Veterans Housing Fairness Act of 2003

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to oppose the FY 04 Defense Authorization bill.

Since September 11, 2001, our nation has faced the threat of international terrorism.

Every Member of Congress has taken seriously one of our most important responsibilities; protecting the lives and property of all Americans. I have supposed many of President's Bush's initiatives to address the threat posed by Al Qaida and international terrorism when I believed they would enhance our country's security. I have opposed proposals when I believed they would not.

The test of any defense related legislation is: Does it make our country safer? This bill fails that test. In fact, in some ways, this bill will decrease our security.

First, this bill encourages nuclear proliferation. This bill will eliminate the prohibition on the research, development and deployment of low-yield nuclear weapons, even as the United States works to stop proliferation of nuclear weapons elsewhere. The list of countries with nuclear weapons keeps growing: the United States, Russia, Great Britain, France, China, Israel, India, and Pakistan. Now North Korea has them. Who's next? The United States committed to work toward disarmament when the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) went into effect in 1972. We should be taking bold steps toward ending the threat of nuclear holocaust once and for all, not creating new ones.

The United States must show leadership by refraining from the use of nuclear weapons. Developing new ones sends exactly the opposite message. By continuing the development of new nuclear weapons at the same time we are trying to convince other nations to abstain from such weapons, we undermine our credibility to fight proliferation. Now is not the time to send an ambiguous non-proliferation message to those nations who would try to join the nuclear club.

These ``tactical'' nuclear weapons are not needed for our defense. Conventional ``bunker buster'' bombs have been used and additional research is ongoing to improve their effectivess. A ``robust earth penetrator'' would not be a targeted ``smart bomb,'' since fallout would harm human beings in the area of the blast. One that successfully penetrates deep enough to contain the fallout would need to have sufficient explosive power to no longer be considered a ``mini'' or tactical nuclear weapon. The only permanent solution to the nuclear threat is to eliminate these weapons entirely through a global legal commitment, backed by strong oversight and enforcement mechanisms.

Second, the overall spending level in this bill is excessive. This will be the largest defense budget in the history of the United States. The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment has calculated that it is 10 percent higher in real terms than the average military budget during the Cold War. At $400.5 billion, this bill is $7.6 billion higher than the current authorized level. It represents 51 percent of Fiscal Year 2004 discretionary spending. The first Defense Authorization bill passed after I was elected to Congress in 1998 was the FY 2000 bill. That legislation authorized $291.0 billion.

Clearly we are the preeminent military power in the world. Our military spending is 8 times as large as the next largest military-- Russia. No other nation, or collection of nations, is anywhere close to being able to challenge American military power. Continuing to increase our military spending beyond the rate of inflation and in a time of budget deficits and a stagnant economy is not a wise use of taxpayer dollars. We can be safe without spending more.

Before significantly increasing defense spending, we need to eliminate the waste, fraud and abuse within the department. The department's inspector general found that the department could not account for more than $1 trillion in spending. Yes, $1 trillion. That's two and half yearly defense budgets. A General Accounting Office report found that the Army could not account for 56 airplanes, 32 tanks, and 36 missile command launch-units. The GAO found that the department has 2,200 overlapping accounting systems which cost a total of $18 billion per year. $18 billion, and apparently they don't even work. The GAO estimates there is at least $20 billion in savings that could be found in the defense budget.

Third, this bill continues funding for weapons systems that are expensive and unnecessary. The bill would authorize $1.05 billion to purchase 9 new MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft and continue program research and development. This aircraft has had continuing design problems that have already cost us $15 billion, four crashes and the lives of 23 Marines. We don't need these planes. We also do not need the F-22 Raptor. Like the Osprey, it has continuing technical problems and cost overruns. Each aircraft costs $260 million. We could save $3.5 billion if we did not purchase the proposed 22 this year.

The bill also makes it harder to close unneeded military bases. We have and will continue to restructure our forces to meet our new security needs. That process requires us to reduce our expenses by closing excess bases. Keeping unnecessary bases open wastes valuable defense dollars that could be used to enhance our security.

