Departments of Defense Appropriations Act, 2006
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2006. -- (House of Representatives - June 20, 2005)
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Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
Mr. Chairman, the language of the committee amendment does nothing whatsoever to discourage proselytizing. What it does is make clear that the Congress of the United States is opposed to coercive and abusive proselytizing. I think it would be good to go back and look at the history of this problem.
The LA Times broke the story about disrespectful treatment of cadets based on religious affiliation on April 20. On June 3, Lieutenant General John Rosa, who is the superintendent of the Academy, in a speech to the Anti-Defamation League, acknowledged that the Academy has a problem with religious intolerance. He called it insidious and said it could take 6 years to fix.
He described two Academy-wide e-mails that were sent out by another high-ranking officer, which he described as ``inappropriate.'' He described other later events that involved religious pressures and said, ``They were wrong.''
Academy officials have said that they have received 55 complaints from cadets on this problem. Academy spokesman John Whitaker said, ``There have been cases of maliciousness, mean-spiritedness and attacking or baiting someone over religion.''
No one is objecting to anyone trying to talk about religion. What they are objecting to is the malicious and mean-spirited attacking of other people for the religious views that they do or do not hold.
The Air Force officials said they got an inkling of the problem after reading the results of a student survey last May. Many cadets expressed concern over the lack of religious respect and tolerance. This comes on top of revelations 2 years ago of a scandal when dozens of female cadets said that their complaints about sexual assaults were ignored.
Mr. Whitaker, the spokesman for the Academy, forthrightly said that it was insensitivity and ignorance on the part of people who are, ``going into a diverse Air Force where they are going to have to deal with people of all faiths.''
Mickey Weinstein, a father of one of the cadets, who himself was a lawyer and an Academy graduate, described the harassment that his son had undergone and said, ``I love the Academy, but do you know how much courage it took for these cadets to come forward?''
Another person who did not want to be identified because of fear of retaliation said, ``Cadets are given the impression they must embrace the beliefs of their commanders in order to succeed at the Academy.''
Chaplain Melinda Morton described the problem as systemic, and she said that she had spoken up about the problem because, ``It is in the Constitution, it is not just a nice rule that you can follow or not follow.'' Then she said, ``I realize this is the end of my Air Force Academy career.''
My problem with the amendment that is being proposed by the gentleman is not what it says. My problem with the gentleman's amendment is what it takes out of the original committee language.
It removes the language that puts the Congress foresquare in the position of saying that coercive and abusive religious proselytizing at the Academy is over the line and is inconsistent with professional standards required of those who serve at the Academy.
It eliminates the requirements for corrective action by the Academy in the Air Force.
Thirdly, it removes the requirement for a plan to develop an atmosphere that is free of religious coercion at the Academy.
Fourth, it removes the requirement in the committee language which asks for an investigation and a report by the Air Force on the circumstances surrounding the dismissal of Chaplain Melinda Morton, who is the person who blew the whistle on this in the first place.
I do not think the Congress wants to go on record as taking out all of that language, which is what the gentleman's amendment would do.
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Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment to the amendment.
The Clerk read as follows:
Amendment offered by Mr. Obey to the amendment offered by Mr. Hunter:
In lieu of the matter proposed to be inserted, insert the following:
``Sec. 9012. Sense of Congress and Report Concerning Inappropriate Proselytizing of United States Air Force Academy Cadets.
(a) SENSE OF CONGRESS.--It is the sense of Congress that--
(1) the expression of personal religious faith is welcome in the United States military, but coercive and abusive religious proselytizing at the United States Air Force Academy by officers assigned to duty at the Academy and others in the chain-of-command at the Academy, as has been reported, is inconsistent with the professionalism and standards required of those who serve at the Academy;
(2) the military must be a place of tolerance for all faiths and backgrounds; and
(3) the Secretary of the Air Force and other appropriate civilian authorities, and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force and other appropriate military authorities, must continue to undertake corrective action, as appropriate, to address and remedy any inappropriate proselytizing of cadets at the Air Force Academy that may have occurred.
(b) REPORT ON PLAN.--
(1) PLAN.--The Secretary of the Air Force shall develop a plan to ensure that the Air Force Academy maintains a climate free from coercive religious intimidation and inappropriate proselytizing by Air Force officials and others in the chain-of-command at the Air Force Academy. The Secretary shall work with experts and other recognized notable persons in the area of pastoral care and religious tolerance to develop the plan.
(2) REPORT.--Not later than 60 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall submit to the congressional defense committees a report providing the plan developed pursuant to paragraph (1). The Secretary shall include in the report information on the circumstances surrounding the removal of Air Force Captain Melinda Morton from her position at the Air Force Academy on May 4, 2005.''
