Copyright 2000 eMediaMillWorks, Inc.
(f/k/a Federal
Document Clearing House, Inc.)
FDCH Political Transcripts
May 9, 2000, Tuesday
TYPE: COMMITTEE HEARING
LENGTH: 9491 words
HEADLINE:
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE DUNCAN HUNTER (R-CA) HOLDS MILITARY PROCUREMENT MARKUP;
MILITARY PROCUREMENT SUBCOMMITTEE, HOUSE ARMED SERVICES
COMMITTEE
LOCATION: WASHINGTON, D.C.U.S. REPRESENTATIVE
DUNCAN HUNTER (R-CA), CHAIRMAN
BODY:
HOUSE ARMED
SERVICE COMMITTEE: SUBCOMMITTEE ON MILITARY
PROCUREMENT HOLDS FY 2001
MILITARY PROCUREMENT MARKUP
MAY 9, 2000
SPEAKERS: U.S.
REPRESENTATIVE DUNCAN HUNTER (R-CA), CHAIRMAN
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FLOYD
SPENCE (R-SC)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE BOB STUMP (R-AZ)
U.S.
REPRESENTATIVE JAMES V. HANSEN (R-UT)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JIM SAXTON
(R-NJ)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JAMES M. TALENT (R-MO)
U.S.
REPRESENTATIVE TERRY EVERETT (R-AL)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE J.C. WATTS, JR.
(R-OK)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE WILLIAM M. "MAC" THORNBERRY (R-TX)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE LINDSEY O. GRAHAM (R-SC)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE
JIM RYUN (R-KS)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JIM GIBBONS (R-NV)
U.S.
REPRESENTATIVE MARY BONO (R-CA)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JOSEPH R. PITTS
(R-PA)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ROBIN HAYES (R-NC)
U.S.
REPRESENTATIVES NORMAN SISISKY (D-VA), RANKING MEMBER
U.S.
REPRESENTATIVE IKE SKELTON (D-MO)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JOHN M. SPRATT,
JR. (D-SC)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE LANE EVANS (D-IL)
U.S.
REPRESENTATIVE ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH (D-IL)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE THOMAS H.
ALLEN (D-ME)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JIM TURNER (D-TX)
U.S.
REPRESENTATIVE ADAM SMITH (D-WA)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JAMES H. MALONEY
(D-CT)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE MIKE MCINTYRE (D-NC)
U.S.
REPRESENTATIVE CYNTHIA MCKINNEY (D-GA)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ELLEN
TAUSCHER (D-CA)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ROBERT BRADY (D-PA)
*
HUNTER: The subcommittee will come to order.
In October 1995, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff first
advised the secretary of defense that in order to recapitalize U.S. armed forces
after a decade of ever-decreasing defense procurement budgets,
$60 billion would be required annually by fiscal year 1998.
Over four years
after this pronouncement and three years after its subsequent endorsement by the
1997 quadrennial defense review, the fiscal 2001 budget request
finally reaches this level, although it is $1.5 billion below what was forecast
at the time the fiscal year 2000 budget was submitted to the
Congress only one year ago, the sixth consecutive year this situation has
occurred.
Consequently, it is not surprising that the service chiefs
continue to lament the fact that many of their modernization needs continue to
go unmet. What is surprising is the fact that notwithstanding these unmet needs,
the future-years defense program regularly forecast reductions to the
procurement budgets in fiscal years 2004 and 2005 from those
made a year ago, while at the same time prominent former department of defense
leaders in the current administration advocate large increases to these
budgets.
For example, former Secretary of Defense
William Perry testified before the committee earlier this year that, and I
quote: "Procurement proposed to you in this budget is $60
billion in round figures. My own judgment is it probably needs to be perhaps $70
to $80 billion."
Also in testimony before the Defense Subcommittee,
the Senate Appropriations Committee, just prior to his resignation in March,
former Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre -- a guy a lot of us respect
greatly -- noted: "Even though we got the $60 billion in our modernization
budget, we're still not really making up for the hole that we
dug for ourselves during the '90s -- actually the second half of the '80s and
the '90s -- and we're going to have to do a better job later on. This is where
people said: Well, what will it cost to do that? I don't believe it's $100
billion a year to do that, but I think it's in the $10 to $15 billion more a
year for procurement in addition to start getting out of that hole," close
quote.
Now that was John Hamre.
We also had former
SecDef Schlesinger appear before us, and his testimony was to the effect that we
might be shorting the defense budget by as much as $100 billion
per year.
The point that he made and that everybody made was that if
you simply line up -- and CBO early on last year gave us the same type of
analysis -- if you line up all these systems and platforms, establish their
useful life and determine how many that you have to buy at steady state to keep
your fleet of platforms half-way modern, you have to spend, according to CBO, an
additional $20 to $30 billion per year. And you've heard the testimony from
other people, including President Clinton's own former Secretary of Defense Bill
Perry.
And so the consensus is that we're $10 to as much as $100
billion a year short in terms of maintaining modernization of military service
equipment.
Having added nearly $18 billion of the procurement
budget requests for the past five years, this committee
obviously shares the views of the two former senior DOD officials.
However, during most of this period we have found ourselves to be
seriously hampered in advocating a dramatically larger modernization
budget by a lack of support from the DOD civilian leadership,
including those individuals who now have testified that, indeed, increased
procurement funding is required.
Consequently, we've been unable to
sustain the healthy $5 to $6 billion adds we made to the procurement accounts,
that it made in fiscal years '96 and '97. Nevertheless, fiscal year 2001 marks
the sixth consecutive year we have increased the president's
budget. And the $2.6 billion added has, again, been largely
devoted to funding equipment for which, according to the service chiefs,
requirements have not been met.
So let me summarize what this mark
does.
In addition to the $2.6 billion add, it makes reductions to
the president's request of around $900 million, which allows for $3.5 billion of
upward adjustments. Of these adjustments, $2.8 billion are in the procurement
accounts, $500 million are in the R&D accounts, $200 million are to the DOE
accounts, and over $2.1 billion is for equipment on the service chiefs' unfunded
requirements list.
