National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005

NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2005

AMENDMENT NO. 3427, AS MODIFIED

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I call up amendment No. 3427 and ask unanimous consent to have the amendment, which is at the desk, modified.

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

Mr. WARNER. Reserving the right to object, and I do not intend to object, I think the managers are doing our very best to move along this morning. We have had a number of unexpected switches by a number of Senators who start amendments and stop them for various reasons. We are prepared now to go ahead with the amendment of the Senator from Washington.
But I say to our colleagues, when they have informed the managers they are prepared to go ahead, and then abruptly have to stop, it makes it increasingly difficult for us to work on this bill.

I thank the Democratic whip. He has been most helpful. We have lost a lot of time this morning due to unexpected decisions.

Mr. REID. Madam President, if the Senator will yield, we on this side certainly understand the travails of the managers of this bill. Several days ago, we had written on our sheet "voice vote." We thought the amendment of the Senator from Washington had been accepted. There were miscommuni- cations and, of course, that happens. It is certainly no fault of the Senator from Washington. She was ready several days ago, and we told her not to push it because we thought it would be accepted.

Mr. WARNER. We will proceed with the amendment.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.

The senior assistant bill clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Washington [Mrs. MURRAY] proposes an amendment numbered 3427, as modified.

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

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

The amendment is as follows:

(Purpose: To facilitate the availability of child care for the children of members of the Armed Forces on active duty in
connection with Operation Enduring Freedom or Operation Iraqi Freedom)

At the end of subtitle E of title VI, add the following:

SEC. 653. CHILD CARE FOR CHILDREN OF MEMBERS OF ARMED FORCES ON ACTIVE DUTY FOR OPERATION
ENDURING FREEDOM OR OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM.

(a) CHILD CARE FOR CHILDREN WITHOUT ACCESS TO MILITARY CHILD CARE.-(1) In any case where the children of
a covered member of the Armed Forces are geographically dispersed and do not have practical access to a military child development center, the Secretary of Defense may, to the extent funds are available for such purpose, provide such funds as are necessary permit the member's family to secure access for such children to State licensed child care and development programs and activities in the private sector that are similar in scope and quality to the child care and development programs and activities the Secretary would otherwise provide access to under subchapter II of chapter 88 of title 10, United States Code, and other applicable provisions of law.

(2) Funds may be provided under paragraph (1) in accordance with the provisions of section 1798 of title 10, United States Code, or by such other mechanism as the Secretary considers appropriate.

(3) The Secretary shall prescribe in regulations priorities for the allocation of funds for the provision of access to child care under paragraph (1) in circumstances where funds are inadequate to provide all children described in that paragraph with access to child care as described in that paragraph.

(b) PRESERVATION OF SERVICES AND PROGRAMS.-The Secretary shall provide for the attendance and participation of children in military child development centers and child care and development programs and activities under subsection (a) in a manner that preserves the scope and quality of child care and development programs and activities otherwise provided by the Secretary.

© FUNDING.-Amounts otherwise available to the Department of Defense and the military departments under this Act may be available for purposes of providing access to child care under subsection (a).

(d) DEFINITIONS.-In this section:

(1) The term "covered members of the Armed Forces" means members of the Armed Forces on active duty, including members of the Reserves who are called or ordered to active duty under a provision of law referred to in section 101(a)(13)(B) of title 10, United States Code, for Operation Enduring Freedom or Operation Iraqi Freedom.

(2) The term "military child development center" has the meaning given such term in section 1800(1) of title 10, United States Code.

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, as my colleagues know, I have been working for several months on proposals to help ease the burden on Guard and Reserve families who have a loved one serving our country. Today, I am offering an amendment to help families get childcare so a parent can go back to work while their spouse is deployed overseas.

This amendment applies to activated only, and it is discretionary. I want to make sure that is clear. I think there was a misunderstanding with regard to that issue. It is for activated soldiers, and it is discretionary. This will help relieve the childcare squeeze that is hurting so many families who are silently sacrificing for all of us.

