Segment 2 Of 2     Previous Hearing Segment(1)

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THE PRESIDENT'S LINE–ITEM VETO ACTION ON FISCAL YEAR 1998 DEFENSE AND MILITARY CONSTRUCTION APPROPRIATIONS BILLS

House of Representatives,

Committee on National Security,

Washington, DC, Wednesday, October 22, 1997.

    The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:10 a.m., in room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Floyd Spence [chairman of the committee] presiding.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FLOYD D. SPENCE, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY

    The CHAIRMAN [presiding]. Good morning. The committee will please come to order.

    Before I make my opening statement, I would like to do something that hasn't been done in a good while. We used to have down here in front of the podium a quotation from Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution and it reads as follows: ''The Congress shall have the power to raise and support armies, provide and maintain a navy, and make rules for the Government and regulations of the land and naval forces.'' A lot of times people forget that very important part of our Constitution which gives the power, and indeed the duty, to the Congress to provide valid military forces.
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    The administration submits a budget, usually at the beginning of every year as a budget request. The Congress has hearing, and in its wisdom—or lack of it—has to approve and add to this budget. That's how the system is supposed to work.

    This morning the committee meets to receive testimony on the President's recent use of line-item veto authority to cancel 38 military construction projects and 13 line-item appropriations supporting various other programs of the Department of Defense [DOD].

    Although the disposition of line-item veto will essentially remain within the purview of the Committee on Appropriations, it is important for this committee to help fully establish the record on the specific items that the President has canceled, the rationale underlying the cancellations, and the effect the delay of these projects and programs may have on our Armed Forces.

    To date, the President has exercised a line-item veto authority on five measures passed by Congress, canceling 62 specific items. Fifty-one of these sixty-two items were defense related. Given chronic shortfalls in the Defense budget, the President's cancellation of many of these projects, including many that are contained in his own 5-year plan, is troubling.

    Earlier this year, Congress reached an agreement with the President on the budget. Both the Military Construction Appropriations Act and the Department of Defense Appropriations Act of fiscal year 1998 are within the limits for defense spending established by the budget agreement. In providing for the needs of the military services, Congress kept its part of the bargain.
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    In one sense, the President's line-item vetoes represent a partial repudiation of the budget agreement. Over $430 million which has been made available for defense under the agreement will now be permanently unavailable unless the cancellations are overturned by Congress; which is unlikely.

    Of particular concern with the President's line-item veto, were 38 military construction projects and the questionable rationale underlying many of these vetoes. The President's cancellations amount to roughly $287 million, or 3 percent of the total military-construction [MILCON] bill. Over 85 percent of the military construction funds canceled by the President supported projects in the administration's own 5-year plan. And contrary to the President's expressed criteria, many of these projects are executable beginning this fiscal year.

    It is a well-documented reality that military infrastructure is being neglected. In fact, the President's budget request for fiscal year 1998 was $1.6 billion less than fiscal year 1997 spending levels. Of course, the result of the years of neglect is to ask an increasing number of our men and women in uniform and their families to live and work in antiquated facilities. What is so frustrating is that instead of working with Congress in the face of this intolerable situation, the President chose confrontation.

    Our distinguished witnesses today are principal financial control officers in the military services. I would note for the record, that both the Director of the Office of Management and Budget [OMB], Franklin Raines; and the Deputy Secretary of Defense, John Hamre were invited to testify this morning. Both declined to appear and neither OMB nor the Department of Defense offered appropriate witnesses in their place. Nonetheless, we are fortunate that our witnesses here today were available.
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    While our witnesses today should not be expected to answer questions that require characterizing or judging the President's decisions, they are certainly able to answer questions as to the procedures utilized by the Department of Defense as well as questions concerning the nature and value of these specific projects which were canceled by the President.

    Before proceeding, let me first recognize the distinguished gentleman from California, the committee's ranking Democrat, Mr. Dellums, for any comments he would like to make.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Spence can be found in the appendix on page 41.]

STATMENT OF HON. RONALD V. DELLUMS, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY

    Mr. DELLUMS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee.

    It is difficult to know precisely how to approach this hearing today. It is partly a review of the exercise of new Presidential prerogative; it is partly, in this gentleman's opinion, a requiem for an ill-advised disfiguration of the Constitution of the United States in its allocation of powers among the branches of Government.

    Of course, Mr. Chairman, I join with you in welcoming our distinguished witnesses today. I welcome whatever insight they can offer to specific concerns that members may have regarding the particular items that attracted sufficient attention in the White House to warrant the President singling them out for a line-item veto. However, despite their obvious qualifications for the management positions they so ably discharge in their respective services, I doubt, very seriously, Mr. Chairman, if our witnesses are in a position to provide sufficient illumination of the formulation that went into the decisions provoking today's predictable howls of outrage.
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    Mr. Chairman, I would have wanted to hold a hearing at the time when we could have had the senior policy staff of the executive branch, and I would have joined with you in pressing for their availability; you commented to that in your opening remarks—I'm now making reference to such persons as Mr. Raines and Mr. Hamre. As I understand it, it wasn't so much that they weren't willing to come, they could not come today. Their lack of availability today, in my opinion, Mr. Chairman, renders the committee oversight process that much less effective.

    In this vain, I would also note that we're discussing the matter of line-item vetoes of provisions contained in appropriations bills—ones that do not originate in our committee. And, I would remind my colleagues and underscore for emphasis, that we still do not have a conference report on the authorization process, and here we are holding a hearing on the appropriations process.

    Stepping back, Mr. Chairman, from this particular moment may allow us to appreciate the delicious irony and dilemma that we now face. We would not be here today were it not for the passage of legislation that undid the Constitution's carefully constructed balance of legislative power between the President and the Congress. It provides that all legislative powers be vested in the Congress and that the President may either approve a bill—an entire bill—or reject it with a veto.

    On former President Ronald Reagan's birthday in 1995, and in pursuit of its Contract With America, the congressional majority pressed forward with a bill to unravel this carefully constructed balance. With that, the Congress ushered in an era in which the executive would be allowed to legislate as well; to reach into a bill and undo the intent and balancing that has been worked through the legislative process. During the debate, Mr. Chairman, several members of this committee argued in support of granting the President this power. I would remind my colleagues, one Member said, and I quote, ''I am proud to stand here today in support of this important budget control issue. Let us pass the line-item veto and help eliminate unnecessary and wasteful government spending,'' end of quote. Another noted, and I quote, ''Opponents of the line-item veto say that they believe that it would take power away from the Congress and give it to the President, but I see it as a way of taking power away from the pork-barrel programs and giving it to the people who want to cut spending and reduce the deficit,'' end of quote.
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    Mr. Chairman, it was then, and remains my view: to reject the attempt to unravel the balance of constitutional powers, this Member noted during the debate on the floor that the framers of the Constitution did not want nor anticipate that Presidential vetoes would become a regular part of the legislative process. Rather, as I have studied the Federalist Papers, they believed that a check on the power of the legislature—that is the people's branch—should be used only rarely and only on matters of broad National interest. With the line-item veto, we have both unhinged the balance of power between the branches and assured ourselves and our progeny that the veto would be a regular instrument of the legislative process. And, today, Mr. Chairman, some who find themselves supporters of the line-item veto now bemoan the practical consequence of this change in governmental process—that is actual veto to use the power we gave you.

    In response to this new reality, some have alleged that the President's decisions were made for political reasons. Some have asserted that the vetoes compromise the legislative prerogatives of the Congress. And, some have argued that the President has stricken programs that achieve important military objectives. While I find it interesting to hear our witnesses views on the merits of the items cut out of the appropriations bill, let us take these assertions at the hypothetical level one at a time.

    First, the assertion of politics: let us not in this committee pretend that politics does not enter into consideration of things we do. While every member of this committee strives to promote only those programs that they truly believe are in the National Security interest, representing one's district and advancing those concerns in committee are also appropriate. But it is also a political act as well, and we should be careful when we accuse the President of politics. That's what this committee is also all about.
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    Second, the role of Congress in legislating: this goes to the heart of the line-item veto issue. We want to have the exclusive power of balancing competing interests within the Congress, some of which are parochially based, some of which are ideologically based, and some of which are policy based. We all know that the resolution of differences and disagreements and the inclusion or exclusion of provisions of our bills score differently on each of these issues of measures of merit. But having given the President the power to reach in and undo the balance, it seems obvious that any President would chose to do so. Once you give the Presidents the power, they're going to use it. If we want to control the process of legislating, then we should take back the line-item veto power we injudiciously provided to the executive.

    Third and finally, regarding the issue of military utility: the measure of military utility is a matter of obvious debate. It is why we eliminate and add things to the President's budget request—Mr. Chairman spoke of that in his opening remarks—and why our bill never is a direct reflection of the budget submitted. We can debate the issues endlessly. And, I would stipulate that there are some military utility of each of the items vetoed. But legislating is about making choices and priorities. Having surrendered an important aspect of the control of the legislative process, we can complain and disagree with the President's judgement, but we should be careful about complaining of the execution of the prerogative that this institution has granted to all Presidents.

    Finally, Mr. Chairman, I would believe that it is appropriate to have a dialog with the administration regarding our Nation's military priorities, and I would hope that once we are passed this hearing, that we will move back into a mode in which we seek out the opinion of the Department, and we work collaboratively to establish appropriate priorities within the fiscal constraints that bind us.
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    And with those opening remarks and observations, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your generosity, and I yield back the balance of my time.

    The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.

    General Gill, why don't you start off. And, without objection, all the witnesses statements will be submitted for the record.

STATEMENT OF MAJ. GEN. CLAIR F. GILL, DIRECTOR, ARMY BUDGET, OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY; ACCOMPANIED BY REAR ADM. JAMES F. AMERAULT, DIRECTOR OF BUDGET, FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT DIVISION, DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY, AND MAJ. GEN. GEORGE T. STRINGER, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE AIR FORCE FOR BUDGET, DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE

    General GILL. Sir, you got my opening statement. I would just tell you that the Army had, of the 36 added projects in 1998, we had line-item vetoed 14 projects for a value of $110.35 million. I'm prepared to answer any questions you have.

    The CHAIRMAN. Admiral.

    Admiral AMERAULT. Yes, sir. You have my statement for the record, sir. I have nothing to add to that except to reiterate the fact that the Navy does appreciate the continued support of this committee for all of its programs. I'm ready to answer questions, sir.
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    General STRINGER. Likewise, sir. My statement is there for the record. We had 13 military construction projects and 4 programs in the larger Defense bill that were line-item vetoed, and I'm prepared to answer questions on each of those. And, like the other services, we continue to be very appreciative of this committee's support of both the Air Force program in its entirety, and specifically the military construction program. I'll be happy to answer your questions.

    [The prepared statements of General Gill, Admiral Amerault, and General Stringer can be found in the appendix on pages 42, 46, 48.]

    The CHAIRMAN. Well, thank you. Everyone does have your prepared statements. I don't know whether they have had time to read them or not, but in any event, I'm sure we will have some questions.

    Mr. Dellums.

    Mr. DELLUMS. Mr. Chairman, I would yield; I would reserve my time and yield to the more junior members.

