Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

I reluctantly rise to oppose this measure. I know the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis), the author of the resolution, is one of the great advocates, as are many of the Members who have spoken, of our folks who are in civil service who support not only lots of domestic operations but also military operations, and I appreciate his advocacy for these great Americans.

And I also appreciate the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), the cosponsor, perhaps a guy that I feel is to some degree the conscience of this body and a great leader of this civil service constituency in his district, and also all the other Members who have spoken on behalf of the resolution.

The problem I have with the resolution is this: we have a limited amount of money to operate national defense with this year; and, according to CBO, we are some $30 billion a year behind in modernization. That means new equipment for our forces. That means replacing those 18-year-old helicopters and those 15-year-old fighter aircraft and making up that 8 to $10 billion shortfall in munitions. And we pledged this year, and I pledged, to try to make sure that we shape the defense budget this year in such a way that we try to shift as much as $2 billion into the theater, into the fighting theater where our soldiers and Marines are right now fighting against a very deadly enemy in the theaters in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And that means coming up with extra money for force protection; that means armor for vehicles; new sensor capability to be able to see the battlefield, tell where the enemy is at, and work surgically against him; and also munitions, which are in short supply. We need to recharge our munitions stockpiles because we have expended a great many of them.

For that reason, I hate to see that, if this action is followed by an appropriations shift that takes money from the operational military, and we have calculated roughly $1 billion would come from the operational military, to move it over to accommodate the pay increases above the President's proposal, that means we take $1 billion away from the accounts that do fund the force protection and the munitions and the extra surveillance and sensor capability that we are trying to direct and focus in the Afghan and Iraq battlefields this year. So for that reason, I reluctantly oppose this very well-intentioned motion. I think we need to focus on the task at hand. The emergency at hand is this shooting war that we are in right now.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Professor Richard Hann of Imperial County. Professor Hann recently retired from Imperial Valley College (IVC) after 35 years of devoted service and teaching. I believe it would be accurate to say that Professor Hann has touched the lives of thousands of students during his tenure.

Richard's leadership, enthusiasm for teaching and desire to have students develop and exercise their critical thinking skills as Chairman of the Social Science and Humanities Divisions at IVC will be sorely missed. It is becoming increasingly rare to find educators who exhibit the effort and values Richard instilled into the academic environment at IVC. These were exhibited on a daily basis and earned Professor Hann the respect of his colleagues, students, and college administration.

I also want to recognize and thank Professor Hann for the work he has done on behalf of Imperial and San Diego Counties. During a time where the pursuit of knowledge and the commitment to one's community often becomes an afterthought, your continued efforts to preserve the history of Imperial and San Diego Counties will benefit our communities for years to come. For your work in this important area, we are forever indebted and are all grateful.

Congratulations again on your retirement Professor Hann, I wish you all the best with your future endeavors.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for his sponsorship of this bill and also the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox) for doing so much work on it, but also just to comment that this is not just for the recruiters, that people go to institutions of higher education to avail themselves of thousands of choices for career paths. As we think about the officer corps that is performing right now in theater in Iraq, for example, and we look at the leadership which not only has fought a war and now is working an occupation but is also standing up governments, people who have never talked, who have never voted together, who have never worked things out in a peaceful fashion, bringing them together and standing up governments and introducing the idea of democracy to those who have not entertained it before, that is an exciting occupation. Bringing the prospects for that occupation to be a leader in the Armed Forces of the United States, to be what most American citizens feel are our finest citizens, is a great opportunity. This bill, the Rogers bill, will ensure that those people have that choice. I thank the gentleman for bringing it up.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman, and I appreciate the statement that was just made by my good colleague, the distinguished gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton). Let me explain why I do not agree that the Spratt budget is the best budget.

It is true that we can take more money out of what I would call the operational military, and that is the side of the military from which ammunition, readiness, present operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are funded; and we can move it over to the nonoperational military and give more benefits on that side. The problem with that is that that amounts to a reduction in the operational military.

We have a top line, and that top line is not expanded by the Spratt budget, and that means that the people who are retired, who have great affection for this country and have every right to be treated well by this Nation, also have another interest, and that interest is to see that the people who are in the arena today, in the battlefield today, get every single thing that they can possibly have focused on that battlefield and have those resources focused on that battlefield.

If we take dollars from the operational military from which the theaters are being fought today and move it over to programs that are well-meaning, good programs, but nonetheless programs that are not in the operational military, that means that we have less money to work with while we are in a shooting war.

Mr. Chairman, I wanted to make one second point, though, and that is that we had a good colloquy yesterday, and I thank the gentleman for his concern about housing and about the privatization measures that have been fathered by the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Hefley) and the fact that this cap and the present treatment of those dollars could possibly hinder that construction, continued construction of privatized housing.

I would just say we had a good colloquy with the chairman of the Committee on the Budget and we are taking care of that one. So I want to thank the gentleman for his interest and for his work on this. We are going to take care of that problem.

I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming the time to respond to my friend, I would hope also that we would have a good, robust supplemental later in the year, but I would just say to my friend that the moneys that are going to be available at the start of the next fiscal year in the early fall are going to be there. We might not have this supplemental back until February or January or March, and I think a dollar in the hand is more important than a dollar at a later time.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman and I appreciate the gentleman's point.

Toward that point, we have over the last several years, as the gentleman knows, extended on a bipartisan basis TRICARE for Life, the concurrent receipt program that was put into effect the year before last and then expanded last year.

I would simply say this to my friend: We are, according to CBO, this year, in terms of new equipment for our soldiers, $30 billion underfunded. That means helicopters that are 18.6 years old, that means airplanes that are two-thirds of the Navy's airplanes being over 15 years old. That means that, in my estimation, one of the best ways to build morale for troops in the field is to give them good equipment, so if we have money to spare, I would say--and we are also low on ammunition, as the gentleman knows. We have not met all of our ammunition totals that the Nation is directed to meet by the levels that we have set, with all of our smartest people working on this issue.

