Department of Veterans Affairs Claims Backlog Reduction Act of 2003

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time.

Let me congratulate my colleague, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), my good partner on the Committee on Armed Services, and all the Members, Republican and Democrat, who helped to put this bill together. I want to thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Myrick), the chairman on the committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), who gave us a lot of time and attention, and all the members of the Committee on Rules.

Let me just say a word or two about what this bill does because this bill makes what I consider to be some sweeping reforms and it is a great bill. It covers a number of major areas, and along with what I call the ``people issues''; that is, the pay raise that has been mentioned, the additional monies for housing that brings down the amount that a service member has to pay out of their pocket, all of the things that go to quality of life for personnel. It also covers some major areas that have needed reform.

One aspect of that is what I call freedom to train, and today if you go to a place like Camp Pendleton, I have used that as an example, it has some 17 miles of shoreline. Only a very small area can actually be utilized for Marines who basically practice Iwo Jima. They practice assaulting a defended beach area. They can only do that practice in a very, very limited area of about one kilometer because of environmental considerations. And if you go to bases around the country, rifle ranges, air space for our Air Force and our other services to undertake integrated training with multiple aircraft, all of that is being hindered and obstructed because of a collision with our environmental laws.

Now, we have an answer to that, and the answer is a management plan called an inramp, and that is where the military gets together with State Fish and Wildlife and Federal Fish and Wildlife and they make an agreement. They make an agreement and they say, okay, the habitat for the gnatcatcher will be over here, we will set aside this 400 acres, and the Marines will have this area for rifle training or the Army will have this area for tank training or the Air Force will have this area for aircraft training.

Once you make that agreement and you put it in place, it is not open for groups to come in and sue under the Endangered Species Act to close down that rifle range, to close down that tank range, to close down that air space that is so vital so that our people can survive in theaters like Iraq and Afghanistan.

So this is offered under the proposition that the real endangered species here is a 19-year-old Marine rifleman who needs the very best training that he can get here at home before he projects American power overseas, and in this bill we put together this balance between conservation and military requirements.

Also, with respect to allowing our submariners to utilize the best of their sonar devices that will keep them alive when they are in the littorals, in shallow water areas around the world, where they will be faced with very quiet diesel submarines which are now being proliferated in certain adversaries' navies. We say that, whereas before the standard was that if a mammal, maybe a sea lion, was potentially disturbed that military training could not take place in his neighborhood. Now we say he has to actually be significantly disturbed. He has to actually be disturbed or that disturbance has to be significant enough to alter the way he migrates or feeds or the way he goes about his daily life.

So we are trying to give as much value to the sailors' survival as we have given to the sea lions' survival. I think that is a good balance. In this case we put the sailor ahead of the sea lion. I think the American people want that.

With respect to personnel, right now we are facing a war that is a new war. It is a war in which we see terrorists with high technology. We have to be flexible. We have to move quickly, and that involves people who not just wear the uniform of the United States, it also involves people who wear the civil service uniform.

So we are empowering Mr. Rumsfeld with the ability to reshape his civil service so that instead of taking 4 or 5 or 6 months to go through the bureaucracy to qualify a civil servant to work at a job so you get to the point where you just direct a sergeant to go do it and he salutes and goes and does it, we will now be able to quickly move civil servants into that job. We will be able to hire them quickly, and when people show an extraordinary ability to work and an enthusiasm and dedication that rises above the community, that they will be rewarded for that. And we have tested these ideas in pilot projects around the country, and the members who have participated in the pilot projects have voted that they like it.

So we are undertaking important reforms in this bill. We are giving the military the tools they need to fight this new type of war. I would urge everyone to support the rule and support the bill.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, and we are going to describe during the general debate the great industrial base provisions, like the machine tool provision that we came out of this conference with, some excellent stuff.

But with respect to titanium, we know that we have three major makers of titanium left in this country. Otherwise, you have to rely on foreign sources. I want to thank the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hayes) personally for putting together the working group between industry and the Air Force and Members who are interested, and putting together what we call the basket approach to titanium.

The basket approach says basically this: If you are going to take a domestic system, like the planes that are candidates for this tanker operation, and you convert them into a military system, right now the Berry Amendment says you have to use American-made titanium on American military systems.

We have agreed that since some of these civilian aircraft will have some foreign-made titanium, we got with the industry leaders and they agreed that they would take and require the same amount of American titanium, with in fact a 10 percent increase, and spread that across the rest of their lines to make up for the foreign titanium that was in those civilian aircraft. I have talked with industry leaders. They feel a strong commitment to that policy.

