Goodman, Sherri W., Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Environmental Security, Accompanied by: Elsie L. Munsell, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Environment and Safety; Ray J. Fatz, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Environment, Safety and Occupational Health; and Thomas W.L. McCall, Jr., Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Environment, Safety and Occupational Health Baca, Hon. Sylvia V., Assistant Secretary of Interior for Lands and Minerals Management, Accompanied by: Hon. Donald J. Barry, Assistant Secretary of Interior for Fish and Wildlife and Parks Page 413 486 499 Magnus, Maj. Gen. Robert, U.S. Marine Corps, Commanding General, Marine Barry, Brig. Gen. John L., U.S. Air Force, Commander, 56th Fighter Wing, 502 Beard, Rear Adm. Timothy R., U.S. Navy, Commander, Naval Strike and 511 Cavin, Maj. Gen. Dennis D., U.S. Army, Commanding General, Fort Bliss, 513 Coroalles, Col. Anthony M., U.S. Army, Garrison Commander, Alaska 518 THE STATUS OF FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT WITHIN THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APRIL 14, 1999 Hill, Eleanor, Inspector General, Department of Defense, Accompanied by: Lynn, William J., III, Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller/Chief Finan- TO REVIEW THE READINESS OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY AND MARINES APRIL 21, 1999 Clemins, Adm. Archie R., USN, Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet 553 563 592 626 636 659 DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION FOR APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2000 AND THE FUTURE YEARS DEFENSE PROGRAM WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10, 1999 U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS AND MANAGEMENT SUPPORT, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, THE CONDITION OF THE SERVICES INFRASTRUCTURE The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:32 a.m. in room SD-232A, Senator James M. Inhofe (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Committee members present: Senators Inhofe, Hutchinson, and Robb. Professional staff members present: Pamela L. Farrell, George W. Lauffer, and Cord A. Sterling. Minority staff member present: Michael J. McCord, professional staff member. Staff assistant present: Sharen E. Reaves. Committee members' assistants present: Christopher J. Paul, assistant to Senator McCain; Gregory McCarthy, assistant to Senator Inhofe; George M. Bernier III, assistant to Senator Santorum; James Beauchamp, assistant to Senator Roberts; Michael Ralsky, assistant to Senator Hutchinson; G. Wayne Glass, assistant to Senator Bingaman; and William Owens, assistant to Senator Robb. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JAMES M. INHOFE, CHAIRMAN Senator INHOFE. The subcommittee hearing will come to order. I have been assured that many other members are going to come here, and of course their staff is here and representing their interests. There will be many questions that will be submitted for the record, and you will see others coming in during the course of this meeting. Mr. Yim, Secretary Apgar, Secretary Pirie, and Secretary DeMesme, we welcome you here. I appreciate your appearance this morning as we review the fiscal year 2000 military construction and family housing funding request. As our letter of invitation indicated, we asked that, beyond the funding request, you address the (1) state of your service's mobility infrastructure and the test range and laboratory facilities. Before we begin with opening statements, I want to thank General Lupia, who is retiring this summer, for his long and distinguished service to our Nation and his cooperation with and support of this subcommittee. General Lupia, all of us will miss you. Good luck to you and your family. General LUPIA. Thank you, sir. Senator INHOFE. Regarding the fiscal year 2000 military construction program request, I think it is probably accurate to say it is going to be dead on arrival, for a number of reasons. Although the total value of the request is $8.4 billion, the administration is requesting only $5.4 billion. We will be discussing this during the course of this meeting. The remaining $3.1 billion is delayed until next year. Under this proposal, each project would be allocated less than 25 cents out of every dollar required for construction. Such a gimmick may make sense to the Comptroller. However, it does not make sense to the civil engineer who has to execute the project or the contractor who has to bid on the contract for which money may not be there. I expect that this short-sighted approach will result in an increase of construction costs and a delay in executing the program. In regard to the commitment for the $3.1 billion that the $3.1 billion are programmed for next year, we have previously heard such a promise when it comes to procurement funding. If history tells us anything, it is that when next year comes around the promised funding is diverted to higher priorities or other peacekeeping mis sions. Mr. Lynn, the DOD Comptroller, justifies phased funding for the fiscal year 2000 construction program as a one-time event taken to fund other readiness accounts. In my judgment, this is robbing Peter to pay Paul. I want to remind the Comptroller that the military construction budget pays for the construction of maintenance facilities, runways, family housing, and barracks, all of which are critical to readiness. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Secretary of Defense, the service secretaries, and the service chiefs all stated that improving our infrastructure and the quality of life for our personnel was critical. Despite this type of testimony, the budget that we are considering today is indicative of why infrastructure is crumbling. It is operating in the status quo in that military construction is the first item to be sacrificed when it comes to funding decisions. We are honored to welcome Senator Hutchinson to our committee. I am optimistic we can find a better solution to funding the military construction program for fiscal year 2000 than proposed by the administration. I will be working with Senator Robb and Senator Warner in the coming weeks to resolve this matter. Before I ask Senator Robb for his comments, I must point out to our witnesses that the committee has yet to receive the legislative proposals that go along with the budget request. At every opportunity, Secretary Cohen asks, as I expect you will today, for our additional support for base closures, and we would have to ask where is the legislative proposal. We hope we will be able to discuss this in some detail during the course of this meeting. Senator Robb. STATEMENT OF SENATOR CHARLES S. ROBB Senator ROBB. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I join you in welcoming our witnesses to today's hearing. This morning the subcommittee reviews DOD's military construction and family housing programs, which have a direct impact on the quality of life and efficiency of our military, as you have noted and we are all very much aware. This year the committee has already acted on pay, retirement, and education benefits legislation and we all understand the importance of these programs to our men and women in uniform. But we also know that the quality of the installations where our personnel work and the quality of the housing they and their families live in is an important part of their quality of life and directly affects our ability to retain these people, who are really the most important assets that we have. Today we will also be discussing one of our least favorite issues, namely base closures. Senator McCain, Senator Levin and I have already introduced legislation to authorize additional base closures. It is in my view a question of when, not if, we allow DOD to get its question of excess infrastructure under control. The need to do so is clear and convincing in my judgment, and I believe that the sooner we do so the better, both for the Department of Defense and the American taxpayer. I am hopeful that now we have finally put the issue of the fate of the two Air Force maintenance depots in Texas and California behind us we can move on and give the next administration the base closure authority that it will need. I would like to particularly commend you, Mr. Chairman, for your work in resolving the depot issue. I think you probably devoted more time than any other Senator to untangling that mess, and the results of the competitions the Air Force held clearly validated some of the major points that you had been making all along. I expect you are looking forward as much as I am to moving on to other challenges. I think dealing with base closures is that next major challenge that we face. My own preference is to go for one additional round, however large or small that round may need to be, and get it over with now. Every dollar that we spend on bases that we do not need to keep open is a dollar that we cannot use to fix up the bases we do need to keep. The longer we wait, the more dollars we waste. Finally, Mr. Chairman, I join you in expressing my deep concern with the administration's proposal to incrementally fund military construction projects in fiscal year 2000. I believe the long-term risks of abandoning the fiscal discipline of full funding vastly outweigh the short-term benefits. I hope we can find a better alternative when we proceed to marking up our bill later this year. I would like to note that in testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee last week it appeared that even Deputy Secretary of Defense Hamre does not support this split funding policy. At least he had an opportunity to embrace it and did not. To date, the strongest defense I have heard of this policy is that it could work. I do not think there is any question that Congress could do it. The question is whether or not we should do it, and I will be very interested to see if any of our witnesses can explain why we should abandon the principle of full funding. Mr. President, I look forward to our hearing and hearing from our witnesses on this and other issues this morning. Senator INHOFE. Thank you, Senator Robb. I am also glad that we finally got some of the not the way the '95 round recommended resolution as far as the air logistics centers, but at least it is resolved for that purpose now. Senator Hutchinson. Senator HUTCHINSON. I look forward to the testimony. I decline the opening statement, to the great relief of the chairman. Senator INHOFE. Thank you very much. We will start with Mr. Yim, the acting Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Installations. I enjoyed our visit yesterday and look forward to working with you. STATEMENT OF RANDALL A. YIM, ACTING DEPUTY UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR INSTALLATIONS, ACCOMPANIED BY: LANCE A. DAVIS, PH.D., DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR LABORATORY MANAGEMENT AND TECHNOLOGY TRANSITION, DOD Mr. YIM. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of this committee. I am very pleased to be here today. This is my first appearance before this committee and I appreciate this opportunity to discuss the Department's initiatives for reshaping our installation infrastructure. Before I continue, I would like to introduce a distinguished colleague, Dr. Lance Davis, the Deputy Director of Laboratory Management and Technology Transition, to my immediate left. Let me first begin, Mr. Chairman, by pledging my commitment to you and to each member of this distinguished committee to work closely and effectively with each of you and your staff to develop and share the information necessary to intelligently discuss and resolve the very challenging issues we face as we work together to reshape our installation structure to meet the changing mission requirements of the twenty first century while at the same time preserving the quality of life for our most precious assets, our dedicated military and civilian work force and their families. I am confident that, with the experience and expertise represented in this room, that we will reach good common sense and practical solutions to the challenges that we all face, and I commit to you my best efforts to make this happen. Secretary Cohen recently testified before this full committee about the important role that installations play in the defense mission. Installations are platforms from which diverse strategies and missions are executed. They contain the facilities and equipment for training and mobilizing our forces, and they are communities where our people live and work. Our installation programs must enhance the readiness and mission accomplishments and maintain a high quality of life. This year's budget submission represents a considered judgment of the |