Hurricane Katrina Financial Services Relief Act of 2005

Mr. Chairman, I stand in support of House Joint Resolution 65, disapproving the recommendations of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission.

This will be my first vote against a BRAC list, and it is not a vote I take lightly. I support the BRAC process as a whole as a reasonable and apolitical method for evaluating our Nation's defense infrastructure needs, and recognize the necessity of this first BRAC round in a decade. But while I salute the hard work of the BRAC Commission members in their deliberations and recognize the difficulty of their task, this BRAC round took place in the context of flawed methodology as regarded Air National Guard bases.

It was my expectation that the Department of Defense would solicit input from all relevant sources in evaluating our Air National Guard requirements--most importantly, the adjutant general of each State. But at no time in the Pentagon's development of its Air Force BRAC recommendations did it ask the Adjutant General of Ohio or any of the other 53 adjutants general for input. I find this shocking, considering that the Army consulted the adjutants general when crafting its recommendations--and considering that 37 of the 42 Air Force BRAC proposals involved Air National Guard units.

For the past 24 years, I have had the privilege of representing the guardsmen of one of those units: the 179th Airlift Wing of the Ohio Air National Guard, located at Mansfield Lahm Airport. The 179th has been a vital part of Mansfield and Richland County since 1948, with an annual economic impact of roughly $70 million. Members of the airlift wing have served more than 195,000 days just since 9/11 in support of homeland defense and the global war on terror.

More recently, the guardsmen of the 179th have flown sorties to the gulf coast region, delivering much-needed supplies and transporting hundreds of troops to assist those affected by Hurricane Katrina. Relief missions such as this are nothing new for the men and women of the 179th, who have answered the call during past hurricane relief missions in Florida and other States, and have assisted with vital defense operations in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Kosovo, and elsewhere.

I was disappointed, therefore, at the inclusion of the 179th on the Pentagon's proposed closure list in May. As I said in a letter to President Bush last month in support of the 179th, the unit has always stood ready to accept any flying assignment, and represents a wealth of expertise and professionalism that Ohio and the Nation can ill afford to lose.

Contrary to national trends, the 179th has consistently excelled in recruiting and retention, currently standing at 105 percent of assigned strength. Mansfield draws from a rich recruiting base, boasting the best personnel strength figures of any Air National Guard C-130 unit. The men and women of the 179th are highly experienced, with an average of more than 12 years of service; Mansfield's aircrews have an average of 16 years of military aviation experience. In just the last few years, all Mansfield aircrew members have flown combat sorties in the Middle East and Asia, and have received 116 air medals for their bravery, courage, and skill.

In its final deliberations, the BRAC Commission found that closing Mansfield was ``not supportable'' and recommended instead that a ``contiguous enclave'' be established at Mansfield Lahm. The commission further acknowledged that the Air Force did not adequately consult with governors and State adjutants general with respect to its Air Guard recommendations. Had there been consultation, better decisions could have been made about Air Guard infrastructure in view of our national defense and homeland security needs.

In short, the Air Force would have done well to follow the Army's BRAC model, which stood as an example of good consultation among parties. When the Joint Systems Manufacturing Center--located in Lima in my congressional district--was placed on the BRAC list with a recommendation to reduce manufacturing space by 27 percent, top Army officials working on the BRAC staff made themselves available to meet with representatives of JSMC and the community. The JSMC delegation explained that such a reduction would impede operations at the plant, resulting in a higher cost to the government for the weapons systems the plant produces. As a result of these discussions, the BRAC staff recommended that the commission remove the JSMC proposal from its final list, which it did. The Army's deliberations on JSMC were an ideal example of how the BRAC process works well: when information is shared and all relevant parties are consulted.

Even with the commission's decision to reverse the JSMC proposal--and even with the partial reversal of the Mansfield decision and the encouraging possibilities for obtaining a new mission for the more than 1,000 guardsmen of the 179th--I will vote for this resolution of disapproval. By statute, the purpose of BRAC is to reduce excess infrastructure. The current BRAC round, though, is being used to implement operational policies and transfer Mansfield's C-130s from the Guard to the Active and Reserve Forces. Such complex issues should not be handled within the BRAC procedure.

