Providing for further consideration of the bill (H.R. 5122) to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2007 for military activities of the Department of Defense, to prescribe military personnel strengths for fiscal year 2007, and for other purposes.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment that would adopt the recommendation of the Congressional Budget Office to restructure our missile defense programs, specifically, the Ground-based Midcourse Defense System. The amendment would instruct the Secretary of Defense not to deploy any Ground-based Midcourse Defense System beyond the authorized systems that are now at Fort Greeley, Alaska and, the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California or any space-based interceptors of intercontinental ballistic missiles.

It would reduce funding for the research, development, test and evaluation for the defense agencies by $4,747,000,000.

Under the Congressional Budget Office's ``evolutionary alternative,'' the Department of Defense would fund the capabilities planned for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense System through 2007.

Money would continue to be provided to pursue upgrades to the elements of the ground-based missile defense initial defense capability, would continue testing its components and would explore other missile defense concepts.

But the savings on the midcourse missile defense under the Congressional Budget Office alternative would total $29 billion on a Department of Defense-wide basis through 2007.

I commend to my colleagues no less than seven reports released in the last 2 months critical of various aspects of the ballistic missile system, and I will introduce copies for the Record. Two of them are from the General Accountability Office, two from the Department of Defense's own Inspector General's Office, one from the Congressional Research Office, one from the Congressional Budget Office and one from the Pentagon's own Director of Operational Test and Evaluation.

All of them raise doubts about the feasibility of missile defense. And as a group they offer a damning indictment of the missile defense system that supposedly, but not actually offers the United States an initial defense capability.

The Center for Defense Information states in its analysis, changes are imperative. If the Missile Defense Agency continues in the same vein it has been, the United States will see itself saddled with a missile defense system that costs tens of billions, possibly hundreds of billions of dollars, yet provides no actual defense.

What is more, by diverting that money to an unfeasible system, the United States will miss out on the protection it could be getting from weapons systems that actually work.

Mr. Chairman, the moneys are important, of course, but having a false sense of security is dangerous. And not investing these moneys in needed security systems, systems to protect our space and domestic assets and for homeland security risk is criminally negligent.

The General Accountability reports note that if the Pentagon does not move away from its spiral development or acquisition policy where a system's progress is never held to any sort of accountability, has no defined parameters, the Department of Defense will continue to start more programs for more money and create the next set of case studies for future defense reform reviews.

Fielding systems that still are in early developmental cycles, rushing them into the field where they have very serious problems with every component, that is a recipe for disaster. Immature technologies are not perfected, integration of the systems is not happening, testing in real-life scenarios is lacking, information assurance controls that were built to the network are sadly out of date.

This report shows poor quality control, unreasonable, in fact outrageous, cost growth, and schedule slips and inferior performance.

An ``F'' for Missile Defense: How Seven Government Reports in Two

Months Illustrate the Need for Missile Defense To Change Its Ways

(By Victoria Samson, CDI Research Analyst)

A certain amount of optimism is required to successfully

guide a weapon system through its development to completion.

However, at a certain point, reality needs to poke through so

that program and service officials can make relatively

objective assessments. Is it working? Is it going to work? Is

it staying on budget and schedule? If not, can it get back on

track? And finally, the most difficult question to ask of a

program: Should it continue?

The multi-faceted missile defense program, currently the

Pentagon's golden child, has effectively avoided any and all

tough questions. Over $92 billion has been spent on missile

defense systems since the Ronald Reagan administration, to

little avail. While the architecture still has not been

finalized, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) envisions a

system of systems, where there are ground-, sea-, and air-

based interceptors supported by a yet-to-be-built satellite

system, new X-band radars that are still being put in place,

and a command and control system that is not secure to

outside interference.

President George W. Bush announced in December 2002 that,

within two years, the United States would have deployed an

initial missile defense system that could defend the United

States against a limited ICBM attack. With that pressure from

above, MDA focused its efforts on the fielding interceptors

in Alaska and California the Ground-based Midcourse Defense

(GMD) system. As of writing, 13 interceptors have been

emplaced in missile silos. As well, MDA is working on a sea-

based interceptor that is carried on the Aegis ship, a sea-

based X-band radar that is slowly floating to its home port

in Alaska, a giant command and control module based out of

Colorado, a satellite network that could track enemy missiles

as they approach the U.S. homeland, and systems that are

geared toward providing defense against shorter-range

ballistic missiles (Theater High Altitude Area Defense

system, or THAAD, and the Patriot Advanced Capability PAC-3

system). In the long run, MDA is building a modified Boeing

747 airplane that would carry lasers in its nose and kinetic

kill vehicles which theoretically could obliterate multiple

targets.

MDA has been entrusted with a great deal of responsibility.

It has not lived up to its tasks. In the past two months, no

less than seven reports have been released that were critical

of various aspects of the Ballistic Missile Defense System

(BMDS). For clarity's sake, this analysis will focus largely

on MDA's flagship program, the GMD system, whose existence is

used to falsely claim that the United States has an initial

defensive capability against ICBMs. And to head off

allegations of bias, it must be noted that these reports were

written by non-partisan government agencies. Two reports by

the Government Accountability Office (GAO), two from the

Defense Department (DOD)'s own Inspector General's office,

and reports by the Congressional Research Service (CRS),

Congressional Budgetary Office ``(CBO), and the Pentagon's

Director, Operational Test & Evaluation (DOT&E) all raise

doubts about the feasibility of missile defense. As a group,

they offer a damning indictment of the missile defense system

that supposedly offers the United States an initial defensive

capability.

overshooting cost goals, falling short of planned achievements

Missile defense programs have featured prominently in two

recent reports by the GAO. The first, ``Assessment of

Selected Major Weapons Programs,'' examines the cost growth

of many Pentagon weapon systems. It notes, ``DOD often

exceeds development cost estimates by approximately 30 to 40

percent and experiences cuts in planned quantities, missed

deadlines, and performance shortfalls.'' The GAO points out,

``Programs consistently move forward with unrealistic cost

and schedule estimates, use immature technologies in

launching product development, and fail to solidify design

and manufacturing processes at appropriate points in

development.'' The missile defense system prides itself on

its ``spiral development'' or acquisition policy that is

constantly evolving, under which a system's progress is never

held to strictly defined parameters.

