Carl Levin

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, a century ago on December 24, 1913, hundreds of miners and their families had gathered for a Christmas Eve celebration in the small Upper Peninsula town of Calumet, MI. Their community was under tremendous stress; the miners of what is known to this day as ``Copper Country'' had been on strike for 5 months. But they had come for a brief holiday respite from the trials and struggles of those difficult days. What began as a joyful day ended in tears and wails and inconsolable grief. While no one will know for certain what sparked the families' rush to the doors at the bottom of the stairs leading from the hall, most believe that someone yelled ``Fire!'' even though there was none. What resulted in the rush to the exit is almost unimaginable: 59 children and 14 adults were dead, having been trampled or suffocated. This dreadful disaster has forever brought back painful memories on December 24, Christmas Eve, for the community of Calumet, MI. On the centennial anniversary of this event, the anguish is still real. The sadness is only overshadowed by the senselessness of the event. The families celebrating in the Italian Hall were hard-working immigrants, struggling through the labor strike to fight for better wages, hours and working conditions. They came to Copper country for the promise of work, even though mining was difficult and dangerous. This area was home to the largest known deposits of pure elemental copper in the world, drawing hundreds of thousands of people from around the world. It was here that the lives of immigrants shaped our nation, with their successes and their struggles. So many reminders of the copper mining heyday remain in the quaint town. From the historic architecture to the Yooper accents; from the variety of ethnic foods to the hard living work ethic that exists today, the Copper Country communities are reminded every day of their heritage. The historic buildings, landscapes and museum collections of the area are protected and preserved by the Keweenaw National Historical Park, working collaboratively with local and State governments, historic organizations and private property owners. The park brings to life the multi-faceted story of copper mining history including its social, ethnic, commercial and technological dimensions. However, no artifact can compete with the feeling that Christmas Eve presents to the Village of Calumet every year when it is reminded of the Italian Hall tragedy. On this centennial, we remember those who perished, and celebrate their lives and the heritage they have left for us.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, our men and women in uniform sacrifice much to keep our Nation strong and free. They are well-trained, extraordinarily capable and are some of our country's best and brightest. One of them is a man I want to help recognize today as he retires from the U.S. Army. COL Richard D. Root, from Hartford, MI, has served our country in uniform for a quarter of a century and I am delighted to congratulate him on a long and distinguished military career. In 2007, Colonel Root came to the Senate as the Deputy for the Army's Senate liaison office. He was then selected as the Director of legislative affairs for GEN John Allen, the commander, International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, during the critical period in Afghanistan from 2011 to 2013. In this capacity, Colonel Root escorted over 70 congressional delegations visiting Afghanistan and Pakistan. During these congressional delegations, Colonel Root masterfully balanced both the interests of Senators with the priorities of his commander to ensure that Members of Congress received a clear and accurate picture of the strategic military and political situation in Afghanistan. Prior to his service with congressional liaison, Colonel Root performed with great distinction in all of his assignments throughout his extraordinary career, including command of the 3rd Battalion, 320th Field Artillery Regiment ``Red Knights'' during Operation Iraqi Freedom from 2005 to 2006. Additionally, he served as an executive officer for the 4th Infantry Division Artillery and a variety of other tactical and operational assignments from platoon to brigade while deployed for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and for Operation Desert Storm/Desert Shield in 1991. In his final assignment as the executive officer to the chief of army legislative liaison, Colonel Root worked tirelessly to expand relationships between the Army and the 113th Congress. Our military personnel do not shoulder the stress and sacrifice of military service alone, and Colonel Root is no exception. His wife, Diann, and his daughter, Lexi, have stood proudly by his side, sacrificing time with their husband and father while he fulfilled his military commitments. To them also, we offer a truly heartfelt thanks. As he retires, Colonel Root leaves behind an impressive record of military service and his counsel, professionalism and expertise will surely be missed by the Army and Congress alike. We offer him our sincere thanks for his service to our Nation and the example he has set for those under his command and colleagues with whom he served. I know my colleagues join me in wishing Colonel Root and his family all the best as they begin this next exciting chapter in their lives.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Whitney Reitz, a State Department fellow in the office of Senator Landrieu, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the 113th Congress.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, before we left for the Thanksgiving break, Senator Inhofe and I said we would come to the Senate floor today to update Members on the status of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014. Before the break we spent a week on the Senate floor trying to bring more amendments up and to have them debated and voted on, but we were unable to do so. We tried to reach agreement to limit consideration to defense-related amendments, but we were unable to do that. We tried to get consent to vote on two sexual assault amendments--the Gillibrand amendment and the McCaskill amendment--that had been fully debated, but we could not get that consent. We tried to get consent to lock in additional amendments for votes and to move a package of cleared amendments, but we were unable to do so. At this point, the House of Representatives will be adjourning for the year at the end of this week, and there is simply no way we can debate and vote on those amendments to the pending bill, get cloture, pass the bill, go to conference with the House, get a conference report written, and have it adopted by the House of Representatives all before the House goes out of session this Friday. There simply is no way all of those events can take place to get a defense bill passed. So Senator Inhofe and I believe it is our responsibility to the Armed Services Committee, to the Senate, to our men and women in uniform, and to the country to do everything we can to enact a defense authorization bill. For this reason, we are taking the same approach we took when we were unable to finish the bill and go to conference with the House in 2008 and 2010. What we did is we sat down with our counterparts on the House side--in this case, chairman Buck McKeon and ranking member Adam Smith of the House Armed Services Committee--and we set our staffs to work to come up with a bill that would have a chance of getting passed by both Houses. The four of us have reached agreement on a bill that we hope will be passed by the House before it recesses this Friday and, if it does, then be considered by the Senate next week. We worked hard to blend the bill that was overwhelmingly voted out of the Senate Armed Services Committee with the bill that was overwhelmingly approved by the House of Representatives. We have worked, as we always do, on the SAS Committee on a bipartisan basis. We took into consideration as many proposed Senate amendments as we could. We focused on amendments that had been cleared on the Senate side when the bill was being debated in the Senate. We approached these amendments and others in much the same manner as we did provisions that were in the bill, working to come up with language, wherever