Floor Statements
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MCCAIN STATEMENT ON THE FY06 DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS ACT
December 19, 2005
Washington D.C. - U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) submitted for the record the following statement on the FY2006 DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS Act:"Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, America is at war. We all know that, and that's why the measure we are debating today, the Conference Report to H.R. 2863, the 2006 Defense Appropriations Bill, is so very important. This conference report provides critical financing for our fighting men and women, the brave individuals we sent to fight in our name. We must support them, and, for that reason, I will vote for in favor of its passage. But I do so under protest.
The conference report appropriates nearly $408 billion dollars, plus an additional $50 billion in emergency funding for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The non-emergency portion is approximately $4.5 billion under the Administration's request, but is several billions higher than the Senate bill. As is the case with so many of the appropriations bills that come to the floor, this conference report and the joint explanatory statement contain earmarks and pork projects that were neither requested nor authorized.
War means sacrifice - any student of history knows that - and Americans have sacrificed throughout our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our soldiers and their families have sacrificed, and this year other costs have spread throughout the nation. Whether it is the victims of Hurricane Katrina, or those that have come to their aid, or simply all those Americans who are paying higher gasoline prices, we see sacrifices of many kinds. And so in these difficult times, the American people are right to expect their elected leaders to sacrifice as well.
But then we see a bill like the one on the floor today, and I'm sure many Americans wonder if the spirit of sacrifice stops on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. During a war, in a measure designed to give our fighting men and women the funds they need, the Congress has given in to its worst pork-barrel instincts.
Conference Report Earmarks
Let's take a look at some of the earmarks that are in this defense appropriations conference report:
-$500,000 to teach science to grade-school students in Pennsylvania
-$3.85 million for the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Foundation
-$4.4 million for a Technology Center in Missouri
-$1 million to a Civil War Center in Richmond, Virginia
-$850,000 for an education center and public park in Des Moines, Iowa
-$2 million for a public park in San Francisco
-$500,000 for the Arctic Winter Games, an international athletic competition held this year in Alaska
"And museums are popular this year - there's $1.5 million for an aviation museum in Seattle, $1.35 million for an aviation museum in Hawaii, $1 million for a museum in Pennsylvania, and $3 million for the museum at Fort Belvoir. There-s also $1.5 million for restoring the Battleship Texas.
Mr. President, we are at war. How many MREs, Flak-vests, or bullets could we buy with all this money? How many dollars could we return to the taxpayers? Id note that these are just a small sampling of the many, many unrequested earmarks that fill this bill.
Recissions
But perhaps we're being too hard on ourselves. After all, the conference report includes a number of provisions that will rescind unobligated balances in federal accounts - so we are offsetting a small portion of some of these needless costs. But wait a minute. . . . there-s always a catch. While the conference report rescinds $10 million from the Natural Resources Conservation Service Operations account, it also includes language to prevent any cuts to the projects and activities identified on pages 84-87 of the House Report that accompanies the Agriculture Appropriations bill! And if you review that report, you'll find 108 earmarked projects totaling more than $103 million. A few examples of the projects that the appropriators are committed to protecting from any reductions, even for the sake of fiscal responsibility, include:
-$242,000 for a wildlife habitat education program in conjunction with the National Wild Turkey Federation in Illinois, which is dedicated to conserving wild turkeys and preserving our nation's hunting heritage.
-$100,000 for the Trees Forever Program in Iowa - an organization with a laudable mission statement -it claims to be an organization that not only plants and cares for trees, but also addresses the challenges facing our communities and the environment - but hardly one that should be funded in a Defense Appropriations bill.
-$400,000 for dairy waste remediation in Louisiana
-$600,000 for conservation related to cranberry production in Massachusetts and Wisconsin. Conservation related to cranberry production. Remarkable.
-$200,000 for Weed It Now-Taconic Mountains (MA/NY/CT). Weed It Now, I am told, is an effort to remove invasive plants from the forest habitat of the Berkshire Taconic plateau. I am a strong supporter of the Global War on Weeds, Mr. President, but this earmark does not belong in this bill.
Clearly, such projects should not be asked to spare a dime!
Legislating on Appropriations
Beyond the earmarks, Mr. President, it is a violation of Senate rules to legislate on an appropriation bill, unless, as is the case with several sections of the detainee provisions in Title 10, they are added pursuant to an Rule 16 defense of germaneness. And yet this rule is flouted far too often. This bill not only contains numerous authorizing provisions, but it also features dozens of provisions, both authorizing and appropriating, that are wholly outside of the scope of defense policy. Some of these are included to pursue laudable policy objectives; some are not. A sampling of the non-germane provisions include:
-The hurricane supplemental: $29 billion for hurricane victims
-The Gulf Coast Recovery Fund
-Avian flu vaccine limitation of liability provisions
-A provision that directs funds from the Digital Transition and Public Safety Fund that are in excess of $12 billion to be spent on, among other things, the Tucson, Arizona Border Patrol sector ($30 million dollars), the San Diego sector fence ($20 million) and to carry out the North American Wetlands Conservation Act ($50 million)
-$1.5 billion for home heating energy assistance
-Funding for farm conservation
-A provision protecting jobs in Hawaii and Alaska
-A provision transferring as a direct lump sum payment to the University of Alaska the unobligated and unexpended balances appropriated to the United States-Canada Railroad Commission
-And, of course, the ANWR provisions, which I will discuss in a moment
Mr. President, some of these provisions are very important. Others clearly are not. But whether or not they are important, we should follow the standing rules of the Senate. We should debate these provisions and have the opportunity to offer amendments.