So if we are $30 billion behind in terms of giving our young people new equipment, about $10 billion behind on ammunition, that is where we should put the money first, and I think our retired people would agree with that.

I thank my chairman and I thank my good friend, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) for this conversation.

The gentleman is exactly right. We said, let us take money from lesser priorities because we are in a shooting war. And the Republican majority said this: We must redirect that money into the battlefield for force protection for our troops, for ammunition for our troops, and for surveillance capabilities so that we can see these IEDs and we can see the bad guys when they get close to our troops.

So, no, we did not say, let us take that and put that off the operational military and put that into a retirement plan, as good as that might be; we said, we know our retired folks are worried about the troops. We focus that money on theater.

I would just say to my friend, that is where we have to focus the extra dollars, on the theater in the shooting war, and let us win it.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I am concerned that the budget resolution before the House does not address the statutory ceiling on the military housing privatization program. That is a program that was spoken to by my good colleague, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton). Would the gentleman from Iowa clarify the Committee on the Budget's intentions regarding this important program?

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time; and as we speak, we are undertaking the largest redeployment of troops since World War II right now.

We have the 101st Airborne now moving out of theater in Iraq, and they are being replaced by the 1st Striker Division up in the north part of Iraq. We have the 1st Armored Division being replaced by the 1st Cav in the Suni Triangle in the Baghdad area. We have the 4th Infantry Division moving out in the northern part of that triangle and being replaced by the Big Red One, 1st Infantry Division, and we have the 1st Marine Division replacing the All American Division, the 82nd Airborne to the west of Baghdad.

A massive redeployment is just now coming into place or is set for the new soldiers coming in and replacing those who are rotating out, and with that rotation comes the need to continue to supply armor and ammunition and all the technical support and the technological support that is necessary to not only defeat the enemy but also to provide for our men and women in uniform.

We have a similar situation in the Afghanistan theater, and this budget meets the Commander in Chief's request to give him the tools to get the job done, to supply our military forces. It does what it has to do, and I would simply thank the chairman of the Committee on the Budget for putting together a budget that does just that.

Let me just say about the budget on the other side of the aisle, and if I am wrong, I want to be corrected on this, but my understanding is that dollars are moved from what one would call the discretionary side of the defense budget, this means the operational military, money that is spent on weapons systems, on personnel, on readiness, and some of the money is moved over to the mandatory side to go into programs, good programs but nonetheless programs that are not available to the operational military. If it does that, then it provides less to the operational military that is now engaged in a shooting war than the budget that has been put together by the chairman of the Committee on the Budget.

So I wanted to thank my colleagues and all the Members who worked together to put together this budget that gives the fighting forces of the United States the tools to get the job done, and I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time.

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

Mr. Speaker, this is the opportunity for Members of the Committee on Armed Services to talk about our piece of this important resolution, and that is, I think, the most gratifying part of this resolution, which I think we can all join together on and that is commending our great troops who have been carrying out this effort in Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, from the time when they spearheaded this drive up from Kuwait up through the choke points in Nasarea with the Marines out to the east and the Army, the 101st Airborne and the 3rd Infantry Division further to the west and worked up to those choke points at some places where RPGs were coming like volleys of high-tech arrows at those convoys of Humvees and trucks and tanks, to where they got up and went past the bridges before they could be blown, took the positions in the dams before the electronics could be executed to blow those places, and launched one of the most rapid-moving attacks in the history of warfare, with great heroism and great accomplishment, from those days to today when our troops are in this AO, this area of operation, not as much as attackers but in this case defenders of the new freedom of the Iraqi people, and hooking up pipelines and sanitary systems and getting children to school and opening up medical clinics, our people in uniform have performed heroically.

The most important message we can send from the United States House of Representatives is, you did a great job, America's people in uniform. You did a wonderful job for our country. And what you are doing has great value and

will enure to our freedom over the coming decades as well as the freedom of the world.

So, Mr. Speaker, we stand together and even united in commending our troops. I am glad that my colleague, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), is here as my partner on this committee to also commend the troops for the great job that they have done.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his thoughtful statement, and I yield for a unanimous consent request to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton), who is the chairman of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities, who spends more time with the troops than he does with us.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the very distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to let my colleagues know that all Humvees are manufactured unarmored. They are basically big Jeeps, and this Congress has been rushing to armor Humvees in the wake of the new threat known as the IED, the remotely detonated device. We put some $400 million in the last supplemental to pay for that armor.

I just would say to my colleagues, it would have been great if they could have voted with us on that one because that is the funding supplemental that paid for the arming of the Humvees.

I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the idea that you do not armor vehicles because it is not done already at the factory makes no logic to me.

I would urge the gentleman to work with me to continue to armor them, because we are shipping steel in there now.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Forbes).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\3/4\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\3/4\ minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Hefley), who provides all those quality-of-life issues to our uniformed services.

Mr. Speaker, I yield for the purpose of making a unanimous consent request to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Leach).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\3/4\ minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole), a very distinguished member of the Committee on Armed Services.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would just remind my colleagues if I am reading the same resolution they are, this resolution and I quote, commends the Members of the United States Armed Forces and Coalition forces for liberating Iraq and expresses its gratitude for their valiant service to our country. That is not a political statement, that is a commendation, and it should be from all of us, Democrats and Republicans.

I do not read politics into that, and nobody else should.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\3/4\ minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\3/4\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. Miller).

Mr. Speaker, I proudly yield 1\3/4\ minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Turner), a member of our committee.

