U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Health, And Iraq Accountability Act, 2007

Floor Speech

U.S. TROOP READINESS, VETERANS' HEALTH, AND IRAQ ACCOUNTABILITY ACT, 2007 -- (Senate - March 26, 2007)

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Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I agree with the Senator from Arizona that the consequences of playing politics with this important funding for our troops is simply the wrong strategy; that what we have is a game of chicken between the House of Representatives, which is larding up a supplemental appropriations bill with a bunch of extraneous pork, and the President, recognizing that there are nonsecurity provisions in that supplemental appropriations, has said if that and the timetable for withdrawal from Iraq is included as part of this emergency supplemental, he will veto it. So this is a high-risk game of chicken, with the impact of delaying passage of the supplemental being felt directly by our troops on the ground, if that is in fact the result.

Last week, Secretary Gates made clear the consequences of not quickly passing the supplemental funding necessary to support our troops. The downstream effects will directly impact our soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen. By not moving expeditiously to pass a clean supplemental bill that can pass the Senate and be signed by the President, the majority risks extending the tours of our troops scheduled to come home from Iraq and slowing the repair of equipment necessary to equip them, as well as the training of Iraqi soldiers who are designed to replace them.

Any delay in funding will not prevent a buildup of security forces in Iraq but, instead, threaten to dramatically impact forces already on the ground. Secretary Gates has said this kind of disruption to key programs will have a genuinely adverse effect on the readiness of the Army and the quality of life for soldiers and their families. So I can't imagine why in the world our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, the new majority, would want to risk that.

This supplemental is necessary to pay for training and equipping the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. If approved, the supplemental will pay for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, repairing and replacing equipment damaged or destroyed in combat, and new technologies to protect U.S. servicemembers. This last provision includes a new generation of body armor, better armored vehicles, and countermeasures against improvised explosive devices. IEDs have caused about 70 percent of the casualties in Iraq. The supplemental also will provide funding for training and equipping the Iraqi and Afghan security forces.

If this supplemental appropriations bill is not passed by April 15, the military will be forced to consider the following: curtailing and suspending home station training for Reserve and Guard units; slowing the training of units slated to deploy next to Iraq and Afghanistan; cutting the funding for upgrading and renovating the barracks and other facilities that support quality of life for our troops and their families; and stopping the repair of equipment necessary to support predeployment training. This is what Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has said on March 22, 2007.

If the supplemental is not passed by May 15, the military will be forced to consider the following: reducing the repair work done at Army depots; delaying or curtailing the deployment of brigade combat teams to their training rotations. This, in turn, will cause additional units in theater to have their tours extended because other units are not ready to take their place. Delaying the formation of new brigade combat teams; implementation of civilian hiring freeze; prohibiting the execution of new contracts and service orders, including service contracts for training events and facilities; and, finally, holding or canceling the order of repair parts to nondeployed units in the Army.

All of these, according to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, on March 22, 2007.

When the new majority took over Congress, they promised change. In fact, the first bill passed in the Senate was an ethics bill that, in part, helped improve transparency in the way we spend taxpayers' money in Washington. While that ethics bill remains in limbo, the 110th Congress has returned to the tried-and-true technique of inserting mystery earmarks that have nothing to do with funding our troops or fighting the war on terror into a war supplemental bill.

During the election season, many on the other side called the 109th Congress the ``do-nothing'' Congress. The 110th Congress is quickly becoming the ``say anything and do-nothing Congress'' when it comes to fiscal discipline. Last week, when the Senate debated the budget, the majority spoke of the need for fiscal discipline, even as it passed the $700 billion tax hike for taxpayers over the next 5 years.

The chairman of the Senate Budget Committee was quoted as saying:

We have a responsibility to govern, and you can't govern without a budget.

But governing takes more than simply passing a budget. Governing also includes the discipline to live within a budget.

Unfortunately, both the Senate and the House failed in their first test by including billions more in the war supplemental than the President requested. As I mentioned, President Bush has already threatened to veto the House bill; not all because of the timetable it imposes for our troops' withdrawal from Iraq but also because the bill is full of pork.

