Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2003

Mr. President, I rise today to strongly support S. 1050, the fiscal year 2004 Defense Authorization bill. This legislation funds $400.5 billion for defense programs, which is 3.2 percent or $17.9 billion above the amount appropriated by Congress last year. The Defense Authorization bill would authorize appropriations to purchase new weapons systems and funds research and development for new weapons systems, funds operations and maintenance for the services, provides pay and quality of life improvements for service members and funds military construction projects at military bases.

A number of provisions in this bill go a long way to ensure our service members get the benefits they deserve. I am pleased the Senate included a provision which I offered as an amendment that was adopted by the committee that would eliminate the remaining so-called ``pay comparability gap'' between military pay and civilian pay. This amendment would tie subsequent military pay raises after 2006 with increases in the Employment Cost Index (ECI). As a former ranking member and long-time member on the Personnel Subcommittee when Senator John Glenn was the chairman, my experience with capping military raises below ECI during the last three decades shows that such caps inevitably lead to significant retention problems among second-term and career servicemembers.

Those retention problems cost our Nation more in the long run in terms of lost military experience, decreased readiness, and increased training costs. Since military pay was last comparable with private sector pay in 1982, military pay raises have lagged a cumulative 6.4 percent behind private sector wage growth--although recent efforts by Congress have reduced the gap significantly from its peak of 13.5 percent in 1999. Our efforts in 1999 increased pay raises, reformed the pay tables, took 12,000 servicemembers off of food stamps, and established a military Thrift Savings Plan.

A key principal of the all volunteer force (AVF) is that military pay raises must match private sector pay growth, as measured by ECI. The Senate's action in this area will send a strong message of support to our servicemembers and women and their families that will continue to promote high morale, better quality-of-life, and ultimately a more ready military force.

For the past 12 years, I have offered legislation on concurrent receipt. This matter is of great significance to many of our country's military retirees, because it would reverse existing, unfair regulations that strip retirement pay from military retirees who are also disabled, and costs them any realistic opportunity for post- service earnings. Last year, I was pleased that the committee, for the first time, included an authorization to begin to address a longstanding inequity in the compensation of military retirees' pay over previous attempts in the past.

I am disappointed that Senator Harry Reid was unable to offer his amendment on concurrent receipt, because the amendment was not ruled relevant under an unanimous consent agreement that was passed by the leadership of the Senate. We must do more to restore retirement pay for those military retirees who are disabled. I have stated this before, and I am compelled to reiterate now--retirement pay and disability pay are distinct types of pay. Retirement pay is for service rendered through 20 years of military service. Disability pay is for physical or mental pain or suffering that occurs during and as a result of military service. In this case, members with decades of military service receive the same compensation as similarly disabled members who served only a few years; this practice fails to recognize their extended, more demanding careers of service to our country. This is patently unfair, and I will continue to work diligently with the committee to correct this inequity for all career military servicemembers who are disabled.

We have a military force that continues to rely more on the Reserve Components--men and women in the National Guard and Reserves--to go to war and to perform other critical military tasks abroad and at home. Many combat, combat support and other support missions are being carried out on the backs of our active and Reserve Component forces-- soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.

National Guard and Reserve servicemembers are performing many vital tasks: direct involvement in military operations to liberate Iraq in the air, on the ground, and on the sea; guarding nuclear power plants, our borders, and our airports in the United States; providing support to the War on Terrorism through guarding, interrogating, and extending medical services to al-Qaida detainees; rebuilding schools in hurricane-stricken Honduras and fighting fires in our western states; overseeing civil affairs in Bosnia; and augmenting aircraft carriers short on active duty sailors with critical skilled enlisted ratings during at-sea exercises, as well as during periods of deployment.

I believe that the civilian and uniformed leadership of our Armed Forces and the Congress must recognize this involvement, and, at a minimum, provide equal benefits for reserve component servicemembers when they put on the uniform and perform their weekend drills or other critical training evolutions. Reservists, on duty, who resemble their active duty counterparts during training evolutions and are deployed at times around the world, should be treated equally when the administration and Congress provide for quality of life benefits.

I am pleased at the inclusion of language authorizing a Selective Re- enlistment Bonus (SRB) for National Guard and Reserve service members when they are mobilized under a Presidential Select Reserve Call-up and they re-enlist during that period. National Guardsmen and Reservists are prohibited from receiving SRB payments until they get off active duty or mobilization status, sometimes 1 or 2 years later.

The Senate has also authorized Survivor Benefit Plan, SBP, benefits to survivors of National Guard and Reserve service members who die while performing inactive duty training or weekend drills. This legislation provides equity with active duty servicemembers and is consistent with

Defense Department regulations when National Guardsmen and Reservists are mobilized under a Presidential Select Reserve Call-up.

Since January, there have been 13 Reserve Component deaths during weekend military training while their units were preparing for Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom where families of National Guard and Reservists did not receive the Survivor Benefit payments.

The Senate has also authorized Commanders' pay for National Guardsmen and Reservists, similar to the pay that active duty commanding officers and commanders receive.

Additionally, the Senate Authorization bill removes and arbitrary cap on commissary privileges for drilling reservists and National Guardsmen, making the benefit similar to the benefit similar to the benefit of authorized for active duty servicemembers.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) continue to be of interest to me. Operations in Afghanistan and Iraq have been watershed events for military utilization of UAVs. Increased use in the future as new war fighting capabilities come on line is key to our militaries strategy for future conflicts. During the 1999 Yugoslav air campaign only three UAV systems were used. There are nine UAV systems currently deployed and in extensive use in Iraq. The Army's Shadow, Hunter, and Pointer, the Marine Corps' Pioneer and Dragon Eye; the Air Force's Global Hawk, Predator and the Force Protection Surveillance System; and, the Navy's Silver Fox.

The Silver Fox is a small, inexpensive UAV with tremendous application, particularly in downed pilot search and air rescue, border patrol operations, tactical support for ground troops and SOF, submarine detection, marine mammal detection efforts and other critical reconnaissance missions. Ninety Silver Fox systems were deployed for Operation Iraqi Freedom with great success. Additional resources should be afforded to the unmanned aerial vehicle programs. Low cost, innovative systems, like the Silver Fox, deserve considerable support by the committee and I strongly support this effort. I am extremely please the Senate included a UAV pilot program to study the potential uses of UAVs on our borders.

As part of its consideration of this bill, the Senate approved an amendment I sponsored with Senators Session, Lindsey Graham, and Bayh creating a reporting requirement that should shed light on how to improve decision-making within NATO. As a lifelong Atlanticist, my interest is in keeping NATO relevant and effective as it adapts its mission to the new threats we face today. Doing so will require a hard look at what works well within NATO, and what we can do to streamline decision-making processes to improve the effectiveness of the Alliance.

Our amendment would build on a reporting requirement related to NATO is in the underlying bill. Our intention is to make NATO work better by taking a close look at how some of its decision-making structures have recently evolved, for expressly political reasons, in ways that I believe have weakened NATO, but which we, NATO's full members, can rectify in order to ensure that our Alliance remains strong.

Our amendment would require the Secretaries of Defense and State to assess whether certain new NATO military initiatives are within the jurisdiction of NATO's Defense Planning Committee, which has historically overseen NATO's core defense and security missions. The report would relate how NATO defense, military, security, and nuclear decisions traditionally made in the DPC came to be made in other bodies within NATO. It would discuss the extent of France's contributions to each of NATO's component committees, and specifically the degree of French involvement in specific military and security issues within the competence of the DPC, on which the French do not sit. The report would examine how NATO could make greater use of the DPC, by assuming its traditional role of managing NATO's core defense mission, and how to otherwise streamline NATO decisionmaking to make NATO more effective. NATO is actively engaged in discussions on how to reform and improve NATO decisionmaking, and I strongly believe our amendment will play a useful role in animating that discussion.

In February, Turkey requested assistance from the Alliance to improve its defenses in the event of war with Iraq. Given Turkey's status as a key member of NATO and the Alliance's only front-line state with Iraq, Turkey's routine request for defensive reinforcements under the terms of the NATO charter should not have been controversial in any way. Regrettably, France denied Turkey's request, and the Alliance spent 3 weeks in crisis trying to overcome French objections. France's position was initially supported by Germany, Luxembourg, and Belgium, but these nations ultimately sided with every other member of the Alliance, leaving the French isolated but refusing to relinquish their effective veto over a fundamental Alliance commitment to the defense of a member state. Ultimately, Turkey's Article Four request for defensive assistance was approved by the Defense Planning Committee (DPC), a component committee of NATO which does not include France. But the singular French obstructionism over the course of nearly a month caused the gravest crisis NATO has known in a generation and raised real questions about whether NATO was going the way of the U.N. Security Council or, more ominously, the League of Nations.

In the wake of this debacle, Atlanticists in Europe and the United States have pondered ways to reform and improve decision-making within NATO. In the interests of avoiding another such near-calamity within NATO that threatens the Alliance itself, Secretaries Wolfowitz and Feith have testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that the DPC could be used more frequently for decision-making within NATO, thereby circumventing the French veto.

Since the mid-1990s, NATO's North Atlantic Council has been the primary venue within the Alliance for decisions to be taken on Alliance operations. But for most of NATO's existence, the NAC was not preeminent. The Defense Planning Committee was created in 1963 and was co-equal to the NAC. The DPC was charged with NATO's core defense and security business, including questions relating to Article Five, the mutual defense clause that is at the heart of NATO's charter. In 1966, when France withdrew from NATO's integrated military structure, the DPC assumed responsibility for the Alliance's core defense business. This allowed the Alliance to continue to function effectively without France's military involvement, and to avoid a French veto over matters related to NATO's core defense mission, in which France did not then and does not now participate.

The Defense Planning Committee was surprisingly active from its creation in 1963 until 1995. It became less prominent following the end of the cold war because the use of NATO forces appeared less likely in Article Five scenarios and more probable in non-Article Five scenarios. The role of the DPC diminished when the North Atlantic Council rose to pre-eminence in the 1990s with NATO peacekeeping scenarios, in the aftermath of the dismal failure of UNPROFOR in Bosnia. In the 1990s, looking for new roles, the NAC endorsed NATO peacekeeping missions in the Balkans.

