Mark Hatfield

Mr. HATFIELD

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I believe there is a second-degree amendment of Senator Shelby. I ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I now move to table the Kerrey amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. HATFIELD. Has the motion to table the Kerrey amendment been made?

Mr. HATFIELD. Now, Mr. President, let me ask the parliamentary situation. Unanimous consent was made on the basis of the two votes, one relating to the Kerrey amendment and now to the Boxer amendment, to be stacked and those rollcalls should occur in sequence?

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I would like to comment on another part of the problem. Again, we are not in a position to solve some of these problems immediately, but I hope as far as the future is concerned, that we could get some very careful consideration by the administration. The problem is, we are dealing with a supplemental appropriations for the military, for the Defense Department, for matters relating to Bosnia, to Haiti, to North Korea, and to other such areas of the world. Some of our colleagues are saying to us but that is not truly a defense expenditure. It is being charged against the military in the way we budget our expenditures. But that is not truly a defense item. And why should the military bear the brunt of these more political foreign policy actions. And, of course, they have been conducted oftentimes with little or no consultation with the Congress. So what happens is those commitments are made. Those policies are executed. And all of a sudden we get the bill. No authorization. No action by the Congress. This has not happened just in this administration. It has happened over the years. But I do think that at one point in time we better start charging to the Defense Department those things that are exclusively national defense and take peacekeeping and humanitarian and all these other types of things that we are involved in and call them something else and charge them maybe to a broader base of accounts than in the Defense Department. I am not saying how it should be handled, but we are really in a hybrid situation of trying to pay in the military appropriation for those actions that are not strictly defense, a mission of our Defense Department. So I only add to the complexity of trying to separate these funds between military and nonmilitary discretionary. If the Senator has no further comments to make, I would now move to table the Boxer amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. HATFIELD. I would be very happy to yield, and if the Senator needs time, I am happy to yield time for her closing comments.

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, the statement I have made just now, whether it is $10 million or $5 million or $20 million, is still the same basic issue; that is, we are taking military accounts and we are moving parts of those military accounts into nonmilitary programs.

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I do not want to get into a long dissertation about a detailed problem of procedure. Once you start having to explain the process of procedure, you have one hand tied behind you. But I want to say to the Senator from California that what she is attempting to do certainly represents her perspective, her point of view and, I think, her priorities. I am not going to argue that point because we probably have a set of priorities. But let me tell you where we are at this moment in this, the defense supplemental, that has just been passed by the House and the Senate, which we were hoping to have resolved as of today. We are running into difficulties on this because we are insisting on the Senate side, where we came to the floor with a supplemental and we had every dollar of that supplemental increase for the defense offset so as not to create any additional deficit from the military accounts, from the defense accounts. We have been going through a historic argument about firewalls, transferring discretionary defense to nondefense discretionary programs, and vice versa. So we are holding tough right now with the House of Representatives that have offset their larger military supplemental with both military accounts and nondefense accounts in the discretionary programs. From that standpoint we right now are at a stalemate because the House wants to offset some of the defense increases with nondefense programs. So, consequently, from the standpoint of where we are in that particular problem, we cannot accept this amendment--I am now speaking as an appropriator--we cannot accept this that we have taken in the conference process.

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum, time to be charged equally.

Mr. HATFIELD. I ask unanimous consent that the D'Amato amendment be temporarily set aside.

Mr. HATFIELD. If votes are required, I ask unanimous consent that they be stacked at the end of the hour.

Mr. HATFIELD. I ask unanimous consent that at the end of the hour for the two amendments, the votes take place.

Mr. HATFIELD. That is satisfactory.

Mr. HATFIELD. I amend the request to delete the request on behalf of the Senator from Arizona.

Mr. HATFIELD. An hour?

Mr. HATFIELD. I thank the Senator. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that three amendments in succession, one from the Senator from Nebraska [Mr. Kerrey], one from the Senator from Arizona [Mr. Kyl], one from the Senator from California [Mrs. Boxer], each of these amendments--by the way, let me mention that the one for Mr. Kerrey is on the subject of Federal courthouses that are included low-income energy assistance; the one for Senator Boxer is a transfer of funds from military to school education programs. I ask that there be a half-hour for each amendment, equally divided in the usual form, and that no second-degree amendments be in order prior to a motion to table, if a motion to table is made.

Mr. HATFIELD

Mr. HATFIELD. I know the Senator from California has a number of them. What amendment would this be?

Mr. HATFIELD. It will be two one-half hours making 1 hour.

Mr. HATFIELD. Rather than to ask for just a half-hour, I would like to expand that to an hour to take care of two amendments, one on the Democratic side and one on the Republican side, Mr. Kyl's amendment, each for a half-hour equally divided.

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from Connecticut, without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. HATFIELD. I thank the Senator from New York. Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HATFIELD. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.