Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment to the FY 2004 Defense Appropriations Act that would prohibit any funds in this act from being used to carry out activities in 2004 related to the next round of Base Realignment and Closure, or BRAC, currently authorized to take place in 2005.

The purpose is to put a hold on the implementation of BRAC-related activities until Congress and the Department of Defense can get a better handle on the expected savings, anticipated force structure and infrastructure changes, and the actual need for additional closures.

As many of my colleagues know, in 2001, the Defense Department testified to Congress that it has 20 to 25 percent excess physical capacity that must be eliminated, so the President's fiscal 2002 budget proposal to Congress requested authorization to carry out another round of base closures.

As part of the FY 2002 Defense Authorization Act, the Senate authorized a BRAC round to take place in 2005. The House specifically refused to include any such BRAC authorization in its version of the bill, but this body did agree to the Senate's BRAC provision when it passed the conference report to the FY 2002 authorization bill.

To date, we have gone through four different rounds of military base closure process, in 1989, 1991, 1993, and 1995. Through these rounds, we saw the BRAC commission's result in the closing of over 450 military installations of various size, mission and stature in the United States.

Nearly everyone currently involved in this process agrees that all the low-hanging fruit have already been picked. Yet the current administration succeeded in enacting another round for 2005 following the horrific events of September 11, 2001. On December 28, 2001, just a little more than 3 months after those deadly attacks, and 3 days after Christmas, the President signed into law the FY 2002 defense authorization bill, which included the BRAC authorization provision at his request.

The administration seems to sincerely believe there is a 20 to 25 percent excess military infrastructure, and the administration has a laudable goal of finding additional savings in the defense budget to free up funds for procurement and new weapons systems.

Specifically, the Department of Defense claims that it could save as much as $6.6 billion per year with an additional round of base closures. But there are many reasons to question both the Department's rationale and its estimates.

First, this Congress deserves to know the details about the suggested excess capacity. Is it 20 percent? 25 percent? 23 percent? The 5 percent difference is not insignificant, particularly when you are talking about the hundreds of U.S. military bases. And where is that excess capacity exactly?

Furthermore, DOD estimates that it eliminated 71,000 Federal civilian jobs and 39,800 military positions in the past four BRAC rounds. Unfortunately, no one could give me an estimate of how many of those jobs were transferred to private contractors still paid through DOD contracts. Eliminating military positions, only to replace them with private contractors, raises doubts about any potential savings.

Regarding the estimated savings from additional base closures, I must advise the House of an April 2002 Government Accounting Office, GAO, report that indicates the previous four base closure rounds have produced a net savings of $16.7 billion through FY 2001. GAO, however, admits that these are the Defense Department's numbers and that they could not be independently verified because DOD's accounting systems are not oriented to identifying and tracking savings.

GAO further noted that the estimates do not include a cumulative $1.5 billion cost incurred by the Federal Government to assist communities affected by the closure process or $3.5 billion in environmental costs expected beyond FY 2001. Because the BRAC savings estimates cannot be supported by real data, the GAO report had to affirm the DOD numbers, while characterizing the savings as ``imprecise and rough approximations.''

The Members of this body need to understand that when Defense Department officials talk about so-called savings from a BRAC round, they are not talking about real cost savings. Most of the so-called cost savings are actually cost avoidances.

DOD also claims that it needs savings from BRAC to fund new weapons systems in support of the military transformation. However, the first few years of a BRAC round requires hundreds of millions of dollars in upfront investments costs. This includes upfront costs for new military construction, for relocated troops and families, new MILCON dollars for realigned missions, new money for environmental restoration and base conveyance procedures.

To complicate the problem, DOD still does not have solid data on costs of environmental clean up. Our current information indicates that environmental clean-up costs have exceeded $10 billion, and the estimated environmental costs beyond 2001 rose from $2.4 billion in 1999 to $3.5 billion as stated in last year's GAO report on purported BRAC savings.

Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Installations and Environment, Ray DuBois, summed it up well when he told the DOD Roundtable in December 2002 the following: ``The excess capacity statistic, which the Secretary and others, including myself, have referred to, is based on a 1998 capacity utilization study. It is true that there is excess capacity in some range of 20 to 25 percent, but that is a clumsy number insofar as it is an aggregate number.''

He goes on to say: ``Remember that BRAC is not inexpensive. BRAC will probably end up costing the Department of Defense, over a 4- to 6-year period, depending upon how large the BRAC is, depending upon how much capacity you are reducing, and by definition, how much you are realigning it, it could cost 10 to $20 billion over that period of time.''

Mr. Chairman, I ask for my colleagues to support the amendment to limit the funding for BRAC in this appropriations bill.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote; and pending that, I make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the amendment in the nature of a substitute. This amendment inserts a so-called ``health exception'' in the ban.

I hope my colleagues will realize that this substitute would completely destroy the ban on partial-birth abortions. The amendment relies upon an outrageously broad definition of health that would effectively allow the doctor to determine that any circumstance qualifies for a ``health exception.''

That means that a doctor could prescribe a partial-birth abortion because a mother is suffering from temporary depression or any number of other such circumstances.

The mother's depression should be taken seriously and she should receive the best care possible, but snuffing out the life of her child is not a good cure for depression.

In fact, partial-birth abortion has a great likelihood of being injurious to a woman's health--the doctor, while jabbing a pair of scissors into the child, could also stab the mother, as well.

The Subcommittee on the Constitution held hearings on the Partial Birth Abortion Ban on March 25, and during that hearing, Dr. Mark Neerhof testified that hemorrhage, infection, and uterine perforation are all possible results of partial birth abortion. These women are put at greater risk of severe bleeding, uterine rupture, and death, as well.

Women deserve better. Do not sell women short by making them pawns of abortion providers. It is not right to murder children--we should make strides to help these mothers without killing their children.

Every child is precious in God's eyes, and we must learn to look at all children and their parents through God's eyes.

I urge my colleagues to support the ban on partial-birth abortion, and to oppose the substitute.

Mr. Speaker, even though I generally do not support amending the Constitution, today I rise in strong support of this proposed constitutional amendment.

We have come here today because five individuals in black robes have opined that we must tolerate flag desecration as protected speech. As a result of that opinion, 48 States and the District of Columbia have decided not to enforce their own laws prohibiting the desecration of the flag of the United States of America.

Clearly, I believe the Supreme Court has it wrong. The flag is a unique symbol that merits our special recognition. The flag represents our freedom, our history, and our values as a Nation. In battles spanning 2 centuries in all corners of the globe, the flag has served as an inspiration and rallying point for U.S. soldiers fighting for the ideals it embodies.

More than a million Americans have given their lives in defense of our flag and our unique way of life. Many of those who gave the last full measure of devotion in serving their Nation were honored with a flag draped over their caskets. This proposed amendment places the debate exactly where our framers intended for it to take place, in the town halls across America. It is the American people, not the Supreme Court, that have the ultimate responsibility to answer constitutional questions. And that is encouraging to me, Mr. Speaker, because as it was suggested earlier that we act today to amend the Constitution because of the vulgarization of society, I believe we are here actually today because of the facilitation of the vulgarization of society by the highest Court in the land, the Supreme Court of the United States.

Forty-nine State legislatures, including my home State of Indiana, have passed resolutions asking that Congress approve this amendment to the Constitution. Moreover, Mr. Speaker, I find the words of the Pledge of Allegiance telling: ``I Pledge Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands.''

I would underscore that this simple phrase recited every morning in this

very Chamber pledges our allegiance not only to the Republic but to the flag itself. Mr. Speaker, others will argue that the ideals of the flag are the only things that are worth protecting. I must respectfully disagree with their argument.

The flag itself occupies a unique place in our Republic. It is the one symbol that merits our allegiance. Why do we continue to pledge our devotion and support to a flag if we are not willing to protect it from desecration? I urge my colleagues to support the proposed amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that in the engrossment of the bill, H.R. 975, the Clerk be authorized to make technical corrections and conforming changes to the bill.