Perhaps the biggest boondoggle in the defense budget is the national missile defense system. The bill calls for $9.1 billion to continue research, development and initial deployment in Alaska. Each year we put more and more resources into this unproven technology that does not address the most likely threats from weapons of mass destruction. Is a nuclear weapon likely to arrive on an intercontinental ballistic missile? Homeland security experts don't believe so. They are worried about our ports and our borders. The GAO found that ``an effective port security environment may be many years away.'' The U.S. maritime system consists of more than 300 sea and river ports with more than 3,700 cargo and passenger terminals. In excess of 6 million transport containers enter our ports each year. With $9.1 billion we could secure our ports, and have money left over to address other urgent homeland security needs like funding for first responders, research on chemical, biological and nuclear weapons detection, improving our border security, and providing more resources for non-proliferation efforts overseas. These should be our priorities.

Fourth, the bill includes many unwise, inappropriate and unnecessary provisions. The bill would exempt the Department of Defense from certain aspects of the Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act. These laws already contain exemptions in cases where national security is at stake. Both the General Accounting Office and EPA Administrator Whitman have testified that environmental laws have not affected military readiness. This provision will undermine our environmental laws and threaten endangered species.

The bill gives the Secretary of Defense unprecedented ability to bypass civil service personnel rules and establish new personnel systems. Civil service rules were established to protect workers and protect the public interest by ensuring that fair rules and professionalism replace political favoritism and cronyism. The Bush Administration submitted this sweeping and unprecedented request at the last minute. We don't even know what kind of system the Secretary of Defense intends to create. Any major change like this one requires extensive hearings and in-depth analysis before Congress makes a decision. We should not be railroaded into dismantling an effective, honest civil service system. Furthermore, we should not give a blank check to the Administration in designing this system.

Finally, I am concerned about the continued funding of counter- narcotics military operations in Colombia. The involvement of our military in Colombia's civil war is counterproductive and dangerous. This bill allows counter-narcotics funding and equipment to be used by the Colombian government to fight its civil war. This policy should come to an end.

Mr. Chairman, we can keep our nation secure. Unfortunately, this defense authorization bill does not do so. This defense budget wastes money. If I believed that the increased expenditures were appropriately focused on paying our brave servicemen and women what they deserve and increasing their readiness, I would support it. But this defense budget is targeted at the wrong threats. This defense budget sets the wrong priorities.

Mr. Chairman, I congratulate our men and women in uniform and in civilian positions who helped liberate Iraq from the grip of Saddam Hussein. Our military--the finest in the world--has in the course of just two years liberated Afghanistan, played a vital role in defending the homeland against terrorism, and worked with our allies to hunt down terrorists. I am grateful to all those who protect our national security, both in and out of uniform. They have my deep respect. They are outstanding Americans and valued federal employees. Indeed, a large number of federal employees, many of whom work for the Department of Defense, call the 10th Congressional District of Virginia their home, and I am proud to be their Representative in Congress.

As we debate H.R. 1588 the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2004, I want to express my support for many important programs included in this bill which are investments to make sure that our military remains the best in the world, as it should. Our service men and women and those civilians who support them deserve only the best. Our colleague and my classmate, Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, deserves our congratulations for the hard work of his committee in bringing this bill to the floor.

There are some provisions in this bill, however, which deeply concern me. Those address the wholesale personnel reforms and management authority changes at the Defense Department which I believe could shortchange civilian employees and come on the heels of the many recent historic accomplishments made possible by these very employees.

The Department of Defense has acted with lightning speed in presenting to Congress a number of changes to its personnel system. There was minimal consultation with members of Congress, little notice of its plans provided, and relatively few hearings held about this sweeping proposal. Why such a rush to change?

H.R. 1588 would radically alter the way in which many Department of Defense employees are paid, establishing a pay-for-performance plan with standards which are in some cases subjective. The Secretary of Defense would be able to overrule the director of the Office of Personnel and Management in making personnel decisions, if the President agreed with the Secretary.

