Ted Stevens

Mr. STEVENS

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, we have an understanding with Senator Byrd. He will have the floor to offer the second amendment, if he desires to do so. We await that decision. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. STEVENS. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Mikulski be allowed to speak as in morning business for 10 minutes and that I retain the floor thereafter.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, in order to give Senator Byrd a chance to review the amendment, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

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

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from West Virginia. Again, I have to come back to where we are. We are trying to send to the House, in order that we might convene a conference between the House and Senate, the 11 bills we did not pass last year, governing 11 different appropriations bills. The President has to be taken into consideration because we are asking him to sign 11 bills with one signature. Rather than have 11 bills individually come over here from the House, handle them individually in committee, bring them to the floor and handle them individually, take them to conference and handle them individually, pass them by the Senate again individually, and send them one by one to the President, we are asking to play catchup, send them to conference, work it out with the President, within his limits, and he will sign the bills and we will put this problem behind us. The Senator from West Virginia raises a series of issues about homeland security. This Senator does not dispute the fact that additional funds will be needed for homeland security. For instance, if we go back to the State, Justice, Commerce bill, the section of the amendment I have put before the Senate contains $11.3 billion for homeland security for State, Justice, Commerce functions only-- Department of Commerce, Department of Justice, Department of State. There is $8 billion for the Department of Justice, $222.7 million for the judiciary, $262.8 million for the Department of Commerce, and $280 million for the Department of State. Adding another $1.2 billion, as the Senator from West Virginia directs under his amendment, would not be something that can be used by these departments in the 7-plus months that are left--plus maybe a week or two--to spend that money. My position is, let's get this behind us. In every instance, there is money in the bill that would deal with the issues at the President's level; but Senator Byrd wants to increase that money. For instance, for the DC emergency response plan, Senator Byrd wants to add $12 million for the District's unified communication center. We have $10 million for that purpose in this amendment. The President didn't request any money, so we have already added $10 million. Senator Byrd wants to add $12 million to that. In the District of Columbia, Senator Byrd wants to add $13 million for the bioterrorism hospital preparedness account. We already included $10 million in this amendment, and there is $8 million already available from the supplemental passed late last year for the fiscal year 2003. So the District of Columbia has already $18 million for that function to which the Senator wants to add $13 million. In the civil defense area--this is under the Energy and Water Subcommittee--the Senator from West Virginia wants an additional $100 million for security upgrades for the Army Corps of Engineers. That is for reviewing facilities such as dams, water treatment plants, et cetera. We already have $65 billion to be spent in less than 8 months. My friend wishes another $211 million for security upgrades for the Department of Energy's nuclear facilities. In this omnibus amendment before us, we have $1.2 billion for that purpose. Even that money will not be spent in the balance of fiscal 2003. It doesn't do us any good to pass bills that contain surplus money that cannot be spent in this fiscal year. This omnibus bill is for funding the balance of fiscal year 2003. For the Department of Homeland Security's national infrastructure simulation and analysis center in New Mexico, the Senator from West Virginia wants to add $25 million. The President asked for $20 million. We have increased that to $30 million--more money than requested for that function. We increased it 50 percent already. This agreement is not with the function, it is with the pace of spending. The money the Senator wants just cannot be spent in this period of time. I say that respectfully because we have already passed 4 months. At the end of this month, it is 4 months of the fiscal year that is gone. It takes about a month to allocate money, get it out to where people can use it, and it takes time to contract it and hire new people to spend it. It is not physically possible, administratively possible, to spend this additional money. The main thing is, if it is needed, we have a supplemental that is coming along. We will be looking at additions to these bills. We will have money in the 2004 bill which will be available in the last 3 months of this calendar year, this