Providing for further consideration of the bill (H.R. 1588) to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2004 for military activities of the Department of Defense, to prescribe military personnel strengths for fiscal year 2004, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentlewoman yielding me this time.

First of all, civil servants have had a large role in shaping this. There have been nine pilot programs the Department of Defense has piloted through the years, and in all of those cases, civil servants have, in many cases contrary to the labor bosses, opted for the new system as opposed to the old system with which they are currently operating.

The problem with the current system today is that we are contracting out where we ought to be able to use Federal employees because we do not have the flexibility in terms of deployment. So we are using uniformed officers behind desks to get jobs done, Federal contractors to get jobs done, what Federal workers are, in many cases, more capable of doing, and that is wrong.

I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman, but let me just say it is 320,000 uniform personnel doing jobs that civil servants are certainly capable of doing. These are 320,000 we had to call up from the Reserves to do work, potentially, that could have gone and stayed with their families and everything else because of these arcane rules.

In addition to this, Under Secretary Wolfowitz testified under oath that this would increase the number of Federal civil servants. So this idea that it is going to lead to more contracting out is not only bunk, it is disingenuous, it is wrong, and I think it takes civil servants in the wrong direction.

Let me correct a couple of other things that have been said in the debate. We had a Member yesterday say that the right to receive veterans preference is gone, the right to discrimination protection, gone. Veterans preference, located in chapters 33 and 35 of title V, those are nonwaivable under this legislation. Discrimination protection is located in 2302(b)(2) of title V

and explicitly referred to in this legislation. Overtime pay in chapter 55 of title V, also nonwaivable.

In fact, for middle-level managers, what we have done is corrected some inequities in overtime pay. Currently, GS-12s, 13s, and 14s receive less working overtime than they receive in ordinary pay, and we have corrected that in this. This is a benefit to managers. We have raised the level that SES'rs and managers can get in bonus over what the current level is. So we have raised the levels of what Federal employees can earn.

As far as collective bargaining, NSPS states that we must ensure that employees may organize, bargain collectively, and participate through labor organizations of their own choosing. As for the right to an attorney, which was alleged to have been taken away, we do not mention it, but neither does the underlying legislation, and we have established an independent review panel to consider employee grievances.

We have worked hard on this legislation. We held a couple of hearings in the Committee on Government Reform on this, but, most importantly, this is designed from nine pilot programs where the Federal employees themselves have spoken to this and have voted strongly to opt for the new systems versus the existing system. It does not pay for performance; it pays on a seniority basis.

This will allow us to expedite hiring. It will allow us to do the kinds of things that we have already given other Federal agencies. This is not new ground. There are numerous Federal agencies currently, in sections 71, 73, and 75, that we have waived or altered, and we do this here. In fact, there is less flexibility here than Congress recently gave to the Department of Homeland Security.

Mr. Speaker, I might add, my colleagues who are arguing against this opposed those provisions in the Department of Homeland Security bill. We had an ensuing election on this issue. The voters spoke, and I think we have visited this issue once. There are fewer flexibilities here than we have in that as well.

I want to say a couple of other things. The Committee on Armed Services also had a day-long hearing and a 2-day markup of the DOD authorization bill. Dozens of the amendments offered there were also offered in our committee, and the votes were party line on these issues. They want to bring these same issues to the floor. I am not happy with every part of this rule. I had several amendments, particularly on the procurement side, that were part of the Committee on Government Reform's markup that were not included in the DOD bill that I could not get offered here. I understand the disappointment of those Members who are not able to have those heard at this point.

But 40,000 employees with over 20 years of experience want a new system, and defense of the current system not only leads to more outsourcing, it does not lead to the kind of performance-based pay and the salary levels that many of our best Federal employees are deserving of.

I worked in the private sector for a number of years. I worked for a company where our best asset was not our computers or our building; it was our people. They walked out the door every night; and we prayed to get them back because replacing them was costly, it created more inefficiencies, and it made us less competitive.

Those factors in the private sector ought to be extended to the public sector because our employees are our best asset, too. But I think we need to treat them well, I think we need to give them appropriate safeguards, which this legislation does. The unknown and the concerns by some on the other side are that all of this is not written by Congress. But we have put appropriate safeguards in this legislation. This will be part of a later debate, but I certainly support the rule.

