Don Nickles

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, for the information of all of our colleagues, upon the conclusion of morning business at 11:30 tomorrow morning, the Senate will return to the budget resolution and resume consideration of several pending amendments. I expect that we will have several rollcall votes. We made tremendous progress today. We conducted 23 rollcall votes on amendments, and we adopted several other amendments and resolutions by voice vote. I wish to thank all my colleagues for their cooperation. That being said, we will be voting throughout the day tomorrow on the remaining amendments with a final vote on the resolution to occur no later than 4 p.m. tomorrow. Therefore, tomorrow will be a very busy day. I am hopeful we can finish the resolution before 4 p.m. I encourage all my colleagues to remain in the Chamber during tomorrow's votes on the budget.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I thank my colleague and very much appreciate his cooperation.

Mr. NICKLES

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

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I have no objection.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, just for the information of our colleagues, we will have a vote to begin in a couple minutes on the Schumer amendment, and then the second vote will begin at 10:30 on the Cochran amendment that is also in relation to homeland security. I urge my colleagues, with great respect, to oppose the Schumer amendment. His amendment would add $88 billion over 10 years for a variety of homeland security programs, law enforcement assistance. I contacted the Secretary of Homeland Security, Mr. Ridge, and asked for their position on this amendment. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter from Secretary Ridge: ``The Administration opposes the pending Schumer amendment'' in the second paragraph.

Mr. NICKLES. We have to decide, are we going to have individual Senators come here and say we know best, we ought to give the Secretary--this is a new Secretary, a new Department, where the funding for these items has more than doubled in the last 2 years--a very significant increase. The increase we have this year over last year is 18.4 percent. In addition to that, when we vote on the Cochran amendment, we will be increasing funds for this function for fiscal year 2003, the year we are in, an additional $3.5 billion. That is more than enough to make up for any deficiencies in first responders and also gives additional money for other necessary items in homeland security. Senator Cochran will explain that amendment when we vote at 10:30. I urge our colleagues to vote no on the Schumer amendment. This amendment will have a 15-minute vote, and possibly the next amendment will have 15 minutes, and then we will have a series of rollcall votes. We have 10 amendments in the queue, and today we will possibly vote on a lot of amendments. We urge colleagues, particularly on the second round, to stay on the floor and to be as attentive as possible because we will try to stay to the 10-minute timeframe to accommodate as many amendments as are necessary. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues. That is the first vote. We will probably have several votes. We have already entered consent that the next vote will begin at 10:30. For the information of my colleagues, that will be on the Cochran amendment. We allowed this amendment timeframe to extend. We are going to be much closer to enforcing the time limit of 10 minutes on the following votes. The next amendment will have a 15-minute time limit, but after that we expect to enforce the 10-minute time limit.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I understand there are four bills at the desk which are due for a second reading.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order to read the titles of the bills en bloc.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the measures en bloc and object to further proceeding en bloc.

Mr. NICKLES. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I believe the next amendment in order is the Cochran amendment. I yield to the Senator from Mississippi.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I would like to modify that. This consent agreement will be for this group of votes we now have planned.

Mr. NICKLES. For the 10 votes we have ordered, not necessarily for every vote we might have today. We will probably do that later.

Mr. NICKLES. I believe the Senator from New York wants to speak on the amendment.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, for the information of our colleagues, this will be a 15-minute vote. We plan on strictly enforcing this vote at 15 minutes. We plan on strictly enforcing the subsequent rollcall votes at 10 minutes.

Mr. NICKLES. I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.

Mr. NICKLES. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I inquire of the Parliamentarian how long that rollcall lasted.

Mr. NICKLES. For the information of colleagues, the majority leader and minority leader were cut off; in the next vote we are going to cut off a lot of people if they are not here and voting within 10 minutes. I forewarn our colleagues. I will be fair and bipartisan. We will cut off people if they are not here to vote. We will limit the votes to 10 minutes. Amendment No. 270 The next amendment in order is the Feingold amendment.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I urge our colleagues to vote no on this amendment. We asked CRS to do a study on how we funded wars in the past, and did we do it in advance. Based on the examination of previous reviews, fronting for wars and other major military operations, it appears that Presidents have not requested and Congress has not provided funding for wars in advance of the start of operations; rather, administrations have requested funding after operations have begun and Congress has subsequently appropriated money to meet specific, documented budget requirements. I urge my colleagues to vote no on the amendment.