Carl Levin

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Senator Jack Reed has been waiting to make an opening statement.

Mr. LEVIN. I wonder if it is agreeable with my friend from Virginia we seek to complete action on this bill by tomorrow night, rather than Wednesday. That is the goal. I take it the Senator would agree with that goal?

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, we have to clear that. I wonder if we could withhold that for a moment.

Mr. LEVIN. That is what we tell China--that we don't want China to use prison labor to make products to sell to us and that compete with us. We tell China that we don't want prison labor to make products that come into this country and compete with us. But my friend from Texas wants us to use domestic prison labor.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I will correct my friend. This is not a question of a right to sell to the customer. They have ever right to sell to the customer.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, if we could recognize Senator Reed, who is waiting to make an opening statement, and while he is giving that statement, we will try to line up the order of amendments. Is that agreeable?

Mr. LEVIN. I ask that the Chair recognize Senator Reed, then Senator Sessions, and at that point, after opening statements, we hope to have at least one or two amendments lined up in terms of order of recognition.

Mr. LEVIN. I thank the Senator from Rhode Island for not just his opening statement, which is always extraordinary and thoughtful, but also for his magnificent work as the chairman of the Strategic Subcommittee. They are both invaluable. I thank him very much for that.

Mr. LEVIN. Could we tell the Senators who have amendments they wish to offer, if they could notify our respective Cloakrooms, it would facilitate things. We are not ready yet to offer a unanimous consent agreement, but we will propound that agreement in the next few minutes to set a time for those who want to offer amendments. Is that agreeable?

Mr. LEVIN. Will the Senator from Alabama yield for just an additional minute without losing his order for recognition?

Mr. LEVIN

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

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to Calendar No. 163, S. 1438, the Department of Defense authorization bill; that once the bill is reported, I be recognized to offer a managers' amendment; that the amendment be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

