft
and $319.9 million for F-16 modifications. In addition, the conference
report commits to funding an acquisition of the critical next-
generation air dominance fighter. It authorizes $1.2 billion for
research and development on the F-22 Raptor, $1.6 billion for six low-
rate initial production aircraft, and $277.1 million for advanced
procurement for 10 LRIP aircraft in fiscal year 2001. The conferees are
to be congratulated for their support for this critical program.
I am also pleased that the conferees have included $990.4 million for
procurement of 12 V-22s and $182.9 million for V-22 research and
development and $25 million to accelerate development of the CV-22
special operations variant. Mr. Speaker, this is a very good conference
report. The conferees have brought us a bill which enhances quality of
life for our men and women in uniform, a bill which protects core
readiness and a bill which wisely and aggressively addresses the need
to replace aging equipment and to find ways to keep our weapons systems
second to none in the world. I commend this conference report to my
colleagues.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
[[Page H8297]]
Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss).
(Mr. GOSS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentlewoman from
North Carolina for her leadership on this and my gratitude for yielding
me the time. I am pleased to support this very appropriate rule for
consideration of S. 1059, the fiscal year 2000 DOD authorization
conference report, a major piece of legislation for this Congress. I
particularly want to commend the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr.
Spence) and the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) for their
diligent, bipartisan, very thorough work to make sure that we
significantly improve the support given to our men and women in
uniform.
They are the ones doing the hard work. They are the ones in harm's
way. They are the ones taking the risk. That deserves to be supported
to the fullest extent possible. I am grateful for the continued close
working relationship that these gentlemen have had with the Permanent
Select Committee on Intelligence in ensuring that our fighting forces
have access to the best, the most timely, and the most accurate
intelligence that we can get. Eyes, ears, brains are actually very
crucial to our national security.
This legislation reflects our commitment to those capabilities. Force
protection, force enhancement, force projection: these are the results,
these are the needs, and these are what we are getting. Americans most
recently have watched our troops in action in Kosovo. You might have
the impression from what I would call photo-op TV that Kosovo is some
kind of a big win. Unfortunately, the view emerging from the ground in
Kosovo is not quite so rosy.
Further, the administration is pursuing policies that could
ultimately endanger the chances for a long-term peace and stability in
that region in my view and the view of others. Official U.S. policy
toward Kosovo is in fact built upon three very uncertain principles:
one, Kosovo should remain an ethnically diverse province; two, Kosovo
should not become independent; and, three, the Kosovo Liberation Army,
the KLA, should give up its arms and disband. These principles face
serious challenges in the field, on the ground.
U.S. policy refuses to recognize even the possibility that the
Kosovars will eventually vote to declare independence from Yugoslavia.
That is a possibility that should not be discounted. Similarly, the
administration is naively assuming that the KLA will simply roll over
and disband. In my view, the U.S. has no end game strategy. For the
sake of the Americans and our allies on the ground in Kosovo, I urge
the administration to rethink our situation there and base decisions on
fact, not on wishful thinking.
Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Cox Committee, I am satisfied with
the provision in this legislation establishing a semiautonomous agency
to run the weapons program at the Department of Energy under the
Secretary's leadership. Critics have suggested that this change could
cause the sky to fall with respect to public health, safety, and
environmental matters. To the contrary, I say.
The Cox Report demonstrates that the sky has already fallen and our
national security has been placed at great risk as a result. Given the
deeply troubling circumstances surrounding reports of espionage at our
national labs, I believe it is very proper for Congress to move
expeditiously in enacting new safeguards.
Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased that the conference report also
includes a provision based on an amendment I offered with the gentleman
from New York (Mr. Gilman) requiring an end to the permanent presence
of U.S. troops in Haiti. As our defense leaders have made clear, the
Clinton administration's insistence on maintaining a permanent troop
presence in Haiti has strained an already overburdened military, has
unnecessarily put our troops at risk there, and has focused on
humanitarian projects more appropriately undertaken by nongovernmental
organizations who are ready, willing and able to do the job.
In the face of our efforts to force a withdrawal by year's end, the
Clinton administration has finally announced an end to the permanent
presence of U.S. troops in Haiti, to be replaced with periodic
deployments as needed, as is customary everywhere else in the Western
Hemisphere. This action does not, I repeat, does not signal an end to
U.S. military involvement or to U.S. support for the democratic process
in Haiti but, rather, it is a more realistic policy to provide the help
Haiti so desperately needs as our neighbor in the Caribbean.
Lastly, Mr. Speaker, Members should note that this legislation
contains a significant increase in counterdrug funding for DOD. Once
again, Congress has taken the lead to win the war on drugs, filling the
vacuum left by a just-say-maybe message from the Clinton
administration. And we are getting results, if you read the papers.
This is a good bill. I urge its passage. I commend those involved.
Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from
Virginia (Mr. Sisisky).
Mr. SISISKY. I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding me this
time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of S. 1059, the National
Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2000 and, of course, the
rule. I would like to take a few minutes to tell our colleagues why.
First, I am pleased to report that in my opinion members were treated
equitably. Members on our side of the aisle were given the same
consideration as members on the other side. That is not to say
everybody got everything they wanted. They did not. Neither did I.
Second, this conference report builds on the President's proposal to
increase defense spending by $112 billion over the next 6 years. To
redress shortcomings in recruiting and retention, this bill provides a
4.8 percent pay raise, pay table reforms for middle grade personnel and
retirement reform in what may be the best compensation package for our
military since the 1980s. The bill also addresses the budget shortfalls
that have dogged the weapons research and development and procurement
programs of the Department of Defense. In fact, by providing $4.6
billion in increases for weapons, related research and development and
procurement, I believe we may have turned the corner and begun the
long, steady recovery that is both needed and overdue. Particularly
noteworthy is the emphasis on precision stand-off weapons that reduce
risks to our troops and, at the same time, risks to innocent civilian
populations.
Third, I am particularly pleased that we have rejected the status quo
and begun the long and difficult task of management and accountability
reforms for the national security functions of the Department of
Energy. In my opinion, there is no disagreement as to whether such
reforms are needed, and to delay starting the reform process while
waiting on unanimity or drafting perfection would in my opinion be
irresponsible. Admittedly, the provisions proposed in this conference
report are not perfect, nor does everyone agree. But, on balance, they
are a good first start on what will prove to be a long and difficult
process in the years ahead.
More importantly, there is nothing in this bill that would amend
existing environmental, safety and health laws or regulations, nor is
there any intent to limit the States' established regulatory roles
pertaining to the Department of Energy operations and ongoing cleanup
activities. Thus, I do not believe the DOE reform provisions are
antienvironmental nor do I believe they should be used as the basis for
rejecting this conference report.
Finally, our naval forces have shrunk from nearly 600 ships in 1987
to 324 ships today. At the same time, the number of missions for these
ships have increased threefold. Worse, the administration's budget
would lead to a 200 ship Navy, well below the force level of 300 ships
called for by the Nation's military strategy. This bill allows the Navy
to dedicate more of its scarce shipbuilding dollars to the construction
of needed warships by providing significantly more cost-effective
acquisitions through the following measures:
The early construction of an amphibious ship for the Marines at a
great price; procurement for the final large, medium speed roll-on/
roll-off ship,
[[Page H8298]]
LMSR, before the line closes; cost-saving expanded multiyear
procurement authority for the DDG-51 destroyer program; long-term lease
authority for the services of new construction, noncombatant ships for
the Navy; and expanded authority for the National Defense Features
program to allow DOD to pay reduced life-cycle costs of defense
features built into commercial ships up-front.
Mr. Speaker, we all know that bills are compromises, and that good
bills make good promise compromises. S. 1059 is such a bill. It is a
balanced bill with good compromises. In the strongest terms, I urge the
adoption of the conference report.
Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
North Carolina (Mr. Hayes).
Mr. HAYES. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina
for yielding me the time and I thank the gentleman from Virginia for
pointing out a number of the important issues and details that are what
this bill and conference report are about.
I rise in very, very strong support of our rule, of our military, and
of this bill. The gentleman from Virginia and I just returned from a
trip where we went to, among other places, North Korea. If our citizens
in the Eighth District, home of Fort Bragg, would look at a city whose
tallest buildings have missiles on top of them, where our Air Force
base has patriot missile batteries on the ready 24 hours a day, where
14,000 pieces of artillery are trained on the South, 80 percent of
which are aimed at Seoul only 40 kilometers away from the demilitarized
zone, if they could see in the eyes of the young men and women who are
standing face to face with the North Koreans every day as a deterrent
to terrorism and rogue nations, there would be no question in their
mind as to our continued and increased support for the military.
Kosovo and Bosnia have brought to our attention the need to correct
imbalances and deprivations that the military has suffered because of
budget shortfalls in recent years. This authorization is more than $8
billion over the administration's request, and an additional $18
billion over a greatly reduced budget for defense in 1999. The
gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) and members of both parties have
worked diligently, courageously and with much forethought to rebuild
our military. That is what this rule is about. We have a volunteer
force. We should maintain a voluntary and not a draft force. In order
to do that, we must do things that are included in this bill,
increasing pay, improving health care benefits, restoring REDUX, doing
things that we owe to our military to correct years of neglect.
{time} 1045
This bill beefs up and strengthens areas that have been eroded over a
number of years. It addresses major issues that the gentleman from
Virginia (Mr. Sisisky) has mentioned, but it also deals with such
basics as ammunition and spare parts. So this is a broad-based, common-
sense, very necessary piece of support for our men and women in
uniform. In order for them to maintain the superiority, the commitment
and to provide the protection for a world that is very, very dangerous,
we should support them by unanimously passing this rule and this bill.
They protect us; we need to support them.
Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from
Michigan (Mr. Dingell).
(Mr. DINGELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, this is a rule which sanctifies bad
behavior. There was no real conference held on this legislation.
Members of the conference who were entitled to be present to
participate were not invited and were informed when they showed up that
there was no conference to be held, the matter had been disposed of,
and that we could simply go our way.
Now let us look at what the rule does. The rule waives points of
order on two things: One, germaneness and the other, scope of the
conference. In each instance the conferees, without holding a meeting,
contrived to concede the House rules on both points, so now they need a
waiver. Why do they need a waiver? They need a waiver because they
wrote something which is not germane, which was never considered in
either body and which exceeds the scope of the conference.
Now I want to express respect for my friend, the gentleman from
Missouri (Mr. Skelton) who is a very decent and honorable Member of
this body, but I want to say that what has been done here is, first of
all, an outrage, and it is a gross abuse of the powers of the committee
and a gross disregard to the rights both of other committees and of
this body to know what is going on and to have an input into a matter
of important concern.
Now let us talk about the substance. This proposal in its title 32
recreates essentially the Atomic Energy Commission, one of the most
secretive, one of the most sneaky, and one of the most dishonest
agencies in government. They lied to everybody, including themselves,
and the Congress of the United States, the Executive Branch. They
suppressed tracks, and they have created in every area over which they
had jurisdiction a cesspool, environmentally and otherwise. The areas
which they had jurisdiction over drip hazardous waste and are
contaminated beyond belief. Mixed wastes, high-level and low-level
nuclear wastes contaminate these areas because of the fact that they
diligently suppressed all facts with regard to what they were doing and
how they were doing it, and I will be glad to discuss in greater detail
because I do not have time now the behavior of that agency.
We are now setting up an entity which will be totally exempt from the
supervision of the Secretary and which will be totally exempt from the
supervision of this body. What they are going to do is to create a
situation where now they can lie in the dark, as they did before in the
days of the Atomic Energy Commission, and efforts to control this
agency will be brought to naught by the absolute power that is being
invested in them to suppress the facts to everyone.
Now who is opposed to this? First of all, every environmental agency
and every environmental organization; second of all, the
administration; third of all, the National Governors' Association; and
fourth of all, the Organization of Attorneys General, 46 of whom sent
us a letter denouncing what is being done here with regard to State,
Federal environmental laws and the splendid opportunity for severe and
serious misbehavior by this new entity.
If my colleagues want to vote for the good things in the bill; and
there are many good things, I supported this bill: pay raises and other
things which would benefit us in terms not only of our concern for our
military personnel, but also our concern for seeing to it that our
defense needs are met; vote for the motion to recommit because the only
thing it does is to strike title 32. The rest that it keeps are the
good things that are in this legislation.
So I offer my colleagues a chance to undo what was done in a high-
handed arrogance by the committee and in a rather curious and
remarkable and unjustifiable rule, one which is going to deny everybody
in this country an opportunity to know what is going on inside that
agency.
Now if we are talking about security, let me just tell my colleagues
that the security of the AEC stunk. I was over in a place called
Arzamas-16, the place where the Russians made their nuclear and
thermonuclear weapons. I saw there a bomb that looked exactly like the
bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima. I told the guy: That looks
familiar. They said it is an exact copy of the bomb that was dropped in
Hiroshima. So when they tell us that the recreation of the secrecy and
the inbrededness of the AEC and the secretiveness that this legislation
will authorize is going to assure the national security, do not believe
them. History is against it, and I would just ask my colleagues to
understand the secrecy that they are talking about is not against the
Russians or against anybody else. It is secrecy which they intend to
use to prevent my colleagues, and I, and the Members of Congress, the
Members of the Senate from knowing what is going on down there. If my
colleagues want to see to it that we continue our efforts to protect
the security of the United States, to see to it that things are done
which need be done in terms of protecting the security interests of the
United States, they can vote for my amendment and
[[Page H8299]]
should, but if they want to protect the environment, then they you must
vote for my amendment.
Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 8 minutes to the gentleman from
Texas (Mr. Thornberry), my colleague.
(Mr. THORNBERRY asked and was given permission to revise and extend
his remarks.)
Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Speaker, I share the respect that all Members of
this House have for the dean of the House, and I always appreciate his
willingness to stand up for what he believes in, as we recently saw
when he led efforts to oppose gun control despite the sentiments of
most of his party. As much as anyone in this body, the gentleman from
Michigan is responsible over the years for the management structure of
the Department of Energy, and he does not want to see that changed, and
I think we can all understand someone coming from that position. But
study after study, report after report, have reached a different
conclusion. As a matter of fact, I know of at least 20 studies, reports
and in-house reviews in the Department of Energy that have all found
that the Department of Energy management structure is a mess and hurts
our security, safety, and national security.
I point to the President's own study which came out just this summer
conducted by his foreign intelligence advisory board, and they
concluded, quote, DOE's performance throughout its history should be
regarded as intolerable, and they also found, quote, the Department of
Energy is a dysfunctional bureaucracy that has proven incapable of
reforming itself, end quote. Now what they went on to say is we can do
one of two things. One is that we can take all the nuclear weapons
program completely out of the Department of Energy and set up a whole
new agency, or we can create a semi-autonomous agency inside DOE with a
clear chain of command and hope to solve some of these problems. This
conference report takes the President's own commission's
recommendations and implements them down to the letter.
Now what that does is it gives the nuclear weapons agency two things
that it has never had under DOE. One, it has a clear focus on its
mission so that the same people who worry about refrigerator coolant
standards and solar power and electricity deregulation day to day are
not going to be interfering in the nuclear weapons work.
Secondly, it provides accountability so that we have for the first
time a clear chain of command so that when an order is given it is
followed; and if somebody messes up, they are held responsible and we
can get rid of them. And that is one of the most important safeguards
we can have to protecting the environment, to having a clear line of
accountability and safeguards.
The gentleman from Michigan says, oh, this just goes back to the old
Atomic Energy Commission. I would say that no more will we ever go back
to some of the problems of the past any more than we are going to go
back to pouring motor oil out on the ground or we are going to go back
to allowing cars to create all the smog that they can create. We are
not going to, and I personally, Mr. Speaker, am offended by the
suggestion that the people who work at the Pantex plant in my district,
who live in the area, whose children go to school in that area, are
going to be so careless in disregarding the safety of the drinking
water and the other things in that area that they are just going to
pollute willy nilly.
Now I think there are some important points to be made on the
environment. Number one, this bill says that every single standard,
environmental standard, that applies before the bill applies after the
bill; it does not change.
Secondly, this bill says that the Secretary of Energy can set up
whatever oversight he wants by whoever he wants, and they can look at
every single thing that goes on throughout the weapons complex, and
they can make whatever policy recommendations they want to make, and
the Secretary of Energy can order anything to happen dealing with the
environment or any other subject. The only change is that these
oversight people, unless they are within the new agency, cannot order
things to be changed, they cannot implement the directions. Policy can
be set by anybody that the Secretary wants, but the implementation goes
down the clear chain of command.
Some of the concerns that have been raised to this bill have been by
some attorneys general who are worried about some new court challenge
on matters that have been already established under court rulings. Let
me make it clear, this bill does not change any of the waivers of
sovereign immunity that the attorneys general have been concerned
about; and there is a letter that will be made part of the Record later
in which the chairman of our committee and the chairman of the Senate
committee clearly say we are not changing one single environmental
standard. And I would also put as part of the Record at that time a
letter from the attorney general of Texas who once he had a chance to
look at the actual legislation and what the real intent is says he no
longer has any concerns or objections, and I would suggest that if my
colleagues have a chance to talk to all the attorneys general and tell
them what is really going on, that any of those concerns certainly melt
away.
Mr. Speaker, I just make two final points. Number one is that we have
all been embarrassed and dismayed and shocked at the security headlines
which we have seen across the papers this year. For us to walk away and
say we cannot do anything about it, it is too complicated, we are just
going to let DOE roll along its merry way, is an abdication of our
responsibility to fix one of the greatest national security problems
with which we have been confronted.
The second point I would like to make is this: The gentleman from
Michigan's motion to recommit is not like an ordinary bill. It is a
conference report. The only effect of the motion is to require us to
open the conference back up. That means everything in the conference
from the pay raise to the retirement reform to the V-22 to whatever my
colleagues care about in this bill is jeopardized because we have got
to open everything back up, go back into negotiations with the Senate,
and all of the wonderful strides to improve our national security are
threatened by the motion to recommit.
