Carl Levin

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, nearly 100,000 children and teenagers have been killed by firearms since 1979. This figure underscores the inadequacy of Congress' efforts to address the issue of gun violence over this period and the continuing need for common sense gun safety legislation. An analysis of firearm violence data by the Children's Defense Fund found that guns kill more children between the ages of 10 and 19 than any other cause except car accidents. In 2002, the most recent data available, guns killed 2,867 children under 19 years old. Tragically, that means an average of nearly 8 children are killed by guns each day. Additionally, the CDF estimates that at least four times as many children are injured in non-fatal shootings. The number of firearms deaths among American children is greater than any other nation in the world. In fact, the Children's Defense Fund states in its 2005 annual report that the rate of deaths among children under 15 years old is higher in the United States than in 25 other industrialized nations combined. While the gun violence epidemic in this country cannot simply be legislated away, Congress must do more to address the problem. The Children's Defense Fund makes a number of recommendations to protect children from gun violence. Among other things, the CDF suggests removing guns from homes, providing nonviolent conflict resolution courses for all students, and creating positive community activities for children to reduce the influence of gangs and drugs on children and teenagers. Congress can take an active role in these efforts by taking up and passing common sense gun safety legislation, supporting federal funding for law enforcement and community programs, and focusing the media and public attention on the causes and consequences of gun violence. During recent sessions of Congress, very little has been done to reduce the prevalence of gun violence. In 2004, inaction by President Bush and the Republican leadership in Congress led to the expiration of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban. In 2005, Congress passed, and the President signed, National Rifle Association-sponsored legislation that provided blanket immunity from liability to reckless and negligent gun dealers and manufacturers. While doing so, Congress repeatedly cut Federal funding for proven local law enforcement programs and failed to close the gun show loophole. As we begin the second session of the 109th Congress, I am hopeful greater attention will be paid to finding solutions to the gun violence problems that plague our communities. We owe it to the thousands of families who have already been impacted by firearms tragedies to help prevent such things from happening to others.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. I thank the Chair.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I don't plan to, and I want to make sure no one needs a rollcall vote--I do not--on the authorization bill. I want to doublecheck with a few people on this side.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: Has the point of order been be raised against any provision that would be left in this bill?

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, more than 50 years ago, Justice Robert Jackson said: With all its defects, delays and inconveniences, men have discovered no technique for long preserving free government except that the Executive be under the law, and that the law be made by parliamentary deliberations. I am deeply troubled by recent revelations that the President of the United States has apparently personally authorized spying on the private phone conversations of Americans without court approval, as is required by law. The President's decision to ignore the law Congress wrote and bypass the special court we created raises profound concerns that deserve our immediate attention. Yesterday, I joined several of my colleagues in requesting a joint inquiry into the President's actions by the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees. Checks and balances are the bedrock of our system of government. In 1978, when Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to permit the Government to seek court orders to tap the phones of people in the United States, Congress put in the law a check--the FISA Court-- on the executive branch's authority. Since 1979 the FISA Court has approved nearly 19,000 applications for FISA wiretaps. The Court has rejected only a handful. Last year, at a speech in Buffalo, NY, the President explicitly cited the need for a court order as a reason why Americans should have confidence that their civil liberties are being protected. He said: Any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires--a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand . . . constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution. But now the President acknowledges that 4 years ago, he authorized wiretaps on Americans without court review. Now he asserts that he has the authority--without court approval--to order the wiretaps himself and we now know that the Government was conducting warrantless wiretaps when the President made the statement in Buffalo. If the court isn't consulted, where is the check on executive power? The President has said that he consults with executive branch lawyers and has briefed Congressional leaders about the domestic spying program. But to suggest that consulting with executive branch lawyers is a check on Executive Branch authority demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of checks and balances. And notifying a few members of Congress--if that is in fact what the administration did--is not the check provided by law. That check is the court. In the conference report that accompanied the FISA law, Congress made the Supreme Court the only body that could authorize electronic surveillance by the executive branch not explicitly authorized by the FISA law. The conference report said: The conferees agree that the establishment by this act of exclusive means by which the President may conduct electronic surveillance does not foreclose a different decision by the Supreme Court . . . Executive Order 12333, issued by President Reagan in 1981, recognizes FISA as the governing law for foreign intelligence wiretaps. It provides that: Electronic surveillance, as defined in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, shall be conducted in accordance with that Act, as well as this Order. And, under FISA itself, a person is actually guilty of a crime if he engages in electronic surveillance except as authorized by statute. A person is guilty of an offense if he intentionally--(1) engages in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute. The President has not provided any legal opinion that supports his claim of authority. On Monday, the President said that the targets of the spying are ``those that are known al Qaeda ties and/or affiliates.'' But the FISA law says that wiretap orders may be issued by the court if there is probable cause to believe that the target of the wiretap is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power. If the targets of the spying have known al Qaeda ties, why didn't he get a FISA court order? The President has also tried to justify the warrantless spying by saying ``Sometimes we have to move very, very quickly.'' That is true. In some cases we do have to move quickly. But the FISA law addresses such occasions. It explicitly allows the Attorney General, to issue emergency wiretap orders without first obtaining court approval. His wiretap application need only be filed with the FISA court within 72 hours after surveillance is authorized. The President claims that he has authority under the Constitution to authorize wiretaps without court approval as required by law. Yet he refuses to provide any legal opinions justifying that view. The Attorney General is quoted in the Washington Post as saying ``This is not a backdoor approach . . . We believe Congress has authorized this kind of surveillance'' and he points to the Authorization for Use of Military Force passed by Congress in September 2001 as a source of Congressional authorization. That Resolution states: That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons. The assertion that ``necessary and appropriate force'' includes the authority to wiretap American citizens in the United States, is, on its face, without merit. And again, the President has not provided any legal opinion that would support that interpretation. The Attorney General undermined his own statement that the Congress authorized warrantless wiretaps by telling the Post that the President had contemplated asking Congress to pass legislation granting him that authority but decided against it because it ``would be difficult, if not impossible'' to pass. Taken together, the two statements of the Attorney General make no sense. He asserts both that Congress authorized the wiretapping and that it never would. The Attorney General is trying to have it both ways. We need some straight answers. So, why wasn't the FISA law followed? Just this morning, the Washington Post reported that General Michael Hayden the head of the National Security Agency--the agency the President has charged with carrying out the spying--suggested that getting retroactive court approval is inefficient because it ``involves marshaling arguments'' and ``looping paperwork around.'' I would remind General Hayden--and the President for that matter--of something else Justice Jackson said. He said: The doctrine of the separation of powers was adopted by the Convention of 1787, not to promote efficiency but to preclude the exercise of arbitrary power. Just as troubling as General Hayden's reason for bypassing FISA is the Post's report that the decision to tap a phone without a warrant ``requires only the approval of a shift supervisor.'' That is outrageous. We don't let shift supervisors at the airport decide to stop screening passengers for explosives. And we shouldn't let shift supervisors at the NSA decide whether to abide by the law or not. The President says that this is a different era and a different type of war. And he is right. But this is the same country, with the same Constitution, and the same system of checks and balances that have served us so well for more than 200 years. And even Presidents are not above the law.