Military Readiness and Southern Sea Otter Conservation Act

I am going to have to be quick because, first of all, I want to address the issue about the so-called ``open mic incident.''

I do thank Mr. Turner for accurately describing what happened, but he is wrong on one thing, which is that the President did, in fact, respond as to what he meant. He sent a letter to Mr. Turner on April 13, explaining what he meant.

I don't have any time. I'm sorry. I don't have any time. I can't yield.

I read the letter.

What it says is basically what is obvious to everybody, which is that the President has a different opinion. The President believes that Russia can be a partner to reduce the missile threat and that he can possibly work with them to develop missile defense systems that they don't feel threatened by. It's no big secret. It's what the President has said.

Generally, the other side doesn't want to have anything to do with Russia--okay, fine--but they are a factor. The President wants to figure out some way in which we can work with someone who is no longer our enemy to reduce this threat. There is no great mystery here. That's what he is talking about.

I want to support Mr. Polis' amendment as well and say that the problem is that we are going to need the ground-based missile system. It's funded in the President's budget to a certain amount of money, but because it has been missing so often, there was a limited amount of money that you can spend testing this. It's not ready. They're spending money testing it. They just don't need this additional money.

So we're not saying that we don't need missile defense. We're spending money on it. We're spending a lot of money on it, and we're going to develop that.

Then the point on Russia is very simple and straightforward in that the President would like to negotiate an understanding with Russia so that we are not in conflict with one another. There are many who don't want us to have that conversation, and I believe Mr. Turner is in that camp. The President would like to have that conversation. That's all he meant, and he explained it in this letter.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Boswell).

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes.

I wanted to take this moment while we have a little extra time on this one to talk about Afghanistan and to express our opinions since we weren't able to get our amendment ruled in order.

It's important for all the Members on the floor to understand that the base bill has language on Afghanistan, and the base bill calls for us keeping 68,000 troops in Afghanistan until the end of 2014 and then makes unspecified requests to make sure that we have sufficient troops to accomplish a series of missions after 2014. It very aggressively calls for a large troop presence in Afghanistan for an extended period of time.

I, and many Members on this side of the aisle as well as some on the other, oppose that. We do not think that keeping that many troops in Afghanistan for that long is in the best interest of our national security or our country, and the bulk of the country agrees with us on that. Unfortunately, we weren't offered the opportunity to offer our amendment that offers what I think is a better approach.

I am also going to reluctantly oppose Representative Lee's amendment, the only alternative we were given, which is to pull us out as fast as we safely and responsibly can. Representative Lee's amendment does not allow us to maintain any sort of counterterrorism mission, which I do think is critically important. The amendment we wanted to offer was to put us on a more aggressive, quicker drawdown pace to speed up the transition to the Afghan forces for security while enabling us, with a relatively small number of troops, to maintain that counterterrorism issue.

We have trained over 350 Afghan national security forces. They have taken over responsibility for an increasing number of provinces and districts

throughout the country and for an increasing number of security responsibilities. It is time to make that transition.

My objection to the base bill is it doesn't give us the opportunity to make that transition because it mistakenly believes that the key to Afghan stability is keeping as many U.S. troops in Afghanistan for as long as possible. Having that large of a foreign military force--as we have seen, there's been a huge increase in attacks by Afghan forces on U.S. forces. We had the Koran burning incident. We had the horrible incident of a soldier going off and allegedly killing 16 or 17 civilians in Afghanistan.

Our presence at this point, in and of itself, is destabilizing. And what we want is a responsible drawdown of that force. We don't want to do it hastily in a way that jeopardizes the mission or jeopardizes Afghanistan. That was the purpose of the amendment that I, along with Congressman McGovern and others, authored. And it is unfortunate that for reasons I cannot understand, the majority refused to allow us the opportunity to debate that.