``Programs consistently move forward with unrealistic cost

and schedule estimates, use immature technologies in

launching product development, and fail to solidify design

and manufacturing processes at appropriate points in

development.''

The GAO takes this type of acquisition policy to task. In

fact, David Walker, comptroller-general of the United States,

warns that if the Pentagon doesn't move away from it, DOD

``will continue to start more programs than it can finish,

produce less capability for more money, and create the next

set of case studies for future defense reform reviews.''

The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has argued that the

missile defense program needs the flexibility of spiral

development to allow it to mold itself to future threats and

to incorporate lessons learned while testing. Why other

Pentagon programs somehow manage to hold themselves

accountable and still meet evolving threats is never

discussed by MDA officials. Instead, MDA promotes the idea

that all possible missile defense candidate technologies will

be put through their paces, and eventually testing will prove

the winners and losers. Again, MDA has never stated at which

point it will definitively decide to drop a flagging program.

The closest it has come is in giving one of its programs

(Airborne Laser) what it calls ``knowledge parameters,'' in

an attempt to prove to critics that, despite outward

appearances, there is indeed progress toward development.

Another key part of spiral development is that weapon

systems will be fielded when they are still early in their

development cycles. The intent is that they can continue to

grow and presumably advance while providing some sort of

military utility. What ends up happening is that systems--

the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system most

noticeably--are rushed out into the field even when there

are very serious problems with their components... or

indeed, are crucial elements to their architecture still

lacking. For example, the GMD interceptor suffered a

flight test failure in February 2005 due to poor quality

control by its contractor for the arm that holds the

missile up in its silo. In testimony to the Senate Armed

Services Committee on April 4, 2006, Obering acknowledged

this problem and stated that this component would be

replaced on the interceptors that have already been

fielded. Nonetheless, the $40 million missile as

originally designed continues to be built at a rate of one

every two months or so.

The GAO notes that weapon systems development programs

progress much better and keep costs lower if technology is

allowed to mature before being brought into a developmental

or initial operating system. GAO observes that program

acquisition unit costs for programs with mature technologies

increase by less than one percent over original cost

estimates, while the program acquisition unit costs for

programs with immature technologies increase by 27 percent

over the first full estimate.

The report goes on to review various weapon systems to

assess their level of technological maturity and cost growth.

The GMD system's ``concurrent testing and fielding efforts

may lead to additional design changes,'' warns the GAO, and

the program's ``prime contract could overrun its target cost

by as much as $1.5 billion. Boeing, GMD's prime contractor,

has already overrun its budget by $600 million as a result of

quality control issues. As what seems to be the standard for

missile defense, program officials differ from outsiders

about the program: while program officials rate GMD's needed

10 technologies as mature, the GAO differs, stating that

``four have not been demonstrated in an operational

environment and we believe that they cannot be considered

fully mature.'' And since the GAO's last assessment of GMD,

the program's planned budget through fiscal year 2009 (FY 09)

has risen by $2.9 billion, or 11.2 percent.

GMD's cost growth is bad enough, but as it turns out, the

United States is paying more and getting less than

anticipated. In another GAO report, the title says it all:

``Missile Defense Agency Fields Initial Capability but Falls

Short of Original Goals.'' MDA's accelerated development of

the GMD program in order to reach an initial capability by

the end of 2004 caused the agency to run over that portion of

its budget by $1 billion. For FY 05, GMD contractors had

exceeded anticipated costs by 25 percent. The GAO also took

to task the forced reliance by MDA upon spiral development

``[I]t allowed the GMD program to concurrently mature

technology, complete design activities, and produce and field

assets before end-to-end testing of the system--all at the

expense of cost, quantity, and performance goals.''

In addition, for the initial defensive capability stated as

the goal of the rapid fielding of the overall missile defense

network, MDA fell quite short of what it had hoped to have

accomplished. ``Compared to its original goals set in 2003,

MDA fielded 10 fewer GMD interceptors than planned, two fewer

radars, 11 fewer Aegis BMD missiles, and six fewer Aegis

ships,'' lists the GAO report. The United States has

officially fielded elements of the ballistic missile defense

system architecture, but these are really token efforts. Even

if the systems had proved themselves during testing and

development--which they have not--and even if they had all

their needed components at the ready--which they do not--this

system would be a feeble shadow of what planners had hoped

for.

Spiral development ``allowed the GMD program to

concurrently mature technology, complete design activities,

and produce and field assets before end-to-end testing of the

system--all at the expense of cost, quantity, and performance

goals.''

Another result of rushing the missile defense elements out

into the field is that workmanship has been shoddy, at best.

Poor quality control has been listed time and again as an

explanation for cost growth, schedule slips, and inferior

performance. The GAO report explains, ``According to MDA's

own audits, the interceptor's design requirements were

unclear and sometimes incomplete, design changes were poorly

controlled, and the interceptor's design resulted in

uncertain reliability and service life.'' The GMD interceptor

was not tested to ensure its parts could withstand the harsh

environment in space--which could result in catastrophic

failures after launch as the interceptors are supposed to

impact their targets outside the Earth's atmosphere. Further,

the failures of two recent flight tests--1FT-10 and 1FT-14--

were due to poor quality control procedures. The development

of some parts for the GMD interceptor has been so careless

that, according to the GAO, the parts in question would

have to be replaced and thus ``the interceptors will be

removed from their silos.'' Neither GAO nor MDA, has yet to

explain at what cost such repairs will have to be made.