I want to thank the gentleman for putting that in place. I think it is going to accrue to the benefit of not only our tanker program, but also the health of the titanium industry.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 437, I call up the conference report on the bill (H.R. 1588), to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2004 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe personnel strengths for such fiscal year for the Armed Forces, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, first, I want to thank all of my colleagues who participated in putting this bill together from the earliest hearing that we had early in the year on the threat that America faces, on the status of our Armed Forces, and on what we need to do to give the President and our troops the tools to get the job done. My partner, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), is every bit a 50-50 partner in this operation, Mr. Speaker. When we really get down to what it takes to protect our freedom, there are no Republicans or Democrats, and we have a very bipartisan committee, and I am proud of that. I want to thank the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) as not just a friend, but a real full partner in helping to shape America's defenses, along with all of the members on the Democrat side on the Committee on Armed Services and, of course, our great, great folks on the Republican side, along with the subcommittee chairmen and ranking members who have done such a great job.

Now, Mr. Speaker, we face a new era. This is an era of what I would call terrorists with high technology; and probably Jim Woolsey said it best when he said we have killed the big dragon, that is, we have disassembled the Soviet Union, but there are lots of poisonous snakes out there, and we are seeing those poisonous snakes and the effect of their bites every day around the world, not just in the theatres in Afghanistan and Iraq, but elsewhere. And I think probably the American people since 9-11 still have an acute understanding of the venom and the poison that is manifest in that capability of our adversaries in this new era of terrorists with high technology.

Our job is to meet that threat, and our job is further, in meeting that threat, to shape the U.S. military and our defense apparatus to meet the threat, to defeat it, and to equip it; to give it the tools that it needs to do its job most effectively, and this bill does that, Mr. Speaker.

I wanted to talk about a number of issues with respect to this bill. This is a sweeping bill; and it does a number of reforms, a number of changes, a number of things that I think are important to change our military as we move into this new era.

Let me talk about, first just talk about the last subject that came up during the rule, and that is the tankers. Because, yes, the tanker agreement is in this bill. Let me tell my colleagues a little bit about that.

First, anyone who does a security analysis or a briefing on potential threats around this world and present threats understands that tankers are extremely important. I just might add that I undertook a series of classified and unclassified briefings, as have most members of the Committee on Armed Services over the last many years, and paramount to our ability to project power is American air power.

Whether we are talking about B-2 bombers that can fly literally from Whiteman Air Base to strike a target in Kosovo with precision munitions, or talking about tactical aircraft flying off a carrier and hitting targets in Afghanistan or Iraq, we need tankers. Tankers, that big gas station in the sky that the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt) talked about, are necessary to project American air power. If we have American air power and, specifically, if we have stealth, and we couple that stealth with precision munitions, that is, instead of carpet- bombing a bridge, we send in that one precision munition, it hits one strut on that bridge and brings the whole bridge down, if we have that combination and we have the legs to get it there over the target in whatever remote part of the world we are operating in, we can project American power, we can protect our military forces, and we can drive them in a blitzkrieg attack against the enemy target, whether it is enemy forces surrounding Baghdad or some other area of the world; and Americans now understand that.

So we have to have tankers. If we do scenarios around the world, every single scenario requires lots of American tankers and, I might say, Mr. Speaker, more than we have now, newer than we have now, more capable than we have now. That is the reason we are putting the tanker deal together, and that is the reason that this is being carried in this bill.

Now, let me tell my colleagues, with respect to personnel, we have had some arm wrestling over this. But I think that the guy with whom we are trusting millions of young American lives, the Secretary of Defense, can be trusted with reshaping our personnel system in civil service in the Department of Defense to be more effective, and I think be more rewarding for those workers. I think they like the idea that we are going to be able to hire people right out of that job fair instead of telling them, in 3 months, maybe the Federal Government can hire you, while IBM and the private concerns are picking them up immediately. I like the idea that they are going to be able to be qualified for a job within a few days instead of after 3 or 4 months of bureaucracy, and that will allow them to take jobs that military people are doing now. When we have tested these things in places like China Lake, a majority of the workers, the workers have voted that they like this new system, this new flexible personnel system. This is an important new part of shaping the military.

So I think that is good.

