Mr. President, I rise today in support of the fiscal year 2005 defense authorization bill. I want to first commend Chairman Warner and Senator Levin, who have continued their tradition of strong and bipartisan leadership. I also want to thank my friend, colleague and subcommittee chairman Senator Ensign, for his cooperation and leadership throughout this process this year.
Mr. President, while I think the bill before us goes a long way to supporting the needs of our service men and women, I do want to highlight a few concerns.
First, I am pleased that the Administration finally followed Congress' lead and sent a request for an additional $25 billion to begin to address the ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the first few months of fiscal year 2005. While I do not support the structure of the Administration's request, in part because it does not do enough to ensure accountability for how these funds would be used, I do support its intent, and I think it is imperative that we include an authorization of additional funding in the final version of this bill.
Second, while I support every action to aid our brave men and women in the armed forces, who are making so many sacrifices as they fight for our freedoms, I am concerned and disappointed by some of the actions we have taken in the bill we are reporting to the Senate. My greatest concern lies, as it did last year, in the reductions we have made in the working capital funds of the military services and defense agencies. While I disagreed with the cuts in these accounts last year, the ones this year are even more harmful, as DOD is already tapping these accounts to the greatest possible extent to get through the remainder of this fiscal year. So they will already be well below normal cash balances as they enter fiscal year 2005, and the $1.6 billion in reductions we have recommended in this bill will increase the risk of readiness problems by decreasing DOD's ability to provide spare parts, maintenance, and other support for our forces that are critical to their continued success. By cutting into these accounts, I believe we are sending a message that we do not support our troops, a message that I know could not be further from the truth.
Our forces deserve armored vehicles to protect them in Iraq, but they also deserve the spare parts they need to keep those vehicles running. When our troops come home, they deserve to have those vehicles repaired, rather than wait for maintenance from a depot until parts arrive that could have been ordered earlier if the working capital funds had had sufficient cash. We owe them the courage to make tough decisions to ensure that those needs are met now, not when future funds not yet requested may or may not become available.
On the positive side, I am pleased about our continued support for military construction and family housing needs that are so critical to quality of life for our service men and women. I also support many of the provisions we have included that will further improve the management of the department. I particularly appreciate the bipartisan effort that the staff has made to address a wide range of procurement issues, environmental issues, and longstanding DOD financial management problems.
While I support the overall actions taken in this bill, and commend all of my colleagues for the hard work that they have invested, as ranking member of the Readiness Subcommittee I have mixed feelings about our actions. We have increased funding for some key programs, but at the expense of others where the impact might be more easily obscured. Our experience with the Air Force over the last few years has shown that there is a direct correlation between increased spare parts and mission capable rates for aircraft; those spare parts are provided through the Air Force Working Capital Fund. The Navy expects to have only a few days of cash on hand at the end of this fiscal year, and may be forced to bill customers before they actually receive their orders. And the Army faces a situation where its orders for parts and other key items exceed its cash on hand by more than 700 percent. Wartime, when we see a great expansion of customer needs for readiness and large fluctuations in required support, is not the time to take on more readiness risk by decreasing cash balances in the working capital funds. It hurts readiness, and it hurts the men and women who serve in uniform.
By reducing funding for the readiness accounts and failing to provide any supplemental funding for 2005, this bill does not do enough to meet the most pressing needs of our men and women in uniform.
Mr. President, I will support this bill, and I urge my colleagues to do the same. I think it is a good bill that could have been better, and I will continue to work throughout the rest of the authorization process to improve it. Thank you.