Unfortunately, cost growth, schedule slips, and faulty

parts are not specific to missile defense programs. One can

see that easily in every branch of the Pentagon. Where the

missile defense program differs is in the extent of autonomy

and decision-making freedom given to MDA officials managing

the various pieces of the program. Given the pressure they

were under from President George W. Bush's December 2002

announcement that an initial capability would be in place by

the end of 2004, managers decided that the development and

fielding process required a speedier schedule to meet that

deadline. As a result, the GAO recounts, ``MDA officials told

us that because the agency was directed to field a capability

earlier than planned, it accepted additional risks.''

The agency was able to accelerate fielding because MDA

officials have been given unprecedented liberties with

acquisition planning and scheduling. They are further allowed

to shift around funding from one program element to another

as they see fit, under special rules set up by DOD. According

to the GAO, ``Compared with other DOD programs, MDA has

greater latitude to make changes to the BMDS [Ballistic

Missile Defense Program] program without seeking the approval

of high-level acquisition executives outside the

program.'' Because of this flexibility, while MDA does

inform Congress and DOD of funding rearrangements,

accountability is practically nil; instead, its version of

it has ``thus become broadly applied as to mean delivering

some capability within funding allocations.''

MDA is also free of requirements that all other major DOD

acquisition programs must undertake in regards to

establishing baseline estimates of cost, performance and

schedule. If other programs slip in meeting those

predetermined requirements, Pentagon and/or service managers

must alert Congress. If any program sees cost growth up to a

certain amount in one quarter, it is considered to have

suffered a so-called Nunn-McCurdy breach, which means DOD

must alert Congress of the problem. If the cost growth is

over 25 percent in a single quarter, DOD then must overhaul

and justify the offending program. The Ballistic Missile

Defense System, however, is exempt from these requirements.

MDA officials have much more flexible baselines for their

programs. MDA can avoid having to report programs' quarterly

cost growth simply by changing cost goals and estimates.

Also, MDA has the responsibility of deciding when it will

alert Congress to schedule slips or cost growths, since

``there are no criteria to identify which variations are

significant enough to report. Instead, MDA's Director, by

statute, has the discretion to determine which variations

will be reported.''

MDA officials do not have to hold themselves accountable to

any particular standard or report if certain achievements

have not been met. And Congress has, up to now, refrained

from complaining about its lack of oversight over the $10

billion dollar a year MDA budget.

Up to now, the only ``achievements'' reported by MDA have

been the flight test failures. The MDA has even stopped

announcing when it has emplaced new interceptors at missile

silos in Alaska and California. Ostensibly, this is because

of operational security needs, but in actuality, it is more

likely a move designed to avoid bad press as testing and

deployment goes forward.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlemen from New Jersey (Mr. Holt).

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I offer amendments en bloc.

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Baca's amendment requires the Department of Defense to study the scope of perchlorate contamination at formerly utilized defense sites.

Mr. Castle's amendment implements GAO's recommendations to cut down and award an incentive fee spending waste by requiring the Department to develop a strategy for linking incentives to specific outcomes such as meeting costs, schedule and capability goals. It also establishes guidance for improving the effectiveness of award and incentive fees, and ensures that appropriate approving officials are overseeing these decisions. The Department would be required to report to Congress on the status and effectiveness of these new standards.

The amendment offered by Mr. Davis is the defense access road amendment; and this program, which is known as the DAR program, currently allows DOD to pay for road projects made necessary by DOD actions, and this amendment would allow DOD to consider transit projects as part of DAR as well.

Mr. Schiff's amendment directs the Secretary of Defense to submit to Congress a series of regular reports on the threat to American personnel posed by IEDs, improvised explosive devices, as well as action being taken to interdict IEDs and to develop more effective active and passive countermeasures. The first report would be due 30 days after enactment, the subsequent reports every 90 days thereafter. Reports would be unclassified, with a classified annex if necessary.

Mr. Chairman, the committee supports these amendments, and let me just say with respect to the last amendment, that the committee works every day on the IED issue, and we communicate with DOD every day on operations and on the development of the countermeasure systems that we are currently undertaking to rush to the battlefield. So I very much appreciate the gentleman's concern. I think that IEDs, and I am sure he shares this concern, are an instrument of choice now by terrorists, and this is probably the most compelling challenge facing us in the warfighting theaters and in the global war against terror right now.

We work this issue every single day. We have got a new package of equipment that we are moving out, and we have added $109 million to this countermeasure fund this year. We are going to try to move that up, even if we have to move money out of the various services, and we are going to work this problem every day. So I invite the gentleman to work with us and work with our staff, and I think these reports will be value added to the process. I thank the gentleman from California for his work.

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

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

I thank the gentleman for his contribution, and let me just lay out some of things that we are doing because I think this area is so important for us. Included in the base bill, the gentleman from Missouri and myself and our great members of the committee on both sides of the aisle worked out, we added $109.7 million for jammers. Jammers are very important in this IED business because these improvised explosive devices are largely detonated remotely.

As the gentleman knows, few of them, some of them, are detonated by wires that are connected to detonators, and you may have an insurgent hiding 20, 30, 40, 50 yards from the roadside or from the dismounted U.S. military unit and he detonates it with a clacker or a detonation device in the style that has been utilized by militaries up to the last several years ago.

The other detonation device, and one that is now the device of choice, is a remote detonation, and that detonation

allows a person, the insurgent, to be many yards away, far away from the particular avenue that he is ambushing. In many cases, he does not even need to have a weapon. He may be lost in a crowd, and he waits for a convoy to line up on a particular lamp post or other object, and he blows this device, which may be a 152-millimeter artillery round by using this remote detonation capability. Without getting into the classified areas, there are a number of remote detonation capabilities, and what we are trying to do is to direct our countermeasures to be able to jam those detonations.