I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

As I stated earlier, we debated these thoroughly in both committees. I cannot speak to every amendment that is being offered on the floor of the House. I understand the gentleman's concern. I know we will get debate on the motion to recommit, and we are debating it now. But I was also disappointed in not being able to offer some amendments. In addressing that issue, I think that is probably above my pay grade.

Although we were privileged to have the gentleman testify before us.

I appreciate the gentleman's comments, and we did take some of his suggestions in the markup. The gentleman's testimony was not for naught.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I include for the Record an editorial from the Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld, printed in today's Washington Post.

Defense for the 21st Century

(By Donald H. Rumsfeld)

Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) laid out a number of objections on

this page yesterday to the president's proposed Defense

Transformation Act for the 21st Century. I respect Mr.

Skelton's long service, but I disagree with many of his

stated objections. Here is why.

Skelton argues that this legislation is the most sweeping

overhaul of the Defense Department since the 1986 Goldwater-

Nichols Act. He may be right--but that is precisely the

point. We are at this moment fighting the first wars of the

21st century with a department that has management and

personnel systems developed decades ago, at the height of the

Cold War.

The threats we face today are notably different from that

era. We learned on Sept. 11, 2001, that our nation is

vulnerable to enemies who hide in the caves and shadows and

strike in unexpected ways. That is why we must transform our

armed forces. Our forces need to be flexible, light and

agile, so they can respond quickly and deal with surprise.

The same is true of the men and women who support them in the

Department of Defense. They also need flexibility, so that

they can move money, shift people, design and deploy new

weapons more rapidly and respond to the continuing changes in

our security environment.

Today we do not have that kind of agility. In an age--the

information age--when terrorists move information at the

speed of an e-mail, money at the speed of a wire transfer and

people at the speed of a commercial jetliner, the Defense

Department is still bogged down in the bureaucratic processes

of the industrial age.

Consider: we have more than 300,000 uniformed personnel

doing jobs that should be done by civilians. That means that

nearly three times the number of troops that were on the

ground in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom are doing

nonmilitary jobs that should be done by civilian personnel.

Why is that? It's because when managers in the department

want to get a job done, they go to the military. They know

they can manage military people, put them in a job, give them

guidance, transfer them from one task to another and change

the way they do things. They can't do that with the civil

service, because it is managed outside the Defense Department

by others, with a system of rules and requirements fashioned

for a different era.

The defense authorization bill has grown from only one page

in 1962 to a whopping 534 pages in 2001. The department is

required to prepare and submit some 26,000 pages of

justification, and more than 800 required reports to

Congress each year--many of marginal value, most probably

not read. Since 1975, the time it takes to produce a new

weapons system has doubled, even as new technologies are

arriving in years and months, not decades.

We are working to fix problems that we have the freedom to

fix. We have reduced management and headquarters staffs by 11

percent, streamlined the acquisition process by eliminating

hundreds of pages of unnecessary rules and red tape, and

begun implementing a new business management structure. But

we also need legislative relief. That is why we are asking

for:

Measures for transforming our system of personnel

management, so that we can gain more flexibility and agility

in the way we manage the more than 700,000 civilians in the

department. And let me be clear: The provisions we have

proposed explicitly bar nepotism.

Expanded authority for competitive outsourcing so that we

can get military personnel out of nonmilitary tasks and back

into the field.

Measures to protect our military training ranges so that

our men and women in uniform will be able to train as they

fight, while honoring our steadfast commitment to protecting

the environment.

It is true, as Rep. Skelton notes, that the Goldwater-

Nichols Act took four years for Congress to pass. But we do

not have four years to wait before we transform--the new

threats are here now. If anything, our experience in the

global war on terror has made the case for transformation

even more urgent. Because our enemies are watching us--

studying how we were successfully attacked, how we are

responding and how we might be vulnerable again. In distant

caves and bunkers, they are busy developing new ways to harm

our people--methods of attack that could kill not 3,000

people, but 30,000 or 300,000--or more. And they are not

struggling with bureaucratic red tape fashioned in the last

century as they do so.

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.