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, what this perfecting amendment does is to restore with some minor changes the basic thrust of the committee language. Let me explain why I do this.
Two weeks ago, I appointed a young man to the Air Force Academy. One week later, he was killed by a drunken driver. Now, if that young man had been fortunate enough to live so that he could have gone to the Academy, I would want his parents, his family and his community, to know that the Academy that he was going to is one which will allow him to practice whatever religion he believed, without any kind of coercion, either from other cadets or from anyone in the chain of command at the Academy. I do not think that is too much to expect.
I understand the gentleman from California is unhappy because he considers this to be an authorizing issue. Well, the fact is the authorizing committee had an opportunity to deal with similar language, not identical but similar language, when they considered the authorization bill, and they declined to do so. That means that each and every one of us as individual members of this place has jurisdiction on this matter because we all appoint cadets to the Academy, and we have an obligation to those cadets to tell them, whether they are Catholic or Lutheran or any kind of Protestant denomination or Jewish or Muslim or even if they are of no religion, we have an obligation to assure them that they are going to be going to an Academy that is free from any kind of coercion, free from any kind of ridicule.
That is what this language does. This language in the committee bill which would be modified only slightly by the amendment I have just offered, this language maintains the integrity of the thrust of the language of the original committee action.
The purpose of this language is not to accuse any individual person. We do not in any way prejudge any individual action. All we do is to say that the activities which have already been described and admitted by the academy as having occurred, all we are saying is that conduct is inappropriate to the military. That conduct is not something that the Congress of the United States will stand for.
If Members believe in religious freedom, they have an obligation to stand foursquare for sending a message that we want this problem corrected. If Members turn down this language and adopt the Hunter language, you are removing the language which makes clear that the Congress finds that kind of intimidation objectionable, and you are removing the kind of language which will require a report to us about the circumstances surrounding the courageous chaplain who sacrificed her military career to blow the whistle on this.
She said she knew when she blew the whistle on it she was ending her military career. This Congress has an obligation to see that does not happen.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I am looking at the text of the Obey amendment, and it is essentially a restatement of the base language. It has the same problem that I spoke about earlier, and that is this: the Secretary of the Air Force is undergoing a number of reviews. He is investigating this situation, but as he says, he has not gotten to ground truth on this thing yet. Yet this amendment is the judge, jury and executioner of the persons who are reported. I am looking at these last three words that say we should not have any inappropriate proselytizing that may have occurred. What we have is a newspaper story.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. HUNTER. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, we do not just have newspaper stories. We have the direct statement from the director of the academy that that conduct has occurred and in his view is inappropriate. Do we want to take a position that is any less firm than he has?
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) said we are angry because this has come up. That is not so. We were offered under the Army provision in our conference that this provision not be protected and simply strike it on the floor. I was advised that the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) wanted to have a full discussion on this, and I said let us do it. So that is why we are doing this.
The reason we did not act on this is laid out and validated by the Secretary of the Air Force's letter where he says: ``As this work progresses, I ask you to reserve your opinions on this matter until I can get to ground truth through the objective processes now ongoing.''
If something is this serious, and I have never seen any statement by the Secretary of the Air Force that said abusive and coercive proselytizing has occurred, but that is the language that the gentleman has in his bill. So we have a difference of opinion on this.
I think we should wait until the reports come in, until the DOD IG comes back with his report on the captain that the gentleman has referred to, and until, in the words of the Secretary of the Air Force, we get to ground truth. And we require in my amendment a report back to Congress within 90 days on the findings that the Secretary of the Air Force comes to and recommendations for action.
Let me say one other thing. The gentleman said he is not accusing anybody of proselytizing. I am reading his plan. It says: ``The Secretary of the Air Force shall develop a plan to ensure that the Air Force Academy maintains a climate free from coercive intimidation and inappropriate proselytizing by Air Force officials and others in the chain of command at the Air Force Academy.''
That is a heck of a strong dose of preventive maintenance. The gentleman's position, what he has read in the Los Angeles Times is good enough for him, and it is now time for us to take remedial action even before the Secretary of the Air Force comes back with his recommendations.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman would continue to yield, let me simply say this language of the committee, which I am repeating almost word for word in the amendment, does not single out any individual or claim to know the facts on any individual case. What it does most definitely assert is that the conduct, through the official spokesman for the academy, did take place and was inappropriate. We are simply backing up that statement.
Mr. Whitaker, who is the official academy spokesman, said there were cases of maliciousness, mean-spiritedness, and attacking or baking someone over religion.