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

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, this is no ordinary time in our country. In New York and just across the Potomac in Virginia, our fellow citizens continue to sift through the ruins left by the most deadly attack ever against the United States. Our fury at those who attack innocents is matched by our determination to protect our citizens from more terror and by our resolve to track down, root out, and relentlessly pursue the terrorists and those who would shelter or harbor them. The President spoke eloquently and forcefully last night setting out those goals. Against this background, we bring the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2002 to the floor of the Senate. The bill authorizes the full amount requested by the administration for national defense, including the $18.4 billion requested by the President in his amended budget request. The bill also addresses a number of important priorities identified by the Armed Services Committee. I am pleased we were able to add a significant amount of money, over $700 million, to the budget request for compensation and quality of life. We added more than $1 billion to improve the readiness of the military services to carry out their assigned missions. We added a large amount of money to advance the transformation of the military services and to improve the capability of the armed forces to meet nontraditional threats, including terrorism. Even in advance of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, we gave particular attention to the problem of terrorism as reflected in our bill and in the report that accompanies it. Not only did the committee fully fund the President's proposal for combating terrorism, we were able to add funds for a new combating terrorism initiative to improve the ability of the U.S. forces to deter and defend against terrorism, including additional funds for research by the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy on the detection, identification, and measurement of chemical and biological weapons, and funds to upgrade Army installations and make them less vulnerable to terrorism. Much more remains to be done in this area, and that has surely been dramatized by the events of September 11. We have already passed a $40 billion emergency supplemental for our war on terrorism. I understand the Department of Defense will be coming forward with an additional supplemental budget request in the next several weeks, and our committee will review any such request. The U.S. military is by far the most capable fighting force in the world. From Europe to the Persian Gulf to the Korean peninsula, the presence of U.S. military forces and their contributions to regional peace and security reassure our allies and deter adversaries. U.S. forces have excelled in every mission assigned to them, including the 1999 NATO air campaign over Kosovo and ongoing enforcement of the no-fly zones over Iraq, humanitarian operations from Central America to Africa, and peacekeeping operations from the Balkans to East Timor. The U.S. armed forces remain the standard against which all militaries are measured. Our armed forces are without peer today, and this bill will help ensure they remain so for the foreseeable future. At his confirmation hearing before the Armed Services Committee last week, Gen. Richard Myers, the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified that we have military forces and capability that we need to respond to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. We identified five priorities to guide our consideration of the bill: Continuing the improvements in the compensation and quality of life of the men and women of the armed forces and their families; improving the capability of the armed forces to meet nontraditional threats, including terrorism and unconventional means of delivery of weapons of mass destruction; sustaining the readiness of the military services to carry out their assigned missions; encouraging the transformation of the military services to lighter, more lethal, and more capable forces; and improving the efficiency of Department of Defense programs and operations. Let me briefly address each of those areas. One of our top priorities was to continue the improvements in the compensation and quality of life for our men and women in uniform. In this regard, we approved a pay raise of at least 5 percent for all military personnel and targeted pay raises of between 6 and 10 percent for enlisted personnel and junior officers, and we provided $17.9 billion requested by the Department to fully fund the Defense Health Program, including the significant new benefits we authorized last year. The committee approved a number of other important initiatives to improve the quality of life for our military, and, in particular, the bill before us would authorize $30 million to improve retention efforts by allowing personnel with critical skills to transfer up to 18 months of unused benefits under the Montgomery GI bill to family members in return for a commitment to serve 4 additional years. Senator Cleland has been fighting for that initiative since he came to the Senate, and I am delighted we were able to include it in our bill this year. We added more than $450 million for family housing and other military construction to improve the facilities in which our military personnel work and housing in which they and their families live. We added more than $230 million to increase the basic allowance for housing and eliminate all out-of-pocket housing costs for service members and their families by the year 2003, which is 2 years earlier than the Department of Defense plan. Finally, the bill includes a set of provisions offered by 18 members of the committee, led by Senators Landrieu, Allard, Cleland, and Nelson, to ensure overseas voters and absent military voters have a meaningful opportunity to exercise their voting rights as citizens of the United States. Another top priority of our committee was to improve the ability of the United States and U.S. forces to deal effectively with nontraditional threats, including terrorism, unconventional means of delivering weapons of mass destruction, and the proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. The Emerging Threats Subcommittee, under the leadership of Senator Mary Landrieu and Senator Pat Roberts, took the lead in this effort. Our committee added funds to the budget request to help address nontraditional threats. First, the bill adds funds for a combating terrorism initiative to improve the ability of U.S. forces to deter and defend against terrorism, including almost $100 million for research by the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy to detect and identify chemical and biological weapons in advance of their use, and more than $75 million to upgrade Army installations and make them less vulnerable to terrorism. I am particularly pleased that we were able to add $13 million to the budget for standoff explosive detection research and development, a proof-of-concept system for predetonation of explosive devices and hand held explosive detectors for the U.S. Navy, all fulfilling the requirements which were so urgently identified in the aftermath of the October 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole. If we can develop that standoff explosive detection, if we can come up with the technology to do that, learning the lesson which we learned to our great expense, cost, and horror with the attack on the U.S.S. Cole, we will make a very significant gain in the