providing good homes and good working conditions for our troops. And I am confident that members of this subcommittee join myself and Mr. Edwards in the goal of building upon both David Hobson and John Olver's contributions.

Since this is the first hearing of the 108th Congress, I want to take a moment and introduce each member of the subcommittee. As I have already mentioned, Mr. Edwards is the ranking member, and I am sure together we will continue the bipartisan traditions of this bill.

We also have with us this morning-I know you are gathering in; I think there is a conference that held some of them up, maybe a caucus, too, is that right, Chet?

Mr. EDWARDS. Yes, sir.

Mr. KNOLLENBERG. But I wanted to at this moment introduce who the members are. Now, some are not here, some are. This will be in no particular order, but: Jim Walsh, of New York's 25th Congressional District, who is a veteran of four years on the subcommittee; Robert Aderholt, of Alabama's 4th District, is the vice chairman of this subcommittee and has been here for four years; Kay Granger from Texas, 12th District, and a four-year member of the subcommittee; David Vitter, who I do not believe is here, 1st District and two-year member of the subcommittee; Virgil Goode of Virginia's 5th District and three-year member of this subcommittee; Jack Kingston of Georgia's 1st District and two-year veteran of this subcommittee.

But I would point out that he was here, as well, back in, was it 1998 and 1999? Was that when it was? He has a little gap in his service here.

And also Ander Crenshaw from Florida's 4th District, and he is also a new member of this MILCON subcommittee.

We also have Representative Sam Farr, 17th District of California and a four-year member of the subcommittee.

Sam, you can wave; they can tell who you are by your red scarf. Allen Boyd of Florida's 2nd District, a four-year member of the subcommittee; Norm Dicks of Washington's 6th District, a 19-year veteran of this subcommittee; and I have a new member, Sanford Bishop, from Georgia, Georgia's 2nd District.

And I think you are a new member, as well?

Mr. BISHOP. Yes.

Mr. KNOLLENBERG. And we welcome you.

As everyone can see, we have some familiar faces, as well as some new ones. And the new crew of people, a new post, I, for one, look forward to working with all of you to bring about and improve the quality of life for our men and women in uniform.

Since being named chairman of this subcommittee last month, I have learned a lot about the importance of this measure to the well-being of our soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen, and to the well-being of their quality-of-life matters, I think, most to their families and to themselves. That improves, I believe, mission performance, it assists with recruitment and retention and shows a level of commitment to the troops.

I have some prepared questions that I will ask this morning. Ad

to explore, and in a few moments I will turn this over to Mr. Edwards for his comments.

But specifically, it seems there is a direct connection between construction projects funded in this bill and other infrastructure management accounts, like the sustainment, restoration and maintenance, or SRM, account located in the defense appropriations bill. I am just wondering whether this arrangement makes sense from an installations management perspective.

Likewise the Army has been operating at a particularly high tempo for more than a year, and deployments continue at a very high rate. I would like your candid assessment about the performance of existing facilities and whether the condition of the facilities assists or impedes, rather, the Army as troops deploy.

And finally, I would like to request that the Army provide to the subcommittee a list of any construction project and its cost, whether minor or major construction, whether temporary or permanent, and whether capable with operations and maintenance funds or military construction funds. And these are funds that have been constructed to support the global war on terrorism.

There may be some sensitivity about that, but hopefully we can work out something that does not compromise the flexibility that you need-all of you need to do your job and at the same time to allow us to have some oversight where we can, where maybe a legislative idea of what you are talking about here that gives you the protection for what you need to do your jobs.

So, at this point, before we move into the witnesses themselves, I am going to yield to Mr. Edwards for any opening comments that he might want to make.

STATEMENT OF THE RANKING MINORITY MEMBER

Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I will be relatively brief. Since this is our first meeting in the 108th Congress I want to just say it is a privilege for me personally to serve with you, our new chairman of this committee.