Mr. Speaker, I would just take a minute to remind my colleague that every single soldier in Iraq has body armor as does every single civilian worker in Iraq and that the gentleman who just spoke voted against the very supplemental that sent that body armor to Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hayes), who has spent so much time with the troops and is home to the 82nd Airborne, the All-American Division.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Calvert), a most distinguished member of the committee.

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

Let me just make a point to the gentleman who just spoke, that every Member in this House received a personal invitation from me for classified briefings dealing directly with our intelligence agencies with the opportunity to ask any question they wanted to ask so that when they made the vote on whether or not we should go into Iraq, they could make an informed vote. I presume that the gentleman accepted that opportunity and made an informed vote based on his own understanding of what the situation was. Let me just reiterate that every person in uniform in Iraq has full body armor, as does every civil servant.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson).

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time

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

This is a picture that Mr. Stavenas of our staff took of a reenlistment ceremony at Saddam Hussein's spider hole in Iraq. It symbolizes the willingness of our military, our soldiers, our people in uniform, to come back under very difficult circumstances and reenlist and continue to fight this wonderful fight for the United States and for freedom. And our soldiers have done a great job for us, and this resolution is commending those soldiers. All those people who wore the uniform of the United States supported our country at a time of need and are continuing to undertake the biggest deployment right now, redeployment, since World War II.

Let us all stand behind them, Republicans and Democrats, cast off the partisan positions that have been taken today on the House floor, and let them know that we support them.

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

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

I just have to remind the distinguished minority leader that, in fact, every troop who is in country now and every civil servant has body armor in the fight, in the fight. Every frontline troop moving up to Baghdad had body armor, and I would say further to the gentlewoman that the Humvees, the jeeps that we have, have never been manufactured with body armor until very recently to meet the new challenge of the IEDs, and we are armoring them in rapid fashion, and many Members on her side voted against the supplemental appropriation that provided both body armor and armor for the Humvees.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. Speaker, it was a frontline troop that moved into the major assault, going up through, leaving Kuwait, last year starting on this anniversary, moving up through Iraq.

Every frontline troop. That meant every troop that was in the front line had both types of body armor; that is, the old type of body armor and the new.

Every one. When they moved across the line, every frontline troop had it. Then what we did was we gave body armor over the last several months not only to the troops that were the frontline troops but every single troop.

Every frontline troop had it when they moved across the line.

When they moved across the line from Kuwait.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman, the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo), for his great work in putting together this bill, particularly for a guy who represents the district where the Barona tribe have had major problems with water. They have had substantial water problems for the last several years. The tribe and the residents of the Old Barona Road have been working together to try to bring this pipeline up from the San Vincente reservoir, up over the saddle that separates the Barona Valley from the reservoir, and provide water in that area. It is expected that the rural residents of the Old Barona Road and the tribe will work together to make sure that there is a connection there off that main pipeline so that everyone can partake of this secure water supply that is not dependent on the well water level in that particular valley.

I thank the chairman, and ask him if that is his intent with this legislation.

I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. This is great legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time.

Let me congratulate my colleague, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), my good partner on the Committee on Armed Services, and all the Members, Republican and Democrat, who helped to put this bill together. I want to thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Myrick), the chairman on the committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), who gave us a lot of time and attention, and all the members of the Committee on Rules.

Let me just say a word or two about what this bill does because this bill makes what I consider to be some sweeping reforms and it is a great bill. It covers a number of major areas, and along with what I call the ``people issues''; that is, the pay raise that has been mentioned, the additional monies for housing that brings down the amount that a service member has to pay out of their pocket, all of the things that go to quality of life for personnel. It also covers some major areas that have needed reform.

One aspect of that is what I call freedom to train, and today if you go to a place like Camp Pendleton, I have used that as an example, it has some 17 miles of shoreline. Only a very small area can actually be utilized for Marines who basically practice Iwo Jima. They practice assaulting a defended beach area. They can only do that practice in a very, very limited area of about one kilometer because of environmental considerations. And if you go to bases around the country, rifle ranges, air space for our Air Force and our other services to undertake integrated training with multiple aircraft, all of that is being hindered and obstructed because of a collision with our environmental laws.

Now, we have an answer to that, and the answer is a management plan called an inramp, and that is where the military gets together with State Fish and Wildlife and Federal Fish and Wildlife and they make an agreement. They make an agreement and they say, okay, the habitat for the gnatcatcher will be over here, we will set aside this 400 acres, and the Marines will have this area for rifle training or the Army will have this area for tank training or the Air Force will have this area for aircraft training.

Once you make that agreement and you put it in place, it is not open for groups to come in and sue under the Endangered Species Act to close down that rifle range, to close down that tank range, to close down that air space that is so vital so that our people can survive in theaters like Iraq and Afghanistan.

So this is offered under the proposition that the real endangered species here is a 19-year-old Marine rifleman who needs the very best training that he can get here at home before he projects American power overseas, and in this bill we put together this balance between conservation and military requirements.

Also, with respect to allowing our submariners to utilize the best of their sonar devices that will keep them alive when they are in the littorals, in shallow water areas around the world, where they will be faced with very quiet diesel submarines which are now being proliferated in certain adversaries' navies. We say that, whereas before the standard was that if a mammal, maybe a sea lion, was potentially disturbed that military training could not take place in his neighborhood. Now we say he has to actually be significantly disturbed. He has to actually be disturbed or that disturbance has to be significant enough to alter the way he migrates or feeds or the way he goes about his daily life.

So we are trying to give as much value to the sailors' survival as we have given to the sea lions' survival. I think that is a good balance. In this case we put the sailor ahead of the sea lion. I think the American people want that.

