McCain hits appropriation for Guam military buildup

FRIDAY, 23 SEPTEMBER 2011 00:38 BY THERESE HART | VARIETY NEWS STAFF

UNITED States Senator John McCain said on the Senate floor that it was incredible to him that the Senate

Senator John McCain

Appropriations Committee would prioritize and appropriate $33 million to purchase school buses for Guam’s school children, build Phase One of a repository for Guam’s cultural artifacts, and fund a facility for Guam’s Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse.

The Committee last week passed H.R. 2219, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2012, which included the $33 million for Guam.

“That legislation should reflect the will of the Defense Authorization bill, but runs directly contrary to it in many areas,” said McCain.

The $33 million is for operation and maintenance funds, that is, money used to maintain the readiness and combat capability of U.S. troops.

The $33 million and the $40 million appropriation expected next year “to complete these facilities, is, at least in theory, supposed to help promote Guam’s cooperation as part of the plan to move 8,700 Marines and 9,000 family members from their current bases on Okinawa to Guam,” said McCain.

But McCain warned that the plan to move the Marines, which will require spending between $18 and $23 billion on Guam to build up its capabilities as a permanent base, “is so much in doubt that both the Armed Services Committee and the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee have stopped funding Guam military construction projects until the Department of Defense provides a master plan and considers alternatives that may provide the needed Marine forward presence at much less expense.

“In the face of all the doubt about the scope and timing of the eventual buildup, the Appropriations Committee put a premium on buying school buses, an artifact repository, and a mental health clinic in Guam. Those simply are not my idea of top Defense priorities in the fiscal environment we face.”

Bordallo response

Rep. Madeleine Z. Bordallo criticized McCain for his comments.

“Senator McCain’s views are out of step with the Department of Defense, the House, and the State Department, and they are not consistent with his previous stance on infrastructure funding for Guam,” said Bordallo.

“During last year’s debate on the National Defense Authorization Act, the Senate expressed concern about infrastructure funding and requirements in Guam. This $33 million address critical civilian infrastructure needs and provides funding for the Department of the Navy to fulfill certain obligations agreed to in the Programmatic Agreement.”

Bordallo said McCain’s comments are not consistent with recent developments in Japan.

“For the first time, the government of Japan has a concrete plan on how to achieve tangible progress in Okinawa next year, and Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has expressed his government’s support for moving forward with the realignment. The buildup in Guam is an absolute necessity for the United States to ensure regional stability, and Congress must provide the resources necessary to ensure that it is a win-win for both our military and Guam’s civilian community,” said Bordallo.

Guthertz response

Senator Judi Guthertz, Guam buildup chair, also responded, saying McCain’s remarks are “irresponsible and suggest his memory is failing.”

“He has forgotten many promises that were made to pave the way for the buildup,” she said.

“Now I know the Marines will enjoy being on Guam,” McCain said. “I’m not sure it’s absolutely necessary for them to have a repository for cultural artifacts.”

Guthertz said, “If Senator McCain or his staff had bothered to look into why these decisions were made, rather than firing off cheap media shots, they would understand, unless they have been totally brainwashed by the Tea Party,” Guthertz said.

The funding for these projects came about when the Department of Defense offered to fund the museum in view of widespread concern that the massive development planned for the buildup would destroy archaeological and culturally significant artifacts on the island. It is supported by a 2010 Programmatic Agreement signed off by both the government of Guam and the military.

Guthertz said the “sniping at the construction funds for the mental health facility was particularly outrageous since the Environmental Impact Statement process made it quite clear that the arrival of Marines and their dependents envisioned in the original buildup plans would push present mental health facilities in Guam past the breaking point.”

Guthertz accused McCain of not caring “one bit about the U.S. citizen civilians on Guam, who have been assured by the DOD that impacts on the civilian community would be mitigated in exchange for their support of the buildup.”

McCain said in the Senate, the process of authorizing prior to appropriating money for the federal government was a “fundamental problem of this body,” and “it is time this process be stopped.”

McCain said this was because “a handful of senior appropriators, and their unelected staffs, dictate the spending of hundreds of billions of dollars – often in a manner that directly contravenes the will of those committees that still authorize spending.”

The solution, said McCain, is to not authorize appropriation bills and any funding proposed for unauthorized projects which should be subject to the scrutiny of the authorizing committees and reflect the will of their members.

“We are all to blame for this problem. The fact is that routine passage of authorizing legislation simply doesn’t occur as it should. And far too often, even routine passage of appropriations legislation has devolved into passage of a single ‘omnibus’ bill. This also must stop.”

McCain said at a time when the government is facing a $14.7 trillion national debt, “the Senate Appropriations Committee is proposing a Defense spending bill that uses a budget gimmick totaling over $10 billion to mislead the American people about the savings the Committee claims to achieve.”

“And while the Department of Defense is struggling to find more than $400 billion in cuts directed by the President, the Appropriations Committee is still conducting business as usual by rewarding special interests and funding pet projects that have little or nothing to do with our national defense,” he said.

