Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2006
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2006
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Mr. MCCAIN. Mr. President, the pending measure, H.R. 2863, the Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2006, will provide our men and women in uniform with the equipment, benefits, and programs they need to carry out their critical missions at home and overseas. Having said that, I must again voice my dismay at the Senate's inability to authorize these appropriations. Critical programs and benefits have not been authorized. The authorizers layout the priorities, and the appropriators fund. Unfortunately, this time honored practice is not being upheld.
As I look over the bill, I see that, as reported in the Senate, it trims $7 billion from the administration request, leaving that amount available for nondefense appropriations. I am pleased that the cuts are reductions for programs that were underexecuted in the last fiscal year. Unfortunately, and not surprisingly, the bill also includes a large number of unauthorized and unrequested provisions. I hope that the sponsors will carefully reconsider these damaging provisions as the bill works its way through the legislative process. While I appreciate the hard work and the laudable intentions of the members of the Committee, we must all be alarmed at these appropriations earmarks. They limit the ability of our Defense Department to expend needed resources according to its funding priorities.
I have already spoken at length during debate on this bill, so I will not take up much more of the Senate's time again. I am pleased that the Senate recognizes the importance of America's greatest strength, the acknowledgment that we are different and better than our enemies. We are Americans, and we hold ourselves to humane standards of treatment of people no matter how evil or terrible they may be. To do otherwise would undermine both our security and our greatness as a Nation. The Senate spoke with a strong voice this week, and I urge the conferees to include the detention-related amendment in the conference report that will be sent to the President.
With Americans deployed across the globe fighting terror, deployed at home in recovery of Hurricane Katrina, and with looming budget deficits, the Senate faces some tough choices. We must maintain our fiscal responsibility while providing for our military needs. The cost of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq demand a new fiscal sanity in our appropriations bills. A half-a-trillion dollar budget deficit means we simply cannot afford business as usual. We simply cannot continue the binge of pork barrel spending that consumes an ever growing proportion of our federal budget. While the cost of an individual project may get lost in the fine print of lengthy bills, together, they all do real damage. Collectively, these earmarks represent a significant burden to American taxpayers.
Some of the more egregious examples of earmarks, either in the bill or in the accompanying report, include:
The bill includes language to provide $10 million for the Joint Interagency Training Center-East and the affiliated Center for National Response at the Memorial Tunnel in West Virginia.
The bill includes language to provide $3.5 million above the President's budget request to procure aircraft and aviation equipment for the Civil Air Patrol.
The bill includes language to provide $19,000 above the President's budget request to procure vehicles for the Civil Air Patrol.
The bill includes language to provide $3 million to support the National Museum of the United States Army at Fort Belvoir, VA.
The bill includes language to provide $2 million for the installation, repair, and maintenance of an on-base and adjacent off-base wastewater/treatment facility at Naval Computer Telecommunications Area Master Station, NCTAMS, in Hawaii.
The bill includes language to prohibit the procurement of foreign ball and roller bearings. This ``Buy America'' restriction with regard to the procurement of ball and roller bearings may cost the taxpayers more than purchasing ball and roller bearings from a foreign source.
The bill includes language to direct the Secretary of the Army to fully plan, budget, program finance the Non-Line of Sight Future Force cannon and re-supply vehicle program, NLOS-C, in order to field this system in fiscal year 2010. Furthermore, the bill language directs that if the plan to field the Future Combat System, FCS, in fiscal year 2010 is delayed then it directs the Secretary of the Army to develop the NLOS-C independent of the broader FCS development timeline to achieve fielding by fiscal year 2010. Moreover, the bill directs the Army to deliver 8 combat operational pre-production NLOS-C systems by the end of calendar year 2008, in addition to those systems necessary for developmental and operational testing. Section 8103 to H.R. 2853 Separating the Non-line-of-sight cannon, NLOS-C, program from the Future Combat System, FCS, will increase costs and program risk because it invalidates one of the key underpinnings of the FCS program which is to have a family of systems based on equipment commonality. The original concept for the development of the manned ground vehicle was to design and produce a common chassis for all manned ground vehicles. Separating NLOS-C from FCS fundamentally changes this principle and further complicates the development of this already complex and yet critical Army weapons system. Furthermore, bisecting FCS will increase development and sustainment costs and negatively impact systems interoperability. The AirLand Subcommittee on the Senate Armed Services Committee is the appropriate subcommittee of jurisdiction in this matter. Although we had hearings on FCS in the subcommittee this year, we did not hear expert testimony in support of this specific provision. As a result, I intend to offer legislation to repeal this provision in the Defense Authorization bill at the appropriate time.
The bill includes language that authorizes the Secretary of the Air Force to spend $32 million to make upgrades, repairs, and build additions to buildings and other types of infrastructure associated with military ranges in Alaska.
The bill includes language to provide $12.9 million in grant money and directs the Secretary of Defense to spend the money for the following: $850,000 to the Fort Des Moines Memorial Park and Education Center; $2 million to the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar; $3 million to the Museum of Flight, American Heroes Collection; $1 million to the National Guard Youth Foundation; $3 million to the United Services Organization; $2 million to the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission; and $1 million to the Iraq Cultural Heritage Assistance Project.
