National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, this first amendment has previously passed the Senate, and it would solve a problem created by the lawyers at the Pentagon who, in effect, at the last minute on a critical issue for eastern Oregon pulled the rug out from under our communities.

When we have a problem or conflict in our State, we solve it the Oregon way, by finding consensus and building common ground. That is why, when it became apparent 20 years ago that the U.S. Army's chemical depot in Umatilla, OR would be closing once all the chemical weapons were destroyed, the community leaders gathered all of the critical organizations together and began the process of planning what to do with the land once the facility closed.

The depot straddles two counties, several cities, and historic tribal lands. So suffice it to say, there are a lot of folks at home in my State who are interested in what happens to the land.

As progress was made in destroying the weapons at Umatilla, we were able to find consensus. The Federal Government helped. More than $1 million in grants was made available to move the project along. When the facility was listed in the 2005 BRAC recommendations for closure, the Pentagon eventually recognized the organizations that were involved in building this consensus in an official local reuse authority. Everything appeared on track, until last summer. That was, in effect, the time when at the last moment the Pentagon changed the rules.

After decades of planning and $1 million was spent pulling together an extraordinary communitywide consensus, a lawyer at the Pentagon decided to reinterpret the law and declared that the 2005 BRAC report, which became law when Congress didn't pass a resolution of disapproval, didn't matter. He decided that the Umatilla depot would be closed outside of the BRAC authority because the last of the chemical weapons wouldn't be destroyed until after the 6-year limit for completion of BRAC actions.

What this lawyer either didn't know, or chose to ignore, is this was precisely the intention of the BRAC Commission when they put the depot on the closure list. The BRAC report discusses the fact that the mission of destroying the chemical weapons wouldn't be completed until after deadline.

On page 239 of the report, the Commission found Secretary Rumsfeld's assertion that the chemical demilitarization would be complete by the second quarter of 2001 was optimistic. The Commission wrote:

An examination of status information for the depot's mission completion and subsequent closure revealed that dates may slip beyond the six-year statutory period for completing BRAC actions.

Therefore, the Commission took the Secretary of Defense's recommendation: ``Close Umatilla Chemical Depot, OR'' and changed it to: ``On completion of the chemical demilitarization mission, in accordance with treaty operations, close Umatilla Chemical Depot, OR.''

These facts make it clear that the Commission did not, as this Pentagon lawyer claimed, make a conditional recommendation that the facility only be closed if the chemical demilitarization mission is completed by September of 2011. Rather, the Commission acknowledged that the closure will have to happen when the demilitarization mission is complete, even if that is after September 2011. That decision by the Commission became law.

It is also important to note that the Commission was aware that the demilitarization mission had a deadline of its own. Under the terms of the Chemical Weapons Convention treaty, Umatilla had to complete the mission by April 29, 2012. The fact is, they actually beat the deadline.

The depot should be closed under BRAC so that the will of the community in the form of this local reuse authority and the will of Congress and the BRAC law will be taken into account. The Pentagon has to implement the law as it is, not as it wants it to be. But since the lawyers at the Pentagon seem to think there is some ambiguity, I seek to clarify it for them with my amendment. The amendment would require the Pentagon to follow the BRAC commission's report and close the Umatilla depot under BRAC.

Once again, I would like to note that this has already passed the Senate once. I am very appreciative of Chairman Levin, Senator McCain, and all our colleagues who are involved, and I thank them.

AMENDMENT NO. 1253

Briefly--and I appreciate the courtesy of Chairman Levin on this matter--I want to discuss my second amendment, which I call the Soft Landing Act. I think we all recognize the extraordinary contributions that are made by our Guard and Reserve. They do tour after tour after tour, and we all understand that never in our Nation's history has the American military relied more on the Guard and Reserve than it has in the last 10 years. More than 800,000 members of the Guard and Reserve have been called to Active Duty since 9/11. As I indicated, they are serving repeated tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I strongly believe that, for the period from when a Guard member is holding a rifle to the time when they are holding a child back at home in beautiful Oregon, there is not sufficient time being given in order to have what I call a soft landing--an opportunity to reintegrate and get your life back in order and get back into the community. What we have is a very abrupt period where a soldier faces the trauma of combat and comes right back to the community and really does not get an adequate time to readjust. Literally in a matter of days, these guardsmen go from holding guns in the chaos of a combat zone to holding their children in the serenity of their own homes. It is a difficult transition.

I want to make the point that it is a very different transition than most of our Active-Duty troops have. Many of our Active-Duty troops come back to communities that are close to facilities, close to bases. There is a variety of support services. Many of the guardsmen come back to communities that do not have the support of a large base.

It seems to me that the amount of personal and professional requirements that are placed on these patriotic, courageous Americans who serve in the Guard and Reserve warrants our making it possible for them to have what I call a softer landing getting back into their home communities.

I am very appreciative that Chairman Levin has given me the opportunity to discuss this briefly. He and I and his staff have talked about this before.

I will close by saying that to have all these men and women who have served with great valor in the Guard and Reserve coming home--we all understand they already face an unacceptably high unemployment rate. We know that in many instances they feel strongly about taking the time to get mental health services, to get back together again with their families, and very often the time period simply is insufficient for Guard members who come home. And right now, the reality can be pretty harsh. They go and serve their country. Their families are concerned about them being in harm's way for months on end, and then they come back with no job and no source of income to be able to support their families.

What this legislation does is provide a soft landing for Guard and Reserve members by allowing returning guardsmen and reservists to take up to 45 days--it is not a long period of time--to come back, get home, get their lives in order, and still get paid. My view is that this is part of the promise we have made in this country to take care of our troops. They did their best for us. We ought to do our best for them.

I am hopeful that the soft landing amendment, amendment No. 1253, will be included when this legislation passes here in the Senate.

I again express my appreciation to Chairman Levin. I know he is speaking on an important matter. I thank him for working on both of these amendments, and I look forward to working with him on these matters. He is our authority on these issues. I appreciate his courtesy.

I yield the floor.

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