So the great majority of this -- and we had some
$13 billion in requests by the members for adjustments to the
budget, and the overwhelming number of which are in this mark
are ones in which the members' requests and recommendations overlap what the
service chiefs gave to us as unfunded requirements.
We also do the
multi-year procurement requests for the UH-60 helicopter and the M2A3 Bradley
fighting vehicle.
Finally, we add the funds to a lot of programs,
most of which are on the unfunded requirements list. And I want to give some
examples.
Army: airborne reconnaissance, low reconnaissance, UC-35,
UH-60 helicopters, TH-67, Bradley fighting vehicles upgrades, M113A3 carrier
mods, small arms, ammunition, FMTV night vision devices, communications
equipment, heavy assault bridge, breacher construction equipment.
Navy and Marine Corps: KC-130J, C-40, CH-60, UC-35, T-45s, E-2
upgrades, EA-6B upgrades, F-18 upgrades, HH1-UH1 reclamation conversion, joint
standoff weapon, Hellfire missiles, SLAM-ER, High MARS (ph), HMMWV, improve
recovery vehicle, Navy ammo, Marine Corps ammo.
Air Force: F-15E --
and I'm going to explain what we did on that in just a minute -- F-16C, EH-C
advanced procurement, B-2 upgrades, F- 15 upgrades, F-16 upgrades, A-10
upgrades, C-130 upgrades, EC-138 simulator, passenger safety modifications,
Predator UAV, C-17 weapons systems and maintenance trainers, KC-135 re-engining,
defense airborne reconnaissance program, extended-range cruise missile, joint
direct attack munition 500-pound variant, joint standoff weapon, RC-135 mission
trainer.
And defense-wide -- a number of members have been to this
briefing -- PAC 3 missile upgrades and PAC 2 missile upgrades.
And
I'm going to ask the staff in just a second to review the bill and directive
report language.
But I wanted to mention a couple of things before I
turn it over to my good colleague Norman Sisisky, and that is that we have
followed several themes that we established six years ago really, some of them a
couple of years ago, but the things that we thought were priorities for the
defense of this country.
One of those things was arming the bombers,
acknowledging that we have a small B-2 fleet, nonetheless -- and a relatively
small B-1 fleet and an aging B-52 fleet. We determined that we would do
everything we could to make the platforms that we have effective and capable,
including putting the equipment on those platforms to enable them to carry the
weapon of the future, and that is a precision munition, and also to provide the
types of precision munitions that would allow that bomber fleet to project the
power of the United States wherever we needed to, whether it's from a foreign
base or a base in the United States.
We've been working on that for
six years. This subcommittee has been working hard with the support of our good
chairman, Mr. Spence, and we saw that pay off in this last conflict that we had
in Kosovo. One of the stars of that conflict was the bomber force flying out of
the United States with precision munitions. We are continuing that theme in this
markup, to arm the bombers and make the bombers effective, make those platforms
effective.
Also we noticed there was a shortage of ammo across the
board. We have a shaky ammo industrial base. We've endeavored every year to add
substantial ammo buys to the administration's request; we've done that again
this year.
Precision munitions: We're continuing to increase the
administration's purchase of precision munitions.
And I want to draw
the subcommittee's attention to JDAMs. We're trying to build now a 500-pound
JDAM. That gives our bomber fleet the ability to knock out a lot more targets
per sortie than they have in the past, simply because you can put -- with this
new JDAM you can put a 500-pound munition on a target. If it can take that
target out, you don't have to put a 2,000-pound munition on it. That carries
American air power to a more effective level.
Also, we are
preserving in this bill submarine options for the next president. And we think
that's an important thing to do, because we now -- we have a joint staff report
that says that we should have as many as 68 attack submarines. We're now down to
56 and dropping. The QDR number is 50. The cumulative testimony from the
operators is that we can't meet our commitments and can't maintain adequate
domination of the undersea warfare arena with 50 boats. We need more. We're only
building one a year, new attack submarine.
So we have preserved some
options for the next president, including that preservation of options is the
refueling of 688s, which otherwise would be retired from service while they
still have capability left in the hole, and also maintaining the option of
reconfiguring the boomers, that is the SSBNs, which are going to be reduced in
number under our arms limitations treaties, which could be changed and evolved
into missile carriers that will provide very substantial and robust platforms
that could handle up to 150-or-so Tomahawk missiles and provide substantial fire
power to the fleet.
So we maintained the option with some dollars in
this bill for the next president to exercise, should he so choose, and should
the next Congress want to exercise those options and maintain those resources.
Now let me go into one aspect of DOE. We have a substantial part of
the DOE budget, the weapons portion. And as most folks who are
acquainted of that area know, we've had a catastrophe, if you will, with respect
to the Hanford cleanup, the privatization program, in which the contractor, BNFL
came in with roughly double the proposed contract price that was anticipated
just a couple of weeks ago.
The secretary of energy has now rejected
that proposal officially. They're going to have to go back and put together a
contract with another entity.
What we did in this case is work with
the secretary of energy and his staff, find out how much it's going to take this
next year, no matter who does the contract, how much they estimate in design and
engineering money, and long-lead procurement to keep that cleanup at Hanford,
and we provided every dime that they requested for those projects. And we, in
fact, gave them a little cushion.
So we are waiting the Department
of Energy on that very critical issue, and we will adjust accordingly when they
put together a contract.
Now having said that, I want to thank all
of our staff for doing such a wonderful job here, and they're all seated in
front of you here. And I want to let everybody know, and I think most of the
members know, that they've worked long hours to try to put together a good
budget. They've worked -- done a very -- worked a lot of very
tedious information. And you've got a lot of detail that you have to go over if
you're going to do this thing right, and we rely on them.
And what
we have in this country that I think makes us really unique is, we have a lot of
great, honest people with a lot of integrity and a lot of smarts who have the
nation's interests at heart. And understanding that this is a political place,
they also understand, as all of us do, that we have a duty to the people that
wear the uniform of the United States, and that's our most important duty. And I
can tell, when they make an argument to me, and I know to Mr. Sisisky or to
other members, they always come at it from that point of view, as what's best
for national security. I think this committee, members and staff, have that goal
always at the forefront.