My personal respect for you is long-held and deep and genuine, and I know you want to be a great leader continuing the legacy of bipartisanship on a committee whose primary commitment is quality of life for service men and women. And I have yet to find tisan agenda in that effort.

par

I want to say that I think your seniority on Foreign Operations is going to be a real asset to this subcommittee, because you cannot make installation decisions without understanding the strategy decisions, and you cannot understand strategic decisions without understanding the world view. So I think you bring special strengths to this, and I know of your personal commitment to our service men and women.

Just a couple of other points, if I could. Yesterday, with the death of four Army soldiers in Kuwait, we were reminded once again of the incredible sacrifice we ask of military service men and women to make, and the incredible burden and sacrifices we put and ask of our loved ones in military families.

It seems to me, while we can never repay these families, both

from their husband or wife, mom or dad, we owe it to them to give them our respect, and not just with words, with our deeds.

It seems to me there is a bipartisan commitment in administrations-it is not a reflection personally on President Clinton or President Bush or any other former president, but there is a bipartisan commitment in administrations to underfund quality-of-life programs while always talking about how important they are. To our witnesses, I want to just lay a marker. I understand that your role is to fight as best as you can for the highest possible Army MILCON budget. Then, once the administration decisions, working with OMB, are made, your responsibility is to defend those as best as you can. I consider that to be 50 percent of our responsibility on this committee.

But the other half that is different from yours is, I want to scream and holler a little bit when I think the bottom line is not good enough, no matter how good of a spin you have put on it and how hard you genuinely work to stretch those dollars, as well.

So I hope, through this process, I am going to be challenging administration officials and representatives of the services that put the numbers where rhetoric is and where our genuine good intentions are.

For example, MILCON this year is down $1.5 billion over the fiscal year 2003 enacted. We will hear a lot of discussion about how important family housing is to quality of life of our service men and women and soldiers and their families, yet we are cutting Army family housing-we are cutting DOD housing by $200 million in this budget.

Again, I am sure presidents do not personally look at these budgets, but there is something systematically wrong that every year quality-of-life programs are underfunded in administration requests regardless of who is sitting in the White House.

What we are going to hear today is testimony saying we are going to put a high priority on housing. Yet, the fact is we have housing waiting lists-family housing waiting lists on every major post in the Army. We are going to hear that we want to have a 67-year recapitalization rate for our facilities. Yet what does this budget do? Recapitalizes them at a 144 years. I do not know of too many 144-year-old barracks or other facilities that I would want to have my soldiers at Fort Hood in. We want to talk about improving facilities from C-3 to C-2. Yet, we have 93 percent funding level for O&M for those facilities.

So what I am finding is, once again, this administration, like every other one I have had the privilege to serve with, underfunds quality of life programs, while in our speeches and testimony always constantly talking about how important those programs are. So, Mr. Chairman, I just look forward to join with you in fighting. I want to be able to help in any way you think it is appropriate for us to speak out, and then try to enlarge the pie before we are given that pie to divide up and use efficiently.

But it is going to be an honor serving with you. And I am thrilled that you are chairman.

Thank you.

Mr. KNOLLENBERG. Thank you, Mr. Edwards. Thank you for your

And I thought what we would do now is to move right on into the witnesses. And we will begin, I might introduce all at first, and then we will get into the first of the the witnesses are, the Honorable Mario P. Fiori, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations and Environment; Major General Larry J. Lust, who is the Assistant Chief of Staff of the Army's Installation Management; Major General Collis N. Phillips, Deputy Chief of Army Reserve; and then, finally, Brigadier General Clyde Vaughn, Deputy Director, Army National Guard.

It is good to see all of you this morning. Glad to have you here to get a little bit of a grip on things. And I appreciate you coming around very quickly.

If there is no objection, the entire text of our witnesses's prepared statements will be entered into the hearing record. Likewise, I plan to operate under the five-minute rule. I know it is a little tough for you gentlemen to adhere to that, but I would just say also that get it as close as you can. And all of your testimony, all of your statements will be entered into the record, so we will have that, obviously, on hand.