The Department of Defense would be granted more power than ever before in how it structures policies which will impact its 746,000 civilian employees. While I understand the need for flexibility in the modern-day federal workplace, I am very concerned that some of the changes in H.R. 1588 champion flexibility at the expense of oversight and congressional involvement in ensuring employee protections on a fair and level civil service playing field. When oversight is limited and decisions are channeled to one source, red flags should go up about accountability and the decision-making process at DOD.

I also am concerned about what appears to be some ambiguity on the question of veterans' preference in hiring at the Department of Defense. Veterans are given preference in hiring for civil service positions in recognition of their military service to our nation. This long-standing policy allows the Department of Defense as well as other government departments and agencies to recruit and retain veterans who can continue to provide valuable service to their nation in their civilian lives. It is unclear under this legislation whether the veterans preference in hiring will remain totally intact in all areas of hiring in the Department of Defense. This lack of clarity is troubling not only as a matter of practice, but as a matter of principle: there should be a clear understanding that the veterans preference cannot be waived in any hiring circumstances.

Because of the controversial personnel change included, in this legislation, I am very disappointed that the House Rules Committee foreclosed the opportunity to amend that section of the bill. No amendments were made in order concerning the civil service portion of H.R. 1588. Some colleagues, including Representative Cooper were prepared to offer a valuable amendment and had submitted it to the Rules Committee. That amendment would have created an Employees Bill of Rights offering fundamental civil service protections for the civilian employees at the Department of Defense. That amendment should have been made in order, and this House should have had the chance to debate that amendment. Had we been given that opportunity, I would have voted for the Cooper amendment.

Our colleague Representative Ike Skelton, the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, argued yesterday in a Washington Post op-ed that ``major reassignments of constitutional authority such as this demand the same sort of thoughtful foresight as a war plan.'' He added that ``the only thing that is obvious and consistent throughout the 50 provisions included in this bill is the aggregation of power sought for the Department of Defense, removing the legal restrictions and congressional oversight that should safeguard against any abuses, however unintentional. This approach is a rush to judgment that will affect vast numbers of people and, in many cases, will enshrine bad policy in law.''

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld responded to Congressman Skelton's arguments today in his own Post op-ed. He laid out his case for what he sees as necessary ``flexibility and agility'' in managing the civilian workforce at DOD in the 21st century. I would not disagree that we are in a changed world and that the federal government must respond to those changes.

But the secretary should heed his own op-ed conclusion. He stated: ``The fact is that the transformation of our military capabilities depends on the transformation of the way the Defense Department operates. This does not mean an end to congressional oversight. What it means is that we need to work together to ensure the department has the flexibility to keep up with the new threats emerging as this century unfolds.''

Indeed. We need to work together. That means giving Congress the opportunity for thoughtful and deliberate study of this plan, time to investigate its implications, and the chance to ask the tough questions to make sure we fully understand how this plan will impact the lives of the people at the Pentagon who work to serve their country. That doesn't mean that Congress just salutes and says, ``Yes, sir,'' and rubber stamps the secretary's controversial plan.

We must ask what message this plan sends to the rest of government. Will the Department of Defense's rush into a personnel transformation plan encourage other government departments and agencies to do the same, affecting even more federal employees? Because of my concern about responding to the terrorism threat in our country, I voted for the legislation establishing the new Department of Homeland Security and allowing the department to set up new model rules which could be used to judge future decisions on personnel policy. We are on new ground and don't as yet know how well this model works. The DOD personnel proposal before the House could not only affect the Department of Defense, but may impact the entire government in ways which we cannot yet know.

I also must share my concern about a pattern of unilateral action we continue to see within the Office of the Secretary of Defense. There have been troubling news reports about how some high ranking military personnel have been treated at the Department of Defense. I am concerned how senior civilian employees would fare under the new personnel proposals for DOD.

