CONGRESSMAN DUNCAN HUNTER Proudly Serving the 52nd District of California

www.house.gov/hunter

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:                                            CONTACT: MICHAEL HARRISON
5 OCTOBER 1999                                                            (202) 225-5672

    WASHINGTON, D.C.  – Congressman Duncan Hunter (CA-52), Chairman of the House Military Procurement Subcommittee, responded to the President’s signing of S. 1059, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000, by stating:

    “Even with the signing of S. 1059, there remain enormous inadequacies and shortcomings in the bill.  Defense continues to be vastly underfunded and our national security remains in a dangerously weakened state.

    “Despite the stated requirements of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the President once again this year sent Congress an insufficient defense budget with significantly underfunded modernization accounts.  In the absence of a sustained increase in procurement funding, the Department's aging equipment situation will only get worse, and its inventory of key precision weapons will never reach the levels required to meet the national military strategy.

    “It was against this backdrop that Congress added $2.7 billion to procurement accounts in the Defense Authorization Act, almost entirely in support of the service chiefs' unfunded requirements lists.  This sum is significant in anyone's book - and will certainly make a difference - but it is far from meeting the U.S. military's modernization requirements.  As such, as pleased as I am that the President signed the Defense Authorization Act, my enthusiasm is tempered by the recognition that this bill only puts off for one more year the inevitable reality that our nation still faces a significant modernization shortfall."

A summary of the law's major provisions is available on the committee's homepage at
http://www.house.gov/hasc/openingstatementsandpressreleases/106thcongress/99-08-
05confsummary.htm.