Carl Levin

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. If the suggestion is that the Director of the Agency may establish agency-specific policies which are different from the policies which govern the rest of the Department with the approval of the Secretary--if that is the question, I see no difference between that and the last line because at that point those agency-specific policies are consistent with departmental policy. The departmental policy at that point is that that Agency will be governed by a different rule than the rest of the Department. I don't see any difference in terms of that concept with what is already in the last line. The last part of that discussion I am not sure I fully follow. As far as that specific question is concerned, the Senator from Arizona is saying, as I understand it, and the Senator from Nebraska is responding in the following way: The Senator from Arizona says we want to make it possible for there to be an agency-specific policy that does differ with the departmentwide policy. My answer to that is, yes, providing it is approved by the head of the Department, at which point it is then Department policy that that separate agency have a different policy than the rest of the Department. I have no problem with that.

Mr. LEVIN. I want to see if both concur in this. The Director of the Agency may establish agency-specific policies which are different from the general policy for the Department with the approval of the Secretary. Those are not artfully perfect words, but that is the concept as I understood it that the Senator from Arizona is proposing. I say to my dear friend from Nebraska, if that is what the Senator is proposing and with your intermediary help, that is fine with me.

Mr. LEVIN. I gave you both titles.

Mr. LEVIN. Senator Kerrey has expressed a desire to speak in support of the amendment. I will briefly yield 2 minutes to myself. Regarding the comments of the Senator from Illinois about both the President and the Secretary relative to the Secretary's actions, the PFIAB, or the Rudman report, as we call it, says the following: We concur with and encourage many of Secretary Richardson's recent initiatives to address the security problem at the Department. And we are heartened by his aggressive approach and command of the issue. He has recognized the organizational dysfunction and cultural vagaries at the DOE and has taken strong, positive steps to try to reverse the legacy of more than 20 years of security mismanagement. Now, the contrast between what the Rudman report says about Secretary Richardson and what the Senator from Illinois says the Rudman report said, relative to Secretary Richardson, is a pretty sharp contrast, indeed. This is what the Rudman panel actually said: We concur with and encourage many of Secretary Richardson's recent initiatives to address the security problems at the Department. And we are heartened by his aggressive approach and command of the issues. He [Secretary Richardson] has recognized the organizational dysfunction and cultural vagaries at the DOE, and he [Secretary Richardson] has taken strong, positive steps to try to reverse the legacy of more than 20 years of security mismanagement. I ask the Senator from Nebraska, the ranking Democrat, the vice chair of the committee, whether he wishes to speak at this time.

