FY89 FY90 FY91 FY92 FY93 690.4 645.6 9.7 9.5 154.4 171.0 71.8 119.5 215.5 302.2 339.1 National Guard (Title 32) 27.6 107.4 CONCLUSION In his August, 1991 statement of the National Security Strategy of the United States, the President declared that the Scourge of illegal drugs "saps our vitality as a free people, diverts our energies from more positive pursuits and threatens friendly democratic governments now plagued by drug traffickers." He has also noted that the fight against illegal drugs cannot be won on any single front, and that "it must be waged everywhere at every level of Federal, State, and local government and by every citizen in every community across the country." - The Department of Defense is fully engaged in this critical fight and evidence of the support being provided by the Armed Forces may be found in the villages of Bolivia, in the air, on the world's waterways, along our borders, in our national for ests, in our neighborhoods, and in many other environments. Clear progress is being made. If the commitment of the Nation remains strong, victory in this fight will surely be as inevitable as the victory we celebrated at the end of the Cold War. SLOW SUBMISSION OF JUSTIFICATION MATERIAL Mr. MURTHA. I remember your initial testimony and I know it is probably one of the most complex issues that we have. As a matter of fact, I am not sure that interdiction is the answer. One thing I know is that you have to stop people using drugs and that takes a lot more than the resources we have in the Defense Department. It is a complicated thing. One of the problems we have had, is it has taken your staff longer to prepare the budget justification material for the Committee over the years. We have asked you to appear earlier in the cycle, but this year and last year, we scheduled it later because it has taken so long for you to get the justification material together. Mr. DUNCAN. My own assessment is that we can do better on that. I commit that we will attempt to do just that. I might, by way of brief explanation, note a couple of things for you, though. This year was a little bit unusual. As you know, the Appropriations Act was signed November 26. The Authorization Act was signed on December 5, and because the law had several programs that had not been requested in the President's budget, we frankly had to reassess some of our 1993 programs in light of those changes. That is not by way of excuse. I think we can do better and will commit to attempt to do that, but this has been an unusual year for us. It is important to recognize that the job of Drug Coordinator of the DOD is not like being Secretary of the Army. As Secretary of the Army, you have certain statutory line authority and your Department to worry about. As the Drug Coordinator, I have to coordinate the work of all of the various military departments, agencies, and not just worry about one little line staff that worries about drugs, I must work with a whole range of agencies, essentially a mini Defense Department, as their work relates to the Counter-drug Program of the Department of Defense. This is one of the areas I think we are improving in. We recognize we need to do more and will continue to do our best. SLOW RELEASE OF FUNDING Mr. MURTHA. A related issue is the slowness that you have had in releasing drug funding to the actual agencies that perform the drug mission. Your job is crucial to this effort. We are going through a budget scrub of unobligated funds looking for potential rescission candidates. It is always difficult to cut back agencies that are in the forefront of a problem like you are. On the other hand, if the money is not obligated, if the money is not being spent quickly enough, there is going to be a substantial rescission. We are looking for $7 billion in rescissions and we are looking every place we can look. When we find money that doesn't seem to be spent appropriately, and when this Committee makes a decision to put money into certain projects-you know, it is going to work both ways. We have the final say about these things and we think that there have been projects that have not been funded as quickly as they could have. Mr. DUNCAN. I am not aware of that problem at all. Working with the Comptroller, I stay pretty close on that. The only problem in that regard that I am aware of is with respect to some of the funds that we spend for some of the State counter-drug plans. Most of those resources can't be spent until the summer time because so much of the training of the National Guard, for example, takes place during the summer months. That is something that we can predict on a yearly basis and that is not a problem because that is something taken into the planning. Mr. MURTHA. With the Guard and Reserve, we have received complaints about their still not receiving their funding. We think that is a legitimate problem. Mr. DUNCAN. Are we talking about the Pennsylvania situation by chance? I am not aware of a problem in that regard at all. Mr. MURTHA. This is across the board. Mr. DUNCAN. The only problem I am aware of is the Pennsylvania Guard ran into one by Mr. MURTHA. The staff tells me the money wasn't released to the Guard and Reserve so they had to use their own money to go forward with drug interdiction. Mr. DUNCAN. All the States or just one State? Mr. MURTHA. This is Guard and Reserve O&M appropriations. Mr. DUNCAN. I will look into it. It has not been brought to my attention and I am not aware of it. AEROSTAT RADAR SYSTEMS Mr. MURTHA. Last year, the Congress provided authority to transfer $60 million into the Drug Interdiction appropriation to award, implement, and facilitate the procurement of no fewer than four aerostat radar systems. Has this action been accomplished? Mr. DUNCAN. Yes. I forget the exact date, but some time in December we physically transferred the funds over, so the Customs Service then took responsibility for winding up the contracts, but the funds have been in their hands for some time. Mr. MURTHA. What is included in the fiscal year 1993 request to operate these aerostats? Mr. DUNCAN. Let me see. All together, we transferred $60 million and that was specified in the 1992 Appropriations Act and then there is $49.5 million that was transferred in prior years for the procurement of four land-based aerostat radar systems. This is for the Gulf Coast and the Bahamas. Mr. MURTHA. Does that procurement complete the radar surveillance network in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean? Mr. DUNCAN. What I have done on aerostats, because they are such an operational challenge, I have gone to our professionals in the Department and asked them to give me a clean look on where we are today on aerostats versus where we were some time ago. It is still our best operational assessment that we are on track. We have initiated a staff study and they are giving me a short- and longer-term sensor capability assessment. We expect that to be completed this summer. We need to figure out what we need in the |