Hopefully, with the success of this amendment, the Senate will then have adopted several proposals to help our Guard and Reserve families get health care through TRICARE, pay for their equipment, help them stay on their payrolls through employer tax credits, and, today, with a critical piece on childcare.

Each one of these steps is part of the much larger effort to help ease the burden on families who are trying so hard to make ends meet while their spouse serves our country overseas.

Six months ago, on January 9, I sat down with members of the Guard's 81st Armored Brigade and their families at Camp Murray in Fort Lewis, WA, and at that meeting Guard and Reserve members told me about the tremendous challenges their spouse and their children would face once they were deployed.

I could see how worried and concerned they were that they would not have time to get their families on sound footing with a job, with childcare, and with health care before they deployed to Iraq. I listened closely to all of their concerns, and I spent several weeks crafting a bill to address a number of those issues.

On February 12, I introduced S. 2068, the Guard and Reserve Enhanced Benefit Act. That is a comprehensive bill that will minimize the challenges at home when these brave men and women leave their jobs, leave their schools, and leave their families to protect our homeland and fight terrorism.

Since that meeting back in January, many of the Guard and Reserve members with whom I met have now been deployed to Iraq. Currently, more than 5,400 brave Washington National Guard and Reserve soldiers have been activated, including 3,200 members of the 81st Armored Brigade who are serving in Iraq today. They are part of the more than 168,000 Guard and Reserve troops who have been called to active duty from States around the country.

Our Washington Guard and Reserve troops are among the more than 22,000 total troops from Washington State who are supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.

As I have talked with family members since the deployment, I have learned a lot about the tremendous challenges they are facing. Today, I want to report back to them on the steps we have taken in the Senate to help ease their burden.

I am proud that in the past month, the Senate has delivered on three of those challenges I outlined in my bill back in February. The first one we delivered on was health care. My bill proposed providing access to TRICARE for all members of the Guard and Reserve, and their families, regardless of their employment or insurance status. That is an issue that Senators DASCHLE, REID, GRAHAM, and others have been working very hard on over the years. I was a cosponsor of that TRICARE amendment. I voted for it on June 2, and I am very pleased that it passed the full Senate.

Now we need the House of Representatives to agree that our citizen soldiers and their families deserve health care.

Secondly, we made progress on another challenge: the strains facing those who employ Guard and Reserve members. My bill offered tax credits to employers to encourage their support of activated Guard and Reserve. It is something that Senator Kerry and Senator Landrieu have worked on. I was the original cosponsor of an amendment to provide a tax credit to employers who continue to pay active Reserve and Guard employees, and that passed the Senate with my support on May 11.

Third, we have provided help for soldiers and families who had to provide equipment because the military did not provide it to them in a timely fashion. Back on October 17, on the Senate floor, I told the story of SPL Ian Willet, who was deployed to Iraq on his 21st birthday last September. His father David wrote to me and told me that Ian and his family will have to buy equipment that the military should have provided.

This week in the Senate we did the right thing for soldiers such as SPL Ian Willet and his family. On Monday, I voted for an amendment directing the Secretary of Defense to provide reimbursement to soldiers who face this hardship. I was proud to be a cosponsor of the Dodd amendment that passed this body by an overwhelming margin.

Today, the Senate has the opportunity to pass the Murray childcare amendment, and that will be another important and critical step forward for families who are sacrificing for all of us.

I have raised these issues time and again on the Senate floor because I believe if the American people are told about the silent sacrifices that so many families are making, they will demand that we do more.

President Bush is visiting Fort Lewis in my State tomorrow, and I hope during his visit he shines a bright light on the sacrifices that families are making while their loved ones serve our country overseas. I think it is critical that he hears directly from these families, as I have, about the burdens our Guard and Reserve are facing today. It is important that he support the steps we have taken in the Senate to help those families with health care, payroll, equipment, and, today, childcare. I hope the President will make it clear to those in the House of Representatives that the support we provided in the Senate cannot be removed from the Defense bill in the dark of night.

One critical support we need to take care of is this amendment on childcare that I am offering today. I offer this amendment in honor of all the Guard and Reserve troops who are sacrificing for us overseas, and I offer this amendment in honor of their spouses and their children who are sacrificing so much for us at home.

