4 1 ity, is a party to a suit, and under this Act any function of 2 such department, agency, or officer is transferred to the Sec3 retary of Defense, then such suit shall be continued with the 4 Secretary of Defense substituted. 5 6 7 REFERENCES TO FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY AND GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION SEC. 4. Any reference to the Federal Emergency Man8 agement Agency or the General Services Administration, or 9 to the Director of the Federal Emergency Management 10 Agency or the Administrator of General Services, in any law, 11 rule, regulation, certificate, directive, instruction, or other of12 ficial paper in effect after the effective date of this Act with 13 respect to functions transferred by this Act shall be deemed 14 to be a reference to the Department of Defense or to the 15 Secretary of Defense, respectively. 16 17 EFFECTIVE DATE SEC. 5. This Act, and the amendments made by this 18 Act, shall take effect at the end of the one-hundred-and19 twenty-day period beginning on the date of the enactment of 20 this Act or on such earlier date as the President prescribes 21 and publishes in the Federal Register. HR 33 IH H.R. 33, TO TRANSFER MANAGEMENT OF THE NATIONAL DEFENSE STOCKPILE TO THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, SEAPOWER AND STRATEGIC AND CRITICAL MATERIALS SUBCOMMITTEE, Washington, DC, Tuesday, February 22, 1983. The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10 a.m., in room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Charles E. Bennett (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLES E. BENNETT, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM FLORIDA, CHAIRMAN, SEAPOWER AND STRATEGIC AND CRITICAL MATERIALS SUBCOMMITTEE Mr. BENNETT. The subcommittee will come to order. We have before us today H.R. 33 which would transfer the authority and responsibility for the management of the national defense stockpile to the Secretary of Defense. As you know, the purpose of the national defense stockpile is to provide sufficient quantities of strategic and critical materials to sustain the United States for a period of not less than 3 years in the event of a national ernergency. These stockpile materials would be necessary to support the needs of the military, industry and essential civilian requirements during such an emergency. Obviously, the first priority for the use of stockpile materials would be the defense sector. The 96th Congress enacted the Strategic and Critical Materials Stockpiling Revision Act of 1979. Our committee supported these changes in order to correct deficiencies in existing law and to create the national defense stockpile transaction fund. The intention of Congress in creating the transaction fund was to set aside money derived from the sale of excess stockpile commodities for use in the purchase of more urgently needed stockpile materials. In testimony before this subcommittee on June 2, 1981, administration witnesses pointed out critical material problems, including this Nation's vulnerability to supply shortages, and the need for $13 billion of purchases to bring the stockpile up to essential and established goals. On April 5, 1982, the President submitted to Congress the national materials and minerals program plan. In the report the President said, "This administration will rely primarily on the strategic stockpile as the primary means of providing for national defense objectives." However, I am sorry to say that both past and present administrations have continued the liquidation of excess strategic materials without the comparable purchase of materials in short supply in the stockpile. For example, the Reagan administration, in its first year, proposed the sale of $2.14 billion of excess stockpile commodities while proposing the purchase of only $120 million of needed stockpile materials. With the exception of small quantities of bauxite and cobalt that were added in 1982, there have been no significant additions to the stockpile in the last 20 years. The principal reasons for this lack of action seems to be that we have not had a logical organizational arrangement for the management of the stockpile nor a focal point to serve as a strong advocate for a reasonable stockpile program. It was my hope that the 1979 act would solve most of the needs of the national defense stockpile. Instead, the management of the stockpile continues to be caught up in the OMB budget balancing act, and it also suffers from split responsibilities and management within the executive branch of the Government. A program as important as the national defense stockpile deserves centralized direction and a single entity in Government for planning, budgeting, and program implementation. The current organization for the management and operation of the stockpile has not developed a program which matches the President's stated objectives. What is needed is an organization with the responsibility to plan for the stockpile, to integrate stockpile requirements with war plans, and to prepare and defend the budget through congressional authorization and appropriations. If the management and operation of the national defense stockpile is transferred to the Department of Defense then DOD would be responsible for determining goals for each item in the stockpile. These goals could be more realistically and promptly established on the basis of current war plans and projected requirements for military equipment and supporting industries. The Department of Defense, in implementing H.R. 33, should develop a defense planning process which would include industrial preparedness and stockpile needs consistent with current DOD wartime scenarios, force structure, logistical support requirements, and the U.S. Defense Industrial Base capacity. We need a plan for materials that is not just for the current year, but for a long-range goal in which the annual objectives are an identifiable part. Under this longer term thinking, stockpile goals would not be changed without compelling reasons. Transfer of the stockpile from FEMA and GSA to DOD should be with an assignment of specific responsibility in an assistant secretary there. The national defense stockpile should receive high priority in DOD. In a world as dangerous as today's, we must be prepared for any military emergency. As history teaches, weakness and vulnerability invite adventurism while