Drilling in ANWR
Division C of this conference report authorizes the exploration, leasing, development, production, and transportation of oil and gas in and from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). This provision does not belong in an appropriations bill to fund our troops who are fighting the war on terror.
Drilling in ANWR is, of course, the reason we are here today. When conferees tried to add these provisions to the reconciliation measure, they could not get the votes to include it in the final agreement without putting passage of the whole package in jeopardy. So instead the conference managers have circumvented Senate rules and added this unrelated and controversial measure to the defense conference report.
Thanks to this additional language, enactment of the defense funding bill has been needlessly delayed, and continues at this moment to be the target of a filibuster.
I strongly oppose this inclusion of this language in the DOD Appropriations conference report, and I am appalled by the tactics that have been used to arm-twist and pressure Senators to choose between a drilling provision that they know is wrong and providing desperately needed funding for our nation's troops.
The Sweetners
And the ANWR provisions didn't come free, of course. The proponents had to come up with a slew of sweeteners in an effort to win support for drilling in the Arctic. Let's look at a few of these.
Division D directs an additional $1.5 billion, designated as emergency spending, for Low-Income Home Energy Assistance. The same division establishes a Gulf Coast Recovery and Disaster Prevention and Assistance Fund, which would be funded largely through ANWR oil and gas revenues. Another set of provisions addresses the Digital Transition and Public Safety Fund, established by the Budget Reconciliation conference report. The CBO estimates that this, spectrum fund,will generate $10 billion, but the conference report we are debating today figures out how to spend revenues in excess of $10 billion. After $10 billion, the next $2 billion will be directed to the Gulf Coast Fund. Already planning how to spend money that exceeds the level the CBO projects we will have - sound familiar, Mr. President?
So CBO says we can plan on $10 billion from the spectrum fund. If we somehow get to $12 billion in revenue, the excess goes to the Gulf Coast. So you think we'd stop there. But no, we go further, planning how to spend the next four billion dollars - on the chance that the spectrum fund generates still more money! The conference report directs that distributions over $12 billion be earmarked as:
- $900 million for conservation programs through the Dept. of Agriculture.
- $50 million to carry out the North American Wetlands Conservation Act.
- $50 million to protect grassland and wetland habitats.
- $1 billion for Interoperable Communications Equipment to assist state and local government preparation for a natural disaster or terrorist attack.
- $1 billion to assist state and local government preparation for a natural disaster or terrorist attack.
- $80 million to the Department of Homeland Security to replace and upgrade law enforcement communications.
- $30 million to replace Border Patrol vehicles.
- $490 million for Air and Marine Interdiction, Operations, Maintenance and Procurement to replace air assets, including $40 million for helicopter replacement.
- $372 million for Air and Marine Interdiction, Operations, Maintenance and Procurement to construct and renovate air facilities.
- $30 million for Tucson, Arizona Border Patrol sector for tactical infrastructure.
- $20 million for San Diego, California Border Patrol sector for the sector fence.
- $30 million for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to replace detention and removal vehicles.
- $17.9 million for Federal Law Enforcement Training Center for construction of a language training facility.
While the border security projects I have just mentioned are important, will they come to fruition? Not until the spectrum revenues exceed the CBO's estimate - first by $2 billion, and then by $4 billion on top of that. So only when the Fund hits $16 billion would all these funds actually be distributed. This entire scheme reminds me of the saying by Wimpy, the hamburger-obsessed character from the Popeye comic, "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."
Statement of Managers
In addition to everything I have described in the conference report, the statement of managers that accompanies it also includes hundreds of earmarks and questionable projects. Here are just a few examples:
-$1.6 million for Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Activities.
-$30 million for continued development of the Joint Common Missile - a program that DOD cancelled this year.
-$10 million to restructure the Advanced SEAL Delivery System. Over half a billion dollars has been spent over the last nine years, with no deployable vehicles yet fielded. U.S. Special Operations Command has cancelled plans for future boats.
-$3.2 million for Handheld High Intensity Searchlights.
-$7 million for the Alaska Land Mobile Radio.
Mr. President, despite high gas prices, despite a swelling budget deficit, despite our military operations overseas, and despite our domestic emergencies, pork continues to thrive in good times and bad. The cumulative effect of these earmarks is the erosion of the integrity of the appropriations process, and by extension, our responsibility to the taxpayer. We must do better, for our soldiers and for the American people.
A Broken System
We have to fix this system, Mr. President. Our system is broken if we cannot pass a defense bill in wartime without billions of dollars in pork. Our system is broken if we cannot fund our troops without tacking on legislation that opens up ANWR to drilling. Our system is broken if our national security is at stake and we carry on spending for the special interests as if nothing were wrong. But there is something wrong, something very wrong. We want to have it all without making any sacrifices, so we simply borrow the money, pushing off the obligations onto our children and our grandchildren. ANWR is a perfect example of that. We drill today in the false hope that doing so will solve our energy problems, but in doing so we leave future generations with a degraded environment and the same dependence on oil that we have today.
In his farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower reflected on the spending he believed to be excessive. His words then are all the more powerful in today's out of control environment: "As we peer into society's future," he said, "we - you and I, and our government - must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow."
And yet, I say to my colleagues, if we cannot change, if we will not change, we risk precisely that becoming the insolvent phantom of tomorrow. I wonder what President Eisenhower would think of this mess. But, then, perhaps others have contemplated the same question. After all, this bill includes a $1.7 million earmark for a memorial on the National Mall that would honor none other than . . . .Dwight D. Eisenhower. "
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