possible, that could be accepted on the Democratic and Republican sides in both the Senate and the House. The bill we have come up with is not a Democratic bill or a Republican bill. It is a bipartisan defense bill, one that serves the interests of our men and women in uniform and preserves the important principle of congressional oversight over the Pentagon. Here are some examples of what will be in the bill that will be considered by the House later this week and then hopefully by the Senate next week. The bill will extend the authority of the Department of Defense to pay combat pay and hardship duty pay for our troops. The bill, relative to Guantanamo, includes that part of the Senate language easing restrictions on overseas transfers of Gitmo detainees, but it retains the House prohibitions on transferring detainees to the United States. Although we were unable to consider the Gillibrand and McCaskill amendments on the Senate floor or in the bill itself that will be forthcoming, the bill includes more than 20 other provisions to address the problem of sexual assault in the military that were in the Senate bill that came to the floor out of the committee and that were in the House of Representatives bill as well. These provisions include the following: They provide a special victims' counsel for survivors of sexual assault, make retaliation for reporting a sexual assault a crime under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The provisions require commanders to immediately refer all allegations of sexual assault to professional criminal investigators. They would end the commanders' ability to modify findings and convictions for sexual assaults, and would require higher level review of any decision not to prosecute allegations of sexual assault. The bill will do the following that will be hopefully coming here next week: Make the Article 32 process more like a grand jury proceeding. Under the UCMJ, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, currently the proceeding that is taken under Article 32 is more like a discovery proceeding rather than a grand jury proceeding, and it has created all kinds of problems, including for victims of sexual assault who would have to appear and be subject to cross-examination by the defense. This bill will extend supplemental impact aid to help local school districts educate military children. The bill will extend existing military land withdrawals in a number of places that would otherwise expire, leaving the military without critical testing and training capabilities. The bill includes a new land withdrawal to enable the Marine Corps to expand its training area at 29 Palms. The bill provides needed funding authority for the destruction of the Syrian chemical weapons stockpile and for efforts of the Jordanian Armed Forces to secure that country's border with Syria. Earlier today GEN Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote a letter to the leadership of the Senate and the House of Representatives in which he strongly urges completion of action on the National Defense Authorization Act this year. General Dempsey's letter provides a long list of essential authorities that will lapse if this bill is not enacted. This is just one paragraph from his letter: The authorities contained [in the National Defense Authorization Act] are critical to the Nation's defense and urgently needed to ensure we all keep faith with the men and women, military and civilian, selflessly serving in our Armed Forces. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that General Dempsey's letter, with that attachment, be printed in the Record.

Mr. LEVIN. We have not failed to pass a National Defense Authorization Act for 52 years even when, as I mentioned, in a couple cases in recent years the final bill was the result of a process like we have had to follow with this year's authorization bill. This is not the best way to proceed, but our troops and their families and our Nation's security deserve a defense bill, and this is the only practical way to get a defense bill done this year. There is no other way, because, as I indicated before, the House of Representatives is--we could not get a bill done before the end of this week if we brought back the bill that was pending before Thanksgiving. There is no way we can do it. And the experience in the week before the Thanksgiving recess demonstrated pretty clearly there is no way we could get a defense bill, such as the one that was pending, passed in this body before the end of this week. The problem is that the House of Representatives is done at the end of this week. If we use the pending bill that was previously pending as the vehicle, we cannot possibly get to a conference, get an agreement on a conference, get a conference report, go back to the House of Representatives, and then get a conference report here, because the House of Representatives is done on Friday. This is the only path to a bill. We have not missed in 52 years, and the reason we do not miss is our troops and their families and the national security of this country. That is why we have not failed. We cannot fail this year. The only practical way to avoid failure is if we follow the course which Senator Inhofe and I are now proposing to this body. Again, it is not the preferred course. It just happens to be the only course. I thank Senator Inhofe and all the members of our committee for the way they have worked on this bill for now almost a whole year and for the final product, which I believe will have the full committee support or at least almost all of us. There were only three members of our committee who did not vote for the bill that came to the floor before. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEVIN. The point of the Senator from Arizona is extremely well taken. There is, relevant to his point, a list of expiring authorities which we have just received from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dempsey. I put that letter in the Record; we got it literally a few hours ago--listing some of the expiring authorities, including a number that the Senator mentioned and----

Mr. LEVIN. Special pay and bonuses, combat pay, travel and transportation allowances, nonconventional assisted recovery capability, the authorities to do MILCON, which were mentioned by the Senator from Oklahoma. It is a long list. There will be a real chasm if we don't do this this year. You cannot just say: Well, it will go to next year. Senator Inhofe pointed out, I believe, that in one or two cases where it actually did get signed in the year after the bill was passed, it was because there was a veto by a President and the veto override took place, I believe, in the weeks after January. But these expiring authorities are very serious. We are going to tell men and women in combat that there is a gap in their combat pay? We don't know for sure that it will ever be filled. This is what General Dempsey mentioned in his letter. He said: Allowing the bill to slip to January adds yet more uncertainty to the force and further complicates the duty of our commanders who face shifting global threats. I also fear that delay may put the entire bill at risk, protracting this uncertainty and impacting our global influence. Then he gave us a list of the expiring authorities. So the Senator from Arizona raises a very critical issue. Now, it is not desirable for us to pass a bill as we have. But with the help of the Senator from Arizona when he was the ranking member, we were able, on two occasions, in a situation where there were objections to amendments being offered on the Senate floor--I will not go into all the details, but 2 of the last 5 years we were put in a position where we could not get the usual course followed, where the bill had a full amendment process on the Senate floor--it had some, as this bill has, but not enough time. Then we ran into that wall, and we were able to work out a bipartisan resolution to present to the Senate, sort of a virtual conference report--not technically a conference report but a bill, a fresh bill, a new bill which merged and blended the bill that passed the Senate Armed Services Committee in those 2 years with the bill that passed the House of Representatives. We then on a bipartisan basis presented those two bills to the Senate, and they were passed.

