S7630 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE May 26, 1995

‘‘(4) the Tri-Party Agreement between the

Department, the Environmental Protection

Agency, and the Washington State Department of Ecology.

‘‘(c) VOLUNTARY COMPLIANCE.—Notwithstanding subsection (b), the Secretary may,

in his discretion, comply with provisions of

laws preempted by this section to the extent

the Secretary determines appropriate, practicable, and cost-effective. The Secretary

shall include a list of any such provisions of

law in the environmental management plan

submitted to Congress under this Act.

‘‘(d) COMPLIANCE WITH NEPA.—Compliance

with the procedures and requirements of this

Act shall be deemed adequate consideration

of the need for the federal actions specified

in the environmental management plan, alternatives to the specified actions, and the

environmental impacts thereof for purposes

of the National Environmental Policy Act of

1969 (42 U.S.C. 4332). Submission of the environmental management plan in accordance

with the Act shall be deemed to satisfy the

responsibilities of the Secretary under the

National Environmental Policy Act and no

further consideration shall be required.

‘‘SEC. 9. LIABILITY.

‘‘(a) CIVIL PENALTIES AND FINES.—The second sentence of section 6001(a) of the Solid

Waste Disposal Act (42 U.S.C. 6961(a), relating to civil and administrative penalties and

fines) is repealed.

‘‘(b) WAIVER OF SOVEREIGN IMMUNITY.—The

third sentence of section 6001(a) of the Solid

Waste Disposal Act (42 U.S.C. 6961(a), relating to the waiver of immunity by the United

States) is repealed.

‘‘(c) CRIMINAL LIABILITY.—The seventh sentence of section 6001(a) of the Solid Waste

Disposal Act (42 U.S.C. 6961(a)) is amended—

‘‘(1) by striking—

‘An agent, employee, or officer of the United States shall be subject to any criminal

sanction (including, but not limited to, any

fine or imprisonment) under any Federal or

State solid or hazardous waste law, but no

department, agency, or instrumentality of

the executive, legislative, or judicial branch

of the Federal Government shall be subject

to any such sanction.’; and

‘‘(2) by inserting the following—

‘No department, agency, or instrumentality of the executive, legislative, or judicial

branch of the Federal Government shall be

subject to any criminal sanction (including,

but not limited to, any fine or imprisonment) under any Federal or State solid or

hazardous waste law.’.

‘‘(d) CONFORMING AMENDMENTS.—(1) Section 6001(c) of the Solid Waste Disposal Act

(42 U.S.C. 6961(c), relating to state use of

penalties and fines collected from the United

States) is repealed.

‘‘(2) Section 102(c) of the Federal Facility

Compliance Act (42 U.S.C. 6961 note, relating

to effective dates) is repealed.

‘‘(e) ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGES.—Notwithstanding section 107 of the Comprehensive

Environmental Response, Compensation, and

Liability Act of 1980 (42 U.S.C. 9607) or any

other provision of law, the United States

shall not be liable for any environmental response costs, natural resource loss, or other

damages arising out of federal activities at

the Hanford Reservation.’’

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL

NOTICE OF HEARING

fRESOURCES

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I would

like to announce for the information of

the Senate and the public that a hearing has been scheduled before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Committee on Energy and

Natural Resources.

The hearing will take place on

Wednesday, June 7, 1995, at 9:30 a.m. in

room SD–366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC.

The purpose of the hearing will be to

examine the historical evolution of the

National Environmental Policy Act of

1969, how it is being applied now in several situations, and what options are

available to improve Federal decisionmaking consistent with the objectives

of that statute.

For further information concerning

the hearing, please contact James P.

Beirne, senior counsel to the committee, at (202) 224–2564.

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL

RESOURCES

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I

would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public

that a hearing has been scheduled before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

The hearing will take place Thursday, June 15, 1995, at 9:30 a.m. in room

SD–366 of the Dirksen Senate Office

Building in Washington, DC.

The purpose of this hearing is to receive testimony on S. 871, a bill to provide for the management and disposition of the Hanford Reservation, to

provide for environmental management activities at the reservation, and

for other purposes.

Those wishing to submit written

statements should write to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC

20510. For further information, please

call David Garman at (202) 224–7933 or

Judy Brown at (202) 224–7556.

ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

fDEFENSE BUDGET ISSUES

∑ Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, the

unmatched disbursement problem at

the Pentagon has been simmering on a

back burner for years.

All of a sudden, it is on the front

burner, and it is boiling.

