Don Nickles

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I will reclaim the floor. That is not correct.

Mr. NICKLES. Again, I am reading to my colleague. I have a statement from the past FDA Administrator as well that says they can't guarantee the safety of these drugs. They do not have the regulators. The Senator's amendment did not have the pedigree requirement for drugs that would be imported into the country. That is a possible amendment that I am considering offering. If the Cochran amendment doesn't pass, we are going to be on this bill for a while because I am going to offer an amendment--I will tell my colleague, and maybe you will accept it--I am going to offer amendment that says all the drugs covered by this act shall be manufactured in the United States or Canada, because that has been implied but it is not factual under the bill.

Mr. NICKLES. Let me finish. I am also going to offer an amendment that will replace language under the Dorgan amendment that says there is a pattern of importation of drugs, counterfeit and so on. That would be replaced by ``any instance.'' So we are not going to wait for a pattern if this amendment is adopted. Again, I hope my colleague from North Dakota would agree, with this amendment, that it could be suspended if there were an instance of counterfeit drugs, if there is an intent of abuse of the system. Then they can be suspended and not wait for a pattern. I think both of those amendments are very acceptable. I hope my colleagues will agree to consider them favorably. I yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator withhold propounding the request for a few moments until we have a little more time to look at it?

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Craig), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo), and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Craig), and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Craig), and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) are necessarily absent. I further announce that if present and voting the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) would vote ``yea''.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Craig), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo), and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms), the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Volinovich), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo), and the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner) are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms), the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Voinovich), and the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo) are necessarily absent. I further announce that if present and voting the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) would vote ``no.''

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Voinovich), are necessarily absent. I further announce that if present and voting the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) would vote ``nay.''

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms), the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Voinovich), and the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo) are necessarily absent. I further announce that if present and voting the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) would vote ``yea.''

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms), the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Voinovich), and the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo), are necessarily absent. I further announce that if present and voting the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) would vote ``yea.''

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) is necessarily absent. I further announce that if present and voting the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) would vote ``yea.''

Mr. NICKLES

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

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) is necessarily absent. I further announce that if present and voting the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) would vote ``yea.''

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) is necessarily absent. I further announce that if present and voting the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) would vote ``yea.''

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) is necessarily absent. I further announce that if present and voting the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) would vote ``yea.''

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms), the Senator from Arkansas (Mr. Hutchinson), the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Murkowski), and the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Santorum) are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Craig), the Senator from Texas (Mr. Gramm), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms), the Senator from Texas (Mrs. Hutchison), the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Santorum), and the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Thomas) are necessarily absent. I further announce that if present and voting the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) and the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Santorum) would each vote ``no.''

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I thank my friend and colleague from Texas for his remarks. I will just make a comment. I see the chairman of the Budget Committee is in the Chamber. Bring the budget to the floor. I can tell you, my colleagues--who might have listened to my very good friend, Senate Domenici, who says, let's vote for this amendment--this amendment is going absolutely nowhere, even if it is adopted--and it is not going to be adopted--because it is on the Department of Defense bill, I tell my colleague. It does not belong on the Department of Defense bill. I have urged Senator Warner and Senator Levin that they should table this amendment. It does not belong on this bill. Maybe we will make a budget point of order it is a little higher--it does not belong on this bill. I am on the Budget Committee. Let's bring the budget before the Senate. Then we can have a good debate. Are we going to change points of order? Are we going to change on whether or not you can have end-of- year spending gimmicks that we have banned in the past, which evidently this one-day budget is going to do? Are we going to reverse that? I would like to know. I am on the Budget Committee. I tell my good friend from Nevada, I believe the Senate procedures should work. Now, for whatever reason, the majority has not decided to call up the budget. So this is the second time that various Senators have said: Well, let's do the budget on whatever authorization bill is going through the Senate. That is not the way it should work. It is not the way it has worked. I have been in the Senate for 22 years, and it has never worked this way. We have always passed the budget, and it has not been easy. I will tell the majority, I know it is not easy. I will help them try to work it. I want to see the Senate pass a budget. I do not happen to agree with the majority's budget, but I will help to try to formulate the process to go through the budget procedure to pass a budget. I believe in it. But it does not belong on DOD authorization. Let's just assume that it passed. I hope and I believe it will not, but let's just assume that it passes. OK. So the Senate passes the Senate budget--or part of the Senate budget, because I do not believe this is the entire Senate budget. I do not think this is what passed the Senate Budget Committee, which I serve on, and we spent a couple days in markup. But we had lots and lots of hearings. It was a lot more extensive. I don't know the difference between this and what passed out of the Senate Budget Committee, but I did not vote for it when it came out of the Senate Budget Committee. But I know one thing: It doesn't belong on the DOD authorization bill. I know my friends and colleagues from the House, and they would say: Thank you very much. That is not going to be accepted in conference. You have wasted your time--totally, completely. Budgets have to pass both the House and the Senate if you want to have a binding budget. It does not do any good just to pass it in the Senate by one amendment on one day. That has no impact whatsoever. So we are absolutely wasting our time. I urge my colleagues--I urge the majority because this is not in the minority's capability. The majority should bring this budget as passed out of the Budget Committee and try to pass it on the floor. That is what we should do. Instead, we have this game, and it just happens to be the Democrats' budget. Obviously, the President does not want it. My Budget Committee staff tells me it is $21 billion higher than the figure the President submitted. It is not a 1-year budget; it is a 2- year budget. Wow. OK, it is $21 billion. We increased the amount you can have on advanced appropriations, something that probably not three people in the Senate really understand. But we are going to increase that figure from $23 billion to $25 billion. Oh, we are going to do that. Oh, now we are going to be changing the rules of the Senate dealing with end of the year, beginning new programs, delayed obligations. Oh, we are changing that. Wait a minute. I say, if we are going to do all these things, let's do it on a budget. Then, when we eventually pass it--it may not have my vote--but when we eventually pass it, it goes to the conference with the House, with budget conferees, not with DOD conferees. DOD conferees in the House would laugh this off: We don't agree with that. It is dropped. The President is against it. He would say he would veto it if it is in the DOT authorization bill. It has no business being in DOD authorization. We have to learn in the Senate at some point to have a little discipline and say, when we are going to bring up the DOD authorization bill, we are going to stay on DOD. That means the managers of the bill have to table nongermane amendments. That means the majority has to bring up a budget in a timely manner, which the law says we are supposed to bring up and pass by April 15. And now we are past June 15, and we have not had the budget brought up on the floor. The majority needs to bring it up. It does not belong on this bill. It is not going to be included in this bill, I hope. I believe a budget point of order will be sustained. It takes 60 votes to pass it, as it should, because the budget statute says it has to come out of the Budget Committee, not to be done on DOD authorization. Oh, we are going to have Senator Warner and Senator Levin be the conferees on the budget? It is not going to happen. We are wasting our time. I am embarrassed for the Senate and the way this Senate is being run, the fact that we did not bring up a budget. And then some people say: Well, we will take pieces of it and put it on DOD authorization. That is absurd. And it just happens to be a couple of pieces that say: Oh, we are going to spend billions of dollars more than the President anticipated. I will be happy to consider pay-go. I will be happy to consider a lot of different things that are in the germane jurisdiction of the Budget Committee on a budget resolution. But to do it on DOD authorization, I think, is just a total, complete waste of time. The point of order that it does not belong on this bill is exactly right. I am sure--and I hope--that our colleagues will sustain that point of order.

Mr. NICKLES. Will my colleague yield for a question?