Opening Statement of United States Senator James
Inhofe
“The Range Readiness and Preservation Initiative of
the Department of Defense”
United States Senate Committee on Environment and
Public Works
July 9, 2002
Good afternoon. Having worked closely with Senators Smith
and Warner to request via letter this hearing on the Range Readiness and
Preservation Initiative of the Department of Defense, and after much delay, I
am glad that we are finally all here today.
I am thankful that the initial decision of the Chairman to deny our
request for a hearing has been revisited and wisely overturned.
I am extremely pleased and honored to see the Vice Chiefs
of Staff of our Armed Forces all here today.
I feel that their presence is invaluable. I believe the presence of these fine gentlemen most definitely
signals the importance the Department of Defense places on this issue. It is all the more impressive that they have
taken the time to come here today during a time of war on terrorism. In addition, I understand that this hearing
represents the first time that the Vice Chiefs have ever testified together
other than before the Armed Services Committees. Thank you all, and good to see you.
I have a great deal of concern about the issues of range
readiness and preservation which are before us today. I served as the Chairman of the Readiness Subcommittee of the
Senate Armed Services Committee for four years and currently serve as Ranking
Member of the Readiness Subcommittee.
Indeed, I served in the Army decades ago, and we just did not have the
readiness problems then that we face today.
These problems are caused by an ever-growing maze of environmental
procedures and regulations in which we are losing the ability to prepare our
patriot children, our war fighters, for war.
And speaking of children, I have 4 children and 11 grandchildren. I want them to have to have clean air, fresh
water, and pure soil. I want them to
have abundant flora and flourishing fauna.
That brings me to the thesis for this hearing. That is: The God-given rights and liberties
and free market capitalism that our military defend around the world translate
directly into cleaner air, fresher water, purer soil, abundant flora, and flourishing
fauna. The simple fact is that freer
nations have higher standards of living, and, very significantly, that includes
attaining higher environmental standards.
Simply put: Enabling our military HELPS God’s green earth.
With that straightforward truth in mind, let’s examine
the makeup of today’s hearing. Opposing
our military today are the usual troika of 1. Government employee
organizations, 2. Lawyers/trial lawyers, and 3. Eco-radicals.
First we have the government employee organizations. These bureaucrats are always concerned with
the prospect of lost jobs. Innovative
and improved paperwork processes can certainly achieve a better bang (pun
intended) for our taxpayer dollars.
More efficient government can result in smaller government with fewer
employees. It is no coincidence that
government employee groups routinely oppose these government innovations and
improvements, and indeed support more cumbersome and paperwork-intensive
regimes focused on more procedural hurdles rather than improved results and
better performance. They want more
government, not less; to them it means more government jobs.
How many times has ASTSWMO, or like groups such as
STAPPA/ALAPCO testified before Congress, and how many times were they opposing
the streamlining of procedural paperwork?
Just recently this committee heard the government employee group
STAPPA/ALAPCO testify as to its support for the 30+ rulemakings and procedural
encumbrances and increased paperwork of the Jeffords-Lieberman regulatory air
restrictions bill which Senator Voinovich so eloquently explained and so
visually illustrated. Today again we
have STAPPA/ALAPCO promoting big government in the testimony. These groups of government bureaucrats invariably
wind up testifying for bigger government and opposing smaller government.
To add insult to injury, not only are the salaries of
these individual government employees paid with our tax dollars; quite often
the groups themselves receive separate, additional, appropriated dollars to pay
for the groups themselves and the activities of the groups. As I say, these activities almost invariably
amount to lobbying for bigger government and more expenditures of our tax
dollars with an emphasis not on better results but rather on more procedures. We have thus created a self-perpetuating,
government-bloating apparatus. This
must stop. We have to cease the
big-government funding for lobbyists for big-government funding.
Secondly we have the lawyers. The self-interested bands of government bloaters are invariably
joined by the trial lawyers and their front groups who see increased
opportunities to sue with every single procedural hurdle they can create. Trial lawyers too are interested in full
employment. For example, these lawyers
swear blind allegiance to the much maligned and tragically flawed
CERCLA/Superfund Act. It is no
coincidence that the CERCLA/Superfund Act is commonly called the “Lawyers’ Full
Employment Act” due to the fact that so much money goes to lawyers, including
government lawyers, and so little actually goes to clean our water and
soil. With so many twisted and
convoluted regulatory procedures, and particularly eco-regulatory procedures,
we have created the world’s largest maze complete with an invasive species to
run through the maze–the trial lawyer.
Thirdly we have the eco-radical groups. These groups are more interested in
propagating issues for fund-raising than they are in solving problems. Congressman J.D. Hayworth of Arizona
illustrates this point well. When he
asked the Sierra Club for some modest financial help to save some particular
bald eagles in Arizona, the Sierra Club rejected his coordinating efforts
claiming a lack of funds, only to turn right around and run hundreds of
thousands of dollars of TV commercials attacking him. The eco-radicals didn’t solve a situation; instead they
prioritized propaganda.
I’m here to tell you that the troika of these government
employee groups and trial lawyer groups and eco-radical groups and their
big-spending, procedure-obsessed, self-preservation instincts are out of touch
with the vast majority of Americans who want leaner and more effective
government that focuses on and achieves better results. These groups have a common yearning for more
federal regulations, more federal bureaucracy, in other words, more central
planning. We have seen the failures of
central planning in the former Soviet Union, and it is not a good idea to
replicate central planning in America.
This is serious business. Our nations’s defense is on the line. You simply cannot prepare for the defense of our nation in an
arcade. Within the past week I have
heard complaints from real troops lamenting the impairment of live-fire
training due to the inability to use ammunition. I am concerned for this generation of our patriot children and
for the future generations of our patriot children. You just can’t give our war-fighting snipers the best training by
making them say “Bang Bang” instead of actually firing the gun. You just can’t give our war-fighting bombers
the best training by making them simply say “Bombs Away” rather than actually
dropping a bomb. This situation is
actually occurring, and many Americans have not been told of the truth of the
matter.
Well, I say Americans deserve the truth and can most
definitely handle the truth. I see it
as my job both as Member of this Committee, as well as former Chair and current
Ranking Member of the Readiness Subcommittee of our Armed Services Committee,
to inform the American people.
Now I have come full circle back to my original point
that what is good for the defense of our God-given rights and freedoms the
globe-over is good for the environment that God has created for us.
Do the Communist nations have the best environments? Definitely not. Look at the environmental disasters of the Communists of the
former Soviet Union created. Do the
nations without free markets, without respect for human rights, and without
enforcement of property rights have the best environments? Definitely not.
When our military defends against the Communists of North
Korea we are defending the environment.
When our military defends against the Communists of North Vietnam we are
defending the environment. When our
military defends Kuwait against the dictatorial regime in Iraq, we are
defending the environment. Do you
remember the vast oil fires that Saddam Hussein set with malice toward the
environment in the oil fields of Kuwait?
The American service men and women defend our environment, both here and around the globe. Let’s ready our services. I stand firmly with our military and look forward to the testimony of the Vice Chiefs.