Mr. LEVIN. I thank the Chair and reserve the remainder of my time. Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, it is not often an amendment is read in its entirety around here, even a short one. Usually we ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with. I do not know how many times I have used those words on this floor in the last 20 years. But in this case I decided to have this amendment--it is fairly short--read in its entirety because it may sound familiar to some people. These are Senator Rudman's words. This amendment incorporates some very important parts of Senator Rudman's panel's recommendation that are left out of the pending amendment. That is why I wanted the entire amendment read. The sponsors of this amendment have correctly pointed out that Senator Rudman is recommending a semiautonomous agency, and that is the heart of Senator Rudman's proposal. It happens to be a proposal that I support. But the difference between my position and the sponsor's position, relative to Senator Rudman's recommendations, is that their amendment leaves out some very critical recommendations of the Rudman panel relative to the operation of the Department of Energy. My amendment would insert in the pending amendment some very important recommendations of the Rudman panel the pending amendment omits. We have heard a lot relative to the importance of the Rudman panel recommendations. Senator Rudman and his panel performed an extremely important service to this Nation in pointing out the complicated bureaucratic maze that exists at the Department of Energy and pointing out that for 20 years, report after report, recommendation after recommendation to streamline the bureaucracy the Department of Energy have been made, including made to the Congress, without action being taken by the Congress. All of us bear responsibility for that failure. Three administrations and 20 years of Congresses have been told in a number of reports there should be some reorganization done at the Department of Energy Finally, a year and a half ago, President Clinton issued a Presidential directive that reorganizes the Department of Energy. That directive has been mainly implemented, not yet fully apparently but mainly implemented. The Rudman panel goes beyond that Presidential directive but does give credit to President Clinton for being the first President in 20 years to direct the reorganization of the Department of Energy, even though three Presidents have been told there is significant organizational problems, and even though as early as 1990 there was a public statement about espionage being carried out by the People's Republic of China at one of these labs. Secretary Richardson is engaged in significant reorganization of this agency, and the Rudman panel gave credit to Secretary Richardson for beginning the important reorganizational changes. This Congress has taken some steps to reorganize the Department of Energy. The Armed Services Committee, for instance, upon which our Presiding Officer sits with distinction, has acted on our bill, which is now in conference, to carry out some significant reorganization of the Department of Energy. On the House side, the Armed Services Committee did the same thing. The language is different. Parts of their provision differ from ours. But the point is, there are some very important things going on in terms of reorganization in the Department of Energy, as we speak. But the Rudman panel goes beyond that. It would put into law, for instance, things which are in an Executive order. We know how much more important a law is than an Executive order because an Executive order, No. 1, can be changed by the next President but, No. 2, can be too often ignored by the bureaucracy. We had a recent example of that in another agency where an agency just almost totally ignored an Executive order. We want to put into law a significant reorganization, and we want to--at least I do, and I think most of my colleagues want to--put into law a reorganization along the lines of the Rudman panel recommendation. I do not know that there is any disagreement on that, but apparently there is a disagreement when it comes to setting forth not just the provisions of the Rudman panel's recommendations relative to the power of this new semiautonomous agency, but when it comes to setting forth the power of the Secretary of Energy relative to directing and controlling his Department. What is left out in this amendment is also important, according to the Rudman panel. This is not the Senator from Michigan talking; this amendment is the Rudman panel talking. I will go into what these provisions are in just one moment. I emphasize, the security breakdown that has existed for 20 years that was highlighted in the Cox commission report must be corrected. There are a number of steps underway to correct them, but we should act. There have been some pretty important, good-faith discussions going on over the last few days as to how we might be able to come up with a bill which can become law. We can pass a bill, and if the House does not accept the bill because they think it ought to be a freestanding bill and not on an intelligence authorization bill, or because they do not think it ought to be on a Department of Defense authorization bill--and that is their position in conference relative to the defense authorization bill--we can attach language here. But if we do not have a strong, healthy consensus, it seems to me we are in a much weaker position in getting this law actually passed in the House and signed by the President. That should be our goal. If we are serious about trying to tighten up and streamline the Department of Energy, if we are serious about passing a law to do that, then we ought to figure out a way we can come together, incorporate the Rudman panel recommendations, including the ones which are left out in this amendment which I will try to add in a moment, so we can go to the House of Representatives with a healthy consensus vote, a strong vote, rather than a divided vote, and the same message would then be delivered to the President. The Rudman report calls for a semiautonomous Agency for Nuclear Stewardship. I fully support that. That would be an agency which will oversee all nuclear-related matters in the Department of Energy, including defense programs and nuclear nonproliferation. It would also oversee all functions of the national security labs and the weapons production facilities. I strongly support that. It would streamline the new Agency's management structure by abolishing ties between the weapons