coming October 1. I urge the Senate to look at each issue. Again, I sat with my good friend when we had those hearings. There was not a person there who did not want more money. I do not remember one single person who did not want more money. As a matter of fact, as a father of six, I have had people around me who wanted money all my life. The question is: How much should be allocated, and how fast should they spend it? Now, on this concept of taking the bill and saying, we want to add $5 billion to this omnibus amendment I have, we will take it back into the same fight we had last year, the same thing that delayed us last year, and it will delay us so we cannot even get to the battle for the 2004 appropriations bills. Not to be disrespectful to my friend from West Virginia, but I urge the Senate to not approve this amendment that really does not solve the problem. The problem is, how do we catch up with the appropriations process? How do we face up to the fact that the last Congress did not pass 11 of the 13 bills? I admit I have suggested a rather abrupt and arbitrary procedure, putting them all together in one package, but I did not do it alone. Each of the subcommittees reviewed every single line in these bills. I put into the Record last night the summary of the reports that would have been prepared had we brought out 11 separate bills so that everybody can see where this money is intended to go. Very clearly, it is designed to go to conference with the House. As we go to the conference with the House, I hope we can have a wide-open conference that deals with the issues, and it may be that some of the items that Senator Byrd wants will be brought to us by the House. I do not know, but I know every issue the Senator wants to cover goes into conference. We have rule 28, and those things will be in conference. They can be increased if the conference wishes to do so. I know of no instance where anyone has come to this Senator and said the amount of money that is in this omnibus bill is not enough to finish their functions for fiscal year 2003. There are a lot of them who want more money, but there is not one of them who said, we cannot survive with that amount of money. We have ample money for every function of homeland security that I know of in this bill, and we should not confuse the issue. The Senator's amendment does not address how much money is required for homeland security but whether we should go beyond the President's total request for homeland security. As I mentioned in several instances, we have recommended more than the President requested, but we offset it with cuts from other areas. Unfortunately, the amendment of the Senator from West Virginia does not offset at all. It adds to the bill. There are no offsets. So we do not have a budget resolution. We ought to have agreed to that level right after the election, and had we had the chance to move before then, Senator Byrd would have had the job I have of coming down to that level. Now the gavel has shifted, but the problem has not changed, and I am asking the Senate to do what I think Senator Byrd would have asked last November/December had we gotten to the point where we are now, actually considering the bills on the floor. Again, I do not want to put all of this in the Record, but, again, I will put the summary in the Record in terms of the charts I have prepared. We have covered these functions. We have funded the functions for the amount that the subcommittees, working with the staff of both Republicans and Democrats, believe is sufficient to carry this through until October 1 of this year, fulfilling the obligation to fund the fiscal year 2003 functions of Government. If we do not do this now, there is not one agency that is going to get any money until at least the end of March. It would be a miracle for any one of these bills to pass before the end of March. My suggestion is, let's take it to conference now, and if anyone wants to come in and convince the conference that something is underfunded, do it. These are the collective recommendations of the staff, the chairmen, and ranking members of these subcommittees as to how they would live under this lid of $750.5 billion, as I agreed to do, staying within the President's level, get it to him, and let him sign the bills. Don't misunderstand me. The President is not too happy with this omnibus package either because there are lots of items that are increased and others decreased in terms of his requests. It is not over until the pen moves, until the President signs the bill. I think the only place we can get to the point where he will sign the bill is in conference, and I urge the Senate not to approve this amendment and not to approve the other amendments. Let's take this omnibus package to the conference and work with our counterparts in the House on a bipartisan basis and fashion a bill that the President will sign. I yield the floor.

Mr. STEVENS. Yes. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time for the rollcall on Senator Byrd's amendment be changed to commence at 12:30, with the time added to be equally divided.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for 1 minute?

