Ted Stevens

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Have the yeas and nays been ordered?

Mr. STEVENS

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I am uncharacteristically speechless. I think--to listen to my good friend talk about my latest grandchild--he is absolutely right in one thing; and that is, there is nothing so humbling as to look at a grandchild and realize what that child means. Senator Byrd told me once that to have a grandchild is to touch infinity. And it is a very sobering thing to think about. But it is a joy to have these grandchildren. If one must get old, it helps a lot. I thank the Senator very much. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, on another subject, time will expire at 2 o'clock on the items to be voted on included in the Treasury and general government operations bill. I offered amendment No. 3385 regarding recomputation of some Federal annuities. I point out that this option is not mandatory. The only way future retired employees can take advantage of this provision is if they make a payment into the Federal retirement system. Several times in recent years, Congress has denied COLA adjustments for Federal employees. In some years, only Members of Congress were denied COLAs. In other years, other employees were affected. My amendment provides that Federal employees covered by the Civil Service Retirement System and the Federal Employees Retirement System who did not receive automatic pay adjustments because of an act of Congress may, upon retirement, have their high-three salary recomputed as if they received the COLAs provided to annuitants. This option cannot be exercised until the covered employee pays into the Civil Service Retirement Fund the amounts required by the amendment; namely, the contributions to the retirement fund the employee would have made if the employee had received the annuitant COLA. It is really a fairness issue, to me. I am most concerned about survivors. Currently, 26 percent of all those who receive Federal annuities are survivors and the median time for a survivor annuity is just over 12 years. Survivors live on 55 percent of the employee's annuity. But, Mr. President, when an employee does not receive a COLA received by retired annuitants--and I point out that in almost every year, the retired annuitant, the people retired, have received the COLAs--then it simply means that survivors of retired employees receive greater annuities, greater compensation than those received by survivors of employees who continued to serve during the period when Congress denied COLAs to current Members and employees. I believe the right thing to do is to adopt this concept. It allows the employee or the survivor of the employee who has passed on to ask for recomputation of the high-three concept based upon an assumption that the retiree had received the cost-of-living adjustments that were given to retired annuitants in the period when those were denied to Congress or other Federal employees. I urge my colleagues to adopt this amendment. I will have a minute to talk about it when the amendment comes up for a vote, as we start voting at 2 o'clock. I wanted this in the Record at this point. I thank the Chair.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order for the Senator from California to speak on the amendment that was offered by Senator Hutchinson, following the offering of the Bosnia amendment by the Senator from Texas.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I understand the Senator from California would like to speak on the Hutchinson amendment.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I commend the Senator from Texas for her presentation. It is my hope we will be able to accept that amendment. I have referred it to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and we are hopeful that we can reach that conclusion later.

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

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent at the request of Senator Thomas that a letter signed by himself and Senator Murkowski, Senator Biden, Senator Kerry, Senator Smith of Oregon, Senator Hagel, Senator Grams, Senator Feinstein, Senator Robb, and Senator Lieberman, and an excerpt from Newsweek be printed in the Record.

Mr. STEVENS. I am sad to say to my friend I don't understand that section to have that limitation, but, in any event, it is a very controversial subject to be added to the Defense appropriations bill. In conferring with Members yesterday, it was the position that we took at the time that we were going to do our utmost to keep controversial subjects that would lead to extended debate off of this bill. The only way to do that is, once we have had a short explanation of it in courtesy to the presenting Senator, it was going to be my intention to move to table any such amendment, not just this one but any such amendment. Therefore, on the basis of the policy that we have announced, I move to table the Senator's amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

