Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, in the letter the general says that establishing this test facility is his top priority for the President's new plan for missile defense in Europe. He goes on to state:
Our goal is to complete this project in time to support the first flight test of the land-based standard-missile 3 interceptor in FY 2012, which would require construction funding to be available for obligation in FY 2010.
I offer this amendment with some reservation. It is critical to getting missile defense to Europe sooner, but it circumvents the normal order of business in the Senate under ordinary circumstances. This project should have been authorized in the fiscal year 2010 National Defense Authorization Act and then appropriated in the Military Construction bill. I take that process seriously and wish to explain to my colleagues the special circumstances under which I offer this amendment.
President Obama publicly announced his European missile defense strategy on September 17 of this year. This announcement came well after the House and Senate Armed Services Committees began the conference negotiation process.
In order to implement the President's new plan, General O'Reilly made the request to Congress for an AEGIS ashore test facility on October 7, the same day that the House and Senate completed the conference agreement on the Defense authorization bill. Due to conflicts in timing, the conferees were not able to consider this late request from the administration. Thus, an amendment on the fiscal year 2010 Military Construction appropriations bill is the best path to get the facility started in order to meet the administration's timelines. If there was a better way to proceed, I would do so. Unfortunately, these unusual circumstances have put us in this situation.
The fiscal year 2010 National Defense Authorization Act provided flexibility for the Missile Defense Agency to spend over $240 million of research and development funding in fiscal years 2009 and 2010 to purchase equipment associated with the AEGIS ashore test facility and begin the development of the new European ballistic missile defense architecture. The military construction funding is needed at this time in conjunction with the research and development funding to begin implementation of the European missile defense plan.
Let me also make clear that this amendment is not asking for additional money. This funding is presently available. The Missile Defense Agency has over $150 million in fiscal year 2009 unobligated funds that were appropriated for the missile defense sites in the Czech Republic and Poland that are no longer needed. This amendment would use a portion of those funds to begin construction of the AEGIS ashore test facility in fiscal year 2010.
Lastly, let me comment on the site chosen for the AEGIS ashore test facility. According to the Missile Defense Agency, the Pacific Missile Range Facility on the island of Kauai has been the center of excellence for AEGIS ballistic missile defense testing for the last 12 years and will continue in that regard for the next decade. Indeed, just 2 weeks ago, the Pacific Missile Range Facility hosted the successful intercept test of the Japanese AEGIS ballistic missile defense program. To date, the Pacific Missile Range has supported 20 AEGIS tests. In addition, PMRF also has a proud track record of testing the Missile Defense Agency's Theater High Altitude Area Defense System, with five tests at the range since 2007.
The Pacific Missile Range Facility is the world's largest instrumented missile testing and training range. The Department of Defense and the Missile Defense Agency, in particular, utilize this range due to its relative isolation and ideal year-round climate and encroachment-free environment. Furthermore, it is the only range in the world where submarines, surface ships, aircraft, and space vehicles can operate and be tracked simultaneously. For these reasons, the Missile Defense Agency believes the Pacific Missile Range Facility is the ideal location to support AEGIS ashore testing.
I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. If this test facility does not get started in fiscal year 2010, the Missile Defense Agency will not be able to meet the flight test scheduled to demonstrate AEGIS ashore capability prior to the administration's proposed 2015 deployment date to Europe. It is a very important amendment.
AMENDMENT NO. 2754 TO AMENDMENT NO. 2730 Madam President, I now call up amendment No. 2754 and ask for its consideration.