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I urge passage by unanimous consent of the 2005 NASA Authorization Act and managers' package that has been agreed to by conferees from the House and Senate. I express my thanks for the work that my fellow conferees, the committees, subcommittees, and our staffs have done on this bill. I am confident that it will help Administrator Griffin to lead NASA to accomplish its many missions. America is a nation of explorers. NASA explores the frontiers of aviation by atmospheric flight; the frontiers of space by going where others have never been; and the frontiers of science by conducting scientific endeavors that broaden our understanding of life, our home planet, and the heavens. NASA has not been authorized by Congress for some time. In fact, the last two times NASA was authorized was 1993 and 2000. This is the first authorization of NASA in 6 years. NASA must be held accountable to the Congress through the oversight of the agency. With an authorization bill passed only once every 5 to 7 years, the role has defaulted to the Appropriations Committee, which has many other items on its plate. Now with this NASA authorization legislation, hopefully there will be a healthier and more meaningful communication between the agency and the Congress. The NASA Authorization Act of 2005 will help the Congress to do a better job of performing oversight of NASA. The act is a 3-year bill, authorizing NASA from 2006 through 2008. Because appropriators have already funded NASA for fiscal year 2006 the authorizing conferees receded to the appropriations bill for that fiscal year. The bill authorizes $17.932 billion for fiscal year 2007 and $18.686 billion for fiscal year 2008, and provides more funding than the President's budget projections. Like many of our colleagues, Senator Hutchison and I believe that recent NASA budget requests have been below the levels required for the agency to perform its various missions effectively. That was made apparent recently when Administrator Griffin testified at a committee hearing before the U.S. House of Representatives, that the space shuttle program will have a $3 billion plus shortfall over the next 5 years. Dr. Griffin's concerns have been echoed by a letter recently provided by several Members of the House to the White House calling for the space shuttle program to be fully funded. This legislation authorizes NASA to return humans to the Moon, to explore it, and to maintain a human presence on the Moon. Consistent with the President's vision, it also requires using what we learn and develop on the Moon as a stepping-stone to future exploration of Mars. To carry out these missions, this act requires NASA to develop an implementation plan for the transition from shuttle to crew exploration vehicle, CEV. The plan will help NASA to make a smooth transition from retirement of the space shuttle orbiters to the replacement spacecraft systems. The implementation plan will help make sure that we can keep the skills and the focus that are needed to assure that each space shuttle flight is safe through retirement of the orbiters, and to retain those personnel needed for the CEV and heavy lift cargo spacecraft. The bill should be helpful for reducing if not eliminating a gap in America's ability to put humans in Earth orbit. The act also directs NASA to plan for and consider a Hubble servicing mission after the second space shuttle return to flight mission has been completed. This NASA authorization bill calls for utilization of the international space station for basic science as well as exploration science. It is important that we reap the benefits of our multibillion dollar investment in the space station. This act ensures that NASA will maintain a focus on the importance of basic science. This legislation directs the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel to monitor and measure NASA's improvements to their safety culture, including employees' fear of reprisals for voicing concerns about safety. The bill encourages NASA to more effectively utilize lessons learned and best practices, and to implement cost controls that are more effective for making better use of our taxpayers' money. This authorization bill addresses NASA aeronautics and America's pre- eminence in aviation, calling for the President of the United States to pursue a national policy for aeronautics. The Europeans have stated their intent to dominate the airplane market by 2020. It is not in our national interest to let that occur. The bill includes a limitation on reprogramming funds from space operations, includes the space shuttle and international space station, to exploration systems, and vice versa. This limitation will ensure that no more than 10 percent of shuttle and station funds can be transferred into the exploration systems program to be used for a shortfall in an exploration-related development program. However, it will not limit the exploration systems and space shuttle programs from utilizing the same personnel, equipment, and contract vehicles to continue to safely operate the shuttle while developing the shuttle- derived crew exploration vehicle. This act gives America the opportunity for implementing the vision for space exploration; renewing our commitment to U.S. civil aviation and NASA aeronautics research; conducting important science activities at NASA; and assuring that America has continuous human access to space. By passing this legislation, we will continue to strengthen our economy and inspire the next generation of scientists, engineers, and explorers.

Mr. LEVIN

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

Mr. LEVIN. I am pleased that the conference report contains the full text of the McCain amendment on torture, without change. This language firmly establishes in law that the United States will not subject any individual in our custody, regardless of nationality or physical location, to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. The amendment provides a single standard--for ``cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment''--without regard to what agency holds a detainee, what the nationality of the detainee is, or where the detainee is held. It has never been my understanding that the McCain amendment would, by itself, create a private right of action. I do not believe that the amendment was intended either to create such a private right of action, or to eliminate--or undercut any private right of action such as a claim under the Alien Tort Statute--that is otherwise available to an alien detainee. Rather, the McCain amendment would establish a legal standard applicable to any criminal prosecution or any private right of action that is otherwise available under law. That would not be changed in any way by the affirmative defense added in the new section.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I congratulate Senator Warner. Without his leadership we would not be here. We had a record number of amendments which we had to deal with in a record short period of time. He showed incredible tenacity and patience and wisdom, as he always does in bipartisanship. I commend him and particularly our staffs. Mr. President, I thank our leadership as well for their staying with us on this one. There was a time earlier this year when we didn't think we were going to get an authorization bill, and except for the efforts of our leaders we would not be here either. I want to particularly thank them.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my good friend and colleague, Senator Warner, the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, in urging the adoption of the conference report on H.R. 1815, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006. Getting this conference report to the Senate required the labors of Hercules, the patience of Job and the magic of Merlin. We would not have been able to complete conference on this important bill--made so very urgent by the fact that we are nation at war--without the tireless efforts of Senator Warner. First, a word on the extraordinary events of the last few days. On the Senate side, every one of our conferees--including all 11 Democrats on the Armed Services Committee--signed the conference report. Each of these Senators signed on the basis of the text of the conference report that was agreed to between the Senate and House conferees. As is our usual practice, we delivered our Senate signature sheets to the House on Friday afternoon, with the understanding that the conference report would be filed first in the House and acted upon first by that body. The Senate stood ready to take up the conference report as soon as it came over from the House and to pass it after 1 hour of debate. Unfortunately, the conference report was not filed on either Friday or Saturday, because the House Republican leadership was considering adding an extraneous bill to the conference report. This bill was not a part of our conference, is not in the jurisdiction of our committee, and was never considered by any of the conferees. The bill was not a part of the conference report that was agreed to by our conferees on either side of the aisle. Senator Warner and I strongly objected to a procedure so totally destructive of bedrock legislative process. When we learned that such an attempt might be made, we joined together and retrieved the Senate signature sheets from the House. Only after we were assured on Sunday afternoon that the conference report would be voted on in the House of Representatives as agreed, with no effort to insert additional material, did we return the Senate signature sheets to the House. I will ask unanimous consent that a copy of the cover letter that we sent to the House be inserted in the Record. I would also make reference to Senator Warner's remarks in the Record on this subject last Friday, and my remarks last Saturday. Even before the events of the last weekend, the Armed Services Committee faced obstacles and hurdles in completing this bill that we have never faced before. For example: It took us over 2 months from the time we reported the bill to the Senate on May 15 to the time debate initially began on July 20. Then, after only 5 days of debate, our bill was pulled down by the majority leader on July 26 when the Senate failed to invoke cloture on the bill. We had to wait over 3 months and negotiate a very complicated unanimous consent agreement which limited the number of amendments before we were able to resume debate on the bill on November 4. We debated the bill for an additional 7 days and finally passed it by a unanimous 98 to 0 vote on November 15, but not