Mr. LEVIN. The Senator points out the reality, which is what is likely to happen in January. There is another reality that what will happen in January is it will be very difficult to get to this bill because of the crushing business of CRs and other crushing business in January, even if we meet in January. The shortest answer I could give to my friend from Arizona is the following: I am in combat. I am in combat somewhere in the world and I am going to read: Combat pay stops on December 31. There are dozens of these kinds of authorizations that are listed in General Dempsey's letter, dozens of them, that just stop on December 31. Take only that one. Think about that and what kind of an impression we are giving to our men and women who are in combat, in harm's way, when they read: Combat pay stops. Yes, maybe it will be extended in January or in February, but that is actually unsatisfactory. It will be outrageous for us not to pass this bill.

Mr. LEVIN. I thank the Senator from Arizona for everything he has been doing for so many decades for this country, including our committee. It is invaluable. We are going to get this bill passed. That is our determination. It will be a shock to every American if we are unable to pass the Defense authorization bill. It will be totally intolerable. I know Senator Inhofe and I will help Senator McCain and others get this bill done this year. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. I ask unanimous consent that after my remarks, the Senator from Alabama be recognized.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, in the past, a few Senate majorities, frustrated by their inability to get certain bills and nominations to a vote, have threatened to ignore the rules and change them by fiat, and to change rules to a majority vote change. Rule XXII of the Senate requires two-thirds of the Senate to amend our rules. A new precedent has now been set, which is that a majority can change our rules. Because that step would change this Senate into a legislative body where the majority can, whenever it wishes, change the rules, it has been dubbed the nuclear option. Arguments about the nuclear option are not new. Senator Arthur Vandenberg confronted the same question in 1949. Senator Vandenberg, who was a giant of the Senate and one of my predecessors from Michigan, said if the majority can change the rules at will, ``there are no rules except the transient, unregulated wishes of a majority of whatever quorum is temporarily in control of the Senate.'' When Senator Vandenberg took that position, he was arguing against changing the rules by fiat, although he favored the rule change that was being considered. Overruling the ruling of the Chair, as we have now done, by a simple majority is not a one-time action. If a Senate majority demonstrates it can make such a change once, there are no rules which bind a majority, and all future majorities will feel free to exercise the same power-- not just on judges and executive appointments but on legislation. We have avoided taking those nuclear steps in the past, although we have avoided them sometimes barely. I am glad we avoided the possible use of the nuclear option again earlier this year when our leaders agreed on a path allowing the Senate to proceed to a vote on the President's nominees for several unfilled vacancies in his administration. Today we are once again moving down a destructive path. The issue is not whether to change the rules--I support changing the rules--to allow a President to get a vote on nominees to executive and most judicial positions. But this is not about the ends but the means. Pursuing the nuclear option in this manner removes an important check on majority overreach. As Senator Vandenberg said: If a Senate majority decides to pursue its aims unrestrained by the rules, we will have sacrificed a professed vital principle for the sake of momentary convenience. Republicans have filibustered three eminently qualified nominees to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. They make no pretense of argument that these nominees are unqualified. The mere nomination of qualified judges by this President, they say, qualifies as court packing. It is the latest attempt by Republicans, having lost two Presidential elections, to seek preventing the duly elected President from fulfilling his constitutional duties. The thin veneer of substance laid over this partisan obstruction is the claim that the DC Circuit has too many judges. To be kind, this is a debatable proposition, one for which there is ample contrary evidence, and surely one that falls far short of the need to provoke a constitutional battle. Republicans know they cannot succeed in passing legislation to reduce the size of the court. So, presented with a statutory and constitutional reality they do not like, they have decided to ignore that reality and have decided they can obstruct the President's nominees for no substantive reason. Let nobody mistake my meaning. The actions of Senate Republicans in these matters have been irresponsible. These actions put short-term partisan interest ahead of the good of the Nation and the future of this Senate as a unique institution. It is deeply dispiriting to see so many Republican colleagues who have in the past pledged to filibuster judicial nominees only in extraordinary circumstances engaged in such partisan gamesmanship. Whatever their motivations, the repercussions of their actions are clear. They are contributing to the destruction of an important check against majority overreach. To the frustration of those willing to break the rules to change the rules, those of us who are unwilling to do that have now seen it occur before our eyes when the Chair was overruled earlier today. So why don't I join my Democratic colleagues in supporting the method by which they propose to change the rules? My opposition to the use of the nuclear option to change the rules of the Senate is not a defense of the current abuse of the rules. My opposition to the nuclear option is not new. When Republicans threatened in 2005 to use the nuclear option in a dispute over judicial nominees, I strongly opposed the plans, just as Senator Kennedy, Senator Biden, and Senator Byrd did, and just about every Senate Democrat did--including Democrats still in the Senate today. Back then, Senator Kennedy called the Republican plan a ``preemptive nuclear strike,'' and said: Neither the Constitution, nor Senate rules, nor Senate precedents, nor American history, provide any justification for selectively nullifying the use of the filibuster. Equally important, neither the Constitution nor the Rules nor the precedents nor history provide any permissible means for a bare majority of the Senate to take that radical step without breaking or ignoring clear provisions of applicable Senate Rules and unquestioned precedents. Here is what then-Senator Biden said during that 2005 fight: The nuclear option abandons America's sense of fair play. It's the one thing this country stands for. Not tilting the playing field on the side of those who control and own the field. I say to my friends on the Republican side, you may own the field right now but you won't own it forever. And I pray to God when the Democrats take back control, we don't make the same kind of naked power grab you are doing. My position today is consistent with the position that I and every Senate Democrat took then--and that is just back in 2005--to preserve the rights of the Senate