Although I strongly oppose the transfer of Mansfield's planes, I welcome the opportunity to work with the Department of Defense and State officials to obtain a new mission for Mansfield, should the BRAC recommendations be upheld. In just the last 8 years, more than $20 million has been invested in the 179th's facilities at Mansfield Lahm. Thanks to the efforts of Mansfield Mayor Lydia Reid and other local officials, the city has made 163 acres adjacent to the airport available for Guard expansion or joint service activities. This significant investment and possibility for expansion should make Mansfield an even more attractive site for locating a new air-based mission.

Nonetheless, given Mansfield's solid track record as a C-130 unit and its many contributions to our Nation and world, I oppose the transfer of its planes. At a time when our troops are already stressed by operational tempos, and when our national recruiting and retention rates are reaching record lows, I fear any disruption to our well- equipped and well-manned Guard units. Our planes are only as good as the people who maintain and fly them, and our country cannot afford to lose their skills.

Madam Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Madam Chairman, I just wanted to add my voice. The ranking member of the subcommittee has spent a good deal of time focused on the corporate governance of these GSEs. He is one of the best students ever in the House. This is a very thoughtful and, I think, wholly constructive amendment.

It does not detract from any of the purposes that we have. In fact, I think it would enhance them, and I hope the amendment is adopted.

Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.

In its present form, I am, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, a little while ago, we had a vote on the manager's amendment. It was a very close vote. It was 210 to 205. One Member inadvertently voted the other way that he planned to. So it was 209 to 206.

What I am offering here as the recommit is a close replay of that vote, but it ought to be even clearer for people. My recommittal motion leaves the manager's amendment as adopted entirely intact except for two changes.

One, instead of requiring that to participate in the Affordable Housing Fund, housing must be the organization's primary purpose, it says it must be one of its primary purposes. If you maintain the requirement that it be the primary purpose, no faith-based organization may participate.

Some of you may remember a familiar passage: Thou shalt have no primary purpose above me. If you say that you can only do this if you have housing as your primary purpose, by definition the Catholic Church and the Baptists and the Episcopalians and the Jewish groups, which are collectively today a very important provider of affordable housing, are simply automatically debarred. There will be no faith-based groups allowed.

People are talking about faith-based groups. I am aware of no restriction as binding as saying it has to be the primary purpose, and I will insert into the Record at this point a letter not just from Catholic Charities, but from Bishop DiMarzio, on behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, saying that: ``Proposals that would limit eligible recipients to organizations that have as their purpose the provision of affordable housing would effectively prevent Catholic dioceses, parishes and Catholic Charities agencies from participating.''

Department of Social Development and World Peace,

Washington, DC, October 3, 2005.

Hon. J. Dennis Hastert,

Speaker of the House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Dear Mr. Speaker: I write as Chairman of the Domestic

Policy Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic

Bishops (USCCB) to urge you to retain the Affordable Housing

Fund as part of the Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of

2005 (H.R. 1461) and bring the bill to a vote forthwith. The

Catholic Bishops have historically urged the federal

government to help meet our nation's promise of a decent home

for every American family, especially those families with

extremely low incomes.

As I noted in my June 10 letter to the House of

Representatives, the Catholic Community--through our

Charities agencies, dioceses, and parishes--serves tens of

thousands of men, women, and children who struggle to

maintain adequate housing. Besides sheltering homeless people

who turn to us for help, we have built, and continue to

maintain, thousands of affordable housing units. All of these

experiences have demonstrated to us how inadequate,

substandard housing

hurts human life, undermines families, destroys communities,

and weakens the social fabric of our nation. Despite our

efforts--and the efforts of so many others--there just is not

enough affordable housing available.

Proposals that would limit eligible recipients to

organizations that have as their primary purpose the

provision of affordable housing would effectively prevent

Catholic dioceses, parishes and Catholic Charities agencies

from participating in Affordable Housing Fund programs.

Similarly, proposals that would prohibit recipients from

engaging in voter registration and lobbying activities with

their own funds during the period they are utilizing

affordable housing funds would force Catholic agencies to

choose between participating in Affordable Housing Fund

programs or engaging in constitutionally protected voter

registration and lobbying activities with their own funds. I

urge you to oppose inclusion of these kinds of unnecessary

limitations and prohibitions in H.R. 1461 as it moves to the

House floor for a vote. There are ample ways to write

safeguards into the legislation to prevent the diversion of

affordable housing funds to uses other than what they are

intended without requiring recipients to forego their

constitutionally protected rights as a condition for

participating in Affordable Housing Fund programs.