before disposing of a total of 261 amendments--more amendments ever considered to any Defense authorization bill since Congress passed the first annual Defense authorization bill back in 1961. As far as completing conference this session, there were a lot of people who doubted it could be done because of the sheer size and complexity of this legislation, leaving aside some of its very contentious issues. Over the past 10 years, we have averaged a total of 70 days in conference with the House on this massive bill. Last year alone, we were in conference with the House for a total of 85 days. We completed this conference in under 1 month--29 days, to be exact. We compromised on a lot of issues, but we didn't compromise the quality of this legislation just for the sake of getting it done quickly. In short, we did it right and we are very proud of that. This year, we have produced a true holiday gift for our troops and our Nation. This conference report contains provisions that provide well-deserved support for our military personnel and their families. In particular, the conference report will: Increase basic pay by 3.1 percent, a half percent higher than inflation; Increase the death gratuity for all active duty deaths from $12,400 to $100,000, retroactive to the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom; Authorize a new special pay of $430 a month during hospitalization for service members while rehabilitating from an injury or disease incurred in a combat zone; Authorize a new leave of up to 21 days when adopting a child; Provide $30 million in impact aid to local school districts, including a new $10 million authorization for schools that have a large increase or decrease in students due to rebasing, activation of new military units, or base realignment and closure; Increase funding for military child-care services by $50 million, and for family assistance services by $10 million; and Create a mental health task force to help military members and families deal with an increasing number of mental health issues. The bill also contains several provisions especially designed to benefit our National Guard and Reserve personnel and their families: Every member of the Selected Reserve will have access to government- subsidized health care under the military TRICARE Standard medical program for themselves and their families. Tier 1 is the TRICARE Reserve Select program that we authorized last year. National Guard and Reserve personnel who are mobilized can use this benefit for a year for each period of mobilized service, as long as they remain in the Selected Reserve. The Government pays 72 percent of their health care premium--they pay only 28 percent. Tier II includes members of the Selected Reserve who do not have access to health insurance through their civilian employment. The Government pays 50 percent of their premium; and Tier III includes members of the Selected Reserve who have access to health insurance through their employer but choose TRICARE. The Government pays 15 percent of their premium, they pay the remaining 85 percent. National Guard and Reserve members who suffer an income loss when mobilized will be paid an income replacement payment after 18 months of active duty, upon completion of 24 months of active duty in a 5-year period, or when mobilized within 180 days of an earlier mobilization. Reservists who are ordered to active duty for more than 30 days will receive a full housing allowance rather than the current 140 days. In the bill we authorize the following end strengths for our active- duty forces: Army--512,400, an increase of 10,000 soldiers from last year's authorized end strength; Navy--352,700, 13,200 less than last year, in accordance with the Department's request; Marine Corps-- 179,000, an increase of 1,000 Marines; and Air Force--357,400, 2,300 less than last year's authorization, again in accordance with the Department's request. We are very concerned about the Army's ability to recruit enough enlistees to make the end strength that we authorized. This bill gives the Army new tools to help it meet its recruiting goals: A new bonus of up to $1000 for soldiers who refer a successful recruit to the Army; New authority to experiment with innovative recruiting incentives; Authorization for matching contributions to the Thrift Savings Plan during a service member's initial enlistment; and An increased maximum enlistment bonus of up to $40,000. This bill does not include everything that I fought for. For example, I am very disappointed that we were not able to eliminate the requirement that survivor benefit plan annuity payments be reduced by the amount of dependency and idemnity compensation received from the Veterans' Administration. I am also disappointed that we were not able to immediately repeal the 10-year phase-in of the concurrent receipt of military retired pay and VA disability compensation for military retirees with less than a 100 percent disability who are considered ``totally disabled'' because their disability renders them unemployable. Before I comment further on a number of other issues in the conference report relating to support for our men and women in uniform, weapons systems and nonproliferation programs, I want to comment on provisions relating to the treatment of detainees and the sense of the Congress on United States policy on Iraq. I am pleased that the conference report contains the full text of the McCain amendment on torture, without change. This language firmly establishes in law that the United States will not subject any individual in our custody, regardless of nationality or physical location, to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. The amendment provides a single standard--``cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment''--without regard to what agency holds a detainee, what the nationality of the detainee is, or where the detainee is held. With the enactment of this amendment, the United States will put itself on record as rejecting any effort to claim that these words have one meaning as they apply to the Department of Defense and another meaning as they apply to the CIA; one meaning as they apply to Americans and another meaning as they apply to our enemies; or one meaning as they apply in the United States and another meaning as they apply elsewhere in the world. The McCain amendment is not only an important statement of law, it is a reaffirmation of one of the core values of our system of government and a restatement of who we are as Americans. I would not have signed or supported any conference report that did not include these provisions. Despite repeated efforts by administration officials and their allies in the House of Representatives to amend this language, the conference report does not allow the President to authorize actions that violate the standards in the McCain amendment, or to immunize individuals who engage in such actions from either criminal prosecution or civil suit. Despite repeated efforts by administration officials and their allies in the House, the conference report does not authorize the U.S. government to indemnify individuals who are found to be liable for violating the standards in the McCain amendment, and it does not make reckless or wanton behavior a prerequisite to such liability. The conference report would add a new section establishing a defense in any legal action against a person who engages in specific operational detention and interrogation practices that were officially authorized at the time that they were conducted, if the defendant did not know that the practices were unlawful and a person of ordinary sense and understanding would not have known that they were unlawful. This is not a new defense: it is virtually identical to the defense already available under the Manual for Courts-Martial for military members who act in reliance upon lawful orders. It has never been my understanding that the McCain amendment would, by itself, create a private right of action. I do not believe that the amendment was intended either to create such a private right of action, or to eliminate or undercut any private right of action--such as a claim under the alien tort satute--that is otherwise available to an alien detainee. Rather, the McCain amendment would establish a legal standard applicable to any criminal prosecution or a private right of action that is otherwise available under law. That would not be changed in any way by the affirmative defense added in the new section. Nor would the McCain amendment be undermined in any way by any of the other detainee provisions in the conference report. I opposed the initial amendment addressing the legal rights of Department of Defense detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba when Senator Graham offered it on the Senate floor, because it would have stripped federal courts of jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus challenges-- including pending cases--brought by Guantanamo detainees. Unfortunately, the Senate approved that amendment by a 49-to-42 vote. Following the Senate vote, I worked with Senator Graham to build back protection into his amendment. We did so in three ways: First, the jurisdiction-stripping provision in the initial Graham amendment would have applied retroactively to all pending cases in Federal court--stripping the Federal courts of jurisdiction to consider pending cases, including the Hamdan case now pending in the Supreme Court. The revised amendment adopted by the Senate--the so-called Graham-Levin-Kyl amendment--does not apply to or alter any habeas case pending in the courts at the time of enactment. Under the Supreme Court's ruling in Lindh v. Murphy, 521 U.S. 320, the fact that Congress has chosen not to apply the habeas-stripping provision to pending cases means that the courts retain jurisdiction to consider these appeals. Again, the Senate voted affirmatively to remove language from the original Graham amendment that would have applied this provision to pending cases. The conference report retains the same effective date as the Senate bill, thereby adopting the Senate position that this provision will not strip the courts of jurisdiction in pending cases. Let me be specific. The original Graham amendment approved by the Senate contained language stating that the habeas-stripping provision ``shall apply to any application or other action that is pending on or after the date of the enactment of this Act.'' We objected to this language and it was not included in the Senate passed bill. An