McCain listed roughly 580 items that were changed by the Appropriations Committee which are differences from the bill adopted unanimously by the Armed Services Committee in June in the Department of Defense Authorization bill. The list is 45 pages long and represents $20 billion in changes.

War Reparations Revived

Bordallo revives war claims:
Guam bill to piggy-back on defense spending act
By Amritha Alladi
Pacific Daily News
May 22, 2010

The island's World War II survivors are confident Guam Delegate Madeleine Bordallo will garner the congressional support she needs to pass an amendment to the fiscal 2011 National Defense Authorization Act that would pay war reparations to World War II survivors on Guam.

On Thursday, Bordallo announced she will include H.R. 44, The Guam World War II Loyalty Recognition Act, as an addition to the 2011 defense spending bill, which was unanimously passed by the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday.
The amendment will be added when the bill heads to the floor of the House of Representatives next week, Bordallo said in a press release.

"This strategy is identical to what was done with war claims in last year's defense spending bill due to procedural issues in the Armed Services Committee," Bordallo stated in the release. "The House-passed version of the National Defense Authorization Act will still need to be reconciled with the Senate's version of the defense spending bill. H.R. 44 remains my top legislative priority and I am confident that this strategy is the most effective means of advancing war claims legislation."

Last year, her amendment was successfully adopted by the full House by voice vote as part of a block of amendments during passage of the National Defense Authorization Act 2010, Bordallo's release stated. However, that war claims provision was excluded from the 2010 defense spending bill after Bordallo rejected a compromise measure from Senate leaders, Pacific Daily News files show.

According to Bordallo, the committee's chairman, Rep. Ike Skelton, has reiterated his support for the inclusion of war claims in the defense bill again this year.
But before the entire defense spending bill reaches the House floor for a final vote, it will be considered by the Rules Committee where they will make certain amendments in order.

The bill will then go to the floor where only amendments made in order by the Rules Committee are debated, according to Bordallo's office.

She said the amendment wasn't considered during full committee mark-up on Wednesday due to procedural issues with provisions that are out of the House Armed Services Committee's jurisdiction, Bordallo stated in her release.

According to Guam war survivor Tom Barcinas, this strategy is a pretty standard legislative procedure.

"The amendment is a very normal way of getting things through," he said yesterday. "I'm sure that (the) congresswoman will garner enough support."

Barcinas went to Washington, D.C., in December to share his stories of surviving the Japanese occupation of Guam during World War II. He also testified about the importance of war claims for a survivor, according to Pacific Daily News files.
He applauded Bordallo for her efforts to include this provision into this year's defense budget, adding that Bordallo should move on the issue expeditiously.
He said he's ready to mobilize support for the amendment if she needs it for the amendment to be included.

"If she needs anything from the Guam group, if we have to start a letter-writing campaign or e-mail to help her (convince) all members of the Congress, we'll be very happy to get things going," he said.

Bordallo last year did not accept a Senate compromise offer that would have paid reparations to living Chamorro survivors of World War II, but excluded payments to spouses and children of Guam's war survivors who have died.

Bordallo said at the time she believed the offer was contrary to what the community has said it wanted.

Bordallo's previous bill would have resulted in $126 million for war reparations for Guam survivors of the Japanese occupation during World War II.

Piti Mayor Ben Gumataotao said if it's the World War II survivors they need to focus on in the first round to get the amendment passed, that's fine. The immediate need is for the survivors, he said.

"A lot of the survivors are dying on a daily basis," Gumataotao said.
If needed, islanders can push for war claims for the survivors' heirs during a "second round," he said.

Since the U.S. decided to take on the responsibility of paying war claims from Japan, Gumataotao said it should honor that commitment.

"The responsibility should be coming from our lovely country the U.S," he said. "At that time, they took the responsibility, so let them be an honorable country."

U.S. Senate cuts fund for marines' Guam move

U.S. Senate cuts fund for marines' Guam move

Satoshi Ogawa / Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent

WASHINGTON--The U.S. Senate has voted to slash 211 million dollars that the administration of President Barack Obama sought to fund the planned relocation of 8,000 marines from Okinawa Prefecture to Guam, it was learned Thursday.

The Senate action to cut about 70 percent of the envisaged 300 million dollars came in the process of deliberating fiscal 2010 budget bills relating to the construction of the new U.S. military installations.

Earlier when approving the White House-submitted National Defense Authorization Bill in late October, the U.S. Congress was in favor of the 300 million dollars budgetary appropriations for the transfer plans of the marines.

In the wake of the Senate vote for the major cutbacks on the expenditure for moving the marines from Okinawa Prefecture to Guam, the White House sent a letter Thursday to the Senate, saying a budget cut of this scale could have "harmful effects" on the Japan-U.S. agreement in February 2009 on the relocation of the marines.

The budgetary issue involving the planned move of the marines was one of the major points U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates referred to in talks with his Japanese counterpart, Toshimi Kitazawa, when Gates visited Japan in October.

Gates consulted with Kitazawa on relocating the functions of the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station from Ginowan, southern Okinawa Prefecture, to Camp Schwab in Nago in the northeastern part of the prefecture. Gates in the talks was quoted as warning that the U.S. Congress would act to negate budget expenses for plans to move the marines from the prefecture to Guam should the planned relocation of Futenma be hampered.