With respect to personnel, right now we are facing a war that is a new war. It is a war in which we see terrorists with high technology. We have to be flexible. We have to move quickly, and that involves people who not just wear the uniform of the United States, it also involves people who wear the civil service uniform.

So we are empowering Mr. Rumsfeld with the ability to reshape his civil service so that instead of taking 4 or 5 or 6 months to go through the bureaucracy to qualify a civil servant to work at a job so you get to the point where you just direct a sergeant to go do it and he salutes and goes and does it, we will now be able to quickly move civil servants into that job. We will be able to hire them quickly, and when people show an extraordinary ability to work and an enthusiasm and dedication that rises above the community, that they will be rewarded for that. And we have tested these ideas in pilot projects around the country, and the members who have participated in the pilot projects have voted that they like it.

So we are undertaking important reforms in this bill. We are giving the military the tools they need to fight this new type of war. I would urge everyone to support the rule and support the bill.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, and we are going to describe during the general debate the great industrial base provisions, like the machine tool provision that we came out of this conference with, some excellent stuff.

But with respect to titanium, we know that we have three major makers of titanium left in this country. Otherwise, you have to rely on foreign sources. I want to thank the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hayes) personally for putting together the working group between industry and the Air Force and Members who are interested, and putting together what we call the basket approach to titanium.

The basket approach says basically this: If you are going to take a domestic system, like the planes that are candidates for this tanker operation, and you convert them into a military system, right now the Berry Amendment says you have to use American-made titanium on American military systems.

We have agreed that since some of these civilian aircraft will have some foreign-made titanium, we got with the industry leaders and they agreed that they would take and require the same amount of American titanium, with in fact a 10 percent increase, and spread that across the rest of their lines to make up for the foreign titanium that was in those civilian aircraft. I have talked with industry leaders. They feel a strong commitment to that policy.

I want to thank the gentleman for putting that in place. I think it is going to accrue to the benefit of not only our tanker program, but also the health of the titanium industry.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 437, I call up the conference report on the bill (H.R. 1588), to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2004 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe personnel strengths for such fiscal year for the Armed Forces, and for other purposes.

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

Mr. Speaker, first, I want to thank all of my colleagues who participated in putting this bill together from the earliest hearing that we had early in the year on the threat that America faces, on the status of our Armed Forces, and on what we need to do to give the President and our troops the tools to get the job done. My partner, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), is every bit a 50-50 partner in this operation, Mr. Speaker. When we really get down to what it takes to protect our freedom, there are no Republicans or Democrats, and we have a very bipartisan committee, and I am proud of that. I want to thank the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) as not just a friend, but a real full partner in helping to shape America's defenses, along with all of the members on the Democrat side on the Committee on Armed Services and, of course, our great, great folks on the Republican side, along with the subcommittee chairmen and ranking members who have done such a great job.

Now, Mr. Speaker, we face a new era. This is an era of what I would call terrorists with high technology; and probably Jim Woolsey said it best when he said we have killed the big dragon, that is, we have disassembled the Soviet Union, but there are lots of poisonous snakes out there, and we are seeing those poisonous snakes and the effect of their bites every day around the world, not just in the theatres in Afghanistan and Iraq, but elsewhere. And I think probably the American people since 9-11 still have an acute understanding of the venom and the poison that is manifest in that capability of our adversaries in this new era of terrorists with high technology.

Our job is to meet that threat, and our job is further, in meeting that threat, to shape the U.S. military and our defense apparatus to meet the threat, to defeat it, and to equip it; to give it the tools that it needs to do its job most effectively, and this bill does that, Mr. Speaker.

I wanted to talk about a number of issues with respect to this bill. This is a sweeping bill; and it does a number of reforms, a number of changes, a number of things that I think are important to change our military as we move into this new era.

Let me talk about, first just talk about the last subject that came up during the rule, and that is the tankers. Because, yes, the tanker agreement is in this bill. Let me tell my colleagues a little bit about that.

First, anyone who does a security analysis or a briefing on potential threats around this world and present threats understands that tankers are extremely important. I just might add that I undertook a series of classified and unclassified briefings, as have most members of the Committee on Armed Services over the last many years, and paramount to our ability to project power is American air power.

Whether we are talking about B-2 bombers that can fly literally from Whiteman Air Base to strike a target in Kosovo with precision munitions, or talking about tactical aircraft flying off a carrier and hitting targets in Afghanistan or Iraq, we need tankers. Tankers, that big gas station in the sky that the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt) talked about, are necessary to project American air power. If we have American air power and, specifically, if we have stealth, and we couple that stealth with precision munitions, that is, instead of carpet- bombing a bridge, we send in that one precision munition, it hits one strut on that bridge and brings the whole bridge down, if we have that combination and we have the legs to get it there over the target in whatever remote part of the world we are operating in, we can project American power, we can protect our military forces, and we can drive them in a blitzkrieg attack against the enemy target, whether it is enemy forces surrounding Baghdad or some other area of the world; and Americans now understand that.

So we have to have tankers. If we do scenarios around the world, every single scenario requires lots of American tankers and, I might say, Mr. Speaker, more than we have now, newer than we have now, more capable than we have now. That is the reason we are putting the tanker deal together, and that is the reason that this is being carried in this bill.

Now, let me tell my colleagues, with respect to personnel, we have had some arm wrestling over this. But I think that the guy with whom we are trusting millions of young American lives, the Secretary of Defense, can be trusted with reshaping our personnel system in civil service in the Department of Defense to be more effective, and I think be more rewarding for those workers. I think they like the idea that we are going to be able to hire people right out of that job fair instead of telling them, in 3 months, maybe the Federal Government can hire you, while IBM and the private concerns are picking them up immediately. I like the idea that they are going to be able to be qualified for a job within a few days instead of after 3 or 4 months of bureaucracy, and that will allow them to take jobs that military people are doing now. When we have tested these things in places like China Lake, a majority of the workers, the workers have voted that they like this new system, this new flexible personnel system. This is an important new part of shaping the military.

