Carl Levin

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 3438, As Modified

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. LEVIN. The modification has been cleared on this side.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, one other issue, because we are trying to push this bill very quickly, we always appreciate and admire the Senator from Virginia for his forthright statements and knowledge. We think it might be possible as we proceed on at least these amendments that some of the time could be yielded. That would be in everybody's interest, if it is possible.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. If it is $87 million, despite the $450 million which the Secretary of Energy announced, that $87 million is not provided for in this authorization bill.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, we should stay the course. We have to address the threats that we know are the major threats. We are not doing that. The loose nuke threat in this world is the No. 1 threat against us. That is what we all believe. Yet a $450 million program to address those loose nukes is not funded in this budget. There is not a dollar for that program in this budget. We are told now that the Department of Energy will reprogram $450 million. I would like to see that request come in from the Department of Energy. But we do not have that request, either. What we do have, what we do know, is that the major threat we face is the loose nuke threat. That is what the experts at the Department of Energy tell us. We surely have to address the less likely threats. I could not agree with that more. We should address threats that are not as likely. But, my heavens, to put nothing in this budget when we have adopted the Domenici-Feinstein amendment which says we will have this global program--there is no money authorized behind it in this budget. We have adopted the Domenici amendment. Senator Domenici is exactly right. This is the greatest threat we face, loose nukes. Loose nukes globally are the greatest threat we face. What he said is someday we have to put the funds behind it. That someday is now. We have to compare that threat which we all believe is the most certain threat against the less likely threat identified by the CIA, which is a missile attack. Now it has been suggested that maybe we should then totally disband the missile defense we have in Alaska. That is not what this amendment is about. I want to emphasize that because it has been mischaracterized. This does not end missile defense in Alaska. Quite the opposite, it continues the funding for those first 20 missiles. My dear friend from Virginia said last year that test bed is 20 missiles in Alaska. He asked Senator Boxer a few days ago whether this body last year ``authorized moving ahead on 20 test bed sites, 16 in Alaska and the balance in [California].'' And Senator Boxer said: ``Yes.'' That is what we decided last year. It would be a 20-silo test bed site. We do not disturb that in any way. We leave more money in this budget after the $500 million is put into ``loose nukes.'' We leave more money in there for interceptors than has been in any fiscal year budget. Mr. President, $1.2 billion is left in the budget this year after my $500 million subtraction. That is more than was there in 2004, 2003, 2002. Any of those years had less money for interceptors. So the idea that somehow or other we are destroying a missile defense system--when we leave that test bed in Alaska the way it is, we leave the funding for it exactly the way it is, with 20 silos, the way it was stated to be last year, but what we are saying is: Do not add another 10. Do not add another 10 interceptors, not independently tested. We have been through that argument, but they are not tested missiles. The money that goes into those 10 missiles can be used for a much greater threat, not just the ``loose nuke'' threat, but the threats that have been identified by NORAD and by the Northern Command. There are many unfunded needs we have listed from NORAD, including low- altitude threat detection and response technologies. This is another one from the Navy which we fund. Let me read this because it goes right to the USS Cole issue. They have an unfunded program that would procure ``mobile and shore Explosive Ordnance Disposal detachments to fill gap in required capability to detect chemical, biological, and explosive hazards during Improvised Explosive Device/Weapons Mass Destruction and Force Protection responses.'' So the Navy says they have an unfunded program need of $21 million to try to identify explosives at a distance. We all know--surely the chairman of our committee knows--what happened with the USS Cole. If we could have identified those little boats carrying explosives at a distance, we would not have had the damage and loss of life we had on the USS Cole. So we have these real needs we would fund in my amendment. We have to compare that to the extra 10 interceptors, Nos. 21 through 30, that do not touch that 20-silo test bed in Alaska. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a number of documents be printed in the Record. One would be the NORAD statement relative to their shortfalls, some of which are funded in my amendment. Second would be two editorials, one from the Washington Post and one from the Los Angeles Times.