early draft of the Graham-Levin-Kyl amendment contained language stating that the habeas-stripping provision ``shall apply to any application or other action that is pending on or after the date of the enactment of this Act, except that the Supreme Court of the United States shall have jurisdiction to determine the lawfulness of the removal, pursuant to such amendment, of its jurisdiction to hear any case in which certiorari has been granted as of such date.'' We objected to this language and it was not included in the Senate-passed bill. A House proposal during the conference contained language stating that the habeas-stripping provision ``shall apply to any application or other action that is pending on or after the date of enactment of this Act.'' We objected to this language and it was not included in the conference report. Rather, the conference report states that the provision ``shall take effect on the date of the enactment of this Act.'' These words have their ordinary meaning--that the provision is prospective in its application, and does not apply to pending cases. By taking this position, we preserve comity between the judicial and legislative branches and avoid repeating the unfortunate precedent in Ex parte McCardle, in which Congress intervened to strip the Supreme Court of jurisdiction over a case which was pending before that Court. Second, the initial Graham amendment would have provided for direct judicial review only of status determinations by Combat Status Review Tribunals, CSRTs. By contrast, the revised Graham-Levin-Kyl amendment adopted by the Senate provided for direct judicial review of both status determinations by CSRTs and convictions by military commissions. The amendment does not affirmatively authorize either CSRTs or military commissions--instead, it establishes a judicial procedure for determining the constitutionality of such processes. Again, this improvement is preserved in the conference report, which retains the Senate language authorizing direct review of both status determinations by CSRTs and convictions by military commissions. Third, the initial Graham amendment would have provided only for review of whether a tribunal complied with the Department's own standards and procedures. By contrast, the revised amendment adopted by the Senate would authorize courts to determine whether the standards and procedures used by CSRTs and military commissions are consistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States. This language has been revised in conference only to state what the intent of the amendment already was--that it was not intended to grant to an alien detainee any rights under the Constitution and laws of the United States that the detainee does not already have. Otherwise, the improved language remains intact in the conference report: The courts would be expressly authorized to determine whether the standards and procedures used in a status determination or the trial of an alien detainee at the Guantanamo are consistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States, as they apply to that detainee. We expect that final decisions in both the CSRT process and under the military order for trials will be reached in an expeditious manner to ensure judicial review within a reasonable period of time. The statement of managers makes this point expressly with regard to CSRT determinations, because the amendment requires that CSRT procedures be submitted to Congress. The statement of managers does not make this point with regard to military commissions only because the procedures for military commissions are not in any way addressed in the conference report. The Senate bill also contained a provision that would require the Secretary of Defense to submit to Congress a report on the procedures used by combat status review tribunals and administrative review boards for determining the status of the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay and the need to continue to hold such detainees. This provision has been expanded in the conference report to require that the report also address procedures in operation in Afghanistan and Iraq for a determination of the status of aliens detained in the custody or under the physical control of the Department of Defense. Nothing in the conference report is intended to in any way authorize, endorse or approve either these procedures or Military Commission Order No. 1, which establishes Department of Defense procedures for the trial of detainees. Nor does anything in the conference report authorize, endorse or approve the administration's position on the President's authority to treat any alien or category of aliens as ``enemy combatants'' or ``unlawful combatants''. All that it does is to require that certain DOD procedures be submitted to the Congress and establishes an orderly process for the review of those procedures in the courts to determine whether they are consistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States. The conference report does not attempt to prejudge the outcome of that review. Throughout the conference, we were pressed by administration officials and their allies in the House to make changes to the Senate language. We were asked to strip the courts of jurisdiction over pending cases; to eliminate any review of the constitutionality of procedures established by the Department of Defense; to expand the habeas limitations to detainees held anywhere in the world; to expand these provisions to strip legal rights from detainees held by the CIA and other agencies; to bar detainees from ever bringing any legal action challenging any aspect of their detention; to prohibit the courts from providing legal relief for detainees who are found to be improperly held; and to grant immunity to individuals engaged in detention and interrogation operations. We successfully opposed all of these changes. The conference report does make two changes to the Senate language which are more complex. First, the Senate-passed provision would have established an exclusionary rule prohibiting CSRTs from considering evidence obtained through ``undue coercion''. I was troubled by the phrase ``undue coercion'', because of the implication that there might be such a thing as ``due''--or appropriate--coercion. I do not believe that coerced testimony is ever appropriate. We were able to modify the provision in the conference report to eliminate the word ``undue'', an improvement over the Senate language. At the same time, however, the provision was modified so that it only provides for an ``assessment'' of whether the testimony was obtained through cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and, if so, requires the tribunal to decide if there is any probative value to the testimony. We do not authorize such testimony to be used: a reviewing court will make that determination. It is a centuries-old principle of Anglo-American law, enshrined in the fifth amendment to the Constitution, that no person shall be compelled to be a witness against himself. Regardless whether this rule of law is expressly incorporated into CSRT procedures, I hope and believe that the courts will enforce the generally accepted rule of law and ensure that evidence obtained through coercion is excluded from any administrative or judicial proceedings. Second, while the Senate-passed provision would have eliminated federal court jurisdiction only for habeas corpus actions, the conference report would eliminate such jurisdiction for ``any other action against the United States or its agents'' relating to detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This new language is limited to detainees who either: (1) remain in military custody at Guantanamo; or (2) although they have been released from Guantanamo, have been determined by the United States Court of Appeals (subject to Supreme Court review) to have been properly detained as enemy combatants. This language places a limitation on legal recourse available to detainees. While we do not know whether any legal remedies other than habeas corpus actions would have been available to detainees, I would have preferred not to have this limitation in the bill. In sum, administration officials and their allies in the House have sought at every turn to deny legal rights or recourse to detainees at Guantanamo and elsewhere. I do not believe that we should have gone down the road of limiting legal remedies for detainees in the manner that we did. However, once the Senate voted over my objection to eliminate habeas corpus relief, my effort turned toward: (1) building back access to the courts on direct appeal of administrative determinations of status or criminal conduct; (2) avoiding stripping the courts of jurisdiction over pending cases; and (3) ensuring that the provisions on detainee rights would not be used to undermine the McCain amendment. I believe that we succeeded on all three issues. The conference report preserves a meaningful opportunity for detainees to challenge the legality of their detention or any criminal conviction in federal court. It ensures that the provisions eliminating habeas corpus jurisdiction will be prospective in their application and will not apply to pending cases. And of course we worked with Senator McCain to preserve his amendment intact and to shape the Graham-Levin language so as to avoid undermining the McCain amendment. The conferees endorsed with minimal change the provision on United States policy on Iraq which garnered overwhelming bipartisan support from over three-quarters of the Senate. This provision shows that both houses of Congress, and both political parties, have come together with a common message to our troops, to the administration, to the American people, and, most importantly, to the Iraqi people. Expressing the heartfelt gratitude of the American people to our troops and their families for their unwavering devotion to duty, service to the Nation, and selfless sacrifice, Congress in this conference report reiterates its support for them and for a successful conclusion to their mission. Congress, in the provision in the conference report, notes that calendar year 2006 should be a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty, with Iraqi security forces taking the lead for the security of a free and sovereign Iraq, thereby creating the conditions for the phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq. Congress expresses its view that the administration should tell the leaders of all groups and political parties in Iraq that they