Trent Lott

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. I will be glad to yield for a question from the Senator from Rhode Island.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, my intent, of course, is to go now to the second vote on the Kennedy amendment, and then that would probably move us close to 7 o'clock. We would proceed to use the remainder of the time on other debate or amendments that will be offered. I presume that time will expire about 8 to 8:30. And then other amendments will be in order and will be debated tonight. All amendments that are going to be offered need to be offered tonight, and then we will stack all the votes on all the amendments and final passage beginning at 9:30 in the morning. We have discussed this with the Democratic leader. I do have a unanimous-consent request to implement that, but we will go ahead and have the vote now, and then we will make the UC request after that vote. I wanted the Members to know my intent. If that is agreed to, then this next vote will be the final recorded vote tonight. We will begin to vote on all the amendments and final passage in the morning at 9:30. I yield to the distinguished chairman of the committee, Senator Domenici. Mr. President, I ask the chairman, is that his understanding and does he have some feel as to what we are talking about here?

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I think it will be helpful to all Members if we can engage in a colloquy now, and I hope the Democratic leader can join us so we can discuss how we will proceed from here.

Mr. LOTT. I yield the floor, Mr. President.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Yes.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I am very pleased to be able to ask unanimous consent that the Senate now turn to the consideration of Calendar No. 88, S. 936, the Department of Defense authorization bill.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, first of all, I would like to announce there will be no further rollcall votes tonight. We have been working to make sure that the Members that we need to have here tomorrow, if necessary, on the Finance Committee and also the Budget Committee members are here so we can complete our work on the tax cut provision of reconciliation, so that the Budget Committee can meet tomorrow morning to package both the reconciliation spending provision and the tax cut bill. We are now satisfied we will be able to have Members here for that, even though we do not have recorded votes scheduled. For the information of all Senators, the Senate will resume consideration of the DOD authorization bill. However, I have been assured that amendments will be offered. Therefore, votes will not occur during Friday's session. The point I am making here is that we will be in session. We will continue to work on the DOD bill. We will have amendments that will be offered, but because of the request of a number of Senators, and the agreement we have been able to work out, we will not have to have votes during Friday's session. As all Members know, the Senate will begin reconciliation on Monday. It is my understanding that Members will offer amendments to the reconciliation bill. Again, with a lot of requests from the Members and with the assurance and the cooperation in a number of ways, which I will not enumerate now, the votes that are required as a result of amendments being offered Monday will be stacked to occur on Tuesday, at 9:30 a.m. Therefore, no votes will occur on Monday. Committees are expected to act in the morning on the tax reconciliation package. We will be in session tomorrow with some morning business time that we will have identified later, and the Department of Defense authorization bill will continue to be considered. We will be in session on Monday on the reconciliation bill, with amendments to be offered. But the next recorded votes will occur and be stacked--more than one, hopefully, and at least a couple, but maybe even more--to occur at 9:30 on Tuesday. Mr. President, does the Senator from Kentucky wish to add anything?

Mr. LOTT. That would be very helpful, Mr. President. I thank Senator Ford. It is a pleasure for me to yield the floor to the chairman of the committee so we can begin the debate.

Mr. LOTT. We will have two from our side. I yield the floor.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, for the information of all Senators, then, the Senate is now considering the defense authorization bill. Several amendments are expected to be offered to the bill; therefore, votes can be expected throughout the remainder of the afternoon and into the night. We will have to get started and see what amendments are available, and then we will expect some votes, but we would like to get as much work done today as we can. And that could take us into the night. Also, I want to make clear that we do intend for the Senate to resume consideration of the bill on Friday. I do expect rollcall votes on amendments relative to the DOD bill, at least until the noon hour on Friday. But, again, that will depend on exactly what amendments are pending. We recognize Senators do have commitments to go back to their States tomorrow afternoon, and we will try to accommodate that. But I do think we need to get some work done on this important legislation. A lot of effort has gone into working out a way to be able to bring the DOD authorization bill to the floor. I think we can make some progress, and I encouraged the ranking member and the chairman to see right away if they could get some finite list of amendments that might want to be offered and be considered. Maybe we can get some understanding of when we could get a final vote on this legislation when we come back after the recess. Next week, we again do intend to bring up the reconciliation spending bill on Monday, as I discussed with the acting minority leader, and we hope to run off time on that bill on Monday. We will talk further about exactly what will happen on Monday. We will do that tomorrow probably just as we wrap up consideration of this bill, complete the spending reconciliation bill Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday, and then go to the tax bill on Thursday, and stay until we finish the tax cut bill. I do not know exactly how long that will take. We have a very bipartisan effort underway in the Finance Committee. The vote on the spending bill was 20 to 0, and we are working together right now on the tax cut provisions also. I expect it will be a bipartisan process and a bipartisan bill. It is possible it may not take that long, but it is very important legislation and we need to get it done, completed next week--both of those bills. Assuming we cannot complete the DOD authorization bill tomorrow because of some concerns, and at least one issue that may come up, I know the Democratic leader would want to be here for that, so we may not be able to take that up until after we come back from the recess. I want to thank the Members for their cooperation in getting this legislation before the Senate now. And I do want to announce that we will expect to complete action on it the week that we come back. Hopefully, it will not take all week, because we have a lot of other bills now that are ready for consideration. It will be the pending business when we come back--if we do not complete it tomorrow--when we come back from the recess. I hope Senators will come to the floor now and offer their amendments. Some Senators were inquiring, ``Why do we need to vote during the middle of the afternoon on Thursday?'' I would like to suggest we have votes the rest of the day into tonight, on Friday, and we be prepared next week to work long hours, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, to get our work done. Then we can go to the recess period and feel good about our production. Would the Senator from Kentucky have any comments?