Mr. LEVIN. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. I ask that so the Senator from Iowa can proceed with the amendment.

Mr. LEVIN. It is also my understanding that the CPA inspector general has about 40 auditors and investigators in Iraq--that the State Department apparently does not have plans to establish an inspector general's office of any size in Iraq. Is that understanding correct as far as the Senator knows?

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, we have provided in the supplemental bill which was enacted last year $18 billion in a special fund for the reconstruction of Iraq, and created an inspector general, giving that inspector general responsibility for auditing the expenditure of these funds. We appropriated money for that inspector general's activities. It seems to me the Senator from Wisconsin, as he so frequently does, put his finger on a very important accountability issue to make sure the taxpayers' funds are properly spent. This is a huge expenditure of American taxpayers' funds. We have to find a way--and I think the Senator from Wisconsin has identified the path--that we can continue this function in a way to protect the taxpayers' funds. I congratulate the Senator for this amendment, and I ask to be added as a cosponsor.

Mr. LEVIN. I have no objection to the amendment being laid aside for the purpose the chairman has indicated. That is perfectly fine.

Mr. LEVIN. The amendment does relate to homeland security needs to fissile material security and to missile defense all in one amendment. I am happy to begin the debate tonight, but I do not want to complete the debate tonight given the fact the vote is tomorrow.

Mr. LEVIN. To launch. There is no decision currently made.

Mr. LEVIN. Depending on how many people are on the other side of the issue, it could be that long.

Mr. LEVIN. In addition, I believe one of the sponsors of the amendment may be on his way here and perhaps could use the few minutes that have been allocated.

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

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 ask unanimous consent the Senator from Louisiana be recognized to call up her amendment, that she be recognized for 5 minutes, and then her amendment be laid aside and I be recognized to offer an amendment.

Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, I will reserve most of my comments until tomorrow as well because I understand under the unanimous consent agreement we have just adopted there will be an hour equally divided. Madam President, this amendment will take $515 million of the $1.7 billion which is provided in this bill for interceptors, $515 million of the $3.2 billion which is provided in this bill for national missile defense, take that $515 million and put it into some of the most critically needed requirements that we have in this country, which is to address the threat of terrorism against this country. Last week, my dear friend, the chairman, pointed out in his debate on the Boxer amendment that this Congress, in a conference report last year, approved 20 ground-based interceptors, and we did that for a 20- test-bed site. In other words, what the chairman pointed out was accurate. Last year we decided there would be a test bed in Alaska and there would be 20 interceptors in that test bed. Lo and behold, the budget request comes in this year for 40 interceptors, in a 40-silo test bed. Ten of those were removed in the committee. The issue we have to face as a Senate is whether we want to add missiles 21 through 30 at the cost of $515 million--it was not identified last year for the test bed, not having been operationally tested, not needed for testing--or whether we are going to take that $515 million and address this money to desperately needed measures to go after the fissile material which is throughout this world and to try to secure it; to try to come up with technologies which can address the threat of explosive devices at a distance. We cannot identify explosive devices at a distance. So we face car bombers and we face other kinds of destruction such as the USS Cole because we cannot identify explosive devices from a distance. Most of our ports are not yet secure. Most of the containers coming into this country are still not being identified, still not being looked at to see whether there may be material in there, either biological, chemical, or nuclear material. We still have massive insecurities in this country relative to the real, immediate threats that we face. We have to take some resources. It seems to me the logical place to take it is where we have not had operational testing of missiles that are part of a missile defense system, which are now being produced at much higher than initial low-rate production, despite a law which says you may not go beyond initial low-rate production into full-rate production without operational testing. That is the law. Yet what we have said is, so far we are going to take this $515 million, and we are going to put this in missiles 21 through 30. I want to emphasize to my friends, the debate over the first 20 missiles in that test bed is over in this Senate for now. The Boxer amendment was defeated. So there are going to be 20 missiles put into 20 silos. They are going to be deployed. They are going to be produced despite the fact that we have not had independent testing, operational testing, real world testing of these missiles. That debate took place on this floor last week. That is not the subject of my amendment. My amendment has nothing to do with missiles 1 through 20. It has nothing to do with the 20-silo test bed in Alaska. It has everything to do with whether we go beyond that 20-silo test bed to missiles 21 through 30, decide to produce those missiles despite the fact that we have not had independent operational testing. My amendment would say no. No. We know what the real, most immediate threats are to this country. There may be a North Korean missile threat. For folks who believe that cannot be deterred and whether we can produce a missile that can knock down a North Korean missile, it is worth doing, fine. If that is the belief of a majority of this body, fine. North Korea cannot be deterred and we can produce missiles which can knock down a North Korean missile, so be it, if that is the decision of this body. That is not my amendment. My amendment says hold off producing 21 through 30. Don't commit in this bill to produce 10 more missiles at a cost of $515 million. And this is just for the advanced procurement. Don't commit to that when you have not had the operational testing, when last year we said we were going to have a 20-silo test bed, when we have such major unmet needs in terms of the real, immediate, short- term threats against this country. We had the CIA, not too long ago, that made an assessment as to what the greatest threats were against this country. I want to read the CIA assessment as to where those greatest threats were. In December 2001 . . . the CIA released an unclassified document entitled ``Foreign Missile Developments and the Ballistic Missile Threat Through 2005.'' This is what it said: The Intelligence Community judges that U.S. territory is more likely to be attacked with WMD using nonmissile means, primarily because such means: are less expensive than developing and producing ICBMs; can be covertly developed and deployed; the source of the weapon could be masked in an attempt to evade retaliation; probably would be more reliable than ICBMs that have not completed rigorous testing and validation programs; probably would be much more accurate than emerging ICBMs over the next 15 years; probably would be more effective for disseminating biological warfare agents than a ballistic missile; [and] would avoid missile defenses. Those are the kinds of choices we should face as a Senate. We have, in the eyes of many, a potential North Korean threat. We have a test bed which is going to proceed. Whether a majority of us decided we are going to proceed without that independent operational testing, so be it. That is a done deal. That is going to happen. Now the question is, Do we go into the next 10 missiles, produced in this budget, paid for in the long leap for the next 10--21 through 30-- at a cost of $515 million despite the assessment of the CIA that the greatest threat we face is weapons of mass destruction using nonmissile means and all the reasons for which that is true which they laid out? Less expensive, covertly developed unlike missiles, source of the weapon can be masked in order to evade retaliation. When we get hit by a terrorist, we can't always identify where that terrorist comes from or whether there was a state actor behind it. When a missile is fired at us, we know from where that missile comes. Any state that sends a missile our way knows it it is going to be destroyed in return. That is not true with a terrorist attack. According to the CIA, nonmissile means are more effective for disseminating biological