Ted Stevens

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, we would like to dispose of this amendment if it is possible.

Mr. STEVENS. I am constrained to say that even back in World War II we bought some of our own stuff and thought the Government should pay for it. No one did. The question is, How much should we be able to spend? We will work it out. I urge the Senator to allow us to adopt this now by voice vote so it will not be involved in the cloture process tomorrow.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I am not sure that is in order. I would like to reserve the right to object to this when the Senator is finished.

Mr. STEVENS. Parliamentary inquiry: I thought we had an understanding that there would be no amendments filed after a specific time. This is a second-degree amendment. We did not permit second-degree amendments at that time.

Mr. STEVENS. That was not my understanding.

Mr. STEVENS. How long will the colloquy go on? It has been going on 30 minutes--20 minutes, anyway.

Mr. STEVENS. That proves it. The Senators do not know how many of the other 200 amendments are going to come out here on this bill. I have stated time and time again this bill must be passed and sent to conference before we leave this week. We will not leave this week until we finish this bill. I have told the Senate time and time again the emergency supplemental is attached to this bill for Iraq and the war on terror and Afghanistan. Those items must be approved by the President no later than November 15. We had a supplemental for the past fiscal year, 2005. This is the supplemental for 2006, and 2006 started October 1. We have a continuing resolution we are operating on for the basic operations of the Defense Department, but there is no continuing operation for the supplemental for Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terror. This must be passed. The Committee on Armed Services knows this. The Senator from Virginia, I must correct. Never before in history has a bill been offered to the appropriations bill and been subject to amendment. We have taken the authorization bill twice during my time on the Appropriations Committee in full, already agreed to by the committee, and taken it to conference. We have never accepted a portion of a Defense authorization bill and left it open to amendment. Why? The Senate can see right now why. The managers have not reached an agreement on their bill. The committee has not reached an agreement on their bill. The bill is subject to amendment, and there are over 200 amendments at the desk now that were filed against the armed services bill. They have picked out 108 of them, and they have approved them. They never consulted with us on what they did, but they have approved them and offered them now as an amendment. As they offer the amendment, there are other amendments that come in now because of the circumstance of how many they have picked out and the ones they have not picked out. Does the Senator believe Senators who offered other amendments that you will not accept will not come here and ask us to accept them? No. They know that. And Senator Levin said there may be some out there, 10 or 12. Well, how long are 10 or 12 amendments going to take when you are on the authorization bill and we are not handling that bill; they are. I think the Senate has to realize the procedure we are in now. If we start down this road, then every time there is a Defense appropriations bill someone who has not gotten a bill passed in terms of another 1 of the 12 subcommittees--there are 13 on appropriations--is going to come in and say: We want to put our bill on your bill, but, by the way, it will be subject to amendment. You can call up your bill. We can't call up our bill because it is not ready to be called up. Now, an armed services bill, when it comes here, is a great bill. It takes a long time. We know how long it takes. Our bill usually takes-- one year it took 3 hours. Most years it takes less than a day. Why? Because we are a bipartisan subcommittee. When this bill came out of the subcommittee, it came out unanimously. Not one Senator voted against it. When it came out of the full committee, it was unanimous. Not one Senator voted against it. The two of us have run a bipartisan team now since 1981. This is the first year that this has been done. I hope the Senate says: We do not want to do it this way because this is opening the door to an entirely new process of using a bill that must be passed as a vehicle to take on a bill that cannot be passed. If they could pass their bill, they would have done it. They would have proved to the majority leader they had amendments, and they could have agreed to them. That is not our problem. That should not be the appropriators' problem. We have a timeframe. We have 13 bills. We are supposed to get them all done once each year. We have had years when we did not even have an authorization bill, and we survived it. We have had many years where they passed their bill months after we passed the Defense appropriations bill, and we survived it. But this year--this year--because we are at war, this is absolutely wrong, absolutely wrong. I hope the Senate listens to me. We have to pass this bill before we leave to go home for this recess for these holidays next week. If we do not, we do not have the ability, once we get back, to pass it and then get to conference and then get it to the President in time for the money to be available to use to support our people in the field. Now, people say: Well, wait a minute, you can reprogram money. We are in a period of a continuing resolution. There is no money that can be reprogrammed. You cannot reprogram money now. We do not have 2006 money to reprogram. There is no emergency money to reprogram. The emergency money is in part of this bill that has to be passed. Now, I am getting a little mad. I do not mean to be too mad, but I mean to be very angry and disturbed at the process. The Senator from Virginia and the Senator from Michigan know better than to do this. You know better than to do this. It is time for us to realize we have soldiers and sailors, marines, the Coast Guard in the field now. The money to support them is running out. The reason it has not run out is because we did reprogram some money before September 30 we had available then. There is no more money to reprogram to take care of this war. Now, I do not know how I can express it any more bluntly than that. I hope the Senate will listen to us and vote against this concept that this bill is germane to this bill to start with. It is not germane. It is a whole authorization bill minus the MILCON and energy portions. But it is still the whole authorization bill, which is subject to amendment. As I said, there are over 100 amendments out there that Members have filed already against this bill. Now, I will be pleased to take this, if there are no more amendments. That was the understanding to start with: We would take their bill if they had a time agreement, a time to vote for certain on it. I think we have gone too far. My friend from Hawaii--I do the shouting; he does the thinking--may want to say something more. But I tell you, I am really basically deeply concerned about the future of our men and women in uniform if we treat their money portion of this process this way. This is the authorization process. This is policy. We went into that on another amendment today. I don't know much about all the precedents in terms of the Geneva Conventions and what is in the Army Field Manual. Those amendments--I respect the Senator from Arizona. The Armed Services Committee people do. We know what is in here for money. The Senator's bill does not pertain to money. It does have some authorizations, but that is all right. They can be passed later after we pass our bill. No one is going to be harmed. But there is going to be a great deal of harm if we do not get this bill passed and sent to conference and get it to the President soon after we get back from this recess. Now, I do not know how we can do anything more than just say, once again, the Senator from Virginia has embarked on a course that has never been done before. He said it had been done before. It has never been done. Never before has a part of an authorization bill been introduced to this bill, or any other bill for that matter, that was subject to amendment. We do not operate that way. I can remember taking a bill that stood off the floor that far because it had so many authorization bills in it that could not get through, but we took them because they were ready, complete. They were complete. They were ready to go, and they took them in an omnibus bill. But this is not an omnibus bill. This is one bill. This is a bill for the appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year 2006, plus the emergency supplemental funding for the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the war on terror. Under those circumstances, I am appalled that the two Senators would proceed this way. And I tell the Senator from Virginia, our friendship is very close to the brink--very close to the brink--because I believe my job is to get this bill passed, and get it passed as a bill we know we can go to conference on, and get it done and be ready when we get back. If we were to take this portion of this bill, the Defense bill, to conference, we could not finish the conference until they were finished. And that is definitely not proper. I yield to the Senator from Hawaii.