minority. I can't ignore that. Nor can I ignore the fact that Democrats have used the filibuster on many occasions to advance or protect policies we believe in. When Republicans controlled the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives from 2003-2006, it was a Democratic minority in the Senate that blocked a series of bills that would have severely restricted the reproductive rights of women. It was a Democratic minority in the Senate that beat back efforts to limit Americans' right to seek justice in the courts when they are harmed by corporate or medical wrongdoing. It was a Democratic minority in the Senate that stopped the nominations of some to the Federal courts who we believed would not provide fair and unbiased judgment. Without the protections afforded the Senate minority, total repeal of the estate tax would have passed the Senate in 2006. We don't have to go back to 2006 to find examples of Senate Democrats using the rules of the Senate to stop passage of what many of us deemed bad legislation. Just last year, these protections prevented adoption of an amendment which would have essentially prevented the EPA from protecting waters under the Clean Water Act. We stopped an amendment to allow loaded and concealed weapons on land managed by the Army Corps of Engineers. With minority votes, we stopped legislation that would have allowed some individuals who were deemed mentally incompetent access to firearms. That is just in the last year. Removing these minority protections risks that in the future, important civil and political rights might disappear because a majority agreed they should. Let us not kid ourselves. The fact that we changed the rules today just to apply to judges and executive nominations does not mean the same precedent won't be used tomorrow or next year or the year after to provide for the end of a filibuster on legislation, on bills and amendments that are before us. Just as I have implored my Democratic colleagues to consider the implications of a nuclear option which would establish the precedent that the majority can change the rules at will, it is just as urgent for my Republican colleagues to end the abuse of rules allowing extended debate that were intended to be invoked rarely. Some of my Democratic colleagues may rightfully ask, if a Democratic majority cannot initially muster a supermajority to end filibusters or change the rules, then what can the majority do? The rules give us the path, and that is to make the filibusterers filibuster. Let the majority leader bring nominations before the Senate, and let the Senate majority force the filibusterers to come to the floor to filibuster. The current rules of the Senate allow the Presiding Officer to put the pending question to a vote when no Senator seeks recognition. Let us, as the Senate majority, dedicate a week, or a weekend, or even a night, to force the filibusterers to filibuster. In 2010, in testimony before the rules committee on this subject, this is what Senator Byrd said: Does the difficulty reside in the construction of our rules, or does it reside in the ease of circumventing them? A true filibuster is a fight, not a threat, not a bluff. . . . Now, unbelievably, just the whisper of opposition brings the ``world's greatest deliberative body'' to a grinding halt. Then he said: Forceful confrontation to a threat to filibuster is undoubtedly the antidote to the malady. We have not used that antidote to the malady which besets this body, allowing the mere threat of a filibuster to succeed without challenging that threat, without telling the filibusterers: Go ahead, filibuster. We have rules that protect us. When you pause and when there is no one else here, at 3 o'clock on the fourth day or the fifth day or the sixth day, the Chair can put the question. The American people will then see in a dramatic way the obstruction which has taken place in this body. But before a Senate majority assumes a power that no Senate majority before us has assumed, to change the rules at the will of the majority, before we do something that cannot easily be undone--and we have now done it--before we discard the uniqueness of this great institution, let us use the current rules and precedents of the Senate to end abuse of the filibuster. Surely we owe that much to this great and unique institution. There is a conversation, which was a formal conversation between the majority and Republican leaders just last January. Here is what the majority leader said: In addition to the standing order [which is what we have adopted] I will enforce existing rules to make the Senate operate more efficiently. After reasonable notice, I will insist that any Senator who objects to consent requests or threatens to filibuster come to the floor and exercise his or her rights himself or herself. This will apply to all objections to unanimous consent requests. Senators should be required to come to the floor and participate in the legislative process, to voice objections, engage in debate or offer amendments. He said: Finally, we will also announce that when the majority leader or bill manager has reasonably alerted the body of the intention to do so and the Senate is not in a quorum call and there is no order of the Senate to the contrary, the Presiding Officer may ask if there is further debate, and if no Senator seeks recognition, the Presiding Officer may put the question to a vote. He, our majority leader, said: This is consistent with the precedent of the Senate and with Riddick's Senate Procedure. What this showed again is that if we in the majority have the willpower, as much willpower as has been shown by some obstructionists in this body--if we have an equal amount of will as they have shown, that the current rules, before this change today, can be used to force filibusterers to filibuster, to come to the floor and to talk, all we need is the willingness to use the rules, to take the weekend off, to take a week that we hoped for a recess, and use it to come back here; to take the recess itself, if necessary during the summer, for 1 month if necessary, to try to preserve what is so essential to this body, its uniqueness, which is that the majority cannot change the rules whenever it wants. The House of Representatives can change the rules whenever it wants. It is called a rules committee. They can adopt and modify the rules at any time, and they do. This body has not done that. We have resisted. We have been tempted to do it. We have come close to doing it. But we have never done it--until today. Do I want to amend the rules? Do I. I want to amend these rules with all my heart. I want to embody a principle that a President, regardless of party, should be able to get a vote on his or her nominees to executive positions at the district and circuit courts. I believe in that. I believe most Senators believe in that. We need to change the rule. But to change it in the way we changed it today means there are no rules except as the majority wants them. It is a very major shift in the very nature of this institution, if the majority can do whatever it wants by changing the rules whenever it wants with a method that has not been used before in this body to change the very rules of this body. We should have avoided a nuclear option. We should have avoided violating our precedents. We should have avoided changing and creating a precedent which can be used in the same way on legislation. It may give comfort to some today: ``But this is only on judges, this is only on executive appointments.'' This precedent is equally available to a majority that wants to change the rules relative to the legislative process. Those who have abused these rules, mainly on the other side of the aisle, whether they acknowledge it, are contributors to the loss of protections which we see today for the Senate minority. Given a tool of great power, requiring great responsibility, they have recklessly abused it. But now I am afraid it will not just be they who will pay the price. In the short term, judges will be confirmed who should be confirmed. But when the precedent is set, the majority of this body can change the rules at will, which is what the majority did today. If it can be changed on judges or on other nominees, this precedent is going to be used, I fear, to change the rules in consideration of legislation. Down the road--we don't know how far down the road, we never know that in a democracy--but down the road the hard-won protections and benefits for our people's health and welfare will be lost. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, we will soon vote on whether to invoke cloture on S. 1197, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014. This bill was reported out of the Armed Services Committee with a strong bipartisan vote of 23 to 3. We have enacted a National Defense Authorization Act every year for more than 50 years, and it is critically important that we do so again this year. We spent all day yesterday debating two amendments addressing sexual assault in the military, but we have not been allowed to vote on them. There was opposition on the other side to voting even on those two amendments which have now been fully debated. We were told that Senators wouldn't let us vote on the sexual assault amendments because they were afraid those would be the only votes. We offered to lock in additional amendments, six for Democrats, six for Republicans. That got an objection. Staff had built up a cleared amendment package of 39 additional amendments on a bipartisan basis, about half for each side, that were all agreed to on the merits. Again, we got thwarted. So over and over, we had objections to considering amendments, based on the accusation that we were not considering enough amendments. But how on earth does blocking the consideration of amendments that we can all agree on advance the cause of considering amendments? I am going to continue to work with my friend from Oklahoma--and we are good friends and we work together well. He is right. I am going to continue to work toward an agreement that will enable us to proceed with additional amendments on this bill. This would not be the first time this kind of a problem has happened on a Defense authorization bill. In 2008, one Senator objected to cleared amendment packages and to bringing up amendments. As a result, we were able to have only two rollcall votes and adopted only 9 amendments--all of which were agreed to before the objection was raised. Then, as now, the objection did not result in more amendments being adopted but, rather, in almost no amendments being adopted at all. In 2008, we invoked cloture and proceeded with the bill with virtually no Senate amendments--a result which was less than ideal, but at least it enabled us to enact a National Defense Authorization Act that year. We must pass a national defense authorization bill. If we fail to do so, we will be letting down our men and women in uniform and failing to perform one of Congress' most basic duties--providing for the national defense. As is the case every year, if we fail to enact this bill, our troops will not get the full amount of compensation to which they are entitled. If we fail to act, the Department's authority to pay out combat pay, hardship duty pay, special pay for nuclear-qualified servicemembers, enlistment and reenlistment bonuses, incentive pay for critical specialties, assignment incentive pay, and accession and retention bonuses for critical specialties will expire on December 31. After that date, we will have troops in combat who will not get combat pay. We will lose some of our most highly skilled men and women with specialties that we vitally need. Not only will we be shortchanging our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines, but we will be denying our military services critical authorities they need to recruit and retain high-quality servicemembers, and to achieve their force- shaping objectives as they draw down their end strengths. That is not all. If we fail to enact this bill, school districts all over the United States that rely on supplemental impact aid to help them educate military children will no longer receive that money. If we fail to enact this bill, the Department of Defense will not be able to begin construction on any new military construction projects in the coming year. That means our troops won't get the barracks, ranges, hospitals, laboratories, and other support facilities they need to support operational requirements, conduct training, and maintain equipment. It means that military family housing will not receive needed upgrades. If we fail to enact this bill, the existing military land withdrawals will expire at China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station and Chocolate Mountain Aerial Gunnery Range. That means our military will have to cease operations on those vital test and training ranges, losing critical testing and training capabilities that they relied on for the last 25 years. If we fail to enact this bill, the Department of Defense will run out of money for the construction of the first ship of the Navy's new class of aircraft carriers, the Gerald R. Ford. That means the Navy will have to issue a stop work order on the construction of the Ford, requiring them to lay off workers and requiring a break in production that will add hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars not only to the cost of the Ford, but also to the cost of follow-on aircraft carriers. It goes on and on. If we fail to enact this bill, we will enact none of the far-reaching reforms we need to address on the problem of sexual assault in the military. Already we have been blocked in our effort to clear a package of manager's amendments, including Senator Boxer's amendment reforming the article 32 process. Now, we are not only going to lose important reforms, but there are two dozen measures that are in the bill which address the problem of sexual assault. If we don't adopt this bill, we won't be providing a Special Victims' Counsel for victims of sexual assault. We won't make retaliation for reporting a sexual assault a crime under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. If we don't adopt this bill, we won't require commanders to immediately refer all allegations of sexual assault to professional criminal investigators. We won't restrict the authority of senior officers to modify the findings and sentence of court-martial convictions, and we won't require higher level review of any decision not to prosecute allegations of sexual assault. We have already failed our men and women in uniform by failing to end sequestration. We should not fail them again by failing to enact the many critical measures included in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014.

Mr. LEVIN. I would be happy to yield.

Mr. LEVIN. I ask unanimous consent that be allowed.

Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, there are no Democrat amendments on his list.

