Carl Levin

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. LEVIN. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf of Senator Cleland, which would repeal a 10-percent limitation on authority to grant officers in grades below brigadier general and rear admiral (lower half) a waiver of the required sequence of joint professional military education and joint duty assignment.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Sessions and myself, I send an amendment to the desk which would authorize the Secretary of Defense to accept foreign gifts and donations for the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation and would require the Secretary's annual report on the Institute to include the annual report of the board of visitors. I send the amendment to the desk.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the amendment that I am offering, along with Senator Sessions, deals with two issues relating to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. Both of these issues came to light during the first ever meeting of the Board of Visitors of the Institute. Both Senator Sessions and I are members of the Board. During the first Board meeting, which incidentally was an organizational meeting, the Board was informed that there was a question as to the authority of the Secretary of Defense to accept foreign gifts or donations, including lecture services and faculty services, on behalf of the Institute. The Board was further informed that the loss of the foreign faculty instructors would severely hamper the ability of the Institute to perform its mission. Additionally, the Board of Visitors learned that its annual report to the Secretary of Defense would not necessarily be submitted to Congress. The Board considered that its annual report, which would include its views and recommendations pertaining to the Institute, including the curriculum, instruction, physical equipment, fiscal affairs, and academic matters, should be submitted to Congress by the Secretary of Defense along with the Secretary's comments. Accordingly, the amendment we are offering would authorize the Secretary of Defense to accept foreign gifts and donations for the Institute, and would require the Secretary of Defense's annual report to Congress on the Institute to include the annual report of the Board of Visitors along with the Secretary's comments on the Board's report. I ask my colleagues for their support for this amendment.

Mr. LEVIN. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. The same way we pay for the bill, for anything else we do in this, anything else that Congress authorizes and appropriates money for.

Mr. LEVIN. He has been very patient, and I very much appreciate his yielding to me. I thank Senator Landrieu for her absolutely invaluable contribution as chairman of the Emerging Threats Subcommittee. This subcommittee, under her leadership, and under the leadership of Senator Roberts before her, has seen what has been coming and has been doing everything within its power to put resources into defeating the new emerging threats, the terrorist threats we face. Her leadership has been absolutely superb. I thank her very much for that.

Mr. LEVIN. Will the Senator from Arkansas yield for 30 seconds?

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

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Wellstone be added as cosponsor to the amendment.

Mr. LEVIN. Another brilliant suggestion.

Mr. LEVIN. If that is agreeable to the Senator from Louisiana, I would then ask that she be recognized for 5 minutes on the amendment itself; then that Senator Hutchinson be recognized; then Senator Warner for his remarks after disposition of this amendment; and that Senator Landrieu then be recognized.

Mr. LEVIN. After Senator Landrieu is recognized.

Mr. LEVIN. With the permission of my ranking member, since we will both be here anyway, I wonder if I could ask unanimous consent, since two of our colleagues on the committee have been here waiting, whether the Senator from Louisiana could be recognized after this matter is discussed, with Senator Reid perhaps responding, and then the Senator from Arkansas being recognized immediately after the Senator from Louisiana.

Mr. LEVIN. There is an allocation in the budget resolution for mandatory spending. That allocation was utilized inside of our authorization bill because we believe that 60 percent disability should not be a dividing line, that there is not a logic to that, and that everybody who has a disability should be able to receive concurrently both retirement and disability pay. We have a committee amendment which will achieve that. If we had done this inside of the bill itself, if we had put this language we now offer in the committee amendment inside of the bill itself and brought it to the floor, the whole bill would have been subject to a point of order. We decided to reduce the risk of that occurring by offering a committee amendment for that part of the funding which is above the allocation in the budget resolution.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senators Cantwell and Mikulski be added as cosponsors.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Nevada for his very gracious compliments. As always, he seeks to give others more credit than they are due. He is modest in terms of what he himself has done. He has just simply been an invaluable leader on this issue. Senator Smith and others clearly played an important role. But I really want to single out Senator Reid. If we get this done this year--and I expect we will--despite that veto threat, it will be in large measure because the Senator from Nevada, in his absolutely inimitable way, takes leadership of an issue that makes a difference in the lives of tens of thousands and perhaps hundreds of thousands of veterans who have earned both of these benefits. I thank him for his gracious approach. I will tell him that we will carry on this fight in conference, assuming this is adopted. We will carry on the fight for part of it which was adopted in our bill--which is already there. I assure him that if we succeed, the veterans of this country will know who the principal leader was. Again, he is not alone. He would be the first one to say that. Senator Smith, Senator Hutchinson, and others are critically important in this effort. But he clearly is the leader. I thank him.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I wonder if the Senator from Nevada will yield for a comment.

Mr. LEVIN. I send our amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration on behalf of the committee.