So we have put a lot of extra money in. The administration has a lot of money in, but we have put in more. We have been working on equipment packages with them, and the key is to move this stuff through the training ranges here, the testing ranges, quickly into the field; and I can assure the gentleman we are really going to be working on this. So I thank him so much for his focus on this important area, and we will work together.

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

Mr. Chairman, I just want to say to my colleague from California that he has brought an excellent amendment to the floor here, and this is certainly something that does require action, justifies action by the Federal Government, and we totally support his amendment on this side.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me offer the description of the amendments.

Mr. Chabot's amendment expresses a sense of Congress that the spouses of armed services members who have died between October 7, 2001, and November 23, 2003, should be permitted to have the option of assigning their SBP payments, their survivor payments, to their children.

Mr. Davis' amendment is another defense access road amendment. This amendment would allow DOD to consider transit projects, as well, as part of the DAR, the Defense Access Road program.

Mr. Ryan of Ohio's amendment authorizes $5 million for the High Altitude Airship program. The HAA is designed to be an uninhabited, long-endurance, platform for carrying forward-based sensors and a wide range of other BMD payloads that will enable continuous over-horizon communication. It would also provide wide-area surveillance and protection without interruption or the risk associated with manned aircraft. The offsets are $5 million from the Space Based Space Surveillance program, and this is another tool for sensor and surveillance capability.

The amendment offered by Ms. Slaughter requires the Department of Defense to include the number of disciplinary actions as part of the annual report on sexual assault in the military.

So those are brief definitions or descriptions of these amendments.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of our time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot).

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman for bringing this to our attention. There are no more important citizens than those who defend our freedom and carry our flag; and right there with them are their family members.

I think this is an excellent amendment, and the committee supports it fully.

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

Mr. Chairman, it is especially appropriate to be able to follow the gentleman from El Paso, Mr. Reyes, who was in my estimation the greatest Border Patrol chief in the history of our country. He did a tremendous job under very challenging odds.

I remember working with him long before he became a Representative in the most southern areas of Texas and then ultimately up in the El Paso area. One thing that challenged him and challenged us in San Diego in more recent times was tunneling. Of course, detection of tunnels is something that the military engages in every now and

then, and that is a good example of candidate technologies for sharing of technology between DOD and the Department of Homeland Security.

Likewise, surveillance sensors, it has always been a pleasure to go down with the gentleman from El Paso, go down to his district with Joint Task Force 6 and look at that interaction. And I really appreciate Mr. Dent coming up with this amendment that will move to mesh these technologies and make sure that when the American taxpayers pay for the development of something that will accrue to the benefit of our security, that it gets shared and gets moved across what is sometimes kind of a bright line between the military and the Department of Homeland Security.

You have done a great job and thank you for bringing this amendment to our attention. We support it fully.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I have a colloquy with the gentlewoman from Colorado (Mrs. Musgrave). I would yield to the gentlewoman for purposes of the colloquy.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentlewoman's concerns. First, I strongly believe that DOD should make every effort to acquire property through fair-market value purchases from willing sellers. The use of eminent domain or unfriendly condemnation should only be used as a measure of last resort in cases of compelling national security requirements.

So I would be very pleased to work with the gentlewoman as a representative of the farmers and ranchers surrounding Pinon Canyon to ensure that the Army does not use eminent domain before exhausting all other options.

Secondly, I would note that the defense bill before us today contains a provision that makes sure that Congress has oversight of DOD plans to use eminent domain, as its application is a matter of great concern to all of us.

Finally, I would be happy to work with the Colorado delegation to talk to the Army and ensure that they are very forthcoming in discussing plans for the expansion of Pinon Canyon. Having a good relationship with our communities is an important obligation of the armed services, and they should certainly sit down with their elected representatives and discuss their plans and any issues that will concern the community.

I will be happy to help the gentlewoman on this issue.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman and the gentlewoman for their contribution here, and just assure them we are very interested in making sure that this equipment, some of which has been wearing out pretty quickly in the desert sand in the warfighting theaters, is maintained in excellent condition, both with our great in- house resources and our depots and with the private sector, so we use all of our resources in the U.S. to make sure we have got good, sound platforms.

The committee has no objection to the amendment. We thank you for adding it to the base bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, in the Schakowsky amendment, the gentlewoman from Illinois provides for additional oversight and accountability of Department of Defense contractors deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. It would make retroactive DOD regulations for contractors issued in October 2005 on previously issued contracts upon any extension brought about by an option.

It would implement a policy for conducting comprehensive background checks on foreign nationals hired by contractors operating outside of the U.S. and would also require a DOD Inspector General report on contractor overcharges and require that there are sufficient contracting officers assigned to oversee and monitor contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The amendment offered by Mr. Jindal would require the Secretary of Defense in coordination with the Secretary of Homeland Security and State governments to develop detailed operational plans regarding the use of the Armed Forces to support activities of civil authorities known as Defense Support to Civil Authorities Missions.

The amendment that is offered by Mr. Lewis of Kentucky would provide that no more than 20 percent of a uniformed servicemember's paycheck can be garnished in a single pay period to recover overpayments that have occurred through no fault of the servicemember. That was always my contention.

It would also provide a 90-day grace period before overpayment recovery can begin from servicemembers who are wounded or injured or who incur an illness in a combat operation or combat zone.

Finally, the Mica amendment offered by the gentleman from Florida expresses the sense of Congress that the Department of Defense should provide compensation to American veterans who are captured while in service to the United States Armed Forces on the peninsula of Bataan or the island of Corregidor, survived the Bataan Death March during World War II and have not received previous compensation provided to other prisoners of war.