The issue is so bothersome right now

because it undermines the credibility

of the defense budget numbers and the

case for pumping up the defense budget.

There is another article on it in the

Washington Post on Tuesday.

This one zeros right in on the main

problem: the lack of accountability at

the Pentagon.

I ask that the article be printed in

the RECORD.

The article follows:

[From the Washington Post, May 23, 1995]

THE PENTAGON’S ACCOUNTABILITY PROBLEM

(By Coleman McCarthy)

Speaking of welfare abuse—and who isn’t—

have you heard about the $13 billion the government handed out over the past decade but

doesn’t know where it went or to whom?

Then there’s the $6 billion spent in excess of

what Congress authorized.

The welfare recipients who have taken this

money and run—or lazed about or bought

Cadillacs, as it is derisively said of poor people—are in a category of their own. They are

military contractors. Their welfare agency is

the largest of them all, the Department of

Defense, which has a defense against enemies

great and small except the one within: fiscal

stupidity and indifference.

Some of the details of this welfare abuse

were revealed May 16 before the Senate

Armed Services subcommittee on readiness.

It wasn’t much of a hearing: just a half-day

of testimony from a Pentagon undersecretary and the head of the General Accounting

Office, a few senators and not much in the

national media that evening or the next day.

If $19 billion in lost or untracked tax

money had been dispensed by the Department of Education on mismanaged reading

programs or if this were $19 billion that vaporized in the Medicare or food stamp bureaucracy, no hearing room would have been

large enough to hold the media and outraged

public, no time limit on hearings would have

been imposed and no senator’s publicist

would have passed up the chance to paper

Washington with the boss’s deploring of bureaucrats, welfare cheats and, for sure, liberals.

But this was the Pentagon—the Department of Giveaways—and its dollar-mates,

military contractors and their rent-a-general execs. Both givers and takers are on permanent dispensations from standards of

competence, accountability and honesty that

apply elsewhere.

At the hearings, Charles A. Bowsher of the

GAO ran through what he called the Pentagon’s ‘‘serious problem of not being able to

properly match disbursements with obligations.’’ Pentagon overpayments, flawed contracts, duplicative business practices, shoddy

or no record-keeping and multiple payroll

systems have meant that the money might

as well have been thrown out of airplanes for

all anyone knew where it went.

On such a routine matter as travel,

Bowsher reported that the Pentagon has

‘‘over 700 processing centers, 1,300 pages of

regulations and some 40 steps to get travel

approval and reimbursement. The result:

DOD spent over 30 percent of each travel dollar on administrative cost. By contrast, companies with the best travel processes have

one disbursing center . . . and 10 or fewer

process steps. These companies spend as little as 1 percent of their travel dollar on administrative costs.’’

According to John Hamre, the Pentagon

undersecretary and comptroller, each month

the Pentagon deals with 2.5 million invoices

and 10 million paychecks. He spun: ‘‘It isn’t

that we have wicked people trying to screw

up, it’s that we have a system that’s so

error-prone that good people working hard

are going to make mistakes.’’

In the past 18 months, the hard-working

good folk at the Pentagon have miscalculated Hamre’s paycheck six times.

Because no wicked people are involved in

the missing billions, no mention was made of

firings, much less possible indictments. On

the issue of ‘‘problem disbursements,’’

Hamre was the model of managerial thoughtfulness. It is too late or too burdensome to

go back and see what or who went awry: ‘‘I

decided to suspend, on a one-time basis, the

requirement to research old transactions.’’

To DOD’s contractor buddies, the message,

unlike the money, was not lost: Relax, we’re

good people, you’re good people. It was ‘‘the

system.’’

Hamre reassured Congress that the era of

reform is here: ‘‘The department has refined

and advanced its blueprint to eliminate its

long-standing financial management problems.’’
May 26, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S7631

Sure. In his 1989 book ‘‘The Pentagonists:

An Insider’s View of Waste, Mismanagement,

and Fraud in Defense Spending,’’ A. Ernest

Fitzgerald wrote that the military’s rote reaction to scandal is to promise reform,

pledge self-policing and spout Caspar Weinberger’s favorite cliche ́ about the ‘‘few bad

apples in any barrel.’’ And then go back to

writing checks.

Down the hall on the same day from the

hearing on the missing billions was another

Senate Armed Services panel reaching for its

appropriations pen—debating a $60 billion

contract to build 30 attack submarines for

the Navy. To attack who? Russia.