war against terrorism. The bill would authorize the full $400 million requested by the administration for cooperative threat reduction programs, to continue destroying and dismantling nuclear warheads and missiles in the former Soviet Union, and we added more than $50 million to Department of Energy programs to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and related expertise. Earlier this year, a bipartisan task force, chaired by former Senator Howard Baker and former White House counsel Lloyd Cutler, concluded the following: The most urgent unmet national security threat to the United States today is the danger that weapons of mass destruction or weapons- usable materiel in Russia could be stolen and sold to terrorists or hostile nation states and used against American troops abroad or citizens at home. With this funding, the committee has placed itself firmly on record in support of the continuing effort to reduce the threats posed by offensive nuclear weapons, their delivery systems, and related material. Another priority of the committee was to sustain the readiness of the U.S. military. Toward that end, we added approximately $1 billion to the budget request to fund critical priorities of the military services. These additions included the following: Almost $250 million to improve the readiness of Army aviation, including additional Black Hawk helicopters, upgrades to Apache helicopters, and additional TH-67 training helicopters. We added $125 million for upgrades to the B-2 and B-52 bombers and an additional $100 million to maintain B-1 bombers to ensure we will continue to have a ready, capable bomber fleet. We added more than $120 million to upgrade engines and reduce maintenance costs for the F-15 and F-16 aircraft, and we added almost $100 million for the maintenance of surface ships and Navy and Marine Corps equipment. The committee also added money to increase full-time manning in the Army National Guard, to upgrade the Navy's electronic warfare aircraft, to improve the operational safety and capabilities of the test ranges and space launch facilities, and to continue modernizing the training aircraft used by the Air Force and Navy for the training of new pilots. Again, I emphasize these additions to the President's budget request were all made before the events of September 11. There will be additional ones I will list in a moment, but we will be receiving in the next few days an amended budget request from the administration, or a supplemental budget request, to add additional funds to those I am outlining. We do not have that request before us yet, so we are unable to respond to it. Of course, it will be mainly an appropriations request, but we also hope as authorizers to have an opportunity to take a look at that request in the days ahead. The committee also gave priority to continued support for transformation of the U.S. military forces. To do this, we added more than $800 million to the budget request to advance the transformation efforts of the military to a lighter, more lethal, and a more flexible force. These additions included the following: Nearly $400 million to support Navy transformation, including more than $300 million to support conversion of four excess Trident missile submarines to carry Tomahawk cruise missiles; more than $200 million to increase the defense science and technology budget, including substantial increases for advanced materials and manufacturing technologies, nanotechnologies, and cutting-edge communication technologies. We added almost $200 million for Army transformation programs, including full funding for all of the objective force priorities on the Army's list of unfunded requirements in fiscal year 2002, and more than $80 million to fund continued efforts to develop and field unmanned vehicles. I want to give special credit to our ranking member, Senator Warner. He has been an active advocate, for as long as I can remember, for putting additional funds in for our unmanned aerial vehicles and other unmanned vehicles. He has had a great deal of foresight in focusing on the importance of doing that, and I have supported those efforts, but the credit for the leadership really belongs to Senator Warner. The Nation is in his debt for that and so many other actions on his part. In future years and future decades, we will see the payoff for these kinds of investments now in these unmanned vehicles. The money that is needed to fund these priorities was obtained through management and other efficiencies identified by the committee. In particular, we determined the Department should be able to achieve significant savings through improved management of its purchases of services, including--I emphasize this--the increased use of performance-based service contracting, competition for orders under service contract, program review spending analyses, and other best practices commonly used in the commercial sector. In fact, the final report on an OMB pilot program 3 years ago concluded Federal agencies should be able to save as much as 15 to 30 percent on their service contracts through the use of performance-based service contracting alone. There has not been much done in that area. There is a lot we can do, and we will harvest significant savings when we do so, as this bill provides. We are also able to achieve efficiencies by identifying programs in which the Department requested more money than it could wisely spend in fiscal year 2002. We approved a reduction of $592 million to the V-22 tilt rotor Osprey aircraft program because of continuing concerns about the program and the recommendation of the V-22 review panel that production should be kept to a minimum sustaining rate in order to minimize the number of aircraft requiring retrofit after these programs have been addressed. Similarly, we approved a net reduction of about $250 million to the Joint Strike Fighter Program because of the likely delay of the launch of the engineering and manufacturing development phase of the JSF Program. The bill before us authorizes a new round of base alignments and closures for the year 2003, and that will produce a significant increase in the Department of Defense's savings that it has achieved the four previous rounds. The civilian and military leadership of the Department of Defense has told us for years, through two administrations, that the Department of Defense has excess infrastructure and needs a new round of base closings to free up funds for higher priority defense needs and to support the successful transformation of our military and implementation of the Quadrennial Defense Review. Senator McCain and I have been fighting for a new BRAC, as we call it, for more than 4 years. I am glad the committee endorsed by a 17-8 vote the proposal the administration sent to us. Now we are asking the Department of Defense whether or not, in light of recent circumstances, there is any change in their position that they want the tool of reducing excess infrastructure in order to make savings so they can apply those savings in the years ahead to other vital needs of the Defense Department. That request has been sent to the Department of Defense to see what their current position is in light of the events of September 11. We will have discussions with our colleagues relative to this matter in the hours and days ahead, and with the Defense Department, because we do want to make sure the Defense Department position is still the same and that is still a tool they consider to be essential for them in waging a war efficiently and in having resources needed to wage future efforts, such as the long