So I think that is good.

Freedom to train, Mr. Speaker, we have talked about that. We have to give our young people the freedom to train, and once we make that agreement that the bird hatchery is going to be over here and the rifle range is going to be over here, we cannot let groups then go sue to close down the rifle range on the basis that they want to get that one too. We have to allow a balance to be maintained. One Marine said it best. He said to our members of the Committee on Armed Services, he said, for years we have done work-arounds. He said, we cannot work around it anymore, there is no land left to work around. So we need to have this. This is very, very important legislation, freedom-to-train legislation, Mr. Speaker.

Let me talk about the industrial base. We have got in this bill a great foundation for bringing back and maintaining the industrial base of this

country, and the centerpiece of this is what I think is the centerpiece of American production, the machine tool industry of this country, which used to be second to none. We have a provision in this bill, it is not a mandatory provision, so it is not going to make anybody have to go in and take out billions of dollars of machine tools, but it says that if you are an American contractor bidding on a DOD job, if you use an American machine tool instead of a foreign machine tool, you are going to get points in the competition. And I think that is going to incentivize some of our companies, big and small, to say instead of looking at another foreign-made machine tool, let us call up that American company and see what they have. Maybe we can use that machine tool. And that is going to, I believe, Mr. Speaker, start to bring back this base of machine tools upon which a lot of our defense manufacturing capability was founded. We do a lot of other great things in our industrial-based provisions, Mr. Speaker; but that is the centerpiece, and I think it is a very important foundation.

Now, we also reauthorize for 10 years the maritime security program. This is a program that brings in the strong right arm of America's maritime unions and makes sure that they are the ones that are moving men and materiel across the ocean into theaters of action instead of having to rely on rental operations where we are taking unions and working people from other countries and having to rely on foreign personnel to move the wherewithal for military victories around the world. That is what is going to bring our maritime unions, our ship- builders, and our maritime operators back into preeminence; and we have worked hard on that, Mr. Speaker, and that is a great aspect of this bill.

Concurrent receipt is very important, Mr. Speaker. We started out last year by saying people who are actually hit in combat, people who have won the Purple Heart, are going to get now two checks. They get the full check for everything that they have been disabled, for all of their disability, and they get the full check for their retirement for everything that they have done to serve the U.S. military. We now also say, and incidentally, I see the gentleman from New York (Mr. McHugh) here, our chairman of the Subcommittee on Total Force, who very much has been a leader in putting this thing together. We also now are going to give full concurrent receipt, that is that full disability check, to all of those people who are wounded in the combat area or who are disabled or hurt in the combat area, who are hurt or disabled while training for combat. Maybe that guy who is jumping out at the 82nd Airborne, with the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg hurt his back, he is going to get it; and also people who are hit by instrumentalities of combat, like people who are hit by agent orange, Mr. Speaker. Then we go to the entire population of veterans who were not hurt in combat, were not hit by enemy bullets, were not hurt while training for combat but, nonetheless, have disabilities. And all of those people who are over 50 percent, Mr. Speaker, are going to receive both checks.

Now, that is going to bring in about 250,000 people, new people into the system. It is a big, big victory for veterans. It is a wonderful thing.

Mr. Speaker, let me just say, too, along with the gentleman from New York (Mr. McHugh), the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), obviously, the guy that I call the father of concurrent receipt, it has been a big part of his career. And the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt), lots of great people; I might say that Senator Warner also, working on Purple Heart Plus last year, had a good hand in starting to put this thing together, lots and lots of people. Lots of our veterans and veteran supporters in this House have been involved in putting this program together. This is a great program.

Mr. Speaker, this is a great bill. It is a far-reaching bill. It gives the President and the troops the tools to get the job done. Let us pass this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton), who is chairman of the Subcommittee on Unconventional Warfare, Terrorism and Capabilities and oversees these very important special operations forces who are doing such a great job for our country.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. McHugh), who has a high responsibility of overseeing the total force of the military, our Reserves, our Active, our Guard, with respect to all the personnel issues, pay, personnel issues, family benefits, the chairman of the Subcommittee on Total Force.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks.)

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

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is correct. Section 135 of the conference report does authorize a tanker acquisition program as did the Fiscal Year 2002 Defense Appropriations Act.

The gentleman is again correct. Section 131 codifies an agreement reached with the administration. The conferees relied upon a letter sent on November 5, 2003, to the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Armed Services in the other body by the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Mr. Wolfowitz, in coming to agreement on the tanker acquisition program authorized by section 135.

The gentleman is correct. Section 135 authorizes the Air Force to enter into one contract for 100 aircraft, 20 by lease and 80 by purchase, or more than one contract for the same combination of aircraft.

The gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt) is correct. The conferees in their joint report language agree that this section would ``authorize the Secretary to enter into a multi-year procurement program, using incremental funding.'' This language indicates that the multi-year procurement program authorized by section 135 would allow the Air Force to make payments as agreed to in the contract and that the Air Force would not be required to have the full budget authority required to purchase an aircraft in order to place an order for that aircraft under the contract.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time, and I want to thank my colleagues for cosponsoring this resolution and for the initiative of the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Davis) on this resolution.

And, Mr. Speaker, I thought I would lead off simply by reading the names of the people who lost their lives in this fire. Steven Rucker, Galen Blacklidge, Christy-Anne Seiler Davis, Edward Downs, Nancy Morphew, Mary Peace, Asleigh Roach, Stephen Shacklett, James Shohara, Solange Shohara, Randy Shohara, Robin Sloan, Jennifer Sloan, Ralph Westy, Charles Cunningham, James McDermith, Chad Williams, Gene Knowles. And there are some other names which have not yet been released, and we will recount them when they are released.