The process of relying on the North Atlantic Council was also rooted in the futile effort to woo France back into full membership in NATO. Starting with a 1992 decision to support peacekeeping operations and the desire to involve France in Balkans operations, defense issues during the 1990s came to be addressed in the North Atlantic Council. The inclusion of France in NATO Defense Ministerials began in 1993 at Travemunde and has continued. Although they have not rejoined NATO's intergrated military structure, and are therefore not full contributing members of the Alliance, the French have very effectively shifted NATO decision-making into the North Atlantic Council and other bodies in which they have a voice and a vote. Although France does not participate, or participates only selectively, in command structure, infrastructure budget, and defense planning, it has successfully transferred these issues to NATO committees on which it has a seat. France does not participate in 60 percent of NATO budget areas, but participates in 100 percent of the development of resource policy and contribution ceilings.

The upcoming issues for the June NATO Defense Ministerial are of a

military and security nature. They include the Capabilities Initiative, the Command Structure Review, and the NATO Response Force. These are military and security issues within the core competence of the DPC. Our amendment is therefore not backward-looking, but would anticipate possible reforms to improve NATO's effectiveness in light of issues currently on the Alliance's agenda.

France unilaterally withdrew from NATO's military structure in 1966-- at the height of the Cold War. France has since chosen to remain outside NATO's military structure. If France wants to return to NATO's military structure, NATO should discuss it, debate it on the merits and make a decision--among the 18 full members of NATO.

What we need now is a better understanding of why NATO came to rely on the NAC, and what can be done to make NATO more effective. We need to understand what we can do to limit France's ability to manipulate NATO, and oppose American foreign policy goals. The report required by our amendment should shed light on how to make our Alliance work as it should, in defense of the supreme national interests of the democracies it protects and nurtures.

I continue to be very concerned about the potential impact on bilateral trade relations with our allies of the domestic source for instance, ``Buy America'', restrictions enacted in the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 1996. I am extremely concerned that an amendment was proposed that would impose ``Buy America'' restrictions on the Department of Defense. From a philosophical point of view, I oppose these types of protectionist policies. I believe free trade is an important element in improving relations among all nations and essential to economic growth. Moreover, from a practical standpoint, the added ``Buy America'' restrictions could seriously impair our ability to compete freely in the international markets and could also result in loss of existing business from long-standing trading partners. Although, I fully understand the need to maintain certain critical industrial base capabilities, I find no reason to support a ``Buy America'' requirement for a product, like marine pumps, that is produced by no fewer than 25 U.S. companies or a bullet-proof vest made from fabric by a U.S. manufacturer which is inferior and more expensive than a bullet-proof vest made in the U.S. from a fabric produced overseas.

There are many examples of the trade imbalance that I can point to. I would like to review one example for you. The Dutch government, between 1991 and 1994, purchased $508 million in defense equipment from U.S. manufacturers, including air-refueling planes, Chinook helicopters, Apache helicopters, F-16 fighter equipment, missiles, combat radios and various training equipment. During that same period, the United States purchased only $40 million of defense equipment from the Dutch. Recently, the Defense Ministers of the United Kingdom and Sweden pointed to similar situations in their countries. In every meeting regarding this subject, I am told how difficult it is to buy American defense products because of our protectionist policies and the strong ``Buy European'' sentiment overseas. Our protectionist practices will hurt us nationally and internationally.

Some legislative enactments over the past several years have had the effect of establishing a monopoly for a domestic supplier in certain product lines. This not only adds to the pressure for our allies to ``buy European,'' but it also raises the costs of procurement for DOD and cuts off access to potential state-of-the-art technologies. DOD should have the ability to make purchases from a second source in an allied country covered by a defense cooperation MOU or Declaration of Principles agreement when only one domestic source exists. This would ensure both price and product competition.

Defense exports improve interoperability with friendly forces with which we are increasingly likely to operate in coalition warfare or peacekeeping missions. They increase our influence over recipient country actions, and in a worse case scenario, allow the U.S. to terminate support for equipment. Exports also lower the unit costs of systems to the U.S. military, and in recent years have kept mature lines open while the U.S. has developed new systems that will go into production around the turn of the century.

Finally, these exports provide the same economic benefits to the U.S. as all other exports--higher paying jobs, improved balance of trade, and increased tax revenue. ``Buy America'' restrictions on procurement will hurt funding for readiness, personnel land equipment modernization. These are really issues of acquisition policy, not appropriations matters. During debate on this legislation, I offered a second degree amendment with the intention of striking the protectionist amendment proposed by one of my colleagues. I thank my colleagues who successfully supported my amendment that worked to protect not only our allies but the American taxpayer and most importantly our servicemen and women who depend on the Department of Defense to train them and Congress to equip them with the best equipment irrelevant of its country of origin. Why is it that our special forces servicemembers routinely procure equipment without ``buy America'' requirements?

In all my years on the committee, I have never seen anything like the proposed leasing scheme of the KC-767 aerial tankers. In my efforts and those of others on the Senate Armed Service Committee, to get information on this proposed deal with Boeing, there has been obfuscation. There has been delay. There is withholding of information from me and this committee. Senior Air Force officials have even mislead the committee, according to the DoD Inspector General. It is incumbent upon all of us to provide the men and women of the Armed Forces with the most capabilities in return for our expenditures.

In several hearings this year, we have heard the Air Force Secretary and the Air Force Secretary of Acquisition testify that they have not completed an Analysis of Alternatives (AOA) on aerial tankers. The KC- 767 aerial tanker effort requires the Secretary of Defense to do an AOA. Authorized funding should come from Air Force aviation programs which would have originally funded AOA if the program was appropriately planned and programmed like other DoD program. Moreover, the AOA is required by Air Mobility Command (AMC) & DoD documents, TRS-05 and KC- 135 ESLS. I am pleased the Senate is requiring the Secretary of Defense to undertake an AOA on aerial tankers.

In the Air Force's fiscal year 2004's budget request the Air Force proposed eliminating 68 KC-135E aerial tankers. The Tanker Requirement Study (TRS-05) was conducted by the Air Mobility Command and the Secretary of Defense Program, Analysis, and Evaluation Division--OSD PA&E. TRS-05 identified the need for approximately 500 to 600 operational KC-135 equivalents to meet air refueling requirements. No other program has received so much attention by the Air Force Secretary. Yet, in direct contrast to his own Air Force studies, he seems relentless in exaggerating aerial tanker shortfalls in order to win approval of his KC-767 leasing scam. I am pleased the committee has included language reducing the number allowed to be retired to 12, but I still feel the Air Force should be prohibited from retiring the requested number of tankers until the AOA is completed and we have determined the best way to replace these national assets. It is foolhardy to begin retiring planes without a plan to replace them.

I am pleased the Senate included a provision that will save millions down the road. The Senate directs the Air Force to provide adequate funding for aviation depots for the purpose of correcting corrosion for the KC-135 aerial refueling fleet. The Armed Services Committee has heard testimony that every $1 spent in preventive maintenance saves $7 in repair or replacement costs. This action to add funding to KC-135 aviation depot level facilities would meet a top objective in the Chief of Staff of the Air Force's fiscal year 2004 Unfunded Priority List.

Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom demonstrated to the world what we saw just 12 years ago. We went to war as the most combat- ready force in the world. The value of that readiness is clear. We won a massive victory in a few weeks, and we did so with very limited loss of American and allied lives. We were able to end aggression with minimum overall loss

of life, and we were even able to greatly reduce the civilian casualties of Afghani and Iraqi citizens.

In order to understand the issues involved, it is necessary to recognize just how difficult it is to achieve the kind of readiness we had during Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. Readiness is not solely a matter of funding operations and maintenance at the proper level. It is not only a matter of funding adequate numbers of high quality personnel, or of funding superior weapons and munitions, strategic mobility and propositioning, high operating tempos, realistic levels of training at every level of combat, or of logistics and support capabilities.

Readiness, in fact, is all of these things and more. A force beings to go hollow the moment it loses its overall mix of combat capabilities in any one critical area. Our technology edge in Afghanistan and Iraq would have been meaningless if we did not have men and women trained to use it. Having the best weapons system platforms in the world would not have given us our victory if we had not had the right command and control facilities, maintenance capabilities, and munitions.

The military forces that we sent to participate in Operation Desert Storm, Kosovo and Serbia, and Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, trained for their missions on military ranges here in the United States. Perhaps the premier range in the continental United States is the Barry M. Goldwater Range in Arizona. This nearly 3 million acre range comprises portions of the Sonoran desert and the Cabeza Prieta wilderness.

It is estimated that the military spends approximately $77 million a year on conservation efforts on the Barry M. Goldwater Range. There are nearly 80 employees dedicated to continued protection of the Goldwater Range, including archaeologists, biologists, ornithologists and other natural resources experts. In my view, the Air Force and the Marine Corps are very good stewards of this critical habitat.

Efforts are ongoing among environmental agencies, the Department of Defense, and the various land management agencies to further clarify and define the use and management of the Goldwater Range land and the airspace above it, While I applaud these efforts, I must affirmatively state my strong support for preserving the military use of this land and associated airspace. Every service has approached me to convey their deep concern that the military maintain its ability to train in this one-of-a-kind training range.

The Barry M. Goldwater Range is one of the last open-space ranges available to our Armed Forces for realistic, integrated, joint training exercises. I am glad the Senate has included language to help ensure that this training ``jewel'' remains available to our military for training purposes.

I am very concerned with the trend in the services to curtail live fire opportunities in training. As weapon systems become more expensive and are manufactured in fewer quantities, we are creating a military force that often fires a weapon for the first time in combat. In the Navy, aviators used to fire one radar-guided and one heat-seeking annually. This was reduced to one missile each during a single tour of duty, and has now been further reduced to a single missile each during an entire career.