effort that is going to be needed in the war against terrorism. In short, we believe this is a strong and balanced bill that fully funds the amount requested by the administration for national defense, and it goes a long way to meet the urgent needs of our military. In light of recent events, we are obviously going to do more, as we have with the enactment of $40 billion emergency supplemental appropriations bill last week. On top of that, in the next few days we will be receiving a request for additional funds given the circumstances that have unfolded. As important as the funding that we provide is, there is something else that is critically important. That is the unity of purpose that we show as we enter into the current struggle. Debate on a bill such as this is an inherent part of our democracy. While our democratic institutions are stronger than any terrorist attack, in one regard we operate differently in times of national emergency. We set aside those differences that we cannot bridge. We try to resolve differences that we previously were unable to resolve. But in cases of other differences, we put them off for another day, where the effort or attempt to resolve them now would create dissent where we need unity. There are a number of these issues that were in this bill. One had to do with the question of national missile defense. We were able, by one vote in committee, to put into the original bill which came before this Senate a provision which would have required Presidential certification in the event that it was decided or determined there were activities that were going to be funded that were in conflict with the arms reduction and arms control treaty that we entered into. It was a matter of major seriousness, regardless of what position people took on that issue, to just about every Member of this body. Rather than to have the effort made to resolve that issue now, we decided we would withhold those provisions. That is why a few days ago I withdrew those provisions from this bill and introduced under rule XIV a separate bill which contained those provisions. Under that rule, today, that separate bill which contains these provisions relative to national missile defense is on the calendar of the Senate. It is available for the majority leader to call up, should he choose to do so, for debate by this body. If and when--and I emphasize the ``if,'' not just the ``when''--the administration determines that an activity for which it is using funds from this bill conflicts with the arms control treaty, the ABM Treaty, it would then be an option for the majority leader to call up the bill that is now on the calendar which would then provide the opportunity for us to debate whether or not we wanted to fund such activity. That was the way in which we preserved that option, delayed that debate that preserved the rights of people who feel strongly about that issue, including myself, to have such a debate should it be appropriate to do so. To summarize what we have done relative to those provisions, relative to national missile defense, the specific provisions relative to activities for which funds might be used from this bill in conflict with the ABM Treaty, the provision which is now on a separate bill would not have prohibited such activities but, rather, would have deferred a congressional decision on funding them until we had a determination from the administration as to whether the activities would be in conflict with the treaty. For some Members, that is very important information. As the author of that provision, I believe very strongly that we have a responsibility to determine whether or not a testing activity or funding conflicts with an arms control agreement. Some might vote to approve the funding without regard to that arms control agreement. Others would want additional information and the nature of the conflict between the treaty and the requested activity. Some Members would want to know the significance of the testing effort, to weigh whether or not the value of the test which is in conflict with that arms control agreement outweighs some of the negative circumstances which might be created by the unilateral withdrawal which would have to take place before such a testing activity occurred. It seemed to me, regardless of one's position relative to the issue of whether or not we should proceed with such activities in conflict with the treaty, that was important information for all Members to have. We don't have that information now. The Department has been unable to tell us whether or not any of the activities which funds are being asked for in this bill, and to be authorized in the bill, are in conflict with the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. They have been unable to tell us. The thought behind the language was that if and when the time comes when they do determine there is such a conflict, at that time Congress should have an opportunity to vote. Again, I emphasize that language, subject of much debate and much dissent, has now been withdrawn from this bill by myself and put into a separate bill which is now on the Senate calendar. This was a very difficult decision, I tell my good friend from New Jersey. While the Senator is presiding, I must say how extraordinarily moving he and Senator Torricelli were in New Jersey yesterday, as many Senators visited New Jersey after our visit to ground zero in New York City. It helped Members get a full picture by our visit to New Jersey with the presentations which were made to us by Senator Corzine, Senator Torricelli, by the Governor of New Jersey, and by so many mayors who helped to round out exactly what the effect was of that attack upon us on September 11. I know I speak for all who were present yesterday in New Jersey when our Presiding Officer, Senator Corzine, and Senator Torricelli made such an effective presentation. Many of us were not aware that perhaps half of the people killed in that terrorist attack were residents of New Jersey. While New York City was ground zero, and we had severe losses at the Pentagon, New Jersey and also many from Connecticut and I believe from as many as 40 or 50 other countries were attacked by those terrorists. There were many, many countries symbolized on that attack on the World Trade Center when citizens from so many countries were killed in that attack. I think Britain lost literally hundreds of its citizens. What was so dramatically presented to us yesterday was the fact that New Jersey's families are suffering in as great a number as any other place, including New York, as a result of that attack. I just wanted to thank Senator Corzine for his role in bringing us to New Jersey, along with Senator Torricelli. It makes a difference. Just as important as it is that we stand together in these days, coming together where we can on a bill which is so important to the defense of this Nation and to our security--and where we cannot agree, trying to defer those other issues to a different time and place--it is also important that our colleagues join us in trying to focus on issues that directly relate to this bill as this bill comes before the Senate. Obviously, amendments are appropriate. They always are appropriate. But there are some amendments currently being filed that really cannot be appropriately considered on this bill. It is going to require all the efforts of all of us to focus on the material in this bill and the subject matter of this bill if we are going to get a bill passed as it should be passed urgently; if not today, and that is unlikely--by Monday or Tuesday. (Mr. CORZINE assumed the chair.)

