Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my amendment is not a low-level yield amendment.

Mr. DORGAN. The amendment numbered 750 is at the desk for consideration.

Mr. DORGAN. To the extent the Office of the Parliamentarian has ruled the amendment nonrelevant, my assumption is the Office of the Parliamentarian has certainly understood the amendment, reviewed it, and determined it to be nonrelevant. If that is the case, if the Office of the Parliamentarian understands the amendment, my question remains, if this amendment is offered during consideration of Defense appropriations, would there be a point of order against the amendment as legislating on an appropriations bill?

Mr. DORGAN. Let me inquire further, if I might. Would this amendment, based on the knowledge of the Parliamentarian about the amendment, would this amendment be considered legislating on an appropriations bill should it be offered to an appropriations bill?

Mr. DORGAN. So a point of order could be raised that would lie against the amendment because it is then legislating on an appropriations bill. If that is the case, as I understand the answer from the Chair, we are in a circumstance where we have told the Senator from Washington that her amendment dealing with an important issue-- clearly to the center of this bill on Defense--cannot be offered on the Defense authorization bill because it is not relevant to the Defense authorization bill. Then the Senator would be told later, when she tries to offer it to the Defense appropriations bill, this is legislating on a Defense appropriations bill and a point of order would rise against it. Why? Because she should have offered it to the authorization bill. Can someone tell me whether that is not a Catch-22 for the Senator from Washington and others? Have we not put her and others in a circumstance where they are prevented from offering this amendment under every circumstance? Isn't that the case? We say to her, you cannot offer it on the authorization bill. So then she comes to the Defense appropriations bill and offers it. The point of order is raised, and the point of order says, you know what, you cannot offer it on appropriations. You should have offered it on the authorization bill. That is what the Senator from Washington is going to be told. I just ask the rhetorical question, Does anybody in the Chamber think that is fair? Not me. I know there wasn't a deliberate attempt for anybody to be unfair, but I make the point that the consent request entered into with respect to this issue of relevancy has put people in a position--especially Senator Reid, myself, and Senator Murray from Washington on this issue--that is pretty untenable. But that is the position we are in. I think the way to get out of it is to understand that somehow these things could be offered, or should be offered, and a unanimous consent be allowed for these issues to be debated and voted on. I cannot believe it would have been the intent of my colleague from Virginia, or the ranking member from Michigan, to say we want to prevent an amendment that has been offered seven times previously to this bill, which we all understand is clearly relevant to the bill. Again, I say as I said yesterday, the folks who understand this process from our side were very surprised at the issue of relevancy and how the rulings on relevancy occurred. I know yesterday during this discussion a question was propounded by my colleague from Virginia, the chairman, to the Presiding Officer to ask whether the standard of relevancy has changed. And the answer was, no, it has not. That is not accurate. It clearly has changed. My colleague from Washington is evidence of that. If her amendment was germane postcloture previously, then her amendment, by definition, had to have been relevant postcloture. And if it is relevant then, and it is not relevant now, the standard has changed. I don't think that was the intention of the chairman or ranking member with respect to her amendment--mine or any other amendment. I am not asking or suggesting bad faith on anybody's part, but we have an unintended consequence. If an unintended consequence says to the Senator from Washington, I am sorry, you cannot offer your amendment on the authorization bill, and when you try it later--as she will and must--on the appropriations bill, she will be told she should have offered it on the authorization bill, that puts her in a position that is unfair. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. If the Senator will yield further for another question, if you offered this postcloture on previous occasions--it relates to a question that was asked yesterday--has the judgment about what is relevant changed here in this Chamber? The answer to that, in my judgment, is yes. In my judgment, this would have been relevant under almost any other set of circumstances. But I wonder if the Senator from Washington would agree with me that we should never, ever again--I will never, ever again allow a unanimous consent agreement on the floor of the Senate on an authorization bill of this type to decide that we will restrict ourselves to relevant amendments. If the definition of ``relevancy'' is reasonable and thoughtful, then that is just fine with me, but in this case it has not been. It is a travesty of justice that the Senator from Washington is not able to offer her amendment today. The same is true with concurrent receipt, and the same is true with base closings. So I would say there will not be a unanimous consent request that gets consent to say on the next authorization bill we will limit ourselves only to relevant amendments. It is quite clear now the definition of ``relevancy'' has changed in a way that disadvantages the Senator from Washington and others who want to offer amendments that are clearly relevant to this bill and have always been relevant to this bill, but now we are discovering, for some reason, it has been ruled nonrelevant. I think that is a travesty. I say to the Senator from Washington, would the Senator agree that she would want to join those of us who object to these further unanimous consent requests on future bills with respect to relevancy, if this is the way ``relevancy,'' if this is the way ``relevant'' is going to be defined here in the Senate?

Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to yield the time to the Senator.

Mr. DORGAN. I have deep respect for my colleague from Virginia. We are friends. We disagree on this issue. Let me make a final point. I know others want to speak on this matter. We are now in a new environment in which the language about the nuclear threat has changed dramatically. We have people who say we really need to begin nuclear testing once again. We have people who say we ought not forswear the first use of nuclear weapons; first use might in some circumstances be perfectly plausible. We have some who say nuclear weapons are ``usable'' as tactical issues, as strategic issues on the battlefield, they are usable nuclear weapons we ought to be considering. There are people who say we need new kinds of nuclear weapons--bigger ones, the jumbo ones, which is the earth penetrator, and smaller ones, the smaller, mininuclear weapons that would be one- third the size of Hiroshima, which certainly is not mini, but that is what they say. We have people saying all these things in this country, some of them in very responsible policy positions. I think the rest of the world sees all that, listens to that, looks at bills such as this, and says: You know what, the United States has 10,600 nuclear weapons in its arsenal. And they say they need more? And they say they have a right to use them? They will not renounce first use. They say they want specific, more designer kinds of weapons for battlefield use. They are saying: You know, the United States has changed. It used to be the United States did everything conceivable in its power to say: Never shall a nuclear weapon be used. Our nuclear weapons are deterrents, deterrents so they never can be used against us and never used against others. But now it has all changed, and there are people who think it is perfectly plausible, it is just another weapons program, just part of our weapons system. Well, in 2003, with what is happening around the world--terrorists, India, Pakistan, North Korea--I cannot think of a more destructive piece of public policy than to continue with this kind of nonsense. It is not just wrong, it is dangerously wrong, in my judgment. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. I am all for that statement: Why waste money? I am all for that. If the proposition is, what I am trying to do is tell the Defense Department, don't waste money, then sign me up and count me in.

Mr. DORGAN. If I may use the word credibility, as the Senator from Virginia did, let me say to those who might listen to this debate or watch this debate, it is incredible to believe Congress will be in charge of every step of the development of this program. That is preposterous. That is not the case on any defense system of which I am aware. My amendment is very simple, I say to the Senator from Virginia. My amendment prohibits the use of these funds. You did not talk about prohibiting funds. You want to fund it. You want to authorize it. You want to move ahead with it. That is fine. We have a disagreement about that. But there is no credibility issue here. The question is whether this country wants, with this legislation, to say to the rest of the world, By the way, we have embarked on a new venture here and with this new venture, whether it is last year or this year, it is decided we need new nuclear weapons including bunker busting nuclear weapons. If the answer to that is yes, that's what we want to do, then the answer is we vote with my colleague from Virginia. If you believe it is moving in exactly the wrong direction, it is driving 500 miles in reverse like the flying farmer from Makoti, if you really believe this is stepping backward, as I do, and dangerous for the rest of the world, you vote no. You vote to strip the money. Look, money is money, as you know. This $11 million, $15 million is probably not a lot of money to some. But my amendment strips that money to say let's stop this. We do not need earth penetrating bunker busting nuclear weapons. Does the Senator from Virginia believe at this moment we can't sleep because we don't have bunker busting earth penetrating nuclear weapons?