Mr. STEVENS. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, the majority leader laid out a plan for the consideration of the Defense authorization bill. It was before the Senate for 4 days or a little bit longer. There were over 200 amendments offered to that bill and it was brought down. The Senator from Virginia, the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, came to me and asked if I would object if they put their bill on this bill with a time agreement, with specific amendments with time limits on each amendment. Senator Inouye and I discussed that and we said we would have no objection. We were then informed that was not possible. The Senator from Virginia said he would like to offer his amendment to this amendment for the purpose of putting pressure on the majority leader to make an arrangement to call up this bill. I urged him not to do that, as a matter of fact. We met off the floor and he said he was going to do it. He indicated he was going to delete a portion of that bill as he offered it. He did not inform me that the reason for that deletion was because the Parliamentarian had advised him that the bill would be subject to a point of order on the basis of germaneness if he did it. So he eliminated the two provisions of the bill that might be subject to germaneness. The Parliamentarian has now advised that the Senator from Virginia has a right to raise the defense of germaneness and the Senate will vote on that at 7:30. Beyond that, the concept now of bringing in 108 amendments to the bill when there are still amendments outside--I ask unanimous consent that we adopt the amendments offered by the Senator from Virginia and that no further amendments from the authorization bill be permitted to this bill.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, my last word on this, before we come on the 6 minutes before the vote at 7:30, will be this: There are two packages of amendments before the desk. Under any normal procedure, Senator Inouye and I would review those amendments. We have not seen them. We have not even gotten a copy of them. Normally we would have had a copy of them, at least. But we do not know how many of those are in conflict with our own bill. The two Senators have acted as managers of a part of our bill because they offered their bill as an amendment. What procedure is this? How can we assure the Senate what is in this bill? How can we even be prepared to go to conference on this bill when we do not know what is in those two packages? There are three portions here. We know what is in the part A, which was part of the authorization bill, but these amendments, we don't know what they are. We may have already accepted some of them. I do not know. But I think it is really a strange procedure that anyone would suggest, by offering an amendment, that control over the bill go to members from other committees and, in doing so, they clear amendments that we will have to defend in conference, theoretically, as Members of the Senate, but we do not know what is in them. No one knows what is in them. Normally, a package like that, if they had their bill out here, the Defense authorization bill, they would have a bill in front of us, wouldn't they? As a matter of fact, I think the rules require it. But now there are amendments offered at the desk, and I do not think they have given anyone a copy of the amendments. I think this procedure violates the rules of the Senate. I am not going to get into the problem of that yet because we are going to vote on germaneness. Germaneness does not eliminate the points of order we may have against those amendments later. But as a practical matter, this is a really odd procedure, and one that is bound to, as the Senator from Hawaii said, lead to processes in the future that will be totally unmanageable. I urge the Senate to think about this as we approach the vote at 7:30 p.m.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I have an amendment at the desk on behalf of Senator Shelby.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, regarding the two amendments that were sent to the desk, I ask that they be considered en bloc.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, we will have a request for votes to commence at 7:30, but first I offer a managers' package, as we call it, with modifications. Amendments Nos. 1914; 1972; 1962; 1979, as Modified; 1976; and 1945, En Bloc Mr. President, I send to the desk, for Senator Nelson of Florida, amendment No. 1914, for surface sonar dome windows; for Senator Dodd, amendment No. 1972, for countermeasures to nerve agents; for Senator Lieberman, amendment No. 1962, for defense manufacturing technology; for Senator Chambliss, amendment No. 1979, as modified, for environmental cleanup; for Senator Lott, amendment No. 1976, for lightweight ammunition; and for Senator Roberts, amendment No. 1945, for intelligence scholars. I send those amendments to the desk and ask that they be considered en bloc, with Senator Chambliss's amendment modified according to my submission.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I urge adoption of the amendments.