Mr. LOTT. I appreciate that. That was an important component of us getting this agreement, to guarantee that we are, in fact, getting work done and making progress on the reconciliation bill.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, also, I would like to include in that consent that there be 2 minutes of debate before each vote, equally divided, so an explanation can be given of those.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be permitted to meet Wednesday, June 18, 1997, beginning at 10 a.m. in room SH-216, to conduct a markup on budget reconciliation.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Immigration, of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, June 18, 1997, at 10 a.m. to hold a hearing on human rights abuses in China: U.S. visa policy changes and other possible responses.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry be allowed to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, June 18, 1997, at 9 a.m. in SR-328A to receive testimony regarding U.S. agricultural exports.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, June 18, 1997, to conduct a markup of the committee's legislative submission for the budget reconciliation package.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Science, Technology, and Space Subcommittee of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet on Wednesday, June 18, 1997, at 2 p.m. on NASA International Space Station.

Mr. LOTT

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

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. With that, Mr. President, I do ask unanimous consent that the Senate now turn to the consideration of Calendar No. 84, S. 924, the DOD authorization bill. Mr. GRAMM addressed the Chair.

Mr. LOTT. I regret we have had this objection to proceeding on this very important legislation, the Defense authorization bill. The Armed Services Committee in the Senate has worked very hard on this legislation. It is urgently needed to this extent: Until we can get the authorization bill through the complete process, it makes it difficult for the defense appropriations subcommittee to do its work. So timing is important. We would like to get this authorization bill done at the earliest possible opportunity so it can get on into conference and so that the defense appropriators will know what the authorization numbers are. It is important for our country. It is my understanding that a major issue of contention is still being discussed with respect to the depots and bases that could be affected by it or will be affected by it in Texas, in Oklahoma, in California, in Utah, and Georgia. There are a lot of Senators on both sides of the aisle and on both sides of this issue that are very concerned about how it was handled in the committee. So I have urged those on both sides of the aisle to work together and see if we cannot come up with something that is acceptable to both sides. It will not be easy. This is not a new issue. We went through this in a way in the base closure rounds. We had debate and amendments on it last year. So everybody knows the arguments on both sides. I still believe that there is a way that we can come to some compromise language that would allow us to go forward. The Senators are exercising their right to object to waiving the 2- day rule or calling up the bill to go straight to debate and amendments. But I hope that they will not do this for very long, because we have our work to do. So I understand there is a meeting that will meet again, perhaps today, this afternoon at 5:30, on this issue. We had a preliminary meeting on it in my office yesterday. I will be glad to work with both sides. I want a resolution to be found. But I am not inclined, as I discussed with the distinguished Senator from Kentucky, the acting minority leader, here--I want Senators to be able to exercise their rights, and I want to be helpful with that, but I also think at some point, if you cannot work out something, if you do not work out something, then we will have to use the rules of the Senate to move this very important legislation forward. But I would like everybody to get an opportunity first to work together, and you know we are losing some time here. Every day that goes by that we do not take it up, it means that it already looks like it could be the week of July 7, 8, before we could actually get this legislation completed. I just wanted to make those points. I understand Senators on the floor now would like to be heard on this issue. I would like to yield the floor so that they could make their statements. I yield the floor.

Mr. LOTT. As soon as we can get the agreement worked out. I believe they are working on it right now. We hope by the middle of the afternoon we will have something ready to go on that.

Mr. LOTT. We will probably have morning business, but I do know also there are Senators, a number of Senators, who probably want to speak on this issue at hand. Maybe we will let them talk a little bit and they will feel better and we will find a way to move this bill forward.

Mr. LOTT. Right.

Mr. LOTT. Yes. I yield the floor. Mrs. HUTCHISON addressed the Chair.