Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 106th Congress, Second Session, Volume 146, Part 12 Page: 16,655
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July 27, 2000
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE
million for the Cancer Center of Excel-
lence-this latter add a reminder that
if you call something a "center of ex-
cellence" you are assured of being a
beneficiary of Congress's largess.
Mr. President, I do not take issue
with research into important health
problems affecting millions of Ameri-
cans. But the abuse of the defense
budget grows every year. It has long
been used as a cash-cow for pet
projects, but did that have to extend to
the allocation of millions of dollars for
programs of such exceedingly low pri-
ority that they don't even show up on
already politicized unfunded priority
lists?
Astronomical Active Optics, Mr.
President, were deemed worthy of over
$3 million in defense funds, as was coal
based advanced thermally stable jet
fuel. Fifteen million dollars for the
Maui Space Surveillance System, an-
other annual add, $5 million for the Ha-
waii Federal Health Care Network, $8
million for the Pacific Island Health
Care Referral Program, $1 million for
the Alaska Federal Health Care Net-
work, $1.5 million for AlaskAlert, $7
million for MILES 2000 equipment at
Fort Wainwright, Alaska, $7.5 million
for a C-130 simulator for the Alaska
National Guard, the annual $10 million
for utilidor repairs at Eielson Air
Force Base and Fort Wainwright, Alas-
ka, and $21 million for an unmanned
threat emitter system for Eielson, and
$7 million to sustain operations at
Adak Naval Air Station, an installa-
tion of apparently marginal utility or
the Navy would include it in its fund-
ing request. Re-use of Fort Greely,
Alaska, receives $7 million for airfield
improvement. One of my favorites,
$300,000 for the Circum-Pacific Council
for the Crowding the Rim Summit Ini-
tiative, represents a new addition to
this list.
The inclusion of so-called "Buy
American" provisions continue to
waste billions of dollars every year.
These out-dated protectionist policies
serve neither U.S. nor allied interests.
It goes against the basic logical policy
of getting the best product for the best
price for the men and women who wear
our nation's uniform. Additionally,
these provisions, for example, the re-
quirement to purchase only propellers
manufactured in the United States,
were added in conference-a practice
with which I take strong exception and
will discuss further in a minute.
I have repeatedly addressed the grow-
ing perversion of the process by which
budget requests and service Unfunded
Priority Lists are put together. It has
been clear for several years now that
the services are under considerable po-
litical pressure from Capitol Hill to in-
clude in their budget requests or, at a
minimum, on the Unfunded Priority
Lists, unnecessary and unwanted
items. Funding for the ubiquitous LHD
amphibious assault ship for Mississippiis the classic example of this phe-
nomenon. Indeed, the Defense Depart-
ment and the Navy's rejection in the
past of proposals to incrementally fund
ships has given way to unrelenting
pressure from members of Congress to
so fund the LHD. Similarly, C-130s and
passenger jets are routinely added to
the UFR lists solely as a result of po-
litical pressure. In effect, then, my ef-
forts at highlighting pork-barrel spend-
ing have resulted to some degree in the
problem being pushed underground.
That's called progress in Congress. It's
called deception everywhere else.
The fiscal year 2001 defense appro-
priations conference report takes the
problem a major step further. The in-
tegrity of the budget process is under a
new and devastating assault by the Ap-
propriations Committee. There is in
this conference report language speci-
fying the very weapon systems the
committee expects to see included in
future budget submissions. It is a long
list prefaced with the warning that
"the conferees expect the component
commanders to give priority consider-
ation to the following items .
which it then goes on to detail.
Finally, I would like to address the
equally fascinating tendency of the Ap-
propriations Committees to arrive at
final budget numbers that exceed what
was in either House or Senate bill. It is
my understanding that conference is a
process whereby differences between
respective bills are the subject of nego-
tiations resulting in agreements that
either match one of the two numbers in
question or find a compromise in be-
tween. I find it interesting, therefore,
that this conference report has 166 in-
stances of final numbers exceeding
those that were in either bill. In many
instances, funding was added in con-
ference for which none was included in
either chamber's bill. For example, $17
million was added in conference for a
capital purchase plan for Pearl Harbor,
and $10 million materialized for modi-
fications to M113 armored personnel
carriers. There is $10 million in the
conference report which was in neither
bill to continue the artificial issue of
test firing Starstreak missiles, and $1
million for natural gas microturbines.