Our Armed Forces deserve the very best, and I am pleased that this bill authorizes giving those in uniform and those civilians supporting them the funding they need to continue to do their jobs in the outstanding way in which they have in the past and will do in the future.

Unfortunately those parts of the bill relating to personnel issues have not been adequately investigated by Congress and will impact civilian employees at the Department of Defense in ways that we can only guess at this point. These Federal employees and the military deserve more than a rushed plan that fundamentally alters the way the Department of Defense interacts with its civilian employees.

Mr. Chairman, as we were reminded last week with the triple bombing in Saudi Arabia, international terrorism still threatens our world. Currently we have troops around the world fighting in the global war against terrorism, and it is important that we make sure they have the resources to prevail.

The United States has the best trained, best equipped fighting force in the world, and the legislation today seeks to ensure America's military supremacy in the future. It provides for a sizable procurement agenda allowing the United States to stay at the cutting edge of technology. It also provides a 4.1 percent pay

increase for our deserving military personnel who sacrifice to ensure the security of America, most recently in dangerous battlegrounds in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Further, this bill reduces housing expenses for service members, contains new benefits for reservists, and authorizes $35 million for the Impact Aid program that serves school districts with high numbers of military children. H.R. 1588 also moves forward new weapons programs critical to meet 21st century challenges, as well as funds important for non-proliferation and weapons of mass destruction security activities in Russia and other nations.

In past years, defense authorization bills have generally been approved with wide bipartisan support. And while most provisions of the legislation in front of us today are necessary and widely supported, the majority party and the administration have decided to include a few highly controversial riders that need to be addressed. Under the rules of debate set up by the majority party, however, we will not have an opportunity to debate and attempt to amend provisions that strip civil services protections for 700,000 Federal employees, unnecessarily discard environmental regulations and hinder nuclear nonproliferation efforts. These provisions do not serve to enhance the security of our Nation, and at the very least, deserve to be thoroughly considered by Congress with input from the public.

In the name of transformation, the administration has proposed eliminating civil service protections of the 700,000 civilians working in the Department of Defense. This unprecedented proposal stabs at the heart of our Federal civil service which has been crafted over decades based on concerns and needs of employees and the federal government to protect federal employees from political pressure and favoritism. Most offensive, however, is the arrogance of the administration in seeking to remove the civil service protections from dedicated employees without consulting with Congress or employee representatives on a replacement plan. In fact, the General Accounting Office (GAO) notes that the Department of Defense (DOD) does not have a good track record on working with employee representatives, raising additional concerns that the needs of employees will not be considered as a new personnel plan is formulated.

I was pleased that the Government Reform Committee stepped in to curtail the administration's proposal; however, the language passed by that committee and included in the legislation before us still fails to adequately protect our federal employees in areas such as due process, appeal, and collective bargaining rights. In addition, it grants the Secretary of Defense, and all future Secretaries of Defense, wide latitude in making sweeping, and potentially politically motivated, personnel changes without respect to the needs of the employees. The GAO, does not find adequate justification for these personnel proposals considering the enormous impact they will have on the Federal workforce.

The Bush administration has been attacking civil service rights since day one, regardless of whether any new proposal will be good for employees or good for the federal government. While it is important that we update Federal Government personnel systems to ensure our Federal workforce is modeled to meet the challenges of today and the future, this must be done in a systematic and inclusive manner based on sound principles, innovation, and experience. An amendment drafted by Mr. Cooper would have removed these provisions dismantling the civil service system, and allow Congress to thoroughly weigh the need for flexibility in personnel management with the needs of the Federal workforce. However, the majority has refused to allow debate or consideration on this amendment.

Another area of concern is the exemption from environmental regulations being sought by the administration and included in this bill. While it is understandable that the Defense Department must have the ability to properly train our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines in realistic combat conditions, the necessity of exempting 25 million acres of land at the more than 425 installation nationwide from the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Clean Air Act, Superfund, Endangered Species Act, and Marine Mammal Protection Act has not been proven. Again, the GAO has found that training readiness remains high at most military installations.

