John Kerry

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 4748 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a Schumer substitute amendment, which is at the desk, be agreed to; the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed; the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate; and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed as in legislative session and as in morning business in order to process some cleared legislative items.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 1746 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Lieberman substitute amendment, which is at the desk, be agreed to; the bill, as amended, be read three times and passed; the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table; and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed; the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate; and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

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

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I accept that. The point I am trying to make is, we have allowed each of the prior amendments to come to an up- or-down vote. We have not tabled them, which is an often-used practice, as everybody knows. We could have debated all last night; there was nobody here to debate. Now we are here debating. We are happy to leave time for debate. But I ask my colleagues if they could inquire into who might want to come so we could at least, out of courtesy to our colleagues, give them a sense of what the schedule might be, and then we can set a time for that debate allowing everybody adequate time. I am not suggesting in any way that the topics we are discussing are not important. They are important, and they are worthy of debate and are worthy of discussion. We welcome that discussion.

Mr. KERRY. I yield for a question.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I respect that. I am perfectly comfortable if we are able to set a time after that closed session. I think everybody would feel good if we can find the time. I understand the need to want to have that session. That is the Senator's right, and we respect that. We certainly can do it. Maybe we can find a time when we come out of that session when we can have a couple of votes back to back. I think that would help a lot of people. I thank the Senator from South Dakota for his amendment. It is one that is worthy of some discussion. Obviously, some of that discussion is going to have to take place in the context of a classified session. He said one of the arguments that will be used is that this will result in going back to the Russians and having to renegotiate the treaty. That is not a casual argument. It is not a small thing. But it is not the principal reason--it is one of the reasons, obviously, I think this amendment is ill-advised. But, most importantly, this amendment is unnecessary. All of us on our side have a very clear understanding of the importance of delivery vehicles with respect to our national defense. But here is what we have to balance the comments of the Senator from South Dakota against: the President of the United States, the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, and others have all determined that we can safely reduce our deployed ICBMs and our deployed SLBMs and our deployed heavy bombers--the three legs of the triad--that they could be reduced to the 700 number. That figure was picked, obviously, after an enormous amount of thinking by all of those parties concerned--the Strategic Command, the Air Force folks, the Navy SLBM--and they did so only after seeing the results of force-on-force analyses of exactly where that would leave us in terms of America's response should there--happily in the current atmosphere--be the unlikely event of a nuclear confrontation. Obviously, we need to think about these issues in that larger context of where we are today, what direction we are moving in, and what is the reality. As the Senator knows, without going into any details, that force-on- force determination was made not just in the likelihood of a Russian- U.S. confrontation but in a multiparty confrontation. Again, we will discuss some of that later. The gravamen of the Senator's complaint is that he is concerned that the administration has failed to thus far state precisely how it is going to reduce the deployed ICBMs--intercontinental ballistic missiles--and the SLBMs--submarine-launched ballistic missiles--and heavy bombers, how do we meet the treaty's requirement of 700. I want the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee to weigh in. I will say quickly, the administration has made it clear that it intends to maintain 20 launchers on the 12 ballistic missile submarines that we keep operationally deployed, meaning our submarine force will account for 240 of the 700 limit. We agree on that. That leaves room for 460 deployed delivery vehicles combined from the two other legs of the triad--from the ICBMs and from the heavy bomber forces. The Senator also said the administration has said in its 1251 report that it has not made a final decision on going all the way up to the 420 ICBMs or all the way up to 60 bombers or somewhere in between. That decision has not been made. In other words, out of the total deployed delivery vehicle limit of 700, the administration has left itself some room to maneuver, to make a decision on 20 of its ICBMs and bombers. Under the agreement, we have 7 years of room before we have to meet that limit. When asked about this sort of available time of 7 years, General Chilton, the commander of our Strategic Command, told the Armed Services Committee for the record: The force structure construct, as reported in the section 1251 report, is sufficient to meet the Nation's strategic deterrence mission. Furthermore, the New START treaty provides flexibility to manage the force drawdown while maintaining an effective and safe strategic deterrent. As a technical matter, the Senator's amendment would require the President to go back to the Russians, move the limit up from 700 to 720, even though the military is perfectly comfortable with the level we have. That is when we begin to get into the question, if they are telling us that this is good and comfortable and we can do what we need to do in this context, I might add, of a very different Russia, very different United States, very different set of strategic demands at this moment, why would we reopen the treaty for renegotiation? I have more to say, particularly on the subject of the Prompt Global Strike because the Prompt Global Strike likewise is not impacted negatively by this, and there are a number of reasons we have options as to how we arm certain legs in the triad and what we choose to do. It is important to point out also--I think this is important--there may be some concern. I understand the geography of the Senator's representation, so there may be some concern from some Senators, and the comments that the Senator made that those of you who have people concerned with the ICBM bases or the SLBM bases or the bomber bases need to be focused on this, let me be clear that the administration has made it clear. None of the three ICBM bases are going to be closed because of the New START treaty. We are maintaining all of them. What is more, the administration has made it clear that it is committed to the ICBM force in the years to come. In its updated 1251 report, the Minuteman III will remain in service through 2030 and then be replaced by a follow-on ICBM to be determined. If people are concerned about cutting bombers, Senators should remember that to meet the New START's limits, we are not going to need to eliminate any bombers. We plan to simply convert some bombers to a conventional role, at which point they will no longer count toward the treaty limits. With that stated as part of the Record, I yield 5 minutes, or such time as the Senator from Michigan would like to consume, to the chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

