Third, I just want to secure comment on something that caught my eye. We are precipitously reducing the number of ships that we have. The figures here are going down something like a 100 in the next 5 years, whatever.

Yet, I know you are asking for something like $8 billion to build 9 new guided missile destroyers over the course of the next 2 years. I would like to have you explain that to me.

One other thing, particularly for General Powell. I sent a letter to Secretary Cheney about the mail situation 2 days ago. I can honestly understand how difficult it could be if you had 500,000 new residents in Wyoming, for instance, getting mail to them and getting that sorted out in a short period of time.

What I don't understand, General, is the problem of mail coming from there to here. We have had them in our office anything from 17 days to a month to get the letter from there here. I really can't understand that.

I know you are working on the problem of mail going out there. That is very important. Why does it take so long to get here? It is all going basically one place, the APO.

Thank you.

General POWELL. We are working both sides of the mail equation. As you know, there isn't one of those nice little red and blue boxes everywhere out there. From the time the GI writes it, we can capture it, get it to the ports in Riyadh or Dharan, and get it out of the country. From there on, it is in good shape. It is hard to get mail from up country back down to the main APOS.

We are working on it. "No excuse, sir", is an old military answer. We have to fix that problem. It is important.

Secretary CHENEY. Let me comment on a couple of your other questions, Congressman. With respect to ship cutbacks, it is really a question if you are going to have fewer ships we think they need to be capable ones. As we retire some of the older units, bringing these new ships on line that have a broad spectrum of capabilities, the Aegis systems, the capacity to launch missiles to shoot down aircraft or cruise missiles to hit land targets, that spectrum of capability is important.

It is like what we get in the Air Force. We can afford to get rid of a lot of aircraft if the ones we have left are stealthy and can drop bombs with enormous precision on hard targets as we are doing right now.

We need fewer aircraft to take out these targets than we would have 20 years ago with the older systems.

With respect to end strength reductions, it is a major concern for us. The plan we have here is possible only if we have a lot of flexibility as we go through with it. As I said, when we come up with the supplemental, we may ask for relief from the 1991 ceilings.

We may have to push the stages of the reduction a little further into the out years.

On base closure commission, I think we have a good plan. We all agreed to it last year in the authorization bill. The President has nominated a number of members already. There may still be two positions unfilled, I think, that we are working on.

As soon as the commission is confirmed and up to strength,

tions from the services to the commission and then they can go to work. They will come up with a package for me that I will approve or reject.

Assuming I approve it, we will send it up for congressional approval or rejection. I think it is basically a sound process. I am glad we were able to agree upon the procedures.

Now, let's hope we can produce results.

Mr. MARTIN. I, for one, am pleased you are going to ask for relief from the end strength sooner rather than later. That is really going to be difficult on the uniformed personnel.

The CHAIRMAN. Let me announce Secretary Cheney and General Powell should leave about a quarter to. We will work in three more people. That will be Richard Ray, Solomon Ortiz and John Kasich.

Mr. RAY. I guess I can get off my spot right now, Mr. Secretary. We are glad to have you and General Powell here. I would like to raise a couple of items for your consideration which are not very glamorous.

One of them happens to be depot and logistics center maintenance and funding. The other is environmental restoration.

I just mention we have about 20,000 contemplated sites on 1,500 military bases. I will deal with that later and put a statement in the record for your consideration.

Mr. RAY. I think a big measure, a large measure of the success we have enjoyed here is the fact that logistics have worked very well, particularly in spares and in repairs and parts delivered and so forth.

The thing that bothers me is I notice in the budgets, the service secretaries for the Navy, Army and Air Force, are cutting logistics across the board just like every other command or every other part of the service.

I think we all know that a piece of equipment, an airplane, a B52 which is a different airplane altogether from the Vietnam era is a product of Tinker Air Force Base, the logistics center. We are going to need to repair a lot of this equipment, keep it on hand, the F-15s,. If we lose much of the skilled labor we have by early outs and reduction in force, I fear it will be costly to us in the future. I think the budget, therefore, needs-for the Army and Navy depot centers needs to be looked at carefully as it is described.

The other is the environmental restoration. We have a situation which I think deserves a lot of attention. The Department of Defense is geared up very strongly. We have some very capable people now on the DOD side.