Mr. DORGAN. Let me just make this point because I think it is important. I, too, want to be accurate. I want to be accurate on my side and your side. My amendment prohibits the use of funds for the earth penetrator weapon to be ``obligated or expended for development, testing, or engineering on a nuclear earth penetrator weapon.'' That is perpetual. And ``(b) Prohibition on Use of Fiscal Year 2004 Funds'' deals only with this fiscal year. So to be perfectly accurate, the question of the withholding of funds with respect to the feasibility study only applies to this fiscal year. It is not permanently banning that funding because I can only ban it for this year. So I just want to make that point. I am happy to yield and happy to engage in this colloquy, but I think the issue is quite simple actually: Either one believes we ought to have new nuclear weapons, earth penetrating bunker busters--and I don't remember exactly who showed up to testify yesterday; someone from the Joint Chiefs, I guess, and they have told us that somewhere around the world, somebody is auguring deep into the earth, God forbid, and we might well need a nuclear weapon to go get them. I would say to people who come around here with those stories: Go get some fresh air. Put some sugar on your cereal. I don't, for the life of me--there are people around here, I swear to you, who, if told our adversaries were creating a cavalry, would be on the floor trying to buy horses. I don't understand this notion that there is a rumor that somebody is doing something, so let's create a new nuclear weapon. The reason I offer this specific amendment, I say to the Senator from Virginia, is that I know they talked about this in Afghanistan, in Iraq. And they talked about the issue of ``usable'' nuclear weapons. They talked about the difficulty in caves. I have flown over those mountains. I have seen those mountains and the caves. But for us to come back here and say: Oh, by the way, our new global strategy is to create a new class of nuclear weapons--I think that has profound implications with respect to the stability and the spread of nuclear weapons around the world.

Mr. DORGAN. No, it does not. First of all, read the last words, ``development, testing, or engineering,'' and then compare that to (b) in which I am talking about the feasibility study. I am withholding the funds from the feasibility study. I was attempting to make that distinction for you.

Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. This morning's newspaper has a story on the front page that says: ``Canada Finds `Mad Cow'; U.S. Bans Beef Imports.'' On behalf of the beef industry in this country and consumers in this country, this begs a very important question. If Canada found a cow, one cow, in the month of January, that was headed toward a slaughterhouse and subsequently killed, that now 4 months later they say was infected with mad cow disease, the question is, Why does it take 4 months to learn that a cow killed in January had mad cow disease? There are two possible reasons, it seems to me. One, there is a system by which they sent the head of this animal to England to have it tested and somehow it took 4 months to test it and to tell the people in this country and Canada there was a cow with mad cow disease killed in January. Four months is absurd. If that is the case, something is horribly wrong. Or, second, they discovered earlier than 4 months and did not disclose it. I don't know which, but the Secretary of Agriculture has imposed a moratorium on further shipments of beef into this country from Canada. That makes good sense. I support her decision. We ship into this country from Canada 1 million head of cattle and 1 billion pounds of beef. The Secretary of Agriculture is perfectly right in saying let's suspend those shipments at this point. I want her to investigate, and I am sure they will find the answer to the question, Why did it take 4 months to learn that a cow in Canada killed in January was infected with mad cow disease? That, in my judgment, is a threat to the beef industry in this country, a threat to consumers everywhere. There are one of two explanations, neither of which, in my judgment, is a good explanation. We need to get to the bottom of it on behalf of our beef industry and on behalf of our consumers. This is not a pretty story. I don't know what the impact of this will be, but as I read this and as I understand the facts, questions need to be answered, and soon. I believe the Secretary of Agriculture will pursue this matter. She says she sent some people to Canada to investigate. We demand answers. We deserve answers, the consumers and the beef industry.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. The Senator is correct.

Mr. DORGAN. Let me ask the question further, if I might retain my right to the floor, if the Parliamentarian's office consulted with the Senator from Michigan, would the Senator from Michigan think an amendment that would strike the Base Closure Commission is not relevant to the bill?

Mr. DORGAN. Let me finish the explanation and I will be happy to yield. The Base Closure Commission was established in this bill by this committee some years ago. One would expect the ability to strike that requirement would be in this bill. That is where it would be relevant, in this bill. This bill itself contains provisions dealing with base closings because the bill contains some hundreds of millions of dollars in conformance with the requirements and the costs of previous Base Closure Commission actions. I was told this morning the way our amendment is currently drafted is nonrelevant. I don't have the foggiest idea who could come up with that sort of judgment. I will not demean anyone who does, but to say there is no way on God's Earth that anybody can suggest that it is not relevant in this legislation to deal with base closing because this is where base closing came about. This is where it originated. If the idea of relevancy is to get unanimous consent to shut people out from being able to offer amendments such as this on this bill, it is the last time--I say this again--it is the last time any committee will ever get a unanimous consent in this Senate as long as I am here during this session of the Congress on relevancy. It is the last time it will happen. I am certainly not upset at the Senator from Virginia, but I am upset with this process because I will find a way to draft this so it is relevant and we will have a vote on it. Frankly, I am upset that we have a Byzantine process by which someone says you cannot strike a provision that was put in the bill because it is not relevant. What on Earth are we thinking about? I say to the Senator, your courtesy is understood. I was aware last evening and this morning that there was preparation to say to me, this is not relevant the way it is written. Then I will write it the way I hope someone around here can think clearly to say it is relevant. There is already a provision in this bill that deals with the Base Closure Commission; I can cite it.--There is no way my amendment can be nonrelevant. I will work on that in the next couple of hours. I know the Senator from Virginia will want to oppose the amendment, as will the Senator from Michigan. I hope the Senator from Virginia will agree with me that he will not want a process by which he brings a bill to the floor, as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and will want to prevent someone such as me who is not on the committee from offering an amendment to strike a provision put in this bill some years ago. I don't expect that the Senator from Virginia would want that to be happening. I don't think you will want to prevent me from offering an amendment that you think is relevant. I appreciate the comment.

