John Spratt: “the bill before us is carefully crafted. It was worked out in a completely bipartisan spirit by the gentleman from…”

“the bill before us is carefully crafted. It was worked out in a completely bipartisan spirit by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon), the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Pickett), and myself and, truth be told, by our staff, in close consultation with the ballistic missile defense office, BMDO. Over a period of weeks, we went through an exacting process to winnow down the increases to BMDO programs that can be used to deal with this emerging intermediate-range missile threat. Our process identified those programs with the most potential in the short term to enhance missile defense capability which can be executed this year, fiscal year 1998. Wherever possible, we tried to speed up program improvements that had already been planned or programmed by BMDO and link up or improve interoperability among existing systems. As a result, we have a bill which is focused on the emerging threat, consistent with the progress that the ballistic missile defense organization is making, and affordable. Each item in this bill has been scrubbed by the Defense Secretary, Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre, and stamped with his approval as a sensible use of the funds. The authorizations are fully offset within the Department of Defense, and we have sought to work with the Committee on Appropriations to find outlay offsets, in order to appropriate these dollars this year.”