Ted Stevens

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. That request was put forward by your side. We agreed to that.

Mr. STEVENS. The majority leader has agreed that is the case. There will be no more rollcall votes tonight.

Mr. STEVENS. I am not authorized to say that.

Mr. STEVENS. It is our intention that we will accept that amendment by voice vote. It is my understanding that 90 minutes will probably not be used.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Murray now be recognized to offer an amendment regarding Amtrak; I further ask unanimous consent that there be 90 minutes for debate equally divided in the usual form, and that following the use or yielding back of time the Senate proceed to a vote in relationship to the amendment without further intervening action or debate; further, I ask that following the disposition of the above amendment Senator Harkin be recognized to offer an amendment regarding the Byrne grants and there be 60 minutes for debate equally divided in the usual form to be used this evening; provided further that following the debate the amendment be temporarily set aside and Senator Schumer be recognized to offer an amendment relating to port security and there be 60 minutes for debate equally divided in the usual form to be used this evening; further, I ask consent that when the Senate resumes consideration of the bill tomorrow morning at 9:30, the Senate proceed to a vote in relation to the Harkin amendment, to be followed immediately by a vote in relation to the Schumer amendment, with no amendments in order to any of the above prior to the votes, with 5 minutes for debate equally divided before each vote.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

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

Mr. STEVENS. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, have the yeas and nays been ordered?

Mr. STEVENS. Will the chair please use his gavel and get some attention and tell Senators to keep quiet.

Mr. STEVENS. I yield the floor.

Mr. STEVENS. May we have order, Mr. President.

Mr. STEVENS. If they want 2 minutes for each side, let's do it. I ask unanimous consent it be 2 minutes on each side.

Mr. STEVENS. I yield for a question. I don't want to lose the floor.

Mr. STEVENS. There seems to be some disagreement about it.

Mr. STEVENS. Two minutes to each side?

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, what is the pending business?

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

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on Senator Byrd's amendment.

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

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I am prepared to yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I inform my friend that none of the persons who spoke on the previous, similar amendment by my colleague from West Virginia wish to speak on this amendment. They have called my attention to the fact that this amendment deals with the first five items in the last amendment. What was in the first amendment for State and local assistance to combat terrorism, the $1.406 billion has been reduced to $1.05 billion; for border security, the $1.008 billion is reduced to $750 million; for airport security, the $720 million has been reduced to $500 million; for port security, the $585 million has been reduced to $500 million; for nuclear security and energy security, the $296 million is reduced to $200 million. In other words, the Senator's amendment takes the first five items he had in the last amendment and reduces them by a reasonable amount in an attempt to reduce its impact in terms of the budget. He has reduced it, by quick calculation, by $1.015 billion in those five areas. He also has deleted another $985 million in other categories. I commend the Senator for being willing to come down in his request. It still amounts to a concept of offering a portion of the last amendment. Instead of the amount that would have been requested--$5 billion--the Senator now says $3 billion. Under the circumstances, I am constrained to again say I oppose the amendment. I would like to have a vote on it. I have no requests for time on this side. I am prepared to yield back the remainder of my time. I yield the floor.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I have not yet seen a copy of the amendment. I need to have a copy in order that I may address it. I have a summary of the major elements of this. This is a $3 billion package as opposed to the one we just voted upon that was $5.1 billion. I am compelled to make the same statement I made before, that unless this is offset, we would not be within the guidelines of the commitment I made; that is, to take a bill to conference which does not exceed the President's total request to the Congress for the fiscal year 2003 appropriations bills. I can hear and see that a great many of the items in this amendment are items for which we will appropriate these moneys sometime, but the Homeland Security department itself is not yet organized. The funds already contained in the Omnibus and prior year funding is sufficient to begin the first phase of the smallpox vaccination program. The border security systems, the security systems, are still in the process of being evaluated. We do have sufficient money in the bill, a substantial amount of money, as a matter of fact, in the bill to deal with those issues. It is with a great deal of sadness that I must tell the Senator, I continue to oppose his efforts to increase the amount of money that would be available to be spent during the fiscal year 2003. I do so with great respect but with total confidence that each of these agencies has enough money to go forward. If they run into problems that are really serious, we can act expeditiously to meet them. The goal we want to achieve now is to get the bill to conference and to get it to conference in a way that we can work out differences with the House over the total amount of money that is to be made available to the administration for these various items. For instance, there is already $24.7 billion in this bill, the amendment I have offered, for homeland security efforts; $4.3 billion of that is for INS, $1.26 billion is for the FBI. We have $5.3 billion for the Transportation Security Administration, including an increase of $1.84 billion for that agency. There are funds for the airport security concepts. We have money for the port security concepts. Each of these items has been covered by the bill that is before us in my amendment. I say to my friend, I cannot in good conscience support this, having opposed the same amounts of money in the larger amendment upon which we just voted. I would hope the Senator would understand, again, what I am trying to do. I am trying to get the 11 bills to conference as a whole and to work with the House and try to come back with a bill the President will sign, if possible, this month. If it can get to the President this month, we will have this money working by February. If we don't do that and the House has to start moving single bills, the 11 bills that affect 2003, when they should be starting to move the 2004 bills, we will be more than a full year behind by the end of this year. That will be a collapse of the appropriations process. I hope we don't have to face that. I urge the Senate to defeat amendments to add money to this Omnibus bill unless it is offset. If the offsets are valid, we will be pleased to consider such amendments. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. STEVENS. I add to that request that this amendment not be subject to second-degree amendment.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment Senator Byrd will offer now be subject to a time agreement under which Senator Byrd has an hour and a half for his amendment and I have one half hour in rebuttal.