And so I want to thank everybody here, and
Mr. Green (ph), Mr. Barry (ph), Mr. Smith (ph), Mr. Thompson (ph), Mr. Sullivan
(ph) -- with all those letters written on your napkins from your daughters,
telling you to do a good job, and I know you followed their advice.
Mr. Avalas (ph), Mr. Reed (ph) and Mr. Gurler (ph), thank you also
for being up here with us.
But thanks for everything you guys have
done. You guys are honest brokers, and we've had some great sessions. We've
often been able to talk to each other several stories away without even having
to use a telephone.
You know, I have great respect for your
professional opinions. I know the other members of the subcommittee do also. So
thank you very much.
And that carries me to Mr. Norman Sisisky, who
is a great, great gentleman. I've always said that his ties cost more than my
pickup truck. But he's a guy also who has the interest of the country at heart.
And he's always said: I'm rich enough that I don't have to worry about what any
of you guys think.
That may be true. But I'll tell you, Norman is
also -- he's also rich in great loyalty and dedication to this country. And he's
a guy who's always very candid. He's got great insights.
And Norman,
I want to thank you for everything you've done.
And I also want to
thank the chairman of this committee, because the chairman of this committee
took a real hard-line stance on the budget that was being
passed in the House of Representatives. And he went in and waged a battle, and a
lot of us spoke up on that and fought. In the end, he went in and got an
agreement to allow us to add an extra -- an amendment for an extra $4 billion
for the uniformed services of the United States to put against some of these
shortages.
And we won the right to put that on the House floor. When
we put it on the House floor, a lot of us went out and worked it with our
colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, and we won that thing almost three to
one. And that victory brought us a lot of help for the people that wear the
uniform.
And the gentleman sitting to my right here, that fine
gentleman from South Carolina, is largely responsible for that.
So,
Floyd, thank you for having that hard-nose position right up to the point of
making that agreement and getting that amendment out.
Now let me
turn to my good colleague who really fought hard for that amendment on the other
side of the aisle and who's been such a good partner and friend in putting this
thing together, Mr. Sisisky.
SISISKY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Having served as ranking member for six years, one thing I have
learned about you, you'll be very, very thorough in your presentation and your
opening remarks. So I'm going to try to do something a little different.
What he said about the staff, I'll say the same thing, you've been
wonderful.
But many years ago, faced with an unpalatable desert,
young Winston Churchill exclaimed: This pudding has no theme.
If
there's a theme to this year's procurement title, it is found in the aircraft
designer creed: simplicate and add lightness. Agility, mobility and versatility
are the central aspects of our title. Our forces will move faster, our
commanders will have more options, and valuable platforms will be able to
accomplish a variety of missions, thanks to this markup.
To military
historians among you, I'd point out that today's multi-role platforms, like the
Comanche, the F-18E and -Fs and the coming Virginia-class submarine, benefit
from past experience. Multi- role no longer means built for one role and
jury-rigged for the rest. Modern system design allow us to optimize for more
than one purpose and make one platform do the work of several. That means you
can simplicate, buy one system. And even if the cost is significant, it still
works out better than buying two single-mission platforms.
I'm
pleased to say that Chairman Hunter and his staff have scrupulously fair in
dealing with the minority throughout this process. That is no mean achievement
in a year where requests outnumber available funds by over four to one.
From the beginning, Chairman Hunter and I took an approach that we
would look to service unfunded priority lists when considering additions. By
keeping that faith, I believe we built a title that will be satisfactory to the
Department of Defense, while deserving of every member's pride.
And
I'll add one thought about the only point of disagreement we had: In the leading
three maybe F-18s EMFs to pay for two Air Force F-15s and some R&D funds, I
think we set a very, very bad precedent. This takes robbing Peter to pay Paul to
a whole new level. And I hope we can find agreement in the conferences, I've
been assured, to buy these F-15s in some other way.
I can tell you that
the company that builds these planes told me that they oppose the change, so I'm
still not entirely sure why we're doing it and maybe someone in this meeting or
after can explain that. Even the Navy doesn't support it, although I found the
opposition to be lukewarm. And I have no indication that the Air Force is behind
this. So I'm really at a loss to explain it. And I do think we need to prepare
to shut down production lines somewhere, sometime as production runs come to an
end.
But Mr. Chairman, other than that one single thing, I want you
to know I support you wholeheartedly in this mark. You've been fair and very
thoughtful in the changes you have made. And if somewhere in the future I am
ever chairman of this committee, I'll have the very best example of dedication
to this country and bipartisanship to remind me of how this job should be done.
Thank you very much.
HUNTER: Thank you, Norm. I'm going
to use that on the brochure.
(LAUGHTER)
SISISKY: I've
used your statements before, too.
HUNTER: OK. We're going to get to
work now. What we want to do is I'm going to recognize Mr. Thornberry for a
motion. The purpose of the motion is going to be to authorize us to close the
mark, if it should become necessary to do so, because we're discussing
classified material.
Everybody doesn't have to leave. We're not
closing the mark. We're going to have that vote. So if we have to do it later
and we don't have a quorum, we'll be able to do it. So I would now recognize Mr.
Thornberry for the purpose of a motion.
THORNBERRY: Mr. Chairman,
pursuant to House Rule 11(g) and Committee Rule 9(a), I move that the
subcommittee be authorized to close today's mark for reasons of national
security should the need arise for doing so.
HUNTER: The House and
committee rules require a roll call vote. The clerk will call a roll.
CLERK: Mr. Hunter?
HUNTER: Aye.
CLERK: Mr.
Hunter votes aye. Mr. Sisisky?
SISISKY: Aye.
CLERK: Mr.
Sisisky votes aye. Mr. Spence?
SPENCE: Aye.
CLERK: Mr.
Spence votes aye. Mr. Skelton?
SKELTON: Aye.
CLERK: Mr.
Skelton votes aye. Mr. Stump?
STUMP: Aye.
CLERK: Mr.