Now, as I said earlier, I speculated that part of the reason is because they know that the American people agree with us. It's a debate they don't want to have and a vote they don't want to take. And I respect that. A number of my colleagues have joked with me over the years, The toughest part of this job is voting; that's when people actually see where you stand.

I yield myself an additional 1 minute.

There have been many times where I wished I didn't have to do that, but it comes with the job and particularly on something as important as Afghanistan.

I don't think anyone would dispute that the most important thing about this bill, the Armed Services Committee bill, this year is what's going on in Afghanistan. The single most important issue, and we're denied the opportunity to have a vote on what I think is a much better plan, rather, leaving in place in the base bill a call for having 68,000 troops in Afghanistan until the end of 2014.

It is very simple: the majority is in favor of a larger troop presence for a longer period of time. We are in favor of a smaller troop presence for a shorter period of time. I believe it's the better policy. I regret that we will not have the opportunity to vote on it; but as we go into conference, I will strenuously argue this point. It is a major flaw, I believe, in an otherwise very strong bill.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

I would just say that no part of the President's plan calls for having at least 68,000 troops through December 31, 2014. If you had struck that out of the bill, that would change things. But having that number in there makes an enormous difference.

And with that, I yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Altmire).

May I inquire as to how much time is remaining?

I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim time in opposition to the gentleman's amendment.

I just might note that the B 52s that have been around that their grandchildren are flying now that the original pilots flew, the B 2s, we have 20. I inquired the other day how many of them were ready to go on a mission--maybe eight. So I think that all of this talk about nuclear, the next bomber is the next generation bomber that will deliver all kinds of weapons, not just nuclear.

I yield, at this time, 2 minutes to my friend and colleague, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Fleming).

I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Guam (Ms. Bordallo), my friend and colleague.

Mr. Chairman, pursuant to H. Res. 661, I offer amendments en bloc.

Mr. Chairman, at this time I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Westmoreland) for the purpose of a colloquy.

I thank the gentleman from Georgia for his remarks and his strong support for the readiness of our Armed Forces. There's no doubt that our C 17 fleet is doing a remarkable job around the globe, and I assure the gentleman that this committee strongly shares in your desire to ensure that the C 17 continues to perform magnificently for many years to come.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to my friend and colleague, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake).

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

I'm not as good as my friend in characterizing or talking about something, so I would just like to read from the bill what it actually says:

The United States military should not maintain an

indefinite combat mission and should transition to a

counterterrorism and advise and assist mission at the

earliest practicable date, consistent with conditions on the

ground. In order to reduce this uncertainty and to promote

further stability and security in Afghanistan, the President

should fully consider the international security assistance

force commander's assessment regarding the need for the

United States to maintain a significant combat presence

through 2013. And finally, maintain a force of at least

68,000 troops through December 31, 2014, unless fewer forces

can achieve the United States objective.

This is the policy that has been established by the Commander in Chief in consultation with the generals and the field commanders. Now, I met with General Allen, the commander in Afghanistan, about a month ago. I asked him how many troops he needed, and he said he was in the process of evaluating. He didn't have a number yet. When he got that number, he would send it back through the chain of command to the Commander in Chief.

At that time, if he finds after his assessment that he may be able to withdraw troops sooner or may be able to accomplish his mission with less than 68,000, I would imagine the Commander in Chief will want to change his policy. And this allows for that because if the Commander in Chief, in consultation with the commander in the field, says that we can do it with fewer forces to achieve the objective, that's exactly what the bill says.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to my friend and colleague, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Grimm).

How much time do I have remaining?

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

I don't quite know where to start. We have just cut in this budget and in the previous Deficit Reduction Act $487 billion and another $500 billion, $600 billion that kicks in with sequestration next January, so that over the next 10 years we'll be cutting $100 billion dollars a year out of defense at a time when we are fighting a war.

In my lifetime, I have seen this cut back after every war so that we won't be prepared, I guess, for the next one. And what happens when we get in the next conflict, being not prepared and having run our military down, is we end up losing a lot of people. And I do not want to see that happen if there is any possible way that we can overcome it.