So I would suggest that it is our responsibility to fix DOE, it is
our responsibility to make sure this bill goes forward unimpeded and to
vote against the motion when it is offered.
Office of the Attorney General,
State of Texas, September 15, 1999.
Hon. Floyd D. Spence, Chairman,
House Armed Services Committee,
Congress of the United States, Washington, DC.
Hon. John Warner, Chairman,
Senate Armed Services Committee,
Congress of the United States, Washington, DC.
Dear Congressman Spence and Senator Warner: I have received
a copy of your September 14, 1999 letter to Michael O.
Leavitt and Christine O. Gregoire addressing concerns
regarding the impact of Title XXXII of S. 1059, the
conference report for the National Defense Authorization Act
(NDAA) for Fiscal year 2000, on the safe operation and
cleanup of Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear weapons sites.
Your letter addresses my two principal concerns with Title
XXXII of S. 1059:
That this legislation not supercede, diminish or set aside
existing waivers of federal sovereign immunity; and that it
be clear that under Title XXXII the National Nuclear Security
Administration (NNSA) will comply with the same environmental
laws and regulations to the same extent as before the
reorganization.
After reading your letter, I am satisfied that this
legislation was neither intended to affect existing waivers
of federal sovereign immunity nor to exempt in any way the
NNSA from the same environmental laws and regulations as
applied before reorganization.
I also have been advised that your letter will be made part
of the legislative history of Title XXXII of S. 1059 by being
submitted during the conference debate on this legislation,
thus being made part of the Congressional Record. As such,
this letter will provide confirmation that this legislation
leaves unaltered existing waivers of federal sovereign
immunity as well as existing environmental laws and
regulations.
Given the explanations made in your September 14, 1999,
letter as well as the submission of your letter as part of
the Congressional Record to be included in the legislative
history of this statute, I have no continuing objection to
this legislation. I appreciate your efforts to make the
intent of Title XXXII of S. 1059 clear. Please do not
hesitate to contact me if you have any further questions.
Sincerely,
John Cornyn,
Attorney General of Texas.
Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman
from California (Ms. Sanchez).
[[Page H8300]]
Ms. SANCHEZ. Mr. Speaker, as a Member of the House Committee on Armed
Services, I rise in strong support of the national defense
authorization conference report, and I would like to thank the
gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spence) and the gentleman from
Missouri (Mr. Skelton) and of course the staff of the committee for all
the hard work that they put into this conference report. The report
addresses the quality of life, the readiness and the modernization
shortfalls that the men and the women in our Armed Forces are currently
facing. The report also addresses the important issue of domestic
violence in the military.
Mr. Speaker, as we all know, one occurrence of domestic violence is
one too many, and unfortunately reports show that in 1994 in every
1,000 marriages 14 spouses were the victims of spouse abuse, and I am
pleased that the conferees from both Chambers worked in a bipartisan
manner to address this important issue. The language in the conference
report gives the services the opportunity to take on the crime of
domestic violence and to protect victims of domestic violence as they
never have before. It gives the Department of Defense and the services
the opportunity to develop relationships with non-military victims'
community and to draw on the expertise of local domestic violence
organizations to aid in designing their own programs.
Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to vote yes on the conference
report.
{time} 1100
Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from
California (Mr. Hunter).
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina
(Mrs. Myrick) for yielding me this time.
Mr. Speaker, I think every Member should be proud to vote for this
conference report. I think this report is a great manifestation of our
ability to work in a bipartisan manner and do something that is
important for the country, and I want to thank the gentleman from
Missouri (Mr. Skelton) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Sisisky),
my counterpart on the Subcommittee on Military Procurement, and all the
Members, Democrat and Republican, who worked on this particular piece
of legislation, because today we live in a very dangerous world. That
is extremely clear now.
China is trying to step into the superpower shoes that have been left
by the Soviet Union. Terrorism is becoming more deadly, more
technologically capable, and we are seeing new challenges around the
world; and against that backdrop we have cut defense dramatically.
The defense force structure that we have today is just about half of
what it was in 1992. We have gone from 18 Army divisions to 10; 24
active fighter air wings to 13; and as the gentleman from Virginia (Mr.
Sisisky) said, almost 600 ships down to 324 and dropping.
Unfortunately, the half that we have left is not as ready as the full
force that we had in 1992. We have a $193 million shortage in basic
ammo for the Marines; a $3.5 billion shortage in ammo for the Army. Our
mission-capable rates have gone down almost 10 percent across the board
in the services; that is the ability of an aircraft to take off from a
carrier or from a runway, run its mission and come back and land
safely. That is now down to an average of about 70 percent. That means
about 30 of every 100 planes in our services cannot take off a runway
and do their mission because of a lack of spare parts, a lack of
maintenance, or just having a real old aircraft that has not been
replaced.
In fact, we did have 55 crashes, peacetime crashes, last year with
the military, resulting in over 50 deaths of our people in uniform. So
we are flying old equipment, and we are having to take very valuable
resources, these spare parts, the few spares and repair parts that we
have, and our trained personnel who can still fix aircraft and other
equipment and move them to the front lines when we run an operation
like Kosovo.
So against that backdrop, we have put an additional $2.7 billion into
the modernization accounts, and we put extra money in the pay raise. We
have a 4.8 percent pay raise. We put money in readiness. Across the
board, we have spent what I consider to be the bare minimum; but in
this case, Mr. Speaker, the bare minimum is absolutely necessary. It
would be a tragedy to defeat this bill for some reason, for some turf
fight or some other reason that has nothing to do with national
security.
Let me just say with respect to the DOE section of this bill and the
reform that we did, let me just remind my colleagues about the tragedy
that occurred a couple of years ago. After we had identified an
individual who was identified as a spy in our nuclear weapons
laboratory, and the head of the FBI, Mr. Freeh, had gone to the
Assistant Secretary of Energy and a couple of weeks later to the
Secretary of Energy and said, get this guy away from classified areas,
take away his access to our nuclear secrets, 14 months later somebody
turned around and said, is that spy still next to the nuclear weapons
vault? And somebody went over and checked and, yes, he was.
We tried to figure out why he hadn't been fired, and there was such a
mess and such a confusion that nobody was sure. Everybody thought the
other guy was going to get the spy away from our nuclear secrets.
Presumably he was upgrading for 14 months, over a year, the nuclear
secrets that he had moved out earlier and nobody was there to stop him.
That was the confusion that we saw. That is the confusion that we
fix. Let us pass this conference report.
Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I take this opportunity not to comment on this
legislation but to comment on the Republican leadership's unwillingness
to recognize reality in the scheduling of the House of Representatives.
As people may be aware, there is a hurricane headed toward this area,
and yet the Republican leadership refuses to adjourn the House at the
end of proceedings today, thereby forcing Members to attend a hurricane
party here in Washington, D.C. in the capitol tomorrow.
It is very likely that the Washington, D.C. airports will be closed
tomorrow if the hurricane does, in fact, continue on its path, thereby
preventing Members from the southeast who may want to be with their
constituents at the time of this national emergency from doing so, and
preventing Members from other parts of the country who may actually
want to be able to go home this weekend and spend time with their
constituents from doing so.
I find it extraordinarily shortsighted on the part of the Republican
leadership to recognize that there is a hurricane headed straight
toward Washington, D.C. The House should be adjourned at the end of
today so that Members will not be trapped in Washington and be unable
to be with their constituents in the next 5 days.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, back to the debate, I yield such time as he
may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), my
distinguished chairman of the Committee on Rules.
(Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentlewoman from
North Carolina (Mrs. Myrick) for yielding and congratulate her on her
superb management of this rule.
Mr. Speaker, I have to respond to my friend from Dallas by saying
that we obviously want to do everything that we can to ensure that
people are able to get out of town in time, and I will say that we do
not want to have to have a hurricane party here. I do not know that the
hurricane is headed right towards Washington, D.C. We certainly hope
that we do not see any loss of life and that it is, in fact, lessened.
But I am struck with the fact that my colleagues really go for
everything they possibly can to attack the Republican leadership. We
enjoy the fact that they are scraping for something more to criticize
us on.
Let me say that I believe that this is a very important conference
report. We are trying to get the people's work done here, and I am
hoping very much that we will be able to have strong bipartisan support
of not only the rule but the conference report itself.
[[Page H8301]]
It was 10 years ago this coming November 13 that the world celebrated
the crumbling of the Berlin Wall, and many people argued at that point
that we would be witnessing the end of history; that the demise of the
Soviet Union and Communism, which took place in the following 3 years,
was something that was going to change the world, and clearly it has.
I think that the leadership that Ronald Reagan and President George
Bush have shown and, frankly, in a bipartisan way that we have provided
for our Nation's defense capability, brought about that change; but as
we mark, in the coming weeks, the 10th anniversary of the crumbling of
the Berlin Wall, it is very important for us to note that there has
been a dramatic change in the national security threat that exists in
this country and for the free world.
It seems to me that we need to realize that over that period of time
we have dealt with a wide range of challenges that exist throughout the
world, and I am struck with a figure that I mentioned here several
times before, the fact that during this administration we have deployed
265,000 troops to 139 countries around the world and that has taken
place at a time when we have actually diminished our level of
expenditures.
Since 1987, we have seen a reduction of 800,000 of our military
personnel. We have consistently pursued this goal of trying to do more
with less, and that is wrong. That is why when we, as Republicans at
the beginning of the 106th Congress, set forth our four top priorities
of making sure that we improve public education, which I am proud to
say that we have done; provide tax relief for working families, which
in just a couple of hours we are going to be enrolling the bill and
sending it to the President, and I hope very much he does not veto that
bill as he said he would on Friday; and saving Social Security and
Medicare. Those are other priorities.
We also included, as a top priority, because of this changing threat,
rebuilding our Nation's defense capability. I am happy that we have
passed and that the President, reluctantly, but the President finally
did sign the national ballistic missile defense bill. I am very happy
that we were able to see the President come on board in some of our
attempts to deal with these national security issues, and I hope that
he will be able to sign this conference report when it gets to him.
It is clearly the right thing to do. We are going to be facing more
challenges, but we have to make sure that the one issue which only the
Federal Government can deal with, virtually every one of the other
issues that we deal with can be handled by State and local governments,
but our national security is the one issue that we are charged to
dealing with. It is in the preamble of the U.S. Constitution, and it
seems to me that we need to step up to the plate. That is why support
of this conference report is very important.
I urge my colleagues to do it in a bipartisan way.
Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I would only point out to my friend, the gentleman from
California (Mr. Dreier), that I am not trying to be overly critical of
the Republican leadership.
Mr. DREIER. That would be a first, I have to say.
Mr. FROST. I am just appalled by the fact that they seem to have
taken the position of, what hurricane? I mean, everybody in the country
knows that the hurricane is heading up the East Coast, and by refusing
to adjourn the House at the end of business today they are forcing the
staff to try and get into work tomorrow. They are trapping Members in
the Nation's capital who want to be home with their constituents. This
is an extraordinary development.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield just for a
moment, I would just like to thank him for his input and tell him that
the recommendation that he has made will certainly be taken into
consideration.
Mr. FROST. I have not yielded. I am sorry. I have not yielded.
The Republican leadership seems to be the only ones in the country
that do not recognize the fact that a hurricane is moving up the East
Coast, and that it is projected that it is going to come very close to
Washington, D.C. tomorrow, and that we may have 5 inches of rain here
tomorrow. I do not understand.
All I want them to do is to turn on their television sets and to
listen to the news and to deal with reality so that Members can be
treated in a fair way and so that the staff can be treated in a fair
way. It is unrealistic and unfair to say we are going to be here
tomorrow and everybody come on in, no matter what is happening.
They ought to face reality. They ought to adjourn the House at the
end of today so that Members and staff will not be forced through the
hardship of dealing with the hurricane in Washington, D.C. tomorrow.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Ewing). The gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Frost) has 11 minutes remaining. The gentlewoman from North Carolina
(Mrs. Myrick) has 1 minute remaining.
Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I would like to inquire of the gentleman
from Texas (Mr. Frost) if he has any further speakers?
Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the right to close for our side. We
do not have any other speakers at this point.
Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, if it is all right, the gentleman should go
ahead and close because I have no more speakers either.
Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, this is a very good piece of legislation. This is
legislation supported by a Democratic President, a Democratic
administration, supported by the vast majority of Democrats in the
House of Representatives. We all are pleased to stand for a strong
national defense, to stand for efforts to help our troops, to increase
morale, to make sure that we retain soldiers that we need and that we
are able to recruit soldiers that our forces need for the future.
This is a good conference report. As a Democrat, I am pleased to
support it, and I urge all of my colleagues to vote yes on final
passage on this very important piece of legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I
move the previous question on the resolution.
The previous question was ordered.
The resolution was agreed to.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 288, I call up
the conference report on the Senate bill (S. 1059) to authorize
appropriations for fiscal year 2000 for military activities of the
Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense
activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe personnel
strengths for such fiscal year for the Armed Forces, and for other
purposes.
{time} 1115
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Ewing). Pursuant to the rule, the
conference report is considered as having been read.
(For conference report and statement, see proceedings of the House of
August 5, 1999, at page H7469.)
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from South Carolina (Mr.
Spence) and the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) each will control
30 minutes.
Parliamentary Inquiry
Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, with all respect for the chairman of the
committee and all respect for my good friend, the gentleman from
Missouri (Mr. Skelton), I have been advised that the gentleman from
Missouri supports the bill. I therefore ask, Mr. Speaker, is the
gentleman from Missouri opposed to the bill, and therefore, is he
entitled to time in opposition to the legislation?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton)
in favor of the conference report?
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I absolutely support the bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Missouri supports the
conference report.
Pursuant to clause 8(d)(2) of rule XXII, time will be controlled
three ways. The gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spence) will control
20 minutes; the gentleman from Missouri (Mr.
[[Page H8302]]
Skelton) will control 20 minutes; and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr.
Dingell) will control 20 minutes.
(Mr. SPENCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, the fiscal year 2000 defense authorization bill was
reported out of the Committee on Armed Services back in May on a vote
of 55-to-1, and it passed the House in June on a vote of 365-to-58. The
conference report before us today enjoys equally strong bipartisan
support, as all 36 Republican and Democrat committee conferees have
signed the conference report. This is only the second time this has
happened since 1981. It is truly a bipartisan report.
Mr. Speaker, the funding authorized in this bill is consistent with
the increased spending levels set by the Congress in the budget
resolution. As a result of this increased spending and a careful
reprioritization of the President's budget request, we have provided
the military services some of the tools necessary to better recruit and
retain qualified personnel and to better train and equip them.
It is in this context that the conferees went to work, targeting
additional funding for a variety of sorely needed quality of life,
readiness, and equipment initiatives. However, despite the conferees'
best efforts, we are not eliminating shortfalls, we are simply
struggling to manage them. Absent a long-term, sustained commitment to
revitalizing America's armed forces, we will continue to run the
inevitable risks that come from asking our troops to do more with less.
This conference report also contains the most important and
significant Department of Energy reorganization proposal since the
agency's creation more than two decades ago.
Earlier this year, the bipartisan Cox-Dicks Committee released its
report on the national security implications of our United States
technology transfers to the People's Republic of China. The Cox
Committee identified lax security at DOE nuclear laboratories as a
critical national security problem, and unanimously concluded that
China had obtained classified information on "every currently deployed
thermonuclear warhead in the United States ballistic missile arsenal."
Following the Cox Committee report, President Clinton's own Foreign
Intelligence Advisory Board chaired by former Senator Rudman, issued
its report highly critical of DOE's failure to protect the Nation's
nuclear secrets. The report of the President's Advisory Board concluded
that DOD is, "a dysfunctional bureaucracy that has proven it is
incapable of reforming itself."
The conference report would implement the recommendation of the
President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board to create a semi-
autonomous agency within DOE and vest it with responsibility for
nuclear weapons research and protection. The reorganization will go a
long way towards streamlining DOE's excessive bureaucracy and improving
accountability, all in an effort to ensure that our Nation's most vital
nuclear secrets are better managed and secured.
Mr. Speaker, some question has been raised in some quarters on the
possible impact that the reorganization provisions could have on DOE's
environmental programs and in particular, on the status of existing
waivers of solving immunity agreements between the Federal Government
and individual States. In a few minutes I plan to engage in a colloquy
with the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) to clarify this point
for the legislative record.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to insert into the Record following my
statement a letter that Senator Warner and I have jointly written to
the National Governors Association and the National Association of
Attorneys General that address these questions in more detail.
The bottom line is that this conference report does not impact or
change current environmental law or regulation, and it does not impact
or change existing waivers of sovereign immunity agreements. For the
sake of time I will not repeat that statement, but it is true to the
letter.
Mr. Speaker, this conference report is before the House today only as
a result of the efforts of all conferees. In particular, I want to
recognize the critical roles played by the Committee on Armed Services
subcommittee and panel chairmen and ranking members. Their efforts,
along with those of the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) made my
job easier, and their dedication to getting the job done is clearly
evident in this conference report.
Mr. Speaker, this is an important piece of legislation, and I urge
all of my colleagues to support the conference report.
Washington, DC,
September 14, 1999.
Hon. Michael O. Leavitt,
Chairman, National Governors' Association, Hall of States,
Washington, DC.
Hon. Christine O. Gregoire,
President, National Association of Attorneys General,
Washington, DC.
Dear Governor and Madam Attorney General: We are aware that
concerns have been raised regarding the impact of Title XXXII
of S. 1059, the conference report for the National Defense
Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2000, on the safe
operation and cleanup of Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear
weapons sites. Title XXXII provides for the reorganization of
the DOE to strengthen its national security function, as
recommended by the House of Representatives, the Senate, and
the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB).