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 Congress I have worked for a strong national defense. Like so many pro-defense Democrats, I have bent over backwards to put politics aside and work together to support America's men and women in uniform. That cooperative approach is fundamental to our efforts to keep partisan politics from polluting the Armed Forces.

So, repeatedly on the House floor and in the Committee on Rules, I have urged the Republican leadership to stop their assault on the bipartisan cooperation that has defined our approach to defense policy for so long. In response, the chairman of the Committee on Rules kept holding out hope that maybe, just maybe, in this second rule for the defense authorization bill the committee would allow a full and bipartisan consideration of serious defense issues.

Last night, very late, the Committee on Rules reported out the second rule. Guess what? It does even more violence to the tradition of bipartisanship than the first rule did. For the second day in a row, the Republican leadership has prevented the House from considering serious and substantive issues in the defense authorization bill. For the second day in a row, they cast aside bipartisanship to protect the partisan and right-wing ideology that has been attached to this defense authorization bill. This is a shameful way to run this institution, an institution that is supposed to allow the voices of all Americans to be heard.

For instance, Republican leaders used this rule to again defend their assault on America's environmental protections. The ranking members of the Committee on Resources and the Committee on Energy and Commerce, the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), offered their reasonable substitute to Republicans on environmental language. Republican leaders refused to allow the House to vote on this substitute.

To prevent terrorists from getting nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), the second ranking Democrat on the Committee on Armed Services and an acknowledged expert on defense issues, once again tried to strengthen America's cooperative threat reduction program, but the Republican leadership once again refused to allow his amendment, in spite of the fact that it simply does what President Bush has asked for.

To protect the American taxpayers, the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) tried to require that contracts over $1 million be awarded only in open bidding process, but Republican leaders decided to make it easier for big companies, for example, Halliburton, Brown and Root, Bechtel, to get private deals, so they rejected the amendment of the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman).

The gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor), a staunch defense hawk from Mississippi, had a substantive amendment relating to the next round of base closures. But instead of allowing him and the House the vote they deserve, Republican leaders simply shut out his amendment.

Similarly, Committee on Rules Republicans blocked three important amendments that I offered to address defense issues that I have pursued for some time: helping immigrant soldiers earn U.S. citizenship, providing tuition refunds to Reservists called to active duty, and tax fairness for civilian defense employees serving in combat zones.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, Republican leaders are using this rule to rig the game in favor of their attack on worker rights at the Pentagon. Now, these are the same Pentagon employees who showed such bravery and sacrifice on September 11. So the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper), the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis), and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen) proposed an employees' bill of rights. It is a common-sense approach to protecting those public servants who work to protect us. It has the support of America's firefighters. But Republican leaders refused to allow the House to vote to protect Pentagon employees.

All in all, Mr. Speaker, this rule makes a mockery of the bipartisan cooperation that has been the keystone to our approach to defense policy, so I urge my colleagues to oppose the previous question.

If we defeat the previous question, I will amend the rule to allow the House to consider the Pentagon employee bill of rights. If the previous question passes, I urge a no vote on this rule. This is the only way to restore some semblance of bipartisanship to this process and to safeguard America's national defense policy from the partisanship and right wing ideology that are tainting this bill.

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

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

My friend from California, the chairman, I am afraid has somewhat of a selective memory. I have handled the defense authorization rules on this floor for 25 years; and when we were in the majority, we always made in order the main issues of contention under the defense bill. Sometimes they were amendments that I personally opposed and that other prodefense Members on the Democratic side opposed, but we made them in order so that the House could express its will on the main issues raised in the Defense Authorization Bill.

This happened on numerous occasions. Sometimes those amendments came from people to my left in the Democratic Party who perhaps wanted to eliminate certain weapons systems. Sometimes those amendments came from conservative Republicans who did not like things that were in the bill. The main issues, not peripheral issues, and we appreciate the fact that some issues were made in order, some amendments were made in order that individual Members felt strongly about; but when we were in the majority, when there were significant issues that had support from a large number of Members either on our side or on the Republican side, we made those amendments in order and let the House express its will.

There were numerous instances when I personally voted against amendments that were included in the rule that we made in order and that other prodefense Democrats opposed, but we thought that the House should have the opportunity to express its will.