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

Mr. STEVENS. Yes.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, before I respond, I again would like to request Senators to come forward, and let us see their amendments. Earlier today I said of the 46--it is now 47 amendments that we know of--that we had agreed to accept 23 of them. My staff informs me that the difficulty is we can't accept them because we haven't seen the final version of them. We hope that those will be produced here so we can dispose of the amendments that we are willing to accept expeditiously with very short comments from Members. We are going to have over 50 amendments. We are going to finish this bill by tomorrow. I advise Members and staff to start bringing in cots for people to rest on tonight unless we get through them very quickly. Mr. President, I have to confess to my friends, both of them who have spoken in favor of this amendment, that this Senator is at a loss to understand section 9012, which says that no funds can be used to pay the travel expenses and per diem for the participation in conferences, exchanges, programs, et cetera, of any national from the People's Republic of China who is the head or political secretary of any Chinese Government-created or approved organization. And it lists the Chinese Buddhist Association, the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, the National Congress of Catholic Representatives, the Chinese Catholic Bishops' Conference, the Chinese Protestant Three-Self Patriotic Movement, the China Christian Council, the Chinese Taoist Association, the Chinese Islamic Association, and then a series of civilian and military officials and employees of Government to carry out the specific policies that are listed, such as promoting or participating in policies or practices which hinder religious activities, or the free expression of religious beliefs. I am at a loss to understand that section. Perhaps the Senator would explain that to me.

Mr. STEVENS. I thank the Chair. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. STEVENS. I now ask that that amendment be set aside. Is the standing order that all of the votes we ask for the yeas and nays on prior to 2 o'clock will be automatically set aside?

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, if there is no further debate on this matter, I move to table the Senator's amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, we have had a series of visits with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I particularly recall the discussion I had with Secretary of the Navy John Dalton and with Admiral Johnson. There is no question that the Navy representatives have informed our committee that full F/A-18E/F funding is the administration's top appropriations priority for defense and the Navy. This amendment would take these funds from that priority, the F/A- 18E/F, and move it to the National Guard. We have added, as I stated this morning, $95 million to augment the Guard and Reserve personnel accounts. We have added for the Guard and Reserve operation and maintenance funds an additional $225 million. Finally, we added $450 million to the Guard and Reserve procurement account. I have to tell the Senator we have exceeded the requests in many instances. We added almost $1 billion in the zero sum budget for the Guard and Reserve priorities. Furthermore, the F/A/-18E/F is just entering production. The Senator's amendment will seriously disrupt the production program, and substantially increase the unit cost, if the Senate approves this amendment. To me it does not make common sense to increase the cost of the F-18, the Navy's top priority planes which we must buy to meet the Navy's previously approved program requirements. We have helped the Guard and Reserve. I do not think we should punish the Navy in order to help them any more. If the Senator wishes to make any comments, I yield to him for those comments. I intend to make a motion to table his amendment. But before I do that, I ask unanimous consent that, on any votes that are laid aside in order to join the priority list that is already in existence under the Guard and Reserve the common procedure of a minute on each side be the procedure for this bill: That there be 2 minutes equally divided on any vote that occurs on this bill on an amendment that is set aside for a later time.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I intend to move to table this amendment. Mr. INOUYE addressed the Chair.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask for the adoption of the amendment.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I commend Senator Roberts. He is following the path that he followed last year. The Senate adopted his amendment that he presented last year, which has had a salutary effect on the considerations involved in Bosnia. And we will soon have announced the basic reduction in forces in Bosnia, brought about in many ways because of the study that Senator Roberts' amendment last year mandated. I have reviewed this with my friend from Hawaii. And I note that he has put in even another provision this year that recognizes that there might be an emergency that would be such where the President would not have time to prepare the report that is listed. I think that is very wise to offer that flexibility to the administration. I am prepared to accept this amendment. I ask the Senator from Hawaii what his views would be concerning Senator Roberts' amendment?

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

Mr. STEVENS. My previous request and Senator Inouye's request applied to time during votes, Mr. President.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that James Bynum, a Capitol Hill fellow serving on Senator McCain's staff, be granted privileges of the floor during debate and any votes concerning this bill, as well as any related amendments.

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

Mr. STEVENS. This does conform, as I indicated, with the decision of the defense authorization committee for the handling of the Bosnia money.