In today's edition of the Politico, they did a fine job of identifying some of the most egregious examples of pork included in the House bill. They highlighted $5 million for tropical fish breeders and transporters for losses from a virus last year; $25 million for spinach that growers and handlers were unable to market, up to 75 percent of their losses; $60.4 million for the National Marine Fisheries Service to be distributed among fishing communities, Indian tribes, individuals, small businesses, including fishermen, fish processors, and related businesses, and other persons for assistance to mitigate the economic and other social effects by a commercial fishery failure.

It also includes $74 million for the payment of storage, handling, and other associated costs for the 2007 crop of peanuts to ensure proper storage of peanuts for which a loan is made, and the House bill also includes $120 million for the shrimp and menhaden fishing industries to cover consequences of Hurricane Katrina.

Now, I have to confess, even though I like to fish a little myself, I had never even heard of menhaden, so I went on the Internet to something called the Menhaden Fact Sheet.

This is, if you will recall, $120 million for the shrimp and menhaden fishing industries to cover consequences of Hurricane Katrina. Well, as it turns out, according to the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia on the Internet, the menhaden are fish of the--well, I can't even pronounce the Latin phrase, but they are of the herring family.

It says here, describing this menhaden that the taxpayer is being asked to pay $120 million in this emergency war supplemental: to support the gulf menhaden and Atlantic menhaden which are characterized by a series of smaller spots behind the main, humeral spot and larger scales than yellowfin menhaden and finescale menhaden. In addition, yellowfin menhaden tail rays are a bright yellow in contrast to those of the Atlantic menhaden, which are grayish. Menhaden range in weight up to 1 pound or more. At sea, schools of Atlantic menhaden may contain millions of members. Common names for Atlantic menhaden are mossbunkers and fatback. In Florida, yellowfin menhaden are called pogies, and are the preferred species for use as strip bait.

This is important. It talks about the range, since this is supposedly done as part of the Hurricane Katrina relief measure. It says gulf menhaden range from the Yucatan Peninsula to Tampa Bay, FL, with finescaled menhaden from the Yucatan to Louisiana--I guess we are getting a little closer now to where Hurricane Katrina hit--yellowfin menhaden from Louisiana to North Carolina, the Atlantic menhaden ranges from Jupiter Inlet, FL, to Nova Scotia. The various species of menhaden occur anywhere from estuarine waters outward to the Continental Shelf.

It says that menhaden are essentially filter feeders, straining microscopic plankton, algae, et cetera, from the water they swim through open-mouthed. Unlike mullet, they are not bottom feeders. Due to their feeding habits, they must be caught by cast netting to be used as live bait.

This is the most interesting part of the article. It says: menhaden are not used for human consumption. Most recently, menhaden has begun to be exploited as a source of omega-3 fatty acid fish oil for commercial human consumption, further threatening menhaden populations.

I certainly don't know what the purpose is of this $120 million for shrimp and the menhaden fishing industries, but I can't see in this description, or anywhere else in this legislation, why this is an emergency or why it ought to be included in an emergency war supplemental. If anything, the inclusion of this kind of appropriation in this emergency war supplemental in the House bill trivializes the importance of providing the money that will help our troops deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq in harm's way.

Here is what the Senate bill included: $24 million for funding of sugar beets; $3 million funding for sugar cane, all of which goes to a Hawaiian cooperative; $100 million for dairy product losses; an additional $31 million for a 1-month extension of the Milk Income Loss Contract Program; 13 million for Ewe Lamb Replacement and Retention Program; $115 million for the conservation security program; $100 million for small agricultural dependent businesses; $13 million for mine safety technology research; $50 million for fisheries disaster mitigation fund.

There is so much pork included in this supplemental appropriations bill, both in the House version and in the Senate proposal, that it warranted a front-page story and editorial in USA Today. An editorial in USA Today questioned:

Which is worse: Leaders offering peanuts for a vote of this magnitude, or Members allowing their votes to be bought for peanuts.

The editorial went on to conclude:

These provisions demean a bill that, if enacted, would affect the lives of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, the balance of power in the Middle East and America's long-term security.

In short, what we have is that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are willing to put money into pet projects--which may or may not be worthy endeavors, we will never know--and yet are unwilling to adequately fund the needs of our military. For all their talk of earmark reform and transparency earlier this year, my colleagues seemed to have forgotten all of that when they put together the supplemental appropriations bill.

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