Freedom to train, Mr. Speaker, we have talked about that. We have to give our young people the freedom to train, and once we make that agreement that the bird hatchery is going to be over here and the rifle range is going to be over here, we cannot let groups then go sue to close down the rifle range on the basis that they want to get that one too. We have to allow a balance to be maintained. One Marine said it best. He said to our members of the Committee on Armed Services, he said, for years we have done work-arounds. He said, we cannot work around it anymore, there is no land left to work around. So we need to have this. This is very, very important legislation, freedom-to-train legislation, Mr. Speaker.

Let me talk about the industrial base. We have got in this bill a great foundation for bringing back and maintaining the industrial base of this

country, and the centerpiece of this is what I think is the centerpiece of American production, the machine tool industry of this country, which used to be second to none. We have a provision in this bill, it is not a mandatory provision, so it is not going to make anybody have to go in and take out billions of dollars of machine tools, but it says that if you are an American contractor bidding on a DOD job, if you use an American machine tool instead of a foreign machine tool, you are going to get points in the competition. And I think that is going to incentivize some of our companies, big and small, to say instead of looking at another foreign-made machine tool, let us call up that American company and see what they have. Maybe we can use that machine tool. And that is going to, I believe, Mr. Speaker, start to bring back this base of machine tools upon which a lot of our defense manufacturing capability was founded. We do a lot of other great things in our industrial-based provisions, Mr. Speaker; but that is the centerpiece, and I think it is a very important foundation.

Now, we also reauthorize for 10 years the maritime security program. This is a program that brings in the strong right arm of America's maritime unions and makes sure that they are the ones that are moving men and materiel across the ocean into theaters of action instead of having to rely on rental operations where we are taking unions and working people from other countries and having to rely on foreign personnel to move the wherewithal for military victories around the world. That is what is going to bring our maritime unions, our ship- builders, and our maritime operators back into preeminence; and we have worked hard on that, Mr. Speaker, and that is a great aspect of this bill.

Concurrent receipt is very important, Mr. Speaker. We started out last year by saying people who are actually hit in combat, people who have won the Purple Heart, are going to get now two checks. They get the full check for everything that they have been disabled, for all of their disability, and they get the full check for their retirement for everything that they have done to serve the U.S. military. We now also say, and incidentally, I see the gentleman from New York (Mr. McHugh) here, our chairman of the Subcommittee on Total Force, who very much has been a leader in putting this thing together. We also now are going to give full concurrent receipt, that is that full disability check, to all of those people who are wounded in the combat area or who are disabled or hurt in the combat area, who are hurt or disabled while training for combat. Maybe that guy who is jumping out at the 82nd Airborne, with the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg hurt his back, he is going to get it; and also people who are hit by instrumentalities of combat, like people who are hit by agent orange, Mr. Speaker. Then we go to the entire population of veterans who were not hurt in combat, were not hit by enemy bullets, were not hurt while training for combat but, nonetheless, have disabilities. And all of those people who are over 50 percent, Mr. Speaker, are going to receive both checks.

Now, that is going to bring in about 250,000 people, new people into the system. It is a big, big victory for veterans. It is a wonderful thing.

Mr. Speaker, let me just say, too, along with the gentleman from New York (Mr. McHugh), the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), obviously, the guy that I call the father of concurrent receipt, it has been a big part of his career. And the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt), lots of great people; I might say that Senator Warner also, working on Purple Heart Plus last year, had a good hand in starting to put this thing together, lots and lots of people. Lots of our veterans and veteran supporters in this House have been involved in putting this program together. This is a great program.

Mr. Speaker, this is a great bill. It is a far-reaching bill. It gives the President and the troops the tools to get the job done. Let us pass this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton), who is chairman of the Subcommittee on Unconventional Warfare, Terrorism and Capabilities and oversees these very important special operations forces who are doing such a great job for our country.

(Mr. SAXTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. McHugh), who has a high responsibility of overseeing the total force of the military, our Reserves, our Active, our Guard, with respect to all the personnel issues, pay, personnel issues, family benefits, the chairman of the Subcommittee on Total Force.

(Mr. McHUGH asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks.)

(Mr. DICKS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is correct. Section 135 of the conference report does authorize a tanker acquisition program as did the Fiscal Year 2002 Defense Appropriations Act.

The gentleman is again correct. Section 131 codifies an agreement reached with the administration. The conferees relied upon a letter sent on November 5, 2003, to the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Armed Services in the other body by the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Mr. Wolfowitz, in coming to agreement on the tanker acquisition program authorized by section 135.

The gentleman is correct. Section 135 authorizes the Air Force to enter into one contract for 100 aircraft, 20 by lease and 80 by purchase, or more than one contract for the same combination of aircraft.

The gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt) is correct. The conferees in their joint report language agree that this section would ``authorize the Secretary to enter into a multi-year procurement program, using incremental funding.'' This language indicates that the multi-year procurement program authorized by section 135 would allow the Air Force to make payments as agreed to in the contract and that the Air Force would not be required to have the full budget authority required to purchase an aircraft in order to place an order for that aircraft under the contract.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I support this bill, and I am glad to see us put some quality-of-life provisions in it; and I commend the chairman, whom I have worked with for 20-odd years, for once again bringing a bill to closure.

I do have to call attention to the fact that this rule waives all points of order, which is typical; but in this case, as ranking member of the Budget Committee, I feel obliged to make my colleagues aware what it is we are waiving because it is not a good way to do business; it is not a good way to keep a budget.

This conference report contains two provisions that entail significant spending over and above the amounts allowed in the budget resolution. One allows concurrent receipt of military retirement benefits for retirees who also get VA disability benefits. The other commits the government to lease and purchase up to 20 or maybe even 100 new tanker aircraft.

No funds were added to this conference report to pay for either of these programs, and that is my problem. Between the two of them, they will entail new unfunded future commitments of approximately $40 billion, $22 billion for concurrent receipt, $18 billion for 100 new tanker aircraft.

As a member of the Committee on Armed Services, I support the compromise on concurrent receipt, and I understand the need for new tankers; but I am concerned, and have to be, about the way we are doing this. The rule before us would waive the point of order that would otherwise lie against the conference report for some clear and substantial departures from the budget resolution that is supposed to be prevailing in this House.

We just finished the fiscal year 2003, Mr. Speaker, with the largest deficit in our peacetime history, $374 billion. The deficit for next year, fiscal year 2004, is likely to break that by $100 billion, even without the additional cost of these programs which are not included in any of CBO's or OMB's projections.

All I am saying is if concurrent receipt is a worthy benefit, and I think it is, then let us pay for it or at least let us recognize fully in the budget the cost of it. If we need these tankers, and I accept the arguments that we do, then let us pay for them. Let us make the argument and pay for them and set the priority in the budget. This bill does not do that, and this rule would allow Congress to flout the budget resolution without facing up to these costs. If Congress feels that it is necessary to abandon the budget resolution that supposedly prevails in the House and further increases the deficit, then we ought to be accountable for that decision. But this rule would make sure that no Member of this body will have the opportunity to demand such accountability.

Let me tell the Members specifically the two problems in the conference report with respect to these items that give me trouble. The conference report phases in a compromised version of concurrent receipt. In 2004 this would increase direct spending by $800 million. By 2013 this would increase annual cost to as much as $3.5 billion. This provision would cost an estimated $22 billion in additional direct spending over the next 10 years, none of which is provided for in the mandatory spending provisions of the budget resolution. That is why I call it a substantial departure.

There is another anomaly in the way concurrent receipt is treated. Since the mid-1980s, we have recognized military retirement costs through an accrual system that sets aside funds to cover the cost of retirement benefits we owe in the future for today's military service. The concurrent receipt provisions in this bill eliminate a reduction or offset in military retirement and thus increase military retirement benefits. Under current procedures, we should increase our accrual payments to account for the fact that we have just increased future spending on retirement benefits. This bill does not do that. It departs from a convention we adopted 20 years ago for reporting military retirement programs.

The conference agreement also includes language that was not in either bill to lease 20 tankers and then buy 80 more. In effect, what it allows is incremental funding, something we have not done for big procurement programs for a long, long time. It entails at least a liability of $4 billion, maybe as much as $18 billion, and yet none of this money is in the Air Force budget. None of this authority has been recognized. What we have here is an effort to obscure the fact that we are increasing the defense budget but not adding BA commensurate to the amount of the increase.

There are committees right now and next week railing against corporate misaccounting in this country and should be. But we should keep our own books in proper order in order to make such criticisms. This is not a way to budget. I support the bill and hope it does not constitute a precedent for the future.

Mr. Speaker, with a defense budget of $400 billion and an enormous range of issues, it is not easy to bring a conference to closure, and I commend the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), as well as the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), for what they have achieved.

I rise in support of H.R. 1588, the conference report thereon, but I have some real concerns. First of all, I have already spoken to the failure of the underlying bill to accrue properly the budget authority that will be necessary to implement the compromise on concurrent receipt or the provisions for lease purchase of 100 tankers. I am concerned about the radical reform of civil service laws in the Department of Defense and the dispensation this bill gives to the Department of Defense from environmental laws that apply to everybody else. Also, I am concerned about the new and cumbersome strictures on cooperative threat reduction.