Mr. DORGAN. Senator Lott and I.

Mr. DORGAN. Well, I appreciate the Senator's courtesy. Of course, I am familiar that last week, perhaps for the last time, the committee has gotten unanimous consent requests for relevancy. I say ``for the last time'' because I have discovered both last evening and this morning that the amendment, as originally drafted, would be nonrelevant. Let me describe my surprise at that.

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I understand we are now on the Defense authorization bill. I will speak about a number of matters in the legislation. I also will talk about a couple of amendments I am hoping to offer. I deeply appreciate the leadership of Senator Warner and Senator Levin. There are few in the Senate for whom I have higher regard. I think both of them do an extraordinary job for this country. Our country is blessed to have their leadership during these difficult times. Much of what is in the Defense authorization bill I support. I think they have done quite a remarkable job in bringing that bill to the Senate floor. I do, however, want to talk about a couple of areas that concern me and a couple of amendments I wish to offer. Obviously, our first responsibility in this legislation is to support a strong military for this country. This is a dangerous world. All of us understand the uncertainties in the world. We understand especially that our sons and daughters were called upon to go halfway around the world and fight in the country of Iraq. They did so with great skill and our thoughts and prayers go with them as well. We understand from that experience what these investments mean for our country, the investments in military preparedness. Being prepared, making the investments, being able to defend our country's liberty against terrorists, aggressors, and others, is very important. The single most important threat that faces our children and our grandchildren is the threat of nuclear weapons. If there is a leader in this world that has a responsibility to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, it surely must be us. It must be the United States of America. Some many months ago there was a story, not widely told, about a rumor. The rumor was a nuclear weapon had been stolen from the Russian arsenal and that one nuclear weapon stolen by terrorists from the Russian arsenal was to be detonated in an American city. It caused an epileptic seizure in the intelligence community: Terrorists stealing a nuclear weapon, detonating it in an American city; talk about 3,000 people dying at the World Trade Center; then talk about one nuclear weapon killing half a million people in a major American city. That is the specter of what will happen with the threat of nuclear weapons in the wrong hands. It was discovered some time after that rumor was moving around the intelligence community that, in fact, they believed it was not credible; a terrorist had not stolen a nuclear weapon from the Russian arsenal. Interestingly enough, it was not beyond belief of most intelligence analysts that it could have happened. We know there are thousands of nuclear weapons in the hands of the Russians. We know the command and control of those weapons is not what we would like. We hear rumors and stories about the recordkeeping for nuclear weapons in Russia being in a three-ring binder. So we worry about the command and control of nuclear weapons. We think somewhere in this world, between us and the Russians and a few others, there are nearly 25,000 to 30,000 nuclear weapons. I will say that again. Although there is not an exact known number, we expect between 25,000 and 30,000 nuclear weapons exist, both theater and strategic nuclear weapons. The rumor that one had been stolen by a terrorist and might be detonated in an American city caused great concern. Again, the intelligence people apparently felt it was entirely possible that could have happened and, having happened, it was entirely plausible they could have detonated a nuclear weapon in an American city. So with this arsenal of 25,000 or 30,000 nuclear weapons, both theater and strategic nuclear weapons, the question for us, our children, and their children is: Will someone someday get hold of a nuclear weapon, build one, create one, steal one, perhaps? Will those terrorists someday have access to one nuclear weapon? Will it be detonated in a city of millions of people? Will it kill hundreds of thousands of people? Or before then, will we be a world leader in trying to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, prevent the theft of nuclear weapons, improve the command and control of nuclear weapons, especially those in Russia, and begin to reduce the stock of nuclear weapons? Will we do that in our country? Will we send a signal to the world that nuclear weapons cannot ever again be used in anger, cannot ever again be used? The whole purpose of a nuclear weapon is a deterrent. It is not to be used. In this legislation before us, we have provisions that talk about the development of new low-yield nuclear weapons. I think that is a horrible mistake. We have plenty of nuclear weapons. Our effort ought not to be to develop new ones. It ought to be to assume the mantle of leadership to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and begin the reduction of warheads. In this bill, there is a provision that talks about the money that needs to be