I yield to the gentleman from California.

Reclaiming my time, I would point out to the gentleman that when we were in the majority we did not try and dictate what amendments the minority will offer. We did not say, we will give you a Democratic amendment on that subject but the Republicans cannot offer the amendment they want. That is exactly what they have done in the reverse here. They said, we will give you a Republican amendment on this subject, but we will not let the Democrats offer the amendments they want. Of course, Democrats would offer a different amendment on a particular issue than Republicans would. Republicans would offer an amendment which was, of course, much more friendly to the basic provisions in the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 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 Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Davis).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Reyes).

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller).

(Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor).

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

Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to vote ``no'' on the previous question.

If the previous question is defeated, I will offer an amendment to the rule that will make in order the Cooper/Davis/Van Hollen Civil Service Bill of Rights amendment. Last night, the Republican majority refused to allow the House to consider this amendment. The Republican leadership had decided what kind of Democratic amendment would be acceptable to be included in the rule and since no Democrat was willing to toe the Republican Party line, Democrats have been shut out once again on a straight party line vote.

The bill we are considering today makes enormous and far-reaching changes in the personnel laws affecting civilian defense employees. Furthermore, it does so with virtually no input or oversight from Congress. It leaves this massive overhaul in the hands of the Secretary of Defense.

The Cooper/Davis/Van Hollen amendment would spell out an employee bill of rights to ensure that these valuable employees do not lose their basic employee rights. Yet under this unfair rule it will not be allowed to come to the floor for a vote.

Mr. Speaker, it is hard for me to believe that just a few weeks after the war in Iraq, after all of us heaped deserving praise on all employees of the Defense Department, both military and civilian, that we would pull the rug out from underneath these patriotic, hard-working Americans.

Let me make it very clear. A ``no'' vote will not stop the House from taking up the Department of Defense authorization. However, a ``yes'' vote amounts to slamming the door in the face of the military's civilian employees.

As you cast your vote, think about these people and whether you will turn your back on them or whether you will do the right thing and vote to allow this amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment and extraneous materials immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I agree with the gentleman. I think that this bill is going to provide for more jobs for civil service employees because it is easier when we have a job to do under this massive bureaucracy we have now and the SECDEF says, I need that job done, can we have a civil servant do it? And the answer is, we can in 6 months. So the Secretary then does one of two things: He says, okay, let us get a contractor to do it, if we cannot get one of our own guys to do it the other alternative is let us get a sergeant to do it. The sergeant salutes and says, yes, sir, and he goes and gets the information he needs to do the job and he does it.

So the idea that we are going to be contracting the civil service force as a result of this is absolutely not accurate. In my opinion, we are going to have more people. Secretary Rumsfeld said there are, right now, under his estimate, some 300,000 uniformed people, people in the military, doing jobs that civil service folks could do if we could get the bureaucracy out of the way.

Mr. Speaker, let me just say that the distinguished whip on the other side has made a point that more time should be given to this issue.

We are doing a $400 billion bill; and arguably the decisions on hundreds of weapons system that we are approving, both whether we are talking about the high-tech stuff or the low-tech stuff that we are bolstering in this bill, those decisions could have life and death impact, and yet we moved this bill through.

I want to assure the gentleman that we gave more time to this issue. We did a 10-hour hearing on this issue, largely at the insistence of the distinguished ranking member, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), but we did a 10-hour hearing. That is more time than we gave any single weapons system in the entire DOD bill. So the argument can be made that we should have 10 times as many hearings as we have, and the gentleman knows that in this House and on this floor we have a myriad of responsibilities. We spent more time on this than any single weapons system in the entire DOD bill, and we had a 25-hour markup. I would say a very substantial portion of that markup, without limitation to debate, was afforded all of the Members.

Lastly, the chairman of the Committee on Government Reform makes a good point. I listened to the concerns. I listened early on to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) and the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole) and the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Davis). We sat down and put together this independent appeals board that is going to be afforded anyone and everyone. So we spent a lot of time on this. This was not hastily thrown together.