DOD currently has the ability to seek national security and military training exemptions in federal environmental law to address encroachment concerns. However, as we debated in the House Resources Committee two weeks ago, DOD has never sought an exemption from the Endangered Species Act or Marine Mammal Protection Act. Exempting the DOD from these proven environmental laws is simply not necessary to ensure the best training of our troops and will harm the tremendous progress made in protecting important species for future generations. An amendment drafted by the ranking member of the House Resources, Mr. Rahall, would have removed this unnecessary exemption. Again, however, the majority has refused to allow consideration of this important amendment.

While current times call for increased attention to national security, it is also important that Congress make responsible funding decisions and dedicate limited resources to defense projects needed for our security in the 21st century. I have consistently criticized the hurried efforts of the administration to develop a ballistic missile defense system that is questioned by most experts and will post enormous costs to the taxpayers. Formidable technical challenges plague the proposed missile defense program in which every component is behind schedule, over budget, and unable to perform its mission. Yet, the administration's answer is to exempt the program from accountability requirements and increase funding. The legislation in front of us contains $9.1 billion for the ballistic missile defense program, which is a 17 percent increase over last year's level, and five times the amount spent on proven nuclear non-proliferation efforts. This is a perfect example of how Congress must better prioritize the national security threats, and work to reduce funding for ineffective and obsolete programs.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, we need to continue to fund a strong national defense to meet the emerging challenges of tomorrow but at the same time highlight the deficiencies in the majority's proposal. We are doing well, but we can do better. For this reason, I urge my colleagues to oppose the majority's rule for debate that denies us the opportunity to consider amendments to remove the sweeping personnel and environmental revisions of this bill.

Currently our nation is under a ``Code Orange'' homeland security alert, meaning that the risk of a terrorist attack on our nation is high. The tireless work of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines, along with other security and intelligence officials, have protected the American people from further devastating terrorist attacks, and we need to make sure they have the resources they need to do their job. If we can remove the detrimental provisions from this legislation, we will certainly be able to pass a truly effective and bipartisan bill.

Mr. Chairman, it is my intention to vote for the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2004 now before the House. The brave men and women risking their lives in Iraq deserve the support of the United States Congress and we have a responsibility to provide the military with the means to protect all of us. However, I am deeply troubled by portions of the Act that have the potential to undermine America's standing in the world, decrease our security, undermine the protections guaranteed under current law for civil servants working in the Department of Defense, and endanger our environment. Earlier today an important amendment failed to be included in the final version of the Act that we are now being asked to vote on.

The Tauscher Amendment would have transferred money from the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator to a conventional weapon system meant to defeat hardened and deeply buried targets. The development and possible use of such a bunker-busting nuclear weapon is a dangerous step for this Congress to authorize. Such weapons would disperse deadly radioactive fallout into the atmosphere, could lead to the resumption of nuclear testing and would undercut US efforts to halt the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

We were also denied the opportunity even to cast a vote on the other amendments. An amendment I proposed with Mr. Cooper and Mr. Davis to ensure that protections for the 700,000 civil service employees of the Department of Defense remain in force was excluded from consideration by the Rules Committee yesterday. In the Committee on Government Reform, of which I am a member, representatives from the Department of Defense made it clear that our military success in Iraq was the result of a team effort; a team effort between the military and the civil servants within the Department of Defense that provided them crucial support. It was a true partnership. Yet, just a few weeks after our military success in Iraq, the Pentagon launched what can only be described as a sneak, surprise attack on the rights of those civil servants within the Department of Defense. If these civil service protections, in existence since the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, are thrown out it will open up the Department of Defense to party politics and will change our security. We want a personnel system that rewards people based on merit, not based on political favoritism. We want, for example, our procurement officers to be looking out for the public interest, to be looking out for our national interests, not the interests of the most politically connected contractors. I support the idea of pay for performance; but it should be merit-based performance, not a political loyalty test. I think this bill, which is important to our national security, should not contain this provision which damages the integrity of the Civil Service.