It is possible that military installation-related budget bills could be modified through the Senate's consultations with the House of Representatives.

A major factor behind the Senate's action this time is the fact that the U.S. Congress is displeased with the indecisiveness of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's administration regarding the relocation of Futenma Air Station, and has become wary of approving budgetary appropriations for the relocation of marines to Guam. Washington has said settling the Futenma issue should be a prerequisite for moving the marines from Okinawa Prefecture to the island in the western Pacific.

===

Kanagawa gov. backs base deal

WASHINGTON (Kyodo)--Kanagawa Gov. Shigefumi Matsuzawa threw his support Thursday behind an existing deal between Japan and the United States that would relocate a U.S. airfield within Okinawa Prefecture.

Matsuzawa signaled the stance at a symposium in Washington, saying the current plan to relocate the U.S. Marines Corps' Futenma Air Station to Nago from downtown Ginowan by 2014 is the best possible one.

"If the Futenma relocation issue becomes complicated and protracted further, the whole package of plans to realign U.S. forces in Japan will be delayed," he said.

(Nov. 7, 2009)

U.S. Senate cuts budget for moving Marines from Okinawa to Guam by 70%

U.S. Senate cuts budget for moving Marines from Okinawa to Guam by 70%

Nov 6 02:11 PM US/Eastern

WASHINGTON, Nov. 6 (Kyodo) - (AP) - The U.S. Senate has cut spending earmarked in a fiscal 2010 budget bill for the relocation of 8,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam by 70 percent, congressional sources said Friday.

The sharp cut from about $300 million earmarked for the transfer of the Marines comes at a time when the new Japanese government led by Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has been unable to reach a conclusion on the issue of relocating the U.S. Marine Corps' Futemma Air Station.

The transfer of the Marines to Guam is closely linked with the relocation of the Futemma base.

In May 2006, Japan and the United States agreed to move the heliport functions of the Futemma Air Station located in downtown Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture, to a less densely populated area in Nago, northern Okinawa, by 2014. The two countries also agreed at the time on the transfer of 8,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam.

The United States has been pressing Japan to implement the relocation of the Futemma base as agreed in 2006, but Hatoyama is seeking to move the airfield out of Okinawa or even out of Japan.

No War Reparations This Year

News from Congresswoman Madeleine Z. Bordallo

Conference Committee Reaches Compromise on War Claims in FY10 National Defense Authorization Act:
Hearings and a Commitment to Readdress War Claims in NDAA FY 2011 Bill Secured

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – October 7, 2009 – Washington, D.C. –

Congresswoman Madeleine Z. Bordallo today announced that a compromise has been reached on H.R. 44, the Guam World War II Loyalty Recognition Act, as part of the final defense authorization bill that was reported out of Conference Committee. Earlier today, leaders from the House Armed Services Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee signed off on the Conference Report for the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010. The conference report has been referred to the House Committee on Rules and is expected to be debated and voted on by the full House of Representatives Thursday afternoon. The bill will then be sent over to the Senate for their consideration and a vote on final passage. If approved by the Senate the bill will be sent to the President for his signature.

Over the past month, leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services Committee have been in negotiations to resolve the differences between the House and Senate defense authorization bills. During these negotiations, Senator Carl Levin, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Senator John McCain, Ranking Republican Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, raised serious concerns about keeping war claims in the final defense authorization bill. Their objections focused on two areas: 1) The precedent that might be set for future defense authorization bills if war claims remained in this year’s final defense bill, and 2) The payment of claims for personal injury to spouses and children of survivors who have since passed away after World War II.

Chairman Levin and Ranking Member McCain offered to keep war claims in the final defense bill if claims were awarded solely to those killed during the war and to living survivors of the occupation. Congresswoman Bordallo rejected this counter proposal. However, a compromise was reached whereby the House Armed Services Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee will hold hearings on H.R. 44 and that the issue will be again be addressed in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011 if it has not been resolved by other legislative means in the Senate by next year.

“I did not accept the offer from the Senate conferees because it would not recognize all of those who endured Guam’s occupation,” Congresswoman Madeleine Z. Bordallo said today. “While I am disappointed that H.R. 44 was not included in the final defense authorization bill, the compromise that was reached allows another opportunity to build on the progress we have made and to bring closure to this issue within a year. I believe that hearings on H.R. 44 would allow the Senate’s concerns to be aired openly, and to have our concerns heard by the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. I will continue to build on the support that we have received from the House leadership, the Obama Administration and key committees in the Senate. I believe that our local leaders and our community would use this opportunity to help us make Guam’s case for H.R. 44 and for full inclusion of all those affected by the occupation. We are on a path to closure, and we have additional time to make our case. I hope that the commitments made by the House and Senate conferees to hold hearings and to readdress war claims in next year’s bill will give us the best opportunity to resolve this issue and to finally have closure.”

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Contact: Matthew Mateo in Washington, D.C. at 202-225-1188 or Derek Mandell at 671-477-4272/4.