Pete Domenici

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Yes.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Madam, President, I rise today to pay tribute to one of New Mexico's favorite daughters, Nancy Lopez, who over the Fourth of July holiday concluded her full-time career on the Ladies Professional Golf Association tour. Nancy has a remarkable history not only as a player, but as an inspirational role model, who overcame hardships like racial and gender bias, to reach remarkable heights as a golfer. She did so with an inner strength, natural talent and the sustaining guidance of her loving parents, Marina and Domingo. They scrimped and saved to help Nancy reach her potential, which culminated at the pinnacle of the professional golfing world. Her father's love for golf helped Nancy tap her natural talent for the sport at the young age of 8. She soon excelled, winning the New Mexico Women's Amateur title at 12, followed by twice winning the USGA Junior Girls Championship. Nancy successfully petitioned the New Mexico Activities Association to be allowed to play on the boy's team at the Robert H. Goddard High School in Roswell. She honed her talents as a player at Tulsa University and turned pro in 1977. From the little girl who first swung a club with her father on Roswell's public course, Nancy embarked on a 25-year career that brought greater public attention to the LPGA. In her first full year as a professional, she won nine tournaments and grabbed another eight titles in 1979. In all, Nancy has won 48 titles on the LPGA Tour and has rightfully been identified as the key figure who helped popularize women's golf. In 1987, she was inducted into the LPGA Hall of Fame, and in 1992, I was privileged to personally congratulate her as she received the prestigious Flo Hyman Award from the Women's Sports Foundation for ``exemplifying dignity, spirit and commitment to excellence.'' I think it is only fitting that a school in her old stomping grounds has been renamed, through the efforts of the Roswell Hispano Chamber of Commerce, the Nancy Lopez Elementary School. This tribute serves as one reminder of the enduring pride the people of Roswell and New Mexico have for Nancy. As she makes the transition from the LPGA tour to devote more time to her family and charitable endeavors, I believe it is proper to honor and congratulate Nancy Lopez. I fully expect Nancy will continue to serve as a model for Hispanic youth, female athletes, and parents striving to provide a nurturing and loving environment for their children.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I am pleased that the Senate is preparing to vote on the resolution that would allow continued evaluation of Yucca Mountain's suitability for a high-level nuclear waste repository. I compliment Senator Bingaman on his resolution and on his success in reporting that resolution out of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Members don't need to be reminded of the vital role that nuclear energy plays in our national security. There is no question that it directly impacts our environmental security and our energy security. Without nuclear energy, we would have far dirtier skies and be far more dependent on foreign energy supplies. I have argued repeatedly that our nation must maintain nuclear energy as a viable energy source far into the future. With advanced technologies, it can become a fuel for centuries into the future. Its clean reliable baseload power will be essential in powering our economic growth for future generations, just as it is a vital component of today's economic successes. For nuclear energy to continue to support our economy, we must address the waste issue. There is no denying that these wastes represent an area of risk but every energy source requires a balance of benefits and risks. The risks associated with nuclear waste are ones that we can fully control. I am well aware that hundreds of outstanding issues have been identified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. And the Department is well aware that they must address each and every one of the NRC issues before the Commission is going to move towards a final license. In many meetings with the NRC chairman, as well as many of the commissioners, I have always been impressed with their intent to deal with this, or any licensing issue, through careful study of the relevant scientific facts. The NRC has the expertise to evaluate these outstanding issues, and I am confident that they will do so with great care. It is not up to the U.S. Senate to decide on the complex scientific issues that will eventually determine the fate of a license for Yucca Mountain. Our vote today is solely on the question of whether the licensing process continues. I have been very sorry to see the overblown concerns on transportation by those who wish to block further evaluation of Yucca Mountain. Apparently the opponents of Yucca Mountain are so intent on winning this battle that they are willing to use transportation issues to frighten the American people into abandoning nuclear energy. That would be a colossal mistake for our nation and would seriously undermine national security. The simple fact is that transportation of nuclear materials is a challenging and risky operation, but it is also an operation that has been extensively studied and engineered for success. In the United States, as well as in other countries, the record for transporting spent fuel is superb. Opponents need to remember that the shipping casks for spent fuel are designed to withstand the most rigorous conditions, and routes will be carefully chosen to further limit risks. In the United States, since 1960, we have shipped spent fuel about 2700 times and it's traveled over 1.6 million miles. Sure, there have been a few accidents. But no radiation has ever been released in any of them. The record at the Waste Isolation Pilot Project is also spectacular. In their 3 years of operations, they have logged about 700 shipments traveling over 1.5 million miles. And in Europe, over 70,000 metric tons of spent fuel have been shipped, an amount roughly equal to the total authorized limit for Yucca Mountain. Furthermore, in any debate about transportation, the simple fact is that route selection and detailed planning will begin at least 5 years before the first shipment and that the total number of shipments in a year will be around 175, a far cry from the 300 million annual shipments of hazardous materials that are currently moving around the country. There will be plenty of time to debate and optimize shipping plans before any spent fuel moves. In responding to the outstanding issues raised by the NRC, I'm sure the Department will continue to analyze the mountain and improve their modeling and simulation. That is certainly important research that I fully support. But I want to note that other research is also vital. I have spoken on many occasions with my concern that the Nation's policy of simply treating spent fuel as ``waste'' deserves careful debate. Spent fuel has immense residual energy content. I am not convinced that we should be making a decision today that future generations will have no interest in this superb energy source. I have noted that alternative spent fuel management strategies should be carefully studied and evaluated. Reprocessing and transmutation could not only recover residual energy, but could also vastly reduce the toxicity of the final waste products. I am pleased that the Department plans for all spent fuel in Yucca Mountain to be fully retrievable for at least 50 years. We may find that these new approaches can even be applied to the spent fuel in Yucca Mountain and they certainly will influence any additional repositories that we may need. In my view, the Nation is far better served by beginning to move spent fuel into a single well-secured repository than to leave it stored in temporary facilities at 131 sites in 39 States. I support the joint resolution to override the veto of the Governor of Nevada and continue evaluation of Yucca Mountain as our Nation's future repository.