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

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the managers' amendment is at the desk.

Mr. LEVIN. Today may be possible, I am told by my good friend, Senator Warner. We should not even eliminate that possibility. But if we all cooperate in the kind of spirit which we have in bringing this bill to the committee and trying to avoid amendments which are not related to the subject matter of this bill, we have a chance of passing this bill as it should be passed, with great urgency and with great unity and with one voice. Senator Warner and I have spent a lot of time in the last few days working to do just that--to be able to bring a bill to the floor where we can say together that we, the members of the committee, all support this bill now. We hope other Members of the Senate will join in this debate, offer amendments as they must, which relate to the subject matter, but help us to pass this bill with the urgency which is required and the unity which, God knows, is appropriated in circumstances such as this. I want to say one other thing to my friend from Virginia before I yield; that is, how grateful this Nation is to him for his leadership in bringing to our attention the losses, the personal losses and the tragedies that were involved in the attack on the Pentagon. I was able to personally join with Senator Warner on a number of these visits that he has made. I know how many hours he has spent with, not only the families of those who have lost loved ones at the Pentagon but with the leadership at the Pentagon focusing on how to restore the Pentagon, to let the terrorists know we are going to restore New York, we are going to restore the Pentagon, and we are going to restore any other places they were able to damage. But I thank Senator Warner because he has played the leadership role in bringing to the attention of the Nation that the losses in New York are the largest losses numerically, assuredly, but that we had almost 200 people between the people working in the Pentagon and the people on the airplane that hit the Pentagon, lost in Virginia. I know how his heart goes out to those families. I can only tell him--I know he already knows every Member of this Senate is with you and with your colleague from Virginia in your efforts to bring some peace and closure and then some restoration to those families and to your State. I thank you for that.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet on Friday, September 21, 2001, at 9:30 a.m., for a hearing entitled ``Responding to Homeland Threats: Is Our Government Organized for the Challenge?''