I also plan to operate under the five-minute rule, with no objection, with the members as near as we possibly can. And we can always do a second round and a third round, whatever time we have available.

I think we will operate, first a majority member, and then a minority member, if that is satisfactory, and then also in the order of their appearance here, and I have not been keeping track, but staff has, so we will try to recognize members in the order of their having come in. And I think that will be consistent.

I would like to have the members adhere also to that five-minute rule if they can, because that will be in fairness to everybody else. And so, we will move in that direction if there is no objection.

We will hear first from the Honorable Mario Fiori, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations and Environment.

Dr. Fiori, I would appreciate very much if you would highlight, obviously, your prepared statement for the subcommittee at this time. As I mentioned earlier, your prepared statement in its entirety will be entered into the record. So Dr. Fiori, you are recognized.

OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MARIO P. FIORI, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE ARMY (INSTALLATIONS ENVIRONMENT)

Mr. FIORI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. I am pleased to be here with Major General Larry Lust, who has replaced an old hand at this, General Van Antwerp, and Generals Phillips and Vaughn, and I think between us we will be able to define pretty well what our programs are. But I do want to comment briefly on the highlights of our program.

The Army's overall budget request for Fiscal Year 2004 supports The Army Vision: Transformation, Readiness and People. It implements the strategic guidance to transform to a full-spectrum force while ensuring war-fighting readiness. It reflects a balanced base program that will allow The Army to remain trained and ready through Fiscal Year 2004 while ensuring we fulfill our critical role

Our military construction budget request is $3.2 billion, and will fund our highest priority facilities and family housing requirements.

When we developed this year's budget, difficult decisions were made to optimize our resources in response to the global situation. The Army budget provides the best balance among all of our programs, including military construction.

Transformation is one facet of The Army Vision. The Army is fundamentally changing the way we fight and creating a force more responsive to the strategic requirements of the Nation. Our Fiscal Year 2004 budget includes facilities to support both the Active and Reserve components.

First, I want to briefly tell you now how we are transforming installation management. Recognizing the requirement to enhance support to commanders and buttress Army transformation. The Secretary of the Army directed the reorganization of the Army's installation management structure. On October 1st of 2002, the Army placed the management of Army installations under the Installation Management Agency. The Installation Management Agency is a new field-operating agency reporting to the Assistant Chief of Staff for Installation Management, General Lust.

A top-down regional alignment creates a corporate structure with the sole focus on efficient and effective management of all our installations. It should, and will, free up our mission commanders to concentrate on transformation and readiness. They will still have an influence on the important installation decisions, but not the day-to-day operations.

Second, in support of The Army's transformation, our budget does contain $329 million for 17 projects at four Active installations and $85 million for 31 Army National Guard projects. Facilities requested cover the spectrum needed for effective operations and training, including ammunition supply point upgrades, mobilization facilities, training land acquisition, maintenance facilities, ranges, information systems, barracks and housing. The Army National Guard Army Division Redesign Study projects include readiness centers, maintenance shops and training fire stations.

A second facet of The Army's Vision is Readiness. Army installations are our Nation's power projection platforms and they provide critical support to the Army and joint operations. We have requested funding for key projects that specifically focus on readiness. These include live fire ranges, maintenance, test, deployment facilities, Army National Guard Readiness and Army Reserve Cen

ters.

The third facet of The Army Vision is People. The Army continues its major campaign to modernize barracks to provide enlisted permanent party soldiers with quality living environments. The new complexes provide increased personal privacy and larger rooms with new furnishings. With the approval of our budget, 79 percent of our barracks requirements for permanent party soldiers will be funded. Additionally, we are including physical fitness centers and dining facilities to support soldier fitness and well-being. According to our surveys, adequate and affordable housing continues to be the major concern of our people. We have waiting lists