structured things. Now they are trying to make that restructured organization work efficiently against the production they have to

do.

The good news is that the technical side of the program seems to be coming along very well, and it has stayed on the course toward a first flight this summer now for well over 18 months.

Mr. SISISKY. But that is a year late, though, is it not?

Dr. RICE. Oh, yes, that is a year later than it had been set in the original schedule, you are quite right, but after the resetting of the schedule, it has held now for quite an extended period of time. So, I think we take that as a positive sign.

This is something that we are literally on top of every day. I can tell you we get a great deal of help with it from the Defense Acquisition Executive's office and from the new consolidated Defense Contract Management Agency and from the Inspector General's office and from the GAO and from about every other oversight organization you can imagine, and we appreciate all the help and we are trying to bring the program along in the best way possible.

Mr. SISISKY. In a few short words, what are the real technical breakthroughs that this aircraft has encountered that are causing so many problem? I really do not understand that. Maybe you cannot talk about it here, I do not know.

Dr. RICE. No, there is nothing that would be classified, Mr. Sisisky.

It is an attempt to combine together in one airplane the features of a number of airplanes, but none of that, frankly, to any of this, provides an adequate explanation of why it seems to have been so difficult to develop and to get on with producing it.

It provides the outsized carrying capability that is even better than the C-5 because its cross section is better. It will not carry as large a tonnage load, but its cross section is better. You can pack it better and it carries the outsized equipment even better than the C-5 does.

It has a footprint and a ramp space requirement on the ground like a C-141, and it is projected to land in the space of a C-130. So, combining all that together into one multi-purpose airlifter has been the challenge here. We think again from a technical point of view that is all in hand. The problem is the organization and structure of the day-to-day work in that place and getting it out the door without using too many people and therefore incurring too much cost to do it.

Now, even with that level of uncertainty that we face in costs, when you look down at the alternatives, it is quite clear to us that even if we were to somehow cut off this program at this point and go back to some mix of C-5s, SLEPing C-141s and C-130s, to try to recover the same capability, it would cost more in total costs and it would cost more during the start-up than the C-17 will.

So, it has this very impressive combination of capabilities. The airlift requirement is clearly there. We simply do not believe there is a lower cost alternative available to us.

Mr. SISISKY. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Machtley.

Two years ago, many people on this committee, learned about the enormous amount of money that they spent in special access for the B-2. Part of the concern by many members was that there was too much of the budget in special access.

Last year, we discussed this to some extent. My recollection, because I asked the question, was that you were going to provide us some information as to how you were going to deal with all these programs.

I appreciate the need to have secrecy and in some cases, even disguise what we are spending on special programs, but when we have gotten so far down the road as was apparent in the B-2 program, that it made practical financial sense to continue, and that is probably becoming the sole argument for the continuation of the program, I think we have gone too far.

Now, the question is, have you made a reduction in special access programs and what percent, if you can share with us in this forum, of the budget is in fact in special access. As I understand it, the Air Force has the largest segment, and how do you provide us information heretofore in the future to prevent another B-2 occurrence where you spend so much that you cannot or we cannot authorize or suggest you back out of the program?

Dr. RICE. Mr. Machtley, as we have discussed together in fora like this before, the Air Force has been the party in this whole equation leaning forward on getting things out of the black.

It was before my time, but I can clearly find in the records proposals inside the department by the Air Force to bring the B-2 out of the black at least a couple of years earlier than it was actually done. For reasons that I will not try to characterize, the decision was made at our levels not to do that.

We got it out at the first chance that this administration had, that that action, as you know, during the 1989 budget cycle.

We have also moved the F-117 out of the black since that time. We have now only left in the black in terms of Air Force-specific programs a few much smaller programs. The ATF is not in the black. The money is in the open budget. You know what the schedule and the numbers are all associated with that. The only thing that is compartmented is the specific technology and the specific capability measurements that have to be protected with its stealth capabilities and so on.

When you look at the actual Air Force-specific programs that are in the black, it is now down to a very small proportion of our budget and is declining as I am sure you are aware. We cannot talk very much about it in this forum. There are other things, things for other people, in our budget which affect that number. So, I would simply ask you to look behind the aggregate and see what goes where and for whom when you look at those numbers.

The Air Force-specific pieces are now really way down from what it was a couple of years ago and continuing to decline.

Mr. MACHTLEY. Well

Dr. RICE. We have one or two other programs that we are working on getting out of the black now. Those decisions are going to have to be made by the Secretary of Defense as to whether or not to do that.

Mr. MACHTLEY. Specifically, how do you now tell our committee, if at all, how much you are spending on what programs and where we are going?

I mean we have talked in generalities, but do you have a way doing that?

of

Dr. RICE. Well, there is a procedure that, of course, is not the Air Force's to settle at all, that is worked out between the Chairman and the ranking members of the committees and the Secretary of Defense over how information is passed that is kept in compartment categories, whether it is budget information or the technical information. From the Air Force point of view, we simply comply with those procedures that are worked out between the committees and the leadership of the Department of Defense.

For our part, as I have told you, as I have tried to say in earlier testimony, and you and I have talked about separately as well, the Air Force stance has been in every place where we think it makes sense to do so, to push for moving more out of the black programs category, and we are continuing to do that.

We have one or two programs I can think of right now that we are working on inside to try to push in that direction.

Now, as quick as I say that, I want to emphasize that there are good reasons for specially-compartmented programs. There are some key technologies that we have seen, some of which we have seen in action, in the Gulf, sometimes you have seen the effects of them without even being able to tell what exact program it derived from, and, so, some of that very critical knowledge does have to be very carefully protected, but we need to hold it down to those few key things that really need to be treated that way.