Stump votes aye. Mr. Spratt?
SPRATT: Aye.
CLERK: Mr.
Spratt votes aye. Mr. Hansen?
HANSEN: Aye.
CLERK: Mr.
Hansen votes aye. Mr. Evans?
EVANS: Aye.
CLERK: Mr.
Evans votes aye. Mr. Saxton?
SAXTON: Aye.
CLERK: Mr.
Saxton votes aye. Mr. Blagojevich?
BLAGOJEVICH: (No response)
CLERK: Mr. Talent?
TALENT: (No response)
CLERK: Mr. Allen?
ALLEN: (No response)
CLERK: Mr. Everett?
EVERETT: Aye.
CLERK: Mr.
Everett votes aye. Mr. Turner?
TURNER: Aye.
CLERK: Mr.
Turner votes aye. Mr. Watts?
WATTS: Aye.
CLERK: Mr.
Watts votes aye. Mr. Smith?
SMITH: (No response)
CLERK:
Mr. Thornberry?
THORNBERRY: Aye.
CLERK: Mr. Thornberry
votes aye. Mr. Maloney?
MALONEY: Aye.
CLERK: Mr. Maloney
votes aye. Mr. Graham?
GRAHAM: (No response)
CLERK: Mr.
McIntyre?
MCINTYRE: Aye.
CLERK: Mr. McIntyre votes aye.
Mr. Ryun?
RYUN: Aye.
CLERK: Mr. Ryan votes aye. Ms.
McKinney?
MCKINNEY: (No response)
CLERK: Mr. Gibbons?
GIBBONS: Aye.
CLERK: Mr. Gibbons votes aye. Ms.
Tauscher?
TAUSCHER: Aye.
CLERK: Ms. Tauscher votes aye.
Ms. Bono?
BONO: Aye.
CLERK: Ms. Bono votes aye. Mr.
Brady?
BRADY: (No response)
CLERK: Mr. Pitts?
PITTS: Aye.
CLERK: Mr. Pitts votes aye. Mr. Hayes?
HAYES: Aye.
CLERK: Mr. Blagojevich?
BLAGOJEVICH: (No response)
CLERK: Mr. Talent?
TALENT: (No response)
CLERK: Mr. Allen?
ALLEN: (No response)
CLERK: Mr. Smith?
SMITH: (No response)
CLERK: Mr. Graham?
GRAHAM:
(No response)
CLERK: Ms. McKinney?
MCKINNEY: (No
response)
CLERK: Mr. Brady?
BRADY: (No response)
CLERK: Mr. Chairman, on that vote, the ayes are 21, the nays are
zero, and the motion is agreed to.
HUNTER: OK. If it becomes
necessary at a time in the mark, we will close. We don't have to -- no one has
to clear out at this time and we will proceed with the markup.
And
I'd like to recognize the staff for a brief presentation of the bill and any
directive report language. Mr. Thompson?
STAFF: Thank you, Mr.
Chairman, and thank you for the kind words, and thank you Mr. Sisisky for the
kind words on the behalf of all of us sitting at the table down here.
As is our custom at the beginning of the markup, we always proceed
with presenting to the members the bill language and the directive report
language in the Procurement Title, Title I, and in Title II, where we have
jurisdiction, the R&D Title. So without further ado, I'm just going to let
the staff, who has the subject matter expert, just go over the bill and
directive report revisions.
STAFF: There's three programs -- three
pieces of legislation that affect Army programs: Section 111 would authorize the
secretary of the Army to enter into a multi-service, multi-year procurement for
Army UH-60 helicopters and Navy CH-60 helicopters. It's a 5-year program that
begins in FY '02, goes through FY '06.
The second provision within
the multi-year procurement authority is to authorize the secretary of the Army
to enter into a 3-year multi-year procurement contract for the Bradley A3
fighting vehicle. It also prohibits the secretary of the Army from entering into
this contract until a successful initial operational test and evaluation is
completed and he certifies to the congressional defense committees that all the
test parameters have been met.
Section 112 would increase the cap or
the procurement limit of the bunker defeat munition. We currently have a cap of
6,000 rounds. We need to raise that to 8,500 rounds because of the delay of the
multipurpose individual munition.
Section 113 would amend the ARMS
Act, which is the Armament Refueling and Manufacturing Support Initiative. It
extends the authority of the act through fiscal year 2002. It expands the ARMS
Act to include the manufacturing arsenals and allows the secretary of the Army
to enter into long-term facility use contracts and also accept other or
non-monetary compensation -- or consideration, rather, in lieu of rent, similar
to like receiving base cleanup services. There's also a report that's required
on the implementation of the arsenal contracts provision.
And that
completes the provisions for the Army. I'll turn it over to Mr. Adalees (ph) for
the Navy.
HUNTER: OK. Before we go on, any questions for Mr. Smith?
OK.
STAFF: These are for Navy bill language provisions.
There is the first one, Section 121, deals with submarine force
structure. This provision would place a limitation on the retirement of Los
Angeles class nuclear attack submarines that have not reached 30 years of active
service. It would also require a report by the president to the Congress on the
requirement for nuclear-powered submarines and would specifically be ballistic
missile submarines, cruise missile submarines and attack submarines and what
that required force structure would be through 2020; how that force structure
would be achieved and maintained through the acquisition of new submarines and
the refueling and conversion of existing attack submarines or possibly ballistic
missile submarines as well.
Section 122 deals with the Virginia
class attack submarine program and this provision would provide the authority
for the secretary of the Navy to enter into a block-buy contract or contracts
for the procurement of five submarines between fiscal years 2003 and 2006.
STAFF: Section 123 stems from a decision the Navy made as a result
of a 1997 quadrennial defense review when they decided to retire their
short-deck FFT-7 frigates and the air component, the SH2G Sea
Sprites, early in order to get rid of force structure. They made a subsequent
decision to keep the FFG-7s in the fleet; five of them, three of which will be
decommissioned in '02 and two of which will be decommissioned in '03. But they
decided to deactivate their air component in FY '01, leaving the ships without
their air arm for two years. This provision directs the secretary of the Navy to
keep the SH2Gs on the FFG-7s until they're decommissioned in
fiscal years '02 and '03.