labs and all DOE regional field and site offices and all contractor intermediaries. It would appoint the Director of the new Agency by the President with Senate confirmation, and it would have effective administration of safeguard security and counterintelligence at all the weapons labs and plants by creating a coherent security counterintelligence structure within the new Agency. In making the recommendation for a semiautonomous agency, the Rudman report cites as models similar agencies within the Department of Defense, such as the National Security Agency, NSA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA, and the National Reconnaissance Office, the NRO. Each of these three agencies is a separately organized agency run by an administrator within the Department of Defense. While the mission of each is different from the other, all three are under the authority, direction, and control of the Secretary of Defense; all three are subject to Department of Defense policies and regulations; and all three are directed by the Secretary and his deputy through an assistant. That is the model Senator Rudman has based his recommendation on-- three agencies in the Department of Defense, separately organized, each having their own staff, but where the Secretary and the Deputy Secretary direct that separately organized agency through an assistant. That is a very important part of that model which is omitted in this bill. So Senator Rudman and his panel, on June 30, sent a ``Memorandum of Clarification'' relative to their report. One of those recommendations in the statement is the following: ``The Secretary is still responsible,'' under their model, ``for developing and promulgating DOE-wide policy on these matters,'' these matters being security, intelligence, and counterintelligence, ``and it makes sense to us,'' that is, the Rudman panel, ``that a Secretary would want advisers on his/her immediate staff to assist in that vein.'' So the first sentence of our amendment says: The Secretary shall be responsible for developing and promulgating all Departmental-wide security, counterintelligence and intelligence policies, and may use his immediate staff to assist him in developing and promulgating such policies. It is verbatim from Senator Rudman's panel's recommendation. Senator Rudman's panel also says: ``. . . The Agency Director,'' that is the new Agency, ``. . . is responsible and held accountable for ensuring complete and faithful implementation of the Secretary's security, counterintelligence and intelligence policies within the new Agency.'' The second sentence of our amendment reads: The Director of the Agency for Nuclear Stewardship is responsible for implementation of the Secretary's security, counterintelligence, and intelligence policies within the New Agency. Again, it is verbatim from the Rudman panel's memorandum of June 30. The Rudman panel also said on that day that ``The Director of the Agency,'' that is, the new Agency ``may establish agency-specific policies so long as they are fully consistent with the departmental policies established by the Secretary.'' The third line in our amendment says: The Director of the Agency may establish agency-specific policies so long as they are fully consistent with the departmental policies established by the Secretary. It is verbatim from the Rudman panel recommendation. I do not think we can have it both ways. The Rudman panel's recommendations are very important. We are not obligated to adopt every one. We are not obligated to adopt any of them. But there are some of us who believe those recommendations are hugely important. As always is the case when you create a new agency within a Department, you have to figure out a balance between the power of the new Agency and the power of the Secretary to run his Department that contains that new Agency. That is a very important balance. We are doing it on the Senate floor. Usually that kind of a complex and rather arcane effort would be made by the Governmental Affairs Committee, but in this case, for many reasons, legitimate reasons, it comes to us in this form, and we must deal with it. But in dealing with these issues, as to that balance, we have guidance. We have guidance from the Rudman panel. The Rudman panel says: Create a semiautonomous agency. It then goes into detail on the functions of that semiautonomous agency and the power both of its director and the Secretary of Energy. It sets them out. It lays this out for us. The amendment before us omits some critically important recommendations of the Rudman panel, the ones I have just read and the ones that are in my amendment. It is that omission which, it seems to me, so flaws, and unnecessarily flaws, may I say, the amendment before us. I do not quite fathom why it is that specific recommendations of the Rudman panel, relative to what the balance and the relationship are, should be omitted when they are important. The sponsors of the amendment will no doubt say that the Secretary reserves the right in their amendment to direct and control the Department, and that is true. But when it comes down to putting any flesh on those bones, when it comes down to saying how the Secretary will do that--that he is able, for instance, to use his staff to promulgate policies, that the agency must comply with the Department's policies that apply departmentwide--when it comes to those things, then we have a problem with this amendment. This amendment actually suggests the opposite is true from what Rudman has suggested when it says that ``The Secretary may not delegate to any Department official the duty to supervise or direct'' but leaves out the critically important power that Rudman would give the Secretary to utilize his staff to assist him in developing and promulgating departmentwide policies. So we correct this omission. The spirit of Rudman is that there be a semiautonomous agency when it comes to spelling out how that agency would function, what the balance of powers and functions would be between the Secretary of the Department, of which this agency is a part, and the new Agency Director. It is at that point that we have the omissions that Rudman recommends and the omissions in this pending amendment which my amendment would fill in. Mr. President, I inquire how much time this Senator has left.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I will be happy to consider a time agreement. My good friend Senator Kyl suggested we try to adopt it. It is my understanding it might have been already adopted last night, so I suggest it would be perhaps an hour evenly divided.