    The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Hansen.

    Mr. HANSEN. Well, I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    I appreciate the opportunity to be here and to review what these gentlemen have brought. I'm disappointed that Mr. Hamre isn't here; I would like to ask him a few questions.
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    Let me point out, Mr. Chairman, that a few years ago it was determined that little old Fort Douglas, which was closed in the first round of rot, could keep a couple of areas open. One of those would be the 96 Army Command [ARCOM]. Keep in mind that Fort Douglas was originally put there in 1850-something to take care of the Mormon uprising. They were able to get that done and that's behind us. Little by little, we could all figure out—yea, we got her done—that maybe the University of Utah was going to go all around this place. And it did; it encompassed it. And so, we've been peeling of pieces of the military bit by bit. The 96 ARCOM, which is a very valuable part of what we do out there for the about four western States, and I knew that they were going to have to move part of their stuff.

    And, so they looked down about 20 miles to a place called Camp Williams, and this is a National Guard area. And we brought in the Under Secretary of the Army; we brought in a lot of people from the Pentagon; we brought in the generals from both the Governor's office and also the 96 ARCOM; and finally we agreed that the 96 ARCOM would move part of their unit down to Camp Williams and experiment. They thought it would cost $20 million, but with a lot of work of my staff and others, we were able to cut that down. We got the State to donate the ground to them. We got a lot of things done to work it out.

    Now, let me add to that: in 1995, in Budapest, the Governor of the State and half the officials of the West were standing there, and the fellow that was the head of the Olympic games stood up and the world watched, and he said, ''In 2002, Salt Lake City will get the winter games.'' And everybody was euphoric. How wonderful that this great thing was going to happen to the United States of America. And guess who came on television? William Jefferson Clinton himself. And he made the statement as he stood in front of all these people, ''This just isn't the State of Utah that will get this, this is also the whole United States, and I pledge the Federal Government will do everything in their power to do this.''
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    Now, let's go back to the 96 ARCOM. Everyone said this is a very reasonable thing because we can move this part-and-parcel down to Camp Williams and take that 20 acres and create the Olympic village. And the Olympic village is where these athletes would be. And the money is there to do it. Low and behold, with that great support of the President, many of us worked our little heads off and put it in there. And, I want to compliment my good friend, Joel Hefley of MILCON who put it together, and all of the hours that the Army spent working on this thing to get it there. I thank you, general, for doing that.

    Then, lo and behold, it's vetoed. Our Governor called up and said, ''Oh, gee, we didn't realize that.'' First question, general: did they talk to anybody over there before they vetoed these things?

    General GILL. Sir, nobody spoke specifically to me, but there was data exchanged on it at the staff level prior to the line-item veto, and that information formed the basis to create a series of criteria to do the line-item veto. We did not participate——

    Mr. HANSEN. General, let me just say this: in regard to the gentleman from California's statement about the line-item veto, I voted for it—and I'd like the gentleman to know that—however, I was under the impression that we had a deal with the White House on this and that the deal was all worked out and nothing would be vetoed. And I just wanted to add that, if I may, to my friend from California.

    They tell us from the White House, that this was the reason they did this: the projects were not requested by the Pentagon—now Under Secretary Johnson told us it was requested—; the construction could not be started in 1998—now that is wrong, in this instance. Isn't that correct? It can be started in 1998?
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    General GILL. Given the engineering definition of it, can you execute a project in 1998, meaning that you could let a contract? We have testified earlier and hold by the fact that our experience indicates that the project could be executed in fiscal year 1998.

    Mr. HANSEN. That's what we're given to understand. And the Governor has it right there in his office. So the first two criteria, they're wrong. And, any construction that would result in the substantial improvement in the quality of life of service members and their families; well, I guess they're wrong on all three counts.

    General, I don't hold you accountable for that. I appreciate the great work you do and I just wanted you to hear that story. I feel much better having told you that. Thank you. [Laughter.]

    The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Skelton.

    Mr. SKELTON. I have no questions. However, I do wish to welcome Gen. Clair Gill, late of Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri, to his new position here in the Pentagon, and wish you continued success.

    At this point I yield to my colleague Mr. Sisisky.

    Mr. SISISKY. I thank the gentleman from Missouri. Good morning to you all.
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    I had the distinction, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, to have the largest veto in the veto resolution. The President vetoed a project in my district that would have demolished out-of-date structures and built a wharf at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. Strangely enough, it was not done in the middle of the night. The distinguished chairman of the Military Construction Committee and his staff saw the project a year ago before we even put it in there.

    The stated criteria was that it: First, wasn't requested in the fiscal year 1998 budget; second, wouldn't improve quality of life for the military; and third, architect and engineering design had not started making it unlikely construction could begin in fiscal year 1998. On the first criteria, I'll grant this project wasn't in the fiscal year 1998 budget; it was in the Navy's 2001 budget. But, with respect to the other two criteria, I think the Office of Management and Budget blew it.

    If they had done their homework, and I have already discussed this with Mr. Raines, OMB would have known this project was at 35 percent design in April 1996, and that's about 18 months ago. At first, I thought the Navy might be trying to back peddle by saying that it wasn't really that far along. Then I discovered the issue might involve which account the Architect & Engineering [A and E] money came from. And then I learned that when OMB and the White House called DOD and the questions were forwarded to the Navy, I don't even think they asked about that project. There were three projects about which OMB simply didn't ask any questions. And guess what, the Norfolk Naval Shipyard project was one of them. OMB didn't know, and it didn't want to know—''My mind's made up, don't confuse me with the facts.'' The main thing is, I don't believe anybody at OMB or the White House had a clue about what this project was, or what it did.

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    The Navy life cycle costs report analysis—now listen to this—showed the project paid for itself in 2 years and saved $169 million over the standard 25-year cycle. Was OMB or anyone else aware of that? The committee was.

    Second, have the decision makers ever been in a naval shipyard? Are they aware that when ships come in, a great deal of work is done by sailors? And, I could understand if they just wrote off quality of life for Federal employees—unfortunately, that's been going on for years—but among others items included in this project were little things like sanitary service facilities, adequate fire protection, and safe utilities. Was OMB or anyone else aware of that?

    So contrary to the criteria, OMB recommended the veto of a project that would have made substantial improvements to military quality of life. And unless they think, contrary to the Constitution, Congress has no role to play in determining the best priorities, I think they have some explaining to do.

    Mr. Chairman, with all due respect, today's witnesses were not the decisionmakers in this. I thank them for being here and for their service to our country, but their testimony agrees that they answer questions put to them by Office of the Secretary of Defense [OSD], and they simply weren't asked any questions about my project.

    But I still have questions for OMB, but not for this panel. One of them: did OMB review every project added by Congress? And, how did OMB decide which projects to look at? Second, how did OMB develop their veto criteria? And third, the most basic information about a construction project is from form 1391. Did OMB have 1391's on any project, and did OMB consult the 1391's?
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    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Sisisky.

    Mr. Saxton.

    Mr. SAXTON. First, let me thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    Let me say to my friend the ranking member, I supported the line-item veto with full knowledge that it certainly provide for some transfer of power from the legislative branch to the administration. But we would also be delinquent in our duties, I believe, where we disagree with the administration, if we didn't say so. And, to that extent, I still support the line-item veto, but I take some exception with some of the decisions that were made in the administration. I think that's fair, and I think you would agree with that.

    Let me talk about an issue that has very, I think, great importance to the men and women who serve in the services, particularly the U.S. Army. General Gill—and I guess Mr. Hefley said this right—a little while ago I said, ''Do you know what General Gill's job is over at the Pentagon?'' ''No,'' he said, ''But he drew the short straw, that's why he is here today.'' [Laughter]

    I'd just take issue with one of the veto items that has to do—I happen to be familiar with it because I happen to be from New Jersey. It is not in my district, but it has, I think, a very, very important aspect to the life and health of the people who serve, particularly in the U.S. Army because they are the most directly affected by it.
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    In the northern part of New Jersey is located Picatanny Arsenal. It's not in my district. And, one of the projects that is underway there, pursuant to the President's instructions, is a program, Mr. Chairman, to find more helpful ways of doing business for the men and women who serve in the U.S. Army. This program was funded through a spending program—not a physical location, but a spending program—known as the Gallows Center, which is a partnership based at Picatanny Arsenal in conjunction with the New Jersey Institute of Technology, NJIT.

    And the goals of this organization were stated on August 3, 1993 in the President's executive order 12856, and I quote from it—the executive order that I just referenced directs that, ''all Federal agencies conduct their facility management and acquisition activities so that, to the maximum extent practicable, the quality of toxic chemicals entering the waste stream, including any releases into the environment, are reduced as expeditiously as possible through source reduction; and help encourage markets to clean technologies and safe alternatives to extremely hazardous substances or toxic chemicals through reversions to specifications and standards, etcetera, etcetera; the acquisitions and procurement process and the testing and innovative pollution prevention technologies at Federal facilities or in acquisitions.''

    Now, this relates directly to what was—or is—underway with regard to this Gallows Center operation to clean up discharges from firing firearms because of lead poison. As a matter of fact, the New Jersey National Guard estimates that at least 16 National Guard indoor firing ranges were closed because of lead contamination which was the subject of study through the use of these moneys. And, in April, the Environmental Protection Agency, pursuant to this administration's prerogatives, ordered the Massachusetts military reservation on Cape Cod to stop firing live ammunition because it feared that lead from spent bullets was contaminating the area's drinking water supply.
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    And so, in spite of the fact that the President issued the Executive order that I referenced; and in spite of the fact that we have these kind's of problems ongoing; in spite of the fact that the mission, through the expenditures of these moneys, was to correct, or work toward correcting these problems, the President saw fit to line-item veto these funds. Which doesn't seem fair to me. It doesn't seem fair to the people who take a deep breath after they fire their rifle at an indoor range. It doesn't seem fair to the people in Cape Cod who have to drink the water that has apparently become contaminated because of our activities. And yet, for some reason, which goes unexplained to me, the President saw fit to line-item veto this provision. And frankly, Mr. Dellums, I disagree with the President's action in this case.

    So, does the Army plan to include—general, do you know if the Army plans to include—funding for the Gallows Center in the fiscal year 1999 budget request?

    General GILL. Mr. Saxton, the National Defense Center for Environmental Excellence, which is located at the Gallows Center, is funded by the Army and the Defense Department in 1998 at $5.269 million. My information has it, that in 1999, the NDCEE is to become self sustaining. It is a research and development center—I'm not sure how they get their money, but it becomes self sustaining in the future.

    What is in question here is an additional $4.0 million to do the environmental Army military related work that you described in fiscal year in 1998 and was line-item vetoed by the administration. We've added—or we've—$5.-some worth of effort in that. We don't plan to fund it in 1999, if my information is correct, because of it becoming self sustaining.
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    Mr. SAXTON. General, there seems to be some inconsistencies here. I understand all that and I agree with your analysis as far as it goes, but, then we have the President issuing an Executive order saying that we need to act with some determination and as fast as we can, and then we have Under Secretary for Environmental Security Sheri Goodman saying, and I quote her, ''We need to be sure that we are doing all we can.'' Well, we're not doing all we can because we vetoed the moneys. We need to do all we can to fund P-II which is pollution prevention opportunities to meet the legal requirements.