Mr. LEVIN. We cannot agree with a list of amendments, many of which are not agreed to on this side, many of which would be filibustered on this side, which would result in just making it impossible for us to get to a Defense authorization bill conclusion. I ask unanimous consent that a unanimous consent request--which I was going to make but I will withhold--that lists 26 amendments, half Democratic, half Republican, that I was going to ask consent be adopted because they have been cleared--which I understand will be objected to so I will not make the unanimous consent request--be printed in the Record.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, as the holiday season draws close, millions of Americans are shopping online for clothes, toys, and other holiday gifts. But alarmingly, at the same time, convicted felons, domestic abusers, terrorists, and other dangerous people are able to go online and just as easily shop for something else: guns. Studies have shown that thousands of firearms are bought and sold online every year. Many of these sales exploit loopholes in the background check laws designed to keep our communities safe. Under current law, an individual buying a gun at a brick-and-mortar, Federally licensed firearm dealer must pass a simple and quick background check to make sure that, among other things, they haven't been convicted of a felony, or aren't a domestic abuser, or haven't been adjudicated to be dangerously mentally ill. Department of Justice statistics have shown that Brady background checks have blocked more than two million instances in which a dangerous individual attempted to obtain a deadly weapon. But a significant loophole in this law is now well known: felons and other prohibited persons can simply go to a ``private seller,'' as opposed to a licensed dealer, and buy a gun without a background check. It has been estimated that as of September 2013, about 67,000 firearms were listed for sale online from private sellers. Many of the people buying guns from these sellers have no intention of committing any sort of crime and would easily pass a background check. But as a disturbing new report recently released by Mayors Against Illegal Guns makes clear, all too often, the Internet serves as a black market where dangerous individuals can get their hands on weapons. According to this report, 1 in 30 would-be firearm purchasers on www.armslist.com has a criminal record that legally prohibits them from purchasing or owning a gun. This means, according to the report, that more than 25,000 guns of almost any kind may be transferred to prohibited persons through www.armslist.com in any given year. At any time, a convicted felon can log on and purchase a military-style weapon from a ``private seller.'' For example, one ``private party'' listing on the website touts a military-style semiautomatic rifle as the ``World War III special,'' and boasts that the weapon can ``provide rapid defensive fire when needed.'' Such a weapon has no sporting purpose. It is designed to kill as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. Should it really be available for anyone to purchase, at any time, without a background check? This leads to dangerous and sometimes tragic outcomes. For example, the report cites a man from North Carolina who, earlier this year, posted an ad on the Web site seeking to purchase a military-style assault rifle specifically from a private seller. The investigation found that this prospective buyer had previously been convicted of several felonies, including robbery with a dangerous weapon, and would have failed a background check. In another case, Zina Daniel of Wisconsin obtained a restraining order against her husband which legally prohibited him from purchasing a firearm. Days later, the husband bought a semiautomatic handgun from a dealer through armslist.com, and went to find Ms. Daniel at her workplace. There, he used the weapon to murder her and two others, injure four more, and kill himself. Had these individuals been confronted with a simple background check at a brick-and-mortar gun shop, they may have been turned away. Why should a purchase from the online marketplace be any different? Study after study, conducted by organizations across the political spectrum, have shown that around 90 percent of the American public supports the enactment of background checks on all gun sales. The vast majority of our constituents agree that wherever someone is buying a gun--at the shop around the corner, from the Internet, from a gun show, or even from the back of a van in a dark alley--they should be able to prove that they can pass a simple and quick background check. We must not wait until the next unstable individual buys a deadly weapon online and turns it on our communities. We should act to protect our families, our neighbors, and our loved ones. I urge my colleagues to take up and pass background check legislation to shut down the online black market for illegal firearm purchases. It's just common sense.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I yield myself 6 of my 10 minutes. One of the issues we address in this bill is the problem of sexual assault in the military. Too many of the men and women who volunteer for our military to serve and protect us are victims of sexual assault and other misconduct. That is deeply offensive to our conscience and a stain on an honorable institution. The bill that was reported by the committee includes groundbreaking new measures to reduce sexual assault and misconduct. On a bipartisan basis, members debated and approved more than two dozen measures related to preventing sexual assault and to delivering justice for the victims of these crimes. The bill that we approved, and which is now before us, would provide sexual assault victims a counsel, a lawyer, who works not for commanders, prosecutors, defense attorneys or a court but for the victim. It includes strong new protections for victims that are designed to combat the No. 1 problem we have in preventing assaults and dealing with perpetrators: the fact that many assaults remain unreported to authorities. Of great importance, the committee-reported bill for the first time makes it a crime under the Uniform Code of Military Justice to retaliate against a servicemember who reports a sexual assault. It also requires that the Department of Defense inspector general review and investigate any allegation of retaliation against those who make communications regarding sexual assault or sexual misconduct. Our bill includes important criminal justice system reforms, including reforms on how commanders respond to sexual assaults. Our bill includes a requirement that commanders who become aware of a reported sexual assault immediately forward that information to criminal investigators. It eliminates the consideration of the accused's character from the factors a commander should weigh in deciding whether to prosecute a sexual assault allegation. It restricts the authority of commanders under Article 60 of the UCMJ to set aside court-martial verdicts in cases involving sexual assault and other crimes. It requires that a decision by a commander not to prosecute a sexual assault complaint undergoes an automatic review by a higher command authority, in nearly all cases a general or flag officer. In the case where a commander's decision not to prosecute contradicts the recommendation of his or her legal advisor, that automatic review is conducted by the service Secretary. The committee-reported bill also makes clear that we expect and demand that commanders will use their authority to rein in this problem by fostering a climate of zero tolerance toward sexual misconduct and one in which servicemembers believe they can come forward to report cases of sexual assault. These important reforms were the product of the work of almost every member of the Armed Services Committee. The desire to remove this stain from our military is bipartisan and it is strong. Despite widespread bipartisan agreement on significant reforms, one significant issue of dispute remains. This is the question of whether military commanders should retain their authority to prosecute sexual assaults. Senator Gillibrand proposed in committee, and proposes again here on the floor, to remove our commanders' authority to prosecute. Along with a strong majority of the Armed Services Committee, I opposed Senator Gillibrand's proposal, which was defeated on a bipartisan 17-9 vote. I oppose it for a simple reason: I do not believe its passage would strengthen efforts to end military sexual assault and other misconduct, and in fact I believe it could weaken those efforts. The Gillibrand amendment would uproot major portions of the military justice system and require the establishment of a parallel justice system within the military. Our top military lawyers have told us that the amendment leaves large gaps and unexplained issues that could make the new system unadministrable and bog it down in litigation. Despite those problems, if I believed that the proposed amendment would remove more sexual predators from the ranks and put more of them behind bars, or lead more victims to report sexual assaults, I could support it. But the evidence we received in our committee shows the opposite. First, we learned that military commanders are more likely, not less likely, more likely, to prosecute sexual assaults than military or civilian