We were also denied the right to vote on an amendment to protect our environment. I am appalled by the provisions in this bill that exempt the Defense Department from important environmental protections. It is a sad irony that the Department, which is responsible for protecting our nation from enemy assaults would ask for an exemption from laws to prevent assaults on our environment here at home.

The work of the Department of Defense is crucial to protecting both the physical security of our citizens and ensuring that we as Americans can live in a society that protects our interests in the long run. I will vote for the Act, but my support is tempered by my serious concern that certain elements of this bill could prove detrimental to other important national interests.

Mr. STARK Mr. Chairman, I oppose HR 1588, the Defense Authorization Bill.

This bill will enact a defense budget 23 percent higher than the average military budget during the Cold War. It then sets the stage for a 17 percent increase in defense budgets over the next decade. Republicans seek to finance these increases by taking money away from basic domestic priorities and saddling our children with a deficit as far as the eye can see.

Of course, the President and Republicans won't provide the funds needed to improve our

schools and guarantee our children a high quality education. They won't provide a real Medicare prescription drug benefit for our seniors and people with disabilities. They won't even give so-called ``first responders'' the resources to protect Americans against terrorist attacks that may well be spurred by this Administration's fanatical foreign policy.

There isn't a dollar in the President's overall budget for school modernization, but this defense budget has us spending $9.1 billion on a pie-in-the-sky missile defense system. 28,000 kids will be cut from Head Start, but $15 million will go to researching something called nuclear ``bunker buster'' bombs.

Make no mistake about it, the Bush Administration has us on the edge of a new nuclear arms race by pushing for research into so-called ``low-yield'' nuclear weapons. The idea behind their development is their possible use in conventional warfare! So much for the theory of nuclear deterrence. Such a policy would only welcome more nations--on top of North Korea--into a renewed worldwide nuclear weapons race. I don't even want to imagine a future where the world's armies use nuclear weapons to fight wars.

At the same time this bill raises the nuclear ante throughout the world, we'll be spending $28 million less than the federal government says is necessary for non-proliferation efforts. These are vital to keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.

Republicans are also overriding basic environmental protections in this defense bill before us today. Their bill will allow military bases to override the Endangered Species Act--putting rare species at risk of decimation. It also allows the Navy to use sonar devices that have led to the deaths of whales and other threatened marine mammals.

It doesn't stop at endangering our environment. It also tramples the rights of workers at the Department of Defense and other who work for our military. If enacted, this bill will scrap basic civil service protections at the Defense Department that have long promoted a professional federal workforce. It even fails to provide women on military bases overseas with access to potentially needed reproductive health services--even if they pay for those services with their own money.

Mr. Chairman, this Department of Defense Authorization bill is wrong in many ways. It dedicates too much of our limited federal budget to defense at the expense of other vital domestic needs. It spends those dollars in ways that could add to our defense costs by inciting a new nuclear arms race. It weakens protections for those who work in the Department of Defense or otherwise serve our military. And, it endangers environmental protections here at home. I urge my colleagues to join me in opposition to this dangerous bill.

Mr. Chairman, this bill is one of the most important measures that the House will consider this year. It is intended to set out our vision for the defense of our country in the years ahead--both in terms of policy direction and spending priorities. Unfortunately, the vision this bill puts forth is not one I can endorse, and so I cannot vote for it.

We are over a year into our war on terrorism and fresh from military action in Iraq. There is no doubt that we must continue to focus on defending our homeland against terrorism, we must support our military personnel, and we must give our military the training, equipment, and weapons it needs to beat terrorism around the world.

That's why I'm in favor of provisions in the bill that support those men and women who made our victory possible in Afghanistan and Iraq. The bill provides an average 4.1 percent pay raise for service members, boosts military special pay and extends bonuses, and fund programs to improve living and working facilities on military installations. Those are all good provisions that I support.