Lastly, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper) made a good point. He said we are putting a major entrustment to the Secretary of Defense to build a new system, and we all agree in many ways it is broken. I am looking at this union dispute over whether they should have cancelled the annual picnic, and it ended up costing $750,000 of taxpayer money to decide whether or not you should cancel the picnic. There are changes that need to be made.

Lots of good people involved themselves on this and worked on this; and

this is an excellent, excellent product. I want to thank everybody who had suggestions because a number of the concerns from Democrats and Republicans were addressed. We are entrusting the Secretary of Defense, who with his team took 300,000 American lives into a very dangerous military theater, and answered to us and did a good job with that entrustment. He deserves some degree of respect, and he has merited the empowerment to move forward and build a new system under our guidance.

We are going to be reviewing everything he has done in a few months. We can change things that he does that we do not like; but certainly giving him an opportunity to revamp his shop to make it better, not just for DOD and the taxpayers but also for the folks that live and work in this system, the Federal employees.

Mr. Speaker, I think we did a good job of working this. We can always spend more time, and I would say to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) that could be said about every single weapons system that comes up here.

I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is aware of the map that I put up of Camp Pendleton that showed the overlays on the various environmental restrictions. I have gone through that a number of times. It has got the areas for the gnatcatcher, it has got the estuarine sanctuary, it has got the closeout for the beach. The gentleman is aware that there is about 17 miles of beach there where the Marines practice their amphibious landings. Is it the gentleman's claim that that beach is now open for use for the United States Marines?

I yield to the gentleman from Oregon.

Let me ask the gentleman further, because we are going to have this thing sorted out before this bill is over. Is it the gentleman's contention that the Marine Corps' position is they understand that they can use that beach and they simply have not used it, that that beach is available for amphibious landings?

Did the gentleman ask the Marines? That is my question, I guess.

Let me just tell the gentleman that if you have these agreements that they put in place, those agreements are made by several parties: one, Fish and Wildlife; one, State resources, in California that is Fish and Game; and, lastly, the Service. Since we want to make sure we are all on the same playing field here before this debate is over, I would ask the gentleman, we have got a couple of hours here, to check with the U.S. Marine Corps. I will be happy to be with him when we check on it and we can come to the floor and give together an opinion on how much land is ruled off-limits.

My information from the Marine Corps is that they cannot use that beach. That is not the small part of the beach that is up in the north that they use for the nuclear power plant. Nobody has claimed you want to make amphibious landings at a nuclear power plant.

I would ask the gentleman, since he did not have a direct communication with the Marine Corps, if he could get that, and I will work with him, and we will try to come in with the same sheet of music.

Let me just finish by saying that my information from DOD as of last week is that, currently, of that 17 miles, only roughly one- fifth of a mile, that is roughly one one-hundred-and-fiftieth or one one-hundredth of this shoreline where the Marines practice their amphibious landings is available for use. So we have got totally disparate views. The gentleman says the beach is open. The Marines tell me that the beach is closed. We will be happy to work with him and get a communication from the Marine Corps.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this rule.

When I testified before the Committee on Rules, Mr. Speaker, I specifically asked that committee for several major amendments, Democratic amendments, and that they be made in order. The first was the Cooper amendment dealing with civil service changes, which would establish a bill of rights for civilian workers within that department. The second, the Spratt amendment, on cooperative threat reduction, which, by the way, Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States requested. The third, the Taylor amendment on base closure. We should have a full and fair debate on that. And the Dingell-Rahall amendment on the environment. The dean of the House, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), was not given that amendment. As a matter of fact, none of those four amendments were made in order. That is, Mr. Speaker, simply wrong.

Regardless of how Members might feel on the substance of amendments, it is wrong that a major substantive policy amendment is kept from debate. That should not happen. It should be allowed. It should be debated fully on this floor. This is a deliberative body, and many have said the most deliberative body in the whole world. Yet, Mr. Speaker, we cannot debate key issues that come before us. This is not a full debate. It deserves that. We in this institution do not deserve this disservice, and I cannot agree, sadly, with this rule.

Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record my op-ed article entitled ``Overhaul Without Oversight'' from the Washington Post dated May 21.

[From the Washington Post, May 21, 2003]

Overhaul Without Oversight

(By Ike Skelton)

I believe history will show that the swiftness of America's

military victory in Iraq was due in large part to the in-

depth training of our officers in strategy and plans and to

the military's application of that training in the

operational plans developed in the months before the war.