In so doing, the NDAA would establish the National Nuclear
Security Administration (NNSA), a semi-autonomous agency
within the Department.
However, as the purpose of this effort was focused on
enhancing national security and strengthening operational
management of the Department's nuclear weapons production
function, the conferees recognized the need to carefully
avoid statutory modifications that could inadvertently result
in changes or challenges to the existing environmental
cleanup efforts. As such, Title XXXII does not amend existing
environmental, safety and health laws or regulations and is
in no way intended to limit the states' established
regulatory roles pertaining to DOE operations and ongoing
cleanup activities. In fact, Title XXXII contains a number of
provisions specifically crafted to clearly establish this
principle in statue.
NNSA compliance with existing environmental regulations,
orders, agreements, permits, court orders, or non-
substantive requirements.
Concern has been expressed that Title XXXII could result in
the exemption of the NNSA from compliance with existing
environmental regulations, orders, agreements, permits, court
orders, or non-substantive requirements. We believe these
concerns to be unfounded. First, Section 3261 expressly
requires that the newly created NNSA comply with all
applicable environmental, safety and health laws and
substantive requirements. The NNSA Administrator must develop
procedures for meeting these requirements at sites covered by
the NNSA, and the Secretary of Energy must ensure that
compliance with these important requirements is accomplished.
As such, the provision would not supersede, diminish or
otherwise impact existing authorities granted to the states
or the Environmental Protection Agency to monitor and enforce
cleanup at DOE sites.
The clear intent of Title XXXII is to require that the NNSA
comply with the same environmental laws and regulations to
the same extent as before the reorganization. This intent is
evidenced by Section 3296, which provides that all applicable
provisions of law and regulations (including those relating
to environment, safety and health) in effect prior to the
effective date of Title XXXII remain in force "unless
otherwise provided in this title." However, nowhere in Title
XXXII is there language which provides or implies that any
environmental law, or regulation promulgated thereunder, is
either limited or superseded. Therefore, we clearly intend
that all existing regulations, orders, agreements, permits,
court orders, or non-substantive requirements that presently
apply to the programs in question, continue to apply
subsequent to the enactment and effective date of Title
XXXII.
Concern has also been expressed that the creation of the
NNSA would somehow narrow or supersede existing waivers of
sovereign immunity or agreements DOE has signed with the
states. Title XXXII merely directs the reorganization of a
government agency and does not amend any existing provision
of law granting sovereign immunity or modify established
legal precedent interpreting the applicability or breadth of
such waivers of sovereign immunity. The intent of this
legislation is not to in any way supersede, diminish or set
aside existing waivers of sovereign immunity.
NNSA responsibility for environment, safety and health and
oversight by the Office of Environment, Safety and
Health.
Concern has been expressed that the NNSA would be sheltered
from internal oversight by the Office of Environment, Safety
and Health. In keeping with the semiautonomous nature of the
proposed NNSA, the legislation establishes new relationships
between the new NNSA and the existing DOE secretariat.
Principally, it vests the responsibility for policy
formulation for all activities of the
[[Page H8303]]
NNSA with the Secretary and devolves execution
responsibilities to the NNSA Administrator. However, there is
clear recognition of the need for the Secretary to maintain
adequate authority and staff support to discharge the policy
making responsibilities and conduct associated oversight. For
instance, Section 3203 establishes a new Section 213 in the
Department of Energy Organization Act would provides that:
"(b) The Secretary may direct officials of the Department
who are not within the National Nuclear Security
Administration to review the programs and activities of the
Administration and to make recommendations to the Secretary
regarding administration of those programs and activities,
including consistency with other similar programs and
activities of the Department.
The Secretary shall have adequate staff to support the
Secretary in carrying out the Secretary's responsibilities
under this section."
While some maintain that both of these provisions are
redundant restatements of the Secretary's inherent authority
as chief executive of his department, we recognized the
importance of being abundantly clear on this point,
particularly as it pertained to environmental, safety and
health matters. Therefore, we fully expect that the Secretary
will continue to rely on the Office of Environment, Safety
and Health or any future successor entity to support his
policy making and oversight obligations under the law.
To further clarify this point, the conferees also included
a provision in Section 3261(c) that states that "Nothing in
this title shall diminish the authority of the Secretary of
Energy to ascertain and ensure that such compliance occurs."
This provision makes reference to the requirement that the
NNSA Administrator ensure compliance with "all applicable
environmental, safety and health statutes and substantive
requirements." Once again, the conferees intended this
future language to make it abundantly clear that the
Secretary retains the authority to assign environmental
compliance oversight to the Office of Environmental, Safety
and health to support his responsibilities in this area.
Finally, concern has also been raised over the
interpretation of the assignment of environment safety and
health operations to the NNSA Administrator by Section 3212.
This provision establishes the scope of functional
responsibilities assigned to the NNSA Administrator and is
not intended to, and does not, supersede the assignment of
primacy for policy formulation responsibility to the
Secretary of Energy for environment, safety and health or any
other function.
Effect of Section 3213 on oversight by the Office of
Environment, Safety and Health
Concern has also been raised that Section 3213 could be
interpreted in a manner that would preclude oversight by the
Office of Environment, Safety and Health. Section 3213 deals
exclusively with the question of who within the Department of
Energy holds direct authority, direction and control of NNSA
employees and contractor personnel. As such, this provision
establishes the operational and implementation chain of
command in keeping with the organizing principle of the
legislation to vest execution authority and responsibility
within the NNSA. However, neither this principle nor Section
3213 would in any way preclude the Secretary from continuing
to rely on the Office of Environment, Safety and Health for
providing him with oversight support for any program or
activity of the NNSA.
NNSA responsibility for environmental restoration and waste
management
Concern has also been raised that Title XXXII somehow would
extend to the NNSA responsibility for environmental
restoration and waste management. We consider this concern to
be unfounded and inaccurate. Contrary to some
interpretations, Section 3291(c) grants no authority to the
Secretary to move additional functions into the NNSA. Rather,
Section 3291(c) recognizes the possibility that some future
activity may present the need to migrate a particular
facility, program or activity out of the NNSA should it
evolve principally into an environmental cleanup activity.
Therefore, this provision would allow such activity only to
be transferred out of the NNSA.
Further, contrary to some expressed concerns, Title XXXII
would not permit control of ongoing cleanup activities being
carried out by the Office of Environmental Management to be
assumed or inherited by the NNSA, thus ensuring that DOE's
environmental responsibilities will not be overshadowed by
production requirements. Finally, as previously noted,
Section 3212, which assigns the functional responsibilities
of the NNSA Administrator, is not intended to, and does not,
establish responsibility to the NNSA Administrator for
environmental restoration and waste management.
Oversight role of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board
Concern has been raised that the external oversight role of
the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) will be
impaired by the conference report language. This concern is
without merit, since Title XXXII makes no change to the
existing authority or role of the DNFSB. While there was some
discussion during the conference of possibly expanding the
role of the DNFSB to enhance external environmental and
health oversight, this proposal was eventually dropped
resulting in no change to the existing authority of the
DNFSB.
We firmly believe that this legislation will result in much
needed reforms to better protect the most sensitive national
security secrets at our nuclear weapons research and
production facilities and to correct associated long-standing
organizational and management problems within DOE. However,
we agree that these objectives should not weaken or undermine
the continuing effort to ensure adequate safeguards for
environmental, safety and health aspects of affected programs
and facilities. More specifically, we believe that these
objectives can be met without in any way limiting the
established role of the states in ongoing cleanup activities.
This legislation is fully consistent with our continuing
commitment to the aggressive cleanup of contaminated DOE
sites and protecting the safety and health of both site
personnel and the public at large.
We appreciate your willingness to share your concerns with
us and hope that this response will address them in keeping
with our mutual objectives. In this regard, we look forward
to continuing to work closely with you and your associations
to ensure that this legislation is implemented in a manner
that is consistent with the principles stated above and
strikes the intended careful balance between national
security and environmental, safety and health concerns.
Sincerely,
Floyd D. Spence, Chairman,
House Armed Services Committee.
John Warner, Chairman,
Senate Armed Services Committee.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I rise in strong support of this legislation. A good number of months
ago I had the opportunity to be in Bosnia meeting and talking with the
young men and young women in uniform who stand guard in that sad
country doing their best and successfully doing their best to keep
peace in that corner of the world. This morning, Mr. Speaker, I had
breakfast with four bright young sailors who have been in the Navy only
between one and two years. Both were in Bosnia when I was there. After
the breakfast this morning with the young military folks, I asked
myself, where, where do we find young people such as this: Dedicated,
sincere, hard-working, patriotic.
Well, they come from small towns and farms and cities all across our
country, and they do a superb job securing the freedoms that we enjoy.
There have been problems, problems with recruitment and problems even
more serious with retention. The old saying is, you recruit soldiers,
but you retain families, and I think that is so true.
Mr. Speaker, this bill before us today is a historic landmark for the
troops of America. This is the year of the troops. This is the year
that the Committee on Armed Services, and I am pleased to say when the
bill was reported out, it was reported out with a favorable vote of
some 55-to-1. It has strong support among the committee and hopefully
will have very, very strong support here on the floor. Because this
year, we gave a pay increase, we reformed the pay tables which is
geared towards those young men and young women who make the decision
whether to stay in or get out at the 9, 10, 11, 12 year mark.
We reform in a very positive manner the pension system. We build new
barracks, new family housing; we help fix the problems in TRICARE; we
have done a superb job, and I am so pleased about it. In procurement,
we have purchased and helped bring ourselves to the point where we have
maintained that scientific edge. It is with a great deal of pleasure
that I support this bill in its entirety, including the Department of
Energy portions thereof.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 7\1/2\ minutes.
Mr. Speaker, it has been represented that Senator Rudman supports
this. Let me read what he said about this with regard to the semi-
autonomous weapons agency: "We do not believe that the environmental
health issues should be stripped from where they are and put within the
agency for nuclear support. I would not support that kind of change
because I know what we went through back in the 1980s." I would
commend this to the reading of the chairman of the committee.
Having said that, let us look who else is opposed to this outrage,
the National Association of Attorneys General. The chairman sent them a
letter, but they still oppose the bill: "We urge you to oppose the
provisions of title 32 that would weaken the existing internal and
[[Page H8304]]
external oversight structure for DOE's safety and health operations.
Title 32 of the defense authorization bill would impair State
regulatory authority, eliminate DOE's internal oversight of
environmental safety and health, and transfer responsibility for waste
management and environmental restoration to the entity responsible for
weapons production and development." Forty six attorneys general.
What did the former Secretaries of Energy have to say about this?
"This restructuring represents a return to the institutional
conditions that resulted in almost 50 years of environmental safety
health mismanagement at DOE facilities at an estimated cost of $250
billion, the largest environmental cleanup in the world. This
restructuring is a step backward to the problems of the past."
Listen then to our governors, Mr. Speaker, and hear what they have to
say. They say, specifically, "We are concerned that section 3261 would
be interpreted as limiting existing waivers of sovereign immunity,
leaving NNSA exempt from State environmental regulations, permits,
orders, penalties, and agreements. We urge your thoughtful
reconsideration of these provisions of title 32 that would weaken the
existing oversight structure for DOE's environmental safety and health
operations."
The Conference of State Legislatures has communicated their outrage
and their opposition to this proposal. Heed these people.
Now, let me just quote, George Santiana said "He who does not learn
from history is doomed to repeat it," and we are looking at a fine
mess in just a few years, because we are doing away with all of the
steps that have been taken by Secretary Richardson both to have control
over the cleanup and to bring about a cleanup, but also to address the
questions of secrecy. My friend, the chairman of the committee and the
committee, in a rather remarkable conference which may or may not have
occurred, because no notices were given to any of the conferees, and
when I appeared as a witness, I was advised by the chairman of the
committee that the conference is over, there is nothing to talk about.
Now, this is an extraordinary high-handed treatment of Members who
were appointed as conferees. I think that what we should do is to do
what the House in its wisdom did, and that is to pass the bill with all
of the good provisions and strike title 32, which is mischievous.
{time} 1130
Now, let us look at the problems title XXXII creates. It returns us
to the dark, secretive days of the AEC, when people did not know what
was going on, and when the AEC diligently lied to everybody, including
the administration, the Congress, and even the Joint Committee on
Atomic Energy. They created a hideous mess in terms of health, safety,
and environmental degradation. Every facility owned by that agency is
today a cesspool of high-level and low-level nuclear waste and of
hazardous wastes and of mixed wastes. Why? Because they were answerable
to no one and they hid all of their mistakes.
We spent years trying to open this process to see to it that the
Congress and the Members of this body know what is going on so that we
could protect our constituents against the rampages of that kind of
agency in the future. This proposal simply recreates that outrage, and
my colleagues and I will have cause to regret that day's work if we do
not reject that provision and adopt the motion to recommit.
If we do not learn from history, we are going to repeat it. In just a
few years the secrecy they are going to engage in, which will be
practiced against this body and Members of the Senate and Members of
the government and ordinary citizens, attorneys general and Governors,
is going to lead to further abuses.
If Members think this is going to address the questions of protecting
the national security, Members are very much in error. I watched the
AEC for years, and the agency leaked like a sieve. I was over in a
place called Chelyabinsk. It is the site of the Arzamas-16, the Russian
nuclear thermonuclear generation facility. They showed me there a bomb.
I said, it looks like the bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima.
They said no, it is an exact copy.
That agency leaked all kinds of information like that, technology and
ability to the Russians and the Chinese and others to enable them to do
what they have done.
Do not just think this is DOE, security is an ongoing problem. But at
least with the Secretary in control of this matter, the Congress will
have the ability to understand where rascality goes on, where there is
threat to public property, where the responsibilities of the
contractors to the taxpayers are dishonored, as they have been, where
secrecy runs riot, and where environmental degradation reigns because
of the secrecy and the refusal of the agency to properly police itself.
I urge my colleagues, let us drop title XXXII. It was never
considered on the floor of the House. It was never considered in the
Senate. As a matter of fact, my colleagues on the Committee on Armed
Services had to go to the Committee on Rules to get themselves a funny
rule. That funny rule protects them against points of order. It says
that the fact that they went beyond the scope of the conference cannot
be raised on this floor. It says that the fact that they disregarded
the rule of germaneness cannot be raised on the floor, and the fact
that they have written bad legislation is, to the best of the ability
of the Committee of Armed Services and the Committee on Rules,
protected against any serious challenge of wrongdoing and of hurt to
the public interest.
The way this House should address this is to understand that here we
have a question where legislation was written in secrecy by staff
without consultation with the Members of the House or other committees
which have jurisdiction, and that that legislation is seriously flawed.
It is opposed by everybody, the President, the Secretary of the
Department of Energy, the Governors, the attorneys general, the State
legislatures, and 11 environmental organizations. They have said, do
not pass this legislation with this kind of secrecy provision in it.
If Members want to continue an effective cleanup of the hideous mess
that this kind of secrecy has made under the AEC, they must continue
allowing this work to be done by the DOE in the open eye of daylight.
If Members want to see to it that the Nation is able to know when
there are failures and when our security system is not working, allow
DOE to do it. They are trying to clean it up. AEC participated actively
in suppressing all acts and all information on this. This proposal
reconstitutes the AEC and the practices which caused hideous abuses,
both of the environment and of the national interest.
I will be offering a motion to recommit at the proper time. I urge my
colleagues to listen to their Governors, listen to their attorneys
general, listen to their legislators, listen to their president, their
Secretary of DOE, and to the environmentalists, who tell us that this
is the wrong way to go.
This is a dangerous way to go. This is insulating an agency from any
proper supervision, and it is an attack not only upon the rest of
government, but it is an attack on this body and the ability of Members
of this body to know what is going on in the midst of a situation which
may sacrifice the right of the public to know what is going on, and
which will sanctify the kind of secrecy that sneaky bureaucrats have
practiced on atomic energy, on safety, and upon other things which are
important, including the protection of the national security of the
United States. This should either be corrected by the motion to
recommit, or the conference report should be rejected.
My friends and colleagues on the Committee on Armed Services
attribute enormous risk to this situation. They conducted a meeting of
the conferees in complete secrecy, permitted no one to participate, did
not even allow us to ask questions about what it was they did.
Members are not going to tell me that they honestly fear on that
committee that in some way some of the good provisions, and there are
good provisions, and I supported them when this matter was in the House
before, are in any jeopardy from that. Members of this body support
those provisions, without exception.
Members of this body should know that they can reject the outrageous
[[Page H8305]]
provisions and preserve the good. I will offer them an opportunity to
do so. I urge them to do so.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5\1/2\ minutes.
I would say to my colleagues, I respect the position of the gentleman
from Michigan (Mr. Dingell). I respect him. But if Members were to buy
that position, I have a deal for them. I have a bridge I want to sell
them.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to engage in a colloquy with the gentleman
from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), the ranking member of the Committee on
Armed Services.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. SPENCE. I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.
Mr. SKELTON. I thank the chairman for yielding to me, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, some have raised concerns since the completion of the
conference report regarding the possible impact that the Department of
Energy reorganization provisions could have on the Department of Energy
and environmental cleanup activities, and in particular, on the status
of the existing waivers of sovereign immunity agreements between the
Federal Government and the individual States.
I believe that the conferees did not intend to and in fact did not
take any action that would limit or supersede any existing agreement
that the Department of Energy has entered into with any State,
including the Federal facility compliance agreements.
Is that the understanding of the chairman of the Committee on Armed
Services?
Mr. SPENCE. The gentleman is correct. The conferees were particularly
aware of and therefore careful to avoid changes in law that could
inadvertently result in changes to existing environmental clean-up
efforts. For this reason, the conference report contains a number of
provisions specifically designed to make it clear that the semi-
autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration will not only be
subject to all existing environmental laws, regulations, and related
requirements, but that the legislation would also not result in any
reversal of existing environmental policies or practices within DOE.