I'm also in favor of ensuring our defense capabilities are up to the task of defending against 21st century threats. Secretary Rumsfeld continues to try to refocus and reprioritize our defense programs along 21st century lines, but I'm not sure his vision has the support of some of our colleagues here in the House, who seem content to address new threats with Cold War-era technologies. Indeed, with the exception of the Crusader artillery system, the Administration and Congress have continued every major weapons system inherited from previous administrations.

So my first objection to this bill is that although it brings overall defense spending to

levels 13 percent higher than average Cold War levels, it doesn't present a coherent vision of how to realign our defense priorities. We need to make clear decisions about our defense spending, and this bill doesn't begin to consider the choices that must be made.

I have other strong objections to the bill. It includes provisions similar to those in H.R. 1935, a bill we considered in the Resources Committee, to exempt the Department of Defense from compliance with the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). There is a broad-based support for existing environmental laws--as there should be--and these laws already allow case-by-case flexibility to protect national security. The Pentagon has never sought to take advantage of this flexibility, so it strains belief that these laws are undermining our national security. Indeed, the General Accounting Office has found that training readiness remains high at military installations notwithstanding our environmental laws.

Lacking any compelling data to conclusively demonstrate that military readiness and training have suffered as a result of compliance with the ESA and MMPA, I am not persuaded that the changes to these acts proposed by the military are justified. If anything, the recently completed Iraqi Freedom campaign verifies once again that our armed forces remain the best trained, best equipped force on the planet. The Administration has opportunistically selected the present circumstances as a thin veneer behind which to move legislation to weaken key aspects of the ESA and MMPA that it could not achieve otherwise. Such over- reaching should not be rewarded, and the House should not have included these provisions in the bill we are considering today.

I am also concerned about the bill's provisions to overhaul DOD's personnel system. Last year, Congress authorized the largest government reorganization over thirty years with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, affecting 170,000 Federal employees. Following extensive debate, the new DHS Secretary was given authority to establish a flexible personnel system that at least attempted to protect workers' rights. The provisions in this bill would create even wider ranging exemptions for the Department of Defense, stripping almost 700,000 civilian employees of fundamental rights relating to due process, appeals, and collective bargaining.

The Administration only knows that it wants to gut the current system, but it hasn't provided an alternative. This bill provides a blank check for the Administration to undo many of our civil service laws in an unprecedented unilateral approach to civil service reform. What's worse, the Rules Committee wouldn't allow the House to consider a sensible amendment that would restore a system of checks and balances for our Federal workers. I cannot support the way this bill treats so many dedicated civilian employees of the Department of Defense.

Finally, I am concerned about the bill's provisions on nuclear weapons. This year's bill provides funding to study the feasibility of developing nuclear earth-penetrating weapons and low-yield nuclear weapons. Low-yield nuclear weapons have an explosive yield of five kilotons or less--``only'' a third of the explosive yield of the bomb dropped on Hiroshina.

Mr. Chairman, our obligations under the Treaty on the Non- Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) require the United States to work towards nuclear disarmament, rather than further increase the size and diversity of our arsenal. Indeed, we're working even now to prevent North Korea, Iran, Syria, and other countries from gaining access to nuclear weapons. By continuing the development of new U.S. nuclear weapons at the same time that we are trying to convince other nations to forego obtaining such weapons, we undermine our credibility in the fight to stop nuclear proliferation.

I believe we must be extremely cautious before we consider expanding applications of nuclear use. We all agree on the need to maintain the deterrent capability of our nuclear forces, but I don't believe we need more or new weapons to maintain our deterrent. This bill takes our nuclear posture a step backwards, putting the U.S. in a position of leading the world in the direction of developing more nuclear weapons.

Mr. Chairman, if the House had been permitted to consider more needed amendments to the bill, it might have been improved enough so that I could support it. But the Rules Committee rebuffed sensible amendments at every turn, denying us a voice on civil services protections and the environment, among other issues. So in view of my strong objections outlined above, I cannot support this bill.