I might just say about that amendment, Mr. Chairman, these great Americans came back and met with many of us over the last several years, these great survivors of the Bataan Death March. And many of them, according to their testimony, were taken by ship after the death march in which many of them were killed, bayoneted, decapitated, otherwise killed; they were taken to Japan and in many cases were turned over to Japanese industry, including companies that are corporate giants today like Matsui and Mitsubishi. And these Japanese corporations took the Americans as slaves from the Japanese Government. They turned them over to them as POWs. And they put them in slave labor operations, in many cases involving mines, for example, that were considered to be unsafe for Japanese workers. They would push the Americans into those mines.

I can recall some of the Americans testifying when they came back and met with us on the Hill about the brutality that took place. The time one of our great survivors of the Bataan Death March from California had a rock fall on him in a cave-in in this unsafe mine that they were working in as slaves to these corporations, and his leg was crushed by a rock. And an American doctor who was also a POW operated on that Bataan Death March survivor with a single rusty razor blade and the anesthetic was to have the biggest guy in the POW camp knock him out before they did the operation, and then they used maggots to clean the wound. And that great American was back here testifying a couple of years ago to the U.S. Congress.

Those POWs sought redress from the corporations which had used them as slaves in their operations saying we want to be paid for this work that we performed as slave labor. The corporations resisted this mightily in a series of lawsuits. And I thought it was sad that the U.S. Government intervened on the opposite side, on the other side from the American POWs, claiming that the treaty that was signed after the war essentially eliminated any rights on behalf of the POWs other than the one dollar a day that they received as compensation for their POW status.

So those great Americans did not win. They ultimately faced summary judgments in American courts and received no compensation from these massive corporations. In fact, some of the biggest corporations in the world which when they enslaved these Americans were not nationalized by the Japanese Government, but in fact remain private corporations and developed a lot of their operations or carried on a lot of their operations using American slave labor.

So the lawsuits were quashed and these Americans, those that still survive, never got any redress. So I would just say that Mr. Mica's amendment particularly struck a cord with this member of the Armed Services Committee, and I would recommend that all these amendments be supported.

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

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I will be brief.

But I just want to say about Sonny Montgomery, I miss Sonny Montgomery. I can still see him in the House Chamber, and I can see him in the Armed Services Committee where he sat with us, and I can see him walking into the prayer breakfast.

I am not a regular, but I happened to be there that morning, and he walked in when Floyd Spence was having a double lung operation. Sonny would read the casualty roll, just like a soldier, and he said I have got news about Floyd and a hush fell over the breakfast. There were about 30 Members there, Democrat and Republicans, and we thought he would tell us that Floyd Spence had passed away.

Sonny did kind of a double-take at his notes, and he said Floyd just got married. Apparently, he had gotten married coming out of this double lung transplant operation a few minutes afterwards, and lived many happy years after that.

But Sonny Montgomery was a spark of life in this Chamber. He was a great representative for the tradition of the military, Mr. National Guard. There is no question in the world you could posit to Sonny Montgomery and no statement you could make as a witness before the Armed Services Committee that it would not evoke from Sonny Montgomery, what would this mean for the National Guard? I do not care what the issue was, he managed to turn it into a Guard question.

What a great, great American. He served in World War II and had that great feeling for our military, and he is in tough shape right now.

But I have seen the gentleman's amendment to make this the Sonny Montgomery bill. How fitting and appropriate that we do that. Sonny is

still alive, and I know that we usually do this for Members that have passed on; but Sonny is still alive and I say, good, and let us do this. And I thank the gentleman from Mississippi for bringing this up.

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

Mr. Speaker, every day the thousands of men and women who are based in the United States and elsewhere protect our borders, defend our national security, and ensure our peace of mind. Many of them have been deployed around the world, to Iraq and elsewhere. They have performed their duties with honor and I want them to know that we have the highest regard and respect for them.

The men and women of our Armed Forces have entered into a sacred covenant with this Nation. They have pledged to place their lives on the line for us, and in return, we have promised to give them the tools they need to fulfill their promise and the respect worthy of someone willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for this country.

The underlying legislation for this rule represents the embodiment of our commitment to the troops, and while I know the overall bill enjoys bipartisan support, including mine, I must point out that this morning I believe the leadership of this body has betrayed that covenant.

It seems that just 1 week after passing a so-called reform bill with no teeth, the majority is back to their same old tricks, arrogantly preventing debate and consideration of critical measures that improve the bill and the lives of the people serving this Nation.

They even prevented the distinguished ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, Mr. Skelton, from offering an amendment to his own defense bill. The Skelton amendment would have prevented the copays for medication for our military and their families from going up, which they will if this bill is passed without the Skelton amendment, but the Republican leadership refused to make it in order.

For those Americans who are not familiar with the Rules Committee, and I expect that is most of them, and how it works, what that effectively means is that a select few in the Republican leadership have decided what the entire Congress and the entire Nation and what the men and women in uniform will get. They decided that on their own, without even a vote on the House floor, without the debate and consideration of this full body.

Given the rhetoric we hear on this floor every day about the troops and how important they are, I feel compelled to ask my friends in the majority to justify how in less than 24 hours after they approved $70 billion in tax cuts for the wealthy, how they could refuse to allow us to even consider a measure to improve the health care of our troops and their families. We owe our troops more respect than this.

It is for similar reasons that many of my Democratic colleagues and I are concerned with section 590 of this bill. The section removes a long-standing requirement in our military code that requires chaplains to exhibit a level of tolerance, compassion and understanding towards the religious diversity of the soldiers to whom they administer counsel. Can you imagine that, Mr. Speaker? We are taking away the idea that they should serve with tolerance, compassion and understanding; it was too inflammatory.