Mr. STEVENS. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask for the regular order with respect to that amendment.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, it is my understanding that at 7:30 we will start with the vote on Senator Warner's submission of the Defense authorization bill as an amendment. Is that correct?

Mr. STEVENS. We already have an agreement to have 3 minutes on each side on that amendment, Senator Bayh's amendment No. 1933, and Senator McCain's amendment No. 1977, is that correct?

Mr. STEVENS. We are working on a modification to Senator Reed's amendment. We then also have Senator McCain's amendment, which is amendment No. 1978. And we have Senator Graham's amendment, which is 2004. I say to the Senator, are you prepared to accept that amendment now? Amendment No. 2004 Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Graham's amendment No. 2004 be laid before the Senate so we might consider it.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I withdraw that request. Amendment No. 2033 Mr. President, is it in order for me, as manager of the bill, to move to table Senator Kerry's amendment No. 2033 at this time?

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following the votes already scheduled at 7:30 today, the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the following amendments, in the order listed, provided no second-degree amendments be in order to the amendments prior to the votes: first is Senator McCain's amendment No. 1978; the next is Senator Kerry's amendment No. 2033, for which I made a motion to table, and next is Senator Stabenow's amendment No. 1937, which is a motion to waive my point of order; provided that there be 2 minutes equally divided prior to the debate on each of the above ordered votes. And I ask unanimous consent that for the votes that start at 7:30, the first vote be the regular number of minutes--20 minutes, I believe--and that following that--we have six in the order--the five remaining votes be limited to 10 minutes each.

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

Mr. STEVENS. I say to the Senator, Mr. President, if I may respond to his question, we are waiting for Senator Byrd to make a statement. But he is not ready at this time, so the Senator may proceed. He should be ready in about 5 or 10 minutes.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I would say to the Senator, we are scheduled to start at 7:30, and 6 minutes before that was equally divided between the Senator from Virginia and myself. So the Senator has probably about 3 minutes that he could proceed.

Mr. STEVENS. Three more minutes to the Senator.