Luke Air Force Base (AFB) is home to the 56th Fighter Wing and 228 F- 16, single engine, high performance aircraft. Luke AFB, similar to the situation at Nellis AFB, that the committee has previously addressed, has significant urban development encroachment issues that impact training at the base. Armed aircraft are no longer permitted to take off to the north of Luke AFB and over the past several years, there have been 16 serious aircraft accidents due to catastrophic engine failure. It is critical that land use along the southern departure corridor (SDC) remain compatible with armed aircraft weapons training, to preserve access to the Barry M. Goldwater Range (BMGR), to prevent land use or encroachments that are incompatible with activities at Luke AFB in the SDC and to increase the margin of safety associated with the Live Ordnance Departure Are (LODA) southwest of Luke AFB.

The Fiscal Year 2003 National Defense Authorization Act provided $10 million to the Air Force for land acquisition at Luke AFB intended to prevent encroachment from residential development and to ensure safe operations for flight departures and munitions storage.

The Air Force identified an immediate requirement to purchase 234 acres around the munitions storage and is in the process of executing this purchase to correct the most serious safety deficiencies. Furthermore, other parcels have been identified to be purchased to protect surrounding communities from impeding upon explosive blast distance arcs and the danger of single-seat F-16 Falcon jets with live ordnance that overfly land areas in the Southern Departure Corridor headed to the BMGR.

A land compatibility use study is currently ongoing to identify potential additional real estate to be purchased in the Southern Departure corridor of the airfield overflown by F-16's headed to the BMGR. I am pleased the chairman of the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support included in the chairman's mark, $14.3 million as a modification to the Fiscal Year 2003 authorization to facilitate the quick acquisition of additional parcels around the munitions area and in the Southern Departure corridor once they are identified. The Air Force has identified significant encroachment problems hindering safe flight operations at Luke AFB and will be able to protect accident potential zones from residential development through additional land acquisitions. The Senate Armed Services Committee expects the Air Force to send the committee the results of the land compatibility use study by June 1st, as promised by the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force. The project is a modification to a current requirement previously considered by this committee, authorized, appropriated, and now being executed by the Air Force.

For too long, we have asked our Armed Forces to do more with less. Now it is time to provide them with the funding they need, and to ensure that it is spent more wisely. The American people must also be assured that their tax dollars are being spent to provide for their defense--for the national interest, not for special interests.

More must be done to eliminate unnecessary and duplicative work and military installations. More effort must be made to turn over nonmilitary functions to civilian contractors, to reduce the continuing bloat of headquarters staffs, and to decentralize the Pentagon's labyrinth of bureaucratic fiefdoms.

The base realignment and closure (BRAC) legislation that Congress authorized in 2000 will make available from $4 to $7 billion per year by eliminating excess defense infrastructure. There is another $2 billion per year we can put to better purposes by privatizing or consolidating support and maintenance functions, and an additional $5.5 billion per year by eliminating ``Buy America'' restrictions that discourage U.S. competition and raise costs.

Similar attention is required to wean our political system of its highly developed taste for pork. I identified $5.2 billion in items that the Appropriations Committee, not the Defense Department, added to the budget last year. We should not tolerate the sacrifice of limited defense resources to special interests masquerading as improvements to our defense. These total savings in the Defense Department amount to almost $20 billion per year--$20 billion that must be reallocated within the defense budget to higher priority military personnel and modernization requirements.

While I am pleased that amount of member adds in this year's legislation has been reduced to around $1 billion, I am still troubled by the amount of unrequested spending on this legislation. Year after year, funding for the same unrequested, unnecessary projects are included in this legislation. For example, the 21st century truck has received $17.5 million dollars in this legislation. I wonder how many veterans Concurrent Receipts benefits would be funded by the total amount we have sunk into the development of the 21st century truck over the years? In the wisdom of the Senate, we have provided $35 million more than the President requested to buy the JPATS Texan. That is a lot of money for an aircraft the Navy does not need or even want. We have provided $10 million for

the High Temperature Superconducting Alternating Current HRSAC Synchronous Motor. We have provided $60 million for Advanced Extra High Frequency Spare Parts. Also on the member adds list is $50 million for the Los Alamos National Lab.

The fiscal year 2004 defense authorization bill adds $60 million for Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV). This project is one of the largest additions in the bill. This is in addition to the $609.3 million that was included in the President's defense budget request.

With this funding the Air Force will provide a $669.3 million boost to defense companies Boeing and Lockheed Martin to keep both companies in the rocket-launch business, easing the impact of a steep falloff in commercial orders for such services in the commercial-satellite market, where orders have all but dried up.

I am opposed to the ``assured access to space program'' as it is currently designed. I believe the Committee should hold hearings to review whether to drop one company. I do not believe that two companies are providing adequate competition in this critical program. I believe that a proper accounting of the EELV program will result in a report that more rocket launches and additional weather, communications, reconnaissance, eavesdropping and global position satellites would be launched if the Department of Defense would simply choose a single source for military rocket launches.

I could continue in this vein, but it is sufficient to say that the military needs more money and should spend it more wisely to address the serious problems caused by a decade of declining defense budgets. I have included a copy of the fiscal year 2004 Member Add List which I ask unanimous consent be printed in the record.

I will continue to fight for additional support of increases to the Department of Defense budget. I also will continue to examine with a keen eye all congressional marks that take money away from needed military programs and instead buy political support through favoritism in awarding contracts. In addition, I will persist in placing the men and women who fight for our flag and country at the top of my priority list where they belong; we owe them our gratitude, respect, and unwavering support. They keep us free.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I thank the distinguished chairman of the committee and others for setting aside their amendments, and I call up amendment No. 3197.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, my amendment strikes two sections of the bill, sections 842 and 843, which relate to ``Buy America'' and the Berry amendment, which are features that have been in existing law for quite a number of years to strengthen our national defense and our national economy.

This bill authorizes $422 billion for national defense programs for fiscal year 2005, a sum that doesn't even include the funding for ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you include those additional amounts, our national defense spending for the next fiscal year will be almost $500 billion.

I yield to the chairman.

Amendment No. 3461 To Amendment No. 3197

Mr. President, we are going to spend, in the next fiscal year, some $500 billion. That is a half trillion dollars, a huge amount of the taxpayers' money; in fact, about one-fourth of all the money the Federal Government will spend for everything next year, including Social Security, Medicare, health care, and education.

The purpose of these expenditures is to strengthen our national security for now and the future. The six priorities that were approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee, of which I am proudly a member, along with the Presiding Officer and others, reported in the bill before us unanimously by the committee, include such measures as combating terrorism and winning the global war against terrorism, supporting our military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, to sustaining the readiness of our Armed Forces to conduct the full range of military operations against all current and anticipated threats.

It goes on to state: Another object is modernizing and transforming our Armed Forces to successfully counter future threats. So we need to spend this money on the immediate needs and missions of our military and support the phenomenal job they have been doing on our behalf around the globe, but we also need to try to anticipate the future. That is difficult, but it is also important. It requires us to look at the big picture, at the global picture, and into the years and even, if possible, the decades that lie ahead. It means we don't want to do something now that is expedient or briefly beneficial that will have negative consequences for us in the future.

Ideally, we want policies that strengthen our country now and in the future. That has been the compelling reason for the so-called ``Buy American'' requirements of the Department of Defense, the military branches, and all other Federal agencies for the past 70 years.

``Buy America'' came out of the depths of the Great Depression. Buy America to strengthen America is really what it should be called. Buy America to strengthen America--that was the reason, the purpose, and it has been the result for seven decades. However, the law has always provided for exceptions, exceptions that essentially give, as they should, the full authority to the Secretary of Defense to waive domestic purchase requirements whenever necessary to provide our Armed Forces with equipment, weapons, clothing, food, or anything else that is not available in the United States, that could not be produced or provided in this country when it is needed, that lacks the quality or features or advantages, or that is not priced competitively with non- U.S.-made products.

So the law has essentially said: Try to buy American, but if you can't or you shouldn't, then don't. It has worked for almost 70 years, through 11 different administrations--six Democratic, five Republican-- until last year this administration and this Senate shredded that bill. That shredding was reduced to a few slices by the strong opposition of the House conferees, led by the House Armed Services Committee chairman.

We in this body are exceedingly fortunate to have the chairman of the Senate Armed Services, who is unparalleled as a leader and public servant. Last July, I traveled to Iraq with the distinguished chairman of the Armed Services Committee, the senior Senator from Virginia, Mr. Warner. We went through the country with 115-degree temperatures. I struggled to keep

up with him as he charged fearlessly into every perilous situation. He is in every respect--leading that committee, here on the floor, or out in the field around the world--one of the most outstanding leaders and pubic servants I have ever met anywhere in my walk of life.

I also greatly admire my colleague and friend, the senior Senator from Arizona, Mr. McCain, whose military experience and expertise and whose devotion to his country and his service to it are all remarkable.

However, on that occasion last year regarding ``Buy America,'' I thanked our Founding Fathers for the wisdom of bicameralism. And I must respectfully but strongly again disagree this year with the Senate bill's provisions that would effectively destroy ``Buy America'' by its exceptions to it.

If we pass the legislation that is before us now with the language in it, the second degree to my amendment that has been put down today, we might as well eliminate the entire ``Buy America'' statute as it applies to the Department of Defense and the armed services and others that are funded by this bill because that will be the result if this current Senate language if we pass it.

I challenge those in the Bush administration and those in the Senate and those lobbying for the big multinational corporations and for the foreign governments they represent, who truly believe that we will be better off without any ``Buy America'' requirements, or certainly, in the case of the paid lobbyists, who know that they and their clients will be better off without them, and those who believe that for whatever reason, they should just say so and put the repeal before us in black and white and have us vote on that rather than just creating more exceptions and more loopholes that give more foreign countries and the corporations that operate in them more and more of the money from this bill in the products that they buy and the jobs for which they pay, because under this language that exists in the bill now, those tax dollars, those products, those jobs will go to people in other countries but not to Americans.

There will be no more ``Buy America'' to strengthen America. It will be buy abroad, because of what? Because it is cheaper? Because it is better? Because it doesn't matter?

