Carl Levin

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. We are also hoping to dispose of either three or four amendments tomorrow relative to missile defense. We would like to talk to the Senators involved in that during these votes. But I believe the logical order here is that the Boxer amendment be first and then Reed, either one or two amendments on missile defense after the Boxer amendment, and then I would have an amendment after the Reed amendments. That is the current informal intention. We would talk to those Senators to see if they agree that that is the logical order, try to get time agreements on all of these amendments.

Mr. LEVIN. But there is still an effort being made, as I understand it, to see if there can't be a resolution to that.

Mr. LEVIN. Before I make reference to the missile defense amendments, which it is our hope that we would be able to take up and dispose of tomorrow, the reference that the chairman made to the end strength amendment, I understand the Senator from Rhode Island, his end strength amendment at the moment could lead to a second-degree amendment.

Mr. LEVIN. After Daschle.

Mr. LEVIN. That is my understanding.

Mr. LEVIN. And I yield the floor.

Mr. LEVIN. If I could reclaim the floor, what the amendment of the Senator provides, and I have no objection to it although I don't believe it adds much to existing law--I don't have any objection to the Senator's amendment making clear there is this extraterritorial jurisdiction. That is fine. But what it leaves out is the language previously in the law providing for a civil penalty for material overvaluation of a good or service. What it says is ``with the specific intent to excessively profit.'' That is a specific intent which is appropriate, I believe, either to civil or criminal law. From my perspective, this can be either civil or criminal. But the key point is that the amendment of the Senator does not include that subsection 1(d), which, it seems to me, is essential if we are going to get to that profiteering issue which the amendment of the Senator from Vermont gets to. But I would be interested, if the amendment of the Senator from Vermont is defeated, and I hope it is not, as to whether then the Senator from Virginia might accept a civil penalty for this exact same language which was previously a civil penalty.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, may I suggest this. If I could have the chairman's attention, if we have a unanimous consent agreement that is entered into tonight, and if we include Senator Durbin's amendment in that list, that would supersede whatever status that amendment has at this point. Would that be agreeable to everyone?

Mr. LEVIN. That is my hope and expectation. I note that the House bill contains a similar provision, so the differences between the two provisions will have to be worked out by the conferees. I commit to working with my colleagues in the conference to ensure that the final language in the conference report achieves the purposes of the amendment. commission on the future of the national technology and industrial base

Mr. LEVIN. I appreciate the willingness of my colleagues to work with the Chairman and me on this amendment. The amendment addresses a number of important issues that face the Department of Defense's contracting out policies. For the first time, this amendment would make permanent provisions that require a most efficient organization and a minimum cost differential in almost all competitions. It ensures that contractors do not have incentives to offer inferior health insurance packages as a way to cut costs and make their bids more appealing. And it sets up a process for Federal employees to gain opportunities to conduct new work and work performed by contractors. The amendment would, on a government-wide basis, put Federal employees and contractors on the same basis with respect to competing to perform new work. Contractors are not required to compete against Federal employees for new work, either under the FAR or A-76. The amendment would eliminate the requirement in A-76 that forces Federal employees to compete for new work or to retain their own work when the scope of that work expands.

Mr. LEVIN. The Senator from Illinois has indicated--if I could just ask whoever has the floor to yield?

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

Mr. LEVIN. No objection.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be added as a cosponsor to Senator Dodd's modified amendment.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Conrad be added as a cosponsor to amendment No. 3192 which was adopted.

Mr. LEVIN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendments Nos. 3395; 3392, As Modified; 3402, As Modified; 3346, As Modified; 3326, As Modified; 3349, As Modified; and 3385, As Modified, En Bloc

Mr. LEVIN. His amendment will be back in order when the chairman and ranking member so designate it. He is not trying to use his amendment as a gatekeeper. Why don't we just leave it pending and then set it aside?

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. I understand that Senator Durbin, if he could, prefers to lay it down tomorrow, and Senator Reed can lay his amendment down.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. As I understand it, Mr. President, both are proponents of the amendment. I do not know who would be controlling the opponents' time. Is there opposition? If so, I wonder if the chairman knows who the opponents are who would be controlling the time.

Mr. LEVIN. In terms of the proponents' time, I understand that will be divided between the Senator from Oregon and the Senator from Massachusetts.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Unanimous Consent Agreement--Executive Calendar

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, we have no objection. However, there may be some Senators who relied on this vote starting later, and we ought to accommodate them and keep the vote open a little longer.