I was in a meeting in the Pentagon a couple of months ago when the Secretary was laying out this budget. A senior military officer, one of the highest ranking in our country, was sitting across the table from me, and he looked at me at the end of the meeting, and said, In my 37 years in the military, and doing this, I have never seen a time more serious, more dangerous than right now.

We're facing a possible nuclear weapon in Iran. Much of the terrorism that we see around the world is nurtured and paid for and embraced and sent forth from Iran. We have the problem, we know, in North Korea. We have the problem of China that is decreasing their defense spending and pushing us further back in helping us defend Taiwan and other commitments that we have in the area. We had the Arab Spring that nobody had thought about or planned on. And where is the next hotspot going to be? We do not know. But I guarantee you that when you run down your defenses, that is when somebody will take advantage.

President Reagan said we should have peace through strength. General Eisenhower, President Eisenhower, we hear a lot the quotes about beware of the military industrial complex. He also said our military, our strength, our people in the military, are the ones that keep us safe, and we should be so strong that no one ever should dare attack us for fear of being annihilated. It's when we run down those forces, as we have.

I remember I was at the Reagan Library recently and they showed a video of when President Reagan ran in 1980. You might recall that we had hostages in Iran that had been causing lots of problems for President Carter. And we tried to send the military on a mission, and they couldn't even fly across the desert with the equipment they had at that time. We had a hollowed-out military.

We do not want to go there at this point. Half of the savings that we have taken in deficit reduction have come out of the military. We have done this on the backs of our troops, when they account for less than 19 percent of the overall spending. If we had no discretionary spending, we would be running a deficit of a half-trillion dollars a year. That is no military spending, no education spending, no spending on our parks.

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

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I rise in support of my amendment.

Here's what my amendment says: Why are we building a new nuclear bomber? It's 2012. The B 52s that we have--93 of them--are going to last until 2040. The B 2s we have are going to last until 2058. That's when they begin to retire.

Now, of all the things America doesn't need right now, it's a brand new nuclear bomber.

We're talking about cutting Medicare or Medicaid out here on the floor, there's not enough money to invest in research to find the cure for Alzheimer's, but we need a new nuclear bomber for $18 billion? It makes no sense. It's insane. We don't even have any more targets to hit them with.

Every single nuclear submarine we have has 96 independently targetable nuclear warheads on board. That's 96 cities in the Soviet Union, the bombs in the Soviet Union would destroy, 96 cities in China destroyed by one submarine. We already have 93 B 52s. We have 20 B 2s. We have ICBMs ready to launch. And they want to build a new bomber, a nuclear bomber with nuclear bombs. By the time the new nuclear bomb arrives, there will be no place to hit. All the old bombers, all the nuclear submarines will have hit all the targets.

The boom we should be listening to is the baby boom. We need money for Medicare. We need money for Medicaid. We need money for Social Security. We need money to invest in finding the cure for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. That's the boom that's going to hit American families. That's the fear people have.

The fear that people have is not that they're going to be in a nuclear war. The fear that people have is that there's going to be a terrifying call that comes into their family that tells them that they now have another case of Alzheimer's in their family, that it has not been cured.

Each one of these bombers could double the size of the budget to find the cure for Alzheimer's. That's what we should be doing. That's the real terrorist that people are afraid of coming into their lives.

At this point, Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Could the Chair inform me as to how much time is remaining on our side?

I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

Again, the experts all say that if we delay this just 10 years, which is all I'm asking for, a 10-year delay, since the B 2s and the B 52s aren't beginning to retire until between 2040 and 2058. All that Mr. Welch and Mr. Conyers and I are saying is, if we delay it for 10 years, there's still plenty of time to build them if there's a need.

But to begin to build new things right now with this era of tremendous budget deficits, when we should just be trying to find a way to reduce our deficits, you know, balance this budget, it's just wasteful. It's wasteful. And I just want to balance the budget. And if we're wasting money on projects like this, then we have no chance of doing anything about this deficit reduction.