Let's have that debate in the Senate. Is it cheaper to buy overseas? After counting all the costs of not only the product prices but also the wages that are gained or lost, the taxes paid by those wage earners in this country or somewhere else, the unemployment costs in this country, the welfare cost, the food stamp cost, not to mention the human cost of people who lose their jobs, is it better to buy these products overseas? Better for whom? Who gains, who loses, when American dollars are spent abroad to buy foreign goods made by foreign workers instead of American goods made by American workers? Does it matter? Evidently not to this President or to this Pentagon leadership. But it sure matters to the American people, who will lose their jobs or won't get new jobs or better jobs. Do they have a say in where their tax dollars are spent? Does it matter to this Senate that there are now 2\1/2\ million fewer manufacturing jobs in this country than there were when President Bush took office? Yes, 2\1/2\ million manufacturing jobs have been lost in this country in the last 3\1/2\ years, despite the so-called recovery and recent job gains in some other sectors of our economy. There are still 2\1/2\ million less manufacturing jobs today than there were in January 2001.

Many of those American jobs have been sent overseas and were replaced in other countries by low-wage jobs. Importing all those foreign- manufactured products has now produced a U.S. trade deficit that last month was $48.2 billion. That is another all-time worst trade deficit-- $48.2 billion for a single month, and it will probably be broken again next month or soon thereafter. Over the next year, if that continues, it will produce an annual trade deficit of $578 billion--almost $100 billion more than last year's record trade deficit.

We are told we cannot do anything about this massive bleeding of jobs and wages, capital investments, profits, and tax payments out of our country. We are told we should not even try; it is free trade, globalization, and it is good for America. Is 2.5 million lost manufacturing jobs good for America? Over $100 billion in lost wages and benefits every year is good for America? Over $30 billion of lost tax revenues each year for Federal, State, local governments, and school districts is good for America? Our Federal budget deficits, our State and local government deficits, U.S. trade deficit, national debt increasing, all of which are going higher and higher--is that all good for America? Jobs and wages, production of goods and services, capital investment by businesses, allowing people--as consumers buy goods and services, producing tax revenues, individual and corporate, they are the lifeblood of any economy. They are its vitality. Corporate profits, stock prices, dividends, and capital gains are all vitally important as well, but they are not enough.

This country's economic vitality is bleeding away. Our economic strength is weakening. Our economic strength is essential to our military strength. Our economic security is essential to our national security. This legislation, this authorization to spend $500 billion on our national security, had better strengthen, not weaken, our economic security as well.

I am aware of the letter to the chairman from a group calling itself the National Defense Industrial Association. It claims to represent over 1,300 member companies and purports to be the ``voice of the industrial base.'' Who are these companies? Whose industrial base are they speaking for? Many are companies that have moved their production overseas, that are making better profits from paying low wages to foreigners instead of good wages to Americans. We cannot stop them from doing so. But why should we reward them with American tax dollars going to support their foreign production? They can certainly continue that foreign production, and they will. But if they want these U.S. military contracts, they should fill them with American workers, not with foreigners.

They should make those products or provide those services in American communities, not foreign cities. They should pay taxes from those profits to our school districts and local governments, not someone else's. These are American tax dollars that are paying for our national defense, not from their corporate profits from foreign operations-- profits on which they will pay taxes to foreign governments, not our own.

Someone has to look out for the best interests of this country, and it sure is not the National Defense Industrial Association. Maybe that is not their responsibility. But the best interests of this country are our responsibility here in the Senate. So they should not tell us or try to make us or the American people believe their interests are America's interests. In their letter, they claim it would negatively impact the ability of the U.S. industrial base to compete in the international marketplace and would therefore negatively impact the Warfighter, and the bill's amendment gutting ``Buy American'' will represent important steps in the Department of Defense's transformation plans and send positive signs to our allies that the United States is supportive of existing trade agreements. I am deeply offended that American companies, most of which are headed by American citizens, would try to hide their financial self-interests behind pretenses like these. They want defense contracts they can fulfill with their existing foreign operations that provide them with greater profits. They don't want to have to shift that production back to the U.S. and employ fellow American citizens. They want only what is good for themselves, not what is best for America's military strength or our Nation's economic vitality.

In some cases, as the letter discloses, they coddle foreign governments that want to buy American military hardware and then want us to buy the same amount of their foreign-made military products from their countries. We signed, evidently--somebody in the Department of Defense signed these agreements. There are countries where our trade deficits last year totalled over $120 billion for all goods and services. But in this one sector of military goods and services, where we run a trade surplus, we agree to give up our surplus by buying more foreign products, some of which, of course, are made in those countries by--surprise--

some of the companies in the National Defense Industrial Association. Those companies win both ways, but the rest of America loses.

These memoranda of understanding are not free trade; they are certainly not fair trade. They are dumb trade. It is amazing to me that somebody would sign them. It is like something out of the movie ``Dumb and Dumber,'' where I give you $20. You are going to give me $10 back, but you say, wait a minute, I am losing my $10. You have a responsibility to make up for my $10 with your $10. So we do that. We agree to that in this memorandum. We are going to match their $10 with ours and even up that part of the deal and leave the $20 that goes to them--leave it out and let it go. That is dumb trade.

We spend more on our defense products, goods, and services than the next 10 countries in the world combined. They need our markets; we don't need theirs. They are cutting back on their military production, so they want these agreements to prop up their industries and provide jobs for their workers at our expense. They are smart enough to look for it, and we are dumb enough to give it to them. It is also dangerous trade. This month's Jane's Intelligence Review, a widely regarded international publication, reports that ``Europe Considers Ending Chinese Arms Embargo.'' The Chinese premier was in some European Union countries last month and he concluded, saying, ``I have great confidence that there will be a solution to this problem.''

I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record following my remarks.

It reads:

On the European side, the attractions of tapping China's

defense market are significant: China is the world's largest

importer of defense equipment ($3.6 billion worth in 2002),

and . . . France and Germany in particular are pushing to

lift the arms embargo; France because the government is under

pressure from its defense industry to resume arms sales; and

Germany because it wants to maintain its currently good and

close relationship with Beijing.

Opponents to lifting the ban include, most vociferously,

the USA. . . .

Richard Fisher, from the Jamestown Foundation, told [Janes

Intelligence Review]: ``The real impact of a deep and wide

EU-PLA [People's Liberation Army]--

The army of China, the People's Republic of China--

military alliance will fall on the USA, in terms of

accelerating a military-technical arms race that will burden

U.S. taxpayers and place ever greater pressure on the U.S.

political/military alliance system in Asia.''

Who are these countries protecting or helping in this language I want to strike out of this bill that have these offsetting reciprocal agreements with the United States? They include Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland--all European Union countries. Others that are also exempt by other features include France, Italy, and Luxembourg--all European Union countries.

We are going to contribute to their building up their defense industries, and then they are going to turn around, most likely, soon and sell those products, that technology, those military advantages to a country in opposition to our foreign policy and against our own military interests, against our own national security interests.

That is just one example of how this kind of expediency and also the corporate pressures that drive some of it are a danger to our national security and to our future economic strength.

In conclusion, for the last 70 years, ``Buy America'' has worked for America, and it has helped Americans work in America to build a strong national defense, to build a strong national economy, and to build a strong American industrial base until this administration arrived. The Bush administration believes evidently we can have a strong national defense and a strong national economy without a strong American industrial base, without Americans making American products in American communities. They are so indifferent to that need that at a time when the United States has lost over 2.5 million manufacturing jobs held by 2.5 million American workers in the last 3\1/2\ years, they support this bill and its language to send more American taxpayers' dollars to pay for foreign products made by foreign workers.

Maybe those who do not care about other Americans' jobs should offer to give up their own job. Practice what they preach and find out for themselves what unemployment is really like. But it is our responsibility, exercising our collective wisdom, to act in the best interests of the United States of America.

I know my colleagues share that desire. We may have our honest differences and disagreements, but I beseech my colleagues in this instance to review this measure and this language and consider the consequences of it for our military strength, for our economic strength, as well as for the jobs of Americans and the quality of products and the security of products provided to the men and women serving courageously around the globe.

I yield the floor.

Exhibit 1

[From Jane's Intelligence Review, June 1, 2004]

Europe Considers Ending Chinese Arms Embargo

(By John Hill)

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao began his first official visit

to Europe on 5 May with the issue of lifting the European

Union's (EU) ban on the sale of weapons systems to China high

on his agenda.

Beijing had hoped that a decision to end the ban would be

made at the meeting of EU foreign ministers on 26 April, but

at the annual Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM) held in Dublin a

week earlier, Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Brian Cowen,

said that a change in the issue was unlikely during Ireland's

EU presidency. Undaunted, in Brussels on 5 May, Wen said: ``I

have great confidence that there will be a solution to this

problem.''

For months now it has appeared that the arms embargo, which

was imposed following the Tiananmen Square violence in 1989,

would be scrapped, and Beijing certainly has many powerful

European friends working on its behalf. Javier Solana, the

EU's High Representative for Foreign Policy, as well as

representatives from both France and Germany have in recent

months assured the Chinese publicly that they think the time

has come to resume arms sales.

On the European side, the attractions of tapping China's

defence market are significant: China is the world's largest

importer of defence equipment (US$3.6bn-worth in 2002), and

currently Russia is the main beneficiary. According to Jean-

Pierre Cabestan of the French National Centre for Scientific

Research, France and Germany in particular are pushing to

lift the arms embargo: France because the government is under

pressure from its defence industry to resume arms sales; and

Germany because it wants to maintain its currently good and

close relationship with Beijing. Both the European Aeronautic

Defence and Space Company (EADS) and the French electronics

company Thales told JIR that although they do not currently

export military equipment to China, they are monitoring the

situation.

Opponents to lifting the ban include, most vociferously,

the USA. In January, Richard Boucher, spokeswoman for the US

Department of State, said: ``Our statutes and regulations

prohibit sales of defence items to China. We believe that

others should maintain their current arms embargoes as

well. We believe that the US and European prohibitions on

arms sales are complementary, were imposed for the same

reasons, specifically serious human rights abuses, and

that those reasons remain valid today.'' The UK is

remaining circumspect; although obviously its defence

industry would like to sell to the Chinese market, the

government is reportedly upholding the US line on the

issue.