    Obviously, we're not in compliance with the legal requirements or we wouldn't have to stop firing on Cape Cod or elsewhere. And yet, I've got more quotes here that I could give you from officials in DOD saying how important this is; from the President himself issuing an Executive order saying how important this is; and yet the President vetoed.

    You know, obviously, we're not going to turn this around today, but I hope that everybody understands that it is an important program and the men in women that go into the Army and the other services who are subjected to breathing and working in the environment, in my opinion, we need to match our actions with the words that are on these pages. I thank you for your attention to it.

    Mr. Chairman, I——

    Mr. DELLUMS. Would the gentleman yield briefly to me?

    Mr. SAXTON. I'd be happy to.
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    Mr. DELLUMS. I thank the gentleman.

    Two of my colleagues referred to the comment that I made. First, let me say to you that we wouldn't be here if we had not provided this extraordinary power to the President. That's one of the comments I'm making.

    Second, I don't disagree. And, I certainly believe that it's fair for people to have concerns about the actions taken by the President. I'm simply saying that the creative tension that allows us to balance back and forth—whether the gentleman's project in New Jersey is an appropriate one or not—is a process that should remain within the confines of the legislative processes. It is here that we attempt to work these matters out. And that is all this gentleman is trying to say. It's not that each time the President would pick up the pen and use the line-item veto, someone's going to scream, and someone's going to have an intelligent rationale for why they scream. I don't suggest that that's not fair, I'm simply saying to you: First, we shouldn't have given that power in the first place; and second, those powers and those prerogatives ought to stay within the confines of the legislative process and let us back and forth given the creative tensions that lie among us on ideological grounds, on parochial grounds, on policy grounds to work these matters out.

    Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Chairman? May I just ask unanimous consent that my entire statement and questions be included in the record following my exchange with General Gill.

    The CHAIRMAN. Without objection.
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    Mr. SAXTON. Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Saxton can be found in the appendix on page 54.]

    The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Ortiz.

    Mr. ORTIZ. I don't have any questions at this time.

    The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Pickett.

    Mr. PICKETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    In looking at the—and I know that our witnesses here today are not the ones that took the action about which some of the members, including me, are not too happy today, so, again I want to compliment you for your service. But, in observing the criteria used by the White House, I'm rather shocked that safety didn't enter into their consideration of projects that would be fully justified by additions here in the Congress. The air operations facility at the Naval Air Station in Norfolk was one of the projects in which I was interested. And, this was not a project that was based on obscure or speculative information.

    I visit each of the military bases in my district each year and talk personally with the commanding officer and ask them what their priorities are and why their No. 1 priority is the No. 1 priority. And in this case, they told me it was there as No. 1 because of safety considerations. Now the existing facility had been constructed in 1940, over 50 years ago, and it has become totally inadequate.
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    The Naval Air Station at Norfolk is one of the busiest air stations in the air mobility command system. It consistently ranks first or second in total aircraft handled. And it has a significant impact on the operation of the air mobility fleet.

    Here is a statement that astounds me that no consideration is given to it. ''The existing combined air operations facility is located inside the runway primary surface and is a clear violation of air field safety, clearance zone criteria.'' So, here's a project, or here's a facility that's in violation of existing criteria that if it were a commercial or private enterprise, we'd have the Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] and the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] and all the other alphabet soup down there investigating. But because it's military, this risk still remains, and it's a safety hazard. And, I'm astounded that the administration would not see fit to include safety as one of the criteria that they want to see applied in making sure that money was being well spent. And, I can assure the administration, if they are listening, that this project is indeed essential, and the money for it would be well spent in the interest of safety.

    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Pickett.

    Mr. Buyer.

    Mr. BUYER. Mr. Chairman, thank you.

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    First of all, I'd open up and I would like to have a question with you, Mr. Chairman. And that would be: I'm rather appalled that OMB and OSD would ignore the request of you, the Chair, to come to this hearing. And, my question to you, Mr. Chairman, is: what are we going to do? I consider that a complete affront of the executive branch to the legislative branch for them not to come here today. The questions that I have in the process that has taken place—we're not here to beat up the generals and the admiral here—we want to understand the process that took place and how they even set forth criteria in their poor management style at OMB. So, I'd like to know what we're going to do as far as this committee. Will it require a vote for a subpoena? If so, I'll make the motion.

    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Will the gentleman yield?

    Mr. BUYER. I've asked a question of the chairman?

    The CHAIRMAN. Just a minute, Mr. Abercrombie.

    I was just trying to look at my opening statement——

    Mr. BUYER. I'll yield to Mr. Abercrombie while the Chair is——

    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Buyer, did I understand you correctly that you're making an inquiry about subpoenaing OMB and OSD? Is that right?

    Mr. BUYER. I was just asking the Chairman, Mr. Abercrombie, what the process——
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    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I was just wondering whether you were looking for help? [Laughter.]

    Mr. BUYER. Mr. Abercrombie, if it is necessary, I would be more than happy to subpoena OMB and OSD to come here to testify.

    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Well, the same thought occurred to me. You sure you don't want to withdraw it now?

    Mr. BUYER. Perhaps it's a joint motion by Mr. Abercrombie and myself.

    The CHAIRMAN. If the gentlemen would allow the Chair to interject something at this time. That is certainly an option we might—could—rely on that way of proceeding. We had hoped that even though they couldn't be here this morning for whatever reason, I don't know. You can draw your own conclusions from that. They were offered the opportunity to appear, and, as I said in my opening statement, they didn't offer any appropriate kind of reason why they couldn't. They just declined. It was not a matter of they couldn't work it out because they had a conflict at this time or those kinds of things. There was no kind of explanation that was given. They just declined.

    I do want to make an observation at this time too: that I understand that these gentlemen that we have here today are not the ones who can answer the questions that most of us want to have answered. And I understand that. And they are put in a very uncomfortable position being here. I would just at this time like to make the point.
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    Reading from the statement of Admiral Amerault: ''The Navy provided data regarding nine of the vetoed projects in answer to a request from the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The information concerned design, status, mission, centrality, and executeability in fiscal year 1998. The data was consistent with that previously provided to the committee.'' And, the committee, the way I understand it, had looked into these things and based their decision partly on what was furnished by the different services. The Navy was not asked by OSD to provide any information on 3 of the 12 projects as pointed out by Mr. Sisisky.

    General Stringer, this is from the prepared statements that weren't [sic] delivered and most of you have these: ''I want to stay upfront, but unfortunately, some of the information we provided leading up to the veto was incorrect. The data we sent to OSD and OMB said there had been no design for these 13 projects when in fact there had been at least some design activity on many of them. We have since provided corrected information to OSD, OMB and the committees.'' Unfortunately, they haven't changed their position on the vetoes based on this new information.

    And General Gill: ''Prior to the conference report, we submitted the justification documents for each of these projects indicating the design, status of each. However, upon further investigation by the Army, we discovered we had provided erroneous information. Specifically''—and we go down a list of things here that you can follow-up on with questions of General Gill.

    But, what disturbs me about all this is that it seems that the services are going to take the heat for all the pressures being put on the President for making incorrect decisions on these vetoes, by saying, ''It's not their fault, it's ours. We didn't give them the right information.'' I hope I'm just supposing.
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    With that, Mr. Buyer, we'll get into this other later on about what we'll do after this.

    Mr. Buyer, do you want to continue with a question, or what all do you have?

    Mr. BUYER. That was my question of you, and I'm speaking with counsel right now on—he is trying to give me advice on whether I should make this motion that these individuals be subpoenaed. We can place that on hold for just a moment.

    The CHAIRMAN. I don't know that you have to make that motion on that matter with the Chair.

    Mr. BUYER. I'll leave that to the prerogative of the Chair.

    The CHAIRMAN. I would appreciate that. That would help a whole lot.

    Mr. DELLUMS. Would the gentleman yield to allow the ranking member to make a comment?

    Mr. BUYER. Yes, sir.

    Mr. DELLUMS. I think it's appropriate. First, my opening remarks notwithstanding, I think that there is great efficacy in the comments of my colleague, Mr. Buyer. But, I believe as a matter of principle that the executive branch should be available to this committee. That's what makes this process go forward; that is an integral part of the check and balance system and when we ask appropriate people to come before the committee, they should make themselves available.
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    So I would say, I don't think we need to go to the subpoena level, I think that's beyond where we need to be, but I think that, first, if my colleagues believe that there has been an affront to this committee, should pursue it; and second, if there's continued interest in hearing regarding these matters, the combination of those two factors would, in my opinion, allow for an additional hearing where the appropriate people would come. I certainly, as the ranking member representing my colleagues on this side of the committee, would be more than willing to enter into such an effort on a bipartisan basis to say clearly and strongly and without equivocation to the administration, when we ask you to come, we would think that it's your responsibility to come and we set up another appropriate hearing for the purpose of you doing that.

    Mr. BUYER. To Mr. Dellums and Mr. Spence, I have the confidence in your leadership that the message will be sent over there that you'll do everything possible to bring them back.

    The CHAIRMAN. We certainly appreciate that. [Laughter.]

    Mr. BUYER. Mr. Chairman, I also want to ensure that I have placed on the record, though, that since one of the projects that was line-item vetoed was at Grissom Air Force Base [AFB], I noted that information which is now being called data, that was sent to OMB that the President outlined this criteria that the strike projects would not likely begin construction in 1998 because the Defense Department reported to the Office of Management and Budget that no design work had been done on it. I noted information that was sent to OMB that, with regard to Indiana at Grissom AFB within the reserve containment area for the project construction of the base civil engineer complex at a cost of 8.913 million that the design work was at 35-percent status of the design work had been done at expense of about $890,000. Yet, this project ends up on the list and I noted at the summary at the bottom you put with accelerated design schedule this project would be completed within the 1998 construction award. Is that correct?
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    General STRINGER. Sir, in the definition of executeability being that we could award the contract from a standing start in 1998, the answer is yes, we could execute each of the 13 projects in terms of awarding a contract.

    Mr. BUYER. So, for the President of the United States then to add this project to the list, it didn't even meet his criteria, did it not?

    General STRINGER. Well, his criteria, as I understand it, said something to the effect, in which construction was likely to begin. While we could award the contract on these 13 projects, it is unlikely that we could turn dirt on these 13 projects in fiscal year 1998 without some extraordinary measure to speed design or award.

    Mr. BUYER. Well, we have given you that power to do planning and design and construction the same year to save money and if you're delaying that process and costing taxpayers money then that's another conversation we should in fact have.

    Let me ask this question of you: How much money was actually budgeted for the Air Force Reserves in that fiscal year 1998 budget? In military construction? Do you recall?

    General STRINGER. No, sir, I——

    Mr. BUYER. Is it around $10 million?

    General STRINGER. Without the facts in front of me, I couldn't say. The Air Force budget in total was about $527 million. The Air Force Reserves is a very small share of that in fiscal year 1998.
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    Mr. BUYER. Right.