lawyers. The committee heard from many commanders, at all levels, that they see important value in sending cases to court-martial even if a conviction is not a slam-dunk. But we have more than the assurances of commanders. We have hard data. Over the last two years, in nearly 100 sexual assault cases which civilian prosecutors declined to prosecute, military commanders stepped in and took the case to court. Trials are complete in 63 of those cases, resulting in 52 convictions an 83 percent conviction rate. Those victims would not have seen justice if a military commander had not stepped in where professional prosecutors declined to act. The evidence before us indicates that commanders are ready to prosecute these cases, and that removing their judgment and replacing it with career attorneys will result in fewer prosecutions of these cases. The evidence is that when victims do come forward, their reports are properly investigated, and when commanders are presented with the facts, our commanders do their job. They often send cases to trial even when professional prosecutors hesitate to do so. So why would we want to take that authority away? Second, the supporters of this proposal have argued that it will increase victims' willingness to come forward. They do not provide any data to support the assertion that victims will be more willing to come forward in a system that is less likely to bring them justice. Why would victims feel more confident in a system that is less likely to aggressively prosecute these crimes? The Response Systems to Adult Sexual Assault Crimes Panel, which was established in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 and has looked in depth at the experience of our allies on this issue, reported last week: ``We have seen no indication that the removal of the commander from the decision making process has resulted in an increase in reporting and there is nothing in the experiences of our foreign Allies that suggests adopting their systems as a model will have any impact on the reporting of sexual assaults.'' I believe the contention that this amendment would increase reporting stems in many cases from a fundamental misunderstanding of how sexual assaults are reported. One member of the Senate, in announcing his support for taking away commanders' authority to prosecute, said: ``To me, it's as simple as this: Should you have to report to your boss when you've been abused or when you've been a victim of a crime?'' Well, of course you shouldn't have to. And in the military, you don't. There are many different avenues by which a member of the military may report a sexual assault. Reporting it to your commanding officer is only one. Victims can report an assault to civilian police, to military criminal investigators, to a health care professional or to a sexual assault response coordinator. The Gillibrand amendment does not affect any of those reporting channels. Its only effect is to change what happens once an assault is reported and investigated. Supporters of this proposal have argued that our allies have adopted changes to their military justice systems along the lines they propose, and that these changes have better served sexual assault victims. What this argument ignores is the fact that our allies' decisions have not been aimed at protecting sexual assault victims. In fact, with allies such as Canada and Great Britain, commanders' authority to prosecute was removed not out of concern for crime victims, but out of concern for the rights of the accused. I have yet to hear anyone argue that the problem with our handling of military sexual assault is that it is too tough on perpetrators. Yet that has been why allied militaries removed the decision to prosecute from their commanders. Perhaps the most basic reason to oppose the amendment of the Senator from New York is that it removes a powerful tool from those who are indispensable to turning around the problem we have. Our military commanders are the indispensable tool to turn around this problem. I have met at length with several groups of retired military women. I specifically chose to meet with retired military personnel to ensure that they would be free to speak their minds. These women--all of whom have seen cases of sexual assault and sexual harassment in the course of their military careers--told me the problem is not commanders. The problem is a military culture, they told us, that tolerates excessive drinking and barracks banter that borders on sexual harassment or crosses that line. The problem is there is a failure to recognize the existence of servicemembers who appear to be good soldiers but in fact are sexual predators, and a culture that values unit cohesion to such an extent that those who report misconduct are more likely to be ostracized than respected. None of these problems are unique to the military, but they are exacerbated in the military by the frequent rotation of military assignments, which can make it easier for predators to hide. The military has a unique tool for addressing this problem: commanders who can bring about changes in command climate through mandatory training and by issuing and enforcing orders that are not possible in a civilian environment. That is what they did in addressing racial discrimination and in ending don't ask, don't tell. That is what they can and should do here. Weeding out sexual predators and the climate that makes it possible for them to hide is an essential ingredient in any solution to the sexual assault problem. The military women whom I met with over the summer told me that our commanders are in the best position to make that change. Weakening the authority of commanders will do serious damage to their ability to accomplish this change. All of us seek the strongest, most effective response to the plague of military sexual assault. The amendment Senator Gillibrand proposes will not strengthen our response. The evidence before us shows it will, in fact, weaken our response by removing the decision from the hands of commanders. We have two dozen historic reforms in our bill, but a number of Senators, led by Senators McCaskill and Ayotte and Fischer, have continued to work on policies to strengthen our response to the military assault problem. This has resulted in the amendment they have proposed. Their amendment would ensure that the duties of special victims' counsels include advising victims on the advantages and disadvantages of prosecuting a case in the civilian or military justice systems, giving victims a greater voice in where a case is heard. It would require that performance evaluations of commanding officers consider their success or failure in creating a command climate in which victims can report sexual assaults without fear. It would require command climate assessments of any unit in which a servicemember is the victim of a sexual assault or is accused of committing one. It would give the victims of sexual assault who leave the military the ability to challenge the terms or characterization of their separation or discharge. It would prohibit introduction as evidence during judicial proceedings a sexual assault defendant's general military character-- the so-called ``good soldier defense.'' In other words, the fact that a defendant happens to be a good troop would no longer be allowed as evidence that he or she did not commit a sexual assault. These reforms are aimed at the problems we do have that is, at rooting out retaliation against victims, and providing victims better support--and not at a problem we don't have--that is, the decisions our commanders make relative to prosecution of these crimes. I will conclude by saying that these additional reforms in the McCaskill-Ayotte-Fischer amendment are significant additions to what is in the committee bill, and I support them. What I cannot support--and what I hope the Senate will not support--is legislation that will remove from our commanders the authority to combat this problem. The real, strongest tool to combat this problem is the ability to send a matter to a court-martial. We cannot strengthen our efforts to prevent sexual assault by reducing the likelihood of prosecutions. We know from history and from the facts that is the result of taking this decision away from the hands of the commanders. We know of the 100 cases where other authorities, civilian authorities, have decided not to prosecute but where the commanders then decided to pursue it anyway. That is just within the last 2 years, and we do not know of any cases that go in the other direction. We cannot strengthen our efforts to prevent sexual assaults by reducing the likelihood of prosecutions. We cannot strengthen our efforts by weakening the authority of our commanders to act against sexual assault. Commanders were tasked, again, with making those monumental changes in military culture, from combating racial discrimination in the 1950s to ending don't ask, don't tell in 2011. If we are to accomplish the change in military culture that we all agree is central to combating sexual misconduct and sexual assault, commanders are essential. We cannot fight sexual predators if we make it more difficult to try and convict them. We cannot hold our commanders accountable for accomplishing that needed change in culture if we remove their most powerful weapon in the fight. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEVIN. Is that a unanimous consent request?