Mr. KERRY. I completely understand that. We had the two Senators speak. I would like to yield to the chairman of the Armed Services Committee for 5 minutes and then come back.

Mr. KERRY. Madam President, would the Senator yield for a moment?

Mr. KERRY. I just want to be clear. The Senator read my words accurately, which were the quote of the general who said ``militarily significant.'' I don't think he said that.

Mr. KERRY. With respect to the issue of cheating, what he said was he didn't think there would be anything militarily significant. Again, this is material we could go into, which we will probably, in the classified session. But I just want that distinction to be clear.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time until 6 p.m. today be for debate with respect to the pending Inhofe amendment No. 4833 and pending Thune amendment No. 4841, with the time divided between the leaders or their designees, with no amendments in order to either amendment; that at 6 p.m., the Senate then proceed to vote in relation to the Inhofe amendment; that upon its disposition, the Senate then proceed to vote in relation to the Thune amendment, with 2 minutes of debate, equally divided as provided above, prior to the second vote.

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

Mr. KERRY. Did my colleague need to finish up a thought? If so, I am happy to yield him a minute.

Mr. KERRY. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I want to make clear that as we move to these amendments with respect to the resolution of ratification, we are going to preserve the right, then, to go back only to those three that are pending. And the Senator has agreed to make a good-faith effort to see if that could be reduced to simply one; is that accurate?

Mr. KERRY. I understand that the Senator, in our conversation earlier, was going to try to see if the other two could also make the same decision he has made so we, in effect, have one on the treaty itself.

Mr. KERRY. Could we then say for the record which amendment is being withdrawn at this point?

Mr. KERRY. Madam President, if I may say to my colleague, the majority leader would like to work with us in this process. I think what we should do, if I may ask my colleague to do this, I would like to take a moment, if we can, to work through this with the majority leader. We can do it during the votes, and then at the end of the votes we can hopefully propound something that has his engagement.

Mr. KERRY. I thank the Senator. That helps us a lot. That clarifies it. What I would like to do is work with the majority leader and the Senator from Arizona, and I am sure we can come together, and at the end of the vote we can propound an appropriate UC.

Mr. KERRY. Reserving the right to object, I personally am supportive of our trying to do that. I have said to the Senator in good faith that we need to have some amendments to the resolution of ratification. We are working on them. I am confident that we will be able to accommodate his request, but I am in a position where I need to have the input of the majority leader to do that. I will personally advocate we do it. At this moment only, I must object to that request, but I look forward to trying to propound it after the votes.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.