    General STRINGER. That's right, sir.

    Mr. BUYER. And so that the message that I would like to convey to you is that it was woefully inadequate. I could go right down the line with the Navy and the Army and what we're working with, Paul McHale and I, when we created the Guard and Reserve Caucus was to work with OSD and the services to begin to take care of the Guard and Reserves. There's this budgetary game that goes on, it's called add-ons. You don't put them in the budget, we then add them on, and the President then politically slaps us in the process. We want to clean up the budgetary process. That's a message and a conversation that we've had with the Secretary of Defense and we've sat down. Now you've gone through the 1999 budget process. Hopefully, that is being followed so we can stop the political gamesmanship that is occurring in this town and know that we don't want to get into the 1999 budget, but the message is being delivered to you and we can have off-handed conversations.

    I yield back the balance of my time.

    The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Buyer. Mr. Taylor.

    Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank our witnesses for being here. I know you're in a very uncomfortable position. I think your very brief statements say everything. That you're not in favor of what the President has done without coming out and disobeying orders and I think that's the proper way to do that.
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    I want to compliment the gentleman from California, our ranking member. He is exactly right. I was one of the one's who voted against line-item veto and I said at the time we're leaving ourselves wide open for a populace President to decimate the defense budget and turn around, in every instance say, if you'll give me that 5 billion that would have been a carrier; if you give me that 1.3 billion that would have been an amphibious assault ship; if you give me that money it would have gone to national missile defense; help me prevent an override of the veto, I'll turn around and spend it on social programs and I think we have seen just the beginning of that.

    I want to congratulate our chairman for pointing out that 51 of the 62 items that were line-item vetoed were defense related. It just proves what many of us have feared all along. Also, I want to remind my colleagues that in the very, very near future, for those of us who have realized that it was wrong to give away our constitutionally mandated responsibilities, that we'll have another opportunity to either save those responsibilities or give them away. See, because article 1, section A, of the Constitution also gives the Congress the power to regulate commerce between nations. There's an old saying back home, the dog bites you once it's the dog's fault; dog bites you twice it's your fault. You have a chance to make that decision in the next couple days. But I want to echo the ranking member's remarks, I think we ought to as soon as possible, eliminate the line-item veto. We have seen that it is not being used to save money, all it's been used for mostly is to decimate the defense budget and the defense budget's too small as it is.

    Now last, I want to reemphasize what he has said. If we are going to become a committee that takes the President's defense budget, as written, and rubber-stamps it and anything that we change on that becomes subject to a line-item veto, then we're nothing more than a debating society. We shouldn't even be here. Basically, if you look at the first criteria that the President included in his line-item veto, it says whether the project was included in the President's budget request. Which basically says if we add anything or delete anything, that he's going to veto it. Well, heck, I didn't come to town to be Bill Clinton's or George Bush's or anybody else's rubber stamp and as long as we allow the line-item veto to stay on the books, that's all we're doing and I'm not going to be a party to that. I wasn't a party to letting it happen, I sure as heck won't be a party to taking this away.
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    I think our ranking member said it a heck of a lot more eloquently than I ever could, but I think he made his point very well and I think those of you who felt the other way initially now have seen what this has done and I hope you'll change your position on this dreadful change to the Constitution responsibilities of the Congress of the United States.

    The CHAIRMAN. Mrs. Fowler.

    Mrs. FOWLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you also for holding this hearing today and I want to thank our witnesses who've come over to help us understand this process, even though I know you weren't the one directly involved in these decisions. I just want to echo what my colleague, Mr. Buyer, said. I think it's inexcusable that representatives from OSD and OMB and the White House refuse to participate today and I want to make sure that when they are communicated with that we make sure that the associate director for National Security and International Affairs at OMB, that the DOD comptroller and the comptroller of the Navy are three of the ones that are brought before this committee, because those three individuals I know were directly involved in this terrible decisionmaking process and I want to make sure they come before and those three set in my office several days after the veto and were less than forthcoming, to put it in a ladylike manner, about the process that had been used so I would like to have them before the committee. I especially want to greet my good friend, Admiral Amerault, who is here today. Before he was in this current position, he was commander of the western hemisphere group at Naval Station Mayport, the facility that's the focus of many of my questions today and I had the distinct honor of being the second highest item vetoed in the line-item veto group after Mr. Sisisky.

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    Admiral, as has been noted with regard to the military construction bill, the Department of the Navy responded to inquiries from OMB with this sheet that provided data on nine Navy-Marine Corps military construction projects and Dr. Hamre noted in his letter of October 9 that's attached to these that the Defense Department forwarded this information without change. Now I'd like to request that the letter and the accompanying projects be made part of the official record of this hearing, Mr. Chairman, and based on——

    [The letter can be found in the appendix page 63.]

    The CHAIRMAN. Without objection.

    Mrs. FOWLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Based on my conversations with DOD and the Navy and OMB, it was clear that the Navy was asked only one question and that was that what was the status of the design were. Admiral, could you tell me if it's the Navy's position that the OMB criteria on just that thought is the best test for determining the answer to the question of executability and I got three or four questions, so if you could just give brief answers than I can get through them all.

    Admiral AMERAULT. Yes, Ma'am, well, let me first say that I was not consulted on the criteria that OMB used to, or that the President used, in coming to grips with what items would be on his veto list. I will say that, as a broad statement, design percentage completion is often used to make budgetary decisions with respect to construction process. However, specifically what details of that process or what goes into making those decisions beyond that, we were not consulted on and so I can't really comment as to what went into the final decision.
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    Mrs. FOWLER. OK, well it's clear from the data on these sheets that did go to OMB that the Navy Department did go the extra mile in providing OMB with assurance that each of these nine projects in question, one of which was my Mayport project, was both mission essential and executable in fiscal year 1998. It clearly indicates that the Mayport project within the FYDP and that it had military merit from the Navy's perspective. Is that correct from this sheet, Admiral?

    Admiral AMERAULT. Ma'am, I don't believe this goes to the issue of this being in the future years defense plan [FYDP] or not; however, the other things are correct.

    Mrs. FOWLER. The other sheet does, yes; the other sheet has that, too, that I'll put in. So, OMB elected, apparently, to ignore the information that the Navy provided. Information which was on the very same page as the design status in making their recommendations to the President. I know you can't read their minds, but it's clear that's what they did. In the President's veto message, he stated, and I quote, ''I'm cancelling projects that would not have been built in Fiscal Year 1998 in any event,'' even though it was clear from the Navy these were going to be built in fiscal year 1998.

    Now the other point I'd like to make is that the authority that we, this committee, the Congress gave to the DOD in the fiscal year 1996 Defense authorization bill to enter into a process known as design build. Design build contract allow the Defense Department to enter into a single contract to perform both architectural and engineering work and construction work. The advantages of design build are that it saves money and it expedites actual construction. We've been doing this in my city for quite a few years. We're finally coming to understand with the Federal Government. There's a growing trend towards the use of design build in the public sector and I know DOD has been making some use of this. Now I have information here from the Naval Facilities Engineering Command that the Navy intended to proceed with the Mayport project and a number of other fiscal year 1998 MILCON projects under design build arrangements. Mr. Chairman, I'd also like to make that information part of the official record of the hearing.
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    [The information referred to can be found in the appendix on page 73.]

    Now, if that was the case, as it is seems from the Navy documents, then it's clear we were going to do Mayport by design build and that we would not have had any design work performed prior to the design build contract being let. So the plan was to have the contract signed by March 1998 and actual construction on the tow wall at the delta wharves and electric upgrades was going to begin by June 1998, clearly before the end of the fiscal year and I also want to submit that information for the record, too.

    [The information referred to can be found in the appendix on page 75.]

    Now I've got some information here from the Design Build Institute of America, which I want to submit for the record, and I hope people at OMB will read up on this. I've been trying to educate them over the past few weeks because obviously a cost-saving procedure that we have made available to the services there are people at OMB and within the services who weren't too aware of it. But this shows that over the past couple years, Naval Facilities Engineering Command, by using design build, had saved 12 percent in cost savings and 15 percent in time savings on the military construction projects that have used design build; and that DOD has saved 14 percent in costs and 18 percent in time on projects they have used.

    So in a time of dwindling defense dollars when we've got a process that this committee and this Congress has made available to the Defense Department and yet the OMB chose to ignore projects that we're using this so that it could save money, it is inexcusable. So the administration's actions, what they have done, is they've just put off meeting the services operational requirements and depending on what happens with our override effort, and I hope we do it and hope we can be successful, the taxpayers are just going to have to fund these projects again, but at a higher level.
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    So I think the President's actions were very unfortunate, they were a clear misuse and abuse of his line-item veto authority, and I'm a supporter of the line-item veto and I support continuing it, but it needs to be used, using proper information in the proper manner so that it can be the tool it continues to be for this Congress.

    Thank you so much. I yield back.

    [The information referred to can be found in the appendix on page 77.]

    The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Reyes?

    Mr. REYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Like some of the rest of my colleagues, I was victimized by the line-item veto. I have to first say that we really appreciate, like my other colleagues, really appreciate you being here this morning. It's akin like in Texas, we call it being invited to a barbecue and you're the meat. [Laughter.]

    But, we know exactly, at least speaking for myself, I know exactly what the issue and what the problem is. I will tell you, Mr. Chairman, that I was a little bit disturbed and now have become quite disturbed because initially we found some of the projects that were being targeted for veto were out in the media that Friday before the actual veto took place, which I think it's, I guess it's endemic to the kind of process that we have to get used to on the Hill, but it still doesn't make any sense to me, like a lot of other things, being a first-termer up here. I will tell you that having been put on notice that these issues were or these items were targets for vetoing, we worked very hard to try to justify why they should remain and not get vetoed, and obviously, without success.
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    This morning, and I want to talk a little bit about understanding the process, because I want to first say that when people in the district hear that the line-item veto is necessary to make sure that the President has the ability to strike out unnecessary pork barrel and unneeded projects, that sends a very clear message to my constituents that the two items that were vetoed in my area, and only actually one is in my district, the other one is in the district of a colleague of mine, Mr. Skeen at White Sands, that these things are put in there just to bring in money to the district and nothing could be further from the truth.

    In my case, an ammunition supply point at McGreggor Range was vetoed and actually, like others of my colleagues, I guess I resent two things. One, the fact that the criteria that was supposedly used to veto these items was very fluid and as we were able to address the issues, the new obstacles just miraculously popped up. I am going to associate myself with the comments of my colleague, Mr. Pickett, in saying that I am appalled that safety was not one of the issues or one of the benchmarks that was used in order to evaluate these projects. I say that because in the case of the ammunition supply point that was vetoed for Fort Bliss, this actually was in phase two of three phase project. Currently the buildings on the main post hold live ordnance and Fort Bliss is right in the middle of the city of El Paso, city of about 700,000 people. This is in violation of regulations that have been put in place to protect the health and safety of servicemen and women and civilians alike.