The Bishops' statement, Putting Children and Families

First, notes: ``Many families cannot find or afford decent

housing, or must spend so much of their income for shelter

that they forego other necessities, such as food and

medicine. . . . [The Catholic bishops] support housing

policies which seek to preserve and increase the supply of

affordable housing and help families pay for it.'' We must

put in place a sustainable source of funds to build

affordable housing and this new fund would do that.

As I said in my June letter, this legislation presents

Congress with a genuine opportunity to make the shelter needs

of extremely low-income families a national priority. I

believe that such families who need housing the most should

be targeted to receive these limited funds.

With every best wish, I am,

Sincerely,

Most Rev. Nicholas DiMarzio,

Chairman, Domestic Policy Committee,

U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman has done great work, but he said this does not bar religious groups.

From October 3 to the Speaker from the Catholic bishops: ``Limiting eligible recipients to organizations that have as their primary purpose,'' which this bill does now, ``the provision of affordable housing, would effectively prevent Catholic dioceses, parishes and Catholic charities from participating.''

Secondly, none of the money here would go to those other purposes. I agree with what the gentleman said. I just do not agree with what the bill said. This is their chance to reconcile them.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3945) to facilitate recovery from the effects of Hurricane Katrina by providing greater flexibility for, and temporary waivers of certain requirements and fees imposed on, depository institutions and Federal regulatory agencies, and for other purposes, as amended.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 3945 and express appreciation to the chairman and the ranking member and the members of the Committee on Financial Services for their continuing assistance for those who are victims of Hurricane Katrina.

In this instance, it is relative to financial institutions who now find themselves under some financial duress as collateral for loan obligations has been impaired, or in the case of loan repayments, the revenue streams available to the borrower are no longer available for repayment of loan obligations.

Under current regulatory law, the regulator must act when a financial institution's financial characteristics take on certain problems. In the instance of this legislation, we are providing unprecedented flexibility for the regulator with regard to capital and net worth standards for lending institutions. Stated another way, we know these institutions are only impaired as a result of the consequences of Hurricane Katrina as they were all adequately-to-well-capitalized the day before the storm made landfall.

In addition to that capital and net worth forbearance, we also extend terms relative to deposit of insurance proceeds. Normally, when there is a large influx of assets into the bank, deposits or really liabilities, the bank is then required to take certain financial actions to ensure its financial solvency. This provides the regulator with the ability to allow that aberrant behavior brought on by Hurricane Katrina insurance payments not trigger normal regulatory responses.

To say it a different way, the bill provides relief to financial institutions which today could be found to be troubled which are fully capable of restoration of their responsibilities over time if the regulator is given the ability to exercise the powers in this legislation.

I think it is well crafted. I think it is responsive to the problems identified, and I would hope the House would act favorably on its consideration.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate the comments of the gentleman from Massachusetts and his courtesy extended during the course of consideration of this and a number of other measures relating to the response to the Katrina effort. I feel it entirely appropriate, in light of the many people who are still adversely affected by the storm, to not appear that we are only expressing interest in the financial institutions.

There are many individuals today where their employment is no longer

possible because the structure where they worked is no longer there. There are folks who cannot go back to work because other employees are unable to be located. There are many people still without homes living in a variety of circumstances across the country. The state of emergency continues.

In reaching out to those individuals, we are at work on a number of measures, one of which I hope the House will soon consider, H.R. 4100, relative to the Louisiana Recovery Corporation. I will be speaking to that issue at length in hearings over time, but I certainly wanted to take advantage of the opportunity presented to let individuals adversely affected by the current storm circumstance understand that this is only one small part of a very large effort by all of the members of the House delegation from Louisiana, as well as the members of the Committee on Financial Services, to be responsive to the entire array of identified difficulties.

In fact, the corporation, once created and authorized by the Congress, would enable to assist financial institutions and homeowners with the acquisition of mortgages and assuming the debt obligations for those borrowers, as well as some restoration of the equity homeowners may have in their property prior to the storm.

