Ted Stevens

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the amendment was agreed to.

Mr. STEVENS. I ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I am now informed that the Kyl amendment has been cleared on both sides. Is it the pending business?

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

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

Mr. STEVENS. I ask unanimous consent Senator Bond be listed as a cosponsor of amendment No. 2085.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

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

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, has the Kyl amendment finally been disposed of?

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, for the time being, I ask that the other two amendments I have sent to the desk be held in abeyance.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the amendment was agreed to.

Mr. STEVENS. I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. STEVENS. I am pleased to make that request.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, this came to light during a hearing we held in the Defense Subcommittee of our Committee on Appropriations last week. Since that time, I have discussed it with members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other members in the armed services. These young people who go through the Challenge Program get a general equivalent degree, a GED, but under our existing law a person must have a high school diploma to enlist. This amendment covers only those people who come through that program with a GED. They will have spent 20 weeks or more with the National Guard in a semimilitary situation, and they go through and get their GED, which is acceptable to colleges and universities but not acceptable for enlistment in the Armed Forces. Having spent their time with the National Guard in its Challenge Program, many of them really want to continue and go into military service and continue their education as a member of the armed services. We believe that opportunity ought to be there for these young people who have made a commitment to change their lives and who have made a commitment that they want to be part of the military system. This, as I said, is something that is very limited in scope and only deals with a few hundred people in the country as a whole. But they are people that the Guard has worked with, and they have worked with the Guard. As I said, that was one of the most impressive hearings that I have conducted in the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. It was very emotional, really, to listen to these young people who came forward and told us they had problems with drugs, or being members of gangs, and they decided they wanted to change. And they have changed. One young man was in his second year at The Citadel. He got into The Citadel with a GED, but he could not have gotten into the Army, or the Navy, or the Air Force. We think that ought to change. This provision will change that. I believe it should be adopted. It has been cleared on both sides, and Senator Byrd wishes to be listed as a cosponsor.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask that the clerk read only the amendment that I offered for myself and Senator Cochran at this time.

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

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I have three amendments that have been discussed on both sides of the aisle and have been cleared now. I send to the desk an amendment on behalf of Senator Leahy; a second amendment proposed by myself and Senators Cochran, Boxer, and Bumpers; and an amendment for Senator McCain that has been cleared. 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. President, I thank the Senator for his courtesy. He is the original sponsor of the legislation that provided the Federal system flextime and comptime, and I have supported what the Senator is doing. I think it is a step that should be taken. I regret that we cannot proceed, but I appreciate the fact that he has seen fit to withdraw this amendment now so that we can proceed and try to keep this bill limited to those items that are emergency in nature, which affect our defense and affect the disasters that have taken place in this country. I commend the Senator for his action. I am very appreciative of it. Amendment No. 2079

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, as I understand it, the Kyl amendment that I offered on behalf of the Senator from Arizona is the pending amendment; is that correct?

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I would like to have that remain the pending amendment now so we can see if we can dispose of it. I am not sure we can do that before noon, but I hope that we can. I urge any Members who have any questions about this to come and discuss them with me. Unfortunately, Senator Kyl is not here. I am not sure whether he will be here today because of illness. It is not serious; he just has a problem, I am told. Let me say this to the Senate. I and a number of my colleagues have watched with concern as Iran has worked aggressively to develop longer range theater ballistic missiles. There have been many reports that a new Iranian missile, the Shahab- 3, may be tested within the coming year. This new missile, with a range approaching 1,300 kilometers, can now reach targets in the Middle East that were previously not threatened by ballistic missiles from Iran. Further, the Shahab-3's velocity and range could require changes in our own theater missile defense systems currently under development. Obviously, our allies, particularly Israel, are very concerned about this new Iranian missile development effort. In parallel--and I believe this is of utmost importance--North Korea has continued to pursue the development of a longer range missile. They are working on the no dong and the taepo dong missiles. These missiles have created concern not just in Asia, but in my home State of Alaska, as well as in Hawaii, which is the home State of both of my colleagues from Hawaii. Now, I believe the Senate should know that the first targets within the reach of the longer range Korean missiles are in fact the States of Alaska and Hawaii. As a nation, I think we have to react swiftly to the threat posed by these new ballistic missile development and test efforts. Senator Kyl and others who have watched this issue closely have urged that we take action now to respond to this threat. Therefore, I have offered this amendment on behalf of Senator Kyl and myself to provide emergency appropriations to respond to this dangerous new threat. The amendment will provide $151 million for urgent development efforts which directly address these new missile threats. I might say that this matter has been reviewed by the Deputy Secretary of Defense. They have indicated that if additional resources are not made available, they can address these initiatives with reallocation of existing funds. Now, that is exactly what we don't want. The funds have already been allocated, and what this bill is doing is trying to make additional funds available to make up for the ones that have already been used in Bosnia and in the deployment in Southwest Asia. This amendment provides for better integration of Army and Navy missile defense systems and radars, for additional testing of the Patriot and lower tier systems against these longer range theater ballistic missiles, and other efforts which will link our existing sensors, communications, and weapon systems to defeat improved theater ballistic missiles. In addition, the amendment specifically provides funds to assist Israel in purchasing a third arrow missile battery. The capabilities of the emerging Iranian threat force us and Israel to add additional batteries to protect not only our forces, but our allies in Israel. Mr. President, I believe these efforts have some of the most urgent projects we could undertake in the Department of Defense. As I indicated, Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre wrote a letter bringing these needed investments to the attention of our colleagues in the House. The emergency supplemental before us provides an opportunity to deal with these critical investments. But we cannot do it from here directly. This amendment provides that the moneys in the amendment will only be available if there is an official budget estimate for the amounts that are designated to be an emergency. This would be in a request transmitted to the Congress as emergency requirements, as defined in the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, as amended. Now, as I say, the amendment I offered for the Senator from Arizona, Mr. Kyl, does not make that money available. It will only be available if the administration agrees that there is a critical issue here and that these moneys should be available now to deal with these issues. Mr. President, we have troops, once again, stationed in this area. We do not have an adequate theater missile defense system. We don't have a missile defense system that is even currently planned for the total 50 States. When it was presented to our committee, the Department specifically pointed out that it was not possible for a period of 15 or more years to cover the States of Alaska and Hawaii. But a theater missile defense system would. I believe there is an emergency. I believe it is highly important that we proceed to make these investments. I do not think the investments should be made available from funds we have already appropriated for other critical projects in the Department; nor do I think we should defer acquisitions of new systems. That has been done too much already. Mr. President, we spent more time in the last 3 years reprogramming money we have already made available to the Department of Defense than we have in considering how much money should be available to the Department of Defense. I don't want to start the concept of reprogramming. What this does is, it says to the administration that if they are as serious as we are about proceeding now with the ballistic missile defense system--we have made the finding ourselves that it is an emergency, and we ask the President to simply make the decision. I hope the executive branch will agree that these funds will respond to security crises and the projects should be added. If they do not, these funds would not be available under this amendment. I do believe that my good friend from Hawaii wants to make a statement on the matter when he arrives. (At the request of Mr. Stevens, the following statement was ordered to be printed in the Record.)