I should say, Mr. Speaker, that I am confident our chaplains have both the sense and the respect for their fellow soldiers to do this and to do it willingly. But why would this majority lower that standard and expect anything less from our chaplains, as they clearly do?

We have soldiers of every faith and no faith fighting for us under the American flag. They all deserve our respect, particularly in moments of great despair or need. Is this majority so arrogant as to suggest that they should micromanage how a chaplain administers faith on a battlefield? I can think of few things more offensive or absurd.

My friend, Mr. Israel, offered an amendment to the bill that would have corrected the problem, restoring the requirement that all chaplains demonstrate sensitivity, respect and tolerance, but Mr. Israel's amendment was tossed out the window, along with common sense on this issue. It has been forbidden by the leadership from even being considered on the floor today.

As was an amendment from Representatives Tierney and Leach which

would have established a Truman-like commission, which we have been trying for 2 years to do, one designed to ferret out corruption and incompetence in our military contracting; and for some reason, the majority of this House does not want to look where all that money is missing in Iraq.

Despite the fact that the same measure has passed the House numerous times, and despite the fact that it is the clear will of this body that this commission be created and despite the fact that the word ``incompetence'' has become the most apt description of this administration, a select few in this leadership made these decisions for all of us that we would not even consider that amendment today, an amendment which, were it enacted, would allow us to go looking for the $9 billion in taxpayer money that this administration has literally lost in the war in Iraq.

There are many more amendments to this bill that the leadership refused to allow us to consider today, and because they are making decisions for all of us and for the American people without their consent, they decided we would not be allowed to consider Mr. Markey's amendment which would prevent your tax dollars from being used to torture people in the name of the United States of America. I know that makes all of us proud that we are saying that we are going to go ahead and allow torture.

I never thought I would see the day in this country when we would compromise our core values so horribly, and to do so without our consent is unconscionable.

The question my fellow Americans should be asking themselves is ``why.'' Why will the Republican leadership not allow the free flow of ideas that are supposed to be the hallmark of our government?

I think we are all beginning to see how the rigidity of their agenda, the narrow focus of their concern and their obsession with control are not only damaging their own political future, but are deeply damaging the Nation.

Even though the complicated challenges we face no longer seem to fit the Republicans' narrow set of solutions, they march onward in lockstep with their unyielding and ineffective agenda, but reality seems to be playing out much differently than their program allows for.

Tax cuts for the rich cannot save the world and it cannot save Americans. Preventing Americans from talking about an idea does not make it go away, and the ends do not always justify the means. Democrats and the rest of America have already opened their eyes to these realities. Why does the Republican leadership not open theirs?

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the minority whip.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), the ranking member of the Committee on Armed Services and a hero of mine.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), a member of the Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker, let me take just a moment to say to my friend from Oklahoma that when the Democrats were in charge here we would take up to 2 weeks in the Rules Committee looking at the defense bill which was almost always open because we all recognized the importance and that is where we spend the money. We didn't rush bills out the door in those days, and I long for them.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Thompson), a Vietnam veteran and Purple Heart recipient.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Udall).

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Israel).

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time.

May I inquire if my colleague has more?

Mr. Speaker, I will be asking Members to vote ``no'' on the previous question. If the previous question is defeated, I will amend the rule to allow the House to consider the Skelton amendment on prescription drug copayments for members of the military and their families.

This amendment was offered in the Rules Committee last night, but was defeated on a 4-8 straight party line vote.

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

Mr. Speaker, the amendment seeks to reduce proposed increases in copayments for military families back to current cost shares.

As the war in Iraq drags on and on, we continue to ask more and more of the brave men and women who serve in our military. They are asked to sacrifice everything, from their own lives to the health and livelihoods of their families. These families are already struggling paycheck to paycheck just to make ends meet.

Maybe the increase in the copayments don't seem like much to the wealthy Americans who were rewarded by Republicans yesterday with a hefty five-figure tax break but, they sure make a significant break in the budgets of low- and moderate-income families with children.

Mr. Speaker, not only is Ranking Member Skelton one of the most distinguished and respected Members of the House, he is also an expert on military personnel. To deny him the opportunity to even offer this responsible amendment is simply outrageous. Even those who don't support his amendment ought to have the courage to vote whether or not to help our soldiers and their families pay for medicine.

I want to emphasize that a ``no'' vote will not block the defense authorization bill and will not affect any of the other amendments that are in order under this rule, but a ``no'' vote will allow us to debate and vote on the Skelton amendment.

Vote ``no'' on the previous question.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

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

I want to begin, if I may quickly, by reminding my friends on the other side of the aisle the basic nature of this bill.

It was a very bipartisan bill. It was universally praised as being bipartisan by Members of both parties. In particular, Chairman Hunter was singled out for operating inclusively, in a bipartisan manner.

There were 88 amendments offered in the House Committee on Armed Services. Seventy-five of those passed. Of those passed, 38 were Democrats, 36 were Republican, one was bipartisan. There were over 100 amendments submitted to the Rules Committee. Of those, 31 were made in order, an additional six were dealt with in the manager's amendment. Only eight amendments were brought up for reconsideration in the Rules Committee by the minority.

Now, I understand that not everybody is pleased with every aspect of the bill, but to characterize the bill as anything other than bipartisan, and bipartisan in process, I think is to not recognize the nature of the process we have gone through.

With respect to Mr. Skelton's amendment, nobody in this House, I can assure you, respects Mr. Skelton more than I do. I have served with him on his committee. I publicly praised him yesterday, and that praise is fully and well deserved. He is one of the distinguished Members of our body.

I do point out his amendment was, in fact, considered in the House Committee on Armed Services. It did fail. There were bipartisan members for it and bipartisan against it, although it was largely a party-line vote.