HUNTER: OK. Mr. Adaless (ph), is that it?
STAFF: Yes, sir.
HUNTER: OK. Any questions for Mr.
Adaless (ph)?
OK, next?
STAFF: Section 131 of the bill
would require an annual report pertaining to the B-2 bomber, providing an
assessment of whether the B-2 is capable of performing its primary missions,
identifying upgrades required to sustain the B-2 effectiveness and assessing
whether or not those upgrades are adequately funded.
HUNTER: OK. Any
questions?
Mr. Sullivan?
STAFF: Mr. Chairman, the final
bill provision in Title I is a study of production alternatives for the Joint
Strike Fighter. And this would direct the secretary of defense to submit a
report to Congress on the Joint Strike Fighter industrial base. It would examine
all the likely production alternatives out there and then report to the Congress
on a comparative analysis of those alternatives considered. And that concludes
Title I bill provisions.
HUNTER: Any questions for Mr. Sullivan?
OK. Mr. Thompson?
STAFF: I will move forward with two
directive report provisions.
Mr. Adaless (ph)?
STAFF:
Sir, the first directive report language provision deals with the auxiliary dry
cargo ship program, the ADCX program. The report language would transfer the
funds for procurement of one ADCX vessel in fiscal year 2001 from the
shipbuilding and conversion Navy appropriation account to the national defense
sealift fund to more accurately reflect the unique sealift resupply mission that
the vessel has. Additionally, the provision adds $10 million to qualify the
second shipyard for engineering requirements to produce the vessel at two yards,
as required by an appropriation act.
HUNTER: OK. Any questions for
Mr. Adaless (ph)?
Mr. Sullivan?
STAFF: Mr. Chairman, the
final directive report language we have in Title I is some language that would
direct the secretary of the Air Force to assign block -- F-16 block 40 or
greater aircraft to Air National Guard units that were downgraded to a level
that was below what was directed in previous congressional actions.
HUNTER: OK. And that addresses a batch of F-16s that were awarded
and then several years taken away from one of the Desert Storm veterans
squadrons in New York; is that right?
STAFF: That is correct, Mr.
Chairman.
HUNTER: OK.
SISISKY: Mr. Chairman, just a
question.
HUNTER: Certainly.
SISISKY: Does it have any
length of time when this has to be done?
STAFF: Mr. Sisisky, we
don't specify a length of time in our report language. As you know, we authorize
three F-16s, using $51.7 million of this year's authorization combined with $24
million in advanced procurement in fiscal year '00 for fiscal year '01 aircraft.
And what we say in our report language is that when these new F-16s are
delivered to the Air Force, that the Air Force will replace those aircraft in
that unit with block 40 or greater, so there's a cascade effect associated with
this.
HUNTER: Thank you.
Mr. Thompson?
STAFF: Mr. Chairman, we have one bill provision in Title II that's
in this subcommittee's jurisdiction that's on the Joint Strike Fighter and I ask
Mr. Sullivan to address that.
STAFF: Mr. Chairman, this provision
would simply direct the secretary of defense to certify to the Congress that the
technical maturity of the Joint Strike Fighter's key technology is sufficient to
warrant its entry into the engineering and manufacturing development phase.
HUNTER: OK. And the members may remember we had a -- GAO had a
concern that a spectrum of technologies weren't sufficiently mature to enter
EMD. We then heard a rebuttal from the program manager, and ultimately we had
both parties appear at our hearing and went over each technology, one at a time
-- kind of a painstaking task. Substantial information was offered by the
program that I thought at least substantially challenged the position of GAO,
which did a good watchdog job, I think, in bringing up these technologies and
the level at which they had developed.
And so we put in the bill a
requirement that the secretary of defense certify that those technologies are
sufficiently mature before they enter the EMD state. We didn't think it was
necessary to fence any money at this point. We simply wanted to make sure we got
a certification on those particular technologies.
Is there anything
else, Mr. Thompson?
STAFF: There's no other bill language in that
title, sir. There's three pieces of directive report language, so I would ask
Mr. Green (ph) to start off on those three.
HUNTER: OK.
STAFF: Sir, I don't have anything.
STAFF: Directive
report language pertains to the SBIRS High system. It directs the secretary of
defense to provide a written notification to the congressional defense
committees of any proposed change to the currently established program
milestones prior to final approval.
There is another one that
pertains to small smart munitions, which directs the secretary of the Navy and
the secretary of the Air Force to submit a final report on a miniaturized
munitions capability analysis of alternatives, including a review of all
miniaturized munitions capability concepts noted in the interim report, an
analysis of the technical feasibility of a 250 pound MMC variant, and funding
requirements to achieve a fiscal year 2007 initial operational capability, as
well as an accelerated initial operational capability for the 250 pound variant.
HUNTER: OK. Any questions for Mr. Green (ph)?
Mr.
Sullivan?
STAFF: Our third piece is in the Air Force and it has to
do with the extended range cruise missile, which, as most of you know, is a
replacement for the conventional air-launched cruise missile. The directive
report language would direct the Department of the Air Force to inform the
congressional defense committees if it elects to pursue an acquisition strategy
other than fair and open competition.
Secondly, we are asking for a
report from the director of Defense Research and Engineering, if the Department
of the Air Force opts to include a penetration warhead as part of the ERCM,
extended range cruise missile, program. Currently, we do not expect that they
will. But if they do, we would like a report on an independent assessment of
penetration warhead improvements necessary to meet a Joint Requirements
Oversight Council approved requirement.
STAFF: Mr. Chairman, I
believe the final piece of directive report language pertains to the P3 fleet.
The average age of the P3 maritime patrol aircraft fleet is over 20 years and
the aircraft and its weapon systems are expected to remain in service until
after 2020. There are no present plans for development of a replacement for that
aircraft.
The R&D funding to sustain that program is minimal. It
has averaged something on the order or $3 million per year in the
budget requests in the past several years. The directive report
language and the chairman's mark would direct the secretary of the Navy to
report plans for sustaining P3 maritime patrol aircraft operational capability
and for development of a replacement aircraft with the submission of the FY 2002
budget request.
