Ted Stevens

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. I have no desire to end up today having the Senators from Nevada start filibustering my bill at this late hour. I will be happy to yield to the Senators for a question, but I hope that we either go ahead with my bill or decide when we will go ahead with my bill without regard to a filibuster on the nuclear issues. I will be glad----

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, does the Senator from Nevada wish to----

Mr. STEVENS. I yield for a question.

Mr. STEVENS. I do yield to my friend from Nevada.

Mr. STEVENS. If I could be more explicit, I will try. The rules do not provide any protection for the Senators from Nevada with regard to delay of the defense bill. I would challenge them to so state, and I do challenge them to so state. What they are doing today is just merely delaying getting to the bill that they object to with regard to Nevada. It is a timing question, until the cloture motion was filed. When the cloture motion was filed, we all know when we will vote on the issue pertaining to Nevada. But to say that it must wait, the decision on that must wait before we proceed on the bill--it is the pending business. It was the pending business this morning. We tried to raise it yesterday. And now we have spent the day today. I will be back tomorrow. I will be back Monday. I will be back Tuesday. I am going to be out on the floor every day. And I want to say to my good friends from Nevada, I am going to tell the world they are holding up the defense of the United States.

Mr. STEVENS. I would be happy to have it.

Mr. STEVENS. I will be brief. I would only say, if I might, Mr. President, I have been here a long time, and I have seen a lot of filibusters. I have seen a lot of delaying of the Senate. I have never seen any Senator--and I would challenge anyone to show me--that any Senator filibustering has ever held up a bill that is in the interest of national security. This Senator never has. I know Jim Allen never did. I do not remember any such parliamentary tactic being used against a Defense bill. As a matter of fact, I think this is the first time I can remember we have had to file cloture to get the Defense appropriations bill passed. This is not just a run-of-the-mill bill. This is the most important bill we pass every Congress to maintain the defenses of this country. This is our second duty when we take the oath. We swear under the Constitution that we will maintain the defenses of this country. I admire my friends from Nevada for standing up for their State. I take no back seat to anyone in standing up for my State. And I have taken every right that I have had on the floor to protect my State, but I have never held up a bill that is in the interest of national security. I do not believe the Senators from Nevada are correct in asserting that somehow they would lose any rights by allowing us to proceed with this bill. Their rights are protected under the rules in terms of handling the issue that affects their State. Their rights are protected, of course, in handling whatever they want to do with regard to the bill that I have the privilege to manage, but they would lose none of their rights, and I would not be a party to taking rights away from them, by proceeding with the Defense bill. Blocking the Defense bill has nothing to do with the national security as far as this country is concerned. My bill, our bill does. And it means now we will probably not get finished with this bill until about a week from now, and that means we will probably not be able to get back here, before we recess in August, with a conference report. We will not be able to know whether the President agrees. And we will be behind this bill that the Senators from Nevada are talking about all the way. If we are delayed now, we will be delayed later when it comes up again. It is going to come up again in terms of the conference report, in terms of appointing conferees. I say it is in the best interests of this country to get this bill out of the way. I challenge the Senators from Nevada to demonstrate what they have said. Proceeding on this bill of ours now will not harm their rights with regard to the issue that affects their State in any single way.

Mr. STEVENS. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I want to try once again on the defense bill. As I understand it, Mr. President, under the situation we have now, if we are going to be in session tomorrow, the amendments in first degree on the defense bill must be filed by tomorrow. If we are in session on Monday, the second-degree amendments have to be filed Monday. I certainly hope that I will not see the day when the Senate will vote against cloture on a defense bill, particularly one that has total bipartisan support; voted out of our committee without objection. I can state to my good friend and partner from Hawaii that I am certain that we have personally reviewed every request made by each Senator and have discussed with each Senator every request made and have accommodated every Senator, or explained why it could not be accommodated. We have had no objection raised, to my knowledge, to any decision that has been made so far. What I am concerned about is that means we are going into cloture on Tuesday, which means we are not going to get through our bill until at least this time next week. I would like once again to see if there is not some way we can work out that question to come in tomorrow and handle amendments that are in agreement, come in Monday afternoon and handle amendments in agreement, and take up the amendments that are in contention on Monday and vote, and vote finally on our bill Tuesday afternoon. That is the essence of what the request was in the unanimous consent proposal of the leader which we wrote. Is there any way that any Senator would tell us what we could do to accommodate the concept of trying to move this bill forward?