It is intended to help communities rebuild, not simply build homes. The overall effort from extending assistance and forbearance through the regulatory process to financial institutions, as well as extending assistance to homeowners who are now displaced from their property, is a massive long-term effort, which will require the work of this Congress, I suspect, for years to come.

To those who are concerned about Louisianans rebuilding in circumstances which are less than desirable, we share the view. Only when levee restoration is complete, only when environmental remediation is complete will the rebuilding begin, and then to the highest hurricane standards available and applicable for our circumstance.

But make no mistake. Because of the vital nature of the energy industry, the aquaculture industry, the shipping and exporting business, which is conducted through one of the world's largest ports, the Baton Rouge/New Orleans, there is an evident and obvious necessity for people to return to the great city of New Orleans and the surrounding area because of the jobs that are necessary to provide the rest of the Nation with energy independence and the abundance of natural resources which our State produces.

Accordingly, the bill now before us is an important measure to help provide that economic stability going forward. It is a small part of a much larger package, but there is a plan, coming through in various pieces through each of the appropriate committees, to respond to the needs of the people of Louisiana in an appropriate and professional manner.

I simply ask the indulgence of those people in Louisiana who are still dealing with FEMA, living in a trailer, not certain about tomorrow, to understand the Congress is responsive to their concerns, and over the course of the next several weeks, actions will be taken we hope all will find appropriate and responsive.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.

Mr. Chairman, many of us who have been privileged to serve in this great institution for some time have been through this process many times. This is not the first or second or third. We have had BRAC after BRAC. But I could not agree more with my distinguished colleague from Colorado (Mr. Hefley) who observed this was the best BRAC of all. We are finally getting it right. This was the least political, most professional BRAC we have ever had. And that is a tribute to Chairman Principi and all of the distinguished members of the panel: Admiral Gehman; General Newton; former Congressman and colleague Jim Bilbray; Phil Coyle; Sam Skinner; General Turner; Jim Hansen, another former colleague who served with great distinction; and General Hill. This reads like a Who's Who list of distinguished Americans who are providing a very important service for our Nation.

The fact is DOD had too much physical inventory. It is costing DOD to maintain that physical inventory. It is costing the taxpayers. So understandably they wanted some realignment, adjustments; and there had to be winners and losers. As someone who has been on both sides of that issue, let me say I know what it is like. I can feel the pain of the losers. But I would say to those who are on the short end of the recommendation, one, you should have confidence that the recommendations were made once again by the least political, most professional BRAC we have ever had, a BRAC whose individual members, including the Chairman, were available not just to have a courtesy photo opportunity, but to hear out those of us who had presentations before that Commission.

They asked pertinent questions. They had on-site visits. They were very, very serious about their important work; and they were not alone. The highly dedicated and very competent professional staff of BRAC was even more accessible. You can understand when you get on the phone and you try to get a conversation with Chairman Principi or General So-and- So or Admiral So-and-So, a lot of people want to talk to them. I must say that I was fortunate to be able to talk to each and every one of them. I had quality time. But the fact of the matter is the staff followed through once again with on-site visits, and that was so very important.

The dedication and determination demonstrated by the Commission, its accessibility for individual members, their willingness to listen produced a product that I think we can all be proud of.

Let me once again address those who represent communities who are not treated favorably by the BRAC recommendations. I have been through that before with a magnificent Air Force base that dissolved back as a result of the 1993 Commission report, and in 1995 it actually closed down with a couple of exceptions. And there were some people in the community at large who wanted to write the economic obituary for that community, Rome, New York, and the surrounding areas. There were others, a lot of us, not just me, the mayor, the county executive, local officials, business communities, that were determined to make the best of a bad situation.

Today, that once-vibrant military installation, Griffis Air Force Base, is now a very vibrant business and technology park with upwards of 4,000 people gainfully employed there; but part of that installation involves an Air Force research laboratory which was set off as a containment area as a result of the decision to close the base in 1993, and the people at DOD and everywhere were wondering would this work.

It has worked in spades, and now the Air Force research laboratory, incidentally operating out of a $25 million state-of-the-art new facility, is the center of excellence for the entire Air Force in command, control, communications, and intelligence technology. It is an information directorate, and it not only services the Air Force well but it services a whole wide range of other activities. It is serving so well.