Let me explain why childcare is such a challenge for many of our military families. Often when a member of the Guard or Reserve is deployed overseas, the remaining spouse has to go to work to support the family and to make up for the income their spouse has given up because of their military service. Unfortunately today, as we all know, high-quality childcare is
very expensive and often out of reach of a single parent.

In addition, many Guard and Reserve families do not live anywhere near a military installation, so they cannot use the services that are available.

I will tell my colleagues about a Washington wife and a mother whose life was turned upside down when her husband was called to active duty. Danielle and Jack Lucas have three children. They worked opposite shifts to avoid the cost of daycare. In February, Jack was told to report to the 81st Armored Brigade at Fort Lewis. Danielle scrambled to figure out how to keep her job and care for her children, including a newborn. Unfortunately, as so many of us find, the cost of daycare was prohibitive and she was forced to quit her job, after 10 years of work, when her husband was deployed.

Jack's monthly military pay was $1,000 less than his civilian job. So when it became impossible to make ends meet, Danielle moved to another part of my State where rent was less expensive. She has now gone back to work, but the cost of daycare is still not affordable. She juggles today with help from her family and her friends to watch her three children, and she often has as many as three different people watching her children in one 8-hour period.

While SPL Jack Lucas is taking the same risks as all Active-Duty soldiers in Iraq, his family has faced emotional and financial turmoil that will be alleviated with the Murray amendment. We cannot continue to ignore the needs of our Guard and Reserve families.

Unfortunately, Danielle's situation is not an isolated case. When MAJ Jake Callahan was called back to duty, his wife Kathleen and two small children were suddenly faced with a childcare dilemma. Kathleen's job requires her to travel and attend work events on weekends and evenings, but her son has special needs, and the cost of childcare is financially out of the question. Kathleen struggles with the stress of abandoning her career now or continuing to rely heavily on her family for childcare.

Kathleen is not alone. Lisa Palmer made the difficult decision to quit her job as a registered nurse when her husband was deployed to Iraq with the 81st Armored Brigade. After her husband was deployed, her two sons began experiencing severe emotional problems due to their father's departure. Lisa believed it was important for one parent to be at home to help her sons through these challenges. Her son's depression, his nightmares, his overwhelming sadness require constant assurance and support by her. Lisa has now started to work part time at the hospital to help lessen the tremendous financial strain of their greatly reduced family income. However, like Danielle and Kathleen, Lisa is only able to do so by leaning heavily on her family and friends to provide childcare.

All three of these women tell me they honestly do not know how they are going to make it through until their husbands return home. The current support system for our deployed and activated Guard and Reserve families is broken. We need a fix to keep our families strong while their spouses serve our Nation. Unless we soften the tremendous burdens they face, we may have trouble retaining the soldiers we have and recruiting the new soldiers we need.

This amendment is about easing the burden on those who serve us today, recognizing that we ask more of them so we need to provide them with more support, ensuring that we can recruit and retain our Guard and Reserve members for our future security.

I have heard some of my colleagues argue that some of these Guard and Reserve proposals are too expensive. We may hear that claim again today. But I think we need to look at the costs of abandoning these families who are serving. We need to look at how much pain it causes them. I have talked with these families. They are trying to serve our country honorably, but they cannot do it when they are so worried about how they are going to keep their children safe and secure while they work to keep their families financially capable. We need to look at how this issue threatens our ability to recruit and retain the voluntary military we need to protect us.

We are spending $5 billion a month on the war in Iraq, and virtually all of this spending goes right to the deficit that our grandchildren are going to inherit. Supporting our Guard and Reserve families is not cheap but we need to do it if we still want to have a Guard and Reserve system after all of these long, extended deployments. These families are part of our war effort. They are part of the war on terrorism. They are part of the war in Iraq. They are part of our homeland security efforts.

All of our military families are sacrificing today. Our Guard and Reserve troops are doing the right thing. They are meeting their obligations. They are protecting our people and they are serving our country with honor.