Mr. LEVIN. If whoever has the floor will yield, I understand we have now received the documents. We received the documents which we sought from the Army. I have not read them yet, and I do not know if the Senator has had a chance to review them.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I very much support the pending amendment because I believe if this country is going to have any credibility in our argument that countries such as Iran should not be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons, we ourselves must reduce our own reliance on nuclear weapons and not move in the direction of new nuclear weapons. We undermine our position when we put money into a budget which says we are going to start doing and continue research on new types of weapons and on advanced concepts for nuclear weapons, when we have been a party to a treaty called the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which says: Each of the Parties to the Treaty-- That includes us-- undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty of general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control. We have told the Indians, we have told the Pakistanis: Do not move down that nuclear road. We have told the Iranians: We are not going to let you go down that nuclear road. We are going to take actions to prevent you from acquiring nuclear weapons. This is at the same time this administration is moving this country toward additional reliance on nuclear weapons, new types of nuclear weapons, and new uses for nuclear weapons. It is totally inconsistent for us to be moving in the direction we talk about when it comes to other countries but in the direction that we literally live out when we come to our own activity. Too often this country has been portrayed as saying that the rules that apply to everybody else do not apply to us. We have seen too much evidence of that approach recently. It has dramatically weakened our position in this world and strengthened the terrorists' position when we say we are not governed by the same rules by which everybody else is governed. There is a nonproliferation treaty out there, Iran. You are a member of that treaty, and you have to live up to it. Now, of course, Iran can pull out of that treaty. They can withdraw from that treaty, too, just as we withdrew from the ABM Treaty. But they are a member of that nonproliferation regime now. So we tell them: You have to live up to that regime. We are not going to sit by and allow you to get nuclear weapons. That is what we say over here. But over here we put millions of dollars into doing research on new types of nuclear weapons and new uses for nuclear weapons which already are in the inventory. This is a grave danger to us. We undermine our own security when we talk out of the right side of our mouth when it comes to what other people can do, and out of the left side of our mouth when it comes to our own activity. The effort to move toward more usable nuclear weapons is what this argument is all about. This is what Administrator Brooks talked about in answer to a question by Senator Reed, when he says: And I accept Senator Reed's point that . . . I have a bias in favor of things that might be usable. Here is the Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration talking about that we have to move toward more usable nuclear weapons. And why do we need these weapons? We are told because there are underground bunkers that might be the targets, and that those bunkers might not be reachable except through nuclear weapons. Can we just imagine having dropped nuclear weapons going after Saddam Hussein? We had this intelligence that said he was in an underground bunker. And that underground bunker, we were told, was something we could hit with a conventional weapon at the time. It was one of, apparently, 50 airstrikes that we used against the high-value targets in Iraq, including Saddam Hussein and his sons. Well, according to the press, there were about 50 of those airstrikes. Not one of them was successful. It turns out there apparently was not even a bunker at the one we were sure Saddam Hussein was in. But if there was a bunker, he was not in it. According to this report in the New York Times of June 13, a Central Intelligence Agency officer reported that Hussein was in that underground bunker at that site. So we went after him. We directed the airstrikes against that bunker. But then, after the main part of this war was over, we went and inspected where we had struck based on intelligence that there was an underground bunker containing Saddam Hussein. And lo and behold, not only wasn't there Saddam Hussein--we knew that already--but there wasn't even a bunker at the location. And the suggestion that we are going to design nuclear weapons to go after bunkers, despite the huge result in terms of human loss when nuclear weapons are used, assumes we have intelligence which is so reliable that we can, with great certainty, reach a leader who otherwise would not be reachable with conventional weapons. If anything has been demonstrated recently during this Iraq war, it is that our intelligence is not only not particularly accurate but it is wildly inaccurate at times. The idea that we project to the world that we are going to design nuclear weapons to go after bunkers--nuclear weapons which have yields which will kill tens of thousands of people if they succeed with their low yield--it seems to me is not only a message which undercuts our position against proliferation and our position in support of the nonproliferation treaty but a message which totally weakens us, which opens us up to the attacks of the terrorists who would kill us, that the United States lives by one set of rules when it comes to its own activities at the same time it wants to apply another set of rules to the rest of the world. The administration's Defense Science Board, last year, called for a strategic redirection of the stockpile stewardship priorities in favor of nuclear weapons that previously had not been provided for and supported. The legislative justification for the administration's position on this matter says we should be exploring weapons concepts that could offer greater capabilities for precision and earth penetration and weapons which are more ``relevant.'' More relevant nuclear weapons is what this is all about, relevant and usable nuclear weapons. A more relevant stockpile, according to their definition, will have reduced efficient yield. But when you look at what the real yield is of these so-called reduced weapons, reduced yields, a 1-kiloton nuclear weapon detonated at a depth of 25 to 50 feet would eject more than 1 million cubic feet of radioactive debris into the air and leave a crater about the size of the World Trade Center. A 100-kiloton weapon that was detonated 635 feet below ground in Nevada formed a crater 320 feet deep and 1,200 feet in diameter. If a target were so deeply buried that a conventional weapon could not effectively harm a target, neither could a low-yield nuclear weapon. To successfully reach one of those targets would require a large yield and a large yield cannot be contained. According to Sidney Drell, a noted physicist at Stanford University and a member of the NNSA advisory panel, a target buried at 1,000 feet would take a nuclear weapon with a yield greater than 100 kilotons to do any damage. This body is again faced with a decision: Do we want to continue to walk down a road which we are urging and demanding that others not walk? The greatest fight we must wage is against proliferation of weapons of mass destruction that could reach the hands of terrorists. The determination to develop new nukes and new uses for nuclear weapons undermines that fight. It weakens us in that fight and it makes us less secure in the war against terrorism. I strongly urge that the pending amendment be adopted.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I believe I have 10 minutes allocated to me.