STAFF: Mr. Chairman, that concludes
a review of the Titles I and II bill and directive report language. We stand
ready to answer your questions and those of the other members.
HUNTER: OK. Any questions?
Excuse me. Without objection,
Mr. Smith just very slightly missed this vote to close because he was
necessarily delayed, and I just want the record to reflect that he would have
been here. Had he been here, he would have voted aye on the motion to close.
And we thank you. The chair should have waited a couple more minutes
and you would have been here.
So you're finished now, Mr. Thompson,
with all the language and directive report language?
STAFF: Yes,
sir.
HUNTER: OK. Thank you.
Any questions or discussion
of the directive report language?
Is there any discussion or
questions of the mark?
Does anybody have any amendments to the
chairman's mark?
STAFF: Mr. Chairman, we have just reviewed the DOD
piece of the bill and report language. We still did to do the DOE.
HUNTER: Oh, excuse me.
STAFF: Yes, sir. But I thought we
would do those separately as we have done in the past.
HUNTER: OK.
Excuse me, Mr. Gibbons, just hold on for a second and we'll get to this part
shortly.
Go ahead with DOE.
STAFF: All right, sir.
Mr. Green (ph)?
STAFF: I'll start with a review of the
Title 31 bill language. This is done by exception because basically all of the
entire Title 31 is written into bill language, including funding provisions,
recurring provisions and other provisions. And I will do this by exception,
where member interest is likely.
Section 3127 pertains to
availability of funds. This would establish that funding authorized for the
Department of Energy defense accounts would be available for obligation for
three years, with the exception that funding authorized for program direction
would be available for obligation for one year.
Section 3132 would
provide the basis for expanded cooperation between the Ballistic Missile Defense
Organization and the National Nuclear Security Administration.
Section 3133 would establish requirements for the content of the
future years' nuclear security program to be submitted annually by the
administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration and would prohibit
the obligation of more than 50 percent of funds authorized for appropriation for
program direction within NNSA until 30 days after the administrator provides
Congress with the required future years' nuclear security program.
Section 3131 would prohibit the secretary of Energy from using
appropriated funds to establish reserve for the payment of termination costs of
contracts relating to the tank waste remediation system at Richland, Washington
and identifies alternatives to pay for these costs should the need arise.
HUNTER: OK. And for members, the first language that Brian (ph) was
referring to reflects the ongoing attempt by the committee to utilize the great
resources of the national laboratories and missile defense. In the past, as most
folks know, we've got some of the best physicists in the world residing at these
laboratories working stockpile issues, many of whom feel they could contribute
very significantly to this great challenge of missile defense.
We've
had a tough time arm-wrestling with the other body over getting them to allow us
to use any money from DOE for this purpose. So this time, we're taking a
different tact. We're going to try to do an MOU with respect to programs that
have a value, both in stockpile stewardship and have missile defense
utilizations. And also, we're moving a small amount -- the R&D committee is
-- of BMDO money to the labs to do some work on a significant project that they
think could add to the overall program.
We're also hoping, and we've
been working with the other body early on to make sure that we don't have a ban
on discretionary money that is used by the lab directors at the laboratories,
that we don't have a ban on using that money, which has been set in place in the
past, that would keep those great physicists from being able to work on missile
defense programs.
So we think we're making some progress there and
that's what that early language Mr. Green (ph) referred to was all about.
Mr. Thompson?
STAFF: I'll defer to Mr. Green (ph) again
for the directive report language.
STAFF: We'll go over the summary
of directive report language in Title 31. The first pertains to advanced
radiography and directs the administrator of the National Nuclear Security
Administration to provide a report to congressional defense committees on
hydra-test and radiography requirements, technologies, schedule and funding
requirements.
The second pertains to realignment of funds and
directs realignment of funds transferring funds from readiness and technical
base and facilities and construction to the advanced radiography, defense
computing and modeling, inertial confinement confusion ignition and high-yield
margins and tritium-readiness campaigns.
The third one pertains to
inertial confinement confusion ignition and high-yield margins campaign and
directs that no more than 35 percent of the funds for the national ignition
facility project may be obligated pending certification that the national
ignition facility project management flaws have been corrected and that managers
are technically qualified, and further directs that the department fund the
laboratory for laser-energetics at the requested level.
The next one
pertains to DOE programs requirements process and directs the administrator of
the NNSA to report to congressional defense committees on defense programs,
requirements, processes and efforts to improve them.
STAFF: The
next two directive report items are in the DOE nonproliferation and national
security area. The first directs that if a fissile material storage facility is
built in Russia using $38 million in design funds requested for fiscal year '01,
that the department extend protection of the materials at that site through the
DOE materials protection control and accounting program.
The next
item directs that the department locate an employee of the Department of Energy
or DOE contractor employee at sites in Russia where there are significant DOE
nonproliferation programs.
And the final...
HUNTER: OK,
and for the members on that point, we've listened to the administration tell us
about the work that we're doing to safeguard Russian materials and operations in
their nuclear complex. One idea that we had was simply, instead of having kind
of a traveling road show which shows up infrequently at these sites and then
funds them, it would be good to have an American on-site who knew the day-
to-day operations intimately and knew what was happening and knew what had to be
done and who could then make recommendations to DOE, instead of visiting these
sites infrequently.
The administration always nods gravely when we
make that recommendation in meetings, and they haven't done it in the past. This
time we're making the recommendation as directive language.
Go
ahead.
STAFF: And the final directive report language item is in
regard to worker and community transition. The item directs that $5 million of
worker and community transition funds be spent for infrastructure development at
the Allied General nuclear site adjacent to the DOE Savannah River site.
STAFF: Sir, that concludes our bill on directive report language in
Title 31.
HUNTER: OK, and Mr. Gibbons had a question.
GIBBONS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Under Subtitle A,
national security programs authorization, Section 3106, authorization for $112
million to be added to the nuclear waste fund, can you tell me how the
application or what the application of those funds will be used for?