warfare agents than a ballistic missile and would avoid missile defense. Despite the fact there is much greater likelihood we would be attacked with nonmissile means, here is the situation we are in right now. According to the head of the U.N.'s International Maritime Organization, fewer than 6 percent of the world's seaports and ships meet rules aimed at preventing terrorism attacks. Six percent of the world's seaports and ships now meet the rules that have been adopted to prevent terrorist attacks. We have millions of cargo containers that enter this country's ports uninspected. I have one of the biggest ports in my home State of Michigan, by the way. But we have ports on the coast. We have ports on the Great Lakes with millions of containers coming in uninspected. We cannot identify suicide bomber strikes because we cannot identify explosives at a distance. We have to put money into technology in order to do that. These are the most current, the most imminent, the most immediate, the most likely ways this Nation is going to be attacked. We have to put resources there. My amendment would transfer some of those extra 10 missiles that were not projected last year. Last year we were told we had a test bed with 20 silos. This year we are asking for these 10--originally 20--extra missiles to be produced. We simply have greater priorities and greater threats. Let me spend a couple more minutes tonight, and I will expand on this in the morning. Senator Feinstein, Senator Domenici, and others proposed that we develop at the DOE an enhanced nuclear security program to accelerate the pace of securing and eliminating nuclear weapons and materials all over the world. This is what the Secretary of Energy, Secretary Abraham, announced at the International Atomic Energy Agency at the end of May. The Secretary of Energy said the Department of Energy would begin such a new program called the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, and that this initiative would ensure that nuclear and radiological material and equipment did not ``fall into the hands of those with evil intentions.'' How would we do that? In his words, we would secure, relocate, and dispose of these materials and equipment. This is an expansion of the idea of Nunn-Lugar. But this is based on the belief, which has been stated by so many outside independent groups, that fissile material in the hands of terrorists would be the greatest threat that this Nation could face. Senator Abraham in making this announcement said, ``It has become clear that an even more comprehensive and urgently focused effort is needed to respond to emergency and evolving threats,'' and that the United States plans to devote $450 million to this effort. We have an announcement by the Secretary of Energy that we are going to have an effort aimed at reducing the greatest single threat in the eyes of most people to this Nation and to others, which is the fissile material would fall into the hands of terrorists to produce either a nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb. That is the greatest single threat--$450 million the Secretary of Energy says the United States is going to devote to this effort. Yet there is nothing in this budget, no funding for this President. This is perhaps the greatest of all the terrorist threats. It is real. The fissile material is out there. Yet this new initiative announced by the administration has no funding. Instead, we have funding for missiles--21 through 30--for a test bed that was only supposed to have 21 missiles to begin with, and the additional 10 missiles are not tested by an independent testing agency. We are not even sure they would work against a threat which may or may not occur. North Korea has never tested a missile which could reach the United States. The last test they had was 6 years ago. So we have to weigh the threat. We have to make a decision as a Senate as to whether we are going to put some resources into addressing the most real threats, the most real terrorist threats, or whether we are going to put money into advanced procurement for the next 10 missiles--missiles 21 through 30--for a 20-bed test site. That is the kind of decision we are forced to make. We have resources that have to be allocated. We can't just say, well, we are going to face a missile threat some day, so we are going to need an extra 10 missiles even though they haven't been independently tested. So we are going to put $515 million into that advanced procurement when we have ports that are facing huge numbers of containers which have not been inspected, and when we have fissile material around the world which has not been secured. That is the choice which this amendment will offer to the Senate tomorrow. I reserve the remainder of my argument for the morning. I ask that the amendment which I filed at the desk, No. 3338, be called up. I failed to do that when I started. I also ask unanimous consent that Senators Jack Reed, Landrieu, and Feingold be added as cosponsors to that amendment.

Mr. LEVIN. I think it would be easier to not modify it. That is not my plan at the moment. I don't think it will be in the morning. But I would not even seek to modify it in a way which changes its character, nor would I ask for the right to do so.

Mr. LEVIN. I have no problem with laying that aside. I have one other additional question so that our record can be clear. Perhaps this has already been stated. As I understand it, under the current state of the law, the situation that the State Department has determined is that when the CPA goes out of existence on the 30th, the inspector general goes out of existence with them. As I understand it, the State Department would like to take the $65 million in appropriated funds remaining in the CPA inspector general's account and apply it to some other purpose in that kind of oversight. Is that the understanding of the Senator?

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I wonder if I might ask the Senator from Wisconsin a question before the amendment is laid aside. As I understand it, under the Senator's amendment, the CPA's inspector general which now exists will go out of existence on June 30 without the kind of careful oversight which the inspector general provides unless language is provided which continues that kind of careful oversight, which is the purpose of the Senator's amendment. Is that my understanding?

Mr. LEVIN. If the Senator from Arizona will yield for one inquiry, I have to leave the floor for a couple of moments. Is it the Senator's understanding that after Senator Kyl has completed there are no more speakers? After Senator Kyl has completed this statement, there are no more speakers?