There is debate over the consequences that lifting the ban

would have. Professor Shen Dingli, an expert in International

Relations at Shanghai's Fudan University, told JIR: ``[Ending

the embargo] won't be significant, as China has its own arms

research, development and manufacturing capability, and can

access Russia's military aircraft and ship technology.

Reportedly, soon China will acquire its own manufacturing

capability of more modern military aircraft, and by that

time, China will export its own technology.''

However, the USA remains worried that the end of the

embargo could spark an arms race. US China analyst Richard

Fisher, from the Jamestown Foundation, told JIR: ``The real

impact of a deep and wide EU-PLA [People's Liberation Army]

military alliance will fall on the USA, in terms of

accelerating a military-technical arms race that will burden

US taxpayers and place ever greater pressure on the US

political/military alliance system in Asia.'' Fisher argued

that if the ban was lifted, the French would be ``first out

of the gate'' with submarine and satellite technology. He

added that the competition would also spur on the Russians,

who ``are now openly talking about selling advanced SSK

[submarine] co-production rights to the PLA to trump the

Mr. President, I meant to say that it changes the overall law and which the Barry amendment is part of this general reference to ``Buy America.''

Mr. President, the chairman is correct in that regard.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

Does the Senator say we should apply that same principle to all of our trade agreements and require that the $478 billion we spent last year in deficits, we should require those countries buy the equivalent in U.S.-made products?

Mr. President, I concur in the observation of our distinguished colleague. All I am saying is we should look at each one individually rather than establishing a policy at this point--certainly with regard to this bill because, as the distinguished majority leader said, the Senate has devoted extensive time to this piece of legislation. It is very important. I am optimistic that we can meet the schedule for completion tomorrow night. I hope that optimism is shared on the other side.

At this time, the bill is open to amendment. The managers await the arrival of the first Senator.

Mr. President, I hope we can perhaps reach the Byrd amendment today. It is an important amendment. I have shared many debates with my good and valued friend from West Virginia, and we are prepared. I cannot join him in support, but we will have a good, strong debate on it. It will be, I believe, a historic debate to initiate today.

Mr. President, I will be available tonight should the senior Senator from West Virginia desire to take up that debate tonight.

Mr. President, we are where we are. In the mortal words of someone smarter than I, we have to deal with the cards which have been dealt.

I have a suggestion. We are trying to work out how we could protect the parliamentary situation as it now exists with regard to the Burns second degree such that we could proceed now with the debate on the amendment of the distinguished Senator from North Dakota and at least have the debate in place in the hopes that perhaps we could resolve this dilemma as the day goes on.

Mr. President, I so note that observation.

May I inquire of the Senator from North Dakota: Is the parliamentary situation on his amendment now clear?

I presume the Burns matter would require a recorded vote, so at this point in time I don't know whether the Senator is willing to use this available time to explain his amendment, although it will not be a pending matter before the Senate.

We will try to resolve the underlying parliamentary situation with regard to both amendments, the underlying amendment and the Burns second-degree amendment, so the Senator will have his opportunity.

That is a reasonable request, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, together with the Senator from Nevada,

the Senator from Virginia, in consultation with leadership, presents to the Senate this UC: I ask unanimous consent that at 5:30 today the Senate proceed to a vote in relation to the Warner amendment No. 3458 which is to be drafted as a first degree; to be followed immediately by a vote in relation to the Lautenberg amendment No. 3291; provided that no second degrees be in order to the amendments prior to those votes.

Amendment No. 3291, As Modified

No objection.

Mr. President, the leadership is working with the managers to see what we can do to resolve the question of one of the amendments which is pending before the Senate with regard to matters relating to the Commerce Committee. We see the Senator from North Dakota prepared to speak to his amendment. As soon as we can work out the parliamentary situation, we will proceed to that point.

It would be a valuable use of the time if we were to do so. We encourage that.

Mr. President, I think the Senator's understanding coincides with that of myself and the distinguished Senator from Nevada. In due course, several parties who have an active interest in not only the parliamentary situation but the substance are soon to arrive in the Senate. We have to wait a bit.

Mr. President, we understand. A Senator asked for a few minutes of morning business and then I would be prepared to engage with Senator Bingaman on his amendment, if that is agreeable.

Yes.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague for bringing up that point. I, too, am concerned, as is every Member of this body, about the daily, weekly loss of life and limb by our brave men and women in the Armed Forces. As the Senator says, this is their bill. That is what it is. It is their bill, whether they are privates or generals or admirals.

Might we accommodate the Senator from Ohio?

Mr. President, we are awaiting, and there is diligence on the other side in every respect, either the amendment of Senator Dayton or the amendment from Senator Bingaman. We have given them our second degrees in each case, which are now being studied. Until such time as one of the managers on the other side or these Senators appear, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, let me first say I think our colleague has brought to the attention of the Senate through his amendment a very important subject. It is my hope and expectation that we can eventually have a meeting of the minds. I don't take great joy in putting a second-degree amendment up on important subjects such as this, but I felt it imperative so we can frame for our membership what I perceive as a very conscientious presentation by the Senator of a set of goals in which I concur with two-thirds of the Senator's objectives. But where I ask there be a reservation, those reservations are of such severity that I am compelled to put in the second-degree amendment.

I would like to walk through the amendment which the distinguished Senator put forth page by page.

The first section says:

Reports on matters relating to detainment of prisoners by

the Department of Defense.

Ordinarily, a report is something we are happy to grant a colleague. But in this instance, I will point out where my concerns are. First:

Reports required. Not later than 90 days after date of

enactment of this Act, and every six months thereafter, the

Secretary of Defense shall submit to the appropriate

committees of the Congress a report on the population of

detainees held by the Department of Defense and on the

facilities in which detainees are held.

That is, have been held more than 30 days.

My understanding was originally it didn't have that, and 30 days to me is reasonable. The Senator also added that the report can be submitted now in classified form. Again, that is a very essential improvement.

But we then continue:

(b) Report Elements. Each report under subsection (a) shall

include the following:

(1) General information on the foreign national detainees

in the custody of the Department during the six-month period

ending on the date of such report, including the following:

(A) The total number of detainees in the custody of the

Department . . .

I think that is an important fact, and I simply say ``as of the date of such report.'' I think that should be something which would be acceptable to the Senator.

Section (B) we leave standing.

The countries in which such detainees were detained, and

the number of detainees detained in each country.

That is acceptable.

Section (C) we take out simply because we modified (A) to state as of date of such report, and I think (C) is cared for by modifying (A) with date of such report.

Then we drop down:

The total number of detainees released from the custody of

the Department during such period.

We accept that fully.

(D) The nationality of the detainees covered by

subparagraph (A), including the number of detainees of each

such nationality.

That, too, seems to us to be fine.

Then section (F)--no objection there. That says, ``The number of detainees covered by subparagraph (A) that were transferred from jurisdiction of another country,'' so you can track them.

The Senator modified the original amendment. I am working from the original to show to date how much we have had meeting of the minds.

The Senator took out section (G). I will not trouble to talk about it.

We take out subsection (2). That is subsection (2) of the first paragraph of the amendment, report elements under (b).

As drafted, we delete for each foreign national detained by the Department of Defense during the 6-month period ending on the date of such report: No. 1, the name of the individual; No. 2, his or her nationality; the place at which they were taken into custody; the circumstances of being taken into custody; the place of detention; the current length of detention, or at least the duration of detention at the time of release. And on it goes.

Here is the problem. That bit of information, even though it were classified, were it ever to leak out--and regrettably, we know things of this nature will happen from time to time--it would be devastating because the enemy would know a great deal about custody and what we are trying to do with those individuals.

It seems to me there is far greater benefit to an enemy in such engagements as we must take prisoners than it would be of benefit to the legislative body to monitor that prisoners are properly being cared for. For example, the Durbin amendment we had the other day goes to potential abuses. That has been accepted. It is a major step forward to codify prohibitions against abuse of prisoners. We are all troubled by that.

To have in the custody of the Congress this type of information, even though it is locked up in S-407, or wherever it may be, potentially there is a document that could do great harm to our ability to conduct military operations during which we obtained detainees.

Then there is the following paragraph:

(3) Information of the detention facilities and practices

of the Department for the six-month period ending the date of

such report, including for each facility of the Department at

which detainees were detained. . . .

That is fine.

(A) The name of such facility.

(B) The location of such facility.

We have no objection to that. In fact, the entire next page of the amendment, we accept. We come to the conclusion of the amendment and no further objections. It simply is to the creation of a document that would have such detailed information that is not essential to the Congress in our oversight of these detention facilities and the practice of detention, and if that document would ever get out, it would be a devastating blow to the intelligence system, to giving the information to the enemy, who we have among their presumably lost and missing persons, and the like.

I urge my colleagues, this is something we should scrutinize carefully. I have framed it in such a way that colleagues will have to decide whether it

is a second-degree amendment that prevails or the underlying amendment that prevails.

Therein, with the exception of one other mention just this morning, the committee staff, the majority and the minority, were briefed on this document. It roughly looks to be 30 pages of unclassified material entitled ``Department of Defense proposed''--just being proposed at the moment--``administrative review of the detention of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.''

This is one of our facilities. The Secretary of Defense has established administrative review procedures to determine annually if enemy combatants detained by the Department of Defense at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay should be released, transferred, or continue to be detained, and so forth.

Much of it parallels what the Senator has in mind. I am confident after this morning's briefing the Congress will make several edits. I encourage the distinguished ranking member to engage our colleague, Senator Bingaman, a former member of our committee, to look at it also and see how we can improve and strengthen this. So this will soon be in effect.

I yield.

Mr. President, that is a very good question. I will take a few minutes to answer. It deserves a very considered answer.

I have thought this through. It is interesting, coincidentally over the weekend I dealt with the Department of Defense. I did not have a chance to brief my distinguished ranking member yet on the question of the Red Cross's participation in our situations, both in the Afghanistan detention facilities and the Iraqi detention facilities. I am speaking for myself.