    Second, if you're evaluating whether you want to veto this project due to cost, well it takes every year $1.7 million to transport munitions from the current ammunition depot to McGreggor Range. The next part of this is that the cost of the project is $7.7 million so that using the capability of the limited knowledge of math that I have, would mean that in 3 to 4 years this would be paid back and would be negated. Then the next point would be that currently, and this gets directly related to the safety aspect, transporting of live ordnance through areas of El Paso where civilians live is terribly unsafe and in violation of safety regulations.
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    As it relates to the White Sands project, which is launch complex 28 or 38, today there are about 200 men and women that are working daily in buildings in this launch complex which are grossly unsafe. As an example, these personnel are assembling launch vehicles in buildings without any fire suppression systems. Actually documented as part of this renovation is the fact that the walls are crumbling and that currently there existed a very bad situation with rats running through there in an area that we're very much concerned these rats could carry the Hunta virus.

    So, all of these things are of concern. I would like to strongly add my support for bringing OMB and others that actually participated in making a very, I think, irresponsible decision, in having input into projects that are vital to our districts that today the misconception may be that we're using this process to fund unnecessary pork-barrel type and unneeded projects. Nothing could be further from the truth and I think if we could get these people here to where we can ask these kinds of questions on the record, the whole process would be better served. And last but not least, I would like to say that although I'm a first-termer, had I had the opportunity, I would of not supported the line-item veto.

    Thank you.

    The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. Before I recognize the next member, we've mentioned, I think you mentioned, Mr. Reyes, about the veto power and what it was supposed to do and somebody else did I think. I'd like just to shed a little more light on that.

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    The veto power was admittedly those people who were in favor of giving this power to the President. The power was supposed to be to cut out unnecessary spending and pork. If you read the veto message accompanying all these line-item veto projects, you will note very carefully the President never used the word unnecessary or pork. He might have said it was unnecessary at this time, but he never used the word pork. I looked very carefully and I read it five or six times. He also as I said, didn't even say it was unnecessary. That was the whole basis for having a veto in the first place given to him.

    So, I think it would be, and I might interject at this point to following up on what has already been brought out. In view of the new information that we have gotten from these gentleman to the effect that incorrect information might have been given to OSD and to OMB and in some cases, when OMB didn't even ask questions at all about these projects. All this led them to give incorrect opinions to the President, on which he based his decision to veto these things. It's more important that we, I think, give these authorities another opportunity to come back and see if they won't change their mind now in view of this new information on what kind of advice they were giving to the President when he vetoed these things. So we certainly will pursue this matter further, but for right now let's give Mr. Riley the opportunity to ask questions.

    Mr. RILEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, before I begin my questions, I would like to ask that permission to submit an editorial by Frank Gaffney which appeared in yesterday's Washington Times, as part of the record.

    The CHAIRMAN. Without objection.

    [The information referred to can be found in the appendix on page 79.]
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    Mr. RILEY. General Gill, we had a moment to talk before we came in today. I want to talk to you today about an antisatellite capability that has been in the process of being developed over the last several years. We've gotten to the point today that within the next year we'll have our first test flight and it was line-itemed this time. It's known as the Antisatellite [ASAT] program. I guess what I want to try to get from you today is what seems to be a contradiction to me. A program that has been developed by the space control architecture study—are you familiar with that? That study?

    General GILL. No, sir.

    Mr. RILEY. It's a study that was put together by all three branches of the military, it recommend the [ASAT] Antisatellite program. This year, General Estes and Under Secretary of Defense, Gil Klinger, testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee. They said that space control is the most important element of future warfare and that the ASAT program is the only near term solution. How do we go from these two seemingly polar opposite opinions, one that says it is absolutely essential to the point that it's line-itemed?

    General GILL. Sir, I really can't explain that, except that General Estes represents the space and missile program and he is arguing for his program and its validity. I also have Mr. Bell from OMB's press statement of the other day where he discusses this same issue and there's a wide divergence of opinion as, and I quote Mr. Bell, ''We simply do not believe that this ASAT capability is required, at least based on the threat as it now exists and is projected to evolve in the next decade or two.'' He goes on to explain that in greater detail.

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    So, there's a big difference in there. I'm not going to resolve that. Your Army budget officer can't fix that problem, but I'd be happy to go back and pull them all together or sit in on your meeting and talk about how we did or didn't resource this requirement. It was not resourced in our program.

    Mr. RILEY. Could you tell me whether the initiative came from the Pentagon or from the administration to line-item this program?

    General GILL. Sir, the Pentagon's a broad term, too. We were asked to provide information to clarify or explain certain projects that, frankly none of us had a whole lot of visibility over, and we pulled the data out and clarified those to the best of our ability. I recall having seen this on there, at that point didn't even know it was an Army kind of thing. We have it as executive agency for the Defense Department, so somebody dug out the information as to what it was, a decision was made, somewhere above the Army. Again, we did not program it so it was not in the, or budget for it, in fiscal year 1998. We may have had we had more money, more resources to put against it, but we didn't, and there is this some kind of a major disagreement as to its total utility or its relative utility compared to other things in the defense budget.

    Mr. RILEY. And I hate to ask you for your opinion on something as large as this, but basically, would the ability, as one of our fighting warriors, would the ability to be able to remove an enemies satellite capabilities be something that you would deem proper for our military?

    General GILL. Sir, if I were out there on the ground and somebody were using a satellite to spotlight me and could bring fire upon me, I'd like to have anything to provide me cover to get out of that. I won't pass judgment as to how you provide that cover or whether you cloud the thing or shoot it out of the sky. It's way above my stature in this thing, but it clearly, something that helps you preserve your life and go on to accomplish your mission, is in your better interest.
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    Mr. RILEY. Well, and I guess that's where, you know, I have a problem being able to reconcile what's going on with this program, because from all of the people in the military that I've talked to, they deem this program as necessary and when it is described by, as the most important element, I just have a problem understanding how we went through this transition now that we zeroed the program out, one year before its first test flight.

    General GILL. I can——

    Mr. RILEY. Could you tell me whether the Deputy Under Secretary for Space was contacted before the list was released?

    General GILL. Sir, I do not know.

    Mr. RILEY. Do you know of anyone in the Pentagon was contacted by the White House regarding this particular program?

    General GILL. I have to give you that same dull answer, I don't know. As I explained earlier, we were asked if we knew anything about what these projects were, period.

    Mr. RILEY. One final question. Franklin Raines, stated that—Director of OMB—stated that the Department of Defense determined that they, the line-item veto programs, would not make a significant contribution to U.S. military capability. Would you agree with that assessment of this program?
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    General GILL. Sir, I read that same statement. I'm not in a position to evaluate the merits of that in compared to the rest of the defense program of the United States. You may be up here and as you hold hearings on this, I think you could maybe get to the end, or further down in this.

    Mr. RILEY. Well, I do believe, General, and I appreciate your position this morning, but I do believe that these programs are somewhat different than some of the programs we've been talking about today that you could postpone. We have spent a tremendous amount of money on these programs and for us to go in and zero them out at this stage of development, when according to most people in the Department of Defense today think that it is absolutely critical, I would at least like to have the opportunity for whoever made that decision to come and give us an explanation for it.

    With that I yield back the balance of my time.

    The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Riley. Mr. Snyder, the gentleman from Arkansas.

    Mr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I seem a little nervous, it's the first time I've asked any questions with Mr. Dellums staring at me from the wall up there. [Laughter.]

    It turns out that God is black and he has a beard. [Laughter.]

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    I want to talk a little bit about process. You know I served with then Governor Clinton, we overlapped for one legislative session in Arkansas, and the Governor, as you all may know, in Arkansas, Governors have the line-item veto and I got to be honest, I can't remember him ever using it. I know he has, I don't know if he did that session or not, and so when people have asked me about what do you think about this line-item veto, I said I don't expect he'll use it much, I expect he'll use it some just to make the point that it's sitting there, maybe keep us on our toes. So, I was surprised like some of you were about perhaps the extent of it. But in terms of the process, I'm not sure what kind of, you know, I'm hearing comments that well there's no process, the process was a clear abuse of the process. I'm not sure what process there is. I, there certainly wasn't one in Arkansas. I think, you know, the line-item kind of implies he goes through it and crosses out something he doesn't like. I'm not sure kind of what process there ought to be.

    It seems to be clear you gentleman have acknowledged that there were some mistakes made on the military side in terms of information. Mr. Raines has acknowledged that there were mistakes made in terms of the information that they based their decisions on and so maybe for a first go around maybe there's been sufficient attention to the need to work out a better process without perhaps resorting to subpoenas and those kind of things.

    Let me just make two comments. First of all, as a new member, you know I don't have a military intern. You know, I'm kind of struggling to understand all this. If I were you gentlemen, if I were the Services, I'd be a little apprehensive about what's going to happen in future defense cycles now, because I think the message for me is, I need to be sure that my project is in your budget, in your proposal. I need to be sure I got a statement from you all that the design work is done and I've heard other members comment about the depth of politics that sometimes permeates the military too much. I think it's going to get worse now. I would think you're going to hear more and more from members about where this needs to be in the next year. It's not 2001 or 2002 or not even a whatever, this needs to be in the next year so I won't have to risk getting a line-item detail.
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    I want to direct a specific question that kind of in line with what Mr. Buyer was talking about. First, with regard to the Air Force, I hope that this causes you all to do a little rethinking. My recollection is that generally for the next couple budget years, you had a zero, about a zero dollar, almost no dollars budgeted for military construction is my recollection for the Air Force, a very low amount. I remember asking Secretary Widnall about it. Money was put into weaponry, you were doing the best you could. But it's kind of like then we're trying to do you a favor, you know I did an add on for an air base that's still in there, everybody acknowledged we needed it, but then to turn around and, you know, well it was pork, or you know we've got to start looking, all these add ons are pork. I think that we were kind of in a dance together where were trying to help you out on behalf of the country.

    The same with the Army, General Gill, with regard to Guard projects. Mr. Hefley, and I agree with his position on this, thinks the Army doesn't do a very good job of proposing projects for the Guard and that the business of us doing add ons given all the needs out there for military construction projects around the country, there's probably not a very good system and so with the exception of the Utah Olympics project, the four that were vetoed were Senate add-ons, they weren't House add-ons. Much to some of their regret, that we didn't have any House ons for Guard facilities, but we agree with our Chairman on that.

    I don't think I really have a question for you, but it's just again in that line, you all may need to be rethinking how, what you bring to the table and what your branch of the service brings to the table, because the dynamics are going to change if the line-item veto is going to continue to be at this level. And my only final comment is, did any really think he wasn't going to veto anything? I mean?
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    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Snyder. Mr. Bateman.

    Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm reminded of that old adage as I listened to the gentleman from California, Mr. Dellums, and the gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Taylor, that goes be careful of what you ask for, you might get it. That may be very apropos of the line-item veto. I, like other members of the committee, am distressed that we don't have the people before the committee today that it would be most desirable that we have. We appreciate the presence of those that are here, but that does not obviate the need to had different faces and different positions represented.