need to make the compromises necessary to achieve the broad-based and sustainable political settlement that is essential for defeating the insurgency in Iraq, within the schedules they set for themselves. Congress directs the administration to provide Congress and the American people specific information on its strategy in Iraq, principally the diplomatic, political, economic, and military measures that are being undertaken; whether the Iraqis have made the compromises necessary to achieve the broad-based and sustainable political settlement that is essential for defeating the insurgency; and the conditions that must be met in order to provide for the transition of additional security responsibility to Iraqi security forces, along with a plan for meeting such conditions, and an assessment of the extent to which such conditions have been met. This provision, which has garnered broad bipartisan support, is a significant win for the American people, and a large step forward for policy for Iraq. The messages that it sends are important, and the information it demands is crucial, for establishing and advancing a strategy for completing the mission in Iraq successfully, for beginning the process of redeployment of our military forces, and for doing so in a manner that will hopefully enhance U.S. national security. The conference report also authorizes $50 billion in supplemental funding for fiscal year 2006 to support our troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is consistent with the budget resolution. Included in this $50 billion is funding to support increased Army and Marine Corps personnel, funding to buy additional armor for their vehicles and to repair or replace the equipment that our troops rely on. It also includes $1 billion for our No. 1 force protection priority, the Joint Improvised Explosive Device or IED Task Force. This bill authorizes military construction and family housing projects that will improve the quality of life of our men and women in uniform and their families. It also authorizes $1.5 billion to begin implementing the decisions of the 2005 base realignment and closure round. These funding authorizations are consistent with the military construction appropriations enacted in November and will allow those projects to proceed. The conferees agreed to the Army's request to relax the punitive restrictions on military construction at Fort Buchanan, Puerto Rico that were enacted 5 years ago in light of the protests over Vieques. The Army activities at Fort Buchanan are not now and never were related to the Navy's activities at Vieques, and I am pleased that the conferees agreed to address these unjust restrictions. With respect to nonproliferation programs, although I would have preferred the amendment that Senator Lugar added to the Senate-passed bill, which would have repealed all of the various conditions that the Cooperative Threat Reduction, CTR, program must meet before spending money in any given year, I am pleased that we have included permanent authority to waive on an annual basis the requirement to certify that the various conditions have been met by each country recipient of CTR funds. The CTR program and the nonproliferation programs at the Department of Energy are all funded at the budget request. Within the Department programs we were able to address some urgent requirements by providing additional funds to accelerate the shutdown of the last plutonium- producing reactor in Russia and to accelerate the security of nuclear weapons storage at key Russian sites. The agreement includes $4.0 million in Air Force accounts that the Air Force and the Department of Defense have the option to use to study and improve the performance of conventional, nonnuclear, penetrator weapons. I hope and urge the Department to use at least the $4.0 million to support conventional, nonnuclear weapons development. The conference report includes a series of provisions designed to improve the management of the Department of Defense. These include provisions that would: Help protect the Federal employee workforce from unfair competition by codifying an important set of historic precedents and commonsense principles for public-private competition; Improve the management of DOD's major defense acquisition programs by requiring the Department to establish more realistic and achievable cost and performance estimates and tighten oversight requirements for programs that are experiencing problematic cost growth; Improve the management of $70 billion a year of DOD contracts for services by requiring the Department to establish a new management structure for such contracts and requiring strict review of interagency contracting mechanisms that have been abused in the past; Reduce the risk of abusive acquisition practices like those seen in the proposed tanker lease contract by requiring the Secretary of Defense or the Deputy Secretary of Defense to personally approve any proposal to purchase a major weapon system as a commercial item; and Prohibit the Department from wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on unneeded audits of financial management systems that must be replaced because they are incapable of producing timely, accurate and complete financial data for management purposes. I am particularly pleased that the conference report also includes a provision for disaster relief for small business concerns damaged by drought. In the same way that floods, hailstorms, tornadoes, and other natural phenomena can devastate small businesses, the harm caused by unusually low water levels on the Great Lakes can be irreparable to businesses that depend on the waterways. The Small Business Act already provides disaster assistance to businesses have been victim to a number of natural disasters, so I am grateful that we have been able to broaden eligibility for that assistance to include businesses that have been hurt by below-average water levels on the Great Lakes. With respect to the Navy's shipbuilding accounts, the conference agreement incorporates reasonable cost caps on Virginia-class attack submarines in the Future Years Defense Program, the fifth DD(X) land attack destroyer, to be bought in 2010, and the fifth and sixth littoral combat ships, to be bought in 2008 or 2009. The conferees did not include a cost cap on the LHA because too little is known yet about the final design. The conference agreement also reflects the fact that the House has agreed to the Senate provision preventing the Navy from conducting a winner-take-all competition for the next generation destroyer program called the DD(X). Finally, the conferees agreed to a provision requiring the Navy to maintain 12 aircraft carriers and provided funding to overhaul the USS John F. Kennedy that the Navy had planned to retire. The conferees dealt with the Navy's program to buy a new presidential helicopter, called the VXX, by adopting compromise language that would: (1) allow production of the pilot production helicopters to go forward; and (2) require that the Secretary of the Navy submit an acquisition strategy for the full rate production aircraft, Increment Two, by March 15, 2006. This strategy would be required to include one phase of operational testing before initiation of full rate production for VXX. The agreement would fence 25 percent of the Fiscal Year 2006 R&D funding until the Secretary submits that strategy. The conferees also dealt with the Army's future combat systems by agreeing that the entire Army future combat systems program, including the manned ground vehicles project, should remain in system development and demonstration, rather than having large portions revert to the technical base. This is a recognition of the importance of the Army's only modernization program to both the future Army, and to the spinout of FCS technologies to the current force, as well as a recognition of the need for the future combat systems to be developed as an integrated system of systems as quickly as possible. The bill also demonstrates the conferees continued strong support for the Department's special operations, counterdrug and humanitarian operations. In particular the conferees enhanced DOD's ability to combat terrorism and the production and trafficking of illegal drugs, including: authorizing and funding five additional National Guard Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and High Yield Explosive (CBRNE) Enhanced Response Force Package teams, in addition to sustaining the existing 12 teams--which provide support to civilian authorities in the aftermath of a WMD incident; directing the Department to report on the use of DOD aerial reconnaissance assets to support the Department of Homeland Security; authorizing use of counterdrug funding for 2 years for joint task forces combating terrorism and narcotics production and trafficking, and; designating the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as the principal military advisor to the Homeland Security Council. The conferees also agreed to authorize increased funding for humanitarian operations, including $40 million in a future supplemental for Pakistan, and expanding the medical assistance to include related education, training, and technical assistance. In science and technology, this year's conference report includes a number of provisions and funding measures that support the transformation of our military while improving our ability to rapidly move new technologies out of the laboratory and onto the battlefield. The conference report authorizes over $11.3 billion for science and technology research programs, an increase of $840 million over the President's budget request. It also makes permanent the SMART, Science, Math, and Research for Transformation, Scholarship for Service Program to help the DoD educate, train, and employ the highest quality technical workforce. In order to better utilize the innovative talents of our nation's small businesses, the bill establishes a pilot program to promote the transition of technologies from the Small Business Innovative Research program into DoD acquisition programs. Finally, the conference report increases funding for and establishes mechanisms to accelerate and better coordinate research in a number of priority areas including robotics, unmanned ground vehicles, IED detection and defeat, the diagnosis and treatment of blast injuries, semiconductor microelectronics, and the development and deployment of advanced fuel cell vehicles. I ask unanimous consent that the letter I referred to be printed in the Record.