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. For myself, let me say this, Mr. President. If we do get cloture on the Coverdell bill, that will mean we cannot finish this bill, the supplemental, until the cloture time has expired. We believe that we are very close to having cloture on the Coverdell bill, and it is imperative that we finish this supplemental bill so that when the House passes its bill we can go immediately to conference. It is our intent to take this bill through third reading and have it ready for immediate action without any further requests, based on a unanimous- consent agreement, to send the bill to the House for conference as soon as we are aware that the House bill has been received in the Senate. That means it is imperative, if Senators believe, as I do, that our first job must be to assure we do not take money from the defense accounts to repay the costs of the deployment that has already been made in Bosnia, already been made in southwest Asia. If we cannot get this bill passed before April 1, that money is going to start coming out of the readiness accounts that apply to the men and women in the armed services who are still deployed in the continental U.S. and throughout areas other than Bosnia and the Iraq area. The consequence of not passing this bill before April 1 is that the people who may have to be sent over to replace those already deployed-- and we are making our rotations every 6 months--might not have the readiness and the edge that they need to go into a combat area. It is just imperative that we pass this bill before April 1. I have said that before on the floor. I again urge Senators to realize there is a timeframe problem on this bill and we do not want it to get involved in waiting for the cloture period on the A+ bill to expire. I hope Senators will contact us. We are more than willing to consider any amendment. I hope Senators will listen to us with regard to time limits on their amendments. And we do have a pending amendment. Senator Ashcroft is here to present his amendment. As soon as that is over, we really have a schedule of amendments ready to proceed, and I hope Senators will come as we call them and assist us by entering into time agreements. The time we will be taking off for the period of the luncheons is certain. I remind Senators, tonight we start a new routine--the leader's seminars that are going to take place, with the distinguished former majority leader coming at 6 p.m., in the Old Senate Chamber, for Members only. A chance to listen to the former majority leader, Senator Mansfield, I think is something we must all make time for. It is a memorable thing. We are starting, I think, a great new tradition in the Senate from today.

Mr. STEVENS. The Senator makes a good request, and I will consult with the majority leader on that. As the Senator knows, we took almost 2 hours yesterday on that bill. But I do think it would be a fair thing to have a period prior to the vote at 5:30 so both sides might state their positions. It is not our intention this morning to have any morning hour time. We have Senator Ashcroft's amendment pending. Senator Hutchison is waiting to bring up an amendment, and there are other amendments waiting in line behind that. So it is our hope that we can dispose of many of those this morning if possible. And if we can, that will mean we can open up some time later in the afternoon for a period for the discussion of the Senator from Massachusetts. I hope that is agreeable.

Mr. STEVENS. This amendment was offered last evening and is the pending amendment. It needs to be disposed of. I hope as soon as possible we will dispose of this amendment and move on to another amendment that Senator Hutchison also discussed last night, and that is the amendment pertaining to some conditions on the Bosnia deployment. That is relevant to the money in the bill. We expect to get to that as soon as possible. But I commit to the Senator from Massachusetts, we will notify him if there is a lull in activities here and try to accommodate his request for some morning hour time. Senator Coverdell still has about 20 minutes coming under the agreement we reached yesterday for equal time, under the discussion that took place yesterday, but now that has to be accommodated, and we will do our best to do so. I yield to Senator Ashcroft.