Many people, including the Secretary of Defense, had detailed

lists of what could go wrong. We avoided those outcomes,

partly thanks to luck but mostly because of deliberate

military planning that sought out and compensated for

potential risks and unintended consequences.

Last month, as Congress was departing for a two-week

recess, the Defense Department submitted a 200-page draft

``transformation'' bill that requests extensive new

authorities. It is not an understatement to say that this

bill, taken as a whole, is the most sweeping defense reform

legislation proposed since the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986,

which changed both the structure and the policies governing

our military. 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.

Major reassignments of constitutional authority such as

this demand the same sort of thoughtful foresight as a war

plan. In fact, the Goldwater-Nichols legislation took

Congress four years to pass. The armed services committees of

both houses of Congress held dozens of hearings and spent

months drafting a comprehensive and bipartisan bill. We did

this because the scope of the legislation was broad, the

potentially unforeseen implications were numerous and the

impact on the lives of all those who serve this nation was

enormous.

The House of Representatives is to consider and vote on a

defense authorization bill today that has much to commend it.

It will authorize $400 billion to ensure that our forces

remain the best trained and best equipped in the world. But

it will also include large pieces of the transformation

package--even though the committee has held fewer than five

hearings, and most of those with less than a week's notice.

Without the time to investigate and ask the tough questions,

we do not know what the implications of these changes are.

And so we, unlike Gen. Tommy Franks in Iraq, cannot build a

plan to avoid the worst outcomes.

The proposed legislation makes sweeping changes to both

military and civilian personnel systems. On the civilian

side, the Defense Department wants unfettered freedom to hire

and fire its nearly 700,000 employees. Congress had a long,

contentious debate over similar personnel proposals when

creating the Department of Homeland Security. That

legislation is barely being implemented now, and there has

been no opportunity to evaluate its results. The Defense

Department wants changes that are even more dramatic,

including, just as one example, the repeal of laws preventing

nepotism. What justification based on our national security

or sound management principles can justify that? What message

does this send to the hundreds of thousands who have

dedicated their careers to the service of this nation? And

why do such changes need to be rushed through now, when a

successful military campaign has shown that the existing

system works?

The department also is requesting extensive exemptions from

a host of environmental laws that have helped safeguard the

long-term health of our communities and of the global

environment. As a solidly pro-military member of Congress, I

believe the readiness and exceptional training of our troops

are of paramount importance and should be taken into account

in our environmental laws. But the Defense Department has not

yet made use of the legal remedies that already exist to

accommodate military readiness. Operations in Iraq showed the

exquisite capability of the U.S. military trained under the

current system. Changing the law at this point has not been

shown to be needed for military readiness, but it will

certainly undermine the legal structure that ensures the

nation's environmental health.

The Constitution establishes Congress as a counterweight to

executive authority for good reasons--to guard against the

excessive aggregation of any administration's power and to

ask critical questions that allow better policy and better

law to be made. When we in Congress are doing our jobs well,

we ask what every American should want to know: Why is this

necessary and what are the downsides of taking this action?

Without the ability to question and consider fully the

implications of what we do, we abandon the planning needed to

protect our nation's security and to protect those who serve

their nation. We would not accept that of the officers

planning a military campaign. We should not accept it from

our political leaders either.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. I support this amendment wholeheartedly in part because it contains a provision requesting a report from the Secretary of Defense which I have requested dealing with the issuance of security clearances and updates on security clearance for defense workers.

My district has literally thousands of defense workers producing the very best submarines in the world. But under a recently passed law which we refer to as the Smith Act, some of these workers run the risk of losing their clearances for activities that took place many, many years ago and, yet, under the provisions of the Smith Act, may result in denial of a clearance which for them results in denial or loss of a job.

I look forward to the report which this amendment requests so that we can work to eliminate this unintended consequence of the Smith Act.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of the en bloc amendment being offered by Chairman Duncan Hunter.

This amendment contains many important provisions. It includes language I authored to require the Secretary of Defense to report to Congress on the granting or renewal of security clearances for Department of Defense personnel and defense contractor personnel.

