Carl Levin

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. I object, Mr. President.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Virginia. First, we have, I think, about 50 or more amendments that our staffs have worked very hard on and we have been consulted on, obviously, which we will be able to vote on hopefully today, if possible, and if not, as soon as we get clearance from Senator Warner's side, we will be happy to proceed with them. We are going to keep working on additional amendments. In the meantime, we are together working to try to come up with a unanimous consent request which can get the approval of this body. We need Members to come to the floor to try to work with us on those amendments. Where rollcalls are going to be necessary, we can fit them in at sometime prior, hopefully, to the vote on cloture. As the leader said, we need to have a unanimous consent agreement in hand prior to that cloture vote for the sake of the body. I worry a great deal about the future of our bill. I say ``our bill'' because this is a bipartisan bill. This is not a partisan committee, and it is not a partisan bill. I worry about what is going to happen to our bill if we cannot either get a unanimous consent agreement or cloture tomorrow--one or the other. We will continue to be here this afternoon. Hopefully, colleagues will come to the floor and work with us and our staffs to either work out amendments or, if rollcalls are necessary, to find a spot for those rollcalls to take place.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate move to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 5 minutes.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, Senator Warner and I and our staffs and a number of other Senators have been trying to work out a unanimous consent agreement that would control the continuation of the deliberation and debate on this bill. We have completed a draft of a complicated unanimous consent agreement. It runs a little over two pages. I have been able to give it to Senator Warner now. As always, he is very helpful and responsive and has assured me they can look at this overnight and, in the morning, give us a response, hopefully early, as to whether this, or some variation of it, will be acceptable on that side of the aisle. I thank my friend from Virginia and assure folks that even though we weren't able to get specific votes today, because of a previous agreement that there would be no votes today, we hope that in the morning we will be able to have a roadmap for the balance of this bill.

Mr. LEVIN. That is correct.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow, Tuesday, September 16; that following the prayer and the pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed to have expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate proceed to a period of morning business for up to 1 hour, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the Republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling the second half; that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of S. 3001, the National Defense Authorization Act, with no motions to proceed in order prior to the cloture vote; that the cloture vote on the bill occur at 3 p.m., with 30 minutes prior to the vote equally divided and controlled between the two leaders, with the majority leader controlling the final 15 minutes and the filing deadline for second-degree amendments be at noon. I further ask that the Senate recess from 12:30 until 2:15 to allow for the weekly caucus luncheons to meet.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the managers of the bill continue to work, as I and Senator Warner have mentioned, through our filed amendments. We are trying to reach agreement. Rollcall votes on amendments are possible prior to the cloture vote, if we reach an agreement tomorrow morning.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we move to morning business and that the first person recognized be Senator Sanders, who is always very patient.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, as previously announced, there are no rollcall votes today or Monday. Senators should expect the next vote to occur on Tuesday. However, Senator Warner and I will be here today, we will be here Monday, and we will, of course, be here Tuesday morning to discuss amendments with Senators to try to get these amendments considered or at least in line to be considered. We are clearing amendments. We have a managers' package already that is ready to go with--I am not sure how many amendments we have already put in there-- perhaps 15 or 16 amendments that have already been cleared. We can't get them passed yet because of an objection, but we would expect that objection would be removed by Tuesday. We will continue in the next few days, over the weekend, to try to agree upon many of the 200-plus amendments that have been filed so that we would be hopeful that we would have a large number of amendments in a managers' package ready to go on Tuesday if we can get the objection removed. We also hope that we could, today and Monday, debate amendments which will be requiring rollcall votes on Tuesday. Our goal is to try to complete consideration of this bill by Tuesday night. The majority leader has indicated he will be filing cloture today, which means there would be a cloture vote on Tuesday, and hopefully we would get to the point on Tuesday where the amendments which need rollcall votes could be voted on Tuesday and that we would have a large managers' package and that we would not have to go to a cloture vote on Tuesday and instead try to get to final passage without it. That is the lineup. My dear friend from Virginia and I are here to work with Senators to try to see if we can't get amendments lined up for votes and other amendments agreed upon so that they will be part of the managers' package.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, if I could add one further thought, with the help of our staffs, we have actually been making some progress in terms of some significant discussions that have not been on the Senate floor but nonetheless are taking place, so that we are making some progress on some sticking points, to try to resolve some sticking points to at least get them to a position where they can be voted upon even if they can't be agreed to. So I am optimistic, if everybody cooperates----