So BRAC looked at that and made the decision that some operations that had been located there should be transferred elsewhere in line with the overall scheme of the Air Force to consolidate like operations at a central facility. Some moved out; some moved in. The net result is maybe a gain of 15 to 25 jobs for Rome, New York. I am not supporting the BRAC because we have got 15 or 25 jobs. I am supporting the process and what it did and what it produced.

Let me tell my colleagues another story. At that same business and technology park, we now have a defense finance accounting service, and that employs exactly 382 people. DOD said, well, we want to consolidate, restructure. We do not need 26 locations all

over the country. We want to go down to three locations. That did not really make a heck of a lot of sense; and when all was said and done, when the BRAC looked at that, they recognized that maybe the answer was somewhere in between. Instead of going from 26 to three, they went from 26 to about five or six, consolidating, saving money, improving efficiency.

Guess what. This facility at Rome, New York, which incidentally is operating and out of a new $10 million state-of-the-art facility, was examined very carefully. They did not just listen to me, and they did not make a decision that was posited with that because I had a scintillating personality or I had some influence down here. Influence down here did not make much difference in this process.

What they listened to were the facts, and the facts are that when they examined all of the DFAS operations, in 16 measurable categories where you could quantify, where you could measure, where you could compare the output of one against the other, this installation was at or near the top.

A final BRAC decision, not only are those 382 jobs preserved, 600 additional are coming.

So I say it from the perspective of a proud Member of a district who is gaining, and I say it as a proud Member of this institution who identified with creating a process that is serving our Nation well; and therefore, I would strongly oppose the resolution to disapprove and urge that the movement go forward.

Mr. Chairman, I have come to the same conclusion as the great gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hobson). I have just probably been at it longer. Article I, section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the responsibility to provide for the national defense. It does not make us generals; it does not make us admirals. We do not tell admirals how to sink ships; we do not tell generals how to takes hills. We do, hopefully, provide sound business decisions for them.

The whole concept of BRAC is taking that decision-making process away from the people who begged for the job and were given the job by the citizens and delegating it to some other people. I did not run for Congress to delegate my responsibilities. I take them very seriously.

The service Secretaries would come before our committee, for years they have come before our committee and said, We have too many bases. Every single service Secretary. The gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) and I would respond to the service Secretaries, Name one base that you want to close. Just one. The same service Secretaries who said they wanted to cancel the Crusader, who said they wanted to cancel the Arsenal ship, who wanted to cancel the Joint Strike Fighter, the same guys who have no hesitation on canceling things and making tough decisions, never named one base that they wanted to close.

We followed that up with a very simple question: In the three previous rounds of BRAC, can you name one weapons system that you have bought with those savings? Can you name one additional benefit that you have given to the troops? Can you name one good thing that came out of this? Never once could they answer that question.

You see, BRAC saves no money. What people miss in all of this is that when a base is closed, the local communities then come to Congress, as they should, and say, Look, you have just put all my folks out of work. We at least want the property back. And in every instance Congress has given that property back to the locals, so there is no savings of selling off the property.

As a matter of fact, it gets worse, because our Nation has to live by the same laws as everyone else. If an individual pollutes a piece of property, they have to clean it up before they can sell it. To date, our Nation has spent $15 billion cleaning up properties before we gave them away.

The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hobson) makes an excellent point: every time you lose a base, you lose a capability. The worst of Hurricane Katrina hit my congressional district. I was very fortunate to be friends with Admiral Mullen, the Chief of Naval Operations. I was very fortunate to be friends with General Steven Bloom, the head of the National Guard Bureau. In my frantic calls to them in the aftermath of the storm begging for their help, their first response was, Where can I put my people? Name a barracks, name an airfield, name a place where I can put my people so they can help the people of Mississippi.

Every time you lose a base, you lose a place to put those people in the event weather, whether it is a tsunami in the Pacific, a hurricane in Mississippi, a flood or earthquake on the west coast, a flood in the Midwest, you lose a capability to help the American people.

We are at war. Goodness gracious, we have 140,000 Americans fighting and dying in Iraq. We have another 20,000-plus in Afghanistan. Did anyone see these wars coming? The truth of the matter is, in my time in Congress we have had a war in Panama that no one saw coming, we have had two wars in Iraq that we really did not see coming, we had a war in Bosnia that no one saw coming. So when you close a base, you close it forever and you lose that capability to respond to future contingencies.