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I confess that if we didn't have the limitations we face, the deficit we face, I would once again support Senator Byrd's funding in each of these items. Under the circumstances, we cannot. We must get a bill the President will sign as quickly as possible and get these bills behind us so we can come before the Senate with the individual 13 appropriations bills that represent the bills for fiscal year 2004. I yield the floor. Exhibit 1 Executive Office of the President, Office of Homeland Security, Washington, DC, January 16, 2003. Hon. Ted Stevens, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC. Dear Mr. Chairman: I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your leadership in bringing the FY 2003 Omnibus Appropriations Bill to the Senate floor and for supporting critical funding for out Nation's homeland security. I am writing today to strongly oppose amendments to your bill that would add extraneous spending above the levels requested by the President. In particular, the ``Byrd amendment'' purports to provide $5 billion in additional ``homeland security'' spending that is unnecessary. The base omnibus bill contains, as the Administration requested, an unprecedented 30% increase over 2002 (including supplemental funding) in the fiscal commitment to defending the homeland. The funds requested and provided are sufficient to address homeland requirements and, in many cases, are the most that can be absorbed responsibly in the remaining months of this fiscal year. In total, the budget for FY 2003 will provide $37.7 billion in homeland security funding, nearly doubling the pre-9/11 levels. Investments made in previous supplemental appropriations and the FY 2003 Budget will build capacity in areas that will help protect our Nation against terrorist attacks. Since 9/11, the Administration and Congress have committed to providing: $9.6 billion to defend against biological terrorism, more than doubling the level that the Government spent prior; $3.3 billion to secure our borders and ports and over $10 billion for aviation security activities. The omnibus bill as proposed by Senator Stevens supports all of these homeland security initiatives and further funding is unnecessary. We are now more than a quarter of the way through fiscal year 2003 and much of the funding contained in the ``Byrd Amendment'' could not even be obligated in the remaining months of this year. For these reasons, I urge you to oppose the Byrd amendment. Thank you again for your support and we look forward to working with you to ensure that our homeland is protected. Sincerely, Steve Abbot, Admiral (ret.), USN, Deputy Homeland Security Advisor.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I am prepared to try to explain any provision that is in the 11 bills that are contained in the amendment I have offered, or I will call upon the chairmen of all those subcommittees whenever anything is questioned. My hope is the Senate will understand the problem. The problem is, do we take care of these 11 bills in a very expeditious way, get them to conference between the House and Senate, working with the President and his people, and really fashion this into a satisfactory piece of legislation which the President will sign now. If we don't, we must wait for the House to pass these bills individually. That will take a considerable time for them to pass. We are putting this amendment on a resolution that has already been passed by the House and we will send it back to the House. If we have to wait for 11 bills to come back from the House and send them to conference one by one, it will be late March or late April before we get through this process. We will not be able to deal with the pressing needs of this economy, with the problems of taxation, the problems of homeland security itself, and all of the problems that really perplex us in terms of medical problems of our Nation, the health care delivery system. We have the chance now to really try to eliminate the problems caused by a failure to act last year, and act decisively and take these 11 bills, in one bill, to a conference and work it out with the House and the President, and come back with a final bill in a conference report and send it to the President and, hopefully, obtain his signature and have this put behind us. I intend to oppose any amendment to this bill which adds money. I intend to try to get the concept to move expeditiously, if possible. We now have the majority leader's agreement that we will stay in session until we pass this bill. We can do it sooner or we can do it later. When we get to conference, we will have representation from both sides of this aisle. We will be dealing with the Appropriations Committee from the House and from the Senate and, by definition, that committee is made up of the most experienced people on both sides of the aisle. Every point of view is represented in that conference, and every amendment that could be offered here could be offered through one of the members on that conference. We ought to be able to come back to the Senate very quickly with a final solution to this problem, and that is the problem of how do we eliminate this sword of Damocles that hangs over this new Congress--that is, the 11 bills that were not enacted. I ask unanimous consent that a chart that my staff and the staffs of the individual subcommittees have prepared, which shows the major elements of Senator Byrd's amendment, item by item, the amount in Senator Byrd's amendment, and the amendment in my amendment for each of those items, be printed in the Record at the end of my remarks.