Mr. LEVIN. My particular thanks to my staff for their extraordinary work: Rick DeBobes, Peter Levine, Jon Clark, Chris Cowart, Dan Cox, Madelyn Creedon, Brie Eisen, Evelyn Farkas, Richard Fieldhouse, Creighton Greene, Bridget Higgins, Mike Kuiken, Gary Leeling, Mark McCord, Bill Monahan, Arun Seraphin. Also to Charlie Abell and others of Senator Warner's staff. comments on final passage

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize Matrix Human Services, one of Michigan's oldest and largest nonprofit social service organizations, as it celebrates 100 years of tireless and dedicated service. Matrix Human Services was founded in 1906 by a small group of Catholic women, later known as the League of Catholic Women, who recognized a growing need to provide support for low income and at-risk populations in the Detroit Metropolitan area. Over the years as the League's membership continued to grow, it was able to dedicate more resources and personnel to its mission of fostering self-sufficiency and hope to those in need. These efforts ultimately lead to a broadened scope of services that sought to address the growing and diverse needs of the community, which grew into what we now refer to as Matrix Human Services. Today, Matrix Human Services is a diverse organization with more than 300 staff members and dedicated volunteers, serving 30 locations across the Detroit Metropolitan area. It continues to focus on its mission to help prepare individuals and families to live a more positive, productive and meaningful life. Matrix Human Services has organized educational training, childcare, social work, mentoring, abuse prevention, and housing assistance for the homeless programs. Each year, Matrix is able to serve thousands of individuals through a network of specialized divisions that include Head Start Family Service Center, Project Transition Housing, Walter and May Reuther Senior Services, Barat Child and Family Services, Casa Maria Family Services, Vistas Nuevas Head Start, and Off the Streets. I know my Senate colleagues join me in congratulating Matrix Human Services on its many years of excellent service and wish its staff, volunteers, and community partners many more productive years of service to the community.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, we all know that times have been getting tougher for low- and middle-income working families. Compared to 5 years ago, more Americans now live in poverty, the median household income has dropped, and more live without the security of health insurance. Clearly, Congress should be adopting budget policies aimed at improving these troubling trends. But instead, this misguided budget reconciliation conference report would make things worse. This legislation takes funds from important programs like Medicaid, student loans, child support enforcement, foster care assistance, and Supplemental Security Income for the elderly and disabled poor. The stated purpose of these nearly $40 billion in cuts and harmful program changes is to trim the deficit, but we all know that these savings will not ultimately be used toward that goal; they are designed to pave the way for the $50 billion to $100 billion in new tax cuts that the majority will attempt to push through early next year. We should not be making cuts to vital services simply so the President and the majority can finance more tax cuts that mainly benefit the wealthiest among us. Under this bill, families that rely on Medicaid will face significant increases in the costs for access to health care services and medications, which will lead many of our most vulnerable citizens to forgo needed care. The Congressional Budget Office, CBO, estimates that the increases in Medicaid copayments and premiums and the reductions in Medicaid benefits will total $16 billion over the next 10 years. Also of particular concern to Michigan is a provision that eliminates the State's provider managed care assessment. When that provision goes into effect, it will cost Michigan $280 million per year. The conference agreement also makes things worse for those who use student loans. Despite already soaring education costs, this conference report cuts funding for student loan programs by $12.7 billion over 5 years, nearly one-third of the total cuts imposed by this legislation. Most of these reductions are achieved by increasing interest rates and fees paid by students and parents. In the fight for global competitiveness, a highly educated workforce is one of America's best assets. It is shortsighted to cut investments in education. This legislation will make also substantial changes to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, TANF, program. The changes include imposing harsh new work requirements without providing nearly enough childcare assistance. The CBO estimates that States will need over $12 billion in new funding over the next 5 years to maintain current childcare programs and meet the new work requirements by increasing participation in welfare-to-work programs. The conference agreement, however, includes just $1 billion in childcare funding over the next 5 years. The shortfall means that many States will need to scale back childcare slots for poor working families not on welfare, forcing families to choose between lower quality, less stable childcare or not working at all. Unfortunately, this conference agreement also contains a House provision that would repeal the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act, CDSOA, of 2000, despite an overwhelming 71 to 20 Senate vote instructing conferees to reject the provision. The CDSOA was enacted in 2000 to enable U.S. businesses and workers to survive in the face of continued unfair trade by allowing Customs to distribute duties collected on unfairly traded imports to those U.S. companies and workers injured by continued dumped and unfairly subsidized imports. I do not believe we should repeal this law, nor do a bipartisan majority of Senators. Additionally, under this bill, Federal funding for child support enforcement will be cut about $1.5 billion over the next 5 years. As a result, the CBO estimates that $2.9 billion in child support owed to children will go uncollected over 5 years. The hardships that will be caused by this legislation are significant and broad-reaching. Yet the three-part budget reconciliation package that includes this conference report will not even make a dent in our deficits. Both the House and Senate have passed tax reconciliation bills that cut revenues far more than this bill cuts spending. As most grade school math students can tell you, when you bring in less money than you spend, you will end up in trouble. And that is where the President's tax policies have put us today. We have got over $8 trillion in debt. Financing further tax cuts with debt is simply fiscally irresponsible. In the most recent fiscal year, we spent over $350 billion just to pay the interest on our debt. That is 14 percent of the Federal Government's spending last year. We simply cannot afford to continue building up this massive debt. One of a few positive aspects about this conference report is the inclusion of an extension of the Milk Income Loss Compensation, MILC, Program, which was set to expire this year. Milk is Michigan's largest agricultural commodity, and the MILC Program has been essential in preserving our dairy farms in times of dairy price declines. Mr. President, the reconciliation process is supposed to bring Government programs and tax policies passed over the years in line with the broader budgetary goals of the Congress. It should be a fiscal sanity check, making sure our policies support our goals. At a time when one in six American children lives in poverty, our budget goals should be to help, not hurt, the neediest among us. Our goals should also focus on reducing the mountain of debt that we are leaving for our children and grandchildren. Unfortunately, by cutting vital programs to finance tax cuts that mainly benefit the wealthy, this legislation moves us in the wrong direction on both counts. I will oppose this conference report.