Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2005
EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2005 -- (Senate - April 20, 2005)
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Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Oklahoma for yielding to permit me to respond to the amendment which he has filed.
When the Senator from Oklahoma commented earlier about the need to hold down the deficit, I am in complete agreement with what he had to say. The amendment pending does not have any expenditure at all. It is a clarification of a preexisting allocation which was in the Omnibus appropriations bill last year, and it was in a proper bill. It was not designated as emergency spending; it was an appropriations bill.
This money is being allocated to develop the port facilities in Philadelphia to accommodate a very new kind of ship which will compete with air travel and which has very substantial military as well as commercial purposes.
There is a long history to this particular item. Originally, there was an effort to have the construction undertaken partly in the United States, and this $40 million was to be a loan guarantee. Without going into a very elongated history, the manufacturers of the ship worked it out to have it done overseas. It is a loss to the United States. We had a meeting with members of the Armed Services Committee and the Secretary of the Navy. Secretary English tried to work it out and could not. Then the decision was made that the $40 million that already had been appropriated would be directed toward the port facility in Philadelphia to accommodate these ships.
There is no other port facility that can take these ships. This is part of a larger expenditure where the Port Authority is putting up $75 million of its own. So there is nobody in the market here to say we have $75 million and we would like to have access to this $40 million that has already been allocated.
In broader terms, I think it is fair to characterize this expenditure and reallocation. The Navy is prepared to do it, but they want to have the language so they are complying with the congressional direction. This is part of the effort to make up for the Philadelphia industrial base, what happened when the Philadelphia navy yard was closed some years ago. That yard was closed with fraudulent misrepresentations made by the Department of the Navy, not something I am saying today for the first time. I filed a lawsuit in the Federal court of Philadelphia because they had concealed opinions, letters, from two admirals who said the navy yard should be maintained but downsized.
I argued the case personally in the district court and went to the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and lost it in the Supreme Court where the Supreme Court was faced with the alternative of disallowing some 300 base closures if they were to upset the Philadelphia navy yard closure. It was the basis of delegation of constitutional authority.
It would be my hope that my colleagues in the Senate would allow this committee report to stand because it is not an expenditure, it does not burden the deficit. It is clarification so that the Secretary of the Navy can act in accordance with congressional wishes, and it has a military as well as a commercial purpose.
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