spent to study the development of a new designer bunker buster nuclear weapon. What kind of signal does that send to the rest of the world--the United States decides it wants to create a new nuclear weapon; it wants to study the design of a bunker buster nuclear weapon. We say to other countries we do not want them to have a nuclear weapon. We do not want them to develop a nuclear weapon. We are worried about Pakistan and India. They do not like each other. They both have nuclear weapons. We are trying to say to them they cannot ever even think about using a nuclear weapon. Yet we are saying nuclear weapons are all right, what we ought to do is develop different kinds, develop more, use them perhaps in the future against terrorists who would burrow themselves into caves. What a terrible idea. What an awful message for this country to send to the rest of the world. The message ought to be we are going to do everything that is humanly possible in the United States of America to stop the spread of nuclear weapons because our future depends on it. We have a lot of challenges. If, in fact, North Korea is now producing additional nuclear weapons using those spent fuel rods, if, in fact, we have a country that has the capacity and is now building nuclear weapons and is perfectly willing to sell them to most anybody, can those nuclear weapons end up in the hands of terrorists 12 and 14 months from now and be used by those terrorists to threaten an American city? The answer is yes. This is a very serious issue. Is the answer to this issue for us to be talking about developing new kinds of nuclear weapons so that perhaps we can burrow into a cave somewhere with a designer bunker buster nuclear weapon? The answer to that is clearly no. Our message, it seems to me, as a country, ought to be to the rest of the world that we want to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, and we want to reduce the number of nuclear weapons, and we want to in every single possible way say to the rest of the world nuclear weapons cannot be used, nuclear weapons will not be used. So I am hoping to offer an amendment that will strike that money to study the development of a new designer bunker buster nuclear weapon. We cannot do that. That makes no sense to me. It is exactly the wrong message to the rest of the world. Our job is not to begin determining how we can create new nuclear weapons. Our job is to find ways to stop the spread and to begin the reduction of nuclear weapons. We have plenty--thousands and thousands and thousands. The Russians have a similar number. A few other countries also have much smaller numbers. One defection will cause a catastrophe in this world. It just seems to me we cannot be sending a message to the rest of the world that we are seriously wanting now to develop a new kind of nuclear weapon to bust bunkers. That is just the wrong message to the world, in my judgment. I know that both the chairman and ranking member will oppose the amendment, but I believe very strongly that this country has a leadership responsibility to the rest of the world that we are strong, we are going to preserve liberty, we will fight for this country's right to preserve liberty, but part of that, in my judgment, is to produce stability in the world, to say to other countries we don't ever want to see nuclear weapons used again; we want to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and we don't want to create new nuclear weapons and do not need to create nuclear weapons. Doing so would send exactly the wrong message to the rest of the world. There is one other issue on which I know the chairman and the ranking member will disagree. Senator Lott and I intend to offer an amendment to strike the base closing round in 2005. The legislation approving a new Base Closure Commission in 2005 was written prior to 9/11. The shadow of 9/11 has been long and broad. It has changed almost everything. The President came to the Congress and gave one of the most remarkable speeches I think I have ever heard a few days after 9/11. He said: Everything is changed. We now fight a war against terrorism, and that war against terrorism includes a war in Afghanistan, a war in Iraq, actions in other parts of the world, and a revamping of homeland security. The creation and revamping of homeland security in our country, it seems to me, says to us that everything has changed. We have a Secretary of Defense who wants to dramatically change the entire structure of our Defense Department and our military. So if everything has changed, then how do we proceed with a Base Closure Commission in the year 2005 that was developed in prior to 2001? Some of us believe we need to strike that 2005 base closing BRAC commission, get our breath, evaluate what kind of future we are going to have, what kind of base structure we want, both here and abroad, but instead of rushing into a mandate that was imposed prior to 9/11, what we ought to do is remove that mandate and have the flexibility to proceed in a manner that is consistent with the new realities since 9/ 11. It is interesting to me that there are so many new realities around the world. We have heavy mechanized divisions in Western Europe. Well, I understood why we would have had tank divisions, for example, when we had a Warsaw Pact and Eastern Europe was Communist and we were protecting Western Europe from the invasion of the