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I would like to commend an outstanding group of young people in Detroit, MI, for their efforts to reduce gun violence as part of the Neighborhood Service Organization's Youth Initiatives Project. Their dedication to this admirable cause is certainly worthy of our recognition and appreciation. The Youth Initiatives Project was created in 1999 to address growing community issues including violence and substance abuse in Detroit. For 6 years, students, community organizations, and local police have been involved in a coordinated effort to accomplish the goals of the project. Many of these goals are centered on the need to reduce gun violence. Hundreds of Detroit teenagers have been involved in the Youth Initiatives Project through activities such as afterschool programs to reduce gun violence, gun buybacks, anti-violence rallies, and gun safety workshops. As part of these activities, the Youth Initiatives Project has been responsible in the last 3 years for handing out more than 5,000 free trigger locks to Detroit gun owners. The Youth Initiatives Project's ``Hugs Not Bullets'' campaign for 2005 built upon their overall theme of reducing gun violence, while also putting a specific focus on the use of firearms during the celebration of the New Year's holiday. In addition to hosting a number of public forums and rallies, the Hugs Not Bullets campaign used several 4-foot by 8-foot cards to collect signatures of those who pledge not to engage in gun violence. To date, more than 3,000 Detroiters have signed these cards. These cards serve as a powerful symbol of the community's determination to fight gun violence. For 2006, the Youth Initiatives Project plans to expand the Hugs Not Bullets campaign into a comprehensive grass roots and media campaign against gun violence. This year, more than 200 Youth Initiatives Project participants will reach out to their peers by visiting community centers, schools, and churches, as well as social clubs and events widely attended by other teenagers. In addition, the Hugs Not Bullets campaign will amplify its antigun violence message through public service announcements and appearances on local television and radio. This is an ambitious next step, which will build upon the previous success of the campaign. It is important to also recognize the contributions these young people are making in their communities outside of their official participation in the Youth Initiatives Project. The Youth Initiatives Project gives young people valuable knowledge and experience, thereby enabling them to push for change in their own neighborhoods and communities on a daily basis. For the rest of their lives, these teenagers will be able to draw on the communications and conflict resolution skills they have gained through the Youth Initiatives Project to make a difference in their own lives and those around them. I know my colleagues will join me in thanking the participants, organizers, and supporters of the Youth Initiatives Project for their outstanding dedication to the worthwhile goal of reducing gun violence. This is a program which can serve as an appropriate model to be followed in many cities across the Nation. I hope my colleagues will also join me in working to pass commonsense gun safety legislation to more adequately support their efforts.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Cantwell be recognized immediately after I conclude, for 10 minutes under the same conditions as I am speaking under.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, a totally extraneous provision allowing for oil and gas drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge-- ANWR--has been inserted in the Defense Appropriations Conference Report. The provision was in neither the House or Senate bill which went to conference. This provision clearly violates Senate Rule 28 which states: Conferees shall not insert in their report matter not committed to them by either House, nor shall they strike from the bill matter agreed to by both Houses. If new matter is inserted in the report, or if matter which was agreed to by both Houses is stricken from the bill, a point of order may be made against the report, and if the point of order is sustained, the report is rejected or shall be recommitted to the committee of conference if the House of Representatives has not already acted thereon. It is clear that the ANWR provision violates Rule 28 and that the Presiding Officer will, on the advice of the Parliamentarian, so rule. The sponsors have indicated that they will appeal such a ruling of the Presiding Officer and seek to overrule it. If they are successful, this would, in effect, eliminate enforcement of Rule 28. That is why language has been inserted in the Defense Appropriations Conference Report which would, upon the signing of the legislation into law, attempt to reinstate Rule 28's effectiveness. That provision states: Effective immediately, the presiding officer shall apply all the precedents of the Senate under Rule 28 in effect at the beginning of the 109th Congress. Playing ping pong with the Senate rules is an outrageous process. Violating a Senate rule and restoring it, all in the same bill, if permitted to occur, means the rules of the Senate are subject to the whim of conference committees. Rules will exist or can be ignored, violated, or reinstated at the whim of the conferees. Conference reports could be used by a Senate majority to circumvent any Senate rule. Each conference committee becomes a Rules Committee--every conference report can accomplish anything the majority wants regardless of the Standing Rules of the Senate. Senators should play by the rules, not play with the rules. Do we care if the Senate rules take a massive blow? Why are we contemplating destroying our process this way? The majority has cited as a precedent the 1996 Federal Aviation Authorization Conference Report. A Rule 28 point of order was raised against that bill because of out of scope matters which were added in conference. The ruling of the Chair was overturned by the Senate, creating a precedent that the Senate so regretted that, by bipartisan agreement, 4 years later, the Senate restored the enforcement of the rule. The trashing of our rules proposed in this Defense Appropriations bill in order to get an unrelated provision passed, is far worse than the mistake we made in 1996. The effort to combine the destruction of a rule and its restoration all in the same legislative act would create a precedent which could lead to the routine circumvention of any Senate rule by conference committees. Is this what we want to do in the Senate--to leave ourselves without rules we can rely on? If the suspension of a rule has merit, the Senate has a process under its rules to suspend it. Suspension of a rule simply requires a 1-day advance notice and a \2/3\ vote. This is the proper way to proceed under the rules, not abusing the conference committee process to allow the majority to change the rules at any time for any purpose by adding language to a conference report. So what can a minority do in response to protect itself in the future against this trashing of the rules? The minority would presumably never agree to allowing the Senate to appoint conferees. Since the steps leading to conference require the cooperation of the minority party in most instances, why would the minority leave itself vulnerable to losing the protections of 200 years of Senate rules, precedents, and history? My colleagues, walking down this road leads us to an abyss. Why are we doing this to the Senate? I am afraid it is because some have the power to do it and get their legislative goal accomplished. Arthur Vandenberg, one of my predecessors from Michigan is one of the giants of Senate history. His portrait was recently added to the Senate Reception Room outside of this chamber where he joined six other greats of the Senate. Senator Vandenberg back in 1949 said: I continue to believe that the rules of the Senate are as important to equity and order in the Senate as is the Constitution to the life of the Republic, and that those rules should never be changed except by the Senate itself, in the direct fashion prescribed by the rules themselves. Senator Vandenberg added that when: . . . we fit the rules to the occasion, instead of fitting the occasion to the rules . . . in the final analysis, under such circumstances, there are no rules except the transient, unregulated wishes of a majority of whatever quorum is temporarily in control of the Senate. That, Mr. President, is not my idea of the greatest deliberative body in the world. . . . No matter how important [the pending issue's] immediate incidence may seem to many today, the integrity of the Senate's rules is our paramount concern, today, tomorrow, and so long as this great institution lives. No Senator, no matter how he or she feels about ANWR, should accept the abuse of power which is incorporated in the ANWR add-on to the Defense Appropriations bill. That bill, so important to our troops and our national security should not be misused in this way. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I notice that Senator Cantwell is on the floor.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. If the Senator will yield, my understanding is there is an effort being made to insert material. It has not yet been inserted because Senator Warner and I, through our staff, asked our staffs to go over to the House and withdraw our signatures before the material could be inserted. It was the effort to insert it, the threat to insert it which was transmitted to Senator Warner and transmitted to me through him and through Congressman Skelton. This is not an effort on the part of Chairman Hunter, by the way. As I understand it, it is the Republican leadership in the House that is determined to find a way to insert material into the conference report after the signature sheets have been signed. That is what I know about it. Senator Warner was so disturbed about it, I was so disturbed about it, we decided we were not going to take a chance. We cannot risk this.

