Kent Conrad

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. What I have done is offered a deficit-neutral reserve fund that gives the committees the greatest latitude to actually fund it. Mr. President, 920, which is his offset, is oversubscribed, and if we go to conference with it, we will be dropped like a hot rock.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, let's be clear. What 920 means is that we will cut veterans, we will cut homeland security, we will cut law enforcement. That is a losing proposition for us, I say to my colleague, especially given the fact that we are already at over $7.5 billion a year in section 920. The President, when he identified the possibilities, only identified $7.5 billion available. That is the money that has already been used. I urge my colleagues to vote yes on the Conrad amendment so we can fund these important priorities. I urge we go to the vote. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, all those who voted ``yes'' on the Conrad amendment should now vote ``no'' on the Coleman amendment, since we have funded it and done it in the right way. The Coleman amendment would fund these priorities by cutting veterans, by cutting homeland security, by cutting law enforcement. You better vote ``no'' on the Coleman amendment.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, because we are now 20 minutes past the time we anticipated being able to start the discussions and the debate, obviously everything is moved back 20 minutes. Previously, the GOP time was to run from 6 to 6:30. That will need to now run from about 6:25 to 6:55. That will be the time in which our side would start. First will be Senator Menendez, then Senator Salazar, and then Senator Durbin, each one of them for 10 minutes. Then we will go back to the Republican side. Then we will come back to our side at roughly 8 o'clock with Senator Lieberman and Senator Casey. I hope it is recognized that if Senators who have time are not here and there are other Senators who are here, that will be worked out and the Senators who are available will go ahead and use the time and be reasonable with others so we can accommodate as many Senators as possible this evening. The other important thing to say is, tomorrow morning we are going to start at 9 o'clock. We will have a half hour equally divided between Senator Gregg and myself. Then we will start voting at 9:30. That is going to be a series of 10-minute votes after the first one. In addition to that, we need to indicate to Members, there are 75 votes pending. We can do about 3 votes an hour. That means 25 hours of voting. If everyone insists on their amendment, we will be here until 9 o'clock the next morning. That is the reality. Senators can decide their own fate. If every Senator insists on every amendment they have noticed, that is 75 amendments, we will be voting for 25 straight hours. I hope colleagues understand the consequences. I thank the Chair.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, March 22, 2007, at 9:30 a.m., in open session to receive testimony on U.S. Southern Command, U.S. Northern Command, and U.S. Joint Forces Command in review of the defense authorization request for fiscal year 2008 and the Future Years Defense Program.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, March 22, 2007, at 2 p.m., in closed session to receive a briefing on detention and judicial capacity in Iraq.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 22, 2007, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on ``Mortgage Market Turmoil: Causes and Consequences.''

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to hold a hearing during the session of the Senate on Thursday, March 22, 2007, at 10 a.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building. The purpose of the hearing is to discuss Federal Aviation Administration modernization proposals.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to hold a hearing during the session of the Senate on Thursday, March 22, 2007, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The purpose of the hearing is to receive testimony on the ``Future of Coal'' report recently published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session on Thursday, March 22, 2007, at 10 a.m., in 215 Dirksen Senate Office Building, to hear testimony on ``Keeping America's Promise: Health Care and Child Welfare Services for Native Americans.''

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, March 22, 2007, at 10:30 a.m., to hold a nomination hearing.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet on Thursday, March 22, 2007, at 10 a.m., for a hearing titled ``Deconstructing Reconstruction: Problems, Challenges, and the Way Forward in Iraq and Afghanistan.''