As Senator Warner and I stated in our September 14 letter to the
National Governors Association and the National Association of
Attorneys General, which had been submitted for the Record, and I
quote, "We clearly intend that all existing regulations, orders,
agreements, permits, court orders, or nonsubstantive requirements that
presently apply to the programs in question continue to apply
subsequent to the enactment and effective date."
Therefore, it was the clear intent and action of the conferees to not
in any way supersede, diminish, or set aside existing waivers of
sovereign immunity agreements between DOE and the States.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for the
clarification, and I join him in underscoring the intent and action of
the conferees on this very important matter.
I believe the record is clear on this point, and no one intends this
legislation to serve as a vehicle or an attempt in any way to
relitigate or reopen the Federal Facilities Compliance Act or the
associated issues thereto.
Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Texas (Mr. Ortiz).
Mr. ORTIZ. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1059, the
National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2000.
I want to specifically address the provisions in the Act relating to
military readiness.
First, I would like to express my personal appreciation to my
colleagues on both the subcommittee and the full committee for the
manner in which they conducted the business of the subcommittee during
this session.
I want to express my appreciation to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr.
Bateman), the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spence), and the
gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), for the outstanding work and
leadership they provided to the committee.
We had the opportunity to see readiness through the eyes of the brave
soldiers, sailors, and airmen who are entrusted with the awesome
responsibility of carrying out our national military strategy. We heard
them talk about the shortage of repair parts, the extra hours spent
trying to maintain old equipment, and the shortage of critical
personnel. Fortunately, this year we were able to do something about
their concerns.
Now, I had an opportunity to go to Korea and talk to our troops and
their families. They know what this bill contains. They know that this
bill contains a pay increase. They know that this bill does something
for the shortage of housing. This is the reason we need to continue to
support this conference report.
I do remain concerned about our inability to provide additional
support for other critical elements of our readiness support
activities. That includes the stability of our dedicated civilian
employees who are also being asked to remain productive while facing
the constant threat of the loss of their jobs. This area also deserves
our attention.
Mr. Speaker, when I traveled up the coast of Thailand and visited the
sailors assigned to the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk, they were so grateful
because of the action that we had conducted right before recess. Let us
not send them the wrong signal. I urge my colleagues to support the
fine legislation in the conference report.
Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
California (Mr. Cox), the chairman of the Cox Commission.
Mr. COX. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding time to me.
Mr. Speaker, last January the Select Committee reached the unanimous
and bipartisan conclusion that despite repeated Peoples Republic of
China thefts of sophisticated U.S. nuclear weapons technology, security
at our national weapons laboratories does not meet even minimal
standards.
Just 2 weeks after the public release of the Select Committee's
unclassified report, the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory
Board joined the Select Committee in condemning the wholly inadequate
security structure at the weapons laboratories.
Last week the Administration's national intelligence estimate
confirmed for the first time in public that the People's Republic of
China is developing three new long-range nuclear missiles that will
target the United States, and that their new modern nuclear warheads
will likely be influenced by classified American technology stolen from
the United States through espionage.
Our security problems are serious, and their costs are very real. In
June, this House took the first step toward fixing those egregious
security problems by acting on the Select Committee's recommendations.
{time} 1145
Twenty-eight of those recommendations offered to this House by the
chairman and the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks), ranking
democrat of the Select Committee on U.S. Security and Military/
Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China, are included
in this bill and were approved by unanimous vote of the House on the
floor. It is important that we see this through in to law to ensure
that science at its best at our national laboratories is protected by
security at its best.
Finally, let me say it is vitally important that we extend coverage
of environmental safety and health statutes to the new National Nuclear
Security Administration created in this legislation, and we do. That is
exactly what this bill does. In fact, it raises environmental health
and worker safety standards.
I would like to thank the members of the Select Committee, but more
importantly thank the members of the Committee on Armed Services for
their work on this very, very important bipartisan bill.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the amount of time that
we have remaining, please.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). The gentleman from South
Carolina (Mr. Spence) has 9 minutes remaining. The gentleman from
Missouri (Mr. Skelton) has 14\1/2\ minutes remaining. The gentleman
from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) has 11 minutes remaining.
[[Page H8306]]
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) who helped make the year of the troops a
reality, who, together with his counterpart on the other side, the
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer), have done monumental work for the
troops in the field.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Missouri
(Mr. Skelton) for those remarks.
Mr. Speaker, I want to pay particular tribute to the gentleman from
Indiana (Mr. Buyer) and members of the Subcommittee on Military
Personnel, and thank the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spence) for
the opportunity to work with him, and the rest of the committee members
to help craft this bill.
Mr. Speaker, I understand that there are, perhaps, difficulties
associated with any bill that does not measure up in every respect for
all Members. But in this particular instance, it seems to me that the
overall course of events associated with the Department of Defense
bill, the authorization bill that we have before us, merits our
support.
I will not recite it at great length other than to submit for the
Record what we did with the Subcommittee on Military Personnel over and
above the pay raise and the other issues that have been brought
forward. I can say, I think, on behalf of the gentleman from Indiana
(Mr. Buyer) as the chairman, that there are at least 17 specific issues
associated with personnel measures that are a distinct advancement,
some perhaps the best in 20 years. That is what is at stake with this
bill.
I want to mention just one in particular, the Thrift Savings Plan,
that we have put forward. How can we expect to have our federal
employees, which in effect our military are, be absent from the
opportunity to participate in the Thrift Savings Plan. This bill
provides for that opportunity. This takes 1.4 million families in the
military, it takes 1.4 million people in the guard and reserves and
their families, and makes them equal partners with the rest of us in
the progress of this Nation as we turn the corner and the century.
Mr. Speaker, I need go no further than to say that, as we go to East
Timor, we will be calling up reservists to go to East Timor. We cannot
conduct our deployments around the world without a guard and reserve
component in conjunction with the act of military.
So whether it is in East Timor, whether it is in Kosovo, whether it
is in Bosnia, or whether it is in the United States, the armed services
of the United States, in all their aspects, deserves our full support.
Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished
gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman).
(Mr. WAXMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of what will be offered as
a motion to recommit.
Title 32 of this bill contains provisions which would restructure the
Department of Energy to create a new National Nuclear Security
Administration. I do not question the motivations of the proponents of
this proposal. They simply want to protect national security at weapons
production and development facilities.
However, past and recent allegations of inadequate worker and
environmental protections in and around DOE labs and waste sites remind
us that nuclear research poses very serious health hazards to workers
and nearby residents. These concerns need to be considered when we
reorganize the DOE.
Unfortunately, this legislation could have the unintended consequence
of subordinating the State's legitimate environment, safety, and health
concerns. In fact, 46 State Attorneys General wrote House and Senate
leaders urging us to oppose the legislation and note that there have
been no hearings held and there has been no opportunity for the States
to provide their views to the Congress.
I would urge that we support the motion to recommit and change this
provision so that it not stay in the final bill.
Similarly, the National Governors Association wrote the House
conferees on September 9, stating their concerns that this legislation
could be interpreted as [quote] "limiting existing waivers of
sovereign immunity, leaving the [National Nuclear Security
Administration] exempt from state environmental regulations, permits,
orders, penalties, and agreements." [unquote]
Finally, this legislation is strongly opposed by environmental
groups. The Natural Resources Defense Council, the U.S. Public Interest
Research Group, the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability and other
groups wrote the Members of the House on September 13 opposing this
bill because it weakens accountability in the Department of Energy and
because the state's ability to enforce environmental laws could be
severely curtailed.
Mr. Speaker, despite the strengths in this legislation we need to
send this legislation back to Committee and work out these provisions.
If you support the rights of states, if you support protecting the
environment, you should support this motion to recommit.
Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Virginia (Mr. Bateman), the chairman of our Subcommittee on Military
Readiness.
Mr. BATEMAN. Mr. Speaker, I also rise to express my strong support
for the recommendations of the conference committee with respect to our
military forces. It is the responsibility of every Member of Congress
to provide our military forces with the necessary resources to go in
harm's way with the best equipment and training available. From
testimony during hearings and visits to military installations by the
Committee on Armed Services, it is clear that the readiness of our
forces continues to slip below acceptable levels. Steps must be taken
and now to restore our readiness posture.
The administration has continued to expect our military to do more
with less by providing woefully inadequate military defense budgets.
Our military is working harder and longer to keep up with peacetime as
well as contingency mission requirements. Unscheduled deployments
continue at a record pace. On average, units often experience long
deployments only to return and face a breakneck pace of training and
exercise requirements. There is little or no time for family
commitments or educational opportunities.
The results of all this increased activity is that too many of our
best and brightest are deciding against a career in the military, which
will have an impact on our military in the future.
The conference report provides for significant increases in the
readiness-critical accounts, such as training, facility maintenance,
spare parts, and depot maintenance. These increases are absolutely
necessary to ensure that our military remains the best trained, best
equipped, and most effective in the world. To do anything less will
allow the readiness of our military to slip further and could risk the
lives of countless men and women in every branch of the service.
I would also like to comment that the Merchant Marine Panel, which I
chair, has in this bill provided, at the President's request, funding
for authorization for the Maritime Administration, plus $7.6 million
additional for capital maintenance of the Merchant Marine Academy.
I wholeheartedly endorse the conference report and ask for its
adoption.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the dedicated, hard
working, and knowledgeable gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Tauscher).
Mrs. TAUSCHER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for those nice
comments.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the defense authorization
bill and urge my colleagues to oppose the motion to recommit and vote
for passage of the bill.
This legislation, Mr. Speaker, will begin to prepare our Nation for
the national security challenges of the 21st Century. It makes vital
investment in military equipment, improves the readiness of our forces,
and provides the military personnel with the pay and retirement
benefits that they greatly deserve.
The defense authorization bill also dramatically reorganizes the
Department of Energy. As we have seen in recent months, the Department
of Energy is beset by management failure, bureaucratic morass, and a
lack of accountability. Secretary Richardson has made some important
improvements, but it is clear that the Department must be reorganized.
This DOE reorganization plan is not perfect, but we cannot maintain
the status quo. Let us begin the process of
[[Page H8307]]
reorganization today and work to make improvements as we move forward.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote against the motion to
recommit and for the defense authorization bill.
Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).
Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, some of my colleagues may not be aware of
this, but for over 30 years, we had a special supersecret bureaucracy
that ran our Nation's nuclear weapons programs. It was not subject to
effective external oversight or accountability. It was called the
Atomic Energy Agency. For years, the old AEC pursued a philosophy of
production first, and public health and safety and environment be
damned.
What was the AEC's legacy? It funded hundreds of unethical
experiments on human beings using radioactive materials. It allowed
workers to be exposed to radioactive substances in Paducah, Kentucky,
and Fernald, Ohio. It allowed for the venting of gases from Hanford,
Washington, to the Nevada test site, to Fernald, Ohio.
It wantonly and repeatedly dumped toxic wastes into the soil at its
weapons production sites, buried radioactive materials in shallow,
unlined pits: Rocky Flats; Savanna River; Los Alamos; Paducah,
Kentucky.
We disbanded the Atomic Energy Agency and put it over into the
Department of Energy so we could have some accountability.
What are we doing here today? What we are doing here today is we are
going back to the bad old days where we are going to have an agency
focused on making bombs hidden from public site, causing environmental
havoc, public health catastrophes, and then the very same kind of a
formula that allowed for the lying and concealment of actions from the
public.
We should not be going back to those bad old days where this report
barely even mentions the contractors that were responsible for much of
what went wrong.
Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
Indiana (Mr. Buyer), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Military
Personnel.
Mr. BUYER. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from South
Carolina (Mr. Spence) for his leadership and that of the gentleman from
Missouri (Mr. Skelton) for his leadership on this bill.
This is my eighth conference report; and I would say, of my years, I
have not been here with the tenure that the gentlemen have, but this is
a great bill. This is a bill that really would, in bold neon lights,
focus on people.
A lot of times we focus on buying, whether it is the aircraft
carriers, the munitions, the weapons systems. This one focuses on
people. This one, this House, on behalf of the American people, are
turning to those in our armed services and saying, "Thank you. And,
oh, by the way, we respect your sacrifices so much, we increased your
pay."
We take care of many different reforms. We reform the retirement
system. We are going to address the recruiting and retention concerns.
I have to agree with the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie), the
ranking member on the Subcommittee on Military Personnel. There are so
many initiatives that we have done in this bill, they are almost too
numerous to even mention here.
I urge all of my colleagues to support this conference report.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Virginia (Mr. Pickett), a gentleman who is the ranking member on the
Subcommittee on Military Research and Development.
Mr. PICKETT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the conference report
to accompany the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year
2000, and I want to talk in particular for a moment about the research
and development provisions.
The conferees wisely included authorization for several leap-ahead
technologies that will improve our military capabilities on land, in
the air, and at sea. Additional investments are included for basic
research, advanced sensors, improved radars, more sophisticated
munitions, and state-of-the-art communication equipment.
The conferees also made sure that there are substantial funding
increases in missile defense programs, to ensure that the development
of both theater and national missile defense programs will not be
funding constrained.
Mr. Speaker, our Nation's approach to military research investment is
at a critical juncture. With so much change and uncertainty in the
world, it is imperative that we insist upon maintaining our
technological superiority.
Without the sustained fielding of more technological advance systems,
our forces risk the chance of one day finding themselves confronted
with a technological surprise for which they are not prepared and
against which they may not prevail.
{time} 1200
It is my hope that this body will join me, pass this measure today,
and continue our commitment to field the most technologically superior
military anywhere in the world.
Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt).
(Mr. SPRATT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I strongly support the vast majority of this
bill, particularly the pay and retirement provisions. But this good
bill is marred by some of the text, some of the provisions that set up
the National Nuclear Security Administration as a semi-autonomous
agency within the Department of Energy.
I have reservations about the way in which these provisions were
inserted in the bill, a little discussion among members of the
conference committee, consultation with the energy committee, and I
have reservations about the substance of the provisions themselves and
that is where I want to direct my attention.
I have heard people say that the existing Department is complicated,
but what we have created is a bit of a complication, too.
In the title that we have added, 3216, section title 32, there are 18
different functions over which this new semi-autonomous agency, on page
458 and 457, will have virtually exclusive authority. Let me show some
of the problems that are created by this.
This bill set up two different offices for counterintelligence, one
of the places where we have really had a problem, two different
offices, one under the Secretary and one under the Administrator. They
have overlapping jurisdiction. The bill does not clearly define how
they interface, who has authority over the other.
If we do not like the way counterintelligence is being conducted in
the new administration, what do we do about it? Well, read on. Because
if we read on, we will find that the bill says that the Secretary can
only interact with this new administration through the administrator,
no other way, he can only get the guy fired if he does not respond to
his directives. There is no interface proscribed in the bill.
I do not think this was intended. This was a matter of haste and a
matter of doing this without vetting it adequately both within the
conference and outside the conference.
Here is another problem: We have established these 18 separate
departments. As I said, the section 3213 severely hamstrings the
Secretary's ability to use his staff to provide oversight because the
act says explicitly, nobody who works for the administration "shall be
responsible to and subject to the authority, direction, and control
of" anybody in the Department of Energy except for the Secretary.
What was the criticism Warren Rudman made of this agency? That it has
been arrogant, that it has not been responsive to criticism, that it
has been insensitive. We are just enforcing that with this particular
statute if it does not work.
This needs to be taken back to the drafting room. It needs to be
reworked. We can do it in an afternoon or so. It is not a lot of work.
But there are places in this bill that are going to give us problems in
the future and if not addressed, indeed could worsen the very problems
that we are dealing with right now. It duplicates bureaucracy. It
undercuts the Secretary.
Do my colleagues think 46 attorney generals have an idle concern? Can
we
[[Page H8308]]
at least not relitigate this issue? They say that the Federal
Compliance Act, which finally said that all of these nuclear weapons
facilities were subject to RCRA and CERCLA and environmental laws. They
say that it is undercut, that this is in doubt.
We at least should go back to the bill and dispel that and not
relitigate this issue. It needs to be reworked. We will have an
opportunity to vote on the motion to recommit, and I urge my colleagues
to vote for it.
Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) the chairman of our Subcommittee on Research
and Development.
(Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania asked and was given permission to revise
and extend his remarks.)
Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank my distinguished
chairman and the ranking member for their leadership on this issue.
I rise to say that I have the highest regard for my good friend from
Michigan, and he knows that. We are good friends; but I have to oppose
him on this issue, Mr. Speaker.
This bill is a good bill. In fact, it is an excellent bill. I
understand the concerns about not involving the committee, and I
empathize with that and think we do not do a good job in that regard.
But I think it is also fair for Members to understand, this Congress
could not get a major DOE reform bill through this body with the
President's signature. It would not happen. It will happen as a part of
this defense bill.
It is important that we understand a motion to recommit opens the
entire conference up well beyond the scope of just this issue, and that
is going to cause problems for every Member in this institution who has
an interest in this bill, including issues like the pay raise. We just
cannot say it is a free vote that we vote for the motion to recommit.
Mr. Speaker, there is a big problem here. It was the Secretary of
Energy who, in 1993, did away with the FBI background checks. It was
the Secretary of Energy in 1993 who changed the color-coded
classifications status at our labs. It was the Secretary of Energy in
1994 who overruled the Oakland office and allowed an employee who had
given away secrets to still work. And it was the Secretary of Energy
who in 1994 gave away the warhead design for the W-87 warhead to a U.S.
News and World reporter.
We need this bill and we need Members to vote "yes" on the bill and
"no" on the motion to recommit.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Connecticut (Mr. Larson) a freshman who is doing an outstanding job.
(Mr. LARSON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. LARSON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the
time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this very important
legislation. I want to thank the gentleman from South Carolina
(Chairman Spence) and our great leader the gentleman from Missouri (Mr.
Skelton) for their hard work in putting together this important piece
of legislation, important to the needs of the men and women in uniform.