military strength and preparedness deter aggression. Therefore, we must begin to give serious consideration to industrial preparedness. I believe the transfer of the national defense stockpile to the Department of Defense is a neces sary first step if we are to refurbish and rebuild the national defense stockpile. The record for these hearings will remain open until March 7, 1983, to permit interested parties to submit statements if they wish to do so. Our first witness this morning is former Congressman Richard H. Ichord who served so long with distinction as a member of this House Armed Services Committee, and who chaired the Defense Industrial Base Panel in 1980, which looked into and reported on deficiencies in our stockpile needs. And I don't know of any member who previously served here that I would rather have testify before us on any subject than Hon. Richard Ichord, and will you proceed as you wish. STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD H. ICHORD, FORMER Mr. ICHORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Chairman Price, it is indeed a great pleasure for me to return to these hallowed halls where you and I, under the leadership of Mr. Price, and other members of the committee, have participated in so many hearings concerning the formulation of our national defense policies. At the outset, Mr. Chairman, knowing full well the constraints of time under which you and the committee operate, I should ask consent to summarize my remarks and place my prepared statement in the record. Copies have been prepared and distributed to you. Mr. BENNETT. Without objection, that is so ordered. I want you to know Congressman Ichord, that we invited you here because we know of your special knowledge. Don't cut anything short. Tell us what you feel we ought to hear and we will put the whole statement in the record. Mr. ICHORD. If I may put it in the record, I will summarize the statement and hopefully at least address myself to the statement as filed. First, Mr. Chairman, I think I should make it clear that I am appearing here not as a member of the Washington industrial team of which I am president, I am not here appearing representing any of my clients, nor am I appearing as a member of the Lathrop, Koontz law firm that I am a partner in, I am here as a very much concerned public citizen, trying to give you some assistance on what I consider to be a very important matter. And I hope to be able to assist you in your record, in your deliberations by making a worthwhile contribution, because, in my opinion, Mr. Chairman, you are dealing with a problem, the solution to which could very well determine the survival or nonsurvival of the United States as a nation and that indeed is a very weighty issue. We are here to determine whether or not this country should make preparation for the future. More specifically, we are here to determine whether to make adequate preparation for a possible future war that all of us hope never happens. Mr. Chairman, may I submit that it is too late to prepare for war after hostilities have begun. Historically, preparations for war after the beginning of hostilities has never been carried out without a great magnitude of human suffering, needless and stupid sacrifice of human life, inordinate expense, and at grave national peril. The lessons of history, Mr. Chairman, dictate to us the wisdom that the time for a nation to prepare its defense is a time of peace, now, today. I am not an expert, Mr. Chairman, in stockpile planning or stockpile management. I note that you do have a formidable expert who is to follow, Mr. Markon, a former dedicated outstanding and fine public servant for many years. I will bow to him in the details of the operation of a stockpile. And, Mr. Chairman, I would also have to bow to you and to Mr. Price and Mr. Spence, your ranking member, because you have sat here and wrestled with these problems, worried about them and have seen come and go over the years scores of executive persons who are concerned, who have responsibility of operating the stockpile. If you are not an expert, Mr. Chairman, you sure as heck should be an expert in this field. We are living in very unusual times, but I suppose we could always have said that throughout recorded history. We have never been able to understand why the Roman Empire rose or why it fell. I have never been able to understand why armies in the past have committed suicide by marching off the cliff rather than by marching into battle. A thousand years from now, our posterity will undoubtedly look back upon the ruins of Western civilization as we know it today, not able to understand why the United States fought two wars in succession without fighting them to win or why it hesitated to build an enhanced radiation device. I hope posterity is not also placed in the position of not being able to understand why we continue to indulge in the extremely naive thinking that surrounds the problems of industrial preparedness and the operations of the national defense stockpile. You have undoubtedly called me, as you indicated, Mr. Chairman, because I served as chairman of the 1980 Defense Industrial Base Panel. The report of our findings has sometimes been referred to as the blueprint for the defense initiatives of this administration. In that undertaking, Mr. Chairman, in making the report to Mr. Price, the panel, did explore in detail the problems that you are exploring now. In fact, you are addressing one of the recommendations in that report. We did have defense experts, not only experts in DOD as counsel to us, Mr. Chairman, but also industry, and I would also mention the defense experts of the staff of this committee, senior staff member Tony Battista served as counsel on it; Tom Cooper-now Assistant Secretary for R&D in the Air Forceheaded it up; your chief counsel, Dave Price; Adam Klein; Don Campbell; Mary Ann Gilleece; all of them experts. I understand you have already lost Mr. Cooper, and I understand you could very well lose another dedicated and competent staff member in the near future which I hate to see happen. Mr. Chairman, as I readied my remarks for delivery to this committee, I recall the testimony of Ollie Boileau, now president of General Dynamics, I think I am sure that you and Mr. Price know him well. I believe years ago he was even a staff member for the Congress. Ollie, in testifying before the committee, directed the |