April 25, 1979
Page 8593
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield myself 5 minutes.
Mr. President, at the outset, I should like to address a point that the Senator makes, in which he suggests that somehow he was abused by the budget process or by the staff of the Budget Committee in the treatment of this question in the committee report.
The parliamentary situation at the time dealing with the fiscal year 1979 supplemental involved Senator DOMENICI's proposal to adopt the President's defense supplemental. Senator DOMENICI explained that the other day on the floor.
Senator RIEGLE's motion was to strike that part of the supplemental which represented Iranian ships. There were just two ships in the President's supplemental. Therefore, in implementing the Riegle motion, which carried by two votes, the staff eliminated the funds for the two ships that were in the supplemental.
Having done that, as I have said over and over again on the floor f the Senate for 5 years, that action would not prevent the Senate from approving the two ships which were deleted from the supplemental. It would not prevent the Senate from approving the authorization for those two ships. It would not prevent the Appropriations Committee from approving the funding of those two ships.
All that motion does is to limit the total amount of funds available in the national defense function of the budget for fiscal year 1979. It is then up to those on the Appropriations Committee to decide how those funds shall be spent. The priorities of the Budget Committee are not binding on the priorities of the Appropriations Committee for the national defense spending. It is that simple.
The debate, as Senator RIEGLE rightly describes it, involved all four ships because he was against all four ships. But he could no more strike four ships from a budget that had only two ships in it, than he could write the authorization bill for the defense supplemental in the Budget Committee.
Those are the simple ABC's of the budget process. There is nothing amazing — to use one of Senator RIEGEL'S favored words — about it.
He implied in what he said that the Iranian ships are not mentioned in the Budget Committee report on the budget resolution for fiscal year 1980. I refer Senators to page 319, the top of the page.This is roll call vote No. 121:
Riegle motion to delete Iranian ships from supplemental in function 050 (National Defense). Motion agreed to, 11 yeas — 9 nays:
And the vote is described.
Senator RIEGLE has chosen not to refer to that.
Now I turn to page 267 of the report. With respect to the supplemental, the report did not mention any items that were excluded from that item. It mentioned the things that were included.
The report says this with respect to function 050:
The committee recommends an increase of $0.2 billion in budget authority and $2.1 billion in outlays over the amount agreed to in the Second Concurrent Resolution for FY 1979 to accommodate a portion of the supplemental request made by the President, including additional funds for both strategic and tactical warfare forces, the FY 1979 pay raise for civilian and military personnel of Department of Defense, and other defense pay items.
What was the portion that was excluded? How much was excluded? What was excluded was $0.6 billion in budget authority, and that was the precise amount represented by the two Iranian ships that were before the committee in the supplemental.
So I suggest that Senators look at page 266 for the amounts provided — $127.2 billion in budget authority. If the President's full supplemental request including ships had been approved, the amounts available for national defense in fiscal year 1979 would have been $127.8 billion in budget authority.
There is nothing deceptive about this report to anybody who knows how to read it and who knows what it is supposed to represent.
I take issue with the suggestion, to use the Senator's words, that something remarkable took place here to somehow deprive him of his rights or to blind the Senate as to what took place in the Budget Committee. There would be no way to conceal that debate. It was the longest debate, the most vigorous debate, of the entire week that we spent in marking up the budget resolution.
Who am I to try to conceal that from? The Senate or the public? My staff never before has been accused of doing something like that in all the 5 years I have been associated with it. I reject the accusation and I reject the idea that there was an error. That he was arguing all four ships — yes. There is no question about that.
However, I say that when the numbers represented by the two ships were presented to Senator RIEGLE through his staff, those numbers were not challenged. It is those numbers that resulted in the $127.2 billion in budget authority.
I simply want to lay that matter to rest.
The second point I want to make, Mr. President, with respect to the Budget Committee action in approving the defense function is this: We did provide less in the function than the President recommended. With respect to the fiscal year 1980 defense budget, for example, the Senate Budget Committee targets for national defense were based on general agreement with the President's budget request level, with a few modifications aimed at greater efficiency within the Department of Defense.
These included, first, a 3-year phase out of the commissary subsidy; second, efficiency in non-readiness O. & M. activities; third, 25 percent absorption of the fiscal year 1980 pay raise of civilian and military personnel of the DOD, and reallocation of the savings from this pay absorption to the tactical forces — where the bulk of the NATO-related defense forces are found; and fourth, the revision of the cost-of-living adjustment for military retirees from a semiannual to an annual basis.
With respect to the 1979 supplemental, it included many items other than the Iranian ships. So if you took more than the amount for two ships out of the supplemental, the Budget Committee would have been blindly rejecting other items in the President's request which were never mentioned during the debate on the ships. Nor were they mentioned in the rest of the markup debate on the 1979 supplemental.
