Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Each year, the Department of Defense ships coal from Tamaqua, Pennsylvania, about 3,000 miles away to an Air Force base in Germany, costing taxpayers millions of dollars more than if we simply treated this particular base like every other military base in the world.

Why do we do this?

Since 1972, each Defense Appropriations act has included an earmark requiring that the Pentagon purchase anthracite coal from Pennsylvania to heat this base in Kaiserslautern, Germany. This is wasteful spending, pure and simple.

My bipartisan amendment, which I am offering with my colleague Tom McClintock, would finally remove this zombie earmark and save taxpayers millions of dollars each year.

At its peak, this earmark mandated that the government purchase more than a million tons of anthracite coal each year to power overseas bases and installations, but today, the Department of Defense purchases only about 5,000 to 9,000 tons of coal annually, and it is to meet the requirements of this specific base in Kaiserslautern. It costs taxpayers millions of dollars each time. According to the last study we did on this, which was way back in 1989, the Department of Defense, the State Department, and the Department of Commerce jointly concluded that these mandates had cost U.S. taxpayers $1.1 billion, and that was 26 years ago, so it is a lot more since then.

For decades, the Pentagon has urged Congress to remove this wasteful earmark and allow the use of cheaper fuel

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to power our military base in Germany. President after President has urged the removal of this earmark--both Republicans and Democrats--every President since Jimmy Carter and including President Ronald Reagan. Today, we have an opportunity to finally achieve that goal.
I want to thank Mr. McClintock for his leadership in introducing this amendment with me.

The passage of this amendment would be proof positive, I think, to Americans back home that Republicans and Democrats can work together to cut wasteful spending. I urge my colleagues to support the Huffman-McClintock amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock).

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Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chairman, we have well over 30 other defense installations in Germany and hundreds of others across the globe. To my knowledge--and I have made inquiries on this subject--not a single one of those installations operates with a congressionally mandated fuel source like the one we are talking about here. The Kaiserslautern facility is, truly, one of a kind.

This is a commonsense amendment that provides the Pentagon the flexibility to ensure that our military installations continue to have reliable, cheaper, and cleaner energy sources in the years ahead. The congressional mandate in question was added to the Defense Appropriations bill over 40 years ago to an accumulated cost of well over $1 billion to the taxpayers.

Mr. Chairman, this is not about our national security. This is not a weapons system. This is not funding to support or protect our troops. This isn't doing anything for our country or our national security except wasting taxpayer dollars and making one particular coal company in eastern Pennsylvania a little bit richer.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``aye'' and support this bipartisan amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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