As a freshman, I was honored to serve on the conference committee
with Members of the Senate. The bill before us is maintaining a
commitment made. The bill before us, as eloquently stated by the
gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) makes this truly a year of the
troops. We have heard their needs. We have addressed them.
This bill provides our soldiers with a 4.8 percent pay increase,
improves retirement benefits, and increases housing allowances for our
military families. Most importantly for me, this bill and this
committee has recognized the important and necessary role of the F-22
fighter in the Air Force Modernization and Readiness program by fully
authorizing the Air Force request for $1.8 billion in procurement
funds.
The authorization of the F-22, of course, is also supported by
Defense Secretary Cohen, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and most important to
me, by truly the Jedi warriors of this Nation, the men and women of the
United States Air Force.
I want to commend my colleagues on the committee again, especially
the gentleman from South Carolina (Chairmans Spence) and our great
leader the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) for their strong
leadership and bipartisan drafting of an excellent piece of legislation
that addresses personnel, readiness, and the modernization needs of
21st century Armed Services and has truly made this a "year of the
troops."
Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Sawyer).
(Mr. SAWYER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. SAWYER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to praise the bill and to support the
narrowly focused and enormously important motion to recommit.
The unintended consequences of the proposed semi-autonomous agency
simply have not been adequately vetted. While it is important to shore
up our Nation's labs, we cannot destroy hard-won environmental, safety,
and health standards.
In the long struggle to make our Nation secure, we have allowed it to
become dangerous to our own communities and citizens. If it had been
that easy to change the culture of secrecy and drift, we would have
done it. Instead, we have fought long and hard to make the Department
of Energy responsible to the public; and it would be irresponsible to
turn back the clock now.
In the 1980s, before many of the existing safety standards were
adopted, the Fernald Uranium Processing Plant in Ohio went unchecked,
leaving behind a wasteland of nuclear materials and at a cost of
hundreds of millions of dollars to American taxpayers.
At the time, the DOE operated in secrecy, arguing that environmental
and safety oversight would compromise national security. They promised
to protect the safety of the workers and the environment in Fernald.
However, DOE, prioritizing production goals and security over
environmental and safety standards, did too little too late.
Creating an independent agency would turn back the clock. The
problems of our Nation's labs are profound, and the importance of their
work deserve a comprehensive solution.
Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Ohio
(Mr. Traficant).
Mr. TRAFICANT. Mr. Speaker, I support the bill and oppose the motion
to recommit.
I want to commend the gentleman from South Carolina (Chairman
Spence), the gentleman from Missouri (Chairman Skelton), and the
gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) specifically for helping me keep
my language in dealing with the problem of narcotics and terrorism on
our borders.
My colleagues, 90 percent of all street crime is drug related. Fifty
percent of all murder is drug related. Many of our health care costs
are drug related. And our military is guarding the borders all over the
world while ours are wide open.
It does not mandate it, but it is time that we wage a war on drugs.
For the first time in 5 years, Congress is beginning to show some
attitude against this oversupply of narcotics.
I appreciate it, and I ask all Members of Congress to support this
bill. It is a great bill. I thank those Members who supported my
amendment.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman
from Texas (Mr. Turner).
Mr. TURNER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of this
conference committee report.
I want to recognize the outstanding leadership of the gentleman from
South Carolina (Mr. Spence) and the gentleman from Missouri (Mr.
Skelton) who guided us to the point we are today.
This bill addresses the concerns of the Joint Chiefs of staff who
told us earlier this year that the risk to our ability to meet our
national military commitments was moderate to high.
Earlier this year, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) urged
our committee that this year be remembered as the "Year of the
Troops," and I am very pleased that this historical conference
committee report honors that pledge.
This bill contains the best compensation package for the military
since the early 1980s. This bill also strengthens our national security
by adding $368
[[Page H8309]]
million to develop and field effective theatre and national missile
defenses to counter rapidly evolving ballistic missile threats.
The conference committee took action in response to the Cox Committee
recommendation for reassessment of the adequacy of the current
arrangements for controlling U.S. nuclear weapons securities.
When the Secretary of Energy disagreed with portions of the proposed
reorganization, the committee listened to his concerns and yielded to
him on several points.
On balance, I am confident the reorganization will result in improved
accountability and improved security within our nuclear weapons
programs and it deserves our support.
I urge our colleagues to support the conference committee report.
Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the DOE
reorganization proposals in this bill. These proposals are simply bad
government because they damage environmental protection worker health
and safety and national security.
There were a number of points that were raised by the DOE to explain
why these provisions are bad government. One was the Attorney General's
letter which was mentioned.
Second, the bill could degrade effective public health and safety
regulation of the nuclear defense complex by weakening the Secretary's
ability to direct its regulation independent of the program's internal
direction. The bill could isolate the Department's national security
components for meaningful departmental oversight.
The bill could degrade national security by rolling back recent
actions DOE has taken to identify and flex clear responsibility and
accountability in all of the DOE's national security activities,
including the counterintelligence functions that were strengthened by a
recent presidential directive.
And last, the bill could lead to an erosion between the strong links
between the weapons laboratories and DOE science programs, making
recruitment of top scientists more difficult and uncertain, thereby
jeopardizing the task of sustaining the nuclear deterrent testing.
That is why we should oppose these provisions.
Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
Alabama (Mr. Riley).
Mr. RILEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Defense
Authorization Conference Report.
Mr. Speaker, during the markup of H.R. 1401 by the Committee on Armed
Services, I offered an amendment that would have conveyed real property
at military installations closed under the BRAC at no cost to impacted
communities.
This is an issue of fundamental fairness to me. Base closures can
have a disastrous effect on the affected communities.
In my own district, my largest county may lose two out of every five
jobs as a result of the closure of Ft. McClellan. The last thing we
need to do is to kick these communities when they are down.
Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the gentleman from South Carolina
(Chairman Spence) and the gentleman from Colorado (Chairman Hefley) for
addressing this important issue in the conference report. This language
is terribly important to the communities in Alabama and across the
country who continue to struggle to recover from the effects of a base
closure.
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the willingness to work with me on this
important matter and urge my colleagues to support this conference
report.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New
Jersey (Mr. Andrews).
(Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
{time} 1215
Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the legislation
and in opposition to the motion to recommit.
There are serious problems with the management and security of energy
labs, and they need to be addressed and they are in this bill, perhaps
not perfectly. But those who would support the motion to recommit say
that we should wait on the rest of this bill to work those problems
out. I respectfully and strongly disagree. We should not wait to
reverse the unfounded, and, I think, ill-advised trend in the decline
of defense spending. We should reverse that trend and increase it as
this bill does. We should not wait to restore the spare parts in the
airplanes and equipment that our men and women in uniform are using. We
should certainly not wait to give the long overdue pay and retention
benefit increases to those who serve their country.
There are serious issues that need to be worked out. There will be
opportunities to work those issues out. The wise course today is to
defeat the motion to recommit and enthusiastically approve the
underlying legislation.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
South Carolina (Mr. Spence), and I ask unanimous consent that he be
permitted to control that time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). Without objection, the gentleman
from South Carolina (Mr. Spence) will control 2 additional minutes.
There was no objection.
Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from
Texas (Ms. Granger).
Ms. GRANGER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the fiscal year
2000 defense authorization bill and in opposition to the motion to
recommit. I want to commend the gentleman from South Carolina for his
leadership on this very important legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I support this bill because of a simple principle.
History is littered with the wars that everyone knew would never
happen. Time and again, we have convinced ourselves that we are safe
and secure in a world that is full of despots and danger, and time and
again we have had to resort to blood and iron when words and good
intentions failed us.
Among other things, this bill provides for better pay and better
benefits for our men and women in uniform, and it allocates crucial
money for our shortfalls in operations, training, and infrastructure
maintenance. Finally, it will increase the pace at which our rapidly
aging equipment is modernized or replaced.
Mr. Speaker, this is an important issue and this is an important
bill. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support our
national defense, to support our troops and to support this bill. I
urge them to vote against the motion to recommit so that we may move
forward.
Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
California (Mr. Hunter), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Military
Procurement.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I want to appeal to all of my colleagues to
pay attention to what is at stake right now. We are going to be asked
by the gentleman from Michigan and several other folks to go with a
motion to recommit and basically open up this entire bill and put off
this entire bill. That means that we have to tell those men and women
in uniform, including the people that are still in the Navy which is
18,000 sailors short, that they have to wait on a 4.8 percent pay
increase. We have to tell the people who are not able to fly their
planes in the top gun school because they have a lack of engines that
that may be put off for a while. We have to tell the people that are
waiting for a full ammo supply in the Army where they are $3.5 billion
short of basic ammo that they are going to have to wait. We are going
to have to tell the Marines, the 911 force, they are going to have to
wait and maybe we really do not want to pass this bill today. This bill
is the bare minimum and it is a mandatory necessity in this dangerous
world to start to rebuild national defense.
Let me just say to my friends who have brought up the lawyer
arguments that have been made by some attorneys general. I have read
that language. It is very conditional. They say there may be problems
with this bill. This thing passed 96-1 in the most environmentally
conscious body we have got in this country, in the other body, the
Senate. All of their lawyers scrubbed this thing. Nobody saw any
intrusions in environmental law. I am looking at the sections right now
that says that this new nuclear administration must comply with all
applicable
[[Page H8310]]
environmental, safety and health laws and substantive requirements,
section 3261.
It says that the Administrator must develop procedures to meet the
requirements and the Secretary, that means Bill Richardson, Secretary
of Energy, must assure that the requirements, the environmental
requirements, are met. The Secretary has total control, direction and
authority over this new Administrator.
Let me just lastly say, we have lost a lot of nuclear secrets. This
reform stems those losses and puts the nuclear complex back on safe
footing. That is important.
Pass this bill.
Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished
gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Udall).
(Mr. UDALL of New Mexico asked and was given permission to revise and
extend his remarks.)
Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from
Michigan for yielding me this time.
This motion to recommit is about worker safety, DOE accountability,
environmental protection and public health and safety. It is not about
the military side of this bill. I support the military pay raises,
pensions and all the other good provisions in the bill. But I have two
comments; one on the process. The process how we got these secrecy and
semiautonomous agency provisions is outrageous. There was no
conference, there was no consultation, these provisions were invented
in the dark of night, no hearings, the public excluded. This is not how
we ought to be legislating. Sunshine is the best disinfectant.
Number two, the predecessor agency to the DOE had an abysmal record
on worker safety and environmental protection. If we adopt these
provisions on autonomy, we are headed back to the old days of
violations of worker safety, worker rights, environmental degradation
and destruction.
Vote "yes" on the Dingell motion to recommit.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Virginia (Mr. Sisisky), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on
Military Procurement.
(Mr. SISISKY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. SISISKY. Mr. Speaker, this is a strange debate. We are debating a
conference report that everybody seems to agree with. I have not found
anybody that said the defense bill is a bad bill or even lacking
something. The problem is on a motion to recommit from my learned
friend. I think I am a little older than he is but he has been here a
lot longer than I have.
But what is interesting is that most of the argument is being
subsumed on the Atomic Energy Commission. Now, he remembers the Atomic
Energy Commission. This has nothing to do with the Atomic Energy
Commission. The Secretary of Energy still controls what we are doing
here.
The other argument that they give, which is strange to me, and I know
I am not the wisest guy in reading, but they keep bringing up the
health and the environmental things. I am looking at page 467, section
3261, that has an outline of all the environmental things which makes
the Secretary of Energy responsible. We could go into a lot of things
here. Is it perfect? Probably not. But what we have done is a good
start.
For one thing, we force DOE, we force them, to have a planning
program, a budgeting cycle like any other agency of government. Is that
not strange that they do not have it? We impose discipline so we really
do not have funny money at the end of the year. It is in section 3252.
These are sensible, careful reforms. What worries me, we may not get
these reforms if we vote for the motion to recommit.
Mr. Speaker, this is an important vote. Everybody agrees with the
conference report that I have heard from. Let us be smart. Let us
defeat the motion to recommit and give our people a bill that they are
expecting and they should have.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from South Carolina (Mr.
Spence) has 2 minutes remaining; the gentleman from Missouri (Mr.
Skelton) 1\1/2\ minutes; the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) 2\1/
2\ minutes. Closing will be in the order of the gentleman from
Michigan, the gentleman from Missouri, the gentleman from South
Carolina.
Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt).
Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan for
yielding me this time. I join the gentleman from Michigan (Mr.
Dingell), the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) and others in
opposing the reorganization of the DOE that is provided in this bill,
creating a fiefdom of control of the nuclear establishment that does
not include an authority line from the Secretary of Energy. It is a
serious problem. Civilian control of our nuclear weapons production
facilities is one of the most important responsibilities that we have
here.
I speak with some experience. For nearly a decade, I helped run a DOE
national laboratory. I have seen firsthand the legacy of the Atomic
Energy Commission. And, as any manager will tell you, the best design
for failure is to offer responsibility without authority. That is what
we are doing with the Secretary of Energy here. Keeping the Secretary
of Energy in the line of authority is the best way that we in Congress
and that the citizens of this country can have accountable control of
our nuclear establishment.
Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Michigan (Mr. Dingell) for 1\1/2\ minutes.
(Mr. DINGELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, the motion to recommit is very simple. We
have heard a lot of red herrings about how this is going to jeopardize
the legislation. It is not. The chairman and members of the Committee
on Armed Services could convene a conference, and we could have this
matter back on the floor by early next week. That is not going to delay
anybody getting a pay raise or anything else. What Members are going to
do if they vote for the motion to recommit is to arrange a situation
where we will clarify the Secretary's authority to oversee the new
agency. The Secretary will be able to deal with both the questions of
health, safety, environment, environmental protection and also to deal
with the questions of secrecy. That is what we really want. What the
motion to recommit does is to return us to a situation where we are
very close to the bipartisan agreement that was expressed in the Senate
legislation. If you want a quick way to resolve this problem, let us do
that, because the Senate will accept this in the snap of a finger or
the beat of a heart.
I would urge my colleagues to move in the direction of seeing to it
that the Congress can control the behavior of DOE, the behavior of the
secrecy mavens down there in that agency and to see to it that we have
openness which prevails with regard to environmental safety, health,
worker safety and questions of that kind and to see to it at the same
time that we preserve and protect security.
This legislation as it is now constituted does nothing, nothing, to
assure additional secrecy. As a matter of fact, it returns us to those
curious days when the AEC leaked like a sieve and when there were major
problems in terms of the Congress knowing what was going on down there.
Vote for the motion to recommit. It is good legislation, it is
careful attention to process, and it will leave the public better.
{time} 1230
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, there is a popular television program entitled Jeopardy.
Voting for the motion to recommit is entering into that game of
Jeopardy because a motion to recommit that carries opens up the entire
wonderfully written package for the troops should it go to conference.
I think that we should do our best to protect the pay raises, the pay
table, the new barracks, the family housing, the specialty pay, the
TRICARE additions. We should do our very best to protect this bill.
Mr. Speaker, it is the year of the troops. This is our tribute, the
Congress of the United States' tribute to
[[Page H8311]]
those young men and those young women who wear the American uniform and
represent us so very, very proudly wherever they may be.
Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Thornberry).
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). The gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Thornberry) is recognized for 2 minutes.
(Mr. THORNBERRY asked and was given permission to revise and extend
his remarks.)
Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Speaker, I think there are three points really
that need to be made at the conclusion of this debate. Number one is
that there is no narrow motion to recommit on a conference report. We
cannot send it back with an amendment. All we can do is send it back to
negotiate with the Senate, and everything that is in this conference
report is vulnerable then, and there is no indication we can do any
better. We may do worse by the gentleman from Michigan if we get back
to the negotiations with the Senate, even on the provisions that he is
concerned about. There is no free vote here.
Second point that has to be emphasized is we do not change the
environmental standards one inch. There are several places in this bill
we specifically say the same standards that apply before apply
afterwards, and as a matter of fact, I would remind this body that the
language on the environment was word for word what was adopted
unanimously in the other body by an amendment by Senators Domenici,
Bingaman, Levin, Lieberman, and Reed, hardly a bunch of environmental
extremists as some may have portrayed.
I would also like to mention that the National Governors'
Association, as opposed to what has been said, do not oppose these
provisions. They have expressed some concerns, we have answered them in
those concerns by the letter from the chairman, and both they and the
Attorney Generals Association, once we talk to them and show them the
language, are backing off, and we have that in the record.
I think what it comes down to, Mr. Speaker, is that the President's
own commission studies this problem and says, "You have got one of two
options. You can create a whole new agency, and there are a lot of
folks on our side who would like to do that, put it under DOD or a
completely separate agency. Or, we can have a semi-autonomous entity
within the Department of Energy which the Secretary of Energy has
complete control, authority, and oversight of. That is what we chose to
do in this conference report. The more moderate recommendation of the
President's own commission is exactly what is adopted in this
conference report.
If my colleagues look at the responsibilities of this body to provide
for the country's defense, I think we have no alternative but to vote
against the motion to recommit and support the conference report.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this conference report. It does a
lot to improve the security of the United States, and it should be
supported by all members.
Because of time limits I am only going to address one portion of the
bill, which is Title XXXII, the title which reorganizes the management
of the nuclear weapons program in the Department of Energy. Adopting
Title XXXII gives us a chance to fix a 20 year problem which has
plagued our nation since the Department of Energy was first created.
Mr. Speaker, hardly anyone argues today that there is not a
significant problem in the Department of Energy. Study after study,
report after report have analyzed the problems at DOE for 20 years. The
bottom line is that the management structure at DOE is
"dysfunctional," to quote the report of the President's Foreign
Intelligence Advisory Board, which has caused enormous problems,
including, to some degree, the recent security lapses. But in spite of
the repeated warnings and efforts at reform, little actual reform has
been made.
Some recent studies have focused on security and counterintelligence.