Mr. Speaker, this was a time of enormous disaster and tragedy for our colleagues and for our neighbors and friends who lived in our communities who have lost so much, some who have lost their lives. It is also a time of great heroism. And I was reminded as the stories came in of the firefighters and the valiant stands that they were making as they were trying to keep these fires from advancing into our neighborhoods. I was reminded that all the heroism that is displayed by uniformed services in this country are not just being displayed on the battlefields of the Middle East, but rather in these battles that we undertake in the West, especially all over the country, but for some reason during this season in the West and those Santa Ana winds come up, those battles are to protect our communities against fire.

And it was very moving to be out yesterday and the day before when we carried the body of Steve Rucker, who was the Novato firefighter who has been so eloquently described by my colleagues, when we carried his body to the C-130 to take him home. And I rode in the procession with Maureen McDonald, who is the wife of Doug McDonald, who was Steven's partner, who also was caught by this fire, and who was burned over 30 percent of his body and is currently doing well in San Diego in the hospital.

And I was taken by the great bravery and the eloquence of this lady, this Maureen McDonald whose own husband was in very difficult condition, but who was focusing all of her attention on the Rucker family. When I asked her to talk a little bit about how she had gotten to know the Ruckers, she said something that will always stick with me: She said, ``I met them in the glow of the birth of their first child.'' So she had met them right after they had that first baby, and that was Kerstin, who now is some 7 years old, Wesley is now 2. But for me that personalized this fire.

And this country enjoys not only great freedoms, but a wonderful, wonderful way of life. I mean, every part of this country has great charm, but for us in California, most of us can go to the ocean fairly easily, fairly quickly, one can go to the desert within a couple miles from almost any part of southern California, one can go to the mountains, those great, beautiful mountains. You can raise your family in these wonderful, wonderful surroundings. And yet we have some dangers and some tragedies that we are protected from by those people that wear the uniform of the various firefighting units and communities.

And I noticed as Steve Rucker's body was being carried to the C-130 that that community is one community as they all lined up. It was indeed seamless. There were not individual areas or districts represented. They were all firefighters. They were all people who gave so much so that we might have this great wonderful life that we enjoy in California and other places.

So, Mr. Speaker, I saw the coming together of the firefighters, all these units they came in to honor Steve Rucker. And also it was good to see the President come out with the outgoing Governor of California, Gray Davis, stand side by side with him and the incoming Governor, Mr. Schwarzenegger, and to see them all together after some heavy duty political arm wrestling to all unite in common cause. And the common cause was to thank the people that wear firefighting uniforms.

I think that the language of the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Davis) in this resolution very eloquently expresses that, and, certainly, I want to thank her and everyone who participated in putting this resolution together.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize an important business in my district celebrating it's 50th anniversary. In 1953, Bert Gross, James Lowry and Daniel Brimm joined together to start Chemtronics, Inc., a local small-business specializing in technology that could remove metal in a very rapid and controlled manner. Chem- tronics, Inc. was incorporated in October 1953, with company offices and chemical etching facilities set up in rented World War II surplus barracks on Gillespie Field in El Cajon, California.

Early sales efforts were focused on aircraft frames and skins but they soon realized that the chemical milling process could be applied advantageously to jet engine components as well. With this new opportunity, the company embarked on a campaign to earn a contract with General Electric Co., working on their TF-39 jet engine. From the middle 1960's into the early 1970's, Chem-tronics Inc., built around nine hundred of these parts.

By the early 70's, tools and trained personnel were developed for repairing and accurately reforming titanium fan blades for jet engines utilizing a process patented by the company. This activity has expanded in scope and size over the years and is now a major element of the business with its own specialized management and marketing staff, known as Aviation Repair, also located in El Cajon, California.

Chem-tronics, Inc., while still small, was becoming recognized as a high quality product-producing, vertically integrated, one-stop-shop facility. By 1975, Chem-tronics had products on space launch systems, most of the larger commercial airframes, and several of General Electric Co. and Pratt & Whitney Co.'s larger commercial jet engines.

During this same period of time, Daniel Brimm, who had bought out his earlier partners, developed a unique integral stiffening feature with chemical milling that he patented called Unistructure. This was a critical turning point in the success of Chem-tronics, Inc. Since 1976, Unistructure stiffened light-weight products have been designed and built for virtually every new By-pass Outer Duct for every military jet engine built in the USA. Driven by a company commitment to provide each customer with a one-stop-shop, Chem-tronics began to supply complete product design services in 1978, which included computer aided design and computer, aided manufacturing.

The trend of expanding Chem-tronics' technology has continued over the years with increasing levels of production, factory floor space, manpower and facilities. Major customers include General Electric Co., Pratt and Whitney Aircraft, Rolls-Royce-Allison, Allied Signal, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Boeing. Through these customers, Chem-tronics' products have become an important part of military and commercial aircraft, such as the B-1B and B2 Bombers, Joint Strike Fighter, F22 Raptor, as well as the space shuttle and various space launch systems.

The current president, James Legler, joined the company in 1978. Through his leadership, Chem-tronics, Inc. has continued to grow as an aerospace industry leader in technology, quality products, and commitment to customer satisfaction. My fellow colleagues, Chem- tronics, Inc. represents the small-business spirit that made America great. Join me in congratulating this company for their success in creating jobs, providing critical services and products to our country's national security, and making the San Diego community proud for 50 years.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2755) to authorize the President to issue posthumously to the late William ``Billy'' Mitchell a commission as Major General, United States Army.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 2755, the bill under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, today we have the opportunity to look back on the life of one of our Nation's great air power visionaries, General William ``Billy'' Mitchell, a man of immense energy, leadership and foresight. Like many men who strived to change the status quo and turn great institutions to a more enlightened course, he was a man whose contributions were not rewarded during his lifetime. H.R. 2755 corrects that oversight by calling for the President to grant him a commission in the grade of Major General.

