Senate Floor Statement on the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008

Mr. President, first let me thank my dear friend, Senator Salazar, for his comments. They are particularly meaningful coming from somebody who as much as anybody in this body strives to bring Members together in common causes. I want to tell him how grateful I am for his comments but also, even more importantly, how grateful we all are for the effort he makes to cross the aisle and bring Senators together on important issues of the day.

Last night, I was not able to be present when our bill came to the floor. I was chairing a subcommittee meeting which I could not leave. I asked a number of colleagues on the Armed Services Committee if they could fill in for me, and very graciously and, as always, very competently, Senators BEN NELSON and Bill Nelson fulfilled that role and responded to that request, and I am very grateful to them for having done so. I wasn't able then to present the bill, as a bill of this magnitude should be presented, and I will take a few minutes at this time to do that.

The Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2008 would fully fund the fiscal year 2008 budget request of $648.8 billion for national security activities of the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy.

The Senate Armed Services Committee has a long tradition of setting aside partisanship and working together in the interest of the national defense. That tradition has been maintained this year. I am pleased that our bill, S. 1547, was reported to the Senate on a unanimous 25-to-nothing vote of our committee. Additionally, S. 1606, the Dignified Treatment of Wounded Warriors Act, which we will be taking up either as part of this bill or as a freestanding measure, was also reported by the committee on a unanimous 25-to-nothing vote. These votes stand as a testament to the common commitment of all of our Members to supporting our men and women in uniform.

Our bill contains many important provisions that will improve the quality of life of our men and women in uniform, provide needed support and assistance to our troops on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, make the investments we need to meet the challenges of the 21st century, and require needed reforms in the management of the Department of Defense.

The bill before us, perhaps most importantly, continues the increases in compensation and quality of life that our service men and women and their families deserve as they face the hardships imposed by continuing military operations around the world. For example, the bill contains provisions that would authorize a 3.5-percent across-the-board pay increase for all uniformed military personnel, which is a half a percent more than the administration's request. Our bill authorizes increases in the end-strength of the Army and the Marines--13,000 for the Army and 9,000 for the Marines. Our bill authorizes payment of over 25 types of bonuses and special pay aimed at encouraging the enlistment, reenlistment, and continued service by Active-Duty and Reserve military personnel. Our bill authorizes payment of combat-related special compensation to service members medically retired for a combat-related disability. We reduce the cost of pharmaceuticals to Department of Defense personnel by authorizing the use of Federal pricing for pharmaceuticals dispensed through the TRICARE retail program.

The bill also includes important funding and authorities needed to provide our troops with the equipment and support they will continue to need as long as they remain in Iraq and Afghanistan. For instance, the bill contains provisions which would add $4 billion above the amount requested by the administration for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles, so-called MRAPs, which improve protection for our troops exposed to improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. Our bill fully funds the budget request of $4.5 billion for the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Office, while directing that office to invest at least $50 million in blast injury research and over $150 million for the procurement of IED jammers for the Army.

We invest more than $70 million in research and new technologies to enhance the force protection of deployed units, including advanced materials for vehicle and body armor, active protection systems that shoot down incoming rocket-propelled grenades, and sniper detection systems. And we add $2.7 billion for items needed by the Army but not contained in the President's budget, including $775 million for reactive armor and other Stryker requirements, $207 million for aviation survivability equipment, $102 million for combat training centers, and funding for explosive ordnance disposal equipment, night-vision devices, and machine guns.

The bill would also enhance our national security by aggressively addressing the risk of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. In this regard, the bill would increase funding over the administration's request for Department of Energy nonproliferation programs by $87 million, increase funding for the Department of Defense Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, CTR, by $100 million, eliminate funding restrictions that limit the use of CTR funds, and we expand the CTR Program to countries outside of the former Soviet Union.

The bill contains a number of provisions that will help improve the management of the Department of Defense and other Federal agencies. For example, the bill contains provisions that would establish a Chief Management Officer, finally, for the Department of Defense to provide continuous top-level attention to the high-risk management problems of the Department as recommended by the Comptroller General. I note that our Presiding Officer is a member of the committee which takes a particular interest in management issues, and the committee on which we both serve, the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, has been interested in this subject for years, as long as probably both of us, the Presiding Officer and I, have been here together.

We need a chief management officer for the Department of Defense and we would establish that office.

We would establish an acquisition workforce development fund to enable the Department of Defense to increase the size and quality of its acquisition workforce as needed to address systematic deficiencies in the Department's purchases of products and services.

We would tighten the rules for Department of Defense acquisition of major weapons systems and subsystems, components, and spare parts to reduce the risk of contract overpricing, cost overruns, and failure to meet contract schedules and performance requirements.