I am particularly disappointed in the provisions of this report that deal with low-level nuclear weapons. I believe the conferees should have stuck with the bipartisan compromise reached by the Committee on Armed Services and set forth in the defense bill that we passed last May. That compromise was sound enough that in July of this year when I offered a motion to instruct, those provisions were accepted and upheld by the House without dissent.

The administration began this year by stepping up its push for repeal on a ban of low-level nuclear weapons research and development, a ban which has been in the law for 10 years. There was little opposition here to broadening research into low-yield nuclear weapons, but there was bipartisan concern about going so far as engineering development. And so both the House and Senate authorization bills proposed changes to allow research into

low-yield nuclear weapons, but restricted any move into engineering development.

The Senate, on the other hand, repealed the so-called Spratt-Furse amendment entirely, but then backfilled the cavity with caveats barring testing or deployment of low-yield nuclear weapons. They also added language requiring specific congressional authorization to move into development of any advanced nuclear concept project. These are the provisions included in the conference report.

By contrast, the House version amended existing law rather than repealing it. We explicitly authorized research, but we maintained a bar on development beyond detailed feasibility studies, the so-called 6.2a level of research and development.

Our compromise may have similar in consequences to the Senate approach, but I think it was superior in form because it makes clear that it is the policy of the United States not to develop low-yield tactical nuclear weapons. The House compromise, thus, gives stronger assurance that Congress will be an equal partner if that policy is reversed, if that decision is taken, and if there is a move to go beyond research.

When we adopted the Spratt-Furse amendment in the early 1990s, it came in the wake of an issue taken by the first President Bush whereby we withdrew a number of tactical nuclear weapons from Europe and the Soviets responded in kind. This was a step back and a step forward for nuclear security throughout the world. This initiative helped us later on to persuade Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus to forswear nuclear weapons.

If today the United States should move toward renewed development of nuclear weapons, especially weapons designed to be more usable due to their low-yield warheads, it sends the wrong signal.

Mr. Speaker, I support the conference report because it does many things I support, particularly for the quality of life for our troops, and also because I trust that the effect of the language in the report will be enough to forestall development of mini-nukes. I recommend support for the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

(Mr. FROST asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, for all of my 25 years in this Congress, I have worked to strengthen America's military and to increase our national security. Like other defense proponents on both sides of the aisle, I have bent over backwards to put politics aside and work together to support America's men and women in uniform.

For instance, nearly 18 months ago, I introduced the Citizenship for America's Troops Act, a bill to help U.S. troops who are legal immigrants by easing the costly and burdensome obstacles that they face in the current citizenship process. Working with Democrats and Republicans in the House and the Senate, a good compromise was finally reached, one that is in this defense authorization conference report. It is not perfect, but it does provide much-needed relief to the more than 37,000 patriotic legal immigrants on active duty in the U.S. military, brave men and women who have been fighting and dying for a country in which they could not even vote.

This kind of cooperation and bipartisanship approach, Mr. Speaker, is fundamental to our efforts to keep America's military strong, especially at a time when so many Americans are losing faith in President Bush's ability to win the peace in Iraq.

While this conference report offers much to be proud of, Mr. Speaker, like the military pay raise and health care benefits for the National Guard and Reserves that Democrats have fought for, it also demonstrates how bipartisanship is becoming increasingly rare under this all- Republican government.

During the conference committee negotiations on this bill, Republican leaders shut out Democrats, including the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Armed Services, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), on some key areas of the conference. And the gentleman from Missouri will speak about those in more length. This is part of a clear and dangerous pattern by Republican leaders. We have seen it on the energy bill, the

Medicare bill, and the FAA bill; but it is extraordinarily disappointing to see America's national defense policy treated in such a partisan manner.

Moreover, the conference report itself contains several provisions where Republican idealogy clearly trumped solid national defense policy. In the interest of time, I am going to just mention three examples.

First, why will President Bush and the Republicans not listen to the veterans and Democrats who are fighting to repeal the disabled veterans tax? Right now it penalizes nearly 560,000 disabled veterans, denying them $3 billion in military retirement benefits each year. As the American Legion has said, Mr. Speaker, the right thing to do is repeal the tax for all service-disabled military retirees. Democrats have proposed a plan to do that; but Republicans, led by President Bush, continue to block it. In fact, in this bill, Republicans refuse to help almost 70 percent of those disabled veterans, Mr. Speaker.