We have the Congress and I think the Environmental Protection Agency working very well in this area. Frictions have been eliminated.

I am disappointed that the budget is, to say the least, about stable with last year. We were able to plus it up.

The Environmental Restoration Fund, that account, was about a $1.2 billion last year, somewhere along that line this year. We are going to deal with these businesses over the next 20 years.

We will eventually have to get this fund to $4 billion a year. Now, the thing that is of real danger here is that we are right at the point right now of a Federal facilities billion being introduced in the House. Last year we found it, lost it, we managed to kill it

over in the conference, but what we are looking at with this Federal facilities bill-and this is estimates from GAO and the Department of Defense-which were-the Federal facilities bill will allow States to find these 1,500 military reservations around the country on a daily basis for an estimated cost over the next 15 years of from $5 billion to $25 billion.

I think we need to show every good faith effort we can to keep this fund funded, short circuit the process of developing the situation and move as rapidly as we can in that respect.

These items are for your consideration.

There are a lot of other things up above. These are going to bit us very hard if we don't look at them carefully.

I thank you. You might make comments you would like to in that respect. I will submit a statement for the record.

Secretary CHENEY. If I may, Congressman, just briefly comment on the environmental side of things. I am told we are spending about $2.5 billion in fiscal year 1991 on environmental cleanup. Part of that is the environmental restoration fund and part for compliance activities. We are making very significant expenditures-probably I would guess more than any other department. Mr. RAY. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

[The following information was received for the record:]

Mr. RAY. It has come to my attention that a bill will be introduced in the House that is very similar to H.R. 1056, which passed the House last year over my strong objections. This bill would expand the current waiver of sovereign immunity under RCRA to allow States to assess fines and penalties against DOD for environmental compliance and cleanup activities. Last year the Department of Defense and OMB provided Congress with data estimating the potential liability of this legislation to be somewhere between six and twenty-five billion dollars over the next 15 years. Does the Department of Defense still oppose this legislation, and is the estimate of potential liability still valid?

ANSWER. The Department believes that the waiver of sovereign immunity embodied in S.596, in and of itself, is not the solution to improved Federal facility compliance with hazardous waste laws. A broader approach is needed to fix the systemic difficulties encountered by DOD installations and activities. The Department remains concerned about the potential financial implications of S.596, but if the broader system changes can be realized, either in S.596 or in other ways, the liability will not be significant.

Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Let me compliment both Secretary Cheney and General Powell for a job well done. At this moment, Mr. Chairman, I would like to obtain unanimous consent for those of us who have more than one question submitted for the record, an appropriate time to respond. The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, the normal process will be observed here.

Mr. ORTIZ. Mr. Secretary, as I understand it, the Department of Defense is planning to take the remaining two battleships out of the naval fleet by the end of this fiscal year, and I have been told by military officials that both the Wisconsin and Missouri have been key to our efforts in the Persian Gulf.

How would you evaluate the performance of these two battleships in the Persian Gulf and the importance of the mission? Based on the successful performance of the battleships, what justification is used for taking them out of the fleet at this time, and if we did not have two battleships join the conflict, what would the military

If we find it absolutely necessary to take the battleships out of the fleet, would the Department of Defense be willing to consider a place in the Wisconsin and the Missouri in reserve status? That way the battleships would be more accessible in times of conflict and less manpower intensive.

Let me go to another question. This last 10, 15 days, we had units from my district of Marine Reserves who were activated and sent to Pendleton. Recently they have been requesting money from home because we are having to pay for their meals up front to the tune of $11 a day, and maybe you can respond to that later on and see how we can take care of that.

Another question that I have, in the coming years, there are going to be reductions and base closures across the country. How do you see the Office of Economic Adjustment meeting the demands and needs that will be placed on it by the effect of States and communities?

Secretary CHENEY. On the battleships, Congressman, they have played a very important role. Both the U.S.S. Missouri and the U.S.S. Wisconsin have been involved in using their 16-inch guns and within the last couple of days on targets in southern Kuwait within the range of coast. They also played an important role in the initial stages of the conflict as cruise missile platforms. They launched a number of cruise missiles against targets in Iraq. They are large ships and they are manpower intensive, about 1600 personnel per ship.