At some point you have to ask yourself, why do we have committees, if not to make these decision? When a matter is dealt with fully by a committee, who are well-versed in it, I think that should carry heavy weight in determining whether or not we move on and consider a particular amendment on the floor; and in this case, I think that was thoroughly vetted and thoroughly discussed although, of course, my friends still have the opportunity to include that provision in a motion to recommit.

Let me conclude by just quickly going on and going through some of the things that were included in TRICARE.

Under the bill that was fashioned by our distinguished chairman and ranking member, working in a bipartisan fashion in the House Armed Services Committee, H.R. 5122 will prohibit until December 31, 2007, the Department of Defense's ability to increase TRICARE Prime, Standard and TRICARE Reserve Select cost shares.

H.R. 5122 calls for an independent analysis to determine the appropriate cost-sharing formula for the TRICARE program.

H.R. 5122 zeros out the costs for generic and formulary prescriptions for participants in the TRICARE pharmacy and mail order program.

H.R. 5122 also adds $735 million to the Defense Health Program to restore funding cuts included in the DOD budget request in anticipation of increased beneficiary cost shares which, as mentioned, H.R. 5122 prohibits.

H.R. 5122 includes TRICARE coverage for forensic examinations following sexual assaults and domestic violence.

H.R. 5122 provides TRICARE coverage for anesthesia and hospital costs for dental care provided to young children and to mentally or physically challenged beneficiaries.

I say this simply to make the point that we have had several years, frankly, where this committee has worked diligently to improve the TRICARE system to enhance the benefits available to our men and women.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), the distinguished chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

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

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

If I may, again, I want to thank my good friend from Missouri. There is nobody who cares more about men and women that wear the uniform of the United States than Mr. Skelton.

I do wish to point out again the amendment was considered by the full House Armed Services Committee. It did not succeed.

I also want to point out again we made considerable progress in TRICARE, many millions of dollars spent.

And, finally, something which maybe many Members may not be aware of because they don't serve on that committee, active duty family members actually get most of their prescriptions free from military hospitals. Only 11 percent of prescriptions are obtained through a TRICARE retail pharmacy. So we are really not talking about a great deal of money. And we have a study authorized in this legislation under way to look at what the appropriate distribution of the cost of these types of items should be. I actually think the House Armed Services Committee has gone a very long way in trying to address this very, very important issue; and I have no doubt we will revisit it next year.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to my good friend, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Mr. Hunter.

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

I just wish to quickly point out, again, the record which seems to get lost in the rhetoric: 88 amendments considered in the House Armed Services Committee, 75 accepted; 100 amendments dealt with by the Rules Committee, 31 brought to the floor; six others dealt with during the manager's amendment.

If my friends had their way, it wouldn't matter how many times amendments were defeated along the way. Every single one would come to the floor of the House of Representatives. If we were going to operate that way, we simply could do away with the committee system all together and simply operate by Committee of the Whole. I don't think that makes good sense.

So we are very pleased with the manner in which this bill has been dealt with. Members of both sides have regarded it as a very bipartisan piece of legislation. I will make a prediction it is going to pass with an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote.

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

Mr. Speaker, just for the record, I would love to have the chairman take a drive in my district any day. We have Fort Sill Army Post, Tinker Air Force Base, and he loves soldiers, so that is fine by me.

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

Mr. Speaker, I simply point out to my friends on the other side of the aisle that all of these matters can be dealt with in a motion to recommit. I would invite them to do that.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, it is good to see my good friend from Washington again. We actually visited Iraq together. I know how strongly he feels about this issue. I respect that. I would also point out, though, that we have discussed Iraq on many occasions in this House. We have in the past, we will in the future.

In addition to that, again I just wanted to remind my friends of the simple numbers: 88 amendments considered by the House Armed Services Committee, 75 accepted, about evenly split; 100 amendments proposed to the Rules Committee, 31 accepted, 6 considered or incorporated in the manager's amendment. Frankly, all the other matters where folks are disappointed or have a different point of view can be dealt with in a motion to recommit. I suspect they will be.

The reality is, we have had a very bipartisan process. We agree on 98 or 99 percent of the issues that will be incorporated, I suspect, on the final vote.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), the chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

No, I am prepared to close.

Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. Speaker, we have had a good chance to debate the issues in the process today. After this debate, I am convinced that the process worked as it should. There can be no debating the basic facts. The House Armed Services Committee considered 88 amendments; 75 of those amendments, 38 Democrat, 36 Republican, one bipartisan, were incorporated into the legislation.

The House Rules Committee received over 100 amendments; 31 of those were made in order. They were about evenly balanced between the two parties. An additional six were incorporated into the manager's amendment. Numerous minority amendments were accepted and moved through regular order. The ranking members of the subcommittees and the full House Armed Services Committee all support the underlying legislation.

Ultimately, there can be no dispute that the process followed for this legislation was fully the regular order. It was fair and protected minority rights.

I think that we should focus, as we come to the conclusion of this debate, on what unites us instead of what divides us. The fact is that we agree on both sides of the House with 97 or 98 percent of what is in the actual legislation.

This is actually a model of bipartisan cooperation, a consensus, despite some of the rhetoric that we have here today. To that end, Mr. Speaker, I urge support for the rule and the underlying legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Oklahoma for his great work on behalf of the men and women who wear the uniform and for his work on this bill, and all the members for the work on this bill.

I just say to my great colleague from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), we did put this bill together in a bipartisan fashion, and we did entertain this amendment in the House Committee on the Armed Services. And the point is that we came out of the committee with a very carefully crafted bill in which we are trying to incentivize military families to use mail order; and so we took down the cost of mail order pharmaceuticals to guess what, zero; both generic and formulary drugs down to zero. They do not pay a dime.

Now they win when they get these prescriptions through the mail, and the taxpayers win because the costs are much less. That means you do not even have the cost of transportation to go down to pick up that particular prescription. So we took those down to zero.

