COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

EIGHTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

PURSUANT TO

H.R. 2743 and H.R. 5000

BILLS TO AUTHORIZE CERTAIN CONSTRUCTION
AT MILITARY INSTALLATIONS, AND

FOR OTHER PURPOSES

FEBRUARY 20, 21, 22, AND 27, AND MARCH 2, 1961

[No. 2]

H.R. 2743-TO AUTHORIZE CERTAIN CONSTRUCTION AT MILITARY INSTALLATIONS, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES,

Washington, D.C., Monday, February 20, 1961.

The committee met at 10:11 a.m., Hon. Carl Vinson (chairman of the committee) presiding.

The CHAIRMAN. Let the committee come to order.

A quorum is present.

Members of the committee, the purpose of this hearing this morning is to commence consideration of H.R. 2743, and I think it is proper for me to make a statement with reference to this bill.

I have requested that a copy of this statement be laid on each member's desk, and also that copies be given to the press because it contains some important information about this bill that we will take up later on after we have had the witnesses.

Members of the committee, I think it important that I make a brief statement with respect to this bill before we begin with the witnesses scheduled to testify in respect to it. My purpose in making this statement is to provide you with a broad perspective of what this bill is intended to do and, in addition, point out certain features in this legislation which should be of particular interest to all members. I have personally given considerable study to every line item which appears in this legislation, and except for a few items I intend to call to your attention, I feel that the recommendations of the various military departments are solid and genuinely necessary.

There is only one new major installation contained in this legislation. This concerns the Department of the Navy and represents the Atlantic Underwater Test and Evaluation Center. Therefore, this bill in very large part merely represents improvements or additions to installations and programs with which we are all familiar.

This bill contains requests for authority for the construction of the physical plant for all military forces. This physical plant together with the men and equipment make up the essential elements of our

defense structure.

The bill this year totals $772,575,000 for the Active Forces divided

as follows:

Army.

Navy..

Air Force..

$157, 097, 000

140, 589, 000 474, 889, 000

In addition to these figures, the Active Forces have requested deficiency authorizations in the amount of $47,355,000. This figure

is broken down as follows:

Army..

Navy.

Air Force..

Total.

(13)

$4,930, 000 39, 700, 000 2,725, 000

47, 355, 000

To this total of $819,930,000 must be added the request for construction authority for the Reserve Forces. This figure amounts to a total of $50,562,000. A breakdown of this figure indicates the following:

Grand total for the Reserve components of the 3 services. 50, 562, 000 So the total of the bill, including the Active Forces, the Reserve components, the deficiency authorizations, amounts to a grand total of $870,492,000.

I am happy to state that this year's program for the Active Forces is substantially below that of last year. As you will recall, the military construction bill for the Active Forces for fiscal year 1961 amounted to a total of approximately $998 million.

Now let's take the subject matter of the military construction program.

The authorization this year for the Active Forces is approximately $772 million and is therefore substantially less than that requested in the previous year. The difference is approximately $226 million.

This drastic reduction in military construction requirements points up the fact that a substantial portion of the new construction requirements of the departments have now been met.

Construction of Strategic Air Command dispersal bases and alert facilities and basic air defense installations will be virtually completed this year. However, decreases in these areas of military construction requirements have been partially offset by some increases for missilebase construction.

Authorizations to complete work on Atlas ICBM bases were provided last year. The 1962 programs continues to provide for future Titan and Minuteman base construction. It also includes authorizations for additional base construction to support the Polaris submarine fleet, including expanded training facility requirements for this program.

Authorizations for the improvement of radar systems associated with the Nike-Hercules in this country and overseas and control facilities for Hawk air defense missiles overseas are also provided.

Other important projects in the current military construction program include: Additional construction of test facilities for the NikeZeus antimissile development program, additional construction of facilities for the worldwide communications system, and the first portion of the Atlantic Underwater Test and Evaluation Center. The existing physical plant of the military departments including avaiation, waterfront, medical, and maintenance facilities will also be improved and modernized.

Previous authorization: I would like to speak briefly concerning the amount of unfunded authorization which has existed over the past several years and bring these figures up to date. Here is how they line up: Unfunded authorization at the end of fiscal year 1957 was almost $2.2 billion; at the end of fiscal 1958 the figure was $1.9 billion; at the end of fiscal 1959 the figure was $1.03 billion; and at the end of fiscal year 1960 this unfunded authorization amounted to $800 million. This figure will be $599 million at the end of the current fiscal year.

As you know, the committee became concerned about the large amounts of unfunded authorizations previously available to the military departments. Unfunded authorizations, simply stated, are authorizations for construction granted by this committee and the Congress but for which no funds have actually been appropriated.

The committee felt that a reasonable balance should be established between authorizations and appropriations and therefore inserted in the bill a provision which repealed authorizations which were outstanding for 5 years. Later on the committee inserted a similar provision which cut this 5-year period down to 4 years. Four years ago this period was cut to 3 years. A similar provision, therefore, appears in this year's construction bill.

From the figures I have read above, you can see that we will have cut this unfunded authorization from over $2 billion at the end of fiscal 1957 to approximately $342 million for the end of fiscal year

1962.

Deficiency authorizations: As to deficiency authorizations, the present bill requests a figure of $47,355,000. The bulk of this figure is the result of a Navy deficiency request amounting to $39,700,000; $36,600,000 of this figure is necessary to accomplish the completion of the Navy radio research station at Sugar Grove, W. Va. The balance of $3,100,000 is necessary to provide authorization for the building of a graving drydock at the Naval Shipyard, Charleston, S.C. As you will recall, this committee originally approved an authorization of $15 million for this item at Charleston but subsequently in conference it was reduced to $12 million.

This deficiency authorization, therefore, will simply restore the authorization to accomplish this previously approved project.

Although the Navy deficiency authorization request for Sugar Grove, W. Va., is a most substantial item, I am of the opinion that it is amply justified. As you know, the project at Sugar Grove involves many new and advanced electronic techniques for which prior experience is not available, and consequently the cost estimates of this project previously provided the committee were insufficient and necessitated the current request of the Navy for this additional authorization.

The balance of the deficiency authorization is less than $8 million and this is attributable to inaccurate estimates in original construction costs on a program of approximately $1 billion.

Therefore, I do not consider these deficiency requests to be unreasonable.

Now let's take the development of the bill.

This bill has been most carefully studied by the military departments, the Assistant Secretary of Defense, and the Bureau of the Budget. As a matter of interest to the committee, I would like to point out that the original requests for construction authority made.