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. I wouldn't have come here unless it had.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I would like to speak for a few moments on the subject they will clear shortly, the amendment to which I referred and listed the cosponsors, to whom I am extremely gratified for their support. Senator Biden is my principal cosponsor. We hope that this bill will move along and be known as the Domenici-Biden nonproliferation amendment. This amendment supports the nonproliferation program proposed in a bipartisan Senate bill, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 2002. Today, Senators Biden, Lugar, Landrieu, Hagel, Bingaman, Murkowski, Carnahan, Lincoln, and Mikulski are cosponsoring this amendment. The end of the Soviet Union in 1991 started a chain of events, which in the long term can lead to vastly improved global stability. Concerns about global confrontations were greatly reduced after that event. But with that event, the Soviet system of guards, guns, and a highly regimented society that had effectively controlled their weapons of mass destruction, along with the materials and expertise to create them, was significantly weakened. Even today, with Russia's economy well on the road to recovery, there's still plenty of room for concerns about the security of these Russian assets. The tragic events of September 11 brought the United States into the world of international terrorism, a world from which we had been very sheltered. Even with the successes of the subsequent war on terrorism, there's still ample reason for concern that the forces of al-Qaida and other international terrorists are seeking other avenues to disrupt peaceful societies around he world. In some sense, the events of September 11 set a new gruesome standard against which terrorists may measure their future successes. There should be no question that these groups would use weapons of mass destruction if they could acquire them and deliver them here or to countless other international locations. One of our strongest allies in the current war on terrorism has been the Russian Federation. Assistance from the Russians and other States of the former Soviet Union has been vital in many aspects of the conflict in Afghanistan. President Putin and President Bush have forged a strong working relationship, and the summit meeting was another measure of interest in increased cooperation. As this amendment seeks to strengthen our nonproliferation programs, it provides many options for actions to be conducted through joint partnerships between the Russian Federation and the United States that build on this increased cooperative spirit. The Nunn-Lugar program of 1991 and the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici legislation of 1996 provided vital support for cooperative programs to reduce the risks that weapons of mass destruction might become available to terrorists. They established a framework for cooperative progress that has served our Nation and the world very well. But despite their successes, accomplished in the face of some enormous challenges, there remain actions that should be taken to further reduce these threats. This amendment would expand the current nonproliferation programs of the Department of Energy, most of which trace their origins to those original Nunn-Lugar and Nunn-Lugar-Domenici bills. Before I discuss this amendment, I would like to review some our progress to date. For example, the Nuclear Materials Protection, Control and Accounting program has improved the security of at least one-third of the fissile materials in the former Soviet Union. Comprehensive upgrades have been largely completed on the Russian Navy's stocks of weapons usable materials, with work completed at 10 of their 11 storage sites. Border security is being improved through the Second Line of Defense program. I recall when I participated in the initial ribbon-cutting of this system at Moscow's main airport in 1998. Now this equipment is at over 20 sites in Russia and the Ukraine. Programs to counter ``brain drain'' have moved ahead. The Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention of IPP program has shown excellent progress in recent years in the daunting task of creating commercial opportunities for weapons scientists throughout the former Soviet Union. To date, over $50 million of venture capital has been attracted on several major projects and more than 10,000 technical personnel have been engaged since the program began. Under IPP, about 100 American businesses are working in Russia, and they've contributed over $100 million of their own funds in support of efforts in which our Government has invested about $70 million. About 400 projects are currently in progress with 100 of those in the closed nuclear cities. American businesses are sharing costs on 132 of those projects. The Nuclear Cities Initiative has one of the most challenging tasks of all the programs--to work cooperatively with the Russians to down- size their vast nuclear weapons complex. The closed nuclear cities that make up this complex have immense technical capabilities, but they have to be, at least in the past, one of the most business-unfriendly places in the world. In 1998, I visited Sarov, the Russian version of Los Alamos. It was a fascinating place where the hospitality of my hosts was most impressive. I still remember visiting their weapons museum and standing beside a 60-megaton bomb that was once destined for our shores. Despite their history, they displayed significant interest in shifting their weapons focus to commercial interests. Today, there's been real progress in Sarov. For example, there is a signed agreement with the Russians to terminate all weapons construction work at Sarov by 2003. Many commercial ventures are now underway including an Open Computing Center, which provides employment opportunities for former weapons scientists through software development and computer modeling. The HEU deal has largely remained on track, although it's required some help from Congress to keep from derailing. That program has the goal of rendering 500 tons of weapons grade highly enriched uranium un- usable for weapons by converting it into ordinary reactor fuel. To date, 146 