We have to acknowledge that our unprecedented deployment of Guard and Reserve Forces is creating tremendous new hardships that we have not had to deal with before. The amendment before the Senate now gives us the opportunity to do the right thing for these families and for the loved ones who are serving. We are asking so much of our Guard and Reserve members and their families. We have an obligation to make it easier for their spouses and their children during these long deployments.

The Murray childcare amendment and the other steps we have taken tell our Guard and Reserve soldiers that they can serve our country overseas, even on long deployments, and know their families will be financially secure and they will be able to get childcare and health care.

So my message to our Guard and Reserve families is: We gave you access to health care through TRICARE. We made sure you were reimbursed if you had to buy protective equipment. We made sure employers can continue to keep your loved ones on the payroll by providing employer tax credits. Today, this body will assure you that you have an ease of mind when it comes to your children that you left behind, that they have the childcare that is so critical to the well-being of your family.

We made progress. We have much more to do. We need to keep the pressure on to make sure when we get to conference behind closed doors these measures are not lost.

There are several other elements of my original comprehensive bill that have not been addressed yet, but today I think it is extremely important that we adopt this amendment.

The DOD is supportive of this amendment. It is for our activated soldiers. I urge the Senate to adopt this amendment today. I hope we can do it efficiently and quickly because I think we will send a strong message to those who are serving us so honorably overseas today.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. ENSIGN). The Senator from Virginia.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I commend our colleague. This is a subject that certainly will be approached in a very bipartisan way.

I am wondering, do we have any procedural requirement on that family who needs childcare, to express some sort of need for it before it is automatically granted? Would the Secretary adopt regulations? I just ask the distinguished Presiding Officer if I may enter into a colloquy with our distinguished colleague on that.

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

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, this would allow the DOD Secretary of Defense to promulgate the process for the families to go through. It would be discretionary for him.

Mr. WARNER. That is very helpful.

Mr. LEVIN. Will the Senator yield for a question on that point?

Mr. WARNER. Yes, of course.

Mr. LEVIN. In the form of a question to the Senator from Washington, whose amendment fills in such a gap and really meets such an incredibly important need for childcare, but is it not true that in section (a)(3), the bottom of page 2, you do provide specifically:

The Secretary shall prescribe in regulations priorities for the allocation of funds for provision of access to child care. . . .

So the amendment itself does provide for those regulations to be adopted by the Secretary of Defense?

Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator is absolutely correct. I think it is also important to point out there is no direct spending. It simply authorizes the Secretary of Defense to help geographically dispersed Active-Duty military families.

Mr. WARNER. I thank our colleague. I asked the question so as to make it a part of the record of the proceedings today. So often when Congress acts on an amendment such as this, which is so important to so many families, they suddenly hear from Washington, "You got childcare." But I think we better put in a caution: Yes, childcare hopefully will be made available, but there has to be some showing of a requirement. Because it is my understanding the Department of Defense now has a number of childcare centers here in the Greater Washington area. Frankly, the adequacy is questionable. Some families do not have access to them. But those families, I point out, might not be able to meet the criteria in the opening section 1:

In any case where the children of a covered member of the Armed Forces are geographically dispersed. . . .

Those families theoretically are not geographically dispersed, but they are caught in between the class that you are establishing and those who are near a major military installation here in Washington, yet there are inadequate childcare facilities.

Those are the types of things that are going to have to be worked out should this become law.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, there is no doubt the childcare is an issue that is very difficult for many families, and to provide all this support for every family is something that will be extremely difficult. We all acknowledge that. But there is a specific group of families serving us overseas today in Iraq and Afghanistan who are absolutely excluded from any help whatsoever. My amendment assures that they are not excluded.

Mr. WARNER. Fine. We definitely want to care for those. Those families who are not serving overseas yet have been pulled up abruptly from Reserve or Guard status, yet where the husband or the wife-whichever the case the uniform may be worn-is not deployed overseas, they may have a critical problem, too.

Mrs. MURRAY. The amendment before us is in support of all activated personnel.

Mr. WARNER. You make reference to those families overseas repeatedly. I just want to make sure about some of those at home.

Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator is correct.