Those Members of Congress with Department of Defense contractors in their districts know the importance of a security clearance to the men and women who work for those contractors. As someone who has held a TOP SECRET clearance for over 30 years, I fully understand the importance of issuing these clearances to defense contractors and their employees.

My district is home to Electric Boat where thousands of hard working people show up every day to design and build the finest submarines in the world. Every 5 years Electric Boat workers are put through a necessary review of their security clearances, which I support.

Unfortunately, a recent law contained language commonly known as the ``Smith Act'' which requires any person convicted of a crime and sentenced to one year or more in jail to be automatically disqualified from holding a security clearance. The law does not take into account whether the individual actually served the sentence. But, the law says conviction means no clearance, and no clearance means no job.

Mr. Chairman, over the past year many highly skilled veteran workers from Electric Boat have appeared at my district office, frightened that a conviction in their youth will suddenly come back to haunt them and cost them their job. These are men and women who have often held their security clearances for over 20 years. But because of the Smith Act, those clearances are now in jeopardy.

These working men and women have families and contribute positively to their communities, both in eastern Connecticut and around the nation. And at Electric Boat they have been safely and securely building the best submarines in the world for the U.S. Navy for over 100 years!

There are similar stories in other defense contractor facilities around this great nation. While the intention of the ``Smith Act'' was good, it is time to re-examine this law and see if there are more effective ways to update and issue these security clearances.

My amendment does just that. It simply requires the Department of Defense to report back to Congress within 60 days with recommendations for legislation or administrative steps the Secretary of Defense considers necessary to better carry out the business of granting and renewing security clearances.

In searching for solutions to this problem, I am pleased to have the support of both management and labor. Both parties are well aware of the importance of security clearances to the defense industry and the dramatic impact the loss of a clearance has on their employees.

Today I am pleased to share letters from both the President of Electric Boat and the President of the Metal Trades Council of New London County. Both letters express support for my efforts to improve the Smith Act. I ask unanimous consent that these letters be inserted into the Record.

In closing, let me thank Chairman Hunter and his staff for working with me on this important amendment. I appreciate their recognition of the need to review the unintended consequences of the Smith Act.

Finally, I look forward to reviewing the recommendations from the Department of Defense and working with both the Pentagon and my colleagues on the Armed Services Committee to craft a reasonable solution to this problem.

Metal Trades Council of

New London County,

Groton, CT, May 15, 2003.

Hon. Duncan Hunter,

Chairman, House Armed Services Committee, U.S. House of

Representatives, Rayburn House Office Building,

Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Hunter: It has come to my attention that

Congressman Rob Simmons is currently working with you and

your staff on ways to improve Section 986(c)(1) of title 10

USC, also known as the ``Smith Act.'' As the president of the

Metals Trade Council union at Electric Boat in Groton (CT), I

am writing today to share my strong support of Mr. Simmons's

proposed changes to the Act.

As you know, the purpose of the Smith Act is to ensure that

individuals who have been convicted of a serious crime are

not given a Defense Security Service (DSS) security clearance

at controlled industrial areas like Electric Boat. Under the

Act, any person convicted of a crime and sentenced to

imprisonment for greater than one year is automatically

disqualified from a security clearance. Unfortunately, I have

seen firsthand the unintended consequences of the Smith Act.

All too often, an Electric Boat employee, whose security

clearance is being reviewed, is denied a clearance renewal

because of a minor criminal offense where the individual was

sentenced to more than one year in prison, yet served little

or no jail time. Sadly, losing a clearance means losing a

job.

Many of these working men and women have received their

clearances prior to the implementation of the Smith Act and

have been on the yard for more than 20 years. They are

skilled workers, proud of their work and their country. And

while I support efforts to protect controlled industrial

areas through tougher scrutiny of clearances, I would urge

you to strongly consider the proposed changes that

Congressman Simmons has drafted. These improvements to the

Smith Act will go a long way toward saving the jobs of

numerous laborers at Electric Boat.

Thank you for taking my thoughts into consideration. We at

Electric Boat appreciate everything that you and your

Committee have done for the submarine capital of the world.

Sincerely,

Kenneth Delacruz,

President.