So when Republican Members are at home for Veterans' Day celebrations next week, I hope they will be honest with the people about the provisions in this bill which provide only partial relief to only a fraction of America's disabled veterans. I hope they will explain that they did not think they could afford to restore military retirement benefits to 390,000 disabled veterans because they spent so much of the U.S. Treasury on tax breaks for the wealthiest few.

Second, does anyone really believe that national security requires that we gut landmark environmental protections? Of course not. But rolling back America's environmental protections is a Republican priority. So Republicans stuck into this bill provisions that attack the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

And, third, is it really necessary to weaken the workplace protections of 746,000 patriotic Americans employed at the Pentagon, the same people who responded so courageously to the September 11 attack on that building? And is it really necessary to eliminate the rules prohibiting patronage at the Pentagon? Of course not. But gutting important worker rights is another key Republican priority, and they are shamefully using this national defense bill to do it.

Fortunately, Mr. Speaker, there are some areas of this conference report where bipartisanship and sound defense policy have prevailed. These include the substantial quality-of-life improvements that Democrats have fought for. Those include a 4.1 percent increase in basic pay for all members of the Armed Forces, plus targeted increases for mid-grade and senior noncommissioned officers and select warrant officers to enhance retention. And they also include an increase in imminent-danger pay and the family separation allowance for U.S. troops serving in harm's way.

The conference report also builds on our efforts to support the National Guard and Reserves, who bear more and more of the burden of defending America at home and abroad. For instance, it ensures that when the Ready Reserves serve in areas where those on active duty get hazardous duty pay, they will too. And if members of the Ready Reserve cannot get health insurance through their employer, it gives them access to the same TRICARE system that serves the military.

Additionally, Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that the conference report includes my own legislation to make life easier for the Guard and Reserves, both active duty and retirees, and their families, by allowing them unlimited access to commissaries. They and their families are making great sacrifices for this Nation and they deserve our support.

Finally, the bill continues to make important investments in the wide range of weapons that ensure America's military superiority throughout the world. It includes full funding of $4.4 billion for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the next generation multirole fighter of the future for the Air Force and the Navy and the Marines. It fully funds the F/A-22 Raptor aircraft, the high-technology air dominance fighter for the Air Force, by providing $3.5 billion for 22 planes, and it includes the full $1.2 billion needed for the V-22 Osprey aircraft.

Mr. Speaker, all these important prodefense provisions have strong bipartisan support. They reflect the long-standing commitment of Democrats and Republicans to work together to ensure the U.S. military has the resources it needs. That is the type of bipartisanship and cooperation that our national security policy requires. It builds strong public support for a U.S. foreign policy here at home and ensures our troops have the resources they need to do the dangerous job we ask of them.

Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, Republican leaders seem to have forgotten these lessons. And the President too often ignored them in the run-up to the war in Iraq, which is a big reason it will be so hard to restore President Bush's credibility and the public's confidence in his ability to win the peace in Iraq. The American people deserve better than that, and so do our troops in the field. I urge my Republican friends to remember that, especially as U.S. troops and U.S. taxpayers continue to shoulder almost the entire burden for rebuilding Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), the ranking member on the Committee on Armed Services.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Evans).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks).

(Mr. DICKS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

(Mr. INSLEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would only point out to the previous speaker and to speakers on the other side that if the Republicans in the House were willing to forego a little bit of the tax cuts for the wealthy, we could fully fund concurrent receipts, rather than just partially funding concurrent receipts.

Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of this rule and adoption of this conference report.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule and thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Myrick) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost) for presenting it this morning.

This was a difficult bill, and shortly we will talk about some bumps along the way. But, Mr. Speaker, we are at war. We must do our very best, and I think we have done a good job as it relates to the troops of the United States of America. They are superb. They are doing a good job. We must pay respect to them legislatively as well as to their families legislatively, and I think we have done that by the various items. The family separation allowance, the combat pay, the pay raise and all of these personnel items that we touched upon is our way of saying thanks for a good job well done.

So I support this rule. In the process I want to express my deep appreciation to everyone in uniform and to those families who support those in uniform. And, sadly, we have lost some and I hope that this is some consolation that we continue to support the American men and women who are wearing the uniform of the United States of America.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill, the National Defense Authorization Act. I will explain the reasons why, but I first want to compliment my friend, the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter). This was the gentleman's inaugural voyage as chairman of the Committee on Armed Services and the seas were far from smooth. Many of the issues we faced were particularly difficult. I applaud the gentleman's leadership in recognizing that the totality of the bill is more important, especially when our country is at war in Iraq.