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. There is a managers' amendment, I point out, that Senator Glenn and I have worked up. So if we get a time agreement, I would like the managers to have the right to offer their amendment.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. I thank the leader. I can assure the leader that we will find an agreement on the Coast Guard bill. It is a very essential bill. I also state that there is no question about it, it has some very new initiatives, good new initiatives.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, will the majority leader yield to me once again?

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I feel constrained to say, over the last recess I had the privilege of being able to fish at home on the river, and the men and women from throughout the country kept asking me one thing: What is gridlock? Why do we have gridlock? I think the American public is getting very disturbed about this. I have to say, it is obvious I am getting disturbed. We have worked a long time to frame a bill that I think is possible to pass both the Senate and come out of conference, and go to the President. I think it is one of the most contentious issues facing America today, and that is the continued funding of our defense system. I do not understand why we cannot get going on it. It has nothing to do with nuclear waste. It has nothing to do with delay on nuclear waste. Nuclear waste will be the subject of a cloture motion vote on Tuesday. I just do not understand why we have to be gridlocked on defense. Of all the matters that we ought to be dealing with, it is defense. Why should we have a gridlock on defense? The people in this country, I think, have a right to ask this Congress why should you gridlock on defense? This is a gridlock, as far as I am concerned. We have tried for 2 days to get this bill going and the delay has nothing to do with defense, I am told, nothing at all. If it has nothing to do with defense, why should anyone object to our proceeding with this bill? I hope the leader will let me continue. I can show you how we will have some votes tonight and tomorrow. I can guarantee you we will have votes if we keep going.

Mr. STEVENS. There is a cloture motion pending, which I understand will ripen into a vote on Tuesday. We are not in session on Monday, but it would be Monday if we are in session. I regret that very much. This will accomplish the same thing. Under cloture, we will have an hour on each amendment, actually have an hour on two amendments if you wish to do so, but Mr. President, we have lost 2 days in the defense bill already. We will have a very tough time to try and conference this bill. We are trying our best to work with the administration to see if we can get the bill signed once again this year. The Senator from Hawaii and I have accommodated the White House on several matters already. We are trying to work this out, but we need time. I think the Senator is putting us in the position where we are not going to be able to go out in August if we keep this up. I do not understand the objection to this because it is the same thing--if we had voted cloture on Tuesday, by definition, we cannot get to it until Tuesday, anyway. I do not know why we cannot proceed with this bill. The alternative, as far as I am concerned, it is the pending measure and I am going to ask the distinguished leader that we just stay in on this bill. I can guarantee the Senator we will have some votes tonight and tomorrow if we stay in. The bill is the pending measure, and I would like to stay in and get going on this bill. I do not know what the leader wants to do.

Mr. STEVENS. There is an objection? I thought that was cleared on the other side.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I move that the Senate stand in recess until 6 p.m. this evening.

Mr. STEVENS

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

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

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. I sought to accelerate the time to vote on the Defense appropriations bill. If we could bring that to a vote at 1 o'clock, I feel certain we will get cloture, and we would have 30 hours for debate on this bill. I believe that would expire before the time to vote on the nuclear waste bill, which, under other circumstances, will come first on Monday. I am prepared to state that I think we can finish the bill today or tomorrow. It might mean that we would stay in session tonight to do so. But I would like to get this bill through. I think that there is no greater issue facing the country today than the amount and level of support for our armed services and the people in Bosnia. I think the uncertainty involved here is going to lead to some real problems. I hope that maybe we might have a chance to have a recess and let us just try to discuss this with the Senator from Nevada and others and see if we can get to this bill. There is no question in my mind that we are going to vote on this bill one way or the other. If cloture is the only way to get to it, we will have to do that.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I have not yielded the floor.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent, notwithstanding rule XXII, that the cloture vote with respect to the pending bill, the DOD appropriations bill, occur at 1 p.m., and I might say that we are prepared to let the Senator from Nevada talk and have all the time between now and 1 p.m.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Is the Senator willing to have a time agreement on that statement?

Mr. STEVENS. May I address the Senator from Nevada? Does the Senator from Nevada seek the floor for any particular purpose on this bill?

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the bill be deemed read for the third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be laid on the table and any statements relating to the bill be placed at the appropriate place in the Record.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be agreed to and the committee amendment, as amended, be agreed to.