I am very concerned about those problems over there. Our committee had several hearings on it. The issue comes up, as it should. It came up in the Judiciary Committee the other day, about the role of the Red Cross. I have learned a great deal about that role in a short period of time.

I had some familiarity when I was Secretary of the Navy and during the Vietnam conflict. The Secretary of Defense was at that time--I have served under three of them--Secretaries Melvin Laird and Jim Schlesinger. They were very conscientious about working with the Red Cross.

The Red Cross has done a remarkable job in this very difficult area, going into these prisons, monitoring them, and going back to the government host of the prisons and making corrections and trying, in some instances, to benefit the incarceration detainees in terms of their individual personal status.

The success of that program has been dependent on the absolute sanctity of that material and the fact that the observations of the Red Cross have not gotten into the public domain. We are working with the Department of Defense now, such that the Senate can be given the benefit of the Red Cross inspections in our facilities in Afghanistan and in Iraq. It will be my recommendation to the committee that we will have it in a classified briefing. But we are not, hopefully, going to retain any of those documents in the Senate.

Were that material to get out in some manner, we are told by the Red Cross, it would seriously limit their ability to do this magnificent work they do all over the world. If some nations--and only in a classified forum can I give those names--but some nations that now allow the Red Cross in to get information and to hopefully provide corrections to prisoners' treatment, if that had gotten out, that is the last time the Red Cross would get into that country to examine those prisons.

So we come down to the very basic fundamental issue about those detainees, whether they are in the United States or wherever they are in the world in these prisons, the Red Cross is helping in many instances. But they say if the information they write up and send back to the host country of the prisons gets into the public domain, forget it; they will be precluded from going on. So we would face a similar situation.

It is very difficult for me, one who has been privileged to be in this body now my 26th year, to just say I am concerned that some material in classified form in the possession of the Senate could get out. But, regrettably, whether it got out from under the Senate or got out from another source and that source would then blame the Congress for leaking it--I don't know, we have all been through the leak scenario--it leads to a never-never land in this Government of ours.

But I urge that we consider this very detailed information which our colleague is seeking. The amendment in the second degree, which I am perfectly willing to withdraw to the extent we can come to a resolution and make it your first-degree amendment and no second--I believe we have to observe the practices with regard to this detailed information you are seeking.

Fine.

Mr. President, I do not disagree in how you frame the issue, but I maintain my stance. Let me parse it very carefully. I say to the Senator, you are saying that what we give the Red Cross--not what the Red Cross comes back and tells us we are doing right or wrong--what we give to the Red Cross can be shared with Congress?

Here is where I respectfully differ. If the information we give to the Red Cross were to leak out, then other nations that are similarly following that practice will see this is now in the public domain and say: We are stopping, Red Cross, because we see it has gotten into the public domain of another country. Therefore, we don't want that to happen.

Mr. President, I say to the Senator, I concede your point. You need not deliberate further. Fault lies on both sides, both branches of Government. All I am saying is--and I am informed by those who have greater knowledge about the procedures of the Red Cross than I; and I don't know whether it comes out of the executive branch or the Congress--further distribution of this information beyond one branch of Government to another branch of Government does increase the likelihood that somehow it gets out. And it will deal the Red Cross a very serious blow, I am told.

Mr. President, in other words, rather than the individual's name, that his number is No. 224--whatever it is? I would have to defer until I go to the heart of the experts. All I know is that the name--if we are detaining certain individuals and the enemy does not know whom we have captured, and they, therefore, have to shelve some of their plans, knowing that the persons who are missing from their roster, if they were to talk about the plans, they would make the plans less valuable to the enemy--I mean, I am just working through the obvious scenarios here.

Now, whether a number would suffice, I would like to go back to those who are dealing with this on a daily basis.

Mr. President, it is interesting, over the weekend I had the opportunity, I say to my distinguished colleague, to visit the Department of Defense, and I was greatly impressed with an individual, who was a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives a decade or so ago, who is in charge of it. I will seek to have him come over right away and provide both sides with the expert to propound these questions. They are good questions. Let's see what we can do to work this thing out.

Yes. Mr. President, I think all that can be accommodated, so I join in the request at this time to lay aside the pending amendment in the second degree and the underlying amendment by our distinguished colleague from New Mexico and to then let the other Senators seeking recognition have the floor.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield for the purpose of allowing me to put a second-degree amendment at the desk so our colleagues can then begin to examine both as this very important debate is underway?

Mr. President, I send to the desk, on behalf of Senator McCain, an amendment in the second degree.

I thank my colleague for his courtesy. We now undertake a very important debate on this subject.

Mr. President, before I get into the substantive debate in rebuttal to my distinguished colleague--and I say distinguished. We are very proud of his participation on our committee. Indeed, I remember vividly our trip together to Iraq. That was his first trip. It was helpful for all of us. I thank him for his remarks about the old Senator from Virginia. It is kind of nice to hear those after being on this bill now our 15th day. But we are making progress.

First, I think inadvertently--and I say to my friend inadvertently-- he made reference in his opening statement that the language of the authorization bill for this year changes the status of the Barry amendment. Did the Senator make mention of that?

I wonder if I might bring to the Senator's attention--the bill is at the desk--if he would look at page 175 of the bill. He will see section (f), ``Laws Not Waivable'':

The Secretary of Defense may not exercise the authority

under subsection (a) to waive any domestic source or content

requirement contained in the following laws. . . .

No. 4 is the Barry amendment. We do not touch it. I assure the Senator, section 2533 A(a) of title X is the Barry amendment, and that remains untouched.

The Senator is doing his best, and I have lived with these things for so many years.

The other is interesting. No. 1, we do not waive the Small Business Act, 15 U.S.C. 631, which sets aside 23 percent of the dollar volume of all defense contracts must go to small business.

The Javits-Wagner, No. 2, is all products manufactured by the blind and the handicapped. We do not touch that.

No. 3, section 7309, shipbuilding, we do not touch that.

And No. 4 is the Barry amendment, and that covers textile, food, and speciality medicine.

I draw my colleague's attention to those points. He might wish to review it himself and make amendments to his opening statement.

Mr. President, I say to my colleague again, it is fascinating in a sense. He goes on about what we put into this bill, which I think in a very modest way strengthens America's position, in my judgment. For example, his bill goes after one Department, the Department of Defense; am I not correct?

I say to my distinguished colleague, the Department of Defense is among the few Departments of our Government with contracts generating a surplus. The area in which the Senator from Minnesota wants to go to preserve jobs is in other Departments and agencies of the Federal Government. Let me point this out.

We had $63 billion in defense sales in the last year--$63 billion--to nations all over the world. We bought only $5 billion of weapons from other nations. Those nations that sell us the $5 billion are basically the ones that are participating largely in the $63 billion. So there is a mutual trade there. We are selling them, by and large, far more than we are buying from them, and if you were successful, you would begin to bring down significantly the $63 billion, and that translates into hundreds of thousands of jobs in America would be lost because we are saying to those

countries: We are not buying anything from you anymore. And they will say: If that is the case, we have had it, we are not going to buy from you, and down goes our $63 billion surplus.

Mr. President, I want to mention in the context of the discussion which has been held between the Senator from Virginia and the Senator from Nevada that I believe the second-degree amendment which I had intended to offer to Senator Brownback's second-degree amendment will be in order. I have been working throughout the weekend. The question with the Parliamentarian was whether it would be relevant. I believe we have now revised that amendment so it will be relevant.

My understanding is Senator Brownback has offered an amendment on indecency to this Defense authorization bill which came out of the Commerce Committee with respect to broadcasting. Senator Burns of Montana offered a second degree to Senator Brownback's amendment.

I would not offer an amendment that would be extraneous to the Defense authorization bill except that the amendment Senator Brownback offered came out of Commerce Committee on a matter that addressed a related issue--that is, the concentration of broadcast ownership--which I, Senator Lott, Senator Snowe, and others added in the Commerce Committee. Senator Brownback offered an amendment on the floor of the Senate excluding that provision. I understand why. I am not being critical of him at all. But I would want to add that back using a second-degree slot as soon as we can find a way in which Senator Burns' second-degree slot will be resolved.

I say to the Senator from Virginia: I am here and ready any time to offer that amendment. It would not be my intention to hold up the Defense authorization bill. In fact, I wouldn't be offering this amendment were it not for the fact that Senator Brownback's amendment on indecency was offered to the Defense bill when it came out of the Commerce Committee containing the amendment on broadcast ownership which I had previously offered with Senator Lott.

I wanted to make the Senator from Virginia aware that the second degree I will offer, along with Senator Snowe and some others, is certainly available, and I would want to find an opportunity to offer that amendment.

Mr. President, in response, my amendment would be a second-degree amendment offered to Senator Brownback, but that second- degree slot, I believe at this moment, is filled by an amendment previously offered by Senator Burns. I don't quite know how to resolve that, but at some point Senator Burns' second-degree amendment will be resolved, that second-degree slot will be open, and I will offer an amendment similar to that which we did in the Commerce Committee.

Mr. President, let me take a moment to consult with some staff on our side with respect to the parliamentary situation.

Let me say again, so the Senator from Virginia is clear, and I think he is, this Defense authorization bill needs to get completed with some dispatch. I sympathize with the challenge he and the Senator from Michigan have had trying to move it along. It is not my intent in any way to delay that.

I feel obligated, as I think do others in the Senate, that when Senator Brownback offered an extraneous amendment, that amendment which previously included broadcast ownership limitation issues dealing with the FCC rules, to add that back to the indecency language.

I will consult with our side in a moment and perhaps I can make some comments about it, and if others wish to make comments, we would find a way to vote as soon as the Burns second-degree amendment is disposed of. Let me do some consultation and perhaps I can speak.

Mr. President, let me say again this amendment is not related to the subject of the Defense authorization. The only reason I offer it is because the amendment offered by Senator Brownback, which itself is not related to Defense authorization, was offered last Friday. I indicated when he offered that amendment, which I support, that I would second-degree it, because we second-degreed it in the Commerce Committee, and we merged two issues: indecency and the issue of broadcast ownership rules and regulations.