It was a day of symmetry: one Senate committee looking for phantom money and another pondering a phantom enemy.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Billions of dollars

in DOD checks can’t be hooked up to

authorizing documents, but ‘‘no mention is made of firings or possible indictments,’’ the article says.

The Pentagon will promise reform,

pledge self-policing, and get right back

to writing bad checks.

This is what worries me, Mr. President.

Some of my colleagues would like to

give the Pentagon some extra money,

so the Pentagon bureaucrats can write

more bad checks.

This is the very problem I spoke

about on the floor last Friday.

Last Friday I came to the floor to express concern about a new policy being

pushed by the Comptroller at the Department of Defense [DOD], Mr. John

Hamre.

Mr. Hamre is proposing to write off

billions of dollars of unmatchable disbursements.

Unmatchable disbursements are payments which he claims cannot be

linked to supporting documentation.

In my mind, Mr. President, the plan

would set a dangerous precedent and

underscores the continuing lack of effective internal financial controls at

the Pentagon.

My speech last Friday merely expressed concerns and raised questions

about the new policy.

Well, at the conclusion of my statement, my friend from Arizona, Senator

MCCAIN, and my friend from Maine,

Senator COHEN, launched an unwarranted attack on what I had said.

I feel as though their criticism was

misdirected. It misinterpreted and

mischaracterized what I had said.

Unfortunately, I was participating in

the Canada-United States

Interparliamentary Group meeting in

Canada and had to run to catch an airplane.

I was unable to respond to their critical remarks on Friday.

I would like to do that now.

Mr. President, I would now like to

clarify for Senator COHEN’S understanding of what I actually said about

the IRS. Had his recollection of what I

said been clear, he would have known

that he and I are in total agreement on

the management flaws at IRS.

Senator COHEN seemed to think that

I was holding up the IRS as some kind

of model accounting bureau for Pentagon bureaucrats to copy.

That was not my point at all. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, I am as frequent a critic of

the way the IRS manages the peoples’

money as he is.

What I was suggesting in my comments was that the plan to write off

billions of dollars of unmatchable disbursements would be an insult to the

taxpayers.

This is what I said:

This money was taken out of the pockets

of hard working American taxpayers, and

the Pentagon bureaucrats say it is just too

much trouble to find out how their money

was spent.

Could you imagine how the IRS would

treat a citizen who claimed to have no documentation for $100,000 of income? The IRS

would say: We know you got the money. You

pay the tax. Period. End of discussion.

We should hold the Pentagon bureaucrats

to the same standard that the IRS holds the

taxpayers to. The DOD should have to play

by the same rules imposed on the taxpayers.

We should tell the Pentagon bureaucrats:

We know you received $10 billion in appropriations. Now, how did you spend it? No

extra money until we get the answer.

Mr. President, this is the point I was

trying to make.

The IRS is relentless and thorough in

collecting tax money from the people.

I want the Pentagon bureaucrats to

be just as relentless and just as thorough in controlling and accounting for

the expenditure of the peoples’ money

as the IRS is in collecting it.

I would now like to turn to Senator

MCCAIN’s remarks.

I take strong exception to what was

said by the Senator from Arizona.

Mr. MCCAIN suggested that I ‘‘enjoy

savaging’’ the Pentagon for shortcomings and deficiencies but never

offer ‘‘viable solutions.’’ First of all, I

do not remember ever making a critique of DOD’s management without

offering a solution, contrary to my

friend’s flippant remark.

On Friday, I made two very specific

recommendations for handling the new

policy.

I would like to restate those two recommendations. I said:

We in the Congress should not approve this

plan until two stringent conditions are met:

Number 1: Those responsible must be held

accountable for what has happened; Heads

must roll.

Number 2: A new DOD policy should be put

in place that specifies: Effective January 1,

1996, all DOD disbursements must be

matched with obligations and supporting accounting records before a payment is made.

Mr. President, as I said on Friday,

these two recommendations will help

to strengthen and reinforce section 8137

of the fiscal year 1995 DOD Appropriations Act—Public Law 103–335. Senator

STEVENS acknowledged my proposed

solution in a hearing on this issue May

23 before his Defense Subcommittee.

Section 8137 was a carefully crafted

piece of legislation designed to correct

the unmatched disbursement problem

at the Pentagon.

It was a phased approach I developed

in close cooperation with the DOD

Comptroller, Mr. Hamre.

Section 8137 specifies that by July 1,

1995, a disbursement in excess of $5 million must be matched with appropriate

accounting documents before the payment is made.

Then, under the law, the mandatory

matching threshold is lowered to $1

million on October 1, 1995.

