Military construction bill breezes through House panel

With barely a breath of protest, the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday adopted an $8.6 billion spending bill to build new housing, barracks, hospitals and child-care centers on military bases.

Even as the measure breezed through the ordinarily contentious committee on a voice vote, defense hawks in both parties warned that a budget crunch is looming over U.S. support for peacekeeping in Kosovo because of Congress' failure to pass a separate supplemental appropriations bill for that purpose and other emergencies. The House adopted a supplemental bill in March, but Senate Republican leaders have stymied it in that chamber by insisting that such spending be integrated into regular appropriations measures-and thus counted against the bottom line in the 2001 budget.

On the military construction bill, which is intended in part to begin clearing away a huge backlog of long-standing "quality of life" needs for military personnel, the committee reached an unusual bipartisan accord. "This is a good bill and deserves to pass," said Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., the top Democrat on the panel who normally challenges most Republican spending initiatives.

Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, chairman of the Military Construction Subcommittee, said the bill is meant to "address serious shortfalls and the severe backlog in readiness, revitalization and quality of life projects" at military bases around the globe. The bill, he added, spends significantly more than the Clinton administration requested, boosting spending by 4 percent over this year's level for military construction projects. In dollars, the bill calls for $600 million more for such purposes than the president requested.

The largest chunk of the bill's money-some $3.9 billion-will go for construction or renovation of barracks, hospital and medical facilities, pollution controls, child development centers, drawdown of chemical weapon stocks, upgrading NATO facilities, and National Guard and Reserve centers.

Another $3.5 billion is allotted for on-base family housing, including $2.7 billion for operation and maintenance of existing units and $859 million for new units.

In addition, $1.2 billion is set aside, mostly for environmental cleanup, for bases that have been shut down.

Hobson said the "barracks revitalization effort" is designed to replace or update aging buildings that are plagued by chronic maintenance problems, including outdated latrines, asbestos insulation, corroded plumbing, bad ventilation and heating and cooling systems, and peeling lead-based paint.

The average age of on-base family housing units is 35 years and they require heavy outlays simply to maintain them. More than half of the 300,000 units, Hobson said, "are in need of major improvements." The bill provides $820.2 million for new construction and upkeep of existing housing units-a $111 million increase over the administration's request-including $391 million to build more than 1,800 new units.

Before moving the bill to the House floor, the committee groused about the Senate's handling of the supplemental appropriations bill, as members were reminded that money for the Kosovo operation already has been spent from Pentagon accounts and will have to be replaced. Failure to do so could force cuts in military readiness accounts.

Committee Chairman C.W. "Bill" Young , R-Fla., said he is insisting, in negotiations with Senate leaders, that a separate supplemental be acted on in the Senate and brought to a conference committee with the House. If that fails, he said, he would try to attach the supplemental-in whole or part-to "the first appropriation bill that goes to conference."

He conceded, however, that Senate Republican leaders "have not agreed to my preference on this yet."

Meanwhile, committee Democrats complained mildly about an $83 million item in the MilCon bill to cover some startup costs for a controversial National Missile Defense system. President Clinton has not decided yet whether to recommend going forward with NMD, saying he would prefer first to work out a new arrangement with Russia to reduce nuclear missiles and revise the long-standing Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty. Russian leaders insist that installment of a comprehensive missile defense system would violate the terms of the pact, and could lead to a new arms race and the breakdown of existing treaties to limit the number and kinds of nuclear weapons.

In a nod to the fact that the president has not decided to push forward with the program, the committee agreed to hold back $20 million of the $83 million until a decision is made, and told the Pentagon it would require "specific project justification" before releasing more money for the system.