So, again, experience shows us that it only takes 16 years, not 30, to bring a new bomber from the drawing board to the runway.

There are millions of families out there who are trying to get by with a car that's a few years old and just keep it going. The Air Force has already spent over $6 billion refurbishing all these planes. They plan on spending billions more on refurbishing them. There's no reason to believe they can't go out to the year 2060.

This is not the year for us to be spending this money.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Again, could you, Mr. Chair, tell me how much time I have?

I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

Just look at this from the perspective of an ordinary family. They've already got three cars in the driveway. Everyone says to them, you can go another 100,000 on those three cars. And

yet the decision is made by some of the family members, we're going to buy a brand new, top-of-the-line car right now, even though the whole family is in debt. Everyone in the neighborhood would think that's crazy.

That's what we're doing here today. The majority is saying, let's build a brand new bomber, a gold-plated bomber that's been on the wish list of the Air Force for a generation, even though we have plenty of bombers, nuclear bombers in an era where there aren't any more nuclear sites that we can be bombing around the world, and we're just going to waste the money.

We should be balancing the budget. We have to tighten our belt. And I just urge the majority to reconsider this. We have to save the money. And there just are no targets, and there are plenty of bombers we have that can last out to 2060.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself the remainder of my time.

We're $15 trillion in debt--$15 trillion. We've got all the bombers we need. They can last to 2060. We don't need a new nuclear bomber. Okay? We just don't need a new nuclear bomber. We don't have the targets for them, we can't afford them, and we don't need them. How's that for a combination?

Let's just cut back on something on this defense budget. Does it have to be the entire wish list of every single defense contractor in the United States, regardless of whether or not it relates to the military needs of our country?

And by the way, 30 or 40 years from now, $18 billion. We can postpone it 10 years, still have the brandnew planes ready to go in 2050 and 2060. We should be saving money for this generation right now, not just passing it on for the next generation.

I urge an ``aye'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chair, my amendment would reduce funding for the failed Ground- based Midcourse Defense (GMD) program by $404 million. This missile defense program was designed to intercept limited intermediate and long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles before they reenter the Earth's atmosphere. Now, a fine idea. But the only problem is that while this failed missile defense program rarely hits anything, it continues to cost taxpayers billions of dollars.

If we're going to target wasteful spending, then a missile defense program that can't hit its targets is a good place to achieve taxpayer savings. This program has documented failure after failure.

In a time of large deficits and increasing debt, Congress should have to justify every penny that we spend of taxpayer money, and there isn't any justification for spending an additional $400 million on a weapons program that simply doesn't work.

Since 1997, the system has failed more than half its tests, missing its target 9 in 17 times.

The scheduled March flight test was cancelled because they're still evaluating the previous failures.

Lieutenant General Patrick O'Reilly, the Director for the Missile Defense

Agency, testified that the flight test failures weren't because of lack of funds.

In fact, he said:

I don't think those failures would have been avoided if we

would have had a larger or a lesser budget than we had.

This is not a problem that we can solve by throwing more taxpayer money and larger deficits after it. American taxpayers cannot afford a Congress that keeps spending money on programs that don't work.

Now, I'm sure the other side will discuss the issues of why there is strategic importance to a long-range missile threat and to preventing attacks from North Korea and Iran, neither of which currently possess the ability to launch a missile, but a missile defense system that doesn't actually defend against missiles is no defense at all.

My amendment would cut funding for this program by $400 million just as the Government Accountability Office, the GAO, recommended. They took a close look at GMD and settled on a reasonable recommendation, which is that we would cut spending by $403 million. It's what my amendment is.

To quote the GAO:

Until the failure review investigation is completed,

mitigations are developed and proven in ground testing and

then confirmed through flight testing, funding for GMD is

premature.

I wholeheartedly agree with the GAO, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, a missile defense system that doesn't defend against missiles is no defense at all.

