Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank Chairman Warner. I chair the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces of the Armed Services Committee. This matter is under our subcommittee's oversight area. I have great respect for Senator Allard, who is proposing the amendment. He chaired the same subcommittee. He is very much loyal to his workers in Colorado. He is very much determined they get everything that he can get them, and I think maybe a little more than they would be entitled to under a fair reading of the statute and the contract that is involved. Therefore, with the greatest respect to Senator Allard and others who may be supporting this amendment, I would oppose it. It reaches into a relationship between the contractor employees who are performing the cleanup at Rocky Flats and their employer, who is a company called Kaiser Hill. Kaiser Hill won the contract with the Department of Energy to perform cleanup work, and this deals with their relationship with their employees, not Government employees but employees for Kaiser Hill. How would it amend those terms of that agreement between Kaiser Hill and its private employees? The amendment directs the U.S. Secretary of Energy to instruct Kaiser Hill to grant retirement and health benefits to employees that those employees would have earned if the cleanup had taken longer than it actually did. So that is why, of course, the Department of Energy opposes it. They have looked at this very carefully. They have indicated they would be open to some sort of discussion about what might be done. I have also indicated that to those who support this amendment but have not heard back from them. So I believe the amendment as drafted is overreaching, and the Department of Energy objects to it. It is just not good policy for our Government. The cleanup did not take as long as some people projected, but everyone knew the cleanup was going to be accelerated and would end. It was not a limitless timeframe. Rocky Flats is not there anymore. It has been cleaned up. There is empty space. The workers have all been disbursed and gone to other jobs.
I would just note that many Government contracts complete early or they do not run as long as anticipated. So we cannot start down the road of altering the benefits of contract workers when something happens good for the Government because the matter proceeded along and was able to be completed sooner than expected, although it was accelerated and everybody knew it was going to complete and complete sooner than many had projected. One of the things that every employee has, and this is important to note, every employee has been given a 1-year acceleration of the time and grade they get credit for, the time in service. The collective bargaining that went on as this contract moved forward, and everybody knew the contract would be completed early, they had a collective bargaining process, and they met with the steelworkers and others and they agreed that they would take a $4,200 basic payment because they were completing the work sooner, as an incentive or a thank-you for good work done. That was done, and they received that.
So, again, this amendment would alter the freely entered-into agreement between these workers and Kaiser Hill concerning the early completion.
Now, most of the Kaiser Hill employees were covered under the collective bargaining agreements which anticipated there would be staggered layoffs as the completion of the cleanup neared. Union workers negotiated substantial benefits such as lump-sum incentive payments in addition to providing for early and regular retirement benefits and an extra year in service. The Senate has recently conducted its debate on budget reconciliation. There has been a lot of debate and consideration about the fiscal situation in which this country finds itself. There was a debate about hard choices that we face as a Nation so we do not burden our children or grandchildren with financial obligations that, in retrospect, we cannot afford. If we were a private company, I ask my colleagues, would we say we could tell our stockholders that we paid more than we were supposed to pay for a cleanup? I think we are concerned about this mainly because we feel as governmental representatives, sometimes we ought to go further and do more. I know my colleague Senator Allard strongly believes we ought to do more and be generous. I do join him in commending the workers at Rocky Flats for what has been achieved. The cleanup is done and workers have moved on to other jobs and other employers. I cannot support, however, taking this unprecedented step--at least unprecedented to my knowledge--that is embodied in this amendment. It is contrary to good, sound fiscal policy, good governmental policy. It is noble to want a job to be recognized and people to be paid fairly for it. But military bases close around the country all the time. Awards for contracts for aircraft and ships get terminated. Sometimes they complete them sooner than expected. People do not expect to be paid forever. Agreements were reached, as I said, to make sure people would be generously compensated as a result of this early closing.
I urge my colleagues, as difficult as they may find it, to vote ``no'' on this amendment. I think it would be the right thing for the country