When my colleague from Kansas offers an indecency amendment to the Defense authorization bill, I don't have much choice except to offer the amendment we offered to it in the Commerce Committee. If this bill is stripped of all extraneous amendments, I will understand that and I will not complain. But if this bill is going to proceed with amendments of the type that came from the Commerce Committee, then I insist it also include the issue of broadcast ownership rules and regulations that were adopted by the Federal Communications Commission.

Let me describe what all this is about with respect to broadcast ownership. The Federal Communications Commission did a rulemaking on the issue of broadcast ownership. They had somewhere around three- quarters of a million Americans, unprecedented numbers of Americans, write and e-mail and send concerns and expressions of their interest to the Federal Communications Commission. Almost all of them said to the FCC: Don't change the rules and regulations with respect to broadcast ownership of properties in a way that injures the public interest.

It didn't matter to the FCC. They went ahead and changed the rules. The way the FCC constructed it, the rules say: It is all right if in your community--let's say you live in one of the biggest cities in America--one company owns three television stations, eight radio stations, the cable company, and the dominant newspaper. That is fine.

Well, it is not fine with me--it is not fine with, by far, the majority of the American people--to see fewer and fewer Americans, no more than a handful, who are going to have control over what the rest of the American people see, hear, and read.

Let me say again what the FCC allowed. In the biggest cities of the country, one company can come in and buy up eight radio stations, three television stations, the cable company, and the dominant newspaper--in many cases, the only newspaper. Why is this of concern? Well, it is of concern to me because we license the use of the airwaves. They don't belong to broadcasters or radio stations or television stations. They belong to the people. The airwaves belong to the American people. We license their use to certain companies in exchange for certain obligations.

One of those obligations that has never and will never be old fashioned is localism. That is not an old-fashioned requirement for broadcasters. So the question is, how do you develop or how do you maintain or how do you have localism in broadcast properties when one company owns, in this case, 1,200 radio stations. Yes, that is the case. One company owns 1,200 radio stations.

We did hearings about all these subjects. Let me tell you about something called voice tracking. This is antithetical to localism. Voice tracking is a process by which a company that owns a lot of radio stations will have someone in a basement in Baltimore, MD broadcasting. And he is broadcasting over, for example, a station in Salt Lake City, UT, saying: It is a beautiful morning here in Salt Lake City. The sun is shining over the mountains. What a great day to wake up in our city.

The problem is, that guy was broadcasting from Baltimore. He was using the Internet to find out that the sun is shining in Salt Lake City. It is called voice tracking. It is fooling the consumers into believing that announcer is there. It has nothing to do with localism or responsibilities of localism.

There is another approach used by television stations. It is called central casting. It is trying to make you believe the news team is from your city when, in fact, it is not. Central casting, voice tracking, these are mechanisms by which the large concentrations of broadcasters are trying to convince people there is localism to their broadcasts.

Some of us believe very strongly that this is moving in the wrong direction. I am not opposed to big because something is big. Good for the folks who are successful. If somebody has two radio stations and buys two more, good for them. If they have eight and buy eight more, good for them. If they have 50 and buy 50 more, I am not going to come here and complain about that. But 1,200 radio stations in the hands of one company? Or television broadcasting stations being gobbled up together under one big ownership group? Is that good for our country, especially in an area where, in most cases, you have monopolies or near monopolies and now this FCC rule says, in addition to all of that, with respect to broadcasting properties, we are going to get rid of that pernicious rule that allows cross ownership of broadcast properties with the newspaper?

At the hearing in the Commerce Committee, I held up a letter that was sent out all across the country by an investment banking company. They said: Get ready, because the FCC is fixing to change its rule, and when they

do, your newspapers can buy up a bunch of broadcast properties. And so they are already.

The FCC rule, fortunately for us, has not yet gone into effect because it was stayed by a Federal court. This issue is now in the Federal court. So there is a stay order. It may well be lifted soon when the Federal court makes its judgment. But that begs for the Congress to make its own judgment to overturn and rescind the FCC rules.

Senator Lott, Senator Snowe, myself, and others brought this issue to the Senate floor with something called a veto of an administrative rule. It is called the Congressional Accountability Act in which we have the opportunity to veto a rule by a Federal Agency. It has only been used once. We offered that. And by a very significant margin, we won. So the expression of the Senate already has been to say: We don't support the FCC rule. We believe it should be rescinded. And using the Congressional Accountability Act, the Senate, on a bipartisan vote, said: We don't want these rules to go into effect, FCC, start over and do it right. Well, that Senate vote went to the House of Representatives and it is now sitting at the desk in the House of Representatives 10 votes short. They need 218 votes. They have a letter with 208 signatures on it and they are 10 short and they cannot move.

The Speaker of the House and the administration very much oppose this. They have stymied it in the House of Representatives. My feeling is that the only opportunity we have in a circumstance such as this is to offer an amendment on a bill, such as the Brownback bill--and, incidentally, we are faithful to our determination to move this. We offered the same amendment in the Commerce Committee when Senator Brownback brought up his legislation. We prevailed there.

I support the Brownback legislation and the second-degree amendment that Senator Burns intends to offer to it as well. I hope the Senate will, once again, support my second-degree amendment once the amendment by Senator Burns is disposed of.

We had testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee, and I don't remember the fellow's name. He testified two or three times. He owns a pretty big broadcasting company in one of the States south of here. He explained the problem with the growth and concentration in broadcasting. He said: I own a good television station, but I cannot tell the folks from Hollywood or New York what I want to show in my viewing area because if they are sending out a program I think is something I don't want to show, I don't have the opportunity to say we will not show that. I will lose my network affiliate status if I do that. I don't have the capability to make any kind of local decision about this.

Look, I happen to think broadcasting, whether it is radio or television, has some of the most breathtaking, wonderful, remarkable programming; some of it is extraordinary. I also think there are programs that are shabby, trashy, and disgusting. You have both sides of it. I don't know, maybe somebody adds to their cultural interests by tuning in on HDTV and seeing someone eating maggots from a bowl in a contest. I don't know. I would expect that very few find much interest in that. I guess it does achieve some ratings from time to time.

But when you have concentrations of broadcast properties, as has been the case, dramatic increases in just the hands of a few people deciding what the rest of the American people are going to see, read, and hear, I think it ought to be of great concern to the Congress. The FCC rule caved in almost instantly to the big economic interests here.

I know those who own newspapers are upset with the position I take. Those who own broadcast properties are upset with the position I take. But the fact is, this is about the public interest, and the public interest is best served when we decide localism is not old-fashioned. I don't object to some big companies. But I object to circumstances when the big companies are given the green light by the FCC to own almost everything in a community with respect to communications--radio station, television stations, the cable company.

Whatever happened to the market system? The market system is where you have robust competition, broad-based economic ownership. I don't see much of that market system in broadcasting these days. All you see are the gobbling up by big interests.

It is interesting, we now have a 35-percent ownership cap on national viewing by the major television networks, in terms of the number of stations they can own, which has now, as a result of last year's omnibus bill, gone to 39 percent. It used to be 25 percent.

In fact, in 1996, when we had a bill on the floor called the Telecommunications Act, we had a prohibition on owning television stations beyond 25 percent of the national audience. That new bill took 35 percent. I came to the Senate floor in 1996 and offered an amendment to take it back to 25 percent--the national ownership cap--with respect to one company. It is interesting, we debated that about 4 o'clock in the afternoon and then we had a vote. It turns out I won the vote. Senator Dole, with a pretty substantial opposition on the floor of the Senate when he wanted to be, was on the other side. So we had a vote on broadcast ownership limitation and I won, I think by three or four votes. I thought that was extraordinary, to win a vote like that. Then I believe Senator D'Amato, as the vote was coming to an end, changed his vote to be on my side, the prevailing side.

I knew something was wrong, but I didn't know what until 4 hours later. What had intervened 4 hours later was dinner. Apparently, there was some epiphany over dinner for four or five Senators, who came back, and there was a motion to reconsider; these Senators who had had some glorious meal, which apparently infused them with a different wisdom, changed their vote and it turned out I had won only for 4 hours. That happens around here. You can win big and long but sometimes not permanently. That was the case in 1996.

I express that to say this is not a new issue with me. I have been concerned about this concentration of broadcast ownership for a long while. What the FCC has done is compounded the problem. Not only are we saying ``Katey bar the door,'' whatever you want to buy, buy it, but we will add to the mix the newspapers. While you are buying each other up and playing these monopoly games, throw in the newspapers as well. We don't care very much. That is the message from the FCC.

Fortunately, the Senate has sent a different message. We already voted on this subject and expressed our interest that the rules crafted by the Federal Communications Commission are completely out of sync with reality and ought to be rescinded. That was a big vote in the Senate. There was no reconsideration. We had to come back and lose that one. Senator Lott and myself and others spoke in support of overturning those rules. That is stuck in the House because the Speaker will not allow a vote on it. We are going to have to find a way, in whatever expression we can, to advance this issue.

Because Senator Brownback brought to the floor a bill that used to include this amendment when it came out of the Commerce Committee, but is not what he offered on the floor, I am required to offer this amendment to the Brownback amendment. I will offer it in the second degree.

My understanding is, while there is already a second-degree in the form of Senator Burns' amendment, when I offer this at the end of my presentation, the second-degree I will offer will be able to be disposed of when the amendment of Senator Burns is disposed.

I support the Brownback amendment and the Burns amendment. If anybody can understand all that, they are perhaps better than I am. I say to the Senator from Virginia, I would like us to finish this Defense authorization bill and deal with these issues. I encourage the Senator to accept all three of these amendments and take them to conference.

If I might get the attention of the Senator from Nevada, Senator Reid, I think we will need a unanimous consent request prior to my formally offering a second-degree amendment, since there is already a second-degree amendment in the slot. But having already spoken on this, I don't need to speak further. Perhaps Senators Snowe, or Lott, or others wish to speak in favor of the amendment. I will rely on the Senator from Virginia and

the Senator from Nevada to offer my amendment at the appropriate time when the consent is agreed to, and then mine would be disposed of following Senator Burns' second-degree amendment.

