National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2008

Floor Speech

NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2008 -- (Senate - July 12, 2007)

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the amendment that is being offered by Senator Levin and Senator McCain that will add to this legislation the wounded warriors bill that we worked so hard on in the Armed Services Committee.

I also wish to acknowledge the great leadership of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, Senator Larry Craig and Senator Daniel Akaka.

This is an unusual case where two Senate committees worked together in a bipartisan way to produce legislation that will help improve the care of our veterans, our wounded warriors, and their families.

All of us were outraged by the reports of substandard conditions at Walter Reed Hospital. But our investigation of those conditions revealed other problems with the system--disparities in the award of disability ratings, poor treatment of our soldiers and marines after they had left the military hospitals, a lack of a smooth transition into the VA medical system. These are just some of the problems that were uncovered. I believe this legislation contains the reforms that are going to make a real difference in ensuring high quality, consistent medical care for those who have given so much.

I have become particularly concerned about the treatment of those who are suffering from traumatic brain injury. Traumatic brain injury, or TBI, has emerged as the signature injury of the Iraq war. Bomb blasts are the most common cause of injury and death in Iraq. While improvements in body armor and protective gear have enabled our troops to survive attacks that once would have proven deadly, they still do not fully protect against damage from blasts from roadside explosives or suicide bombers.

As many as 28 percent of the 1.4 million troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan have been exposed to bomb blasts and may have suffered at least some form of traumatic brain injury. Mr. President, 60 percent of the blast victims treated at Walter Reed have been diagnosed with mild, moderate, or severe traumatic brain injury.

I visited one such soldier recently at Walter Reed, a 19-year-old soldier from Maine who is faced with making an agonizing medical decision while he is suffering the effects of a mild case of TBI. I thought: How terribly difficult it was for this brave young man to be faced with making a decision about whether to amputate his foot while his judgment is impaired by a traumatic brain injury, an injury that was not initially diagnosed. And that is one of the problems.

I have worked very closely with the Senator from New York, Mrs. Clinton, to come up with a better system for screening soldiers for TBI because while the evidence of brain injury may be dramatically clear in some cases, in others there may be no outward or visible sign of the trauma. It can take days, weeks, or even months before the symptoms of TBI are readily apparent. As a consequence, as with this soldier, a mild case of TBI may go misdiagnosed or untreated, particularly if the servicemember has sustained more obvious injuries.

Soldiers with TBI often have symptoms affecting several areas of brain function. Headaches, sleep disorders, and sensitivity to light and noise are common. Attention, memory, language, and problem-solving abilities can be affected. Some of the more troubling symptoms can be behavioral: mood changes, depression, anxiety, emotional symptoms. Moreover, sometimes the symptoms of TBI overlap with post-traumatic stress disorder, making it difficult to distinguish between the two.

Sadly, failure to accurately diagnose or treat TBI can result in frustration, inadequate medical treatment, and a series--an endless series--of hardships for our returning veterans and their families.

So I am very pleased the wounded warriors bill includes an expansion of research into TBI and, perhaps most important, provisions authored by Senator Clinton and myself that will address problems resulting from the misdiagnosis, or the failure to diagnose at all, cases of TBI. The bill will improve the screening process that our troops go through before deployment to improve TBI diagnoses after deployment.

While many wounded servicemembers receive cognitive evaluations upon their return, if there is no baseline test conducted prior to the injury, it can be very difficult to assess the injury, and it can lead to questions about the validity of postdeployment assessment. So our amendment requires a baseline assessment to be done prior to the deployment.

I end by saying that the idea for this predeployment assessment came to me from a neurologist in Maine who treated a soldier back from Iraq who had a traumatic brain injury that had been missed. It was severely interfering with his recovery. Fortunately, this neurologist was able to make the correct diagnosis and see that this brave soldier who had sacrificed so much got the care and treatment he needed.

I believe the provisions in the wounded warriors bill, the amendment before us, will greatly reduce the chances of misdiagnosis in the future. There are many other provisions in this bill that are going to improve the treatment and care for those who have served their country so well and sacrificed so much, but I did want to highlight these provisions of special interest to me.

Again, I salute the leaders of the Armed Services Committee and the Veterans' Affairs Committee for their dedication and hard work. All of us have learned so much, and each and every one of us is committed to ensuring the highest quality of care for those who have sacrificed so much.

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I am in strong support of the fiscal year 2008 National Defense Authorization Act. This legislation will provide essential resources to our troops as they engage in combat overseas and training at home. It also offers an important opportunity at this crucial time for continued debate as to our Nation's future presence in Iraq. This is the most important challenge facing our country, and I will address this issue in subsequent remarks.