tons have been converted, enough for about 6,000 warheads. Despite the successes of the Nunn-Lugar and Nunn-Lugar-Domenici legislation, there remain many actions that should be taken to further reduce these threats. This new amendment expands and strengthens many of the programs established earlier, to further reduce threats to global peace. It addresses one of the most important realizations from September 11--that the forces of terrorism span the globe. It's now clear that our nuclear nonproliferation programs should extend far beyond the states of the former Soviet Union. This amendment expands the scope of several programs to world-wide coverage. It focuses on threats of a nuclear or radiological type, which largely fall within the expertise of the National Nuclear Security Administration. Just today, the National Research Council released their major report on ``The Role of Science and Technology in Countering Terrorism.'' They present a number of critical recommendations to address threats of nuclear and radiological terrorism. I'm very pleased that the legislative basis for most of their suggestions is in this amendment. This amendment expands programs to include the safety and security of nuclear facilities and radioactive materials around the world, wherever countries are willing to enter into cooperative arrangements for threat reduction. It recognizes that devices that disperse radioactive materials, so-called ``dirty bombs,'' can represent a real threat to modern societies. This is one of the key recommendations of the National Research Council. Dirty bombs could be used as weapons of mass terror, property contamination, and economic disaster. We need better detection systems for the presence of dirty bombs that are appropriate to the wide range of delivery systems for such a weapon, from trucks to boats to containers. And we need to be far better prepared to deal with the consequences of such an attack. The new legislation includes provisions to accelerate and expand existing programs for disposition of fissile materials. These materials, of course, represent not only a concern with dirty bombs, but also the even larger threat of use in crude nuclear weapons. It includes a program to accelerate the conversion of highly enriched uranium into forms un-usable for weapons. It addresses one of the major concerns associated with this material that, many years ago, both the United States and the Soviet Union provided HEU to many countries as fuel for research reactors. That fuel represents a proliferation risk today. This accelerated conversion is another of the prime recommendations of the National Research Council. It authorizes new programs for global management of nuclear materials, in cooperation with other nations and with the International Atomic Energy Agency. It recognizes that modern societies use radioactive materials as essential tools in many ways, and offers assistance in providing new controls on the most dangerous of these materials. It suggests that many of the program elements involve international cooperation with the Russian Federation and with other nations. In fact, it recognizes that the global nature of the current threats requires such cooperation, and provides authorizations for the Secretary of Energy to assist the Secretary of State in offering significant help to other nations. We cannot accomplish these programs without such cooperation. This amendment includes provisions extending the First Responder training programs, originally created under Nunn-Lugar-Domenici. These programs have already made real contributions. In fact, the training provided under this program in New York City helped mitigate the catastrophe there on September 11. That program was authorized for only 5 years in the original legislation, this bill extends that authorization for another 10 years. The amendment requires annual reports demonstrating that all our nonproliferation programs are well coordinated and integrated. The original call for this coordination was in the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici legislation. The report must disclose the extent of coordination and integration between federally funded and private activities. That is very important, because of the excellent work being done by private organizations, like the Nuclear Threat Initiative, that are providing critical assistance toward similar nonproliferation goals. With this amendment, our programs to counter threats of nuclear and radiological terrorism will be significantly strengthened and risks to the United States and our international partners greatly reduced. The amendment authorizes $15M for a new R&D and demonstration program to address nuclear or radiological (``dirty bombs'') terrorism. Includes new responsibilities in First Responders program. Includes a partnership with Russia and extends assistance to any country in dealing with either stray radioactive sources or with a dirty bomb incident. (Section 3156); Extends the expired authorization for training of First Responders. (Section 3155); Authorizes $40 million to accelerate the ``blend-down'' of Highly Enriched Uranium. Authorizes new approaches, in addition to the HEU Deal, to increase the rate at which HEU is modified to render it incapable of weapons use. Extends an option to all nations with HEU to receive compensation in return for providing their stocks of HEU now. (Section 3158); Authorizes $5 million to extend MPC&A to the international community and develops options, working jointly with Russia, to accelerate conversion of reactors fueled with HEU. (Section 3157); Encourages the Secretary to finalize an agreement with Russia for plutonium disposition that meets specific criteria. (Section 3159A); Authorizes $20 million for the Department to work with the international community to develop options for a global program for international safeguards, nuclear safety and proliferation-resistant nuclear technologies. Amount includes $5 million for the Department to increase nuclear safety work related to sabotage protection for nuclear power plants and other nuclear facilities overseas and $10 million, led by DOE/NE, for advanced, proliferation resistant fuel cycles. (Section 3159B); Authorizes $15 million to expand programs supporting the IAEA in strengthening international nuclear safeguards. (Section 3159B); Authorizes $5 million for assisting nations develop stronger export controls. (Section 3159C); Requires development of a comprehensive ten year plan to develop a sustainable approach to MPC&A in the Russian Federation. (Section 3159D); Requires annual report on coordination and integration of all U.S. nonproliferation activities describing programs, synergies, coordination including with private efforts, opportunities for new joint cooperative programs with foreign countries, and funding requests integrated across all federal agencies. Extends reporting requirement in FY2002 Defense Authorization Act to an annual report. (Section 3159E); and Streamlines contracting by other agencies with DOE labs for anti- terrorism work. Agencies may elect to follow the new procedures or may use standard Work For Others model. (Section 3159F).

