National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004-Conference Report

NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2004-CONFERENCE REPORT

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that after I have concluded my remarks and the senior Senator from West Virginia has concluded his remarks that the Senator from Georgia, Senator Chambliss, be recognized for 8 minutes.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, let me begin my remarks this evening by commending the chairman and the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Both Senator Warner and Senator Levin care deeply about strengthening our national defense and about supporting the men and women who wear the uniform. It has been a great pleasure to work with both of my colleagues. I particularly appreciate their work on what was an extremely challenging conference with the House of Representatives.

Personally, I have very mixed feelings about this conference agreement, but on balance I believe it deserves our support. For example, it provides much-needed support for naval shipbuilding, it provides a pay raise and improved health care benefits for our men and women in uniform, it provides real progress in providing concurrent receipt to our disabled veterans. It has many provisions that are absolutely essential, particularly in this time of war.

On the other hand, I am disappointed, for example, with the environmental provisions that have been included in this conference report. I felt the Senate version of the DOD authorization struck a far better balance than the provisions in the House bill, or even the compromises that are included in this conference report. I believe it is a false choice to say we have to sacrifice environmental protection in order to allow our troops to get the training they need. I much preferred the Senate version in this regard.

What I most want to comment on tonight are the Civil Service provisions that have been included in this legislation. The primary goal of our Federal personnel system should be the recruitment and retention of the highest quality workforce to serve the citizens of the United States. Unfortunately, the current antiquated system does not always achieve that goal. It has become too cumbersome for agencies to hire good employees, particularly those with specialized skills or expertise. It has become too difficult to reward outstanding workers, and it has become almost impossible to remove poor performers. Clearly, reforms are needed.

Earlier this year, the Department of Defense delivered to Congress a far-reaching proposal to restructure the Department's civilian personnel system. Unfortunately, the Department's proposal went too far and it did not include important safeguards to protect good employees.

To strike a better balance, I worked hard with several of my colleagues, including Senator Levin and Senator Voinovich, to craft an alternative that would give the Department of Defense the authority it needed to create a more responsive system while providing vital protections for the civil servants who work for the Department. The stakes in this debate were very high because the Department employs some 735,000 civilian employees. That is approximately a quarter of the entire workforce. So we needed to get this right. We needed to come up with a system that was more flexible but that was also fair to the civilian employees of the Department.

Title 5 of the United States Code sets forth the rights and the duties of Federal workers and defines their relationship with management. It is a series of laws committed to the jurisdiction of the Governmental Affairs Committee which I am privileged to chair. I take our responsibility for these laws very seriously. In fact, I would have much preferred for this matter to be addressed through the normal committee process. Indeed, the Governmental Affairs Committee, as Senator Akaka mentioned in his remarks, approved a carefully drafted bill by a vote of 10 to 1. This was a bipartisan bill that Senator Levin helped to craft, along with Senator Voinovich and myself. It had the cosponsorship of several members of the committee including Senator Akaka, Senator Sununu, and several others.

Unfortunately, the House acted to include this issue as part of the Defense Department authorization bill and thus that prompted the resolution of this important matter in conference.

This conference agreement, while by no means perfect, is a reasonable compromise to the challenge of modernizing an outdated system while protecting employees' rights. It is not as I would have drafted it. It does not represent fully the compromise so carefully crafted in a bipartisan manner by the Governmental Affairs Committee, the committee of jurisdiction. But we have included several important safeguards in this conference report.

For example, employees subject to adverse personnel actions will have an independent appeals process and an independent third party will resolve collective bargaining disputes. These are two essential reforms that were not included in the Department's original proposal.

Another very important provision in this bill has to do with the collective bargaining rights of the Department's employees. The Department of Defense has repeatedly claimed it has no desire to waive the collective bargaining rights of its employees. Indeed, the bill before the Senate specifically states the Department does not have the authority to waive the chapter of title 5 that governs labor-management relations. Thus, I fully expect the labor relations system developed by the Department will abide by the principles enumerated in chapter 71, such as the duty to bargain in good faith-a duty that applies to both labor and management, incidentally-and the prohibition against unfair labor practices.

Furthermore, the Department's ability to change employee management relations sunsets in 6 years, providing an additional check, another safeguard, on the Department as it develops its labor relations system. We put in specific language to require collaboration with the representatives of employees to make sure this is a collaborative, rather than a confrontational, process.

In addition, the final bill does not include the unilateral waiver authority sought by the Secretary which would have enabled the Department to waive the process for developing the system in the interests of national security.

This actually was originally proposed by the Department and was a completely unilateral waiver that would have allowed the Secretary to waive virtually all personnel laws and regulations. I am pleased we have not included that authority. I do not think it is necessary, and it is contrary to the spirit of developing a modern personnel system in a collaborative way with the employees of the Department.

The Governmental Affairs Committee will keep a very close eye on the Department of Defense as it develops the regulations to implement the new national security personnel system to ensure a collaborative process that will lead to a modern, effective, and fair personnel system. Senators LEVIN, VOINOVICH, SUNUNU, STEVENS, AKAKA, LIEBERMAN, and CHAMBLISS, and I will work together with our colleagues who care about this issue on both committees to ensure that the Department creates a system that is consistent with the merit system principles afforded to other Federal employees.

The Office of Personnel Management will also play a crucial role in the development of the system. And I trust that the Department will make every effort to use the expertise of Director Kay Coles James and her staff.

Finally, I thank Senator Levin, who has worked so hard on this issue. As the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and as the senior member on the Governmental Affairs Committee, he, more than any other Member in this body, has unique experience and expertise which he brought to bear on this issue.

I also pay tribute to the chairman of the committee, Senator Warner, who was very gracious in deferring to my strong interest in this area. He did allow and encourage me to take the lead in what were difficult negotiations with the administration and the House on this issue.

In the end, the product is not the one I would have preferred, but it does represent a reasonable approach and one that I hope will be successful in creating a modern, fair, and efficient personnel system for the Department of Defense.