So, facing the need to meet end-strength reductions and trying to cut the number of people in service, drives us in the direction of finding the platforms more efficient than the old battleships. They are just very difficult to manage with less than 1,600 people.

From that standpoint, the decision has been made reluctantly by the Navy with my approval that we would deactivate the last two ships. We have already taken the U.S.S. Iowa and the U.S.S. New Jersey out of active service. The U.S.S. Wisconsin and U.S.S. Missouri unfortunately will follow along behind. I would like to have them. The basic answer is, we can't afford them.

On the question of $11 a day for meals for the Marine Corps, I will check it out. This is the first I have heard of it.

[The following information was received for the record:]

Unlike annual training duty where subsistence in kind is provided, Marine Reservists involuntarily ordered to extended active duty under Section 673b of Title 10 and Section 673 of Title 10 are in a Temporary Active Duty/Temporary Duty (TAD/ TDY) status. Due to an administrative oversight, not all Marine Reservists received their advance per diem of approximately $354.00 prior to reporting to Camp Pendleton. The base mess halls are required to collect the meal cost plus surcharge, or $12.75 per day, from each member who is in a TAD/TDY status drawing per diem. No marine was turned away due to a lack of funds. Once the problem was identified, Marine Corps officials at Camp Pendleton took immediate action to rectify the oversight.

Mr. ORTIZ. What about the status of maybe having both on the Reserve status?

Secretary CHENEY. It hasn't come up. We can take a look at it. I don't want to create any false hopes.

We have worked hard with the Navy to try to keep ships in reserve status. What you find is in order to do that and to care for it and maintain it in that status requires a fairly large number of

active-duty personnel. So even though it may not be deployed, it may not be at sea for 4, 5, 6 months at a time, you still have a lot of personnel on board basically to have it tied up at the dock.

What we will do with them is go ahead and mothball them to have that capability. We can still bring them out if we have to. Maintaining ships in reserve status is something we are trying on frigates, but it is not easy to do in an efficient manner.

Mr. KASICH. I think you are the most effective combination we have seen in this country since Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Anybody who approached the batting cage and tell those people how to hit, I think people would have to wonder. So let me just say a couple of things here.

First of all, I am delighted you are going to talk about Iraq in terms of the B-2 and I will tell you why. The F-117 has its role. Its job, of course, is to fly against fixed targets with very precise munitions and can drop two 2000-pound bombs. Limited ordnance but against a fixed target, and with highly precise weapons.

The B-2's original purpose and continued goal is to find mobile targets in the middle of a nuclear war in the Soviet Union. For 3 weeks we heard of it, and I have explained that trying to find mobile launchers in Iraq is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Iraq is not even a postage-size stamp when you compare the Soviet Union.

We have complete air supremacy now in Iraq and we are having great difficulty being able to find all of these mobile systems over a period of weeks. I think to argue that we will then in the middle of a nuclear war be able to find mobile targets in a country the size of the Soviet Union, really kind of confirms the reason as to why we thought the B-2's mission didn't make any sense.

We clearly don't want to have a $1 billion per unit carpet bomber to be used in Iraq. So I think that the Iraq situation further underscores the fact that we should move away from that kind of system and take a look at the systems that really represent the threat in the new world and continue to rely on the smart munitions to hit the fixed targets without having to spend a billion dollars.

But I want to move to the area of where the money in the budget goes. 1992 is only 1 percent smaller than the 1991 budget in real terms. Yet we cut 91,000 people, closed 86 domestic bases, killed the F-14, zero the F-15, zero the Harriers, combat helicopters, zero Patriots, half the Tomahawks, half the SRAMs, zero new artillery pieces-the list goes on and on.

You have got to say, where is the money going? The money is going, according to some unofficial estimates, $30 billion that will move into the special access programs which represent-our budget is going to increase by 15.5 percent. I think everyone and all the services agree that the special access efforts don't work anymore. You, Mr. Secretary, canceled the A-12 temporarily because you weren't given all the good programs. I don't know what the cost of the program is going to be, and the special access accountability system leaves a lot to be desired.

I am concerned about the fact that we move more and more programs into the special access world and it jeopardizes really visibility and life of good programs. The A-12 is a good example. The B