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I have already sent the bill to the desk. It obviously will not be referred to committee unless and until it is cleared by the managers pursuant to the conversation we have had. I would ask that we follow the course I have just indicated. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI. Surely. I will provide it to the Senator.

Mr. DOMENICI. Yes, it is.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be laid aside and the Domenici-Biden amendment be the pending business.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I thank the chairman and ranking member. I believe the cross section of Senators cosponsoring the amendment indicates the broad support for it. There is nothing more important than the United States doing its utmost in this era of nonproliferation, where we do everything we can to make sure that terrorists now, and in the future, have the most difficult time getting their hands on weapons of mass destruction. There is even a significant American effort in this amendment with reference to ``dirty'' bombs. The Senators and staff who have reviewed it think it gives America and the world a better chance of finding out where the components are before things happen, and sets up guidelines and criteria so that many different discernment points are available but not just in the United States. So after a lot of work on this amendment by many, I thank the Senate for adopting it. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, if I could have the attention of Senator Warner for one moment, it is my understanding the amendment which I will send to the desk very shortly has been approved on both sides. It is cosponsored by Senators Biden, Lugar, Landrieu, Hagel, Bingaman, Murkowski, Carnahan, Lincoln, and Mikulski. I send the amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration. I assume I have to ask that the pending amendment be laid aside.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I just came down and voted, and I am not aware of the parliamentary situation. But I wonder if it would be appropriate to get 5 minutes on a very urgent subject.