The only items debated in the defense supplemental were the ships, and we deleted all of the money from the ships that were before the committee. We did not write the supplemental authorization bill in the Budget Committee. We have no right to do so. As a matter of fact, the budget resolution finally approved by Congress is not even law and does not have to be signed by the President. It is a discipline imposed upon us by ourselves. So it cannot have the effect of law.
Only by writing a law can we authorizethe ships. But that will occur during debate on the defense supplemental authorization bill which the Senate will consider next week. That is where the four ships are. That is where they still are. And that is the only place where they can be either authorized or not authorized.
We cannot authorize or deny them. We can reduce the amount available in the national defense function for all defense activities, but we cannot establish the priorities within that function. Nor can we itemize and mandate what shall be done with any item.
If the Senator's amendment this afternoon were adopted, the Senate could still go through the process and approve the four Iranian ships.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's 5 minutes have expired.
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield myself 2 additional minutes.
The Senate could still do that. That should be understood.
It is the same point I made to Senator METZENBAUM in connection with his amendment. His amendment has been approved, but that still does not guarantee that what he sought to achieve with that amendment will result because the final decision rests with the conference. Subsequent to that the decision rests with the Appropriations Committee and its crosswalk procedures.
So even though that amendment passed, there is no guarantee it will be implemented.
And the same thing is true with this one. This issue should be debated next week during floor consideration f the authorization bill. That is where it should be debated. That is when the experts on both sides of the issue will be on the floor prepared to enlighten the Senate on the merits or demerits of these ships.
I am not a member of the Armed Services Committee. What we undertake in the Budget Committee is to provide recommendations concerning what the level of defense spending should be. The setting of priorities within the recommended total is outside our jurisdiction. We did all that we could do to implement the vote on the Riegle motion in committee by deleting the ships that were before us — in the sense that we reduced the total funding levels by the amount associated with the two ships in the supplemental.
Four ships were not before us. I make that as plainly as I can. When we are through with the budget resolution in this Chamber, whatever we do with it, we go to conference with the House of Representatives. The authorization bill for the supplemental will be before the Senate next week. Subsequent to that time it moves to the Appropriations Committee where, depending upon the level Congress has approved for the authorization bill, it will be funded in accordance with the procedures establishedby law and the priorities set by the Appropriations Committee.
In order to fund four ships, under the budget resolution as reported, the Appropriations Committee will analyze all defense items that were contained in the President's supplemental defense bill and establish its priorities for what they consider urgent. Now how did the supplemental arise? It came from the fact that the President vetoed the nuclear carrier last summer.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's additional 2 minutes have expired.
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield myself 1 additional minute.
The President vetoed the carrier last year. The supplemental is intended to provide programs that the President regards as of a higher priority than the vetoed carrier. That is the basis of the supplemental submission. The Congress,of course, does not have to agree with the President's judgment as to what is urgent and what represents priority requirements and spending levels.
The Budget Committee recommended reducing the President's request below the $2.2 billion amount that he deemed justified as a result of the veto last year.
Mr. President, that presents the case from the Budget Committee point of view. I will leave the merits of the ships and all the other questions that have been raised, and to which I am no expert,to those experts among us.
I agreed to yield to the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. BELLMON. Let me pass.
Mr. MUSKIE. Then I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished Senator from New Mexico, and then I will yield to the Senator from Mississippi.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Maine, and I will try to use only 2 minutes.
I wish to address my remarks to my good friend from Michigan, and what I am going to say I mean in all sincerity.
I believe here in the Chamber today the Senator from Michigan has made the same kind of accusation, in a sense, that he made in the committee about these ships. I want to say to him that I really do not think he needs to do that to make a case. The Iranian ships are a good case without having to impugn the staff that has worked diligently for 5 years. It is basically a corps staff. I have been there 5 years. And they are minority and majority staff members, each Senator contributes. I do not think that they have any reason to try to affect some amazing kind of deceit.
I think it detracts immensely from the Senator's case by even resting it one iota on that kind of position.
Second, I believe it is wrong to imply that this Senate will be bamboozled into buying four ships we do not need because they are in Mississippi, or some such thing. Even today the Senator used the words "pork barrel" again, and he knows what that means. That means that not only one or two Senators and not only this committee and not just the Armed Services Committee, but it means people in the White House it means two full committees, authorizing and appropriations, two House committees, and two Budget Committees are all going to buy over $1 billion worth of ships for some kind of pork barrel over in some State that has two Senators just like the States of Michigan and New Mexico.
I make that argument to the Senator for the very same reason that I talk about the amazing deceit of something not shown up in here, because I think the Iranian ships are a case for the Senator and he has made the case beautifully without having to make that kind of circuitous argument that after you hear someone tell you you really did not mean that I think you even wonder whether you ought to make it that way.
I just say I do not think the Senate should be concerned about those kind of issues.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's 2 minutes have expired.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, may I have 1 additional minute yielded to me?