In this bill vital for our national de-
fense is $1.7 million for the South Flor-
ida Ocean Management Center and $1
million for Community Hospital Tele-
health Competition. And, of course, the
$60 million for CINCPAC's new 737 was
added in conference. For none of these
programs, totaling over $200 million,
was funding included in either the
House or the Senate bill.
The total dollar amount for the en-
tire category of conference items for
which no funding was included in ei-
ther chamber's bill or for which the
final number exceeds what was in ei-
ther bill is over $2 billion. Two billion
dollars, Mr. President, in unrequested,
unnecessary items that emerged mirac-ulously in conference. I've heard of the
fog of war resulting in horrendous cas-
ualties, but I'm perplexed by this fog of
negotiating that results in horrendous
budgets.
Sadly, Mr. President, I could go on
for another hour. I think, however,
that I have made my point. The $7 mil-
lion in the defense bill for the
Magdalena Ridge Observatory in New
Mexico, combined with the aforemen-
tioned adds for Astronomical Active
Optics and the Maui Space Surveil-
lance System leads me to ponder the
universe of pork-barrel spending at a
higher philosophical plane than in the
past. We are adding millions of dollars
every year to the defense bill so that
we may better scan the heavens, per-
haps as part of an ultimately futile ef-
fort to better understand our place in
the cosmos. Only by applying such
logic to the process of reviewing spend-
ing bills upon which we vote, however,
can I hope to understand the phe-
nomenon by which we regularly send
billions of dollars down a black hole.
At the end of the day, I guess Ein-
stein's theory of relativity, as well as
Newtonian laws of gravity, are at the
center of the budget process. The prac-
tice of pork-barrel spending has been
out of control for years; only now can
we take it to a cosmic level never be-
fore contemplated.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous con-
sent that the list to which I referred be
printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the mate-
rial was ordered to be printed in the
RECORD, as follows:
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE CONFERENCE REPORT FOR
FISCAL YEAR 2001 OUT OF SCOPE ITEMS (THOUSANDS)Program
Defense Acquisition Univer-
sity .......................
Defense Finance & Account-
ing Service .......................
Army National Guard Infor-
mation Mgt ............
UH-60 Blackhawk Helicopter
TH-47 Kiowa Warrior Heli-
copter..............
M113 Armored Personnel
Carrier Upgrades........
Special Purpose Vehicles.
National Guard Multi-role
Bridge Co.'s ...........
Launched Grapnel Hooks.
AV-8B Litening Targeting
Pods .....................
Shoulder-fired Lightweight
Assault Weapon 83 mm
HEDP.....................
Capital Purchase Plan (Pearl
H arbor) ............................
Air Traffic Control On-board
Trainer ...................
Shipboard Programmable In-
tegratedsCommunication
Terminals ...............
F/A-18 Technical Manual
Digitizationh...... .
Advanced Technical Informa-
tion System ......................
Boeing 737 for CINCPAC Ex-
ecutive Jet..... .....
Integrated Bridge System for
NSW Rigid Inflatable Boat
NatI Guard WMD Civil Sup-
port Team Equip ..............
Emergency Support Heli-Bas-
ket.......................
Tank Trajectory Correctable
Munition .................
Air Force Cntr of Acquisition
Reengineering ..................Budget House Senate Con-
ference$100,331
1,416
20,115
64,651
1,021
0
40,639
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0$100,331
1,416
25,115
183,371
1,800
0
1,021
0
0
40,6390
0
3,000
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0$100,331
1,416
20,115
120,451
0
1,021
0
81,139$102,331
2,416
27,315
189,601
24,000
10,000
6,671
1,000
1,000
120,639
5,000
17,000
4,000
3,000
5,200
2,000
60,000
4,000
900
2,500
3,000
2,0000
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
016655
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United States. Congress. Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 106th Congress, Second Session, Volume 146, Part 12, book, 2000; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc31030/m1/96/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.