Mr. LEVIN. I am happy to.

Mr. LEVIN. I thank the Senator from New Mexico.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, in the last half-hour, or hour, there have been discussions going on relative to Senator Bingaman's second amendment. One of them has already been accepted, as I understand, in modified form. It is now my understanding that the managers would just as soon proceed to my amendment while they are trying to work out Senator Bingaman's second amendment. That is fine with me.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. LEVIN. No.

Mr. LEVIN. I misheard the Senator. Did he say there were additional speakers on his side?

Mr. LEVIN. That is correct, depending on the actions of the Senate prior to that. It should not take more than perhaps 10, 15 minutes to prepare after we are done with all the amendments.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, this amendment makes it possible for the Secretary of Energy to fully utilize his Deputy Secretary. The Deputy Secretary of Energy, as with the Deputy Secretary of Defense, is the No. 2 person in the Department. The Secretary of Energy simply must be allowed to rely on his deputy to serve in his absence, to help with the running of the Department when he is absent and, indeed, to effectively be his alter ego. To be useful to the Secretary and perform his job, the Deputy Secretary must be involved fully in every facet of the business of the Department. This amendment will allow the Deputy Secretary to carry out that very important function. The bill will now have that change, that the Secretary may not delegate to any departmental official other than the deputy the duty to service or direct the Under Secretary for Nuclear Stewardship. This is a very important change. I thank the managers for their support of this change. I believe it has broad support. I hope it will pass. The organizational chart contained in the Rudman panel report, which graphically displays the panel's recommendation to create a new separately organized Agency for Nuclear Stewardship, includes the Deputy Secretary in the same box as the Secretary. The amendment before the Senate today, however, is silent with respect to the duties and responsibilities of the Deputy Secretary. The absence of any reference to the Deputy Secretary of Energy could be simply an oversight. But given the language in the underlying amendment that prohibits all others in the Department of Energy, except the Secretary, from supervising or directing the new Agency or its staff, I believe the role of the Deputy should be clearly spelled out. Each of the separately organized agencies of the Department of Defense, sited as organizational models by Senators Rudman's panel, relies heavily on the involvement of the Deputy Secretary of Defense. Indeed, the Deputy Secretary of Defense has a full delegation of responsibility from the Secretary of Defense to act for the Secretary. This amendment removes the potential for confusion about the role of the Deputy Secretary of Energy and is consistent with the organizational charts contained in the Rudman panel report that describe the organization of the new Agency for Nuclear Stewardship.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. LEVIN. The draft given to me had that in it, and I read it, but it was stricken in the actual amendment sent to the desk. I thank the Senator for that correction. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I extend my appreciation to the managers, the good Senators, who have worked very hard to adopt this language. This implements the heart of the amendment which I previously offered. I want to read it so that people who are following this debate--it is very short--can understand why this is important. The amendment reads: The Secretary shall be responsible for developing and promulgating Departmental security, counterintelligence and intelligence policies, and may use his immediate staff to assist him in developing and promulgating such policies. With one minute change, that is the same sentence which was previously in my amendment. The next sentence is: The Under Secretary for Nuclear Stewardship is responsible for implementation of all security, counterintelligence and intelligence policies within the Agency for Nuclear Stewardship. I think that is basically the previous language. The one change is really in the third sentence, which is now with this amendment: The Under Secretary for Nuclear Stewardship may establish agency-specific policies unless disapproved by the Secretary. That was the intention of the third sentence in effect. Senator Kyl thought it was an important change and would clarify a point. We accept that. We thank Senator Kyl, as well as our other colleague, Senator Domenici, and others who have worked on this language. This language is fully acceptable to me, because it does indeed carry out the language for the most part in the spirit, in toto, of the previous amendment. I thank our colleagues.