Communists. But that, of course, is not the case any more. There is no Warsaw Pact. Eastern Europe is democratic and free in almost all cases, and so it ought to lead us to ask the question: What are we doing with those kinds of divisions in Europe? It seems to me there is a lot for us to evaluate in base closing, but if we are going to take a look at where the excess capacities exist in our military, let us do it with the background of 9/11, understanding virtually everything has changed long after we decided to have a base closing round in 2005 and the smarter approach for us would be to step back a bit, rescind that requirement in 2005, and, with the Secretary of Defense and others, try to think through what our new reality is, what will our new force structure be, what does this new changing world require of us, and what kind of bases will be required to meet that need. We don't know what the military will look like in 10 or 20 years from now. We don't know how big it will be, what the force structure will be. We don't know where our forces will be based. Just recently, we had a callup of the National Guard and Reserve. God knows those wonderful citizen soldiers who leave their homes and their loved ones. The 142nd Engineering Battalion in North Dakota got 2 days' notice and dug their trucks out of the snow and put them on the road to Fort Carson, CO. The fact is they were not ready for them at Fort Carson, unfortunately, they did not have the capacity on that base to handle the 142nd when they got there. Part of it was because the troops got backed up; they could not go through Turkey; the ships were backed up; they were not able to move soldiers out of Fort Carson, so we had people being mobilized in the Guard and Reserve going to Fort Carson, CO, and they didn't have facilities to handle them at that point. The question is, What needs and requirements will we face in the future? We don't know. Everything is changing. Everything has changed in the last few years. The Secretary of Defense says we should have a base closing round, one round in 2005 that closes bases, I believe he said, equivalent to the number of bases closed in the first four rounds. I do not see how he or anyone else has the knowledge to understand where we would close those bases at the moment because we don't understand what the force structure will be, what the requirements will be. And that is not a decision just for the Defense Department. It is also a decision for the Congress. Homeland defense may require more bases, not fewer. Homeland defense combined with the Defense Department and the efforts of both may require bases in different places, may require us to retain a base that in another area might otherwise close, may suggest you close a base in a circumstance where you otherwise might retain it. We don't know. Homeland Security as an agency is less than a year old. We have had terrorists exploding bombs around the world in recent days--Morocco, Saudi Arabia. The fact is we don't know how all of this comes together, and yet we have a mandate for a BRAC round, part of which will begin in 2004 with respect to the requirements and in 2005 we will have the commission. Let me suggest also, in addition to the fact that I don't think it makes any sense now, in the shadow of 9/11, to continue with the requirement that was imposed prior to 9/11, especially when virtually everyone says everything has changed, I don't think it makes any sense to stubbornly stick to that requirement. We would be much better off, in my judgment, for long-term preparedness and long-term flexibility to strike that provision for the 2005 round. Let me make one other point. We have an economy that is stuttering. Everybody understands that. The Congress and the President are struggling to try to find a way to put this economy back together. It is not producing jobs. It is losing jobs. We don't have the kind of economic growth we want or need. All of us understand that. We all understand that. Want to talk about a retardant economic growth? Let me tell you what that is. Tell every community in this country with a major military installation, by the way, if you invest in that community, do not build an apartment building now because between now and mid-2005 that base may be closed and you have no certainty it will be there beyond 2005 or past; so make sure you do not make that long-term investment. In every community where there is a major military installation this stunts economic growth because there is a target on the front: Get out of every military installation in the country. All of them are in play. No one knows which may remain open or remain closed. This Commission will meet in 2005 and on its own make that decision. Want to stunt economic growth, retard the ability of the economy to expand? The quick way to do that is to say let's leave in place the 2005 requirement for a base- closing commission. I guarantee, in community after community around this country, we have investors who will not, who cannot possibly make the investment in those communities because that military installation is a big part of the community and its economy and its future and they do not know whether it will be there in the future. At a time when our economy is sputtering, to have that retardant on the economic growth of so many communities in our country, in my judgment, is totally counterproductive.

Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to yield for a question.

Mr. DORGAN. That is correct.

Mr. DORGAN. That is my feeling. I hope the Senator from Virginia and the Senator from Michigan were surprised as well. If not, if their suggestion last Thursday of what relevance was, by unanimous consent, in effect, was to say: Oh, by the way, those of you who want to come with a base-closing round, we are not willing to fight you on that; You can't offer it; We will find a way to prevent you from offering it. It is partly our fault. I had no idea that what you were doing last Thursday with a relevancy request, by consent, would have prevented Senator Reid from offering the concurrent receipt issue. The fact is, we were going to offer the concurrent receipt issue last week on the tax bill and decided not to do that, decided to offer it here because here is where it ought to be offered. When someone works 20 years in the military for this country and then retires and earns a retirement pay, if during that time they were disabled, what our current law says, in most cases--not all, but in most cases--is that you are not going to be able to collect your disability and your retirement; concurrent receipt is prohibited. That is wrong. We ought to change that. Most of us know we ought to change that. The place to change that is on the Defense authorization bill. Of course it is the place to change it. I am just as stunned that Senator Reid has been told it is not relevant as I am about my amendment. I have spent more time this morning trying to figure out how on Earth someone could determine that this may not be relevant. I do not know what else that someone might want to offer here that deals directly with a defense issue, deals directly with policy in defense, will now be ruled as nonrelevant. What on Earth are we talking about here? I hope the two of you, the chairman and the ranking member, will agree that at least those issues that appear well within the scope of what we have always thought to be relevant, and Senator Reid described it exactly, about which those in our caucus who are the experts--I am not an expert on relevancy--are surprised, I hope those issues that you are preventing with a unanimous consent, at least by this latest rule, I hope we will be able to offer them. I will try to offer to the Parliamentarian's office some version of this amendment that will meet the relevancy test. I hope I can do that. If I can't, I hope it is not your intent that relevancy should be described in the way that prevents the offering of legislation that would strike a provision that you put in the law in 1990 in this very Defense authorization bill. I hope that is not your intent.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I am listening to this debate, and I guess I just do not understand. We are hearing that it is important for our country to begin studying or developing, researching a new class of nuclear weapons, a new design of nuclear weapons, low yield--which is an oxymoron--low-yield nuclear weapons, bunker buster nuclear weapons. I was thinking of something Martin Luther King said, which was: ``The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. We have learned the secret of the atom but forgotten the sermon on the Mount.'' I don't understand what we are thinking about here. At a moment in history when we need to be the world leader in stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and reducing the threat of nuclear weapons, we are debating whether we ought to begin producing more nuclear weapons. Is there someone here who can't sleep because we don't have enough nuclear weapons? There is roughly 30,000 nuclear weapons on this Earth. About 2 years ago, or 1\1/2\ years ago, our intelligence community thought one was missing. They thought that one from the Russian stockpile had been stolen. At least there was the rumor. They had an epileptic seizure about one nuclear weapon missing. Would it be detonated in an American city? They were concerned about one nuclear weapon. There are 30,000, roughly, nuclear weapons, and we have people here worried about not having enough of the right kind. I just do not understand. We just heard there is a change in threat. There may be a change in threat. Everybody knows the threat isn't being addressed in this bill. There is $9 billion in this bill to build a big, old antiballistic missile system; a national missile defense system. Take a look at the threat meter and find out what the least likely threat against this country is. It isn't that a terrorist or terrorist group will have access to an ICBM with a nuclear tip on it and fire it against the United States. A nuclear weapon, if sent here by a terrorist, isn't coming in here at 14,000 miles per hour on an intercontinental ballistic missile. It will be pulled up at 2 miles an hour at a dock at an American city in a container loaded by terrorists. Yet we are going to spend $9 billion on national missile defense. I understand we have been doing that for the last several years. It doesn't make any sense to me. We are unprepared in other areas. At a time when we ought to be leading, to say to the rest of the world, don't build more nuclear weapons, don't use nuclear weapons, this country is sending a signal to the rest of the world in dozens of ways saying, you know, we will not renounce first use. We believe in the opportunity for preemptive attack, if we are challenged; we ought to study new nuclear weapons, a bunker buster design of nuclear weapons. Again, this issue of low yield is nuts. I don't want to hear people talk about low yield. The people who talk about low-yield nuclear