I want to, first of all, commend the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bass) for renewing my interest in this issue and providing this House with a great opportunity to honor an American hero.

From the earliest days of his military career, after enlistment at age 18 in 1898 during the Spanish-American War, Billy Mitchell stood out from the crowd. As a 32-year-old Captain in 1912, he was assigned to the Army General Staff as its youngest member. It was during this time that he began to understand the potential for air power to dominate the battlefield and, interestingly, the potential that we have seen reached so dramatically in this last campaign in the Iraqi theater.

After commanding America's war component during World War I, he returned to become the Deputy Commander of the Air Service in the grade of Brigadier General. It was from this position that he pressed his attack on the Navy and the Army for being insufficiently farsighted regarding air power. His demand to improve air power funding gained instant credibility after his bombers sank the captured German battleship Ostfriesland and several other warships in the summer and fall of 1921 in a very public, and for the Navy a very embarrassing, test of the capabilities of bomber aircraft.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, during that test a number of naval leaders were in an observation ship not far from these ships that Billy Mitchell's aircraft were demolishing, and there was a complaint, at least a thought, that perhaps he had directed some of the bombs be dropped not too far away from the observation ship so that the naval leadership could appreciate the full value of air power.

Billy Mitchell continued to make the case for enhanced air power even after he was removed from his position in the Air Service and exiled as a Colonel to be the Air Officer at VIII Corps in Texas. His relations with superiors soured as his rhetoric took on an accusatory tone.

After the crash of the Navy dirigible Shenandoah that killed 14 crew members, Billy Mitchell declared senior military leaders as incompetent and guilty of ``almost treasonable administration of national defense.'' That was the last straw for many in the military, the White House, and the Congress. Billy Mitchell's court-martial for insubordination followed, and he left active duty in 1926 after he was found guilty and sentenced to a loss of pay for 5 years. Even after separation, Billy Mitchell remained in the public eye and continued to be a very effective advocate for air power.

Mr. Speaker, it is an unfortunate reality that the truly visionary people that herald important changes are often outcasts in the system they are trying to change. Our Nation is indeed fortunate that we had a man of Billy Mitchell's courage and leadership working for air power.

Without Billy Mitchell, the combat victories we savor today, that have relied so heavily on air power, may never have happened. It was Billy Mitchell who jump-started an awareness of the importance of the strategic bombing mission that has proven so pivotal in each of America's wars in the 20th century and now in this war on terrorism, the first war of the 21st century.

Mr. Speaker, the least that we must do is honor this great man with the promotion he was denied while serving his country. Again, I want to thank the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bass) for the opportunity to honor Billy Mitchell.

Mr. Speaker, I reviewed Billy Mitchell's writings that he published and gave to all the leadership in the administration in the early 1920s, after he had toured what he considered to be the world's problem areas, where this great man of vision attempted to project and analyze where America's next threat would come from. More than a decade before Pearl Harbor, Billy Mitchell predicted that at some point that American strategic strong point would be struck by a low-level early morning Japanese air attack.

Interestingly, this gentleman of vision not only published his theories but he went out and spent a great deal of time backing them up with observations and putting in lots of time, and he made America aware of the importance of air power. He let us know that we were in the age of air power and that if we did not dominate in air power we would be dominated.

I have always thought we need a Billy Mitchell in this age, in this age of missiles, and that if we do not build an adequate defense against missiles, at some point we will see an enemy missile striking the American mainland and striking our troops in theater.

He was a visionary, Mr. Speaker, a guy who ruffled a lot of feathers, made a lot of people angry, and in the end demolished his own career. Yet he left as a legacy an understanding of the importance of a factor which has been of such major importance of each of the wars in this last century and this first war of this new century and that is the importance of air power. So I would urge adoption of H.R. 2755.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bass).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns).

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

Mr. Speaker, no Americans were killed by enemy air power in this last conflict in the Iraqi theater nor in the Afghanistan theater, nor in several theaters before that because the United States totally dominated the air. I think it is fair to say that every time every F-18 driver, every F-14 driver, every A-10, and everyone else who flies an aircraft, whether it is an attack bird or recon bird or a transport or a bomber aircraft, carries with them a little bit of the legacy of General Billy Mitchell. A lot of folks make decisions in the Pentagon and take positions for which they are never rewarded. I think it is fitting and proper that we are making this decision even at this late date to recognize this great American.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bass) for moving this important legislation recognizing a great American, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to one of the great Americans of the last century, Dr. Edward Teller, who passed away on the 9th of September and said of his own accomplishments, ``What I did, I did because it was necessary, not to be remembered. The little contributions I made in pure science, I am proud of those, and whomever wants to remember that, fine.'' But Dr. Edward Teller deserves to be remembered, and it is important that we remember him because he perhaps more than anyone else in American science believed that we could achieve peace in the world through military strength. He did everything he could to rally a community of scientists, technical people, engineers to back up the political leadership in this country when we were faced with an enormous military adversary in the Soviet Union. And ultimately as the Soviet ambassador said when he left at the end of his tenure upon the collapse of the Soviet Empire, the Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative, which was largely Edward Teller's, hastened the fall of the Soviet Empire by a full half decade.

Dr. Teller died at age 95 of a stroke at his home in Palo Alto where he had worked for the past 28 years as a senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, a towering source of American intellect and ideals, both literally and figuratively. Just a few days earlier, he had put in his last day of work at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory which he cofounded with his fellow University of California professor, Ernest Lawrence, 51 years ago this month, and where he labored prodigiously for the American cause ever since.