Mr. DOMENICI. Surely.

Mr. DOMENICI. However you would like it. You would rather I speak on the pending amendment?

Mr. DOMENICI. I was just kidding.

Mr. DOMENICI. I ask for 5 minutes--not on this--as in morning business. And I thank the Senator.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I know a number of Senators who are in the Chamber who could probably speak to this subject better than I. Certainly the Senator from Wyoming and the Senator from Colorado know plenty about the subject matter. But I thought I might give my own assessment, very cursory in nature but, nonetheless, somewhat relevant. We here in Washington, DC, are only getting to view the State of Arizona, as it burns, on our television sets. We have seen, in the last few days, large forests in Colorado burn. They are not under control yet. We can only imagine the additional fires that are likely to come in the State of New Mexico. New Mexico has already had a number this year. We also had a series last year and the year before. Senators remember when we came to the floor about Los Alamos, NM. There, the forest burned right around the city of Los Alamos. We lost almost 400 houses. We have not lost that many this year, but the way the fire season looks, there will be plenty of damage. I just want to say to the Senate and to those listening, it is this Senator's opinion that we have not made an American decision about the maintenance of our forests. I believe we have made decisions in a haphazard way because of litigation and certain people in our country who think they know best about forest management. These same people have prevailed in the courts over our professional managers. It leaves us wondering tonight how many more hundreds of thousands of acres will burn? And we don't know. But what many of us think is that our forests are not being managed and maintained. They do not have the maximum opportunity to stand, but rather are likely to burn down. Our forests are so clogged with underbrush that you cannot even walk in some of them--but they sure will burn. I submit that we have taken for granted too long that forest management is going all right. Now, the courts are determining lawsuits, which, in turn, determine forest management policies. It seems to this Senator that it is all finally catching up. When drought and heat are combined with forests clogged with fuel, the incendiary nature is so severe. We sit here every year wondering what we can do in our committees. We continue to call the land managers and they tell us they are making headway. It is hard to see sometimes, but pretty soon we must get this done. I believe this year--even though we cannot finish it--we ought to start with the appropriate committee and get prepared to undertake a major senatorial investigation of the forests of the United States, including those that are part of the Agriculture Department and those that are BLM. We should make some determinations sooner rather than later, as to whether we have been maintaining the forests in a manner that is most apt to cause them to be burned down, and that either is or is not good for our country. Some think what I just described is good. I don't think it is. But I think we owe it to our people to get the experts of our country and make a big, major American decision: Are we to maintain our forests so they are filled with underbrush that will burn down, or are we to maintain it another way? Which way are we maintaining it? Is it in an orderly manner, or is it being determined by court cases pushed and pursued by endangered species laws and others that have caused our forests to be so mismanaged that they are just ready to burn and burn? This isn't the last one today. We are not even in the middle of the summer. Imagine. We see forests out there loaded with underbrush, with the hot, boiling sun, no rain or clouds in the sky, but no trees on the ground either. Just in passing, it is amazing because, even when the trees are all burned we cannot cut them down. We have to leave them there to rot because there are some who win in the courts of law and say that is a better way to manage. So there they stand as relics to a management plan that, to this Senator, seems to say that our forests are not managed, but mismanaged. I yield the floor. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, it is not often I would come to the floor on a Thursday afternoon when a Defense authorization bill is before us and join in an amendment offered by the chairman of the Budget Committee on the other side, who has failed to produce a budget resolution heretofore. I believe his side of the aisle had a responsibility to do that. They did not do it. That is not the end of the world. We are today confronted with that situation. The truth of the matter is that there will be an awful lot of Senators pondering the appropriations process and wondering whether Senator Phil Gramm from Texas, who knows an awful lot about this, is right when he speaks of the dangers to America of authorizing a budget produced by the Congress, not the President, which would exceed the President's annual appropriation by $9 billion. My friend from Texas makes that appear to be a very big issue. Let me suggest that I would not join in producing an alternative to a congressional budget that would permit us to spend between $9 billion and $10 billion more than the President in appropriations if I did not see down the road something a lot more onerous than a congressional attempt not only to limit spending for each of the next 2 years, but also to insert the points of order that are going to keep this Congress from going absolutely wild on entitlement spending during the ensuing months. I think I could say this is going to be a year without any restraints, if it were the $9 billion we were arguing about. But I tell you, that is not it. For all the Senators who have been praying for the day when there is no longer a Budget Act, they thought they would be confronting appropriations bills run wild. But the truth of the matter is, it is the entitlement programs that are coming to us during the next 4 months, until October 1, that will have no constraints on them and no 60-vote points of order, which have saved the American people and this Congress from hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars of outyear, next