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, there is money in this amendment I have offered, in one bill or another, dealing with each subject Senator Byrd wishes to cover by his amendment. I can say that the money in the Byrd amendment is going to be spent sometime by the Federal Government in dealing with these issues. The question is, when should we make it available? The President of the United States has said, because of all the other pressures on our Federal Government, he wanted to limit spending under these bills to $750.5 billion. He has given us a new amendment--there will be a second one, too--and that adds $825 million to deal with the enormous fires that occurred in our country last year. As a consequence, we agreed before the end of last year to try to live within the President's limitations. We were unable to do so in the period after the election. Now that we have come back, of course, it is a new Congress and that agreement we made last year to limit it to the President's level was not still binding. But it is binding on me, because I went to see the President and he asked if I would try to do this and get these bills done so we can turn to the budget request, which he will submit to the Congress after the State of the Union Message. I told him I would. I am in the position of asking the Senate to hold to the amount the President asked, the amount of these 11 bills. I didn't really decide every number in these bills. These bills came from 11 subcommittees of the Appropriations Committee, with staff members working from both the Republican and Democratic sides at my request to reduce the amount so the total did not exceed the President's request. That has been done. We have a letter now, Mr. President, which I will put into the Record. I will read some of it to the Senate: Dear Mr. Chairman: I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your leadership-- I won't read the whole first paragraph. The second paragraph says this: I am writing today to strongly oppose amendments to your bill that would add extraneous spending above the levels requested by the President. In particular, the ``Byrd amendment'' purports to add $5 billion in additional ``homeland security'' spending that is unnecessary. This letter goes on to say: We are now more than a quarter of the way through fiscal year 2003 and much of the funding contained in the ``Byrd amendment'' could not even be obligated in the remaining months of this year. For these reasons, I urge you to oppose the Byrd amendment. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record at the end of my comments.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I do intend to yield to my distinguished friend from West Virginia anytime he wishes to start discussing his amendment. The amendment pending before us to the amendment I have offered, which contains the 11 bills that were not enacted that the majority leader mentioned, the Byrd amendment, deals with additions to the homeland security package that is contained in these 11 bills. As I stated last evening, I find myself sort of in a position of a husband who has ordered a new car for his wife and tells her, when the bill comes, he is not going to pay the bill. I sat through the hearings Senator Byrd held as chairman on homeland security. I know the amounts that are in his amendment are amounts of money that various persons from throughout our society and from community after community all over the country have asked for. It is money they want. There is no question they want this money. We had a plan to make it available. Actually, it should have been made available sometime early last year, but we never got do that because we didn't have a budget last year. And we were unable to move the appropriations bills last year because of the lack of a budget. What I am seeking to do today, and started yesterday, is to ask the Senate to exercise a rare type of discipline and allow us to take these bills to conference. My amendment to this pending continuing resolution bill that is before us will allow us to take these bills to conference with the House. There are 11 bills that should have been passed before October 1 of last year. As I said yesterday, it does not do any good to try to point fingers to say why we didn't do that. The simple fact is, we did not pass them. Now in this new Congress we have to pass bills that actually expired at the end of the last Congress. All of the work that was done on those bills in the House and the Senate was eliminated by the end of that last Congress. We have initiated a process to catch up with those bills. There are bills that deal with the moneys to be expended by the agencies in the Federal Government between the time the President signs the bill and September 30. That is a very short period of time. It does not exceed 7\1/2\ months. It is probably 7 months. The money that is in my amendment will provide ample money for those departments for that period of time. It is less than they would have gotten on October 1 of last year, because since October 1 of last year they have been following the provisions of the continuing resolution Congress enacted, and they are using no more than the amount of money that was available to them in the fiscal year 2002 budget. The 2002 budget was contrived by the President really in the fall of 2001. We enacted it sometime in 2001. We are dealing, in other words, with a process of funding our Government based upon decisions made in 2001, continuing down to the end of this fiscal year. I note the distinguished Senator from West Virginia is here. I am pleased to yield to him whenever he wishes to speak.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. 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. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, tomorrow morning the Senate will resume consideration of this appropriations bill. At 9:30, there will be two consecutive votes on the pending amendments. The first is in relation to the Harkin amendment on Byrne grants, and the second is in relation to the Schumer amendment regarding port security. Senators should be advised that additional amendments and, therefore, additional votes are expected during tomorrow's session. The Senate will remain in session and a late night is contemplated in order to make substantial progress. If the Senate is unable to finish the bill during tomorrow's session, the Members may expect to return on Tuesday and remain in session until the bill is completed.