My amendment was adopted by the

Senate on August 11, 1994.

The next day I received a warm,

handwritten thank you note from Mr.

Hamre. I would like to read it. I quote:

I would like to thank you for sponsoring

the amendment requiring DOD to match disbursements with accounting records prior to

actual disbursement of funds. I especially appreciate your willingness to work with me to

adopt your amendment to ensure we could

implement it in the least disruptive manner.

You will be very proud of the long-term benefit it will produce in our business practices.

Mr. President, to my friend from Arizona, I say: I have been working hard

to fix this problem. I do not claim to

have the answer but I am searching for

it.

And the recommendations I made on

Friday are the logical next step to the

phased approach contained in section

8137 of the law.

They would lower the threshold to

zero, effective January 1, 1996.

Let me also say to my friend from

Arizona that my recommendations are

fully consistent with current DOD policy.

To back up that point, I would like

to quote from Mr. Hamre’s letter of

May 5, 1995, to Senator GLENN where

the plan to write off unmatchable disbursements was first revealed to the

public.

I quote from the Hamre letter: ‘‘We

have adopted a policy that we will not

disburse funds until we pre-match

them to the accounting records.’’

That is recommendation No. 2 in Friday’s speech.

Mr. President, I say to my friend

from Arizona that I have been working

diligently to fix the problem.

I have already helped to develop one

viable solution and am working on another.

Right now, I am working with the

Comptroller General, Chuck Bowsher,

to find a more comprehensive solution

to the Pentagon’s accounting problems.

Mr. President, sometimes in the heat

of debate, our arguments and proposed

solutions fall on deaf ears.

I would caution my friend from Arizona to listen to the arguments before

blindly dismissing them.

Unless that is done, the credibility of

one’s opposition is lost.

Mr. President, I would like to add

one new idea to the discussion.

I do not believe the use of the word

‘‘writeoff’’ accurately describes what

DOD is proposing to do.

Normally, the word ‘‘writeoff’’ is

used to describe a procedure for canceling from accounts a legitimate business loss.

What Mr. Hamre is proposing to do is

write off billions of dollars of unauthorized payments.
S7632 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE May 26, 1995

A payment that cannot be linked to

supporting documentation is an unauthorized payment. It may not be legitimate.

Without documentation, we do not

know how the money was used.

That is my concern, Mr. President.

Mr. President, Pentagon bureaucrats

have an unblemished record of mismanaging the peoples’ money.

Now, is it smart to give a bureaucratic institution like the Pentagon

that cannot control and account for

the use of public money more public

money—as some of my colleagues propose?

DOD should not get any extra money

until it cleans up the books.

More money is not the answer. Better management is.

f∑

A TRIBUTE TO COMMAND SGT.

MAJ. WILLIAM H. ACEBES ON

HIS RETIREMENT FROM THE

ARMY

∑ Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, today I

want to congratulate Command Sgt.

Maj. William H. Acebes on the occasion

of his retirement from the U.S. Army.

Command Sergeant Major Acebes

began his Army career 30 years ago

when he completed basic training at

Fort Polk, LA. I am pleased to note

that he completed his advanced individual training in my home State of

Georgia, at Fort Gordon. Since then,

he has served in virtually every noncommissioned officer leadership position.

Overseas, Command Sergeant Major

Acebes has served numerous tours of

duty with United States Forces in both

Europe and Asia. In Germany he was

assigned to the Berlin Brigade and

later, to the 1st Battalion, 10th Special

Forces Group (Forward) at Bad Toelz.

During the Vietnam war, he served

with the 173rd Airborne Brigade and

was an advisor with the United States

Army Military Assistance Command.

His most recent overseas assignment

was in South Korea, where he was the

command sergeant major of the 2nd Infantry Division.

Bill Acebes’ stateside assignments

have included serving as the first sergeant of Headquarters Company and

the command sergeant major of the 1st

Battalion (Ranger), 75th Ranger Regiment. Also, he served as the battalion

command sergeant major for the 1st

Battalion, 64th Armor Regiment, 2d

Brigade, 24th Infantry Division, at Fort

Stewart, Georgia. Since 1992, he has

served as the U.S. Army Infantry Center Command Sergeant Major at Fort

Benning, GA.

During his 30-year Army career, Bill

Acebes has received numerous awards

and decorations in recognition of his

exemplary service to the United

States. These awards and decorations

include the Legion of Merit, the Bronze

Star, the Meritorious Service Medal,

the Army Commendation Medal, the

Army Achievement Medal, and the

Vietnam Cross of Gallantry.