Our bill also contains a provision that would require increased competition in large so-called "umbrella contracts" awarded by the Department of Defense. The Armed Services Committee held a hearing in April on the Department of Defense's management of the $20 billion LOGCAP contract, under which KBR--until recently a subsidiary of Halliburton--has provided services to U.S. troops in the field. There is a history of highly favorable treatment of that contractor throughout this contract. For example, the company was given work that appears to have far exceeded the scope of the contract. All of this added work was provided to the contractor without competition. There were almost $2 billion of overcharges on the contract, and the contractor received highly favorable settlements on these overcharges.

When asked why the Army had waited 5 years to split the LOGCAP contract among multiple contractors so as to allow for the competition of individual task orders, the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics responded:

I don't have a good answer for you.

The provision in our bill would avoid these kinds of abuses we get in sole-source contracts by ensuring that future contracts of this type provide for the competition of task and delivery orders unless there is a compelling reason not to do so.

There are far too many provisions in the bill to describe all of them, but there are a few more I wish to put some focus on.

Section 1023 of the bill would protect our troops, uphold our values, and help restore our image around the world by providing a fair process for reviewing the status of the Department of Defense detainees at Guantanamo and elsewhere. This provision would require for the first time that long-held detainees receive legal representation, provide for legal rulings to be made by military judges, and prohibit the use of coerced statements.

Section 871 of the bill would require the Department of Defense to provide much-needed regulation for contractors operating on the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over the past 4 years, contractor employees have frequently fired weapons at people and property in Iraq--including insurgents, civilians and, on occasion, even our own coalition forces. Yet we have no consistent system in place for regulating the conduct of these armed contractors, or for enforcing compliance with those regulations that do exist, that are supposed to govern the activities of our contractors we hire. The provision in our bill would ensure that commanders on the battlefield have the authority they have long needed to establish rules of engagement--as well as systems for reporting and investigating incidents involving the use of force--for armed contractors of ours in an area of combat operations.

Finally, shortfalls in the care and treatment of our wounded warriors came to the attention of the Nation in a series in The Washington Post last February. These articles described deplorable living conditions for some service members in an outpatient status. They described a bungled, bureaucratic process for assigning disability ratings that determine whether a serv ice mem ber would be medically retired with health and other benefits for himself and for his family. A clumsy handoff was described and exists between the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs when a military member transitions from one department to another. The Nation's shock and dismay reflected the American people's support, respect, and gratitude for the men and women who put on our Nation's uniform. They deserve the best, not shoddy medical care and bureaucratic snafus.

I am very proud our Armed Services Committee approved S. 1606, the Dignified Treatment of Wounded Warriors, by a unanimous 20-to-0 vote on June 14. This bill, which we worked on so closely with the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, would address the issues of inconsistent application of disability standards, disparate disability ratings, substandard facilities, lack of seamless transition from the Department of Defense to the Veterans' Administration, inadequacy of severance pay, care, and treatment for traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. It addresses also medical care for caregivers not eligible for TRICARE, and the sharing of medical records between the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

In consultation with the leadership and with the Committee on Veterans Affairs, since there is unlikely to be available floor time to bring this critically needed bill to the floor as freestanding legislation, it will be offered instead as an amendment to the bill we have on the floor now. I will be offering this on behalf of a very large bipartisan group of Senators coming from not only both the Armed Services Committee and Veterans' Affairs Committee but from all Senators, just about, who will be offering this amendment. We owe it to our men and women in uniform to take up and pass this important legislation. As of today, roughly 160,000 U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines are engaged in combat and combat support operations in Iraq. Almost 20,000 are engaged in combat and combat support operations in Afghanistan, and tens of thousands more are supporting the war effort through deployments thousands of miles from home.

While many of us believe the time has come to start bringing these troops home, we all know we must provide our troops the support they need as long as they remain in harm's way. We in the Nation are divided on the administration's war policy, but we are united in our determination to support our troops. Senate action on the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 will improve the quality of life of our men and women in uniform. It will give them the tools they need to remain the most effective fighting force in the world. Most important of all, it will send an important message that we, as a Nation, stand behind them and we appreciate their service.

Finally, as I did earlier this morning, I note that this bill--a bipartisan bill--would not have been possible without the support and leadership of Senator McCain, my ranking member, and each member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. We owe a special debt of gratitude to those who served as subcommittee chairs and ranking members of the Armed Services Committee. This bill takes a long time to put together and then to mark up. It takes many months to perform those functions and many days in the markup process itself.

I also give a special thank-you to our former chairman, Senator Warner, who again did yeoman service to make it possible for this bill to come to the floor in a bipartisan manner, which it has. I look forward to working with colleagues to pass this important legislation. I hope we can proceed to the prompt consideration of it, and I hope that as soon as we address the amendment of Senator Webb, we are going to be able to move on to other amendments.

I yield the floor.