Section 8062 of the General Provisions. The text states that, ``each contract awarded by the Department of Defense during the current fiscal year for construction or service performed in whole or in part in a State which is not contiguous with another State and has an unemployment rate in excess of the national average rate of unemployment as determined by the Secretary of Labor, shall include a provision requiring the contractor to employ, for the purpose of performing that portion of the contract in such State that is not contiguous with another State, individuals who are residents of such State and who, in the case of any craft or trade, possess or would be able to acquire promptly the necessary skills.'' I am not making this text up. Let's call a spade a spade. This provision directly protects the jobs of only Hawaiians and Alaskans.
And 2.2 million for the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial celebration. You don't need to have the exploration skills of Lewis and Clark to see that this is a path to higher deficits.
And $65 million for the Additional Procurement of F-15s. The Air Force has decided to procure the F-22 to replace the F-15. Yet this earmark keeps the F-15 production line open, so I question the necessity of the F-22 procurement in the numbers of aircraft and at the funding levels requested by the Air Force. Apparently we just decided to pay for both.
And $2 million for the Air Battle Captain Program at the University of North Dakota. This provision sends students from West Point to North Dakota for their flight lessons. Instead of letting flight schools compete for the ability to train these cadets, we have earmarked their training to North Dakota. We are putting parochial interests over the necessity to provide the best training possible for the best price to our Army cadets.
And $8 million for repairs to a specific building at Rock Island Arsenal. I can think of 8 million reasons why the military, not the Senate should allocate funds to fix their priorities.
And $10 million for repairs to utility tunnels at Fort Wainright. The tunnels aren't broken, mind you, but the owners would like new doors put on them. This appropriation looks to me like an open door to fiscal irresponsibility.
The damage these earmarks do is deadly serious. They pull money away from legitimate funding priorities and they waste taxpayer dollars. Each year, many of the same earmarks appear in appropriations legislation, and each year I come to the floor and point them out to my colleagues. Some of the appropriators' favorite projects include:
The $25 million for the Hawaii Federal Health Care Network. I remember only 2 years ago when this particular project was given $23 million dollars. Some things never change.
And $2 million for the brown tree snakes. Once again, the brown tree snake has slithered its way into our defense appropriation bill. This funding does not belong in the Defense Appropriations Act.
There are many earmarks that funnel dollars to worthy medical research programs, such as breast cancer research, but there is no compelling national defense reason for these items to be in this piece of legislation. This type of critical research should be funded through the Labor/HHS Appropriations bill. Our soldiers and sailors need to be provided with the best equipment, housing, and support possible. Scarce defense dollars should be used for these defense purposes, not others.
I could go on and on--and on and on and on--listing all of the examples of pork in this legislation. We simply need to reassess our priorities.
This year's bill also includes a number of ``Buy America'' provisions. For example, it prevents the foreign purchase of welded shipboard anchor and mooring chain four inches in diameter and under. Another provision ensures that all carbon, alloy or steel plates are produced in the United States. Whew. I know we'll sleep better at night knowing that all of our carbon plates are manufactured in the U.S. Yet another section prohibits the Department of Defense from purchasing supercomputers from a foreign source.
I continue to be very concerned about the potential impact on readiness of our restrictive trade policies with our allies. Every year, Buy America restrictions cost the Department of Defense and the American taxpayers $5.5 billion. From a philosophical point of view, I oppose these types of protectionist policies, and from an economic point of view they are ludicrous. Free trade is both an important element in improving relations among nations and essential to economic growth. From a practical standpoint, ``Buy America'' restrictions could seriously impair our ability to compete freely in international markets and also could result in the loss of existing business from long-standing trade partners.
Some legislative enactments over the past several years have had the effect of establishing a monopoly for a domestic supplier in certain product lines. This not only adds to the pressure for our allies to ``Buy European'' but it also raises the costs of procurement for DOD, and cuts off access to potential state-of-the-art technologies. In order to maintain our troop strength and force readiness, the DOD must be able to be equipped with the best technologies available, regardless of country of origin. This would ensure both price and product competition.
Defense exports improve interoperability with friendly forces--increasingly necessary as we operate in coalition warfare and peacekeeping missions. Exports lower the unit costs of systems to the U.S. military, and provide the same economic benefits to the U.S. as all other exports--well paying jobs, improved balance of trade, and increased tax revenue. These are really issues of acquisition policy, not appropriations matters. There is no justification for including these provisions in the Appropriations Act.
This bill spends money on Lewis and Clark and funnels cash into military museums. It protects the mooring chain industry and ensures that we only buy American ball bearings. There is enough pork in this bill to feed an army--if only that we used our defense appropriations to do that. I suppose it is more important to appease local constituencies and special interests.
I wish it were not necessary for me to come to the Senate with every appropriations bill to criticize the amount of unrequested spending in the legislation. I do so because I believe it is critical for American taxpayers to understand where the money in their pockets is really going. I urge my colleagues to stop ``porking up'' our appropriations bills. In a time of huge spending deficits and scarce dollars, it is long past time to stop feeding at the trough.
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