    I especially would be very interested in hearing from Mr. Raines in the Office of Management and Budget. It disturbs me to hear that someone from the OMB, Mr. Bell, is quoted as the authority on the military utility or necessity or priority for a weapons system. That isn't where I look for our expertise in making those decisions. It's somewhat disconcerting to me that apparently in this line-item veto process that this administration went through, that it didn't ask the Department of Defense to nominate candidates for line-item veto. It came from OMB with only a rudimentary request for certain information from the Department of Defense and if this is the extent of the information that was sent back, I think it is almost a childish process. I am resentful of the fact that when an item is selected for a line-item veto the normal connotation is that was a piece of pork, there was something unseemingly, that somebody was trying to take advantage of their position to get something for somebody or something in their district. That really doesn't fit any of the projects that I've heard discussed.
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    As to the particular project in my district which is the subject of the line-item veto, it was a Tomahawk missile storage facility. I didn't dream up putting $3.2 million in the budget to build Tomahawk missile facility storage. This is not my thing. I can absolutely assure you that someone came to my office and said we have a critical need. I asked for background information. The background information furnished me before I asked that the money be provided included information that an environmental impact statement for the project had been done as early as 1992. That the design and engineering work was 100 percent complete and that if the Navy didn't have this facility completed by the year 2000 they would not have storage facility for the Navy's then inventory of Tomahawk missiles. So it seemed to me to be a reasonably priority need to at least put it before the committee as a candidate for being added on to a President's budget, which we all know, is clearly inadequate in many respects and so it is a matter of some concern.

    In a context in which it is generally viewed that this must be a frivolous project, this must be some pork-barrel, political horse-trading maneuver, akin to a Lawrence Welk memorial home or a Hebrew school in Paris, France, that somebody slips into an appropriation bill. The fact that the administration, in the context where line-item vetoes are expected to address egregious kind of things like that, has gone through a process, that it can't even get the facts right and uses zero judgment. Now, one other thing that needs to be clarified in terms of the discussion here today about, well it didn't recognize the priorities in terms of national defense. Each one of these items which became the subject of a line-item veto is not something that is going yield to something else that gets done that's a higher priority. These needed projects which are the subject of a line-item veto, just don't get done, but nothing of higher priority gets done in lieu of these. I think we need to clean up that apparent misconception.

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    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, and like I said, there's money that would go for these projects that won't be available now. I think you gentlemen should take these words back to people in the Pentagon and your services and just kind of see what kind of effect this is having on what you hope to do in all your services in the future in military construction and these projects. You could really mess up your own little stew by what you're doing.

    Mr. SMITH. Mr. Maloney. Mr. Rodriguez. Mr. Underwood. Mr. Abercrombie, I know you're here.

    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was wondering when going to get through to me. Gentleman, I do have some actual questions instead of a speech at the moment we're reduced to that because of the circumstances. Am I to understand, and you can just acknowledge this if it's the case, that all of you are either directors of budgets for your respective services or have that, in the case of General Stringer, the equivalent position?

    General STRINGER. That's correct.

    Admiral AMERAULT. Yes, sir.

    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. And none of you were asked about any of this criteria in the White House inquiry?

    General GILL. That's correct.
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    General STRINGER. That's correct.

    Admiral AMERAULT. That's correct, sir, there was not discussion as to what should be criteria.

    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. OK. Then are you familiar with what's called attachment B in our documentation here, a letter from Mr. Hamre to the chairman, dated Oct 9. Have you seen that letter?

    Admiral AMERAULT. Yes, sir.

    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. OK. It says here, each of the military services was asked to evaluate the design status of projects in the military construction bill. What I haven't been able to get this morning, unless I missed it, Mr. Chairman, who was asked to evaluate the design status of the projects. Do any of you know? Can you give us a name?

    General STRINGER. Sir, we were asked by the Controller's Office of the Department of Defense at a staff level, one of his staff members in the military construction branch, if you will, his office, asked one of the military construction analysts in the Director of Budget if we would provide the design status of the added projects in fiscal year 1998. My staff analyst went to the civil engineers and asked them to pull that data out of what we call the Planning, Design and Construction System, which is an automated system that reports design status. That status was provided from the engineers to my analyst, who in turn, provided it to OSD and that was the extent of the questioning. As I've said in my statement, regrettably, that information on projects which were largely in the out years, 2000 to 2003, was incorrect in that automated system.
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    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Was it similar for the—thank you, general, I appreciate that. Was it a similar process for the other two?

    Admiral AMERAULT. Yes, sir, for the Navy it's exactly the same with one exception and that is that we also provided two other elements of data simply because it was a military construction question, and normally analyst-to-analyst they provide that kind of information as well. So it's more of a force of habit, I guess, that we provided some additional data.

    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. OK. General Gill, essentially the same?

    General GILL. That was essentially the same process used with the Army.

    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. OK. Now would the answer—would it be correct to say, then, that the information then provided possibly was not the very latest, simply as a result of data input or absence of the latest data?

    General GILL. I'll start it. There were a couple of problems. One—I had one issue with a project that was begun—the AE contract, the architect/engineer contract, was let after the data call of the analyst and before the line-item veto. So that created an error just based on time.

    There were other minor errors, one with the National Guard project, where the Guard was doing the work using State funds. They later come back, when they get to a certain stage, get reimbursement for it.
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    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. OK. That's all understandable.

    General GILL. That kind of data error. We had a——

    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. So your answer—you don't have to give me specifics on it, but your answer would be, in line with my question, that there was—would it be fair, gentlemen, to say that in almost every instance where data was not complete—is the way I'm going to put it—the data was not complete, it's simply a matter probably of logistics, of being able to get data into a computer, into a system, get it transposed up to the Pentagon, et cetera?

    General STRINGER. I would call it, sir, logistics and discipline. Recognizing that the reported projects were some 3 years out, the nearer you get, the more accurate the information to be correct—that's a discipline issue in the Air Force in terms of correct reporting from the bottom-up, and we have, in fact, have put a fix in place to ensure that for all years design status is reported accurately and currently.

    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Very good, but this is—yes, admiral, you wanted to add something?

    Admiral AMERAULT. I would say, sir, that the data that was given was complete and accurate in our case. There is a definitional problem, if you will, and that is that design status means that military construction funds, because the common definition——
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    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Yes.

    Admiral AMERAULT [continuing]. Is usually applied, has been applied to architectural planning and design.

    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Yes, I understand.

    Admiral AMERAULT. In this case, the information was complete. There are instances where at the local level field activities will do some planning activity in order to conceptualize or further the concept of a project; that later may prove helpful in moving the project ahead to completion.

    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Yes, that's particularly true where renovations are concerned; is it not?

    Admiral AMERAULT. And that information was not given, nor in our—I think we would all say it wasn't asked for as far as we——

    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I understand. I maybe spoke over you, and I apologize, but I said this is particularly true where renovations are concerned, as opposed to original construction.

    Admiral AMERAULT. That may be true, sir. I'm not an engineer.

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    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. In other words, Mr. Chairman, I think this is an important point, so that we don't get casting aspersions or even the application of it.

    This was a brand-new process, and I appreciate your question, general, your point about discipline, but this is a virginal process, right? Nobody is precisely sure exactly what was being asked for and why and under what timeline and circumstances; is that a fair statement?

    General STRINGER. Yes, sir, and because, in fact, we didn't know what was asked for, it was handled at the staff level and never crossed my desk. If it had been a line-item veto issue pointed out that that's the reason the question had been asked——

    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. OK.

    General STRINGER [continuing]. I have confidence that the staff——

    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. The reason, generals and admiral, I have reason for pulling this, and it's not to trap you. I'm not trying to lead you down a path; it's to establish a clear record for the Chair and for the committee. Because when the White House spoke to me about it, they said they checked with the Pentagon, and I will tell you the exact quote, ''four or five times.'' I'm sure your staff person, General Stringer, would be interested to know that he or she is the Pentagon. Do they generally concede to themselves in that particular area as being the Pentagon?
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    General STRINGER. No, sir, nor do I. [Laughter.]

    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. OK. Well, I—so when the White House says to me they've checked with the Pentagon four or five times, I will tell you what my retort was. I said, ''It's too bad you didn't check with me once.'' Now the reason for saying that, I want to say, has very little to do with ego, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen. It has to do with, among other things, that between Senator Inouye and myself, since statehood for Hawaii, we have 61 years of legislative experience. And during that time, Mr. Chairman, during the 61 years, I think I've learned that when I put forward a project or ask someone to support a project for construction in a given year, that I have enough respect for my colleagues to understand that I can't put forward a project that I don't fully expect to be able to be built during the year for which the construction money is requested.

    And I think, Mr. Chairman, is it not a fact that you and the subcommittee Chairs expect Members to put forward projects for construction that can be constructed during the year for which the money is requested?

    The CHAIRMAN. Absolutely, and they check to make sure that this is the case.

    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. OK.

    The CHAIRMAN. And we get the request up from the services.

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    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Yes, well, that's my next point, then, Mr. Chairman.

    In this case, Admiral, that I'm going to refer to, where the veto came in Hawaii, had you or any—do you have any knowledge as to whether Admiral Pirie, the Commander in Chief of the Pacific [CICPAC], was consulted at all inasmuch as the project was to take place under his command?

    Admiral AMERAULT. I don't have any knowledge that he was or wasn't, no, sir.

    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. OK. The fact, Mr. Chairman, for the record, is that he was not consulted. And for the record, I want to say that this was a request coming directly from the CINCPAC, the project we were dealing with here.

    In that context, then, may I ask any of you—if you can, if you can just grant me a moment or two more, Mr. Chairman—the last sentence of Mr. Hamre's letter to the chairman says, ''The Defense Department will work with Congress as quickly as possible to correct any errors which may have occurred as a result of the outdated data.'' Has there been any discussion with any of you as to what the phrase ''correct any errors'' means? Is that—is there a process? Is there something concrete—no pun intended [laughter]—as to what that means? Has the White House or the administration or anybody in OSD or the Office of Management and Budget communicated to you as to what they intend to do with respect to correcting errors?

    Admiral AMERAULT. If I may answer, sir, I don't know what Mr. Hamre's intent is. I do know that I was asked whether there were any changes to the data that we provided on the individual projects, and we've submitted that data to the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
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    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. OK. The reason I asked that question, Mr. Chairman, is that the White House, a certain individual in the White House with whom I spoke, also said that they would correct anything that had been done. Now, Mr. Chairman, I think we need to find out for the committee what they mean by ''correct.'' I don't know if the President can write a countermanding Executive order. I think you've already indicated that the money has disappeared by law. Perhaps it means the next budget that there will become part of—these projects which need correction will become a part of the next budget, in which case, Mr. Chairman, that means that it will affect the proposals of the services as they present it to us out of the President's budget; is that not correct?

    The CHAIRMAN. That's correct. And I might add, also, that the President can veto any line-item where these type projects—and I might point out for the services that he might request something in the future or he can add things to a budget, but if we don't authorize it and appropriate for it, you know, it just won't get done.

    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Yes, I understand. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I want to conclude. I hope you feel that this line of questioning has added to the foundation for being able to deal with this question in the future.