Above all, when some new weapons system comes along, you lose a place to deploy it. Right now our Nation is buying 30,000 acres in North Carolina, and some people in North Carolina think it is a great idea and some people think it is a terrible idea. We are spending a heck of a lot of your money buying land in North Carolina so we can build a base to land F-18s, the newest version of the F-18, when they come off the carriers.

Then we have to buy the land and build a runway. And everyone who has served knows it does not end with the runway. You have to have a fire station, barracks for the enlisted, barracks for the single guys, family housing for the married folks, you have to have commissaries, you have to have fun things for the guys to do when they are off duty, because we are trying to attract young people like you to come serve our country. All of these things cost money, and we are going to build all these things in North Carolina at great expense to the public.

With you we already had all those things. We had all those things that we are getting ready to buy and build in North Carolina in Jacksonville, Florida. It was called Cecil Field. It had a 10,000-foot runway and three 8,000-foot runways. It had an excellent quality of life, and it was all paid for by the American taxpayer, and a previous round of BRAC closed that.

So, please, proponents of this, tell me how we are saving the taxpayers money, how we are making the Nation more secure, and, above all, if the service Secretaries cannot name a single base that they think is worthy of closing, why are we going to close so many bases in one fell swoop?

We were elected to follow the Constitution. The Constitution clearly gives Congress the responsibility to provide for the Army and the Navy. Let us do our job and let us not hide behind some commission to do our work for us. I urge Members to vote against the recommendations of this commission.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I would like to remind the gentleman that this Congress closed the naval station at Roosevelt Roads without a BRAC.

Mr. Chairman, I stand in opposition today to H.J. Res. 65, a resolution to disapprove the recommendations of the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission. I oppose this resolution not because I support this BRAC round and the closure and realignment of these bases, but because the Department of Defense should not be authorized to execute another one anytime soon. A no vote on this resolution will spare the Armed Forces, our defense budget and our base communities the unnecessary stress of another BRAC round if the current recommendations are approved.

I opposed this BRAC round from the start for several reasons.

First and foremost, Mr. Chairman, were--and remain--a nation at war. We have troops abroad fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and globally as part of a broader war on terrorism. I argued that we need to focus all of our energy on supporting those troops in the field. We should not be distracted with the complicated burden of realigning our whole military base structure.

In October of 2003, I went to Iraq and learned that the troops desperately needed armor on their vehicles. In November of 2003 the Secretary of the Army said that getting armor into the field was a ``top priority''. And yet today there are still tens of thousands of vehicles that are still not armored.

Just last week the Armed Services Committee held a hearing on the issue. Chairman Hunter discovered that the Army was sitting on hundreds of armored humvees in Texas and Kuwait. Mr. Speaker, I wonder if Congress would have unearthed this hidden problem earlier had it not been faced with the time-consuming BRAC process.

I opposed BRAC because we need to recapitalize our aging defense platforms and our shrinking fleets. Our Armed Forces have been on a strict diet because of a procurement holiday that has been in effect since the end of the Cold war.

Mr. Chairman, the average age of an Air Force bombers is over 30 years old. The average pilot is younger than his aircraft. Yet there are planned procurement cuts to the F-22 program. We have been living on the Reagan buildup of the 1980s, but those systems are all nearing retirement. What's left from the 80s is old and undependable. This threatens our military readiness and the safety of our service members.

Mr. Chairman, this year the Navy planned on building only four ships--the same as Canada and less than most of our European allies. If we stay on this track, our fleet will shrink from a little under 300 to just 120. China is on no such diet. Its shipbuilding rates are so high that its fleet win overtake ours by about 2015. By that time, China will have twice as many submarines as the U.S.

I also opposed BRAC because our strategic environment remains in flux. The threats from North Korea, China and Iran are rising while we are still engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan. We benefited from neither the Quadrennial Defense Review nor the report of the Overseas Basing Commission because they were not yet delivered. How could we know, what our Nation's future basing requirements will be? We couldn't!

I opposed BRAC because DOD still maintained dozens of bases that were slated for closure that remain open. How could we target another 100 bases when we had a hundred waiting on death row? Closing bases costs billions of dollars in environmental clean up costs. The Department of Defense cannot dispose of this property until it is clean. But the investment of these ``clean-up'' dollars takes dollars away from our troops in the field during war.