Characteristically on his last Livermore workday, he was reviewing recent technical developments concerning a new source of nuclear energy, an area he was deeply engaged in the past 64 years and upon which topic he coauthored a seminal scientific paper 70 years ago that is still widely referenced today.

But what makes Teller unique among all of the rest of the greats of our time is a vision and courage that he manifested in a most difficult, too-little-remembered era already a half century in our Nation's past when Americans and the other free people in the world came into serious confrontation with the empire led by the Soviet Union.

In the late 1930s, Teller and many others, more than a few being fellow refugees from Hitler's tyranny, had answered President Franklin Roosevelt's call to commit their technical talents to the defense of freedom against the clear and present danger of fascism with historic consequences known to us all. A decade later in the late 1940s when the world's free peoples faced another grave, but less clearly perceived, totalitarian threat, Teller rallied and led American scientists and engineers in providing American political leaders with the key technical means for withstanding the Soviet challenge. He continued his exemplary leadership for the following quarter century until one of our greatest Presidents, Ronald Reagan, sounded the call for the conclusive campaign of the Cold War. Then already at an age when most are content to rest, Edward Teller again rallied and marshaled his professional colleagues from all over America to create the technical core of the interlock set of philosophical, political, economic, and military challenges that Reagan launched at the Soviet Empire, resulting in its unexpectedly swift, bloodless, and utter collapse.

Mr. Speaker, Teller's technical genius and near solitary perseverance gave the United States crucial first access to the most fearsome weaponry, and the vision that he shared with Ernest Lawrence in founding the second laboratory concerned with nuclear weaponry that has endured and ensured America's weaponry excellence through its brilliantly conceived, supremely effective appeal to innate American competitiveness, and as we will do very well to remember this Teller- Lawrence lesson regarding the surpassing importance of competition- based technical preeminence in all crucial national security programs, very specifically including nuclear weaponry, for every bit as long as it takes to undergird America's national security.

It was Edward Teller's Churchillian-quality vision, his simple eloquence, and his unwaivering moral courage, and not just once but twice facing down multitudes of those less committed to the effective defense of traditional Western values, and yes to the triumph of the American cause, that we should most honor and longest remember. To be sure, Edward Teller made mistakes, and he acknowledged and regretted them; but they dwindle into complete insignificance when viewed against his monumental accomplishments on behalf of all Americans and indeed all freedom-loving people everywhere.

Mr. Speaker, I am reminded when Dr. Teller talked about going to meet Albert Einstein in 1939 and asking a little girl skipping rope if she knew where

Dr. Einstein lived. She said no as she was skipping the rope. He finally asked about the guy with the big fuzzy white hair, and she directed him to the correct door. He went in with two other physicists and together with Albert Einstein they wrote the letter to FDR that changed the world. Edward Teller was a great scientist. He was also a great American.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize a gifted and talented local artist from the San Diego area, my friend, Mark Martensen. Mark was asked by his hometown of Chula Vista to create a sculpture that will be displayed outside the city's new fire station in Otay Ranch. Mark's piece, as yet unnamed, will be unveiled on September 11, 2003, serving as a lasting memorial to the brave firefighters who risk their lives to protect ours.

Born and raised in Chula Vista, Mark has been making a living selling his western art for 20 years. Described as his generation's Olaf Wieghorst, San Diego's most recognized western artist, Mark is represented in art galleries all over California, Arizona, New Mexico and Indiana.

A few years ago, Mark presented the Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, General Charles Krulak, with a bronze sculpture he created of Lt. Gen. Chesty Puller, a hero and legend to all Marines. General Krulak was deeply impressed with Mark's work and clearly moved. Just as impressed was President Bush when, earlier this year, Mark and I went to the White House to give the President a bronze he created titled ``Texas Skip.''

As plans for the new fire station were finalized, it was determined that the facility must include some type of public art. Mark was a natural choice, and he has not disappointed. His first life-size sculpture, weighing 700 pounds and depicting a veteran firefighter with his hand on the shoulder of a kneeling rookie, required 15-hour work days for three months. The piece will stand on a pedestal in front of the firehouse with water falling from the fireman's hose.

In 1985, President Reagan told recipients of the National Medal of Arts that, ``Where there's liberty, art succeeds.'' This couldn't be more true. Generations of San Diegans will have the opportunity to admire Mark's work and reflect both upon the sacrifices and the privilege of living in our great nation. Thank you Mark for using your talents to remind us about what is important.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 1588) to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2004 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe personnel strengths for such fiscal year for the Armed Forces, and for other purposes, with a Senate amendment thereto, disagree to the Senate amendment, and agree to the conference asked by the Senate.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman from Missouri for yielding.

This unanimous-consent request allows the House and Senate Armed Services Committees to formally begin conference.

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

Mr. Speaker, this provision which is in the House-passed bill is a provision that was agreed to by the vice-chairman of the committee, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon), and the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) last year. It was restated this year. It is the House position going into conference. For that reason, we are certainly not going to urge anybody to vote against it.

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

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I just want to thank the gentleman for his participation as a great member of the committee. I did have and do have my reservations about his position, but it was an agreement between the gentleman from Pennsylvania and the gentleman from South Carolina and it is the position of the House. We are now going into conference with the other body, and I think it is appropriate to carry the House position forward.

I thank the gentleman for his thoughtful words.

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

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 12 of House rule XXII, I move that meetings of the conference between the House and Senate on H.R. 1588 may be closed to the public at such times as classified national security information may be broached, provided that any sitting Member of Congress shall be entitled to attend any meeting of the conference.