Mr. MACHTLEY. I would certainly agree, and I would just say that there is a balance between your need for secrecy and the committee's need to have some information which can permit all of us to make decisions, particularly as we are going to be down-sizing the budget.

I would certainly hope that you and the chairman would continue to work in this area. I think it is an area that needs additional scrutiny.

General MCPEAK. Mr. Chairman, I would like to add a thought here and my own view, the costs of the B-2 is not the principal reason for continuing the program or, indeed, a very important reason for continuing the program, except in the context of examining alternate courses of action, B-2 versus other things you might procure.

The B-2 has the potential to have absolutely revolutionary impact. It is likely to make all other air forces obsolete, sitting on the flight line, if we can bring it in, and, so, no, it is not my view that it is just the money we have put into it that means we ought to continue it.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Ray and then Mr. Darden.

Mr. RAY. Mr. Secretary, good to see you today, and General McPeak.

I am going to take my time, if you do not mind, to put two or three questions into the record, and if you have time to respond to them, well, respond to them to the record will be fine or make any comments you want to.

A major item in this year's budget is the creation of the defense business operation fund. It is the latest in a series of so-called Defense Management Review initiatives.

The experience with these initiatives is that they may be based upon presumed savings that have yet to materialize, that many of the studies documenting these savings have yet to be completed, and that savings from these initiatives have already been deleted from the fiscal year 1992 budget, and they do remove the control of Congress to some degree and this committee from oversight and from participation.

I am going to go to another question and let you respond a little bit later, but I would like to say that many of us have been around long enough to see a lot of initiatives take place. Zero-based budgeting and the 3M program, meaningful measures of merit, and many of these programs did not survive any longer than the initiators did when they left.

So, I have tried my best to put some stumbling blocks in the way of DOD and with the help of some of my colleagues to slow some of these programs down.

Consolidation of depot supply functions, I think, is not going well right now. The pilot project that is taking place in California is creating some problems there. The recent Desert Storm activity that we worked so well and the best-organized and the best-functioning in all of history, a lot of that depended on the logistic centers, the backbone of the Air Force, the computer systems that handled the supply depots and got all of those supplies to the Middle East were just magnificent, and I think we ought to be very careful and very cautious about how we interfere with that particular system there.

You made a statement during your comment on the United States Air Force, on Page 36, it says, "For every decision which reduced force size and operating tempo, the depot maintenance program has been programmatically down-sized.'

I really think that is a mistake because it is the backbone of the Air Force, particularly the flying commands. Most of the 12 major commands are flying commands that cannot function properly, it will be particularly difficult if we get rid of those capable people through early outs and other processes that have done so well in the future.

Finally, let me come to just something I want to call to your attention, General McPeak and Secretary Rice. Recently, a few members of this committee had an opportunity to work around the environmental problems of the Pacific, and I think most of us recognize that it will be important in this decade to keep an eye on the Pacific. It is probably being neglected to some degree right now, you having served out in the Pacific would understand that, but the thing that struck me was that we have got a real problem with the logistics for key personnel, general officers in the Air Force, particularly in the Navy, in getting them to the Pacific points in a hurry.

We do not have any long-legged aircraft. We have a couple of C20s and as far as I can tell, a couple of C-21s, in the Pacific, as well as several C-12s, but while I was in Honolulu an Air Force officer needed to go to the Philippines. He flew 7 hours to Tokyo, then 3 hours across Tokyo, to get to a helicopter to fly to an airport, then

down to Okinawa, to refuel, and then 5 hours out to the Philippines. 20 hours to get there on a mission that was fairly important. General Stackpole, the Marine commander at Okinawa, and General Davis, have a serious problem. They both bid for one of two C21s in the area, and it is my suggestion, and I made this suggestion yesterday to Mr. Atwood with DOD, that we do something to alleviate that problem.

We have three C-21s that have been authorized and appropriated that have not been ordered. I urge that they be sent, maybe at least two to the Navy and one to the Air Force, to the Pacific. The CINCPAC commander out there has a C-135 that has serious corrosion problems. It is not much. He is not much older than that particular airplane.

He recently came to Andrews and it took a half a day to work on that airplane before he could go back. I think it has been neglected, and I would like to call that to your attention.

Finally, you have made a very fine statement on Page 41 on environmental quality. I want to compliment the Air Force on what I see taking place, Mr. Secretary, you in particular, dealing with the environmental problems with the Air Force are doing a wonderful

job.

This committee is working hard to alleviate problems where you get hung up between EPA, State agencies, and DOD. We have about 20,000 sites on 1,500 military bases. We have some pressure on us to get moving on that and clean up those sites, and I think we are going to see some results, primarily because of the good work the Air Force is doing and cooperating in that respect.

Now, any of that that you want to refer to for the record or personally would be appreciated, and I thank you for coming today. Dr. RICE. Thank you, Mr. Ray.

We can respond to all of them for the record if you would like. We would be happy to do so.

Mr. RAY. Unless you have something particular you want to talk about, that is fine.

Dr. RICE. Well, the only one I would really pick up on here is I understand then we share some of your concern about the consolidation of supply depots, the experiment out in California.

The Air Force view has been that it was very important that we run that experiment through, satisfy ourselves that that approach will work, and the key to that is the data system that works across the services. We continue to try to put that message forward and push it from that point of view, and the maintenance depots, I can assure you, we are very cognizant of the importance of them to the future Air Force.

You will note that we are doing a lot of things to reduce our reliance on the intermediate level of maintenance in the Air Force wherever the high reliability of our systems and our management capabilities to respond rapidly from the depots will allow us to do that, and we see them as, if anything, a more important-playing a more important role in the future Air Force.

At the same time, we have no choice but to adjust them to the realities of a smaller-sized Air Force, and we are trying to go through that process.