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

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, yesterday, a unanimous consent request was propounded with respect to the Senate's consideration of campaign finance reform legislation. I objected to the request and I want to explain to my colleagues why I did so. There is no more important work for this institution than passing campaign finance reform. Despite our good efforts in 1974, following the debacle of Watergate, to limit the influence of money in our political system, we are currently operating without effective limits. We have a law that sets out reasonable limits at $1,000 for individuals, $5,000 for PACs, and $25,000 to a national party. But those limits are easily evaded by the unlimited contributions of soft money. We have, in effect, no limits today. The 1974 Federal Election Campaign Act has, in effect, been repealed. To return our elections to issues and people and away from money, we must pass campaign finance reform. Since the time agreement is critical to determining how and when we take up campaign finance reform, and perhaps its ultimate success, I wanted to be sure that I understood what the agreement contained. I objected initially on the basis of needing time to review the agreement. Having read the agreement, I do continue my objection to the original unanimous consent proposal, because I believe the agreement is inadequate for the necessary consideration of campaign finance reform. I am well aware of the opponents' desire to filibuster the McCain- Feingold bill, a bill which is supported by a majority of the Members of the Senate. The opponents have every right to do that, and I respect that right. But supporters of campaign finance reform have every right not to back down in the face of a filibuster. The unanimous consent agreement proposed that each of us agree that the McCain-Feingold proposal be withdrawn if we do not get 60 votes on the first try to close off a filibuster. But as long as we have a majority of the Members of the Senate supporting passage of campaign finance reform, we should be able to defeat efforts to withdraw the McCain-Feingold bill from Senate consideration. Opponents can filibuster, but supporters don't have to agree in advance to withdraw in the face of that filibuster. The unanimous consent agreement, however, would require supporters to agree to withdraw if we don't achieve, on the first try, the 60 votes necessary to close off the filibuster. The unanimous consent agreement said that not sooner than the third calendar day of consideration a cloture motion may be filed on the McCain-Feingold bill, and if cloture is not invoked, the bill will be placed back on the calendar. It then said that it will not be in order during the remainder of the first session of the 106th Congress for the Senate to consider issues relevant to campaign reform. This agreement would lock the Senate into relying on the one cloture vote to determine whether the fight for campaign finance reform, this year, lives or dies. I cannot agree with that proposal. If we can't at first get 60 votes to close off the filibuster, I can't agree to putting the McCain- Feingold bill back on the calendar and just calling it quits for the year. The proposed time agreement would have us do that. If it takes an all-out battle to keep campaign finance reform on the front burner of this Congress, I believe we should be prepared to wage such a battle. Opponents say they are prepared to wage such a battle in opposition. Supporters surely feel just as passionately in support of this bill as opponents do in opposition. Another term of the agreement with respect to the consideration of amendments is also unacceptable to me. The proposed agreement says: If an amendment is not tabled, it will be in order to lay aside such amendment for two calendar days. The unusual provision allowing an amendment which the Senate has failed to table to be laid aside for 2 days puts in question whether such amendments will be voted on after they are not tabled prior to the cloture vote. I am afraid this provision would cause more mischief than facilitate serious consideration of key campaign finance issues. I objected--and do object--to the unanimous consent agreement which was proposed yesterday. But I am, of course, willing to work with colleagues to try to address the concerns that I have. Again, I want to emphasize that I am speaking as one Senator who was asked to participate in a unanimous consent agreement. The proponents, the sponsors of the bill, of course, with the leadership, have every right to work out any arrangement they see fit. But to ask unanimous consent from this Senator to agree to proceeding in this form is something to which I objected, and do object, as a Senator. I thank the Chair. I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I thank my good friend from Arizona. I haven't had a chance to read it. I would appreciate a couple more moments to read this UC.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I thank my friend from New Mexico. Senator Rudman has said the following, in addition to the quotation my colleague cited: That the Secretary is still responsible for developing and promulgating DOE-wide policy on these matters. Then he said, and this is in his memorandum of clarification dated June 30, the second paragraph from the bottom: He is still responsible---- Talking about the Secretary---- for promulgating DOE-wide policy on these matters, and it makes sense to us that a Secretary would want advisers on his or her immediate staff to assist in this vein. We understand that is why Secretary Richardson recently created DOE-wide czars to advise him on security and counterintelligence. There is a need for a Secretary who is running a Department to have, as Senator Rudman points out, advisers on his or her immediate staff to assist him in developing and promulgating DOE-wide policy on these matters. I want to take up the suggestion of my friend from New Mexico. It is possible we can achieve both, as the DOD does with DARPA and other separately organized agencies, or what I think the Senator from New Mexico would indicate are semi-autonomous agencies, agencies which are not separate from a Cabinet-level agency; they are not separate from the Department. We are not creating a new department, and I do not think the Senator from New Mexico wants to create a new department. We want this inside a department which is subject to departmental-wide policies and a Secretary who is able to effectuate those policies.

Mr. LEVIN. That is somewhat different than the provision in the Senate bill which established the separate Office of Counterintelligence and Security at the DOE reporting directly to the Secretary. We have to work out whether we intend that to be the same or whether we intend that to be two separate offices of counterintelligence. For instance, the new agency, I say to my good friend, is going to presumably have its own personnel director and its own programs inspector general and its own general counsel, but so is the Department of Energy going to have its own general counsel and its own personnel director and its own inspector general. There will be an office in that separate agency, and there will be an office at the Department. That is not inherently inconsistent. We do similar things with DARPA and with other separately organized agencies. It seems to me, to make sure that we are not creating confusion and lack of accountability, we would want to make that clear in the amendment that we, indeed, are talking about an office at the departmental level, as well as now a separate office with some of these staff functions at this separately organized agency. Again, that is the kind of language which I think is important we attempt to work out.

Mr. LEVIN. Sure.