I know of no soldier who sought more

tough, demanding assignments than

Bill Acebes. I also know of no soldier

who has spent more time with the infantry—with infantry soldiers and families, than Bill Acebes. Whenever our

country called, over a 30-year period,

Command Sergeant Major Acebes answered. His leadership and talents will

be missed.

Mr. President, I ask our colleagues to

join me in thanking Command Sergeant Major William H. Acebes for his

distinguished service to the Army and

people of the United States.

f∑

COMMERCIAL SPENT NUCLEAR

FUEL STORAGE

∑ Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I

would like to commend the Senator

from Alaska [Mr. MURKOWSKI] for the

statement yesterday on the need to develop a timely solution for the management of spent nuclear fuel from the

Nation’s 109 commercial nuclear power

plants.

As the new chairman of the Energy

Committee, Senator MURKOWSKI has already assumed a leading role in examining America’s policy on high-level

radioactive waste management and I

appreciate the chairman’s ongoing

commitment to change that policy to

ensure that we continue to make

progress in a program so vital to the

national interest.

Mr. President, the United States has

struggled to fashion a workable policy

on high-level radioactive waste disposal since the Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982.

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan

signed amendments to that act to direct the Department of Energy to

study Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a

likely repository site. A cadre of worldclass scientists have been conducting

first-of-a-kind experiments at Yucca

Mountain to determine if the site is

suitable for the ultimate disposition of

spent nuclear fuel from civilian nuclear reactors a well as defense highlevel radioactive waste.

Electric consumers have committed

$11 billion since 1983 to finance these

studies, a total that includes $563 million collected from consumers of nuclear electricity generated in South

Carolina. Unfortunately, the year 2010

is the earliest possible date that a repository might be ready to accept

spent fuel.

In the meantime, nuclear power

plants across the country are running

out of capacity to store spent fuel. By

1998, 26 plants will have exhausted existing capacity to store spent fuel, including the Oconee and Robinson

plants in South Carolina.

In addition to designating Yucca

Mountain, the Nuclear Waste Policy

Act made the Federal Government responsible for taking title to spent nuclear fuel beginning in 1998.

In order to meet its obligations,

therefore, the Federal Government

must now develop a temporary storage

facility for spent fuel from the Nation’s

nuclear power plants. In just 3 years

DOE is scheduled to assume responsibility for the spent nuclear fuel from

commercial nuclear power plants. It

must begin planning now to build and

operate a facility to fulfill that obligation.

Legislation introduced in both the

Senate and House would develop an integrated approach to spent fuel management, including the construction

and operation of a single Federal facility to store spent fuel until a permanent solution is available. Legislation

in both Chambers identifies the sensible location for such a storage facility—the Nevada test site.

This Federal facility is the most logical location for such an interim site.

It borders Yucca Mountain, a remote,

unpopulated, and arid location in the

Nevada Desert. Moreover, the site is on

land that has been dedicated to underground nuclear testing for more than

40 years, and thus appropriately dedicated to a project like this one.

Building a central storage facility at

the Nevada test site does not prejudge

the question of whether Yucca Mountain is suitable, but there are tremendous advantages to locating it there.

Among the most appealing is ease of

transportation of the spent fuel from

storage facility to repository.

Building a central storage facility

that is operating by 1998 and a repository by 2010 will save electric consumers $5 billion over the life cycle of the

waste management program. These

cost savings will be further enhanced,

primarily through ease of transportation, if the storage facility is located

near the repository site.

Mr. President, the time has come to

address the problems that have plagued

the Department of Energy’s nuclear

waste management program. We can

take the first step this year by authorizing and using funds already contributed by electricity consumers to develop a central storage facility in Nevada.

∑

DESECRATION OF THE U.S. FLAG

Mr. HEFLIN. Mr. President, I am

∑

fpleased to submit for the RECORD the

memorializing resolutions from the

States of Washington, Hawaii, and Oregon calling on the Congress to pass an

amendment to the Constitution that

protects the United States flag from

desecration. I think these resolutions

are a wonderful reminder that the

movement and support for an amendment to protect the flag begin at the

grassroots level. Up to this point, 49

States have passed memorializing resolutions in support of a flag protection

amendment. I ask unanimous consent

that the texts of these resolutions be

printed in the RECORD.

STATE OF WASHINGTON: SENATE JOINT

MEMORIAL 8006

Whereas, Although the right of free expression is part of the foundation of the United

States Constitution, very carefully drawn