And we owe Chairman Cox and his colleagues a debt of gratitude for
their important, bipartisan report. Other studies have looked at DOE's
problems with large construction projects. We read just last week of a
cost overrun of $350 million and a delay of two years in the National
Ignition Facility about which the Secretary of Energy was as surprised
as anyone because he had been assured in June of this year that
everything was on track. Other studies have focused on health and
worker safety, but whatever the focus they all come back to the
dysfunctional organization of DOE as a basic, fundamental problem,
which has to be solved before other problems are resolved.
This bill gives us the opportunity to do something that virtually
everyone who has studied the problem believes should be done, and yet
no one has been able to do. It is an opportunity we should not let pass
us by.
Title XXXII establishes a semi-autonomous agency within the
Department of Energy called the National Nuclear Security
Administration. The new NNSA will have two traits missing from DOE for
the last 20 years--accountability and a clear mission.
The current situation was best described by Dr. Victor Reis, who
served as the Assistant Secretary of Energy for Defense Programs from
1993 until last month. Dr. Reis testified, "The root cause of the
difficulties at DOE is simply that DOE has too many disparate missions
to be managed effectively as a coherent organization. The price of
gasoline, refrigerator standards, Quarks, nuclear cleanup and nuclear
weapons just don't come together naturally."
NNSA will have some measure of insulation from all of those other
functions of DOE unrelated to national security. Thus, it can have a
tighter focus on the essential work related to nuclear weapons.
Reis went on to describe the efforts of Secretary after Secretary to
pull the Department together creating new cross-cutting organizations
for environment, safety, health, security, information, policy,
quality, and so on, but "because of all this multilayered cross
cutting, there is no one accountable for the operation of any part of
the organization by the Secretary, and no Secretary has the time to
lead the whole thing effectively. By setting up a semi-autonomous
agency, many of these problems go away."
Previously, no one below the Secretary has been in charge of the
nuclear weapons complex; no one person had the authority to make
something happen; no one could be held accountable for mistakes. Title
XXXII establishes a clear chain of command with definite lines of
responsibility and of accountability which are essential to
accomplishing the core mission of the complex and also ensuring that
security, health, safety, and other issues are handled appropriately.
There are some who argue that we cannot rely on the people who do the
day to day work to look after health and safety too. It's like the fox
guarding the chicken coop, they say. Frankly, I am offended by the idea
that the people who work at the Pantex Plant in my district and who
live in the area and whose children go to school there cannot be
trusted to work safely. We just have to have a management system that
makes it clear what is expected of them and who holds them accountable
if they disregard it.
I would also remind my colleague that for more than 40 years the
Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program has had full and complete
responsibility for more nuclear reactors than the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission. Any of their reactors can be pulled into virtually any port
in the world with no concern to the environment or safety. That kind of
record and that kind of commitment is what we need in the nuclear
weapons complex, and this bill helps us to accomplish it.
Dr. Reis has testified that "[t]he mission of the nuclear weapons
complex is national security at its most profound and long lasting." I
agree. This is not a place to play political games or worry about turf.
The only thing that matters is doing what's right for the security of
our country and the freedom of our children. Title XXXII and this
entire bill help ensure both.
Mr. Speaker, this Title is the result of a lot of hours and work by a
number of people. Senators Domenici, Kyle, and Murkowski and their able
staffs carried the burden in the Senate. In the House, I want to
express my appreciation to Chairman Spence and Chairman Hunter for all
of their work and support on this portion of the bill. I also want to
thank my colleagues, Ms. Wilson and Ms. Tauscher for their tireless
work and persistence in making sure that this reorganization was done
right. Our committee staff, particularly Dr. Andy Ellis and Robert
Rangel deserve special commendation for pushing this product through
the conference process.
I also can't help but note that Dr. Victor Reis, who served this
country with distinction for more than 30 years in key positions lost
his job because he believed that we could not continue with business as
usual at the Department of Energy. His courage and patriotism in
telling the Administration what they did not want to hear should be
commended, and I hope that future administrations can take advantage of
Dr. Reis's skill, experience, and judgment, as well as his courage and
love of country.
Finally, I want to single out Clay Sell of my staff for his work, not
only on this Title in this bill, but for his work on the issue of DOE
management reform over the past four years. I am
[[Page H8312]]
very fortunate to work with many outstanding people every day, but none
can outshine Clay for his hard work, intelligence, and, in this matter,
pure persistence--all of which has been devoted toward enhancing the
security of our nation.
Mr. SANDLIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support for S. 1059,
the Department of Defense Authorization Conference Report. I believe
this bill is a step in the right direction--a step towards a strong
military, heightened readiness, and a bolstered national security.
Among the bill's many critical provisions is a well-deserved and
long-overdue pay raise for our military men and women in recognition of
their hard work and dedication to their country. This bill provides for
a 4.8 percent pay raise, .4 percent above the Administration's request.
This critical pay raise provision will help ensure that increases are
tied more to performance and promotion than years of service and will
reduce the pay gap between military and civilian pay. Moreover, this
salary increase is a step towards preventing the loss of the best and
brightest men and women who find it increasingly difficult to manage on
a military salary.
This legislation would also reform the military retirement system and
provide service members an opportunity to choose which system better
suits their individual needs. It would also extend pay and bonus
authority, expand recruiting and retention, and add additional funds
for military housing. In addition, this bill addresses our nation's
veterans and recognizes their contribution to this country by
guaranteeing their burial benefits, providing retirement flags for
reservists and all the uniformed services, and restoring equity to
widow's entitlement.
This conference report also adds $2.7 billion to the procurement
account for weaponry modernization, a crucial increase for improving
military readiness. It adds $2.8 billion in operations and maintenance
and repair facilities and builds upon the President's proposal to
increase defense spending by $112 billion over the next six years. It
also restores procurement funding for the essential F-22 fighter jet, a
critical part of ensuring our military forces maintain their air
superiority.
The Defense Authorization Conference Report significantly increases
funding for the procurement of weapons, ammunition, and equipment, and
for military construction and will enable the armed forces to modernize
while maintaining a high level of readiness and training. I urge my
colleagues to cast their votes in favor of a strong defense and the
protection of our national security. I urge you to cast your vote in
favor of improving the standard of living for our service men and
women. I urge you to cast your vote in favor of this conference report,
and I urge the President to sign this essential legislation.
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I join my colleagues today in support of
this Conference Report for the FY 2000 Defense Authorization Bill. This
effort was bi-partisan and long overdue. The Conferees worked long and
hard to tie up the loose ends and smooth out the rough edges of the
Defense Authorization Bill. While everything we wanted was not achieved
in Conference, this is still a very fine effort that will go a long way
to ensure that our troops will get much of the pay, equipment, and
infrastructure they so badly need and deserve. This bill is essential
to stemming the decay in readiness and ensuring the security of the
United States and its territories.
Mr. Speaker, no doubt our citizens have by now grown accustomed to
the oft repeated phrase, "we live in dangerous times." The global
community is constantly erupting as it continues to adjust to the
political realities of the post-Cold War structure. Africa is
undergoing immeasurable suffering of disease, civil strife, and
refugees crises. Asia is confronting economic calamities, unfinished
revolutions, long standing rivalries, and emerging powers. South
America is re-confronting Marxist guerrilla insurgencies and
narcoterrorism. Europe has to deal with ethnic conflict, terrorism, and
refugee influxes. The Middle East is faced with growing fundamentalist
movements, terrorism, peace negotiations, and resource scarcities. The
Pacific region is seeking political enfranchisement and issues of
poverty. Faced with this menu of global concerns our military forces
have been deployed in some 30-odd operations world-wide since the
Persian Gulf War. At the same time our defense budget has been squeezed
and capped arbitrarily without consideration or anticipation to the
realities of America's security interests. To be sure, the time has
come to re-assess the role the United States will play and to what
extent our troops will be a part of that role.
Mr. Speaker, I applaud the efforts of Mr. Spence, Mr. Warner, Mr.
Skelton and Mr. Levin in brokering a true bi-partisan bill that will
begin to address many of the concerns that have been discussed here on
Capitol Hill these past months.
Some of the measures that the people of Guam are concerned about have
been included in this bill. In the realm of military construction, the
military facilities located on Guam will benefit from over $100 million
in new construction or improvements. Most notable are the MILCON
projects for the Guam Army Guard Readiness Center and the U.S. Army
Reserve Maintenance Shop--both desperately needed to maintain readiness
and operational capabilities. Additionally, we were able to secure
language that would allow the Guam Power Authority to upgrade two
military transformer substations on Guam. I would like to thank MILCON
subcommittee Chairman Hefley and Ranking Member Taylor, for their wise
counsel and decision in recognizing the need for these vital military
projects on Guam.
I worked closely with Readiness subcommittee Chairman Herb Bateman on
language that would make a technical correction in the economic
reporting requirement for A-76 competition studies. I also worked
closely with several members from both sides of the isle to prevent the
lifting of a moratorium on the outsourcing of DoD security guards.
Additionally, I worked closely with Congressmen Abercrombie and Young
to exempt Guam from any pilot program for military moving of household
goods. This way Guam's small household moving market will be ensured of
robust competition and protection from mainland conglomerates. We
worked closely with members on both sides of the isle to include a
refinement of the BRAC laws that will permit no cost conveyances of
former military property to rural communities for economic development.
On a matter of particular importance to Filipino-Americans, the threat
to the return of the Bells of Balangiga was abated in a compromise
measure between House and Senate conferees. This victory was no small
feat and through our efforts we preserved the issue and permitted the
dialogue to continue. For this effort I would like to thank, Senators
Inouye and Levin for their support. I thank my fellow House Armed
Services colleagues particularly Mr. Stump for his willingness to hear
our concerns.
Mr. Speaker, the underlying bill contains an important provision
directing the Maritime Administration to report on the incidents of
overseas ship repairs of U.S. flagged vessels in the Maritime Security
Fleet. This was in response to the Guam Shipyard's unfair experiences
with subsidized foreign competition in ship repair. It appears that the
Navy in concert with the Military Sealift Command has been flouting the
intent of federal law created to protect American jobs and ship repair
infrastructure. This reporting requirements places the Military Sealift
Command on notice that Congress is watching and will respond if
necessary to gross violations or misdirected policy. I worked closely
with Chairman Bateman, on this initiative and would like to thank him
for his foresight in including this important provision.
Mr. Speaker, the underlying bill included an amendment by Mr.
Bereuter to make permanent the waivers included in the FY 1999 Defense
Authorization Act that allows the Asia-Pacific Center for Security
Studies (which is a component of the Defense Department's U.S. Pacific
Command) to accept foreign gifts and donations to the center, and to
allow certain foreign military officers and civilian officials to
attend conferences, seminars and other educational activities held by
the Asia Pacific Center without reimbursing the Defense Department for
the costs of such activities. This Center, led by retired Marine Corps
Lt. General H.C. Stackpole, is a corner-stone in the engagement program
of military-to-military exchanges through out the Asia-Pacific Region.
This endeavor is a vital component in the goal of strengthening our
ties with both our regional allies and potential allies. I strongly
urge its adoption.
Finally, the Conference report strips the most offensive aspects of
the DeLay amendment that was adopted on the floor that would have
prohibited constructive military to military contacts between the U.S.
and the People's Republic of China. The wiser temperaments of the
Conferees saw fit to recognize the vital importance of America's
engagement with China and ensure that these ties remain unbroken.
I want to thank all of the Committee staff for their tireless efforts
in putting this bill together. I strongly urge my colleagues to vote
"yes" on the Conference Report. In doing so a vote is being cast for
a stronger, more robust military and improved benefits for our troops.
Mr. WELLER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to offer a statement in support
of the Defense Authorization Conference Report which includes a
provision which is very important to a project in my district, the
redevelopment of the Joliet Arsenal.
First, I would like to thank all of my colleagues for the assistance
they have offered on this project over the past five years, and again
with this Conference Report. This Conference Report contains a
provision which clarifies the original intent of Congress that Will
County, Illinois be given 455 acres of federal land at no cost to Will
County taxpayers
[[Page H8313]]
to build a landfill to serve Will County residents and communities
only. I gave this commitment back in 1996 when the original legislation
was passed, and I am adhering to my commitment here today.
I will briefly repeat some historical points regarding the Joliet
Arsenal redevelopment. When first elected to Congress in 1994, I
continued the good work Congressmen O'Brien, Davis and Sangmeister had
initiated to return the 23,000 acres of Arsenal property back to the
Will County residents. Throughout the next year, I worked hard to pave
the way for the Joliet Arsenal Ammunition Plant (JAAP) redevelopment
legislation and was proud to obtain President Clinton's signature on
this important bill in 1996. The redevelopment plan called for the
creation of a 19,000 acre tallgrass prairie park, two industrial parks,
a new national cemetery, and a county landfill.
As the author of the legislation, I embraced the vision of the
original citizens Planning Commission which clearly intended for the
landfill to be established as a local facility serving the needs of
Will County only. It was only after a struggle that I was able to
include a landfill into the redevelopment legislation at all. There
were a number of Army officials and my colleagues in the Congress
concerned about approving a landfill directly bordering a national
park. In addition, the JAAP redevelopment was the first of several like
projects around the country. Given the intense scrutiny this project
was under, I assured those who had concerns that this landfill would be
serving the residents of the County only. I am keeping this promise
today.
Later, local officials commenced efforts to expand the Will County
landfill far beyond the original Congressional intent as a County only
landfill turning it into a regional landfill which would ultimately
house Chicago trash. My position never waivered, as I had made many
promises to my colleagues in this Congress that there would not be a
regional or Chicago landfill placed next to the new home of the
nation's largest veterans cemetery and the 19,000 Midewin National
Tallgrass Prairie. The ultimate solution was to clarify the law to
ensure that County only trash will be accepted at the landfill at the
Joliet Arsenal.
Mr. Speaker, I am deeply committed to ensuring the entire Joliet
Arsenal is redeveloped without delay or compromise. I am equally
committed, though, to ensure the original plan is followed and the
legislation's intent is carried forward. I am pleased that the
provision submitted into the Defense Authorization Act will soon become
law. Thanks to you and all of my colleagues for your assistance on this
important project.
Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the
conference report on S. 1059, National Defense Authorization Act for
Fiscal Year 2000. I am pleased that the bill restores readiness and
quality of life for our men and women in uniform.
In particular, I am pleased that the bill continues to reverse the
Clinton-Gore Administration's neglect of our military. The current
administration like none other has eroded morale, training, readiness,
equipment, and quality of life. This bill reverses many of these trends
and I commend the conferees for their actions to fulfill these
commitments to our troops and military retirees.
This bill continues to add to the procurement budget to ensure that
our troops are the best equipped. We add $2.7 billion above the
Clinton-Gore Administration's request for weapons' procurement, which
will build on the $15 billion in procurements additions we have made
over the past four years. I am also pleased that the bill increases
military pay by 4.8 percent, .4 percent more than requested by the
administration. The move to restore retirement benefits to encourage
good men and women to make a career out of the military is something I
have been very supportive of and am pleased that this matter is
addressed in the bill.
While I am very pleased and supportive of these and many other
provisions in the bill and will vote for the bill because of these
provisions, I am very concerned that the conferees chose to drop an
amendment that was adopted by the House on a 303-115 vote. This
amendment would have increased the capacity of our national launch
ranges by about 20 to 30 percent. In other words, by choosing to spend
only $7.3 million in additional money at our national launch ranges we
could have prevented about nine satellite launches a year from leaving
U.S. soil and instead going to China or Russia for launch.
I cannot understand why the conferees, and most notably the Armed
Services Committee staff, chose to reject this modest proposal, a
proposal that was supported by the Air Force, by NASA, and by a large
majority of the space industry and its various associations. It was
short-sighted of the committee and I am committed to having Congress
revisit this issue until our launch infrastructure resources are
properly attended to.
China and Russia have clearly demonstrated that they cannot be
trusted with advanced technology. Just yesterday, this very House voted
for a bill taking very strong action against Russia for transferring
dangerous missile and weapons technology to Iran. The decision by the
conferees to reject the House bill's provision that would have kept
launches of U.S. built satellites on U.S. soil runs counter to the
passage of the Iran Nonproliferation Act (H.R. 1883).
Furthermore, the Chinese government has proven to be no more
responsible in handling advanced technology. It was the launch
agreements that the Clinton Administration signed with the Chinese that
lead to the Cox-Dicks Select Committee on China. It was this very
decision to allow increased export of U.S. built satellites on Chinese
vehicles that led to the transfer of advanced missile technology
transfer to the communist military government in China. All my
amendment says is let us maximize the use of our own launch facilities
first. This is the best way to curb the transfer of advanced missile
technology.
Mr. KUYKENDALL. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Defense
Authorization conference report. I had intended to engage the
distinguished Chairman of the Research and Development Subcommittee,
Congressman Curt Weldon, in a colloquy to clarify some language in the
report, but the rules precluded it.
The Conferees authorized funds for low cost launch technology. The
conference report specifically authorizes $10 million in funding for
"Low Cost Launch, including Scorpius." The Scorpius program has many
supporters in Congress, it is the most advanced low cost launch system
under development, and it is meeting its goals within budget. The Cox
Committee recommended that Congress should "encourage and stimulate"
further expansion of the American space-launch capacity in the interest
of national security. Funding the Scorpius program does this.
Investment in Scorpius can lead to significant payoffs in the future in
both technological efforts and cost reductions. A low cost launch
capability in America will allow our nation's telecommunications
companies to launch their satellites from the United States, reducing
the security risks associated with overseas launches. I believe that
authorizing and appropriating these funds to further develop Scorpius
is money well spent.
Mr. COSTELLO. Mr. Speaker, I insert the following for the Record on
the DOD Conference Report.
August 4, 1999.
The Honorable Speaker of the House,
Capitol, Washington, DC.
