Jerry Lewis: “the Air Force and the Navy together requested $55.9 million for base exchange projects at Keesler Air Force base, and…”

“the Air Force and the Navy together requested $55.9 million for base exchange projects at Keesler Air Force base, and the Naval Construction Battalion Center Gulfport in Mississippi. The request for Keesler was $40 million. The request for two projects at Gulfport, $15.9 million. The committee has not included funding for these facilities. Base exchanges, including construction, are typically resourced through non appropriated funds. The exchanges use their sales revenue to fund their operations as well as their capital costs. Congress provided $3.8 million to construct a temporary exchange at Keesler in December in the December supplemental. But now we are being asked to build a permanent facility at over 10 times that cost. The committee is concerned about setting a precedent for using military construction funds for exchanges. We have been told that the Army and Air Force Exchange Service has a $251 million capital budget for Fiscal Year 2006, and the Navy Exchange has a capital budget of $68 million. We believe that they should first look to their capital budgets to prioritize and fund these projects. The committee is also concerned about the exchanges policy of self insuring these facilities. This means that when a disaster happens, like Hurricane Katrina, a fire and so forth, the taxpayers will be forced to foot the bill. That is why we had directed the Department of Defense to take a hard look at the possibility of privately insuring these facilities.…”