    I will submit for the record, Mr. Chairman, a letter that I wrote to Mr. Raines indicating that they were incorrect, and it also includes where the Asian-Pacific Center for Security Studies was concerned, a project that was vetoed, the planning and design and funding data, as almost everybody here has been able to show. If somebody had bothered to ask, I could have provided this to them. I assure you, Mr. Chairman, as I assure members of the services, I don't make projects up. I have no agenda of my own. I have tried to be a good member of this committee, and I've tried to do my duty by way of not trying to judge—rather, trying to make judgments based on the information given to me by the services. General Gill and I are friends on that basis, and I think he could vouch, without being unfairly set upon by the forces of evil in the White House, that that's a true statement.
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    [The information referred to can be found in the appendix on page 80.]

    Mr. ABERCROMBIE. So I want to conclude, Mr. Chairman, by saying that I believe that virtually every project that was vetoed, if not every single one in fact, was initiated by a member of this committee, or perhaps someone in the Senate, on the basis of information and requests provided by the armed services. It was not originated by the Member. It wasn't thought up and then taken to the services and said, ''Will you do this?'' I'm convinced, Mr. Chairman, that that would be the case.

    And I want to indicate as well, as I conclude, that it is common practice—and I want to state this for the record—for the services to come to individual members of the committee and indicate that something which had high priority for them was unable to be fitted into the budget request coming from the administration, coming from the Pentagon as finally manifested in the administration's budget; and that if it was possible for us to consider it, they would be very appreciative. And then provide us data, then, to indicate its justification and merit, Mr. Chairman, which we, in turn, have to provide, then, to the Chairs and ranking members and to our colleagues in order to find justification for it, provided that—provided that—we have sufficient funds made available to us under the system of allocation provided by the Congress.

    So far as I know, Mr. Chairman, we still are the legislative branch. So far as I know, the Constitution of the United States says we make that policy, that the President submits it to us, but we do the legislative decisionmaking, including appropriations, authorization and appropriations. And so far as I know, you, Mr. Chairman, or Mr. Dellums, who preceded you as Chair on this committee, were never able to exceed what we were told was what the boundaries were with respect to funding. And that comes out of a process of negotiation with the other body which ends up with a final budget.
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    Now that being the case—and the reason I go through it for the record, Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, is that I sincerely doubt that any decisionmaker in the Office of Management and Budget had any legislative experience, and I think a good number of people on the executive side have had no legislative experience. They don't understand the process whereby we come to conclusions. If they did, they would understand this is not a pork-barrel process; this is not some kind of a process that is frivolous or engaged in some kind of ambiguity or underhandedness or sleight of hand. It is the exact opposite. It is a direct reflection of the requests made by the Armed Services after due consideration by—again and again—by committees, subcommittees, and the Congress of the United States.

    Thank you.

    The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Abercrombie.

    Mr. Hefley.

    Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Chairman, first of all, I demand equal time with Mr.——

    The CHAIRMAN. The chairman of our Subcommittee on MILCON might have something interesting to contribute.

    Mr. HEFLEY. Well, Mr. Chairman, I'm not as critical of the line-item veto as some of my colleagues. I still hope that it works. I expected it to be used more responsibly. The best I can tell, the President or the White House made no effort to contact me or any member of my committee, the ones that work with this thing. I don't know where they got the information.
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    I thought most of what we've done today has been a waste of time. We have been receiving Rogerian therapy, and that is, that we ventilate and the therapists don't say much, and we get catharsis, and we go out and we feel better about ourselves. [Laughter.]

    But in terms of actually accomplishing anything, I don't think we have, except for one thing, and that one thing is that I think the record is clear today, Mr. Chairman, that the White House did a dismal job of trying to collect the data necessary to make these kinds of a decision.

    You know, every one of you, when you started—and I do appreciate you being here; I'm not jumping on you; we don't have the right people before us today—but every one of you, when you started, I believe said, ''We appreciate the support of this committee,'' and you darn sure should say that, because we do support you very, very heavily.

    I remember one time when I took over chairmanship of the MILCON Committee, Secretary Pirie had me out for breakfast at the Pentagon, and he made a marvelous case about the problems of the infrastructure in the military and how we had neglected it, and how he wanted to work with us to try to solve those problems. And we have diligently tried to work toward solving those problems, knowing that we're years behind, but we've tried to do it.

    And I don't know how I'm to convince Mr. Hostettler, Mr. Hilleary, Mr. Abercrombie, and the other members of my committee that the analyst hours that I asked them to spend sitting in hearings with you all, to try to determine what you, the experts, think is needed—why is that important for them to do? Why should they do that, when somebody who knows, obviously from the testimony today, almost nothing about it decides to arbitrarily veto 38 projects?
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    Now those 38 projects, I think I can say with assurance every single one of them were either in the future years defense plan [FYDP] or on the unfunded priorities list that you all gave us. Mr. Abercrombie was eloquent when he pointed out, we did not on our committee invent projects. We looked at the projects you said you needed, and we evaluated them. We had strict—I know Senator McCain loves to make—get ink by saying that we shouldn't put any adds-on. In other words, let's just accept the President's request as gospel. We shouldn't add anything to that because, if we do, it's pork. And he does get ink, and he appears like a statesman, and he can maybe run for President based upon that kind of thing.

    But the reality is that we, too, have very strict criteria, and those of you that have been before the committee know that—very strict criteria. And we work very hard at that. And the funny thing about it is our criteria is what the President's criteria is, with the exception of is it in the President's request. Because if all we're going to do is what's in the President's request, I don't need to be here. We can send in our rubber stamp from home. We don't have to be here.

    And so, of course, we're going to add things to this, and we're going to do it based on the best information we can possibly gather up through field visits and endless hearings to try to determine, and that's what we did in this.

    So these were in the FYDP They were in the unfunded priorities list. They were things that were genuinely needed. We didn't invent any kind of projects.

    You know, everyone talks about the infrastructure, and 20 years ago, if you go back on the record, you find that the witnesses that came before this committee, the Military Construction Committee, were talking about World War II wood; they were talking about poor housing; they were talking about unsafe working conditions. The witnesses today have changed; the personalities are different; I'm different; my committee's different, and yet the same message keeps coming through. And we are trying to solve those problems, and yet some people want to call it pork.
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    Two hundred and eighty-seven million dollars of cancelled MILCON that we had justification, strong justification, I believe, for every single project. We talked to each service branch, and we said, ''Can you execute next year?'' And in every case they said, yes, we can execute next year. And so we tried to be careful with it. I think the President was very ill-advised of what he did, and I think, again, I wouldn't take away the line-item veto from him at this point, but, by golly, in the future I wish he would exercise it more responsibly.

    I wish—in fact, I would invite, Mr. Chairman, the President of the United States to come and sit in on the MILCON Committee hearings, so that at least next year at this time he'll know something about what he's doing.

    Thank you, gentlemen. I have no questions for you, but I do get a catharsis, and I feel better. [Laughter.]

    The CHAIRMAN. Mr. McIntyre.

    Mr. MCINTYRE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll be brief, and do appreciate the gentlemen who are before us today.

    Let me say, as the Representative from North Carolina's southeastern district, the seventh district, that we are very grateful that housing and barracks at Ft. Bragg, as well as dormitories at Pope Air Force Base, were granted and were not vetoed by the President, and were granted, of course, under the budget proposal. We know that these quality-of-life provisions are quite important to our service men and women being able to fulfill their duties in a quality way, knowing that they are taken care of and their families are.
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    But I'm very concerned about an important training facility that was vetoed by the President, the project at Ft. Bragg called MOUT, or Military Operations and Urbanized Terrain. We know that when our Nation's in trouble it calls on the district that I represent. This is the first time in the history of the Congress that we've had a Representative on National Security or Armed Services from a district that is home to the 82d Airborne; the Green Berets, which we know General Shelton once commanded there; the Delta Force—all at Ft. Bragg—the Strategic Airlift Support, Pope Air Force Base, and Camp Lejeune, where our Marines have served so well in Bosnia, as recognized by the Commander in Chief, the President himself, when he visited there on December 23rd of this past year.

    This type of facility is not a luxury item. We know that our soldiers have to be prepared for handling the task at hand, and the MOUT facility at Ft. Bragg is one that recognizes the realities you gentlemen far well know of contemporary warfare. Not all of our battles are fought in jungles, as we know, as we found out in the Persian Gulf region. Not all of them are fought in the type of terrain that we traditionally know that training occurred for the last half of this century.

    Fifteen years ago, the original MOUT complex was built at Ft. Bragg. We realize that with weather conditions as they are, and the use that literally hundreds and hundreds of soldiers have made of that facility—good use, we might add, in light of where they were needed in Panama in the late 1980's and where they've been needed at several other villages and cities around the world literally—they need to be able to be adequately and properly prepared when they have to fight in urban terrain.

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    Our soldiers must be prepared for handling the task at hand with the very best facilities at hand, which I believe is a statement that all of you would agree with, whatever branch of service—facilities that most closely resemble the actual terrain in which they'll be fighting. For a facility to be 15 years old, that is now falling apart, needing help in terms of replacement, I believe that the actual terrain and the closest we can come to approximating that terrain, is vitally important for the preparation of our soldiers for actual combat.

    When they're called on or summoned to serve our Nation in different types of terrain, whatever that terrain may be, be it the deserts of the Persian Gulf area, the snows up near the Arctic Circle, or the jungles of Southeast Asia, we know that our soldiers, as well as our marines, as well as our airmen and those that serve us in the Navy, and all the branches of Government need to be in facilities that best approximate the areas they'll be called upon to serve.

    I would strongly urge the support of this project and would hope that, as we look at what we can do to better prepare our men and women in uniform, that we always support them in the types of projects that will help them best fulfill their job.

    Thank you, Mr Chairman.

    The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

    Mr. Hilleary.

    Mr. HILLEARY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Also, I just want to vent my frustration, I guess. I've waited a long time to do it, so I guess I really must need to do it.
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    But, you know, Chairman Hefley does such a super job, and Phil, everybody on that committee, staff and otherwise, do a super job on the MILCON Committee, and I think that I haven't heard a single project talked about that I would consider poor, and that is the source of my frustration.

    Yes, I voted for the line-item veto, and I think that's OK for the President to have it, but I just think it ought to be used responsibly. I haven't heard any $1,200 toilet seats talked about today. I haven't heard of anything that I don't think is needed that wasn't vetoed here.

    My particular project was an air dryer and a wind tunnel at Arnold Air Force Base in my district. It's something the DOD says they want; they just didn't have the money for it this year, and so we were able to get the money for it. It's going to cost the taxpayers over a million dollars a year because this has been vetoed. It's going to slow up our research and development on all our weapon systems in the Air Force. And it just seems so irresponsible and so stupid really for all this to have happened, and I'm very sorry that it did.

    Mr. Abercrombie had asked most of the questions that I was going to ask, except for of General Stringer: You mentioned that the fix has been put in; I believe you said that in response, in part, to part of Mr. Abercrombie's questions. What is the fix that's been put in so that these things don't happen again?