Dear Speaker Hastert: As the House and Senate move forward
with conference negotiations on the Defense Authorization
bill (S. 1059), I urge your continued support of external
regulation of the Department of Energy (DOE) through the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The State of Illinois
has long supported this concept.
Specifically, I urge you to oppose the adoption of language
that would place the regulation of DOE's safety programs in
the hands of a quasi-independent agency that would ultimately
report to DOE. We believe that the continued oversight of
safety by DOE will continue to diminish worker safety as it
has at several facilities throughout the country in recent
years.
In conclusion, I urge you to follow the path that will
allow for the transfer of authority over public health and
safety so that of a truly external regulator, such as the
NRC. Such action would thereby allow closer regulation by the
State of Illinois which works closely and in conjunction with
the NRC.
Thank you, in advance, for your consideration of this
important matter. Should you need additional information
please contact David Kunz in my Washington office.
Sincerely,
George H. Ryan, Governor.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, as the House considers the
conference report for the National Defense Authorization Act for FY-
2000, I would like to restate my intent on a provision I authored in
last year's Defense Authorization Act, which is currently being
implemented by the Department of Energy. The provision (section 3139 of
PL 105-261) created the Office of River Protection ("ORP") to be
headed by a "senior" DOE official who would report directly to the
Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management. This individual would
manage "all aspects" of the tank waste cleanup program at the Hanford
site in my district. The provision also provided to the Manager of the
Office of River Protection all resources "necessary" to manage the
Handford tank privatization project in an "efficient and streamlined"
manner.
As sponsor of this provision of law, my intent is that the Manager of
ORP should be accorded full decision making authority for planning,
budgeting, acquisition, contract administration, and line safety
responsibility for managing cleanup of the legacy high-level
radioactive tank waste threatening the Columbia River. These specific
authorities should include the power to establish a separate budget
control point for all funding required for the operation and
construction of the Handford tank farm program and the privatized
vitrification project. The Manager of ORP should also
[[Page H8314]]
be delegated the authority as head of contract activities for the
purposes of carrying out the duties of the Office of River Protection.
Failing to extend these basic budget and contracting authorities to
the ORP manager is clearly at odds with the provision which bestowed
responsibility for managing "all aspects" of the program on the ORP
Manager and provided him all resources "necessary" to carry out the
program. Further, the legislation expected him to report directly to
the Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management.
Further, the provision in subsections (d) and (e) required reports to
Congress with an integrated management plan and updates on progress.
Semi-annual reports and regular briefings by the Manager of the Office
of River Protection to the Congress are entirely consistent with the
reporting requirements of last year's provision. The progress reports
should address in the status of the ORP, cleanup progress,
expenditures, and any other issues impeding implementation of the
spirit and/or legal requirements of my provision from last year's
defense authorization bill.
I would like to report to the Speaker that I have expressed this
intent to the Assistant Secretary and she has expressed her agreement
with this interpretation.
Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, I voted for the Defense
authorization bill when it was debated earlier here in the House. I did
that for a number of reasons, and especially because it provided for
better compensation and benefits for the men and women of our armed
services.
However, I have serious concerns about a number of changes that were
made to the bill in the conference committee. In particular, I am
concerned about Title 32, which would reorganize the Department of
Energy. I am attaching letters on this subject from Secretary
Richardson and from Colorado's Attorney General, Ken Salazar. The
Secretary is concerned about the potential effect of this part of the
conference report on the environment at and around DOE facilities
across the country--a serious concern, and one I share.
But Attorney General Salazar's concern is even more pressing for
those of us from Colorado, because it relates directly to the Rocky
Flats site. As his letter says, our Attorney General is "concerned
that the pending legislation would delay the closure of Rocky Flats and
substantially drive up cleanup costs." I take that very seriously,
because I think keeping Rocky Flats on tract for cleanup and closure at
the earliest practicable date is a matter of highest priority for our
State.
As you know, Mr. Speaker, Title 32 of the conference report is
completely new. It was not part of the bill that was considered by the
House. Under these circumstances, even though others may not fully
share the Attorney General's concerns on this point--or the even more
far-reaching concerns of Secretary Richardson--I think that the most
prudent thing for us to do is to take longer to review these
reorganization proposals. Accordingly, I will vote for the motion to
recommit the conference report and, if that motion does not succeed, I
will vote against the conference report.
State of Colorado, Department of Law, Office of the
Attorney General,
Denver, Colorado, September 3, 1999.
Re Preserving Colorado's Authority Over Cleanup of Rocky
Flats.
Hon. Mark Udall,
Colorado Congressional Representative,
Washington, DC.
Dear Congressman Udall: I am concerned that pending
legislation to reorganize the Department of Energy (DOE) may
inadvertently impair state regulatory authority over DOE
facilities. The reorganization provisions are in the
Department of Defense FY 2000 Authorization bill as reported
by the conference committee. I wanted to take a moment to
explain how this proposed legislation would specifically
affect Rocky Flats.
As set forth in a letter from attorneys general of more
than forty states and territories, section 3261 could be used
by the federal government to try to undermine the broad
waivers of sovereign immunity currently in environmental
laws, and exempt the National Nuclear Security Administration
(NNSA) from state environmental regulations, permits, orders,
penalties, agreements, and "procedural requirements." If
successful, such arguments would, among other things,
partially repeal the Federal Facilities Compliance Act
(FFCA), which states fought so hard to pass in 1992. The FFCA
clarified the sovereign immunity waiver in the federal
hazardous waste law, and ensured that federal agencies
engaged in the management of hazardous waste would have to
comply with local, state and federal hazardous waste laws in
the same manner and to the same extent as private parties.
This waiver governs the on-going state regulation of Rocky
Flats pursuant to the Colorado Hazardous Waste Act.
Rocky Flats is not specifically named as one of the
facilities that will be transferred to the NNSA. However,
under Sec. 3291(a) of the Act, "national security functions
and activities performed immediately before the date of . . .
this Act" by the Office of Defense Programs, the Office of
Nonproliferation and National Security, or the Office of
Fissile Materials Disposition will be transferred. The
terms, "national security functions and activities" are
not defined in the Act; however, two of these offices are
currently conducting activities at Rocky Flats. Therefore,
based on our preliminary analysis, it appears that at
least portions of the cleanup work would be automatically
transferred to NNSA. These activities are not regulated
under the state hazardous waste law.
In addition, national security functions and activities
performed by "nuclear weapons production facilities" are
also transferred. The definition in Sec. 3281(2)(F) of
"nuclear weapons production facilities" includes "[a]ny
facility of the Department of Energy that the Secretary of
energy, in consultation with the Administrator and the
congress, determines to be consistent with the mission of the
Administration.""Mission" is defined extraordinarily
broadly. Similarly, Sec. 3291(b) provides authority to the
Secretary of DOE to transfer any "facility, mission, or
function" that the Secretary, in consultation with Congress,
determines to be consistent with the mission. Under these
provisions, portions of the Rocky Flats cleanup, or the
entire site could be transferred to NNSA jurisdiction through
a simple administrative action.
Colorado has worked very hard over the years to ensure that
it retains authority over the cleanup of Rocky Flats and
other federal facilities. The federal government has shown
time and again that it is not up to the task of regulating
its own facilities. Obviously, the state has a substantial
interest in ensuring that Rocky Flats is cleaned up in a
manner that will protect the citizens of this state now and
for centuries to come. Consequently, we are very concerned
about any legislative change that could be construed to limit
the regulatory authority we fought so hard to obtain through
the Federal Facility compliance Act of 1992.
I am also concerned that the pending legislation would
delay the closure of Rocky Flats, and substantially drive up
cleanup costs. If work, or portions of work, at Rocky Flats
are transferred to the NNSA, it will likely cause delays
because of the need to coordinate actions between NNSA and
the Office of Environmental Management. Coordination will be
difficult because of NNSA's orientation toward weapons
production and stockpile stewardship, and because of the
NNSA's emphasis on secrecy. Delay means significant cost
increases. It costs about $1.5 million a day just to keep
Rocky Flats open. In addition, DOE facilities that Rocky
Flats depends on to close will be transferred to the NNSA.
The main one is the Nevada Test Site, where we send low-level
waste for disposal. Again, coordination with the NNSA will be
a problem.
If part or all of Rocky Flats is transferred to the NNSA,
delay could also be anticipated as a result of reinvention of
security measures. DOE and its current contractors have made
considerable progress in reviewing national security
interests and tailoring security measures to appropriately
address risks actually posed by nuclear materials at the
site. This painstaking review has streamlined cleanup efforts
by ensuring that precious resources are not wasted in
complying with outmoded security measures that were not
related to actual risks. Any increased security requirements
at Rocky Flats will dramatically increase the time and money
it takes to conduct work in the industrialized Area at
Rocky Flats.
Most environmental cleanup work at Rocky Flats is currently
being deferred in favor of deactivating and decommissioning
the buildings. Accelerating this "D&D" work is vital to
minimizing total cleanup costs because of the high cost of
maintaining buildings and security. But the result is that
environmental contamination cleanup is delayed. Given the
significant pressures on DOE's cleanup budget, it will become
increasingly difficult to ensure continued funding for these
lower-risk, but still very important, activities, especially
if we fail to meet our commitment that Rocky Flats will be
"done" in 2006.
For decades, DOE and its predecessors operated the nuclear
weapons complex under a cloak of secrecy. The sad consequence
of this culture is a $150 billion legacy of environmental
contamination and aging facilities that pose risks to
workers, the public and the environment. The clear intent of
the reorganization provisions is to draw the cloak of secrecy
over the operations of the NNSA. While we absolutely must
ensure protection of national security, it would be folly to
ignore the clear lesson of the past and to extend this cloak
to cover DOE's environmental, safety, and health operations.
Moreover, there is no threat to national security in
retaining external state oversight of environmental, safety,
and health operations. As we mentioned in our previous
letter, Senator Rudman, in his Congressional testimony and in
his Report to the President recommended that responsibilities
for environment, health and safety functions remain with the
DOE Offices of Environmental Management and Environment,
Safety, and Health, and not be transferred to a new security
administration. Undoubtedly, this recommendation was
[[Page H8315]]
based on the Senator's awareness of the unfortunate
"environmental mortgage" created by years of self-
regulation by weapons complex.
I understand that it may not be possible to address these
problems before the Defense Authorization bill is enacted. If
that is the case, and the bill done become law, I urge you to
ensure that these concerns are addressed at the earliest
possible opportunity.
Sincerely,
Ken Salazar,
Attorney General.
____
The Secretary of Energy,
Washington, DC, September 14, 1999.
Oppose DOE Reorganization Proposals
Dear Member of Congress: The Department of Energy
reorganization provisions in the conference agreement on the
pending Defense Authorization bill damage environmental
protection, worker health and safety, and national security.
In short, the conference report vests sweeping and
unprecedented authorities in a new agency (the National
Nuclear Security Administration) purportedly within the
Department of Energy, which makes it impossible for any
Secretary to run the Department. While I have supported the
concept of a semi-autonomous agency in the past, the
provisions in the conference report go far beyond what
constitutes a workable relationship between the Secretary of
Energy and the new agency.
I hope you will oppose these reorganization proposals so
that changes can be made.
The reasons for this recommendation are:
1. As noted in a September 3rd letter from 46 State
Attorneys General, the bill jeopardizes the environment at,
and around, DOE facilities by potentially exempting the new
agency from State environmental requirements.
2. The bill could degrade effective public health and
safety regulation of the nuclear defense complex by weakening
the Secretary's ability to direct its regulation independent
of the program's internal direction.
3. The bill could isolate the Department's national
security components from meaningful Departmental oversight,
thus adding further insularity to the institutional isolation
and arrogance that were faulted on security grounds in the
Rudman report.
4. The bill could degrade national security by rolling back
recent actions we have taken to identify and fix clear
responsibility and accountability in all the Department's
national security activities, including the
counterintelligence functions that were strengthened
according to Presidential Decision Directive 61.
5. The bill could lead to an erosion of the strong links
between the weapons laboratories and the Department's science
programs, making recruitment of top scientists more difficult
and uncertain, thereby jeopardizing the task of sustaining
the nuclear deterrent without testing.
The environment
In the September 3, 1999, letter mentioned above, 46 State
Attorneys General wrote the House leadership urging them to
oppose DOE reorganization provisions, which "would impair
State regulatory authority" and would "weaken the existing
internal and external oversight structure for DOE's
environmental, safety and health provisions." They claim
that "under well-established Supreme Court jurisprudence,
section 3261 could be interpreted as a very narrow waiver of
sovereign immunity, leaving the [new agency] exempt from
State environmental regulations, permits, orders, penalties,
agreements, and `non-substantive requirements'."
They go on to state that the provisions in the conference
report will undercut the following reforms:
The Federal Facility and Compliance Act, passed by Congress
and President Bush in 1992, which clarified that states have
regulatory authority over DOE's hazardous waste management
and cleanup.
Creation of an internal oversight entity in DOE, the Office
of Environment, Safety and Health.
Creation of DOE's Office of Environmental Management, whose
mission is to safely manage DOE's wastes, surplus facilities
and to remediate its environmental contamination.
No one now questions that the weapons complex during the
years of the Cold War left an enormous legacy of
environmental damage. DOE now oversees the largest
environmental cleanup program in the world. The Secretary of
Energy--with direct accountability to the President and the
public--should not be constrained in his ability to direct
actions through his experts to address that legacy. Yet the
conference report places numerous barriers between the
Secretary and the new agency, making it next to impossible
for the Secretary to fulfill the environmental
responsibilities of the Department of Energy.
Health and safety
You may have read articles in the press over the past month
about possible worker exposure and environmental damage at
DOE's Paducah, Kentucky, site, where enriched uranium for
nuclear weapons has been produced. An issue there is whether
thousands of workers unwittingly handled materials tainted
with plutonium and other highly radioactive materials. This
summer a container at Los Alamos lab blew up, spreading
Technitium-99 all over a research room. Luckily the employees
were on their lunch break and no one was contaminated. At
DOE's Savannah River Site in late August plutonium
contamination was detected on seven workers after a
repackaging incident. And at DOE's Pantex plant in Texas a
fire in a nuclear weapons disassembly facility led to a
recent $82,000 civil penalty for the DOE contractor.
The Secretary of Energy must be held responsible for
investigating these incidents and preventing accidents in the
future, yet the DOE reorganization proposal severely
undermines my ability to ensure basic health and safety
protection for workers.
National Security
As you know, the Department of Energy is responsible for
our nuclear weapons stockpile. A more profound responsibility
you will not find in government. Yet the DOE reorganization
proposal all but severs the connection between the Secretary
of Energy and the program which oversees the stockpile. It is
critical that there be a seamless policy and management
connection between the President, the Secretary of Energy and
the program which develops nuclear weapons.
Counterintelligence and Security
Presidential Decision Directive 61, in which the President,
after receiving extensively considered advice from the
intelligence community, determined that the nation's
intelligence, counterintelligence and security
responsibilities regarding nuclear matters must be
consolidated directly under the Secretary of Energy. The
report of the Select Committee led by Chairman Cox and
Ranking member Dicks on Chinese espionage emphasized that
these responsibilities must be placed at the highest level in
the Department. The DOE reorganization proposal would
overrule these judgments by establishing counterintelligence
and security offices in both the Department of Energy and the
new agency. These dual offices would inevitably create
confused lines of authority, undermining an aggressive,
professional counterintelligence and security effort.
Process
Finally these extensive reorganization provisions will be
presented to the house for the first time in a conference
report--no hearings, no floor debate during House passage and
no conference debate. They were formulated and adopted behind
closed doors by the conferees.
I hope you oppose these reorganization proposals in the
Defense conference report. If you have any questions, please
do not hesitate to call me.
Yours sincerely,
Bill Richardson.
Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the conference
report to accompany S. 1059, the National Defense Authorization Act for
fiscal year 2000. This legislation represents a significant improvement
over the defense program presented to the Congress earlier this year by
the Administration. It has been shepherded through the House and
through the conference process by Republicans and Democrats with a deep
desire to keep faith with the men and women in uniform who defend this
Nation. Our bipartisan efforts have previously received overwhelming
support in this House and this conference report also deserves such
support.
This legislation will provide the military equipment, training, pay
and benefits, and adequate living and working conditions that is
required to support the Nation's defense effort.
As the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Installations and
Facilities, I can assure the House that the conferees worked hard to
address the impact of inadequate facilities and military housing on
military retention and readiness. And, we have fully funded the most
critical items for the coming year.
S. 1059, like the legislation that passed the House earlier this
year, rejects the incremental funding of military construction projects
proposed by the Department of Defense. That scheme clearly was not in
the interest of the taxpayer. It would have led to a delay in the
delivery of needed facilities and would certainly have increased their
cost.
Frankly, the Department of Defense left the Congress with a broken
military construction program for fiscal year 2000. To cite but one
example, the conferees needed to add nearly $1.1 billion to the budget
to adequately fund the Department's request to construct or renovate
over 6,200 units of military family housing and begin the construction
or renovation of 43 barracks, dormatories, and BEQs for the single
enlisted--a requirement for which only $313 million was requested. This
housing must be built and occupied as soon as possible and only full
funding can accomplish that. In addition, the conferees agreed to fund
an additional $136 million for 14 other military housing for both
families and the single enlisted to further alleviate the continuing
military housing crisis.
While we could not fix all of the problems associated with the
unfunded military requirements that continue to pile up due to the
broad inattention of the Department to critical infrastructure
upgrades, we have produced a good bill.