I opposed this BRAC round because we have hundreds of thousands of troops in the Middle East, Europe and Korea that will hopefully return home soon.

Congress authorized the BRAC round anyway. The Department of Defense relatively little time to develop a set of recommendations for the President. Not surprisingly, some mistakes were made. The biggest mistake was the recommendation to close Naval Submarine Base New London, the world's greatest center of excellence for undersea warfare. My good friend, the Ranking Member of the Armed Services Committee, Ike Skelton, noted that the BRAC round so suffered from secondary agendas designed to achieve policy outcomes under cover of base closure and realignment. I agree with him.

The BRAC Commission had even less time than the Pentagon, but was ultimately able to fix the largest mistakes. Chairman Anthony Principi's commission took New London and other bases off of the list after looking at the big picture. They looked at the overall effects on the Nation and the individual services. They listened to the arguments of outside experts. They considered the advice of key defense industry partners, senior retired officers, Members of Congress, and even a former U.S. president. In the end the BRAC Commission gave the President and Congress a good product given the circumstances.

So, Mr. Chairman, I will vote no on the resolution because the BRAC solution before us is the best of a bad situation. It would have been better never to have attempted this round of base closures. Our military is no better for it, and our Nation is no safer. Nevertheless, a vote for yes is a vote for another, painful and counterproductive BRAC round that will drain resources and time from the critical tasks at hand.

Mr. Chairman, our Nation faces great national security challenges right now. For this reason, I will vote to put BRAC behind us today and for the foreseeable future.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt).

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper).

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Udall).

(Mr. UDALL of New Mexico asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Evans) who represents one of the largest military installations in our State.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gene Green).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hobson).

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 7 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor).

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Mississippi for his very articulate statement.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to my friend from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie).

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fitzpatrick).

Mr. Chairman, I believe I have the right to close. I have no other speakers, and if these gentlemen are ready, when they finish, I will close.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself whatever time I have remaining.

Mr. Chairman, let me just pick up on a couple of the people that have spoken. I want to pick up on a point that Mr. DeLay made. He has an Air Guard unit returning to Ellington Air Force Base to a slap in the face, to essentially being told, you have done great work, thanks for what you did in Iraq; oh, by the way, we are closing your base. Now, what kind of a message is that? That was my point earlier on in my opening statement. We owe it to the people.

I ask Members to consider this: To the people who are doing the hard work in Iraq, the people that did the hard work in Afghanistan, this is not the way to say to them, job well done. It is not the way to say to them, you did a great job in standing up for democracy in Afghanistan and doing the hard work in Iraq. And, oh, by the way, there is no base to come back to, because your unit is being eliminated. Is that the message we want to send to the people who do the hard work, to the 130,000, 140,000 people now serving in Iraq, the citizen soldiers that have left their jobs and their families and left their communities? I do not think so.

The point that Mr. Taylor made, why not give Congress the responsibility, the Armed Services Committee the responsibility; why lay it off on somebody else? We should not be doing that. This is our responsibility. That is why we are elected, to make these decisions.

The report is flawed. You can say all you want about the great work that was done. I know people that serve on the base closing commission, and I know they spend a lot of time, but this work is flawed. This is a flawed report. This is our opportunity in the House to speak up and speak out. The Defense Department has had their say. The President had his say. The BRAC Commission had their say. Now it is the House's turn to say to the hard-working citizen soldiers, we appreciate your work, we are going to stand with you, we are going to allow these bases to remain open, we are going to vote for the resolution that says that this BRAC should not stand, that these recommendations should not stand. That is what the House should be saying today. I hope the majority of Members will do that.

I mentioned earlier, there is a law on the books, passed by Congress, that says that you cannot close air and Guard bases unless you get the authority from the Governors. We even had a report from one of the people that was working for BRAC that this law has standing. The BRAC ignored this. The Defense Department has ignored us on this. We should not be doing this. This is the wrong message. This is the wrong idea to send to our country, to send to the people who are doing the work and continue to do the work.