year expenditures. For formal purposes, the Senator ought to put my name on the amendment as a cosponsor. This amendment sets caps that is expenditure limitations--for 2003 and 2004 with a Defense firewall in the Senate but only for 2003, and that is good enough. That means in the Senate we will not spend Defense money for domestic programs, but neither will we spend the opposite. We will not spend domestic money for Defense programs. That is what a wall means. White House, before you get on the telephone and do what Senator Phil Gramm said you have done, Mr. President--our President, down on Pennsylvania Avenue--before you say to all the Republicans, ``Vote against this,'' let me make a couple points for you. One, this is not your budget, Mr. President--I am speaking of our President down at the White House. It is not your budget. You have a budget. The law of America says you produce a budget. I do not know what would happen if you did not, Mr. President, but you did. Then it says in another place in the law that Congress passes a budget, and that congressional budget is for the use by the Congress in their attempting to get their priorities adopted by the Congress. And, Mr. President, if I were you, I would say: Congress, pass the best one you can, but remember, that does not mean I am going to sign every bill you produce. The President still has the veto threat on every appropriations bill, if that is what he wants. I submit to you, Mr. President, my friend down on Pennsylvania Avenue, just because the Senator from Texas has talked about the ravages of his $9 billion that we might spend in excess of your appropriations, just remember, you can vitiate every one of those with negotiations in the appropriations bills and a veto just like you have today. We cannot change your veto authority. We have proceeded in a realistic manner with one of two alternatives, and listen up, there are not 20, there are 1 or 2. Do we do this, which is a half-baked budget resolution? It is half-baked because you did not do your job, half-baked because you did not do your job because you were supposed to produce a budget resolution, and you should not make up your mind that it is too tough this year so we will not do it. I heard somebody on that side say that. That is not the law. For 27 years, when I was either chairman or ranking member, we produced a budget every single year, no matter how tough it was, no matter who had to vote on issues on which they did not want to vote. Senator Baker sat right there on that table with the appearance of a Buddha, and every Republican who came up, the Buddha would say--and 37 times the Buddha won. We did precisely what the Republicans wanted to do to move our country ahead. You did not have that. That is not my fault. That is your fault. But it isn't America that ought to suffer from it, nor should Congress be put in a position where they cannot do any work. I have come to the conclusion it is a lot better to get caps, and they are at pretty meaningful levels. Next year's are pretty low. The one for the budget we are writing today is $9 billion to $10 billion over the President's, and I submit when all this day is gone and the rhetoric has simmered down, it is going to be very difficult, even with our President with his pen in hand waiting to veto, it is going to be very difficult to come out of this spending less than the amount that we put in these caps. I hope we can. I will be there attempting to enforce them, for what it is worth. The truth is, those caps are better than none, and the President retains his veto authority. For the defense of America, for which you asked us for so much money, Mr. President, we put all that money in and we got a firewall, meaning you cannot spend defense money for anything else. That is a very important budget consideration. We set limits on advance appropriations consistent with what we wanted on this side when we met. We extend the 60-vote budget points of order, including the pay-as- you-go. We eliminated a gimmick regarding the crime victims fund, and I think you all have seen that and concurred with it. We showed it to you 10 days ago. I do not know if 3 o'clock is enough time, or quarter of 3, but I think it is. If somebody wants more time and we need to explain it better, or I need to explain it to my side better, just come down and ask for some time. I think we will get it. I repeat, I want to talk to two situations for the next 2 minutes. I say to my fellow Senators, through no fault of this side of the aisle, we are in a real predicament today. If we let a whole batch of bills get through and do not put some points of order and some budget-like points of order and some caps on how much you can spend after which the expenditure bills get hit--we have to do that. We cannot sit here and watch this all go down the river, with the economy already in sputtering shape. Second, the President of the United States does not lose anything in terms of his power, his strength. If anything, he gains a potential for orderliness in the Senate and House as we finish our business that we might not have but for the adoption of this amendment. My last remarks: I do not know that this is the best bill on which to put this, but I do not know which bill is next. It is sort of the chicken and egg. The appropriators are waiting for the number. We are saying: You know the number. Let's bring an appropriations bill up and we will put this on it. Others are saying that is too late if you do that. So here is a big authorizing bill. If we approve this--and I urge that we do; Senator Stevens, if he had time, would be here concurring in this, pledging to stick to the numbers--if we approve this, we can put it on another bill later if, as a matter of fact, this defense bill does not pass or gets tied up in a conference that takes too long. If anybody wants any further explanation, I will do it here on the floor and seek time, or I will meet them wherever they like and show them what we have done. I believe we might turn somebody. Thanks to Senator Feingold for his courage, and Senator Gregg who is with the Senator on this amendment. If he is not, we must ask him to be a cosponsor because he had a lot to do with it. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI. I don't speak when you are speaking, Senator. Would you mind?