From improving military infrastructure and ensuring continued access
to critical military training areas, to a significant effort to enhance
pay and benefits, to continuing our efforts to modernize the Nation's
arsenal, and to
[[Page H8316]]
protecting programs vital to the national security, S. 1059 is
comprehensive defense legislation that meets the real needs confronted
everyday by ordinary Americans who are asked by their country to do
extraordinary things on an almost daily basis. The men and women who
volunteer--and I stress volunteer--to defend the liberty of this Nation
deserve this bill. They deserve your vote. I urge every member to see
this bill for what it is--that is, a meaningful and serious effort to
deal comprehensively with our defense problems. Republicans and
Democrats stood together to develop this legislation and we should
continue to stand together to send this legislation to the President
for his signature.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I strongly support the vast majority of this
bill, particularly the pay and retirement provisions. But this good
bill is marred by some of the text that sets up a National Nuclear
Security Administration as a semi-autonomous agency within the
Department of Energy. I have reservations about the way these
provisions were inserted into the bill with little discussion among the
Members of the Conference Committee, and I have reservations about the
substance of some of these provisions.
I will not speak on the process of the conference at length, but I
cannot dismiss it because I cannot remember the Congress acting on such
an important matter with so little information and discussion among the
Members of the conference committee. Neither the House nor the Senate
Defense Authorization bill contained language requiring a comprehensive
restructuring of the Department of Energy, yet we ended up with about
50 pages worth of text. We did have Senator Rudman testify before the
committee prior to conference, but we did not take testimony from the
Energy Department itself, or from the old senior statesmen of the labs
and nuclear weapons complex, men like Johnny Foster or Harold Agnew.
The legislation that the conference committee ultimately produced was
not vetted in any meaningful manner among the Members, the
Administration, or outside experts. This is not a good process for an
important piece of national security legislation.
My first and foremost concern on the substance of the legislation is
that we have blurred the lines of accountability when it comes to
preventing and ferreting out future espionage at our nuclear labs and
weapons complex. I think one thing we can all agree on is that
counterintelligence requires a clear line of command and
accountability. A clear chain of command was at the heart of
Presidential Decision Directive 61, which the Cox Committee unanimously
recommended be implemented. This legislation contradicts PDD 61 by
setting up two different counterintelligence offices with overlapping
responsibilities, and no clear direction on how the offices are
supposed to interface with each other. The same problem exists in the
respect to dual Inspectors General. I find it ironic that the
restructuring provisions fail in what should have been its top
priority: setting up clear lines of command and accountability on
counterintelligence.
My second and more general concern is that the Secretary's ability to
conduct oversight of the complex could be seriously hampered by this
legislation. We already know that the price of no oversight is a legacy
of contaminated sites that will cost hundreds of billions to clean up.
Revelations about contamination at Paducah show that we cannot
disregard the health and safety concerns for workers in the nuclear
weapons complex and the communities that surround these sites. The
history of the last few decades tells us that the nuclear weapon sites
and activities of the Department of Energy require more sunshine, more
scrutiny, more oversight, not less. Any Secretary of Energy must have
strong oversight authority, and I fear that this legislation detracts
from rather than adding to the Secretary's oversight powers.
Having criticized these provisions, let me say that I do not think
they were drafted with bad intent. But they were drafted hastily,
without adequate hearings, with no vetting among outside authorities,
without the benefit of constructive criticism that comes in the mark-up
process, and without any discussion among members of the conference
committee. The best thing to do is to vote for this motion to recommit,
cut out Title XXXII, and then pass the Authorization Act so that the
pay raise for our troops is not delayed. We will have that opportunity
when at the end of debate when Mr. Dingell offers a motion to recommit.
If we pass that motion, we can then rework the reorganization
provisions in Title XXXII and bring them back to the House in a stand-
alone bill, ensuring that our legislation will safeguard our nuclear
security without returning us to the days when we operated a nuclear
weapons complex with next to no responsible oversight.
Mr RYUN of Kansas. Mr. Speaker, American military personnel and their
families are making great sacrifices to protect the freedoms of this
nation. The increased pace of peacekeeping and humanitarian operations,
combined with declining defense budgets, is severely degrading the
quality-of-life of our military personnel.
Mr. Speaker, the current decline in the military's ability to recruit
and retain quality personnel can be directly attributed to the armed
forces' declining quality-of-life.
S. 1059, the Fiscal Year 2000 national Defense Authorization Act
Conference report attacks the quality-of-life problems of today's
military personnel by:
Providing a 4.8 percent across-the-board pay raise.
Improving retirement benefits by reforming and enhancing the
retirement pay benefit.
Initiating a Thrift Savings Plan for active duty and reserve
personnel.
Reducing out-of-pocket costs for housing by adding $225 million to
the basic allowance for housing (BAH) account.
Ensuring that military personnel live and work in quality facilities
by adding over $3 billion to the President's underfunded military
construction programs.
Mr. Speaker, America's military personnel and their families are
suffering from too many years of "doing more with less." Congress
must help remove the pressures felt by America's military personnel who
put their lives on the line everyday to protect this nation's freedoms.
I urge my colleagues to vote Yes on the Conference Report to S. 1059.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time has expired.
Without objection, the previous question is ordered on the conference
report.
There was no objection.
Motion to Recommit
Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentleman opposed to the conference
report?
Mr. DINGELL. Absolutely.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion to
recommit.
The Clerk read as follows:
Mr. Dingell moves that the conference report be recommitted
to the committee of conference with instructions to the House
conferees that they insist on striking all provisions within
Title XXXII that limit any existing authority of the
Secretary to supervise, manage and direct the National
Nuclear Security Administration and all its personnel, to
retain authority to delegate that authority to any officer or
employee of the Department with respect to such particular
subject matter areas and activities as the Secretary
determines from time to time, to otherwise retain with
respect to the National Nuclear Security Administration all
management authorities provided by the Department of Energy
Organization Act as though that Administration was
established by that Act, to have authority to reorganize
organizational units reporting directly to the Secretary
governed by just the first sentence of section 643 of that
Act (42 U.S.C. 7253), and to retain all authority previously
provided by section 93 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (42
U.S.C. 2122a) to determine governance of Special Access
Programs, including waiver of congressional notification
requirements as specified by law.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The motion is not debatable.
Without objection, the previous question is ordered on the motion to
recommit.
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to recommit.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the noes appeared to have it.
Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 9 of rule XX, the Chair
will reduce to a minimum of 5 minutes the period of time within which a
vote by electronic device, if ordered, will be taken on the question of
agreeing to the conference report.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 139,
nays 281, not voting 13, as follows:
[Roll No. 423]
YEAS--139
Ackerman
Baird
Baldwin
Barrett (WI)
Barton
Becerra
Bentsen
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Bishop
Bliley
Blumenauer
Bonior
Borski
Boucher
Boyd
Brown (FL)
Brown (OH)
Capps
Capuano
Cardin
Carson
Clyburn
Conyers
Costello
Coyne
Crowley
Cummings
Davis (FL)
Davis (IL)
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
Deutsch
Dingell
Dixon
Doggett
Doyle
Engel
Eshoo
Evans
Farr
Filner
Frank (MA)
Gephardt
Gonzalez
Gordon
Gutierrez
Hall (OH)
Hall (TX)
Hill (IN)
Hinchey
Holt
Hooley
Inslee
Jackson-Lee (TX)
John
Jones (OH)
Kanjorski
Kildee
Kilpatrick
Kind (WI)
Kleczka
Klink
Kucinich
LaFalce
[[Page H8317]]
Lantos
Lee
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Lofgren
Lowey
Luther
Maloney (CT)
Markey
Martinez
Matsui
McCarthy (MO)
McCarthy (NY)
McDermott
McGovern
McNulty
Meehan
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Menendez
Miller, George
Minge
Moakley
Moore
Moran (VA)
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Owens
Pallone
Pastor
Payne
Petri
Phelps
Porter
Rahall
Rangel
Rivers
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Rush
Sabo
Sanders
Sawyer
Schakowsky
Sensenbrenner
Serrano
Slaughter
Spratt
Stabenow
Stark
Strickland
Stupak
Thompson (CA)
Thurman
Tierney
Towns
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Velazquez
Vento
Visclosky
Watt (NC)
Waxman
Weiner
Woolsey
Wu
Wynn
NAYS--281
Abercrombie
Aderholt
Allen
Andrews
Archer
Armey
Bachus
Baker
Baldacci
Ballenger
Barcia
Barr
Barrett (NE)
Bartlett
Bass
Bateman
Bereuter
Biggert
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Blagojevich
Blunt
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bono
Boswell
Brady (PA)
Brady (TX)
Bryant
Burr
Burton
Buyer
Callahan
Calvert
Camp
Campbell
Canady
Cannon
Castle
Chabot
Chambliss
Chenoweth
Clay
Clement
Coble
Coburn
Collins
Combest
Condit
Cook
Cooksey
Cox
Cramer
Crane
Cubin
Cunningham
Danner
Davis (VA)
Deal
DeLay
DeMint
Diaz-Balart
Dickey
Dicks
Dooley
Doolittle
Dreier
Duncan
Dunn
Edwards
Ehlers
Ehrlich
Emerson
English
Etheridge
Everett
Ewing
Fattah
Fletcher
Foley
Forbes
Ford
Fossella
Fowler
Franks (NJ)
Frelinghuysen
Frost
Gallegly
Ganske
Gejdenson
Gekas
Gibbons
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gilman
Goode
Goodlatte
Goodling
Goss
Graham
Granger
Green (TX)
Green (WI)
Greenwood
Gutknecht
Hansen
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Hayworth
Hefley
Herger
Hill (MT)
Hilleary
Hilliard
Hinojosa
Hobson
Hoeffel
Hoekstra
Holden
Horn
Hostettler
Houghton
Hoyer
Hulshof
Hunter
Hutchinson
Hyde
Isakson
Istook
Jackson (IL)
Jenkins
Johnson (CT)
Johnson, E. B.
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
Kaptur
Kasich
Kelly
Kennedy
King (NY)
Knollenberg
Kolbe
Kuykendall
LaHood
Lampson
Largent
Larson
Latham
LaTourette
Lazio
Leach
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (KY)
Linder
Lipinski
LoBiondo
Lucas (KY)
Lucas (OK)
Maloney (NY)
Manzullo
Mascara
McCollum
McCrery
McHugh
McInnis
McIntosh
McIntyre
McKeon
Metcalf
Mica
Miller (FL)
Miller, Gary
Mink
Mollohan
Moran (KS)
Morella
Murtha
Myrick
Nethercutt
Ney
Northup
Norwood
Nussle
Ortiz
Ose
Oxley
Packard
Pascrell
Paul
Pease
Peterson (MN)
Peterson (PA)
Pickering
Pickett
Pitts
Pombo
Pomeroy
Portman
Quinn
Radanovich
Ramstad
Regula
Reyes
Reynolds
Riley
Rodriguez
Roemer
Rogan
Rogers
Rohrabacher
Roukema
Royce
Ryan (WI)
Ryun (KS)
Salmon
Sanchez
Sandlin
Sanford
Saxton
Scarborough
Schaffer
Scott
Sessions
Shadegg
Shays
Sherman
Sherwood
Shimkus
Shows
Shuster
Simpson
Sisisky
Skeen
Skelton
Smith (MI)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Souder
Spence
Stearns
Stenholm
Stump
Sununu
Sweeney
Talent
Tancredo
Tanner
Tauscher
Tauzin
Taylor (MS)
Taylor (NC)
Terry
Thomas
Thompson (MS)
Thornberry
Thune
Tiahrt
Toomey
Traficant
Turner
Upton
Walden
Walsh
Wamp
Watkins
Watts (OK)
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Weller
Wexler
Weygand
Whitfield
Wicker
Wilson
Wise
Wolf
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
NOT VOTING--13
Clayton
Hastings (FL)
Jefferson
Kingston
McKinney
Millender-McDonald
Pelosi
Price (NC)
Pryce (OH)
Ros-Lehtinen
Shaw
Vitter
Waters
{time} 1256
Messrs. GEJDENSON, RADANOVICH and SHAYS changed their vote from
"yea" to "nay."
Messrs. BAIRD, DAVIS of Illinois, EVANS, MARTINEZ and Ms. JACKSON-LEE
of Texas changed their vote from "nay" to "yea."
So the motion to recommit was rejected.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Quinn). The question is on the
conference report.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
The conference report was agreed to. Without objection the motion to
reconsider was laid on the table.
There was no objection.
Recorded Vote
Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent for a recorded vote.
Without objection, a recorded vote was ordered.
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. This will be a 5-minute vote.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 375,
noes 45, not voting 13, as follows:
[Roll No. 424]
AYES--375
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Aderholt
Allen
Andrews
Archer
Armey
Bachus
Baird
Baker
Baldacci
Ballenger
Barcia
Barr
Barrett (NE)
Bartlett
Bass
Bateman
Becerra
Bentsen
Bereuter
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Biggert
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop
Blagojevich
Blumenauer
Blunt
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bonior
Bono
Borski
Boswell
Boucher
Boyd
Brady (PA)
Brady (TX)
Brown (FL)
Brown (OH)
Bryant
Burr
Burton
Buyer
Callahan
Calvert
Camp
Campbell
Canady
Cannon
Capps
Cardin
Carson
Castle
Chabot
Chambliss
Chenoweth
Clay
Clayton
Clement
Clyburn
Coble
Coburn
Collins
Combest
Condit
Cook
Cooksey
Costello
Cox
Coyne
Cramer
Crane
Crowley
Cubin
Cummings
Cunningham
Danner
Davis (FL)
Davis (VA)
Deal
Delahunt
DeLauro
DeLay
DeMint
Deutsch
Diaz-Balart
Dickey
Dicks
Dixon
Doggett
Dooley
Doolittle
Doyle
Dreier
Duncan
Ehrlich
Emerson
Engel
English
Eshoo
Etheridge
Evans
Everett
Ewing
Farr
Fattah
Fletcher
Foley
Forbes
Ford
Fossella
Fowler
Franks (NJ)
Frelinghuysen
Frost
Gallegly
Ganske
Gejdenson
Gekas
Gephardt
Gibbons
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gilman
Gonzalez
Goode
Goodlatte
Goodling
Gordon
Goss
Graham
Granger
Green (TX)
Greenwood
Gutknecht
Hall (OH)
Hall (TX)
Hansen
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Hayworth
Hefley
Herger
Hill (IN)
Hill (MT)
Hilleary
Hilliard
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hobson
Hoeffel
Hoekstra
Holden
Hooley
Horn
Hostettler
Houghton
Hoyer
Hunter
Hutchinson
Hyde
Inslee
Isakson
Istook
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jenkins
John
Johnson (CT)
Johnson, E. B.
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
Jones (OH)
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kasich
Kelly
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilpatrick
Kind (WI)
King (NY)
Kleczka
Klink
Knollenberg
Kolbe
Kuykendall
LaFalce
LaHood
Lampson
Lantos
Largent
Larson
Latham
LaTourette
Leach
Levin
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (GA)
Lewis (KY)
Linder
Lipinski
LoBiondo
Lofgren
Lucas (KY)
Lucas (OK)
Luther
Maloney (CT)
Maloney (NY)
Manzullo
Martinez
Mascara
Matsui
McCarthy (MO)
McCarthy (NY)
McCollum
McCrery
McDermott
McGovern
McHugh
McInnis
McIntosh
McIntyre
McKeon
McNulty
Meehan
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Menendez
Metcalf
Mica
Miller (FL)
Miller, Gary
Miller, George
Mink
Moakley
Mollohan
Moore
Moran (KS)
Moran (VA)
Morella
Murtha
Myrick
Napolitano
Neal
Nethercutt
Ney
Northup
Norwood
Nussle
Olver
Ortiz
Ose
Owens
Oxley
Packard
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Pease
Peterson (MN)
Peterson (PA)
Phelps
Pickering
Pickett
Pitts
Pombo
Pomeroy
Porter
Portman
Quinn
Radanovich
Rahall
Ramstad
Regula
Reyes
Reynolds
Riley
Rodriguez
Roemer
Rogan
Rogers
Rohrabacher
Rothman
Roukema
Royce
Rush
Ryan (WI)
Ryun (KS)
Salmon
Sanchez
Sandlin
Sanford
Sawyer
Saxton
Scarborough
Schaffer
Scott
Serrano
Sessions
Shadegg
Sherman
Sherwood
Shimkus
Shows
Shuster
Simpson
Sisisky
Skeen
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (MI)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Souder
Spence
Spratt
Stabenow
Stearns
Stenholm
Strickland
Stump
Stupak
Sununu
Sweeney
Talent
Tancredo
Tanner
Tauscher
Tauzin
Taylor (MS)
Taylor (NC)
Terry
Thomas
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Thornberry
Thune
Thurman
Tiahrt
Tierney
Toomey
Traficant
Turner
Udall (NM)
Upton
Velazquez
Vitter
Walden
Walsh
Wamp
Waters
Watkins
Watt (NC)
Watts (OK)
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Weller
Wexler
Weygand
Whitfield
Wicker
[[Page H8318]]
Wilson
Wise
Wolf
Woolsey
Wynn
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
NOES--45
Baldwin
Barrett (WI)
Barton
Bliley
Capuano
Conyers
Davis (IL)
DeFazio
DeGette
Dingell
Ehlers
Filner
Frank (MA)
Gutierrez
Holt
Jackson (IL)
Kucinich
Lazio
Lee
Lowey
Markey
McKinney
Minge
Nadler
Oberstar
Obey
Paul
Payne
Pelosi
Petri
Rangel
Rivers
Sabo
Sanders
Schakowsky
Sensenbrenner
Shays
Stark
Towns
Udall (CO)
Vento
Visclosky
Waxman
Weiner
Wu
NOT VOTING--13
Dunn
Edwards
Green (WI)
Hastings (FL)
Hulshof
Jefferson
Kingston
Millender-McDonald
Price (NC)
Pryce (OH)
Ros-Lehtinen
Roybal-Allard
Shaw
{time} 1307
So the conference report was agreed to.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
Stated for:
Mr. GREEN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 424, I was
unavoidably detained on House business of critical importance to
Wisconsin. Had I been present, I would have voted "aye."