Mr. LEVIN. I thank the Presiding Officer. Mr. President, Senator Warner and I will now offer an amendment that permits retired members of the Armed Forces who have a service- connected disability to receive both military retirement pay earned through years of military service and disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs based on their disability. We offer this amendment on behalf of Senator Harry Reid, who has been the leader in the Senate on this issue, Senator Bob Smith, who raised this issue in our committee markup, and on behalf of the Armed Services Committee. This is a committee amendment. In the bill itself, before this amendment is even considered, there is a provision that we adopted in committee that goes a long way toward addressing an issue that many of us have been concerned about for a long time--the inability of military retirees to draw their full retirement pay if they are receiving compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs for a service-connected disability. We believe they are entitled to both. The language that is already in the bill was limited by the funding allocation that was available to us. We got about half the job done in the bill, but we are now offering this amendment which will finish this equitable assignment that many of us have taken on. We believe we should authorize full concurrent receipt for these deserving veteran retirees, and the amendment that we offer will do that. We did not do the whole job in the bill because we did not want to make our bill subject to a point of order. We had a certain allocation of mandatory spending for this. We used it. That is the amount that is in the bill, and that is why in the bill we provide the concurrent receipt of military retirement pay and veterans disability compensation by military retirees with service-connected disabilities that are rated at 60 percent disability or higher. That used up the allocation we had. But many of us believe, and the committee believes, that we should do this for all disabled military retirees. This amendment will do that. If there is a point of order raised, we hope it will be waived. We did not want to make our entire bill subject to a point of order, so we divided it into two pieces. Under the provision in the bill, the amount of retirement pay would be phased in over a 5-year period beginning with 30 percent of the otherwise authorized retirement pay in 2003 and increasing to 45 percent in 2004, 60 percent in 2005, 80 percent in 2006 and 100 percent in 2007. Again, the provision already in the bill was drafted very specifically to limit the cost to comply with the mandatory funding allocation that is contained in the budget resolution reported by the Senate Budget Committee. The language in the bill itself is not enough, in the judgment of the committee. It is unfair to limit concurrent receipt of retired pay and disability compensation to military retirees with a disability rated at 60 percent or more. We cannot differentiate equitably and fairly from those retirees who are 50 percent disabled, 40 percent disabled, or 30 percent disabled. They have all been disabled through their military service to our Nation. It is also unfair to delay the receipt of full compensation for 5 years. They are overdue for full compensation now. We are losing 1,500 veterans per day in this country, and we should act now. I first commend Senator Harry Reid for his absolute commitment to this issue, to resolving this inequity, to addressing this unfairness. Year after year he has eloquently and passionately persuaded this body to act in this way. He has succeeded in doing so. We have not been able to get this through conference. We are determined to make this effort again. I also note that during the committee markup of this bill, Senator Smith of New Hampshire proposed an amendment which would have permitted full concurrent receipt of military retired pay and veterans' disability compensation by all retirees eligible for nondisability retirement who have a service-connected disability, no matter what the disability rating was. Again, because this amendment of Senator Smith would have put our entire bill in violation of the budget resolution that was reported by the Budget Committee, we asked Senator Smith to allow this amendment to be offered on behalf of the committee when the bill reached the floor. This would allow the full Senate to decide this issue. By majority vote, the committee agreed to this course of action, and this is the amendment we are offering at this time. The amendment we offer is essentially the same as S. 170, which is a bill initially introduced by Senator Reid of Nevada, who has been, again, the true leader in this effort in the Senate. The Senate passed this provision last year. Again, we were not able to bring it out of conference. We fought for this provision to the very end of the conference last year. It was one of the last two issues that were resolved in the conference between the Senate and the House. The House simply refused to accept our provision, and we finally had to reach an agreement if we were going to have a Defense Authorization bill last year. We were able to enhance the special compensation last year in conference for the most severely disabled retirees, and pass a provision on the condition that the President propose, and the Congress enact, legislation that would offset the costs of the initiative. The President did not propose that offsetting legislation, so the Senate once again is taking the initiative to right this wrong. Senator Reid's bill, S. 170, now has 81 cosponsors in the Senate. The House companion bill, H.R. 303, has 395 cosponsors. Senator Cleland, and Senator Hutchinson of Arkansas, the chair and ranking member of the Personnel Subcommittee, have been strong advocates for this bill. The overwhelming support in both the House and the Senate for these two bills is a clear indication we simply should not settle for the limited provision in the bill as reported by the committee. Enactment of this amendment would remove an injustice to disabled military retirees. Military retirement pay and disability compensation were earned and awarded for different purposes. Military retirement pay is awarded for a career of service to our Nation in the Armed Forces. Disability compensation is awarded to compensate a veteran for an injury incurred in the line of duty. It is unfair for military retirees, who have earned both payments, not to receive them concurrently. Veterans injured in the line of duty, who leave military service and then serve a career as a Federal civilian employee, do not have to forfeit any of their Federal civilian retired pay to receive their VA disability compensation. I hope the Senate will adopt this committee amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEVIN. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the Senator from Minnesota was assured of at least 5 minutes. I do not know if this time is divided equally or not, but whatever time I have remaining, I yield 5 minutes of that time to the Senator from Minnesota.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be dispensed with.