Carl Levin

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. LEVIN. We know of no objection to the amendment.

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

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I wish now to call up a list of nine amendments, which have been cleared by myself and the ranking member, by Senator McCain: Webb amendment No. 2948, Sessions amendment No. 2962, Inhofe amendment No. 2971, Casey amendment No. 2986, Murray amendment No. 2989, Vitter amendment No. 3085, Coburn amendment 3110, Manchin amendment No. 3166, and Boxer amendment No. 2981. I believe they have been cleared on the Republican side.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I now ask unanimous consent that the Senate consider these amendments en bloc, the amendments be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table.

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

Mr. LEVIN. The Senator from West Virginia wishes now to speak on the Merkley amendment. Then it is our intention to move to a vote on the Merkley amendment.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, we are now going to proceed to a vote on the Merkley amendment. As I indicated, the amendment expresses the support of this body for the transition goals of the President, including the handover to Afghan security forces of primary responsibility for security throughout Afghanistan by mid-2013, the completion of the security transition process by the end of 2014--and of course that has to do with the completion and transition. That is not necessarily by any means a withdrawal of all troops but it is the intent that all combat forces be withdrawn by the end of 2014. I emphasize it is a sense-of-the-Senate resolution. After the disposition of the Merkley amendment, we then intend to move to the Whitehouse amendment. The Whitehouse amendment has been cleared by the chairman and ranking member of the committee of jurisdiction. However, there is a desire to debate and have a rollcall on that amendment. We are asking Senator Whitehouse to be prepared immediately after this vote to call up formally and debate his amendment and any opponent or opponents of the amendment to be prepared to debate it at that time. So it is our intent--and I ask unanimous consent--that immediately following the vote on the pending Merkley amendment, we then move to the Whitehouse amendment, and following the disposition of the Whitehouse amendment we then move to the Coburn amendment No. 3109, which will require debate, and, hopefully, we can work out a time agreement with Senator Coburn during this vote. Finally, we are urging Senators who have amendments we have not yet addressed that they intend to press, or hope they can press, to meet with us during this vote so we can continue to make progress on this bill. We will be in tomorrow unless by some wonderful events we are able to finish this bill tonight.

Mr. LEVIN. I am sorry, I say to my friend from Arizona. We have to withdraw that unanimous consent request on amendment No. 3109 at this time. I want to try to see what the problem is. There is an objection to my request on this side. We are going to try to work out those objections during this rollcall vote.

Mr. LEVIN. We understand Senator Merkley is on his way and wishes to speak for a minute on his own amendment, so I note the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. There will be up to four rollcall votes at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, before Senator Reed leaves the floor, I want to first thank him for his comments about myself and Senator McCain and the other members of our committee. Senator Reed of Rhode Island has and will continue to make--and, hopefully, for many decades to come--an extraordinary contribution to the work of this body. I have seen it firsthand on the Armed Services Committee where he is the chairman of the SeaPower Subcommittee, but way beyond that. He brings an experience and a thoughtful commitment to this work which is second to none, and it is incredibly valuable to every member of our committee to have him as a member of the committee. I cannot express how grateful I am for that, and I cannot exaggerate how grateful I am for his presence and for his work.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, in a few minutes I hope to be able to lay out a roadmap for our work here--at least for the next couple hours. We hope to be able to deal with a modified Kyl amendment as well as dispose of, we hope, an Ayotte amendment and a Hagan amendment. There will be debate with each of those, and this is just tentative because I want to discuss this, obviously, with Senator McCain. But if this works out, there could be a couple votes in an hour or so. But, again, I am not announcing that; I am just sort of giving as early a warning as I can to our colleagues as to what is at least a likely prospect at this time. But, again, that is going to have to await the presence of Senator McCain, with whom I am working so closely on this matter. So with that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and that the following amendments be called up and agreed to en bloc, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate: Kohl No. 2888, Manchin No. 2924, Webb No. 2949, Wyden No. 2960, Sessions No. 2963, Heller No. 2969, Hoeven No. 2991, and Barrasso No. 3083.

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

Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, we are waiting for Senator Cornyn to come to the floor, and he will be speaking on the modified Cornyn amendment. We also are waiting for Senator Inhofe to come to the floor, and he will be speaking on a Hagan amendment. Then we would expect, after a fairly short amount of debate--perhaps 10 minutes but not set yet--by each of them, perhaps a minute or two by the sponsors of the amendment, particularly in the case of the Hagan amendment, to describe the amendment, we would then go to a rollcall vote on both of those amendments. That is the plan. It is not yet in a UC agreement formally because we want to make sure we are protecting the Senators in terms of the length of time they need to describe either their opposition to the Hagan amendment in the case of Senator Inhofe or their support of the Cornyn amendment in the case of Senator Cornyn. We hope Senator Klobuchar will now be recognized for a few minutes to describe a couple of amendments she has filed. She is not going to call them up at this point, but this would be a period for her to describe those two amendments.

Mr. LEVIN. Between the first and second votes we are having now, we will have an announcement as to the next part of this roadmap. I hope all Senators who wish amendments to be considered will come between and during these votes to Senator McCain and myself and our staffs to discuss other amendments which are out there and which there is interest in pursuing.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, first, members of the Armed Services Committee, immediately after you vote on this second vote, please, we are trying to clear nominations in the hallway, so stay around for a couple minutes, members of the Armed Services Committee. Secondly, I know the leader was going to make this statement, but he had to leave for a minute, so I will make it for him. We are planning on staying late tonight, and everyone can expect to be here tomorrow. We are going to have votes tomorrow unless we somehow or other finish this bill tonight. The leader would have said that if he were here, so I am saying it for him. Next, after this vote, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Baucus be recognized for 10 minutes to speak on amendments we have either adopted or are going to adopt.

Mr. LEVIN. Then we will line up some additional amendments. There are two we can line up now. I thought it was going to be four, but it can only be two at the moment that we would take up immediately after Senator Baucus speaks. I ask unanimous consent, Mr. President, that following Senator Baucus's remarks we then turn to Senator Merkley, who will call up amendment No. 3096 on Afghanistan, and following him Senator Portman, who will call up amendment No. 2995, and I do not have the subject of that amendment. I ask unanimous consent that be the order.

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