STAFF: Sir, that's for storage of waste coming out of the production
facilities, and it's a fund that's established to eventually -- for permanent
storage. That facility has not yet been certified for acceptance of waste, but
this is a fund that's been building to store that material.
GIBBONS:
Are these funds to be used for the site characterization of Yucca Mountain?
STAFF: I don't know that, sir.
GIBBONS: Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
HUNTER: OK. And if you have a concern, Jim, why don't you
work -- we'll work on it here. If there's a problem, we'll try to address it
before we go to the full committee.
Any other questions here or
comments? Yes, Ms. Tauscher.
TAUSCHER: Mr. Chairman, I want to take
the opportunity to thank you for your hard work on behalf of the National
Ignition Facility and many other members of this committee who have worked very
hard for us to be able to find real money to add on to the project.
As you know, in the waning hours of yesterday, you were able to find
an extra $95 million for the National Ignition Facility, taking us to about $169
million. And you found a way to do it that didn't poach other very -- national
security issued projects at the labs. And I really appreciate all the time that
you've taken with me to hear my entreaties to you and all the hard work that
you've put forth for us.
And I think that, you know, we're going to
obviously have to keep working on this. And we're not out of the woods yet, but
you have done a great job for us and I appreciate that.
HUNTER: OK.
I want to thank the gentlelady, but I want to caution her that we haven't -- we
don't have -- the devil is in the details. And where we're going to get this
money is not -- is not totally identified right now.
And one thing
that -- while we wanted to send a message, because our understanding is that we
have folks leaving the laboratories, that particular laboratory, because they
think this project is going to be held up for a long period of time. And we
wanted to send a message that we do want to continue with NIF.
All
of the reductions that are going to be necessary throughout the complex and at
Los -- or at Livermore have not been identified.
And Mr. Green (ph),
you may want to speak to that, exactly what that provision says.
STAFF: Mr. Chairman, the chairman's mark now includes a $95 million
increase to the NIF construction account, and a $95 million general reduction to
weapons activities for the Department of Energy.
HUNTER: Yes. So as we
go through the -- go through -- walk through the full committee and the floor
and the conference, obviously there's going to be a lot of -- a lot of
recommendations for where we get that money.
Generally speaking, the
Department of Energy wants to take most of it from Livermore programs on the
basis that there was some of the blame, if there is blame to be assigned, and
this cost problem should be borne by that lab. Some of it would be borne by the
complex, but once again, we've got it structured in such a way that it's a
general reduction, and that general reduction probably will be -- is going to be
defined by many voices over the next several weeks.
So this -- I see
what we can take out of this today is that we have -- we have stated that we are
committed to continuing with the NIF program. We don't necessarily embrace the
secretary's list of reductions that he has tentatively sent over to us. We're
going to have to do a lot of hard work on that.
But thank you very
much.
TAUSCHER: Well, you have my commitment for to...
HUNTER: OK. I thank the gentlelady.
Any other discussion
with respect to the mark? Or any questions for the staff members?
OK, at this time are there any amendments to the chairman's mark?
Mr. Gibbons.
GIBBONS: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I do have an amendment which I'd like to introduce to this committee, and at
some point following the discussion of the merits of this bill, we will make a
determination as to its fate.
The amendment I have is to Title 31.
It would be a bill -- an amendment that would an occupational illness program
for nuclear weapons workers.
Mr. Chairman, today on the floor we're
debating a bill which will add a plaque to the Vietnam veterans' memorial, which
is both fitting and proper, I believe. Twenty-five years ago our citizens were
called to defend this nation for liberty in that country, and sadly to say, many
of us turned our backs on these same veterans and soldiers when they returned.
And I guess the question is, Mr. Chairman, will we now do the same?
Will we turn our backs in this century on the those suffering from their
dedicated service to our nation in building and testing our nation's nuclear
weapons system for a deterrent system in the Cold War?
Mr. Chairman,
certainly we can do better for these unsung heroes than we've done in the past.
The amendment that I have today will propose a program that will be modeled
after the one that is now available to federal workers. Eligible workers will
receive reimbursement for medical costs associated with the illness and a
portion of lost wages. Former workers will have an option of a single lump-sum
benefit of $100,000. And the program will immediately address clearly defined
occupational illnesses such as beryllium disease, radiation-caused cancers and
silicosis.
There are a number of issues in this, Mr. Chairman, and I
understand that the men and women who work in our nation's nuclear programs over
the last 50 years have been exposed to radiation, and exposed to extremely
hazardous substances. And under the Atomic Energy Act, DOE has responsibility
for the health and safety of these workers in lieu of protection from the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
While, Mr. Chairman,
these may not be military veterans per se, these workers faithfully served the
nation as soldiers of the Cold War. And in doing so, faced risk to their life
and to their health.
These workers do not have access to the same
benefits as military veterans with service-related diseases. And furthermore,
these workers are not considered federal employees because they are employed by
private contractors who operate in our nation's department of weapons systems
and plants. And as a result, they are not eligible for federal benefits and have
to apply for benefits under various state worker programs -- worker compensation
programs.
It's difficult to prove illness are work-related for these
employees, and diseases can have a long latency period for workers who become
disabled or need medical care.
Now, Mr. Chairman, I know that this
amendment will force the bill into an automatic referral to four separate
committees. The purpose of my offering it today is to put notice out for the
members to gather support, to bring this amendment to the floor for
consideration so that it will not cause an automatic referral and we can debate
it and discuss it. And I'll be looking for support at that time.
And, Mr. Chairman, as a representative of Nevada who understands the
gaming industry very well, let me say that you've got to know when to hold them
and when to fold them. And with that, I'll withdraw this amendment.
HUNTER: Thank you, Mr. Gibbons. Before you withdraw it, I think Mr.
Spratt wants to make a comment, too.
Mr. Spratt.
SPRATT:
I want to commend the gentleman for taking the initiative and to say that I
strongly support this initiative. I had a hand some years ago in improving the
process and the substantive provisions for the atomic veterans. And this is a
whole close of effected victims who for various legal reasons don't have a clear
claim, but nevertheless have a strong claim to our sympathy.
