Ted Stevens

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. I yield back our time.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, we are awaiting clearance--I understand there is a Kennedy amendment on job training. We would like to get a time agreement on that. I would urge that we consider that at this time. Does the Senator wish the floor?

Mr. STEVENS. Is it possible to get a time agreement on that?

Mr. STEVENS. We would like to get time agreements so it would be possible to stack votes later, if that is possible. Is the Senator prepared to indicate how long it might be?

Mr. STEVENS. I am not prepared to agree to that yet. We are not sure Senator Kennedy wants to offer his amendment yet. We are prepared to enter into a time agreement on the Kennedy amendment. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, there are 4 minutes equally divided on the Wellstone amendment?

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, on behalf of the leader, I ask unanimous consent that votes occur in stacked sequence following the 5 p.m. vote on the Wellstone amendment with 4 minutes equally divided prior to each vote for explanation on or in relation to the Bingaman and Murray amendments, in that order, and no second-degree amendments be in order prior to the votes on any of these amendments.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for one second without losing her right to the floor?

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending business be set aside in order that the Senate may consider Senator Murray's amendment concerning class size.

Mr. STEVENS. A point of order has been raised against this amendment because the bill already contains an $8.3 billion increase for this function. The bill also increases the title 1 program by $394 million over the current fiscal year level. These provisions in the Senator's amendment are in violation of the Budget Act. We have raised a point of order reluctantly, but this bill is at its level under the budget resolution. We must object to the Senator's amendment on the basis that it does violate the Budget Act. I raise that point of order. Have the yeas and nays been ordered?

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the vote be postponed until the completion of my remarks; and I ask unanimous consent to proceed for 2 minutes.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I am surprised at the comments made by the Senator from Delaware to this extent: The 1997 Budget Act puts limits on the amounts that can be appropriated under the pending bill, the Health and Human Services appropriations bill. In order to have a technical offset against the additions that are in this bill over the 1997 limits, we provided these three technical provisions that give us the right to take the Health and Human Services bill across the floor to conference. We had no intention at all to ever suggest the Congress would enact those provisions. The Finance Committee knew that. All Members knew that. This is a technical situation where, in order to get the bill across the floor until we enact the military construction bill, which contains the waiver of the 1997 provisions with regard to the ceilings for our committee, we had to have this offset. I assure the Senator that the bill will not come out of conference with these provisions in it. They were never intended to be enacted. No one on our committee supports the elimination of these provisions, and Senator Specter was very gracious in allowing us these provisions to comply with the 1997 act. I assure the Finance Committee that this bill will not come out of committee with these provisions in it. They were never intended to be in it, as the Finance Committee knows.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Helms amendment No. 3498 be withdrawn.

Mr. STEVENS. Will the Senator yield me 3 minutes?

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, is there time left on this side?

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

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I raise a point of order against the pending amendment that it violates rule XVI as legislation on an appropriations bill.

Mr. STEVENS. I apologize.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, this amendment covers resources in the Department of Defense and it deals with matters with which we are dealing in the supplemental right now. I do not want to mislead the Senate. We are trying to settle this matter in a conference on the military construction bill with the supplemental portions associated with it. I am perfectly happy to see the Senate express its point of view on the Colombia money, but in terms of the item as a place in the Department of Defense portion of the Colombia money, it really has been objected to by the Department of Defense, and as chairman of the Defense Subcommittee, I strenuously object to it. We should be in the position of determining how defense money is spent, how Armed Forces personnel are governed when they are abroad, and we should not take the occasion now to put limitations on the use of defense assets in connection with the war on drugs. I just returned from Key West, Tampa, and Alameda in California. I know some of the defense assets we are using to supplement the activities in the war on drugs. I am very reluctant to see the Senate act on a bill at this time like this to set down rules that apply to the use of defense personnel, defense assets, and defense money in connection with the war on drugs.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I move we go to third reading. Mr. LEAHY addressed the Chair.