I do want to raise several issues of caution about process, however. First, the conference process has not been totally inclusive. Many issues, three in particular, civil service reform, concurrent receipt, and Air Force tanker leasing have been decided without substantive Democratic consultation. Second, there were few conference meetings that involved all the conferees or even all the House conferees. Finally, it is highly undesirable to consider a conference report on a large and highly complex defense bill in just a few hours after the conference report has been filed. It is not possible for Members to make best judgments about voting on this bill when there has not been adequate time after it has been filed.

The fact that we are considering this bill today, however, reflects the commitment of the Committee on Armed Services members that we must provide for the men and women of our military when they are sacrificing in so many ways to defend our country and our issues. They are depending on us. We will not let them down. And we are at war.

I want to highlight just a few issues that cause me to support this bill. The bill includes a 4.1 percent pay raise for the troops. The bill provides an increase in imminent-danger pay. It provides for family separation allowance, which will directly benefit our servicemen and -women who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and other dangerous spots away from their homes. The conference report further authorizes TRICARE coverage in the military health care system for our National Guardsmen and for our Reservists who played such a vital role against terrorism.

Finally, very, very important, this bill includes increasing the Army's size 2,400 additional soldiers. That is so terribly important because the troops are so strained at this time, and the gentleman from New York (Mr. McHugh) knows that so well as chairman of the subcommittee.

We need the pay raise. We need the special pay to compensate and help retain those who have those special skills. Our bases need the military construction and family housing authorizations. We need to authorize the money for military operations, for flying hours and steaming days and tank miles, to allow our troops to be the best trained and prepared in the world.

I want to mention concurrent receipt. Overwhelming majorities of both Houses clearly support providing this benefit to all disabled retirees. Nevertheless, the conference agreement, which would provide this benefit to those at least 50 percent disabled, is a significant step in the right direction. There will, however, be a motion to recommit regarding this issue, and I hope people will support it.

I am pleased, Mr. Speaker, that we were able to reach agreements on many difficult issues, but I know many of my colleagues will not be happy with some of the substantive outcomes. The conference agreements concerning low yield nuclear weapons, civil service reform, and changing environmental laws are particularly problematic, and I point those out.

Now, perhaps more than any time in the last decade, however, Mr. Speaker, it is essential that the House take action to provide for our men and women in uniform. This vote will not only be seen in Kabul or Baghdad but also Diego Garcia, Fort Irwin, Norfolk, Fort Leonard Wood, Whiteman Air Force Base. We need to send a message to the American public, and to our adversaries and allies, that we as a Congress are prepared to give our men and women in uniform the support, the strong support and protection that they deserve.

So I urge my colleagues to vote for this conference report.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Snyder.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the minority leader.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt).

(Mr. SPRATT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Larsen).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Hooley).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Michaud).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Baird).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks).

Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Who has the right to close?

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Let me take a moment, Mr. Speaker. This is deadly serious business that we are about. We are providing for the troops, those who wear the uniform of the United States of America as provided by the Constitution of the United States. This is of the highest calling of our Congress. No, all the provisions in this bill do not meet with my approval wholeheartedly or with others'. But on the other hand there is so much in this bill that takes care of the troops, their families, their needs, their capability of waging war, and we are at war, Mr. Speaker.

With that in mind, I hope that every person in this Chamber, despite the misgivings of some provisions, will support this bill with the understanding that in so doing, a vote for this bill is a vote of confidence and appreciation for those who are wearing the uniform and those families at home in whose prayers those young soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Marshall).

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding me this time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the conference report and this rule. I have concerns about this bill, too. I represent the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Keyport, Bangor. Many of these work rules are very much deplored by the workers there, and I regret that they have been attached to this legislation, but we will continue to work to try and deal with them as we proceed in this session of Congress.

I want to rise in very strong support of the provision my friend the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt) talked about earlier, the question of tankers. I became interested in this issue several years ago with a visit to Tinker Air Force Base where we saw the condition of our KC- 135-Es. I believe that this is a crucial national priority, to get a new tanker replacement program started.

The Air Force has chosen the 767. We have had a lot of controversy about whether we should buy or lease. We have come up with a combination here. The Secretary of Defense's office, led by Mr. Wolfowitz, sent a letter on Thursday, which has brought us together. I want to commend the Speaker, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), for his dedicated leadership on this issue. Without his tremendous effort and tenacity, we would not have gotten this far.