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet on Thursday, March 22, 2007, at 9:45 a.m. in Room 485 of the Russell Senate Office Building to conduct an oversight hearing on Indian Housing.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a markup on Thursday, March 22, 2007, at 10:00 a.m. in Dirksen Room 226. Agenda I. Committee Authorization: Authorization of Subpoenas in Connection with Investigation into Replacement of U.S. Attorneys. II. Bills: S. 236, Federal Agency Data Mining Reporting Act of 2007, Feingold, Sununu, Leahy, Kennedy, Cardin; S. 376, Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act of 2007, Leahy, Specter, Kyl, Cornyn, Grassley, Sessions; S. 849, OPEN Government Act, Leahy, Cornyn, Feingold, Specter.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 22, 2007 at 2:30 p.m. to hold a closed hearing.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce and the District of Columbia be authorized to meet on Thursday, March 22, 2007 at 2:30 p.m. for a hearing entitled, Safeguarding the Merit System Principals: A Review of the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Office of the Special Counsel.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, first, we thank the Chaplain for another outstanding prayer. The Chaplain serves this institution very well. We thank him and commend him for that.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. This morning, the Senate will immediately resume consideration of the budget resolution. Under the order entered last night, Mr. Ensign, the Senator from Nevada, will offer an amendment. Following debate on that amendment, the majority will offer an amendment. Unless we arrive at a different understanding between the managers of the bill, I want to alert all colleagues that no votes will occur before 5 p.m. this evening. We start today with 42 hours left of the 50 hours on the budget resolution. We want to alert colleagues that unless we are able to find a way to give back time, that means we will have to be in until at least midnight tonight and, perhaps, through the night on Thursday. I don't anticipate that occurring because I anticipate Senator Gregg and I will work out a means to avoid that. But colleagues need to know that because we started the budget resolution later this year than in previous years, because of other legislation, we are under great pressure if we are going to finish this on Friday. We simply must conclude by Friday. So we alert colleagues we are going to try to move a series of amendments so our friends on the other side of the aisle have a full opportunity to get their amendments up, offered, and considered, and colleagues on this side of the aisle also get a chance for their amendments. With that, I thank my colleagues and ask for their cooperation with the managers as we move forward on the budget resolution. Now we will turn to Senator Ensign, who is a valuable member of the Budget Committee. Sometimes we disagree on specifics, but we always welcome his good nature.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for this amendment. I don't favor this amendment, but it is a thoughtful, serious amendment, and it deserves thoughtful, serious consideration. Let me just indicate that the budget resolution, as it stands with respect to funding for defense and funding for the war, is not affected by this amendment. The budget resolution has the President's full request for the war. So I wish to be clear that the Ensign amendment doesn't affect that. What the Ensign amendment does provide is a 60- vote point of order against any legislation that exceeds the budget authority, which he sets for defense and nondefense discretionary spending, which is in the resolution. So what he is seeking to do is prevent money from going from defense to nondefense or the other way, from nondefense to defense. That is something we have done in the past. My own analysis of it is that firewalls have not worked particularly well. We had them under the 1990 budget agreement. I think what we learned from that experience was they just didn't work as intended. Why not? Because instead of preventing games, I am afraid it encouraged games. Let me say why I believe that is the case. No sooner were firewalls created for defense and international spending and domestic spending in the 1990s than our colleagues started to become very creative about how to jump over the firewalls. For example, Congress started to dramatically expand the amount of medical research done by the Department of Defense. Instead of doing it at the National Institutes of Health, they tried to, in effect, evade the firewall--which, again, is absolutely well intended. But by doing the medical research not at NIH over in the domestic discretionary spending, they shifted the cost over into defense spending. I am very strongly in favor of medical research, as I know my colleague from Nevada is. But does anyone in this Chamber really believe that we would have increased breast cancer research more effectively by not having it done at NIH rather than by the United States Army? And since firewalls were put in place, successive administrations have now started putting FBI budget authority over in the Defense Department. This is the kind of game that I think, in many ways, the Senator is seeking to prevent but I am afraid may just be encouraged. Why has that been done? It has been done to evade the firewalls. It is not clear to me what problem this amendment would actually solve. We haven't had firewalls in the last several years. Yet defense spending has grown rapidly. Since 2001, defense, as a share of gross domestic product, has grown very significantly. Here is a chart that shows what has occurred. Defense, as a share of gross domestic product--which all the economists say is the best way to measure--has gone from 3 percent in 1999 to 4.2 percent of GDP now. Seen another way, defense spending--this is not a share of GDP, but this chart is expressed in constant 2008 dollars so that we have a fair apples-to-apples comparison. We can see that defense spending has gone up very dramatically. In fact, we are now past, in real terms, the spending at the President Reagan defense buildup peak, and we are now set to go beyond the Vietnam war spending peak. The Ensign amendment will actually take away flexibility from appropriators about how best to live within their overall total allocation. They have a much closer perspective on the programmatic needs of the various agencies, and I don't think we should be reducing that flexibility. If the Appropriations Committee were to move to eliminate $50 million in wasteful spending at the Department of Defense--let's presume for a moment that we found $50 million of waste at the Department of Defense--I think those of us close to this know that is not a theoretical possibility--that if $50 million of wasteful spending was found at the Department of Defense, it couldn't be easily reallocated to Homeland Security because it would face this defense firewall block. I think that is a mistake. Finally, I note for my colleagues on the other side that a vote for the Ensign amendment is a vote to endorse and enforce not just defense, but also the nondefense discretionary spending levels in the Democratic budget resolution. My colleagues will be voting to endorse $443.5 billion in nondefense discretionary spending because this firewall works both ways. If my colleagues think money ought to be transferred from domestic nondefense spending to defense spending, it would face this same firewall. It would have the same 60-vote hurdle. On that basis, while I absolutely respect the constructive intention of the Senator from Nevada, I believe it would have precisely the opposite effect that he intends. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, as the Senator from New Hampshire well knows, the war funding is secure. It is absolutely secure. At his urging, we put the war funding in a sidecar. Our cap adjustment for war costs is available only for war costs. That is a red herring of an issue, and he knows it. Let's go back to this question of how things really work. I must say, I am sympathetic to the basic notion of trying to exert discipline and not having money that is appropriated for defense used for something else. I am absolutely sympathetic to that. The problem is, I don't think this works, and I am asking to have the list of earmarks that is in the Defense appropriations bill brought to me because I will then read that list. It will take me a good part of the day because we all know what is really happening around here. The Senator talked about somehow suppressing earmarks. Please, do I really have to read the list of earmarks that has been put in the Defense appropriations bill that have nothing----

Mr. CONRAD. Let me complete the thought. I will be happy to yield. Don't we all know, haven't we all read the Defense appropriations bill and seen earmark after earmark after earmark put into that Defense bill that has nothing whatsoever to do with defense? I will be happy to yield.

Mr. CONRAD. I will be happy to yield in a minute, if I may just respond to the Senator. I think we all know the truth of this institution is that as soon as we create something such as a firewall, very creative minds go to work in this institution to find a way around it. That is the hard reality. I am happy to yield.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, how much time would the Senator like?

Mr. CONRAD. I will be happy to yield 10 minutes to the Senator off the bill.