Mr. STEVENS. I yield back the remainder of my time. I make the point of order that the pending amendment No. 3542, as further modified, violates rule XVI as legislation on an appropriations bill.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, some people have inquired about why I have been so interested in the award of a Congressional Medal of Honor to our distinguished friend from Hawaii, Senator Daniel Inouye. I come to the floor to explain that. As a young boy, I attended school in Redondo Beach, CA. That high school was also attended by a substantial number of Japanese students. On December 7 of 1941, we had the terrible attack on the United States. Following that attack, almost half of the young boys, young men of our high school class, did not return to school. They were Japanese young men. Within a few weeks, they and their families were interned and taken to local racetracks and other places and put into internment camps. I never saw those young men again. They were young men with whom I played football and knew very well. Many of them joined the same unit Senator Inouye was in, the 442nd. It was not until 1996, when Senator Akaka, Senator Inouye's colleague, introduced an amendment, that I realized there had been probably one of the greatest mistakes made by the American military in its history. On February 10, 1996, Senator Akaka offered an amendment that became section 524 of Public Law 104-106. It was for this purpose: Review regarding upgrading of Distinguished-Service Crosses and Navy Crosses awarded to Asian-Americans and Native American Pacific Islanders for World War II service. It required the Secretary of the Army to review the records relating to the awards of the Distinguished-Service Cross and the Secretary of the Navy to review the records relating to the Navy Cross awarded to these people to determine whether or not the people who had received those awards should be upgraded to the Medal of Honor. As a result of that review, as we all know, yesterday we attended, at the White House, the Medal of Honor ceremony that did result in the upgrading of these awards that had been previously made to 21 different individuals. One of them was to my great friend, the Senator from Hawaii. The Senate will have a reception, sponsored by Senator Byrd and myself, for Senator Inouye this afternoon. At this time, at noon, he is becoming a member of the Medal of Honor Society at the Offices of the Secretary of the Army. We have invited every Member of the Senate, and I do hope they will come by. The ceremony will start at 4:30. The room will be opened at 4 o'clock. It is the Caucus Room in the Russell Building. At my request, Stephen Ambrose, who wrote the D-Day book and other books very well known to our people, will be there to make some remarks concerning Senator Inouye. I have decided this citation should appear in the Record. I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record as it appears in the document presented by the President of the United States to those of us who attended the ceremony yesterday.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, we are all honored to serve with this Senator. I hope every Member of the Senate will attend the reception for him.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. It is above my pay grade. I will speak for 2 minutes and express my position. If the vote occurs while I am gone, people will see an old bull scratch the ground very hard. As a practical matter, this position that we have taken is the best one for Colombia. We looked at this very seriously. This account is under attack now. Does anyone think year after year after year after year we will be able to declare an emergency on this account? We provided the Hueys. They can have two or more times the number of Hueys for the cost of what the administration wants to do with Blackhawks. The Blackhawks are fighting machines. They will be the tip of a sword going into another Vietnam, if we are not careful. What they need are the Hueys. They need to transport these people. They need to be able to fight against the drug people. They do not need to get these so they can fight against the insurgents. I urge the Senate to realize what we are doing. We are doing our utmost to increase the tremendous pressure upon the drug operations in Colombia. We want to do that in a way that Colombia can sustain the cost without coming back to this Congress year after year after year to ask for money to maintain what we provided. Others have spoken about the costs. The Huey is a good machine. We are upgrading the Huey and providing our own troops for them. There is no reason for anyone to be ashamed of flying a Huey in combat. But it is not the type of situation that calls for Blackhawks to be a part of our operation against the drug lords. What we need to do is provide the assistance they need and to give them the ability, if they want to continue this, to operate these machines. I cannot see why we should start this precedent. I assume Senator McConnell made the same comments. We have similar situations all over the world. We are going to be faced in the next decade with trying to suppress the supply of drugs coming literally from all over the globe. This is no time to take the frontline item that we have for war- fighting machines and provide it as assistance to people trying to suppress drug producers. I wish I had more time to deal with this because I believe very strongly that if we go to the Blackhawks--with the cost of operation per hour, the high maintenance cost, the high cost of continued operation--we will start a trendline that this budget cannot sustain into the future. We have to think about this not only in terms of what we will do now but what it will do in terms of outyear costs to continue this assistance. It is not a 1-year operation. We will not be able to stop this drug operation in Colombia in 1 year. We have done our best. In fact, we have not done it yet. If this account gets overloaded, I seriously question even surviving the Senate. We have been warned about that in terms of the level of support. I believe Senator McConnell and his committee have brought to us a bill that meets the needs, gives them the assistance, and gives them the support to carry out their operations against the drug lords without getting the U.S. in the position of building up a military force in Colombia to deal with the other problems they face internally. I hope the Senate agrees with our position.