Ted Stevens

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. I move to reconsider the vote.

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

Mr. STEVENS. Has the Senator called up an amendment?

Mr. STEVENS. Will the Senator yield for a procedural matter?

Mr. STEVENS. Just to correct an error to the Record.

Mr. STEVENS. I send a modification to the desk.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, this is an amendment offered by Senator Mikulski for the Joint Aviation Technical Data Integration Program.

Mr. STEVENS. There is no objection.

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

Mr. STEVENS. I call up amendment No. 1887.

Mr. STEVENS. There is still a unanimous consent request before the Senate.

Mr. STEVENS. I still reserve the right to object because I don't understand what the Senator is doing. The Senator filed a portion of the Defense authorization bill as an amendment. He then filed a separate package of amendments--some 80 amendments--to that amendment. Now he has filed another set of amendments--as amendments to what? In any event, we thought we had an understanding that there would be no second-degree amendments filed under this procedure.

Mr. STEVENS. I would prefer the Chair rule.

Mr. STEVENS. Then I object. I just object.

Mr. STEVENS. Does the Chair understand that I object to the unanimous consent request?

Mr. STEVENS. What the procedure is doing is making sure that an amendment is offered by every Senator in the place. The two Senators who are not managers of the present bill are offering their package as managers of their bill in order to get support of the Senate to attach this amendment in the first place. It is a procedure I have not seen in my 38 years here in the Senate, and I object to their procedure. But I may not be able to be heard on it. I believe this is a very odd procedure. Now the two Senators are saying they are the managers of the bill and they are going to accept 108 amendments to our bill. We haven't even read them. We don't know what they are. We don't know how many more amendments will likely come to these amendments. I yield the floor.

Mr. STEVENS. I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. STEVENS. I concur with the Senators from New Mexico that the F- 117 is of critical importance to the Nation's precision strike capability. Furthermore, I agree with the Senate Armed Services Committee recommendation that it is premature to retire any F-117s at this time.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, what is the pending business?

Mr. STEVENS. I ask that the Senate consider and agree to the amendments.

Mr. STEVENS. I yield back my time.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, have the yeas and nays been ordered?

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, if I could have a minute, I want to warn the Senate that we may be here all night. We may have to have our cloture vote after adjournment at about 11:55. We would vote about 12:55 or 1:05 on cloture. Because if we are to have 30 hours and still finish by the time some people want to leave on Friday, it has to start at that time or else we have to get unanimous consent to shorten the time. If we vote tomorrow morning at 10, we will be here until 6 o'clock or 7 o'clock Friday afternoon. Just a warning--not yet. We are still trying to work it out.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. STEVENS

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