Let me begin by thanking my colleagues, the distinguished chairman and ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Levin and Senator McCain, for their leadership in crafting this bill and for their strong commitment to our Nation's Armed Forces.

This legislation includes a strong commitment to strengthen Navy shipbuilding by including $13.6 billion for shipbuilding programs. The declining size of our Navy fleet is of great concern to me, and this legislation is an important step toward reversing that troubling decline.

The Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Mullen, has proposed a 313-ship Navy shipbuilding plan that seeks to address longstanding congressional concerns that Navy shipbuilding has been inadequately funded in recent years. The resulting instability has had a number of troubling effects on the shipbuilding industrial base and has contributed to significant cost growth in Navy shipbuilding programs. The CNO's plan--combined with more robust funding by Congress--will begin to reverse the decline in Navy shipbuilding.

I strongly support the provisions authorizing the funding for construction of destroyers for the 21st century, the DDG-1000 Zumwalt class destroyers. The DDG-1000 represents a significant advance in Navy surface combatant technology. Its capabilities include: superior precision naval surface fire support; advanced stealth technologies; engineering and technological innovations allowing for a reduced crew size; and sophisticated, advanced weapons systems, such as the electromagnetic rail gun.

In addition, it is important to note the tremendous cost savings that will be realized over the lifecycle of a DDG-1000 destroyer compared to that of a DDG-51 destroyer as a result of various innovations and technological advancements.

It is critical that the construction of the first two DDG-1000 destroyers in 2007 and 2008 continue as scheduled without further delays. The dedicated and highly skilled workers at our Nation's surface combatant shipyards, such as Bath Iron Works in my home State of Maine, are simply too valuable to jeopardize with further contracting delays.

That is why I am concerned that the House version of this bill includes a provision to prohibit the start of construction on lead ships until the Secretary of Navy certifies that detailed design is complete. This provision, if enacted, could further delay the Navy's awarding of the construction contract for the first two DDG-1000 destroyers.

The House version would also require that the next-generation class of Navy cruisers, which will be the follow-on to the DDG-1000 destroyer, be powered by nuclear propulsion systems, even though neither of the U.S. Navy's proven surface combatant shipyards, Bath Iron Works and Ingalls Shipyard, has the facilities or certifications required to construct nuclear-powered surface combatant ships. This provision could dramatically increase the costs of future surface combatants, thereby reducing the overall number of ships built at a time when the Navy is seeking to revitalize and modernize its fleet.

Of further concern is the fact that the Senate version of this legislation, as drafted initially, eliminated all funding for the Littoral Combat Ship Program for fiscal year 2008, despite the fact that this ship is an integral part of the CNO's 313-ship plan. Fortunately, I was able to work with my colleagues on the Armed Services Committee during the mark up of this legislation to restore $480 million to ensure continued development of this important program.

I am pleased that the Senate Armed Services Committee also agreed to my request for $50 million in funding to continue the modernization program for the DDG-51 Arleigh Burke class destroyers. This program provides significant savings to the Navy by applying some of the technology that is being developed for the DDG-1000 destroyer and backfitting the DDG-51, which may reduce the crew size by 30 to 40 people.

The Senate's fiscal 2008 Defense authorization bill also includes funding for other defense-related projects that benefit Maine and our national security. Funding is provided for machine guns and grenade launchers, both of which are manufactured by the highly skilled workers at Saco Defense in Saco, ME.

All of the Senate Armed Services Committee members are concerned about improving the protection of our troops in harm's way. As such, this bill includes $4 billion above the President's budget request for accelerated procurement of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected, MRAP, vehicles for the Armed Forces and $4.5 billion for the Joint Improvised Explosive Defeat Organization.

In addition, the legislation provides $5 million to the University of Maine's Army Center of Excellence for the production and demonstration of lightweight modular ballistic tent insert panels. The panels provide crucial protection to servicemembers in temporary dining and housing facilities in mobile forward-operating bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The legislation also provides $6.9 million for the Maine Army National Guard to field the Integrated Disaster Management System, developed by Global Relief Technologies in Kennebunk and Portsmouth, in support of critical medivac operations in Iraq. This system provides near real-time data management and analysis to and from field operators via state-of-the-art, hand-held devices.

The bill also authorizes $9.7 million for construction of a Consolidated Emergency Control Center at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. This facility will consolidate all of the shipyard's emergency response entities into one centralized location, which will provide a comprehensive communications and response capability in the event of an emergency.

Finally, I am pleased that this bipartisan Defense bill also authorizes a 3.5-percent across-the-board pay increase for servicemembers, half a percent above the President's budget request. This bill provides the necessary resources to our troops and our Nation and recognizes the enormous contributions made by the State of Maine. The bill provides the necessary funding for our troops, and I offer it my full support.

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