Carl Levin

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 4095

Mr. LEVIN. I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Akaka, I offer an amendment which I send to the desk to shift $2.5 million to the demonstration of renewable energy use from the facilities improvement line to the Navy energy program line within the Navy R&D account.

Mr. LEVIN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 4093

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

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

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

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Kennedy and seven other Senators, I send an amendment to the desk which concerns the Department of Defense Medical Free Electron Laser Program.

Mr. LEVIN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 4089

Mr. LEVIN. It has been cleared. We have no objection.

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

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, this amendment authorizes an additional $2 million for Air Force applied research to develop new substrate materials for solar cells. The Air Force Space Power Generation program is working on novel high-temperature materials in order to develop advanced flexible thin film solar cells for military applications. New materials will enable lighter, cheaper, and more efficient solar arrays that are critical to achieving Air Force technology performance goals. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

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

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I send to the desk an amendment which provides additional funding for the development of solar cell technology for the military, and I believe it has been cleared on both sides.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, we have a number of cleared amendments which Senator Allard and I can now offer and hopefully dispose of. We understand Senator Nelson and Senator Roberts are on their way to offer an amendment which previously by unanimous consent we have agreed they could offer, and I also believe has been cleared on both sides. So perhaps we can start down the road I described to offer some cleared amendments, get those adopted but then perhaps interrupt if Senator Nelson and Senator Roberts come to the floor.

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

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

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, while Senator Sessions is still here as comanager of the bill, I ask unanimous consent, in the event Senator Bill Nelson, who I believe is working with Senator Smith and Senator Roberts on an amendment which we support, gets to the floor before we dispose of the Warner amendment and the second-degree amendment, that we set aside the Warner amendment temporarily to allow them to offer their amendment. I ask unanimous consent that we do that, while my comanager is on the floor.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the Armed Services Committee conducted an exhaustive examination of the proposed missile defense budget request. We held two strategic subcommittee hearings on missile defense under Senator Reed's leadership. We reviewed 400 pages of missile defense budget documentation, participated in more than 25 hours of staff briefings by the Department of Defense. Based on that exhaustive review, the committee recommended funding the vast majority of the Department's missile defense request, an amount that is sufficient to aggressively fund all the specific systems that the Department wants to develop. At the same time, the committee identified roughly $810 million of the missile defense request--about 11 percent--that the Department did not justify, after a detailed review of available documentation and repeated hearings and briefings. For example, the budget request included $1.1 billion in the ballistic missile defense program element, an increase of $258 million over the current funding level. The major purpose of this program element is to develop integrated architecture ballistic missile defense systems. While this is an important goal, most of the systems that will comprise the ballistic missile defense architecture are years away from being deployed, making the development and definition of a detailed BMD architecture impossible at this point. After receiving more than $800 million for this program element in fiscal year 2002, the Missile Defense Agency has yet to provide Congress any indication of what the overall BMD architecture might be. In fact, the committee determined that of the $800 million appropriated for this program element in 2002, only $50 million--5-0--of the $800 million appropriated had been spent halfway through the fiscal year. Because of that slow execution, the Missile Defense Agency informed us that $400 million of these funds will be available for expenditure in fiscal year 2003. Under these circumstances, it is hard to see why the Department would need a $250 million increase in the program element in 2003. So we made a choice. We made a choice to make some careful and well- justified reductions in missile defense requests of $7.6 billion. Our bill provides the Missile Defense Agency as much money as can reasonably be executed for the Missile Defense Program in the year 2003 and would ensure that this money is expended in a sound manner. The Senator from Virginia has assured this body that the midyear review will make sufficient funds available to cover added spending which would be authorized by his amendment. We assume that would be the case, based on what he has been told and based on his statement to this body. The underlying amendment of Senator Warner provides that the additional $800 million, approximately, would be spent as the President determines in one of two ways--and they are very specific--one, research, development, test, and evaluation for ballistic missile defense programs, or, two, activities of the Department of Defense for combating terrorism at home and abroad. Those are the two specific programs on which the President could spend this authorized additional money under the underlying Warner amendment. Under my second-degree amendment, we simply state our view that the highest priority at this time is the war against terrorism. The amendment states that, in the expenditure of additional funds made available by a lower rate of inflation, the top priority shall be the use of such additional funds for combating terrorism at home and abroad. Our second-degree amendment does not preclude the President from spending some or all of the money for missile defense. It does not preclude him from spending that additional money on missile defense, if the President determines that the additional money on missile defense is more necessary, more vital than combating terrorism at home and abroad. I believe we should put the money into the fight against terrorism because we have no higher priority than the war against terrorism. Over and over again we are informed and we believe--I think every Member of this body believes--that we are vulnerable to a terrorist attack. We hear warnings of attacks against our cities, our banks, our nuclear powerplants, sporting events. We hear warnings about more attacks by aircraft, about car bombs, about truck bombs, ``dirty'' bombs. As a member of the Intelligence Committee, a member of the Armed Services Committee, I believe there is a good reason to be concerned about these threats. The likelihood of these threats is far greater than the likelihood of being attacked by a missile from North Korea when such an attack would lead to the immediate destruction of North Korea, of the attacker. North Korea can attack us with a truck bomb or a car bomb or an envelope full of anthrax, if she chose, with greater accuracy, far cheaper and with a much lesser possibility of our identifying the attacker so as to respond with a massive attack of our own. These are real threats. The war on terrorism is here and now. We have not adequately funded the war on terrorism. With all the funds we have put in here, there are additional places that we can usefully spend money in the war against terrorism. To give some specific examples of where the Department of Defense has identified areas where it needs additional funds which could be funded by this $800 million--these are what we call the ``unfunded priorities list''; in other words, where there is a priority of the Department of Defense that they have identified but we have not been able to find the funds to put into these priorities so they have given us the unfunded priorities list--$491 million for improved security at Air Force facilities, including the security of nuclear weapons areas; $92 million to help prepare our first responders to help address weapons of mass destruction. These are just two of the items which total about $1 billion in what are the unfunded priorities list of the Department of Defense. We should be making a choice, at least expressing a preference and a judgment as to where the highest priorities are. That is our responsibility. We serve on these committees. We listen to testimony. We should make a judgment. If $891 million is available for additional spending, which we hope it will be, then the question is, What is the greatest need at this time? We express that need in the second-degree amendment. We say the war on terrorism; of those two identified, specified items in this underlying amendment, the war on terrorism is the highest priority this country faces. And we have unmet needs in meeting this priority. The President can make a different choice. We do not preclude that. I emphasize that. The President, if he determines it is more essential to spend even more money on missile defense than we provide, more than the almost $7 billion we provide, if the President determines that spending additional funds on missile defense is a higher priority than the war on terrorism, we do not preclude him from doing so. But we express our perspective and our point of view that the war on terrorism is the highest priority. Should we address all threats that face us? Of course, we should address all threats that face us. And we do. But we have to allocate resources. We should allocate resources against the greatest threats that we face. Those greatest threats are the terrorist threats. We have had so much evidence of this that we have all reached that basic conclusion. I hope we express that perspective by adopting the second- degree amendment which has been offered. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEVIN. This second-degree amendment does two things which the amendment I was going to offer yesterday would have done; that is, it states that in our judgment, the top priority for the use of these funds is to combat terrorism at home and abroad. But it does not preclude the President from spending this additional money on missile defense should that be his determination. It does both of those things. It does not preclude the President from spending the money on missile defense should he reach the judgment that is a higher priority than combating terrorism, that those additional funds above the $7.6 billion on missile defense is a higher priority than combating terrorism. This amendment would not preclude him from doing that, but the heart of this amendment remains as it was last night, expressing our judgment--that is, between these two specified purposes in the underlying amendment--that the top priority is combating terrorism at home and abroad. The majority leader is in the Chamber.

Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, just very briefly--I know the majority leader wants to be recognized if he returns to the floor--the amendment of the Senator from Virginia specifies two purposes for additional funds which would become available as a result of an adjustment to the inflation factor, a recalculation of the inflation factor. The Senator from Virginia has been assured that at least $814 million will become available. He made that representation to us yesterday. Based on that representation, he has offered an amendment which provides that the money be spent for one of two specified purposes. These are the purposes, I emphasize, that are set forth in the Warner amendment: whichever of the following purposes the President determines the money should be spent for--``(1) Research, development, test, and evaluation for ballistic missile defense programs of the Department of Defense.'' The second purpose specified in the Warner amendment is: ``Activities of the Department of Defense for combating terrorism at home and abroad.'' What the second-degree amendment provides is that combating terrorism at home and abroad is the highest priority for allocating these funds. Protecting the American people in this way, under the second-degree amendment, should be the top priority for these funds. We have all said that over and over again, that combating terrorism is now our No. 1 priority. And these funds, which will be made available as a result of the readjustment of inflation, should be dedicated, in our judgement, to that purpose. The amendment does not preclude the President from spending additional funds on missile defense should he determine that is a higher priority. This amendment does not preclude the President from reaching that judgment. It expresses our judgment that, of those two specified purposes in the underlying amendment, combating terrorism is the top priority to protect the American people at home and abroad. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, I send a second-degree amendment to the desk and ask that it be read.

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

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

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