Mr. LEVIN. Of course, while reserving the right to object--I will not, but I will say this. I can't tell everybody in this body how disappointing it would be if we do not finish this bill tomorrow or Friday, because the issue is this, and we all ought to face it: There is only 1 week left where both the House and the Senate are going to be in session. If we don't finish this bill this week, there cannot be a conference report; and then, for the first time in 52 years, there will not be a Defense authorization bill in the absence of some miracle. I would plead with our colleagues, let us vote on this amendment. The alternative was a list of 13 amendments which we were willing to then move to. That wasn't satisfactory. We have got to do this a step at a time, and we have done it that way before. We can't even get cleared amendments agreed to where both sides have cleared them into a manager's package. If Senators want to vote tomorrow or Friday against the cloture motion because their amendments haven't been reached, they are free to do so. That is plenty of ``leverage,'' which I guess is the currency around here, tragically. But I plead--and Senator Inhofe and I have worked so hard on this bill and I think he feels this same way--we need to get this bill finished this week or else we are not going to get a conference report.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I have a very brief statement I will now make, and I thank the Senators from Maryland and Maine for allowing me to do this. I ask unanimous consent that the very brief statement I am going to make not count against morning business.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, later this morning the Senate is going to resume consideration of S. 1197, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014. I will have a full statement to make on this legislation later today. However, I would like to take just a moment to talk to my colleagues about where we are on the bill and how we would like to proceed. Last night, the majority leader asked for unanimous consent to bring up side-by-side amendments on subjects that we know we need to debate and vote on--military detention at Guantanamo and sexual assault and misconduct in the military. Each amendment and side-by-side was to be subject to a 60-vote threshold. Unfortunately, there was an objection to this request. As a result of that objection, the majority leader filled the amendment tree on our bill. Now we are in a position where we are going to need the cooperation of all Senators to get this important bill passed, as we must, in the limited time available to us before Thanksgiving week in order that we will have time to go to conference, get a conference report, and bring that conference report back to the House and Senate. It remains our intention to bring up and vote on as many relevant amendments to the bill as possible, and I know the Republican manager, ranking member Senator Inhofe, shares this objective. Toward this end I expect there will be further attempts later in the day to reach a unanimous consent agreement on the first amendments to be brought up, and that will be a repeated unanimous consent request that was offered last night for those first two amendments. It is also our intention to clear amendments, as we have always done on this bill. I urge our colleagues, if you have amendments, to file them, bring them to us, so we can try to clear them. The majority and minority staffs of the Armed Services Committee are working hard. We hope to have a first package of cleared amendments ready for consideration later today, and we will continue to go through that process during the week. Finishing this bill is going to be a very difficult task. We have managed to do it for the last 51 years, and I am confident, with the cooperation of all Senators, we will be able to do it again this year. We must for the sake of our troops, their families, and our Nation. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the time until 4 p.m. be for debate only, with the time being equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees.

Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, I hope Members will now come down and debate, particularly if we can start off again with the legislation on Guantanamo. There will be two amendments here. One will be an amendment by Senator Ayotte and the other one would be an amendment by myself, with Senator McCain. It will be a Levin-McCain amendment. I hope those who are interested in this subject particularly would come down between now and then and we can perhaps even reach a vote on Guantanamo, the two amendments, side-by-side, even later this afternoon. That is the goal. It is not part of the unanimous consent proposal, but that would be a goal. I know my friend from Oklahoma and I are able to work things out most often, and we will try to figure out a way to hopefully get to a vote on two amendments which I think everybody agrees, not on the outcome of the vote, but agrees need to be debated and resolved. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, I thank my friend from Oklahoma because he has said what needs to be said here, which is that we welcome amendments being brought to the floor. We will do our best to try to clear those amendments, which means obviously consulting with not just the sponsors but potential opponents to try to see if we can work things out. On this bill we have always been able to work out amendments, sometimes as many as 100. We need to have votes on this bill, but we also can clear amendments. We work together on a bipartisan basis to do that. I join in his request that Senators who have amendments get them to us to see if we can possibly work them out. We simply must finish this bill this week. The timetable is such that if we are going to finish this bill, as we have for 51 straight years, we have to get this bill to conference. That, in and of itself, will take a week. Then we have to bring the conference report back, if we can reach an agreement on it, to both Houses, and that will take as much as a week as well under the rules, so we really need the cooperation of every Member of this body. I yield the floor.