Mr. LEVIN. And others, yes. The leaders are involved through their staffs and perhaps personally in these discussions. But it is our effort, our intent, our goal, and our hope that we can get this bill ready for passage, either without a cloture vote or with one, by the end of Tuesday night. That is our goal. The leadership has been very helpful in trying to help us reach that goal, and that is our intent. I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, first, let me thank the leader for his great support of this bill. I think the leadership on both sides really wants this bill to be adopted. We are going to have to move early next week to get it adopted if we are going to make it. We not only have other business to do in the Senate which is critical, but we have to get it to conference and get it back from conference and get a conference report voted on before we recess or adjourn. So we have a lot of work ahead of us. But we are here. Senator Warner and I and our staffs are here. We have met with a lot of Senators relative to their amendments. Our goal is the following: that on Monday, we enter into a unanimous consent agreement setting out what votes on what amendments would be held on Tuesday, both morning and afternoon. That is our goal. We have spoken with many Senators about their amendments. As Senator Warner just indicated, we hope to be able to clear perhaps 50 or 60 amendments, 15 or 20 of which are already cleared. That is our goal, to get our cleared amendments passed and to set up, in a unanimous consent proposal for Monday, the way in which we would vote on various amendments, with time agreements and whether there are 50 votes or 60 votes, and so forth, on Tuesday. That is our goal. I would hope, for the reasons the majority leader just gave, that because this bill is so critically important to the men and women in the Army and to the security of this Nation--not just the Army but the men and women of our Armed Forces and to the security of this Nation-- that we will get this bill passed. The only way we can get it passed is if sometime early next week we are able to pass it; otherwise, we cannot get the work done in conference and back here to the Senate and to the White House. So I thank my good friend from Virginia. I think the comments of the majority leader are comments which should be shared by every single Member of this body relative to the capability and the leadership and the patriotism of Senator Warner. It is always a pleasure to work with him. This may be one of our greatest challenges, but we have a long history of being able to work together on a bipartisan basis to address these kinds of challenges. He has led this committee. We have had many great members of the committee. Staff is working very hard, and I am optimistic going into the weekend that we will be able to get that unanimous consent agreement worked out on Monday.

Mr. LEVIN. The Senator is correct.

Mr. LEVIN. The Senator is correct.