The other thing we did that was a remarkable thing, that really completed this transition of recognizing the National Guard, is we moved the availability of TRICARE not just to National Guardsmen, who heretofore were given TRICARE for an extended period of time before they mobilized and for an extended period of time after they mobilized, but we then moved it to all National Guardsmen who are drilling reservists, all National Guardsmen, and with only a copayment of 28 percent of the costs.

So this is a monumental bill that has moved billions of dollars of medical benefits to these great people who wear the uniform of the United States.

Let me just say to my colleagues, this is a bipartisan bill. The gentleman from Oklahoma is absolutely right. We did all the right things, and that is why it passed by a vote of 60-1.

No one has more respect for the gentleman from Missouri than myself. We did consider his amendment in the committee, and the provision that his amendment dealt with is a part of this balance of trying to move people to

buy their pharmaceuticals through the mail, because if they buy them through the mail, it does not cost them a dime. For that reason, I think the committee bill is an excellent bill.

It is tough to get to less than zero, and I would hope that everyone would simply support this bill, let us move ahead, let us get it to conference, and let us do the right thing for the men and women who wear the uniform.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, let me say to my good friend who just spoke and talked about the need to shore up energy supplies for our country, I agree with him totally. And I agree with the idea that we should not have to rely on that lifeline of petroleum coming out of the Middle East, which has security ramifications.

Let me say to my friend that opening up a piece of land that is as big as a third of the United States, that is, Alaska, a third of the size of the continental United States, would go a long way toward doing that. The amount of petroleum that we could be getting from one of our own States within our own boundaries without having to depend on that lifeline would accrue to the national security.

I say to the gentleman, I think it is a sad thing that the majority of his party has not seen fit to do that. We are pursuing lots of alternative forms of energy, but one problem with this particular amendment is, it would take the money out of missile defense. I know the gentleman is worried about the prospect of ballistic missiles that are being tested by countries in the Middle East, that are being tested to ranges that will include Israel, for example, and at some point, certain locations in the United States.

So there are two aspects to these amendments. One is what you do; and the other is where you pull the money from. The other part of that story is where you pull the money from.

I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I think that is a thoughtful statement. I think that what we have seen, regrettably, from the gentleman's party, from the Democrat side, has been a series of ``noes'' to initiatives that would have increased the supply of petroleum.

The amount of increase in petroleum that we have undertaken in the last 4 or 5 years would have, by the projections I have seen, have been made up by oil which could have come from, for example, Alaska which is a third of the size of the United States.

So when the gentleman's party effectively closed down Alaska for supplying petroleum, a large piece of Alaska for supplying petroleum from the northern sector, that deprived us of an enormous supply of petroleum which would have had a direct effect on the price at the pump.

Further, the gentleman knows it takes about 10 years to permit a refinery. The gentleman is an expert in this. The gentleman knows the way we get low prices in this country for any commodity is competition.

That means if you are baking bread on one side of the street for $2 a loaf, and I come across from the other side of the street and I can bake it for a buck a loaf, I win and the consumers win. If you takes you 10 years to get a permit for your bakery, you never get into the competition and the price of bread never comes down.

And if it takes you 10 years to permit a refinery because of environmental restrictions that the Democratic Party will not let go of, you never see that oil coming on line and you never see that competition from another refinery. It is a debate.

But on the point of funding, the idea that you can just harvest a third of a billion dollars out of missile defense and that is not going to have any effect on the program because you think that money is not needed right now, we will have other parts of the program, the missile defense program, that needs more money. As the gentleman knows, when you have hundreds of programs, some of them need money, some of them can give up money at any given time.

The idea that this missile defense, which is necessary to protect both our troops in theater, who have been fired upon and killed in some cases by low-end ballistic missiles, like the Scuds that were used against us in the first Gulf War, and countries like Israel that need to have defense that see their neighbors right now developing ballistic missiles that will come in high and fast into those countries; the idea of forcing our Members to choose between defending their troops and having a new technological program on petroleum innovations, in my estimation, this is something that is a subject for judgment. We have exercised our judgment.

I think we have done a good job in the committee. I think we have put together a good bill in the committee. It passed out 60-1. I think that is testament to the fact that we have a balanced package and we need to move forward.

I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to, once again, echo my great respect for my partner on this committee, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), and just offer that one thing we have done in this package is to take down the cost of pharmaceutical drugs to zero for those enlisted

families if they simply get them through the mail; and they can now get a 90-day supply rather than a 30-day supply, and that is what we are trying to incentivize them to do. It is better for them. They have got no cost of transportation to go pick up their medicine, and it is better for the taxpayers. And that is the direction that we are trying to take our military families.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. No one has more respect for the gentleman from New York than I. I just want to remind my colleagues that we had a vote on the gentleman's amendment in committee, and we did put it in, and it was an amendment to a provision that we put into the bill that was, I thought, an excellent provision; I think, most members of the committee agreed.

I think that is reflected by the 60-1 vote that ultimately discharged the bill, agreed with, that was what it said, that chaplains of all faiths, all faiths, would be allowed to pray according to the dictates of their own conscience.

Now, I know you can add a word or two or a comma or a change of phrase, and the effect of a small group of words can have 60 different interpretations by various members of the committee.

But the provision that we left with, because I think there has been a concern that we have commanders, I think there is concern that chaplains be allowed to pray according to the dictates of their own conscience. We asserted in a positive statement that they would be able to do that.

That was something I think most members agreed with. In fact, they did agree with it on a bipartisan basis. The gentleman offered a change to that, and that was rejected. So I just want my colleagues to know that we thought, and I think today, that a statement that says that all chaplains, no matter what faith, are able to pray according to the dictates of their own conscience. It is a statement of fairness and serves the military well.