As I said earlier, I have supported the President and this administration and the Secretary of Defense, who is a friend of mine from Illinois, in everything they have wanted to do in Afghanistan and Iraq. I know a lot of Members have. The majority of the membership of this House has. Now we ought to say to them, we do not agree with your recommendations. We do not agree that we should be realigning

bases, turning people away, turning out bases and shutting down bases where the good work has been done.

So based on that argument, based on the flawed BRAC report, based on a law that is on the books, a Federal law that says you cannot close these air and Guard bases without the authority of the Governor, I ask Members to speak up today, to be a voice for the people, to be a voice for the military, to be a voice that says, this BRAC is not right, and I urge Members to vote for the resolution.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the distinguished gentleman from Colorado for the time.

First, let me thank the BRAC Commission head Anthony Principi and all of the panel members for their hard work for listening to all of us, both at the regional hearings and in person, and with the staff and the Department of Defense who worked with so many of us in these very difficult decisions.

I rise in opposition to my colleague from Illinois's resolution, but I share some of his concerns. I would like to talk about a few of these.

In the State of Indiana, the previous round of BRAC, I was legislative director for the junior Senator from Indiana when we watched all of our active military bases get wiped out in the State of Indiana, one of the number one recruiting States in the United States.

My hometown in Fort Wayne, Indiana, is one of the major centers of defense electronics in the United States with ITT Aerospace, with Raytheon, Defense Electronics based there making many highly classified electronics, defense systems, with General Dynamics with a huge facility there, with BAE Systems with a huge facility there, with USSI with a huge facility there, with Northrop Grumman with a large and expanding facility there.

We have defense electronics and a very patriotic, one of the highest, if not the highest, congressional districts in America in military recruiting for Army, Navy, Air Force and all of the various Guard and Reserve groups.

We have an Air Guard base there in Fort Wayne, Indiana, that is gaining under this process. It was a very difficult process as to how we deal with the Guard and particularly the Air Guard, and it was a very stiff competition with the gentleman from Illinois' air base and the air base in Terre Haute, and we can argue the relative merits.

What I heard at the hearing is, look, I am very proud of our Air Guard. They are way over. They have the highest percent retention, actually overretention at 116 percent of their recruiting quota. They have won national outstanding unit award three times by the Air Force and recipient of the National Guard number one Air Guard unit in the United States.

But I also heard from the people in the capital region Air Guard unit and the people in the Terre Haute Guard unit. In fact, they were all high in recruitment, and they were all high in national awards.

The problem is the Air Force is cutting. The F-16s are aging and declining in quality and disappearing from our defense system, and the Air Force plans are to reduce the number of fighter planes by two- thirds. So where is this going to leave the Air Guard and the Reserve, and how do we work this through when we head into a BRAC process? I am very concerned where we are headed long term with this, not just this BRAC process but the next BRAC process.

It is clear we are leaning heavily on Guard and Reserve. Are we going to the point where Guard and Reserve and the Air Force are only going to be at active bases, and where does that leave the heartland of the United States as we move everything to the coast? Where does it leave us in homeland security?

The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood) raised a very difficult and interesting question that worked through the courts in this process, that it is pretty clear that the Department of Defense cannot close an Air Guard base, but they can move the airplanes. So we had one court ruling in Pennsylvania that said they could not close the base, but we have other rulings that said they could move the airplanes. What exactly is the role of an Air Guard base if it does not have any airplanes, and how are we going to work this through?

I believe there will be other types of defense systems in homeland security that hopefully will be located in Terre Haute and will be located in Springfield, Illinois, very important cities to homeland security and our national defense. We have to work this through.

I believe the BRAC Commission made the right decisions, but this does not necessarily give us much guidance as to where we are headed and how we are going to integrate and maintain the defense structure we have in the United States with our Air Guard, Army Guard, and all of our Reserve units around the country if we do not have an adequate base structure, if we do not have adequate training places and ways to do this.

I hope we can find, in addition to the fighter planes that are located in Fort Wayne, and the expansion of our base, for which I am very thankful, ways to work with Springfield, Illinois, with Terre Haute, Indiana, and other bases around the United States because we need all of those pilots. We need all of those Guard and Reserve people around the United States because we are strapped very thin. I hope this BRAC Commission report, while I strongly support it, will also be a launching point as to how we are going to work and build and keep this very diverse Armed Forces system in the United States.