Mr. LEVIN. We have. There is no more fundamental question to this institution than the role of our committees and this institution vis-a- vis the executive branch and whether we are going to have a robust power of the purse or whether that is going to be diminished in any way. I think we are making great progress in showing to our colleagues the implications of some of the proposals, and we are going to continue to make progress in that regard.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum cal1 be rescinded.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I think Senator Warner is just about to enter the Chamber. I would ask the indulgence of my friend from Vermont for one more moment. Even though there is not too much evidence, the fact is, we have made some significant progress today in some significant areas on the Defense authorization bill. Now that Senator Warner is here, I always welcome his good wisdom. This is where we are now, as I was saying. We made some significant progress on the bill, even though it has not been that obvious and apparent. Today we have been able to make some important progress. We will be here tomorrow. Senator Warner and I will be here tomorrow. We urge Senators to come over to see if we can debate their amendments, to discuss their amendments. We are going to work with them to get these amendments offered tomorrow so they would be in line when voting time comes. We will be here, that is true, even though there are no votes tomorrow, we understand. We will be here tomorrow. The Senate is in session. Senator Warner and I will be here. It is very important that Senators who have amendments they intend to offer come here, work with us to try to get them in line for a vote, to see if we can get them offered tomorrow. That will take unanimous consent, but we will make an effort. But we need Senators to come Monday afternoon. We will be here Monday afternoon. We will be here Tuesday. There are no votes Monday, but we will be here for the purpose of debating and discussing amendments, trying to again have them offered. So it is also, I am authorized to say, that there will be no further votes today. Cloture will be filed tomorrow. I thank Senators who are working with us. We have lots of amendments we can clear if we can get unanimous consent to clear a managers' package. The managers' package, we are ready to go with that at any time. We are going to continue to add amendments to that package. We will be working with Senators during these next few days so we can, hopefully, get this bill passed and voted on on Tuesday. That is the situation we are currently in.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I will object. We are more than willing to discuss this amendment tomorrow. We realize this is one of the amendments that will have to be addressed if we are going to get to this bill. So it is not as though we are expecting to complete action on this bill without addressing the amendment of the Senator. However, this is not something I can agree to at this time but would be happy to tomorrow or Monday.

Mr. LEVIN. I am happy to.

Mr. LEVIN. The reason I am reluctant to agree to that is because the Senator from Vermont was dissuaded from addressing the Senate until we had a few minutes to talk about plans for the future. I held up the Senator from Vermont for, now, 10 minutes when he was here and had a right to debate.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I wonder if the Senator from South Carolina will be here tomorrow or on Monday? We may be able to discuss his amendment. It may be three words, but they are mighty important words and have a huge impact, way beyond any description of a three-word amendment. Nonetheless, in order to let the Senator from Vermont proceed, I am wondering whether it would be possible for the Senator to be here tomorrow or Monday so we could discuss his amendment? I would be happy to discuss it.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, let me just quickly say again, if the Senator from Virginia is also willing, could we let the Senator from Vermont proceed? We could come back. I am happy to debate this amendment tonight, if is the only time we can debate it. It has ramifications way beyond what the Senator from South Carolina says. We made a commitment to the Senator from Vermont that he would be recognized next to speak. I was waiting for Senator Warner to come over. The Senator from Vermont was generous enough to hold off. I thought this would only be a few minutes laying out the path ahead. It is much more than that. I could come back and will be here tonight, if the Senator from South Carolina will stay here. I would be happy to give the position which is so terrifically different, very different.

Mr. LEVIN. That can be done by amendment, like any other amendment. But what this amendment does is to say that not just the earmark, the entire budget, including the President's budget, which is currently in that committee report, which is incorporated by reference, that that no longer carries the force of law. So the DeMint amendment goes exactly in the opposite direction of what Senator McCain and others were trying to do, which was to incorporate into law all of the earmarks and the President's budget. We want them in law. We want them to be in law. We got a letter, however, from Senate legal counsel saying it cannot be done technologically. I am not able to argue with him. I would be perfectly happy, and I hope they can be made part of law. But the DeMint amendment goes in the opposite direction. Instead of making them part of law, it wipes out their legal status by saying they will only be part of a committee report which is not incorporated by reference, and, because of the Executive order, the agencies of the Government are directed to ignore the committee report. Previously, the executive departments would comply with committee reports. That is no longer true under the Executive order. So what this amounts to, the DeMint amendment, is an abdication of the power of the purse totally, not just over earmarks but over the President's own budget which has been adopted by the Congress. This is the opposite of what Senator McCain and others have urged, which is that earmarks and other appropriations be incorporated into law. This goes the other direction and says they have no force of law whatsoever. We have to debate the DeMint amendment. I am more than willing to debate the DeMint amendment. I would come back tonight to do it. But I don't think, in fairness to the Senator from Vermont, that we should not allow him to proceed for his 10 or 15 minutes, whatever he wanted. I would be happy to come back.