weapons are the same people who talk about the ability to use nuclear weapons. If anybody here thinks there is an ability in this world to use nuclear weapons in a war, then I don't know what planet you are living on. Once the movement of nuclear weapons goes back and forth between adversaries, I am sorry, your children will have no future. If 30,000 isn't enough, I am just wondering what hours of the night you are awake worried about your lack of protection. I do not understand this at all. If ever this world needed this country in all of its majesty and in all of its wonders of leadership capability, if ever this world needed this country, it is now. My colleagues are no doubt tired of this. I will point out again what I have in this desk. I have some pieces of metal that were given to me that came from an ICBM. This came from an ICBM which used to have a warhead on it aimed at the United States. It could have destroyed an American city. We didn't shoot it down. It was never launched. That is how I have this. We, with Nunn-Lugar funds, destroyed this missile in its silo. Where this missile used to exist, there is now planted sunflowers. Yes. This missile is gone. We sawed wings off bombers. We have destroyed submarines, and we paid for it. We didn't shoot them down. We paid for their destruction under arms control agreements and arms reduction agreements. Our job at the moment is to continue the Nunn-Lugar program and continue these efforts to say to other countries that all of us must back away from this madness. This is not modernization; it is madness. How many more nuclear weapons do we want? What kind of an additional signal do we want to give to countries around the world that it is OK to build nuclear weapons and it is OK to be doing research on classes of new nuclear weapons? I say to those of you and to the administration that I guess they are getting the message. We hear it from Russia. They got the message. We are going to do some research on these so-called low-yield nuclear weapons. They can do some research on low-yield nuclear weapons. I guess they are getting the message. I suppose the Chinese got the message. All of them will get the message. Then our children will have a much less bright future because we will have not seized the opportunity and the responsibility as the world's leading power, economic and military, to steer us in a direction away from nuclear confrontation, away from building more nuclear weapons, and away from first use. We will not have done that. We will have instead flexed our muscles and said that we have unlimited money. Let us just go ahead and spend billions here and billions there. I found it interesting. Last week I couldn't get one-fourth of $1 billion through this Senate that had been approved previously to try to feed hungry kids in Africa who are on the abyss of starvation. Forty- thousand people a day die because they do not have enough to eat, mostly kids. That is the equivalent of one Hiroshima bomb every 3 days. We have plenty of money for all the things we are talking about today. We didn't have enough money to deal with the issue of hunger and famine in Africa a couple of days ago. But aside from the issue of priorities, which, in my judgment, is a twisted set of priorities, losing the opportunity and failing to seize the moment in which American leadership is demanding to move this world away from a belief that we need more nuclear weapons and that it is OK for countries to potentially use nuclear weapons is a miserable failure on the part of a country and a legacy, in my judgment, in a very negative way. My hope is that before we go too far we will have the votes on this amendment and subsequent amendments. I intend to offer another amendment in a group of four. I hope we will have the votes to begin to turn this country in a constructive direction in this debate on the authorization bill. This is about judgment. There is an unending appetite in this Chamber right now to do all of these things. But, in my opinion, this is about using good judgment as a nation to assume our responsibility in the world. I regret very much that if the work of the committee prevails on the floor of the Senate today, then we will this evening find a world that is much less secure than it was before this committee began its work. We have the capability to do awfully good things. But it requires our leadership. It requires our character and our judgment to decide there is a right direction and a wrong direction. The wrong direction, in my judgment, is for our country to say to the rest of the world, let us all build some more nuclear weapons. Let us worry about some threat or some rogue nation digging tunnels so deeply we can't catch them or explode them. So let us deal with new nuclear weapons. I can't think of a more destructive course or a more destructive set of policies than those coming to us in this bill dealing with these issues. Some say it is irrelevant; it doesn't matter; this is only research. Are you kidding? That is what the other countries will say as well as they begin to ramp up their programs. It is only ``research'' on their next group of designer nuclear weapons. It is only research. But we will have taken the cork out of the bottle, and it won't be easily put back in. I hope my colleagues will support the amendment. This is a very important vote, perhaps one of the most important votes on the Defense authorization bill. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to modify the previous agreement: That I be recognized next and the next Senator to be recognized following the movement back and forth on our side would be Senator Akaka.