With that, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Smith).

I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.

I would like to inquire as to how much time remains on both sides.

What the gentleman from Arizona failed to acknowledge is that the system simply doesn't work--missing its target more than half the time. You can't solve a problem by throwing more government money after it as the gentleman from Arizona is advocating.

I would like to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

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

In closing, I was encouraged to hear my colleague from Colorado say: ``You fund it so you can fix it.'' I hope that quotation can also be used with regard to education and health care in this country, to ensure that everybody has access to a good education and the opportunities it can provide.

My amendment is a small step towards a sane defense budget. It would make a modest cut to a failed program that you simply cannot--by the military's own recognition--expect to fix by continuing to throw good money after bad.

I would urge the House to listen to the experts, listen to our military leaders, listen to independent auditors who are telling us not to throw good money after bad. Let's get the defense budget on the right track by spending money on our servicemembers and our programs that are proven to protect our country successfully. Let's not spend additional money on a missile defense system that simply doesn't work. It should be targeted for savings in this bill. It should be fixed. At that time, we can reconsider additional funding of this program. But there is ample funding with these reductions.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the Polis amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I oppose amendment No. 11. It would delay research and development funding for the NextGen bomber. The bomber is critical to replacing an aging fleet. The new bomber is needed so we don't raid our readiness accounts.

This is about the bomber carrying nuclear weapons. It does a lot more than just carry nukes. It deters aggressors and even provides maritime surveillance, especially in the Asia-Pacific area. Congress opposed a similar amendment last year and, as cochair of the Long Range Strike Caucus, I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment again this year.

Mr. Chair, I rise today in opposition of Mr. Gallegly's Amendment #15 to H.R. 4310, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013.

The Fish and Wildlife Service and the Navy have a long track record of working together on otter conservation through the Integrated Natural Resources Management Plan. The Navy activities have not lead to the harassment of otters off the coast of California, so the provisions to continue Naval exemptions from the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) should be preserved in H.R. 4043.

This amendment takes the necessary step of extending the Navy's exemption allowing ongoing military operations. However, I do not believe that we should be using our Nation's military readiness as a cover for establishing regulations that only benefits a special interest group. I have serious concerns with the broad exemptions for fishermen included in this amendment. Fishermen working south of Point Conception, California would be given incidental take exemptions from the ESA and MMPA indefinitely. This would remove any ability of the Fish and Wildlife Service or any other agency to address problems that may arise with otter recovery as a result of interaction with fisheries. ESA and MMPA exemptions for specific industries undermine the principles of management based on sound science under these statutes and set a dangerous precedent of Congressional micromanagement for political reasons.

The Navy has agreed to continue the management of the sea otters on these installations, in consultation with the Secretary of the Interior. Mr. Schregardus, Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Navy on Environment, testifying before the Fisheries and Oceans Subcommittee, specified that the further provisions have no relevancy to military readiness operations in the region. None of the witnesses present at the hearing could identify how the management actions specified in subsection (g) had any impact on military readiness. Additionally, we have heard testimony from scientists that indicate the concerns for the ongoing viability of the California shellfish industry do not rest on the shoulders of sea otters. Commercial over-harvest and withering disease are the primary culprits to the decline of endangered abalone species. The presence of sea otters and related improvement to the nearshore kelp forest ecosystems can actually benefit abalone.

Southern sea otters are recovering from the devastating fur trade in the 18th and 19th centuries, which almost eliminated them completely. The nearly 2,800 otters that live in the region today have grown from just over 40 individuals that remained on the California coast in the 1930s.

While the population is growing, the recovery of this species is extremely slow. It is very important that our legislative actions do not reverse past conservation successes that have developed as a result of collaboration between the Navy, the Fish and Wildlife Service and other scientists and stakeholders.

I urge adoption of only the naval provisions in this amendment, which would address the national security needs of the nation without compromising the recovery of the southern sea otter.