Mr. LEVIN. I thank my dear friend from South Carolina. It is an effort we cannot allow to succeed. We are in bipartisan agreement on this issue. It is the deepest form of process where we must be able to rely upon each other's commitment and signature. We cannot let that shake. There are all kinds of differences in this Senate. Sometimes between Democrats and Republicans, sometimes between Democrats and Democrats, between Republicans and Republicans. There are differences between us and other Members of the Senate. When a signature is affixed, when a conference report is signed, we cannot possibly contemplate any change in that conference report even if we agree with it. By the way, as the Senator from South Carolina said, I believe I am in agreement with the principle of the material which they seek to add. I know Senator Warner told me he is in agreement with it in principle. It is bedrock principles. You do not go deeper than this. We also have a rule--I know the Presiding Officer is focused on the issue I want to spend 1 minute on--we have a rule relative to legislating on appropriations, which the Senator made reference to in his remarks. We also have rule XXVIII which has to do with material in a conference report which is out of scope. That rule was abided by so that if anyone ever made a point of order that material in a conference report was out of scope, if the Presiding Officer ruled, the body would not overrule the Presiding Officer. But we made a mistake in the early 1990s when we overruled the Chair. There is material added to conference reports all the time, by the way, which has the agreement of conferees, which is out of scope that has the agreement of conferees. It might not have the agreement of everyone in the body, but everyone in the conference report agrees to it. That happens all the time. But what never happened until that one moment in the early 1990s, a point of order was made that there was material out of scope in a conference report and the point of order was sustained by the Chair. The Chair was overridden. That created havoc around here. So much so that a few years later we restored the rule and we wiped out the precedent which was created by overruling the Chair. That is what the issue is in the defense appropriations bill. That is what this issue is going to be. That is different from legislating on an appropriations bill. Forgive me for getting into the details, but I spent a few days studying the difference and I don't want to waste my effort the last few days to try to understand this distinction. The issue on the appropriations bill, since all of us are friends and we are sitting here on a Saturday evening talking to each other this way, the difference on the appropriations bill and not legislating--I forget the number of the rule, but is not rule XXVIII--there is a different rule from the one that is at issue on defense appropriations. The issue on the defense appropriations bill is whether we would overrule the Chair who will rule that the Arctic drilling issue is out of scope and out of order, and whether we are then going to override that ruling and put us back in the same morass we were in in the early 1990s, which caused us a few years later to reverse that precedent, undo that terrible precedent which actually made our rules into mush. We cannot have a rule which sometimes applies and sometimes does not, we override it every other day and restore it every other day. We cannot operate that way and hold our heads up as being legislators. I thank my Chair and my friends for their patience. Let me close by confirming what the Senator from South Carolina said about the importance of the bill. It increases pay by 3.1 percent, which is half a percent higher than inflation. We have been fighting for that a long time. It increases the death gratuity to all active-duty deaths from $12,000 to $100,000, retroactive to the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom. It authorizes a new special pay of $435 a month during hospitalization. It authorizes new leave for up to 21 days when adopting a child. We can go on and on. The Senator from South Carolina mentioned a few of them and my friend from Alabama knows this because he works hard on these issues, too. We are trying to put items in here in this bill which are good for the troops, good for their families, good for the Nation, good for our security. We cannot watch this effort go down the drain after it was such a tremendous effort made to finish this bill. We set a record, folks. We had the shortest period of time to do an authorization bill and we had the record number of amendments that we were able to resolve. We set two records on this bill. Those records go down the drain unless the House leadership decides they are not going to try to do something that, as far as I know, has never been done before, which is to insert material in a bill somehow after the signature sheets have been signed. There is a process. If the bill goes to the House and they want to refer it back to conference to consider something, in scope or out of scope, that is their right. But when this threat came that they were looking for a way to insert other matter into this conference report, after we had signed the sheets, Senator Warner--I cannot pay enough tribute to Senator Warner--is taking a very strong stand against the leader of his own party and the House of Representatives. I commend him for it. I hope the leadership of the House will relent and allow us to move forward with this important bill. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, first we thank the Democratic leader for supporting the fundamental principle that has been violated with this authorization bill. It is a very different principle from the one the Presiding Officer feels so passionately about. It is a principle which I have, I believe, never seen violated. The Senator from Alabama, who is on the floor, and the Senator from South Carolina, who is on the floor--they signed a signature sheet, I believe, on our Defense authorization. I think every Republican and I think every Democrat signed the signature sheet. The issue which the Presiding Officer feels so passionately about, which is earmarks on an appropriations bill and items being added on an appropriations bill, raises a whole different issue under a different rule. I believe his passion on this issue is admired by many in this body. But the principle that Senator Warner and I are talking about is a principle which is embedded, it is so fundamental--that once a conference report is signed there is no way that it can be or should be changed. No way can material be inserted in a conference report. This is in all of our interests. If in the conference we decided to add material which had not been discussed by either body, that would then raise the issue in which the good Presiding Officer is very passionately involved. I share many of his concerns. That is not his issue. The conference did not add this material. This is not an earmark added by the conference, which had never gone through either body. This is material that apparently the Republican leadership in the House wants to add after the conference is closed, after we signed the signature sheets, without going through the process of sending the conference report to the House and having them refer it back to conference if they want to. None of us can accept that. As a matter of principle, we cannot accept that.

Mr. LEVIN. I am happy to yield to my friend.

Mr. LEVIN. In that case I will not reclaim my time.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I reclaim my time to the floor if I have any time remaining.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Sure.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I thank the Chair and my friend from Alabama. One quick comment on the PATRIOT Act. Of course, everybody in this body wants to renew the PATRIOT Act. That is not the issue. The issue is the contents of that act and whether this body ought to have an opportunity to debate some of the differences between the version that came back to us from conference and the one that left the Senate. There are significant differences. There is a bipartisan group that opposes the PATRIOT Act in its current form. We all want to extend that act so there is no gap. Nobody wants a gap in coverage. Everybody agrees it should be extended. The question is, should it be extended for a short period of time to give those of us who have questions and doubts about some of the provisions that came back from conference that were not in the Senate version an opportunity to debate and hopefully change some of those versions.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Alabama. I have, indeed, studied the version that has come back from conference. The differences are significant, indeed. They are very significant, so much so that some of the more conservative Members of this body have joined in a decision that we should have an opportunity to debate the PATRIOT Act conference report before it is enacted. We all want to extend it to give us that opportunity. But this is not a Democratic or Republican opposition; it is a bipartisan group of Senators who have studied the conference report and have significant differences with it, and I am one of those Senators.