And the
burden of proof shouldn't rest upon them. The epidemiology is not yet fully
developed, but they've got disease, and the burden of proof, where these
diseases tend to fall in the class of radioactive illnesses, that risk ought to
be borne by the United States of America. They took risks for us, and I think we
ought to come in behind them and to help them.
And I hope that
between now and getting to the floor, we can avoid this sequential referral
problem and come up with something that we can offer on the floor that would put
this in the authorization bill.
GIBBONS: I thank Mr. Spratt for your
support and your comments on that, and I'll look forward to working with you.
And we will, of course, work diligently to come up with something that we can
propose for a full floor debate and amendment at that point in time.
HUNTER: I thank the gentleman. Before he withdraws his amendment,
Mr. Thornberry.
THORNBERRY: Mr. Chairman, I just want to say that I
agree with the perspective of both gentlemen, that these are folks who have
served the country in a similar way to military veterans.
I guess my
only note of caution I'd like to throw in here, though, is that I'm concerned
expectations have been built up too high among existing and former workers
because of some of the press releases that have come out of DOE. There are folks
calling up, wanting to know where to go for their checks.
And my
only caution, as we work towards this goal -- which I certainly support -- I
want to make -- I hope we can all work to make sure that we do it right, and
that we don't build up expectations beyond our ability to deliver.
We need to be thoughtful and careful, and we can certainly do that
this year. I don't mean to say we can't. But we need to do with more thoughtful
work than just a press release.
HUNTER: I thank the gentleman, and I
thank Mr. Gibbons for his very eloquent speech on behalf of these Cold Warriors,
who indeed helped to not only preserve our freedom but ultimately bring freedom
to literally hundreds of millions of people around the world with the
perseverance of the United States in backing off the Soviet Union and ultimately
dismantling it. So I agree with the idea that we need to make sure that our Cold
Warriors are taken care of.
The gentlemen -- I want the gentlemen to
know, we've looked at this, we've talked this thing over a little bit when the
DOE first started issuing their press releases, as Mac said.
And,
first, we notice they haven't structured any program yet. We put $2 million in
the bill with a directive to structure a program. Let's figure out what this
thing -- where this thing should go and how do we define qualifications and how
do we set it up.
And, Mr. Thompson (ph), do you have anything
additional you want to add to that?
STAFF: No, sir, I think we were just
-- we were concerned about who's going to pay for the program and then how the
program was going to be structured, whether it was going to be entitlement,
whether it was going to be discretionary spending, and whether it was going to
come out of the defense budget.
The bill that Mr.
Kanjorski introduced on behalf of the department earlier -- I guess it was late
last year -- was referred to the education work force committee and various
other committees, but not to this committee for authorization. So I think their
worker compensation subcommittee was going to be the committee of jurisdiction
for authorizing this bill, if you will.
And absent that, we didn't
think there was a program that put money against it right now.
HUNTER: Well, Mr. Gibbons, we've got -- because you brought this up
so articulately, you've focused us on this problem, and why don't we sit down
and see what we can do to put together a responsible program.
And I
agree with Mac's statement that we don't want to raise expectations to the point
where people feel they're on the verge of going down and picking up a check.
On the other hand, we want to take care of our Cold Warriors, and
we'll work toward that goal with you.
Thank you for bringing it up.
Are there any other amendments to the chairman's mark?
Well, folks, does anybody else want to say anything else in general
discussion here as we wrap up the mark?
If not, I'm going to
recognize Mr. Thornberry for the purpose of a motion.
But first, let
me thank every member of the subcommittee.
And, you know, putting
this mark together, we've had a lot -- $13 billion worth of recommendations from
the members, primarily this subcommittee. And the thing that has struck me as
being very important was that most of them, a vast majority of them, correlated
with what the uniformed services said they needed. And what means is that you
folks went out and not only came to our hearings but had lots of meetings in
your offices with the services and the service personnel. A lot of you really
spent a lot of time in the field.
But you did as much information
gathering as you could, and you came to some great recommendations about what we
have to do with this limited budget. We are still vastly short.
I thought it was quite remarkable that President Clinton's secretary of defense,
who put together these programs that we're operating under right now, came and
sat where Mr. Thompson (ph) is sitting and said: I'm about $15 to $20 billion a
year short in procurement alone. And another secretary said: You may be $100
billion short.
The point is that we have vastly cut our force
structure, and right now we're not putting the budgets -- we're
not meeting the requirements, steady-state requirements, of simply keeping that
force structure we have left half-way modern. We have enormous challenges in
front of us. We're going to try to meet them next year.
In the
meantime, I think we've presented a pretty good holding action, and we've all
gone out and fought, Republicans and Democrats, to get that extra $4 billion for
the uniformed services this year. And I'm proud of all of you, and I really want
to thank the chairman for his steadfastness and out-and-out stubbornness when we
got down to the bottom strokes on the budget to get us a chance
for the extra $4 billion.
Having said that, let me recognize Mr.
Thornberry for the purpose of a motion.
THORNBERRY: Mr. Chairman, I
move the subcommittee adopt the chairman's mark and report the same favorably to
the full committee.
HUNTER: The question now occurs on the motion of
Mr. Thornberry. So many as are in favor will say aye.
Those opposed
no.
The ayes have it. The motion is agreed to, and without
objection, motion to reconsider is laid upon the table.
And there
being no further legislative business, the meeting is adjourned.
END
NOTES:
Unknown - Indicates speaker unknown.
Inaudible - Could not make out what was being said.
off mike -
Indicates could not make out what was being said.
PERSON: DUNCAN L HUNTER (94%); FLOYD
SPENCE (72%); JAMES V HANSEN (57%); BOB
STUMP (57%); LEE TERRY (56%); ROBERT (ROBIN)
HAYES (53%); MARY BONO (53%); NORMAN
SISISKY (52%); IKE SKELTON (52%); LANE
EVANS (51%); CHRIS JOHN (51%); WILLIAM M
THOMAS (50%); JIM TURNER (50%);
LOAD-DATE: May 13, 2000 