There are some interests, of course, outside of the Chamber that would not want this amendment to the Brownback bill. I want to make sure we have an understanding that I get the opportunity to do this. Otherwise, I have a much longer statement that I would be prepared to make. My preference would be to leave it at this and to simply get this pending as soon as possible.

If the distinguished Senator from Virginia would yield, Mr. Chairman, I also have concerns about this provision and the effects it would have on our ability to meet production needs to get necessary meals to our service men and women in the field.

I thank the chairman and the Senator from Indiana and look forward to working with them on this issue as we proceed with the bill.

the ban on low-yield nuclear weapons

Mr. President, I strongly agree with the Senator from Georgia. I truly believe our depots are a national asset and we should address the basic question of ``core'' requirements. Currently, there is no acceptable definition of ``inherently governmental'' functions or ``core'' which can guide the administration and the Department of Defense as they decide which functions should be competed for outsourcing. As we have seen in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States does not have the luxury of time in addressing the threats of tomorrow. Before we start making short-term decisions, we need to look at the long-term effects and requirements in support of national defense.

Mr. President, as the war in Iraq demonstrated, our troops are the finest in the world. Through their mastery of precision- guided weapons, they minimized casualties of noncombatants and effectively contained war's inevitable destruction. In just 21 days, they liberated Iraq, a country almost the size of California, from a brutal tyranny.

Many factors contributed to the success of the Iraq war. In my view, the most important--and this, I believe, is true of any war--was training. To be strong in battle, soldiers must train as they fight. On U.S. training ranges, our troops engage in highly realistic, combat ready exercises, preparing them to fight and protect themselves in battle. This is what they deserve.

But gradually, those readiness exercises--so critical to the military's training mission--are steadily being constrained and inhibited. Slowly, but surely, training simulations bear little connection with the true-to-life. The cause is straightforward but very disturbing: the extreme agenda of some environmental groups, whose hostile lawsuits are precipitating a crisis in training .

Environmental groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Center for Biological Diversity have launched an unconscionable war on the military. They believe there are no compromises, even when the issue involves protecting and preparing our troops for battle. They would rather file lawsuits--something they are quite good at, incidentally--than find commonsense solutions to balance environmental protection with the best military training available.

These lawsuits are gradually eroding not just the land available for training and readiness, but are gravely diminishing the actual training exercises and live-fire simulations that are so critical to prepare for real-life combat.

Despite the claims made by environmental groups, the Pentagon has demonstrated a strong commitment to environmental stewardship. The evidence is overwhelming. But land development is fast encroaching upon military facilities, driving wildlife and endangered species into the relative sanctuary of training ranges.

The military has made environmental accommodations time and time again, but there is only so much it can do. The flood of environmental lawsuits is diverting the military away from its all-important training mission. As a result, training slowly but surely is dying a death of a thousand cuts.

There are too many egregious examples to recount here. The situation facing Camp Pendleton in California bears special mention. Camp Pendleton is considered the premier training base for the Marines. Because of a lawsuit filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council to list the gnatcatcher as endangered, 57 percent of the base may become ``critical habitat,'' which in effect means no training and readiness exercises in that area.

Also, there are 17 miles of beach at Camp Pendleton--because of environmental restrictions, only 200 yards of beach are available to practice amphibious landings. All military vehicles that come ashore during an amphibious landing are restricted to designated roads. Troops can only come ashore in single file columns, which is hardly a good simulation of actual warfighting conditions.

To address these problems, the Pentagon has a reasonable, commonsense proposal to clarify existing environmental laws. Contrary to statements by some of my colleagues, the Pentagon is not seeking blanket exemptions from current laws. To say otherwise is simply false.

Take, for example, the provision clarifying how the Endangered Species Act applies to training bases. DoD wants to continue a policy first implemented by the Clinton administration's Fish and Wildlife Service. The proposal would codify Integrated Natural Resource Management Plans, INRMPSs, in place of critical habitat designations.

INRMPs, which are required to provide for, among other things, fish and wildlife management, land management, forest management, fish and wildlife-oriented recreation, and wetland protection, allow the military to balance species protection and training needs.

DoD's proposal explicitly requires DoD to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service under section 7 of ESA. Also, the Interior Secretary must approve INRMPs in writing. Other provisions of ESA, as well as statutes such as the National Environmental Policy Act, also would continue to apply.

Thus it is simply unconscionable that this is characterized as a ``sweeping exemption.'' My Democratic colleagues also contend that such a clarification isn't necessary because ESA already contains national security exemptions. Ironically, while complaining about a proposed provision that, in effect, continues to subject DoD to ESA, my colleagues want to pursue exemptions under current law. In practice, those exemptions mean DoD could ignore existing statutory requirements altogether under ESA.

Yesterday, 51 Senators voted for an amendment sponsored by Senators Lautenberg and Jeffords that effectively guts the ESA provision in the fiscal year 2004 Defense reauthorization bill. The amendment upsets the balance stuck between species protection and training. It tilts irresponsibly in favor of species protection, which is not the mission of DoD.

The amendment says DoD must ``conserve the species,'' rather than, as stated in the bills original language, provide ``conservation benefits.'' The distinction is significant because ``conserve' means DoD must recover species. This is an unacceptably high threshold, one that even Fish and Wildlife has been unable to meet under ESA.

According to original 1973 ESA, conserve means ``to use and use all methods and procedures which are necessary to bring any endangered species or threatened species to the point at which the measures provided pursuant to this act are no longer necessary. Such methods and procedures include but are not limited to all activities associated with scientific resources and management, such as research, law enforcement, habitat acquisition and maintenance promulgation, live trapping, and transplanting.'' As is obvious, the burdens on DoD training and readiness would be enormous.

DoD opposes the amendment because it could have perverse and unintended consequences, such as removing the Fish and Wildlife Service's flexibility to make decisions based on the differing circumstances facing each training range. Also, DoD and the Department of the Interior believe it will lead to more lawsuits, not less-- exactly what DoD is trying to prevent.

The question remains: What should DoD's most important focus be, training or recovering the gnatcatcher?

I am also very disturbed by statements an characterizations of DoD's training predicament. Some Senators alluded to the March 13 testimony of EPA Administrator Christie Whitman before my committee. Governor Whitman, said, ``I don't believe that there is a training mission anywhere in the country that is being held up or not taking place because of the environmental protection regulations.'' With all due respect to Governor Whitman, the EPA does not have jurisdiction over the Endangered Species Act,

which, of all the existing laws addressed in the Pentagon's proposal, is responsible for the most serious training restrictions.

Moreover, I am extremely troubled by the way some Senators have summarized a General Accounting report on military encroachment. To say ``the GAO found the military has presented no evidence that the Endangered Species Act has impaired training'' is utterly false and irresponsible.

Here is what the GAO said about encroachment in its report:

Over time, the impact of encroachment on training ranges

has gradually increased. While the effect varies by service

and individual installation, in general encroachment has

limited the extent to which training ranges are available or

the types of training that can be conducted. This limits

units' ability to train as they would expect to fight and/or

requires units to work around the problem.

Barry Holman, director of the GAO's Defense Capabilities and Management section, and author of the June 2002 encroachment report, stated in his testimony before the House Government Reform Committee on May 16, 2002:

One thing I want to make clear, I would not want anyone to

conclude from looking at that report that GAO is saying `no

data, no problem.' We're not saying that. I think it's very

clear . . . that there are limitations on training.

In addition to the ESA clarification in the base bill, I filed an amendment to clarify how the Superfund law applies to military training and readiness. Though it appears this issue will not be addressed as part of the Defense authorization bill this year, it does deserve some explanation.

Live-fire training, which is the ``capstone event of a unit's training cycle,'' has come under heavy fire from environmental groups. The Army at Fort Richardson is engaged in a lawsuit that could shut down firing munitions at Eagle River Flats range. If environmentalists succeed, live fire operations at every Army range--more than 400 sites--could be severely constrained, seriously threatening training and readiness for our men and women in uniform.

This suit is not an isolated incident--there is another one much like it regarding the range at Vieques in Puerto Rico. The pattern is clear, and the Committee on Environment and Public Works received testimony as to the real agenda behind this pattern of lawsuits.

Describing yet another lawsuit by an eco-radical group against the Department of Defense, witness Frank Gaffey, president and CEO of the Center for Security Policy, stated illuminatingly ``a plaintiff in the lawsuit was Melanie Dutchen who was described in the New York Times as an Anchorage activist with Greenpeace who said, `Obviously the hope of this litigation is that delay will lead to cancellation.' She went on to say, `That is what we always hope for in these suits.' I believe this is sort of an instructive insight into why the Defense Department is concerned, not only about the circumstances that you personally observed, in terms of limitations and impediments to training, but the train wreck that is coming. It is not something that is coming up by accident. It is coming about, I believe, by people, at least some of whom, have very little interest in the readiness of our military.''

My amendment will try to stop this by clarifying how RCRA and CERCLA apply to live-fire training ranges. I worked closely with the Pentagon and State officials--in particular, Doug Benevento of Colorado's Department of Public Health and Environment--in drafting compromise language that will balance training needs with environmental protection.

This amendment would codify and confirm longstanding regulatory policy of EPA and every State concerning regulation of munitions on operational ranges under RCRA and CERCLA. The amendment excludes military munitions from the definition of ``solid waste'' under CERCLA. That way, the military can perform live fire training exercises without having to break up those exercises with extensive, time-consuming clean-up operations.

But this change would still offer environmental protections under existing law. Again, as stated previously, this is not an exemption. Cleanup of operational ranges is not required so long as material stays on range, but if such material moves off range, it still must be addressed under existing law. Also, if munitions cause an ``imminent and substantial endangerment on range, EPA will still retain its authority to address it on range under CERCLA.

If we fail to address these and other issues the Pentagon has put before us, we are doing a great disservice to our men and women in uniform. Unfortunately, it appears that Congress will pass only a few pieces of the Pentagon's proposal this year. I think it is imperative, for the sake of our troops, that we address the remaining pieces next year.