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield 1 additional minute to the Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. I say I really believe Senator MUSKIE and Senator BELLMON in the years that they have headed this committee would not put up with staff, or anyone else that perpetrate some kind of deceit in the report to make their case. In fact, they win so many without having to do it I think they would be reluctant to ask anyone to put anything in here that was not so.
Lastly, the press was present throughout the entire debate. It was a wide open meeting. The issue that the Senator from Michigan made was made for anyone who wanted to report it and hear it, and it is made in technical language here.And I think it negates the Senator's case by implying that someone with some impropriety has to use that approach in order to defeat you.
I honestly offer this to the Senator because he has made a good case but weakened it with those two approaches. I thank the chairman.
Mr. RIEGLE. Mr. President, I wonder if I could yield myself a minute to respond?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
Mr. RIEGLE. Let me say to my friend from New Mexico, for whom I have a great fondness, as he knows, and I always welcome his observations whether I agree with him or not, I would not want him to think I am resting my case today by any means on a question of how the Budget Committee documents are presented. If I did not make it clear, let me say that I think it is an interesting side point, but it does not get to the substance of the argument.
I did not think I would have to be here today making this case, because I thought we got this done in committee.
Second, I would note that the House Budget Committee saw fit to strike all these items. The Senator mentions other committees that have taken a look at these items. As a matter of fact, the House Budget Committee, which may or may not be more detached than the Senate Budget Committee, knocked out all of these items. In fact, there is no money, as I understand it, for a defense supplemental.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I yield 15 minutes
Mr. STENNIS. Yes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. How much time is yielded?
Mr. STENNIS. I thank the Senator, and I wish the privilege
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Will the Senator withhold? How much time was yielded, how much time did the Senator from Maine yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. Yes, I asked the Senator if he would like 15 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is all we wanted to know, 15 minutes. The Senator from Mississippi.
Mr. STENNIS. Mr. President, if I may, I want to use my time in trying to get back to the picture of what has happened to our Navy and what we are doing about it. That certainly is not a personal question, but that is what is on my mind tonight, and I know on the minds of many who share that thought.
We stumbled through those Vietnam war years putting the money somewhere else, not on the Navy, and the Navy suffered.
We went on into other years now and there has been great division about what kind of ships to have, just where to put the money. Then we found a literal mountain of claims and add-ons and changes, $4 billion which had accumulated — part due to inflation, of course — that had to be appropriated and settled.
Shipyards were almost overcome, so that took some time. In the meantime, we had three or four different Navies proposed. The committees could not agree. At one time we said we had a Rickover Navy, and we had a valuable Member here, a Taft Navy, and we had another admiral or two. We were not able to agree enough, and we were dropping ships by the wayside.
So coming on rapidly then down to the last year, we still could not agree on what ships to buy, and we wound up here in a deadlock.
We put in a nuclear carrier which represented the view of the Congress. The President — and I do not criticize him — vetoed it. We ended up with a great vacuum. That is what gave rise to this supplemental bill.
May we have less distraction, Mr. President, I do not say quiet. This is serious business we are dealing with here now. We are down to the point where we had the supplemental brought in, really prepared before fiscal year 1980 was finished. The original supplemental request was submitted before the fall of the Shah of Iran.
It had a ship in it with the Tartar air defense system on it, just exactly like the one we are talking about, the so-called Iranian ships.
Talk about it being antiquated or out of date, someone who was sore might have said that because a ship of their selection was not in, but few others, if any, will stand up and say it. These ships were testified to here just a few days ago by the exceptional Secretary of the Navy, a man of great intelligence, depth, grasp, and learning, that these are what the Navy needs, this is what the Navy wants.
There is also testimony here in our record by Secretary Brown that says this is what he wants, what he needs. It is on the OMB budget, and it is in the President's budget.
Cancellation of two destroyers came in soon after the Shah of Iran or the government over there had stopped paying any more money into the trust fund. That was in January that they stopped paying. Maybe with some wise, unfathomable knowledge we should have just dropped everything and stopped then. But, thankfully, they did not do it and thus sacrifice the ships. They went on spending some more of that money.
So that when Iran canceled the destroyers, the administration, the Navy, the admirals, the Secretaries, all immediately recommended two of these ships.
Talk about them being antiquated, with all deference, that is ridiculous in view of all the facts and all the proof here on these matters.
Later the other two destroyers that were canceled by the Iranian Government were permitted to be carried forward and requested in fiscal 1980, even though they did not increase the ceiling. So the four ships are before this body now in one way or another. In my judgment and that of our committee, there was no way to settle it, but either take them or reject them. We thought the best way was to take all four at once.
I endorse what the Senator from Maine has said that the real issue here is in the supplemental bill that will be taken up, presumably, next week. We will have a recommendation in there for the four ships.
I think this resolution here will be passed, certainly it will be passed. It will have the money that I believe is necessary to cover even four if that is the choice of this body.