I intend to have a colloquy later with the chairman of the committee when we get to the authorization bill on this matter, but I just want to say that I want to compliment everyone who has worked on this. For 2 years, we had to get an effort under way to get this replacement effort going.

Not to understate it, every single plane that flew into Afghanistan and into Iraq had to be refueled multiple times. Our whole effort to improve our bomber capability with the B-2 and smart weapons and all of the aircraft coming off of our carriers, Navy and Marine Corps aircraft, all of them had to be refueled multiple times. So you do not get anything done without tankers.

We have planes now, 544 of them, that were built between 1957 and 1963. These are very old aircraft. We have serious corrosion problems, and I am glad that this conference committee was able to come together and put together a package and that the administration has said they will make it work.

I believe this is one of the most important things we can do. If you think about it, tankers and the EA-6-Bs, which are also old and in terrible condition, are two weapons systems that have become absolutely fundamental to our U.S. ability to project power around the world. I am glad we can get this tanker thing moving forward and that it is in this bill.

I appreciate the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) and the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) for their leadership on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to enter into a colloquy with the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services.

Mr. Chairman, the conference report on H.R. 1588, the Fiscal Year 2004 Defense Authorization Act, contains a provision, section 135, which authorizes the Air Force to enter into a contract for 100 tanker aircraft under the terms and conditions of section 8159 of the Fiscal Year 2002 Defense Appropriations Act.

I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. Speaker, it is my further understanding that section 135 was written after extensive negotiation with the Department of Defense and the administration and that that section represents a common understanding between the conferees and the administration on the terms under which this tanker program will be executed.

I yield to the gentleman from Kansas.

We thank the chairman for his hard work on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, the letter sent to the Committee on Armed Services by Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz is as follows:

Deputy Secretary of Defense,

Washington, DC, Nov. 5, 2003.

The Hon. John Warner,

Chairman, Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate,

Washington, DC.

Dear Mr. Chairman: Thank you again for your consideration

of the Department of Defense's proposal to lease 100 KC-767A

aircraft. As you know, there has been a vigorous debate on

the best way to get this program started. Your most recent

amendment would allow the Air Force to lease no more than 20

of the 100 tankers. The Air Force has developed a proposal to

implement that arrangement, and I hope that you will find it

acceptable.

Our proposal strikes a necessary balance between the

critical need for new air-refueling tankers and the

constraints on our budget. As reflected in the enclosed

chart, we intend to lease the initial 20 aircraft and then

buy aircraft at a steady rate of 11 to 13 aircraft per year

until delivery of the 100th. We commit to add $2.4B, in

Fiscal Years (FYs) 2008 through 2010, to the funding profile

for the original proposal to lease 100 aircraft. We also will

add $1.4B in FY 2012 to 2013. The combination of these added

funds achieves an immediate start to the program and allows

us to purchase the last 80 aircraft at time of delivery.

I appreciate the support that you have provided in the past

and look forward to working with you in the future. If you

require further information, please do not hesitate to

contact me. A similar letter has been sent to the chairmen

and ranking minority members of each of the defense

committees.

Sincerely,

Paul Wolfowitz.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the distinguished gentleman from Missouri, who is a classmate, for yielding me this time. I want to compliment him and Chairman Hunter on this bill. We have worked for 2 years on the tanker provisions in this legislation. I am convinced that modernizing our tankers is absolutely crucial to national security. The gentleman from Missouri and I have worked for many years to implement and upgrade the B-2 bombers which fly out of Whiteman, Missouri. We have found that in all of these deployments that tankers are absolutely crucial.

I must tell the House that the condition of our tankers today is not good. The KC-135-Es have significant corrosion. They were all built between 1957 and 1963 in the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. I have been on them. I have talked to the pilots who fly them. I have talked to General Handy, General Jumper and they are convinced that replacing these tankers is one of the most important things we can do to preserve our military capability. When you think about it, every time we deploy, we have to have tankers. We have to have EA-6-Bs, those jammers. Both of them are very, very old and both of them need to be replaced and we need get on with it.

One of the things that I am concerned about that we still have not addressed since the Bush administration took office is the fact that we are short in procurement still 30 to $40 billion. The big argument in the tanker issue is lease versus buy. The only reason we had to do a lease is the Air Force did not have the money to buy these airplanes. That is why we have got to get the procurement account up, General Myers says somewhere between 100 and $110 billion. We are at $72 billion. We have got work yet to be done here.

I am also very concerned about the provisions in this bill that deal with worker rights. We are going to continue to work on that. I hope that down the road we can exempt shipyards from those new restrictions.

Parliamentary Inquiry