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Friday, September 21, 2001, at 12 p.m., to hold a nomination hearing. Nominees: The Honorable Arlene Render, of Virginia, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Cote d'Ivoire; Ms. Mattie Sharpless, of North Carolina, to be Ambassador to the Central African Republic; Mr. R. Barrie Walkley, of California, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Guinea; Mr. Jackson McDonald, of Florida, to be Ambassador to the Republic of The Gambia; Mr. Kevin McGuire, of Maryland, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Namibia; Mr. Ralph Boyce, Jr., of Virginia, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Indonesia; and Mr. Robert Jordan, of Texas, to be Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the full Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet on Friday, September 21, 2001, at 9 a.m., to conduct a hearing on following pending nominations: Brigadier General Edwin J. Arnold, Jr. to be a Member and President of the Mississippi River Commission; Nils J. Diaz to be a Member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Marianne Lamont Horinko to be Assistant Administrator, Office of Solid Waste, Environmental Protection Agency; Patrick Hayes Johnson to be Federal Cochairperson, Delta Regional Authority; Paul Michael Parker to be Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, Department of Defense; Mary E. Peters to be Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration, Department of Transportation; Harold Craig Manson to be Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife, Department of the Interior; and Brigadier General Carl A. Strock to be a Member of the Mississippi River Commission. The hearing will be held in the Rm. SD-406.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, let me first thank the Senator from Nevada for his very kind words and for his efforts and the leadership on both sides of the aisle in helping to bring this bill forward. Senator Warner and I have indeed worked very hard on it and, as always, we have worked together to bring a bill forward that hopefully the Senate can pass and pass quickly. But without the support of our leadership, that would not have been possible. As hard as we and our staffs work, it takes leadership support to make it happen. We are grateful that Senator Reid is on the floor, and we thank all leaders not on the floor.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, I am very disappointed language was not included in the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act addressing employee compensation for the thousands of airline employees who have lost their jobs in the past week. It is imperative that we address this in the immediate future. However, there is a crucial need to act swiftly to stabilize the airline industry. Therefore, I will support this legislation which includes a number of critical provisions to stabilize the airline industry and restore confidence in this industry. I hope that we will address employee compensation and additional airline security issues in the very near future. The airline industry is losing about $300 million to $350 million a day. Losses incurred by the industry for the 2 days that the airlines were grounded total $1.25 billion. In the past week alone there have been 100,000 layoffs by the airlines including 10,000 at Northwest Airlines. Northwest Airlines has as a major hub in Detroit and serves as an economic engine for Michigan with over 18,000 employees in the State. Northwest Airlines now has a net negative booking rate which means that more people are calling to cancel their tickets than there are people calling to purchase tickets. The airlines are now only carrying about 30 to 40 percent of their normal capacity. We cannot let this important industry go under. There is simply too much at stake. This legislation provides an immediate $5 billion cash infusion to stop the immediate hemorrhaging of the airline industry and to cover their losses for the month of September. It also provides $10 billion in Government-backed loan guarantees which will help the industry gain access to credit and maintain its long-term viability. The airline industry currently has no access to capital because its traditional collateral, airplanes, are now considered worthless by Wall Street. The $10 billion will be made in the form of loans, not grants, and that they will be paid back. Under this bill, the Secretary of Transportation has discretion in making the loan guarantees. For instance, when an airline applies for a loan it will have to provide access to its books to prove that the loan is not going to repair past management actions that might have occurred before September 11. This bill also allows the Secretary of Transportation to use his authority to require airlines benefitting from Federal funding to continue to serve midsized and small airports and communities. This is important for all those people in Michigan and around the country living in rural communities who may depend on a single airline for service. If that airline were to pull out, they would be left stranded. In addition, the bill authorizes $120 million for the Essential Air Service, an important program which subsidizes airline service in those communities where it is not profitable to serve. This program allows the Government to share some of the costs of providing service and in exchange, the Government can require that a carrier continue to serve a community. This guarantees that these communities will have airline service. It is a program that is currently underfunded and in need of a higher authorization which this bill provides. A number of Michigan communities participate in this program and, unfortunately, others may soon need to gain access to the program in order to keep the air service they currently have. Senate action today to provide the airlines with funding to keep them solvent is very important. It will help return confidence to the marketplace and keep some airlines from going under. But it is equally important that we turn immediately to the other critical issues such as providing assistance for displaced workers and airport security measures.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, in the wake of the terrible events of September 11, 2001, there have been reports of senseless acts of gun violence against innocent Americans, whose only crime was their ethnicity or religion. In this time of national crisis we must not lose sight that it is our diversity, our freedom to worship, and our steadfast commitment to liberty and the rule of law that form the foundation of this great Nation. While it has shaken, standing together we can ensure that the American house remains strong. And it is unity that guarantees our ultimate victory.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I understand that S. 1438, the Department of Defense authorization bill which I introduced a few minutes ago, is at the desk, and I ask for its first reading.

Mr. LEVIN

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