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in adjournment until 9:30 a.m., Friday, January 17. I further ask that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed to have expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate then resume consideration of H.J. Res. 2, as under the order.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from West Virginia, Mr. Byrd, presented a chart showing the major elements of the $5 billion homeland security package. Eventually, this homeland security money, since it is money that people involved in that area want, we will address not only this year, in this 2003 bill, not only in the 2004 bill, but out into 2005. This Homeland Security Department has not even formed yet, as we know. There are several components in the existing Government that will be transferred into homeland security, and they have funding in this amendment I have offered. For instance, Senator Byrd wants to add to this amendment I have offered $1.4 billion for State and local assistance to combat terrorism, but we already have spread throughout the 11 bills $2.2 billion to deal with the same concepts. We have money for first responder radio equipment. We have money for emergency planning and training. Last year, I supported this money that Senator Byrd wants in his amendment for this bill--in a series of bills, as a matter of fact. The problem we face now is, should we continue to operate at the 2002 level until we can find an agreement with the President as to the amounts Senator Byrd wants to add to the President's request or should we move forward through the way we allocated money in the bill for the various elements of homeland security in the existing Departments? The money we put in the existing Departments will be transferred to Homeland Security as that Department is formed. Senator Byrd wants to put up an additional $1.8 billion for border security. Again, in the period ahead we will spend money like that, but in these bills already is a total of $4.3 billion, and we are looking at a period of less than 8 months to spend that money. I have presented the amendment that is before the Senate now because we want to find a way to work with the President to close the books on the 2003 appropriations. We cannot do that if we continue to battle with the administration and try to give them money beyond what they believe is necessary. At the time we were looking at this last year, we thought the Homeland Security Department would have been created before September 30 of last year. We wanted to put up money so it would be there for the Homeland Security Department to be transferred to start spending in October. This money would be started to be spent in late February or March. I am trying to make a point. Take airport security; Senator Byrd wants an additional $720 million. We have already appropriated substantial monies that are in the supplemental from last year for airport security. We have tried to fund the needs of the Transportation Security Administration. We already have an additional $374 million in these separate portions of the amendment I have offered. I am trying to emphasize the fact that we do not need to give this Department of Homeland Security more money beyond what has been asked. On nuclear and energy security, I do not disagree with the statements that have been made about the needs for additional money. In this amendment I have offered is $1.650 billion for that function. Senator Byrd wants to add another $296 million. I understand he is trying to fully fund the estimated needs of homeland security for the future, which is a laudable goal, but we are trying to stay within some sort of budget constraint. As I said, let's finish the job of getting the books closed on how much the agencies have to spend in the remainder of fiscal year 2003. On Federal law enforcement with the FBI, Senator Byrd wants to add $212 million to the $1.2 billion already in the bill. I am urging the Senate to listen in terms of the concepts we have worked out. Stop this battle with the President over how much is needed for the agency that has not even been established yet. The various components of that agency, the Homeland Security Department, will have enough money coming into this new Department to fully fund whatever they can do by the time they get organized as a Department. I urge the Senate to oppose the amendment offered by the Senator from West Virginia--not because he is not right at estimating the future needs of homeland security--because we believe we are right in saying, let's fund now the money that can be spent before the end of this fiscal year, be spent before September 30. I am confident we have sufficient moneys in this amendment that we have offered in the 11 separate sections which would normally be separate appropriations bills, enough money to deal with the problems of homeland security. Beyond that, I remind the Senate the President still has some money left from the $20 billion we gave him after 9/11. If there are any defects here, he has more than $5 billion in that account and can allocate it if it is necessary to establish Homeland Security so long as it is working toward establishing the facilities and entities we need to prevent further repetition of the catastrophe of September 11. I hope the Senate will listen. To adopt the Byrd amendment will be to prolong the conference. If it was in a bill that would go to the President, he would veto it. Then where are we? Maybe I am too pragmatic about this, but it is time to get this job done. The amendment I have offered will get the job done. There will still be some differences with the House. As a matter of fact, there will still be some differences with the administration because we have increased