    General STRINGER. Sir, there are two fixes. It's an automated system that isn't particularly user-friendly, as we report in an automated fashion from installation-level the design status; our engineers are embarked on a fix to that system, but, more importantly, through communications to the installations already, the engineers at each of our 87 major bases and all of our minor installations have been directed to report current design point changes every time we change design points from 3 percent to 10 percent to 35 percent, or whatever percent it might happen. As it occurs, the engineers are to report that through the reporting system, so that our information at this headquarters is correct.
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    Mr. HILLEARY. Well, I look forward to that, but I tell you what I really look forward to with great anticipation, Mr. Chairman, are the OMB boys coming over, and I look forward to your efforts, and I know that you're going to secure their presence here in the future, and I appreciate you gentlemen coming here. I know you're not the decisionmakers. I appreciate what you do for our country.

    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Hostettler.

    Mr. HOSTETTLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, Mr. Chairman, I also want to speak on the issue of the gentleman from the Office of Management and Budget and the Deputy Secretary of Defense. It's important to remember that both of these gentlemen serve at the pleasure of the President of the United States, the one that we have empowered with the line-item veto, and I think it is atrocious that an Article II constitutional creation—namely, the executive branch—has decided that they are not going to speak with an Article I, section 2, creation, being the House of Representatives, on this historical issue, which is the issue of the House, the Congress giving the President the line-item veto power, the first time in the history of our country when the Congress of one particular party's majority gave the line-item veto to a President of the other party.

    Hopefully, Mr. Chairman, you will be able to influence those gentlemen in the future to come and testify before us, and we don't have to possibly resort to subpoenaing tapes for their answers to questions that we may have. I don't know, it may get down to that because that seems to be the only way we can get information from this White House these days.
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    But, as it relates to the issue of what we do in the future with this committee, the Constitution—and the generals and the admiral have said that they appreciate our support for national security and for the military, and I thank them for thanking us, but that's our job. According to the Constitution, it is our job to raise and support armies, to provide and maintain a Navy. That is our constitutional job. It's not really the constitutional job of the military itself. They are created as a result of the legislative body. They are provided for and maintained as a result of constitutional powers given to Congress. That's not even the job of the Commander in Chief. The Constitution says very few things about what the President should be doing as far as the military. It says Commander in Chief—if you look at the Constitution, it says very little else about what the role of the President should be.

    But if you look at the enumerated powers, 6 of about 17 enumerated powers have to do with Congress making decisions about the military, about our national defense. So maybe we need to look at in the future, Mr. Chairman, doing things differently than every other committee in Congress does, and that is, do we, indeed, need to ask the military or the executive branch what we need, they need, as far as properly providing and maintaining a Navy—to the extent that a President feels, the executive branch, article II, feels that if I don't ask for it, then you're providing it and you're not maintaining it; you're not raising it up.

    Because I think that that goes to a little bit maybe a pseudo-constitutional crisis, whereby we have one branch of the Government usurping the boundaries and creating more power for itself than we should. Because we've had testimony time and time again in this hearing room, since I have been on this committee, since I have been in Congress, that there are threats out there that are significant, and one of the largest threats to our national security is the threat of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction that can carry warheads of chemical and biological or nuclear weapons.
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    And so we hear numerous threat briefings, and, in fact, 2 weeks ago, the senior Senator from Indiana, Senator Lugar, was in to talk about that very issue. We had a scientist from Russia in to speak about the problems that are there with the proliferation of—and it could be the single most dangerous threat to our country. So this is what the threat is.

    So what do we do? We provide for in the military construction budget the ability for the Navy to construct a new facility in southwest Indiana, in my district, at Crane Naval Service Warfare Center, an enhanced facility for the maintenance and engineering of chemical and biological detection devices for our fleet, and that is—those are the threats. And the Navy says that it's necessary and it is a priority for us to maintain the quality of life of our personnel in the fleet during the time of conflict, because this is a threat, and they're out there at the tip of the spear.

    But the President comes back and says, yes, we need to veto it because it's not in the Fiscal Year 1998 budget request. Now it was in the 1996 FYDP up for 1998, but it has since lapsed every year, even though this is the threat that we get briefed upon.

    And then it says construction could begin in 1998. Well, in fact, 15 percent of the project has already been designed. It could be completed in 1998. So that third criteria is definitely in error with regard to a decision on this.

    But, Admiral, I would simply ask you one question, and it doesn't necessarily have to do with your duties here today. But I didn't receive a copy of your previous duties. Have you commanded sailors in the fleet at sometime?
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    Admiral AMERAULT. Oh, certainly, sir.

    Mr. HOSTETTLER. Yes, sir. With regard to the President's second—and this is your opinion, and I apologize that you're here having to give your opinions on things that are outside of your realm of duty at this point, but you have to understand this is all I have today. So I just want to ask you, is it your opinion that the ability to appropriately, adequately detect the presence of chemical and biological agents in the fleet would contribute to the health of military personnel in the fleet?

    Admiral AMERAULT. Let me say, sir, that the ability to detect those agents would certainly contribute to the health of those personnel in the fleet not deteriorating, yes, sir.

    Mr. HOSTETTLER. Yes, sir. Well, that's my only question of you, the panel. I appreciate your service to our country and maintaining our freedom, because without you, without a strong military, we would not have the freedom that we have today.

    And, Mr. Chairman, I would simply say that, in the future, that with your leadership, we can look at how we can maintain the strongest military on the face of the earth, so that we can preserve the liberties that our founders gave us, and in that, preserve the power of this body to be the sole determination—determiner of what the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marine Corps should look like.

    Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this hearing.
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    The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Hostettler.

    The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. McDade—I'm sorry, Mr. McHale.

    Mr. MCHALE. If I get a seat on the Appropriations Committee, I'll accept the title. [Laughter.]

    The CHAIRMAN. Yes, give you seniority up there, kicked up a little further.

    Mr. MCHALE. Mr. Chairman, thank you.

    Gentlemen, I thank you for your testimony and your appearance here today, and I would guess that at an earlier point in the hearing somebody offered you a flack jacket; if not, I think that would have been appropriate. Frankly, I think you are probably the wrong witnesses to have before the committee today, and you end up being the recipients of criticism that might be more appropriately directed toward others in the executive branch.

    I came into the room when Mr. Hilleary was speaking and listened carefully to his remarks, and let me simply say at the outset that I fully support every word that Representative Hilleary had to say. He has since left the room, but I agreed with his comments entirely. I, too, supported the line-item veto, just as I support freedom of speech under the first amendment, but do not necessarily approve of every exercise of power, once granted, just as I do not agree with every word that is protected and spoken under the First Amendment. The line-item veto was long overdue, and I supported it, as a Member of the House, and vigorously disagree with its specific exercise in this case.
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    I haven't got a single project in my district. I'm an objective observer. There is nothing, to the best of my knowledge, that was adversely affected within my constituency by any 1 of the 38 projects that were vetoed by the President. My only concern is the war-fighting ability of the United States, and I believe that this exercise of the line-item veto ultimately damages that war-fighting capability.

    I want to respectfully chastise the news media for the response given to the exercise of the line-item veto. The first editorial that I read in support of the exercise of the line-item veto appeared in USA Today the morning after the veto was announced. Now I don't have the figures in front of me, and I've just arrived in the room, but I believe there were 38 specific projects, totaling about $260 million. How could anyone on the editorial board of USA Today have rationally and thoughtfully analyzed those 38 projects in time to make deadline the next morning? And how could anyone who is approaching this with any sense of objectivity have examined the projects late in the afternoon, concluded that the exercise of the line-item veto was appropriate, and drafted an editorial in time for deadline to appear in the next day's newspaper? That was prejudice, not analysis.

    And I regret that similar instinctive, good-faith, and misguided editorials appeared over the next several days. I think we bought some good editorials at the price of war-fighting capability.

    Second, I think there was exceptionally poor consultation with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and I think it's disingenuous to describe these expenditures as being unwanted by the professional military. In fact, I think OMB was driving the train, and I think, at best, members of the Joint Chiefs and other senior officials in DOD, both in uniform and in civilian clothes, were largely bystanders during a process that was guided, again in good faith, but I believe with mistaken judgment, by the most senior officials at OMB. That provides for very poor oversight and accountability by this committee. Who are these folks at OMB who are now deciding fundamental issues of our national security policy? And to whom are they accountable through the constitutional process? I am concerned that OMB has accrued must too great a portion of the national security authority, largely without the appropriate oversight of the responsible committees of the Congress.
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    And, last, I spoke with the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Legislative Affairs and told her that it was my hope that the kind of rhetoric that we saw justifying this line-item veto would not be used on the Guard and Reserve equipment list, because, similarly, I had read published comments from OMB describing the Guard and Reserve equipment list as being beyond the scope of funding requested by DOD; that somehow the money provided under the Guard and Reserve equipment list could, likewise, be characterized as pork. That would be an outrageous conclusion, but I have already read it in print coming from senior officials at OMB.

    The fact of the matter is the Guard and Reserve equipment list was drafted by Mr. Buyer and myself solely with an eye toward war-fighting capability, and, indeed, the question ought to be asked, why this year and in previous years such expenditures were not included in the DOD budget? Now the fact of the matter is a system was in place for many years that provided that funding through congressional sources rather than through a DOD submission, but to conclude from that that this funding is unnecessary or parochial or pork, and therefore ought to be subject to a line-item veto, takes the initial mistake of the line-item veto and compounds it.

    My red light has just come on. Let me simply say that I think, out of all of this, the most fundamental issue to be examined is the newly-acquired national security power being exercised by OMB. I am confident that the folks at OMB are well-intentioned. I am doubtful as to whether or not they had the expertise to make these kinds of judgments, and I am certain that they are making these judgments without adequate consultation at the highest levels of DOD and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

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    Since when was OMB put in charge of the national security train? If that, in fact, has occurred, we on this committee must exercise diligent oversight to make sure that power is being properly exercised.

    Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the indulgence, and again thank these gentlemen for listening to my speech, as you've listened to so many others, but I think those speeches needed to be delivered.

    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

    Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Chairman.

    The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Skelton.

    Mr. SKELTON. I think one of the best comments and thoughts to come out of this whole hearing just came out about 30 seconds ago: some sort of oversight by this committee in the process of that OMB. So I leave it to the Chair to think on these things.

    The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. The Chair will, indeed, think on these things.

    Gentlemen, we do appreciate your coming today, and as has been pointed out on numerous occasions, you've been put in kind of a hot seat down here to take the heat for somebody else. And what we've said today and you've heard today I think is supposed to be constructive in the future as to what goes on over in the Pentagon, and you can take these things back. But the main people that were supposed to be here and could answer these questions aren't, obviously.
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    As I said earlier, the reason I'm having these hearings was to point out the fact that the President did not follow his own criteria that he used as a basis for vetoing these different projects. And there's been developed that possibly he got the wrong information or didn't get any information at all from the people he should have gotten it from. So that's why it's more important now than ever that we have representatives from DOD and the OMB to come before us and shed a lot of light on these inconsistencies that have been brought out. And we look forward to that time in the future.

    You've done your job, and we apologize for keeping you so long and appreciate the job that you've done. Thank you.

    General STRINGER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    Admiral AMERAULT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    The CHAIRMAN. The committee will be adjourned.

    [Whereupon, at 12:18 p.m., the committee adjourned subject to the call of the Chair.]

    "The Official Committee record contains additional material here."