Ted Stevens

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Madam President, that was the work product of our hot- line so far. We are trying to work out amendments as they are received. Again, we urge that Members bring their amendments to the floor and notify us of their intention to do so. At this time, we only know of one amendment that is to be forthcoming. My understanding is that that Senator will present it soon. Meanwhile, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. STEVENS. Madam President, Senator Grassley and the Defense Comptroller, Mr. Hamre, have been negotiating concerning this subject. It will reduce the deviation ceiling and billing for the Department of Defense on June 30, 1998, to $1 million. It is being offered by me on behalf of Senator Grassley with the understanding that the Department of Defense does concur in this amendment.

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

Mr. STEVENS. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 840 (Purpose: To provide $4,500,000 for an authorized joint Department of Defense-Department of Veterans Affairs program of cooperative clinical trials at multiple sites to assess the effectiveness of protocols for treating Persian Gulf veterans who suffer from ill-defined or undiagnosed conditions)

Mr. STEVENS. There is no objection to this amendment. THE PRESIDING OFFICER. If there be no further debate, the question is on agreeing to the amendment.

Mr. STEVENS. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 841 (Purpose: To earmark $5.0 million from the funds appropriated for Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Defense-Wide for a facial recognition technology program)

Mr. STEVENS. There is no objection to the Kennedy amendment. THE PRESIDING OFFICER. If there be no further debate, the question is on agreeing to the amendment.

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

Mr. STEVENS. Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf of Senator Grassley.

Mr. STEVENS. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 844 (Purpose: To reduce to $1,000,000 the threshold amount for the applicability of the requirement for advance matching of Department of Defense disbursements to particular obligations)

Mr. STEVENS. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 842 (Purpose: To increase by $2,000,000 the amount appropriated for research, development, test, and evaluation, Defense, in order to provide for a joint service core research program to develop a prototype hybrid integrated sensor array for chemical and biological point detection)

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there be a period for the transaction of morning business with Senators permitted to speak for up to 5 minutes each.

Mr. STEVENS

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

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, it is my understanding that, other than those amendments that have now been qualified under this unanimous- consent agreement, no further amendments will be in order. It will be our intention to try to move as quickly as possible once we are on the bill tomorrow morning at 11 o'clock to dispose of the amendments I have listed. And I would ask that all staff be notified that we shall seek time agreements on those amendments when they are called up. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 11 a.m. on Tuesday the Senate resume consideration of this bill, the DOD appropriations bill, and that the following be the only remaining amendments in order with relevant second-degree amendments in order: First, there is a managers' package that we will offer; There is a pending amendment, No. 846; We have the Hutchison amendment on war criminals; McCain amendment to strike section 8097; The McCain amendment; we will call it the ``Buy America'' amendment; The Dorgan amendment on flood relief; A second Dorgan amendment on re-engining authority; A Feinstein amendment on land transfer; A second amendment on NATO expansion cost cap; Graham amendment, which I believe is cosponsored by Senator Mack, on electronic combat testing; The Harkin amendment, which is the second pending amendment for which the yeas and nays were just ordered on, amendment 848; Senator Inouye may have a managers' amendment in addition to mine; The Robb Marc card amendment; And that, following the disposition of those amendments, S. 1005 then be read a third time, the Senate proceed to vote on the passage of the bill; That further, when the Senate receives the House companion measure, the Senate immediately proceed to its consideration. I further ask that all after the enacting clause be stricken, and the text of the Senate bill S. 1005 be inserted in lieu of the House-passed bill, the bill be read a third time, and passed. I further ask that the Senate insist on its amendment and request a conference with the House, and that the Chair be authorized to appoint conferees on the part of the Senate.