some items that they do not want to see increased and we have decreased some they do not want decreased. But overall, we are within the total limit and parameters of the requests of the President. I hope tomorrow the Senate will be looking at this. There will be further debate tomorrow morning. The leader will, of course, state what the procedure will be. We expect a vote sometime around noon or soon thereafter on the Byrd amendment. I am hopeful that the Senate will work with us to try and understand my job now is to get this amendment to conference. As I told the Senate Members, the House has not passed any of these bills. It passed some of them last year. We did not act on them. We passed some last year and they did not act on them. We are trying to restart the 2003 conference and there will be an overall conference on all 11 bills at one time if the Senate will give us the support to pass this bill and take it to conference. There will be individual differences as far as amendments are concerned. As a matter of fact, there are some things in this amendment I personally would change, but they have been brought here by the work of the subcommittee chairmen and ranking Members of the individual areas covered by these bills. I think it is the best course to follow, to take this amendment to conference, to go to the House and say, let's get these 11 bills finished so the agencies will know for certain the money they have. Even the homeland security bill was not passed when we originally contemplated passing the appropriations to fund it. I am confident we have done the best we can under the circumstance. Again, I do not criticize Senator Byrd. Eventually, we will spend more than $5 billion in addition to what we have in the amendment before the Senate. However, we do not need it now. I sat through all the hearings that have been mentioned, that Senator Byrd had on the needs for homeland security across the Nation. I remember going to small towns in my State when the mayor told me they needed a new fire truck. They needed a new fire truck? They have never had a fire truck. There is not anyone in the country that does not want some of this homeland security money. The question is, what is needed now to go on with the job and protect the country. I believe our amendment does it. I send to the desk a statement prepared by the individual subcommittees that goes along with 11 components of this bill. Had we had the meetings of the separate subcommittees and reported separate bills, we would have prepared 11 reports. Instead, I am submitting for the Record to be printed the overview and summary of each of the components so there will be no question in the future of what is intended by the provisions of the amendment I have offered if it is enacted. I ask unanimous consent it be printed in the Record.

Mr. STEVENS. Madam President, again, I thank my friend from West Virginia for his courtesy. I know that while I have been working on these other matters, my friend has had a very erudite statement prepared, and I am prepared to listen to it. I thank the Chair.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I believe under the unanimous consent request that now is the time for me to offer my amendment. Amendment No. 1

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, there is an amendment at the desk.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. STEVENS. The Senator from West Virginia has an amendment to offer. I thank him for his comments. We are in substantial agreement, except in the conclusion. We both feel that the Government of the United States should not operate under a continuing resolution. What it means is that our agencies are not moving forward in 2003 at the rate actually requested by the President in 2001 for the fiscal year 2002. Times have changed. They have changed considerably. Each of these agencies are subject to new laws that were passed both in 2001 and 2002 with regard to the programs that they administer. They cannot do those new programs without new money. As the Senator from West Virginia said, they are currently operating on autopilot. I am an old pilot and autopilot is a wonderful thing to have, but it doesn't know how to change course unless someone turns the dials. Autopilot cannot take you off or land you. It only continues on the course that it is on. It will fly right into a mountain if you don't change the course. There is a mountain ahead of us, which is the mountain of unfulfilled commitments in the Federal Government, which both the President and Congress have made and changes that were made since the President first conceived the budget of 2002. I do believe that the Senator is right. I would have joined him last year in proceeding as we did with the bill as reported. But it is different now. We are ready to start a new Congress. We, hopefully, will have our organization resolution soon, and we will be working toward complying with the laws that we work under--the Budget Act--and the requirement that we pass 13 appropriations bills for 2004. We cannot get there if we pass these bills separately. As I said before, we will face the prospect of disagreement with the House and endless conferences on 11 bills, and possibilities of vetoes and motions to override, and all the time it will take. Mr. President, it will be June before we get down to the business of this Congress if we do not follow the recommendation to proceed that has been made now by me on behalf of the President and on behalf, I believe, of all the members of our committee. We have differences on what should be in the bill, but the main thing is that we should proceed. I await the offering of the Senator's amendment. I know pretty well what is in it, and I regret that I cannot join him this year in supporting it. Is the amendment now pending before the Senate, Mr. President?

Mr. STEVENS. I yield to the Senator from West Virginia. Amendment No. 2

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