Mr. DOMENICI. Would you mind acknowledging that you shouldn't be speaking when I am speaking? I would appreciate it very much.

Mr. DOMENICI. May I have 20?

Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, parliamentary inquiry. Is there a time limit on the situation with which we are confronted?

Mr. DOMENICI. Then we must proceed to a vote?

Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Chair. Who is in charge of the time in favor of the amendment?

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, first of all, my good friend, Senator Gramm, is doing exactly what good debaters do, except that I caught him, so it won't work. First of all, it is obvious on the point of the President's budget and this budget that this isn't the President's budget, it is Congress's budget. The President's budget is alive. The President's veto powers are alive. What we are trying to do is pass some constraints that Congress will impose on itself in terms of entitlements, which have the opportunity of going through the roof in hundreds of billions of dollars, between now and October 1 and thereafter with no 60-vote point of order. Down at the end of Pennsylvania Avenue, Mr. OMB Director, just get the President ready when this Congress sends entitlement programs that are going through the roof, because the 60 votes won't be available here, and they will end up on your desk. The Senator from Texas said it 10 times, but I will only say it once. I am with the President. He is the best President we will have in this century. When his first term is finished, that is what we will begin saying about him. But, Mr. President, do not be fooled by people who want you to get involved in something in which you don't have to get involved. And you lose no prerogatives; you keep all of them. The second point is, when Senator Gramm loses his major argument, he turns to another one. So he is up here about as loud as I speak talking about this delayed obligation. Let me tell Senator Gramm, just take another look at the late obligations. First of all, it sunsets at the end of this year. So it isn't around. It is literally not around.