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

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, we are awaiting the arrival of another Senator. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there be no further debate on the Senator's amendment and that it not be subject to second-degree amendments.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I have discussed this matter with the distinguished Senator. I want to specifically call his attention to two sections that are in our bill that were in the bill the year before and the year before. One says: None of the funds available to the Department of Defense under this Act shall be obligated or expended to pay a contractor under a contract with the Department of Defense for costs of any amount paid by the contractor to an employee when-- (1) such costs are for a bonus or otherwise in excess of the normal salary paid by the contractor to the employee; and (2) such bonus as part of restructuring costs associated with business combination. Second, we have a provision in this bill on page 91 section 8090. ``None of the funds available to the Department of Defense under this Act may be obligated or expended to reimburse a defense contractor for restructuring costs associated with business combination of the defense contractor that occurs after the date of enactment''--and it was in last year's bill, also; so it covers all of the mergers and consolidations that the Senator has mentioned--``unless: (1) the auditable savings for the Department of Defense resulting from restructuring will exceed the costs allowed by a factor of at least two to one, or (2) the savings for the Department of Defense resulting from restructuring will exceed the costs allowed and the Secretary of Defense determines that the business combination will result in the preservation of a critical capability that might otherwise be lost to the Department, and (3) the report required by section 818(e) of Public Law 103-337 be submitted to Congress in 1996 is submitted. Now, what we have done in the past is we have said that if clearly there is a two-in-one savings resulting from the combination, the buildings can be paid associated with restructuring. If it is a situation where the savings and the costs are equal, then the Department can pay costs associated with restructuring where it finds that it is in the interests of the Department and the United States to have the consolidation because of its impact on our industrial base. That is the last part I want to mention to my friend. We have reduced procurement costs by over 60 percent now of the Department of Defense. In so doing, we faced the problem of what happens to the industrial base. Many people have come to us and talked to us about this, come to the committee and talked to us about it. You have to maintain the industrial base that is necessary to provide this Nation with the systems that will be required in our defense. We have seen it in shipbuilding, in submarine building, in aircraft building, in tanks; we have seen it across the spectrum of procurement. In order to do that, in some instances, there have been incentives to industry to consolidate in the past. In this time, however, in this go- round, there have been no incentives paid, there has been the right of the Department to pay a portion of the restructuring costs when they meet these two tests. If the savings projected are twice as much as the costs, then the Department may pay the costs. I say to my friend, the problem of maintaining the industrial base is a very difficult one in a global economy. We are part of a global defense economy now, too. There are enormous entities in other nations that are competing with our people to provide new equipment, military equipment to nations throughout the world, that are able to purchase and maintain sophisticated new technology for their own defense. Senator Inouye and I have visited nations throughout the Pacific almost annually, and we have seen that. We have seen the desire for the acquisition of new high-performance aircraft for aircraft carriers, for submarines. We have seen that in terms of the purchase from the Soviet Union, some of the nations in the Persian Gulf. The point I am making is, if we are to be able to maintain the capability that we must have to compete, if necessary, once again, in restructuring our own industrial base and making it possible to expand any of these systems, we have to maintain the minimum amount of industrial base necessary to do that. These restructurings that have taken place, in my judgment, have enhanced the ability of the United States to maintain an industrial base, primarily the ones that my friend is talking about in the field of aviation and that have happened just recently. Had those mergers, those consolidations not taken place, we would have seen the problem of the industrial basics exacerbated by some of those companies failing when they were under obligation to the United States to complete existing contracts. These mergers and consolidations have enabled these companies to come together, and they will, in fact, fulfill existing contracts. There is still enough of a competitive structure within our Nation to assure competition for future contracts. I understand the Senator has a GAO report on this matter. I think it is premature, really, to assess the impact of the laws we passed. By the way, there are other provisions in the authorization bill for the years past, and also in this year. I do not have the knowledge of every one of the items he mentioned on a personal basis, but I have the belief that the Department has before it a series of provisions that prohibit the reimbursement for the bonuses to start with. They are not part of this at all. They cannot be paid. But beyond that, there are limited cases when restructuring costs may be paid by the Department, either when the savings are 2-to-1 over the costs or where the Secretary finds it is at least equal savings to the costs, that those costs are in the interests of the Government in maintaining the industrial capacity to provide for our own defense. I say to the Senator, I reluctantly have to again oppose his amendment and I will do so. I do not stand here to say that there have not been some excesses in American industry per se over the payment of bonuses and costs upon merger and consolidations, but I do think in terms of those that have taken place within the realm of industrial base and supplies to the Department of Defense we have acted in the past and we are maintaining again this year strict controls over what can be paid by the Department from taxpayers' funds as a result of costs resulting from such restructuring.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my amendment be put aside so we can consider the amendment of the Senator from Iowa.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I await, sometimes with trepidation, the annual report of my good friend from Arizona. I know of no one who spends more time, other than Senator Inouye and I do, than the Senator from Arizona. His comments are to the point. We do disagree on some of the issues. But I want the Senate to know once again we are grateful to him for the amount of time he puts into the bill. He has led, through his comments from year to year, changes that we have tried to make in subsequent bills to reflect his guidance. We again will examine this bill as we go to conference to make sure that we have done the best we can to accept his advice and counsel. But I deeply, truly am grateful to him for the time he takes on the bill. Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, if my friend from Hawaii has no further business to raise, and if there be no further business to come before the Senate, I now ask that the Senate stand in adjournment as under the previous order. Thereupon, the Senate, at 7:43 p.m., adjourned until Tuesday, July 15, 1997, at 10 a.m. 

Mr. STEVENS

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.