We do not have to withhold our judgment about the details of the case to know that that kind of action is across the line.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I would just respond, that is not the Secretary of the Air Force; and if the gentleman is holding this up as something that justifies a condemnatory statement by the United States House of Representatives, then it has to be something that is representative of the actions of the officials of the Air Force Academy; and no one has used language as strong as the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) who states, and I am going to state this one more time because we keep moving off it, the gentleman's statement is that ``SEC Air Force shall develop a plan to ensure that Air Force Academy maintains a climate free from coercive and religious intimidation and inappropriate proselytizing by Air Force officials and others in the chain of command.'' The amendment does not even say ``some Air Force officials.'' He is holding that out as representative of what is going on in the chain of command in the academy.
Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
Mr. Chairman, am I correct that the superintendent, the head of the Air Force, has indicated it is a problem and it would take him 6 years to fix the problem?
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. SABO. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
Mr. OBEY. That is exactly right.
Mr. SABO. And the chaplain at the Air Force who blew the whistle on this problem is no longer there?
Mr. OBEY. She has been removed from her position.
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Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. ISRAEL. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I want to emphasize one thing. The gentleman from California said that his amendment will preserve the understanding that religious faiths are welcome at the academy. That is true. His amendment does. But I would point out, it simply repeats the first sentence of the committee language in the Obey amendment. We all agree. We all agree that the expression of personal religious faith is welcome. That is exactly why we are here standing pushing for this committee language today, because we want to make sure that the Pledge of Allegiance that we take every day says ``liberty and justice for all'', not just ``for almost everybody.''
The gentleman said that he did not want to see religion scrubbed out. I do not, either. But 55 cadets have said that there were efforts at the academy to scrub out their expression of religious belief. That is what we want to stop. I want to make sure that every single person who attends that academy feels free from intimidation and does not feel that they have to go along with the attitudes of those in the chain of command or their senior cadets in order to get along at the academy.
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Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move that the gentleman's words be taken down.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will suspend.
The Clerk will transcribe the words.
Mr. HOSTETTLER. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the last sentence I spoke.
The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Indiana?
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, I think the House needs to understand why I objected to the language of the gentleman.
As I understand it, the language that the gentleman is saying he will withdraw is the following: ``Like moth to a flame, Democrats can't help themselves when it comes to denigrating and demonizing Christians.''
What I would have asked the gentleman, since he referred earlier in his remarks to me and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Israel), I would have asked him if he really believed that the gentleman from New York's (Mr. Israel) efforts to attach similar language in the Committee on Armed Services, the language that the gentleman referred to earlier in his discussion, whether he really thought that the gentleman from New York (Mr. Israel) was engaging in an anti-Christian act. I would have asked him whether he really thought that the language that I was trying to offer to protect people of all religions at the Air Force Academy, whether he really thought I was being anti-Christian. I would have asked him if he thought that the chaplain at the Air Force Academy who laid her career on the line in order to protect the religious freedom of those cadets who she felt were being intimidated, whether her actions were anti-Christian.
I would have asked whether he thinks that the kind of conduct which the superintendent of the Academy has already admitted occurred, which among other things had one cadet calling another a ``filthy Jew,'' or when they had cadets who did not subscribe to a specific kind of Christianity being told that they were going to, ``burn in hell,'' I would have asked him whether or not the Chaplain's objection to that kind of conduct was antiChristian?
I would have suggested that when Mr. Whitaker, the official spokesman for the Academy indicated that he thought the problem at the Academy was one of ``insensitivity and ignorance,'' I would have asked whether or not, unfortunately, we did not often see those same qualities displayed elsewhere, including on the floor of this House?
And I would have suggested that I think his outburst, and the specific language he used, is perhaps a perfect example of why we need to pass the language in my amendment, which states, ``coercive and abusive religious proselytizing at the United States Air Force Academy by officers assigned to duty at the Academy and others in the chain of command at the Academy, as has been reported, is inconsistent with the professionalism and standards required of those who serve at the Academy.
And I would add, also, of those who serve in this House and speak on this floor. So those are the questions I would have asked. If the gentleman is withdrawing those words, fine, I think it is constructive that he do so.
But, before I do that, I would, under my reservation, yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Israel).
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Mr. OBEY. Continuing my reservation, Mr. Chairman. I would simply say that perhaps the speech of my good friend from Florida (Mr. Young) urging that we stop talking on this amendment and get to the vote, perhaps his speech came 5 minutes too late. It is too bad, not too late, because if we had voted before the last speaker, the House would not have seen this unfortunate event present itself.
So, Mr. Chairman, I would simply say that I think perhaps the best thing to do in the interests of restoring a decent amount of civility and comity to the House this afternoon is for the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Hostettler) as he has suggested, to withdraw his words and for us to get onto a vote and pass this amendment to make quite clear that every Member of this House, save perhaps a few, recognize that we have an obligation to each and every cadet at the Air Force Academy, to see that they can practice their religion without fear of ridicule, without fear of condemnation, without fear of intimidation by anyone else, be they Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, or any other religion that anyone of us can think of.
This language in the committee bill, the language which we are restoring by my amendment, is an effort to protect all religions, all religions. I would ask for an aye vote when the amendment comes.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.
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Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Chairman, I do not want to take more than 30 seconds. I simply want to reiterate what the Obey amendment does before us, restores, almost word for word, the original language of the committee bill. What that language tries to do is to assure the full protection of, well let me put it another way, because this is a sense of the Congress language.
What we attempt to do is to put the Congress on record squarely, as saying that we want every cadet, regardless of religion, to be able to fully practice their religion without intimidation, without ridicule, without restraint.
That is what we are trying to do. I think it speaks for itself. If people do not believe the Congress should stand for that, then they can vote against the amendment. If they do, I would appreciate a yes vote.
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Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
The Clerk read as follows:
Amendment offered by Mr. Obey:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), add the following new section:
SEC. __. If funds provided in this or any other Act for military operations in Iraq or Afghanistan would cause Federal deficit levels to exceed those set in House Concurrent Resolution 95 for FY 2006 or any subsequent year, the Committee on the Budget of the House of Representatives shall report a concurrent resolution on the budget that would maintain the deficit levels set in House Concurrent Resolution 95 while including this additional discretionary spending in spending totals.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order on the amendment.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, we have so far appropriated $277 billion for activities in Afghanistan and Iraq; $168 billion of that has been appropriated after the President declared an end to major conflict in the region. The budget resolution, which passed this House about a month ago, provided authority for an additional $50 billion to be spent this year for Iraq and Afghanistan. This bill spends $45 billion of that $50 billion.
The problem that we will face is that this bill is only enough to pay for that war for the first 6 months of the fiscal year. That means that when a new supplemental is submitted to the Congress to pay for the last half of the fiscal year, we will wind up having to appropriate at least another $40 billion. And when we do that, it will mean that the Congress will have, in effect, busted the budget by at least $40 billion.
So what this amendment says is that if and when that happens, and it will assuredly happen, if and when that happens, we are saying that the Committee on the Budget must then bring forth a new budget resolution which shows us how we can pay for that extra $40 billion without raising the deficit.
If we are not prepared to do that, then that means that we will simply slip in that extra $40 billion, without any notice by the public, without any attention being paid to the fact that what we are really doing is raising the deficit by another $40 billion.
Regardless of how any Member of this House feels on this war, Members ought to feel that if we pass a budget resolution, it ought to be a legitimate one, that it ought to be laying out honestly what we expect to spend.
Without this amendment, it will mean that we, sometime during the fiscal year, will spend $40 billion more, only we will not be admitting it on the budget resolution side. If we do not adopt this amendment, what we will really be saying is that the budget that was adopted just a month ago was a sham, that it was just a device to govern and to limit the amount of spending that we were going to be engaged in for education, for health care, for science, for agriculture, but that we intended to really bust the budget to the tune of least $40 billion when it came to the war in Iraq.
I do not think that many Members of the House would like to say that that was their position, but absent the acceptance or the adoption of this amendment, that is precisely what will happen. The administration will come up here with another budget in order to pay for the last 6 months of the fiscal year for the war, and we will have busted the budget to the tune of $40 billion and jacked up that deficit by the same amount.
The administration is fond of saying that they adopted a budget resolution which is going to cut the deficit in half. Without this amendment, not a prayer, not a prayer. So I would urge adoption of the amendment.
POINT OF ORDER
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order against the amendment, because it proposes to change existing law and constitutes legislation in an appropriations bill, therefore it violates clause 2 of rule XXI.
The rule states in pertinent part, an amendment to a general appropriation bill shall not be in order if changing existing law. The amendment gives affirmative direction.
The CHAIRMAN. Does the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) wish to be heard on the point of order?
Mr. OBEY. Yes, I do, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, as I indicated earlier, the purpose of this amendment is to see to it that the House stays within the deficit levels laid out by the budget resolution passed just a few weeks ago.
The Budget Committee routinely sends instructions to the Appropriations Committee about what it must do. I think this is an instance in which the Appropriations Committee ought to send a signal back that the Budget Committee ought to conform itself to reality and budgetary honesty.
As I understand it, the rule under which this bill is being debated provides that if no Member does lodge a point of order, than indeed this amendment could be passed by the House. Unfortunately, the rule did not protect this amendment from a point of order. And so if the gentleman persists in his point of order, I will have to reluctantly concede that point of order.
The CHAIRMAN. The point of order is conceded and sustained.
The amendment is not in order.
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