Ted Stevens

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. I yield back the remainder of our time. I thank the Chair for his courtesy.

Mr. STEVENS. Is all time yielded back?

Mr. STEVENS. Have the yeas and nays been ordered?

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, last evening, as we were finishing up this bill, we had a series of amendments that were offered as amendments, and we were in the process of changing them to sense-of- the-Senate resolutions. There are a couple others we failed to offer, approved by both sides. I ask unanimous consent they now be offered en bloc and have them considered en bloc.

Mr. STEVENS. I ask unanimous consent the amendments be agreed to.

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. Amendment No. 487, As Modified

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I come to the floor to talk about my good friend, John Negroponte. I have known him and Diana and their children--Marina, Alejandra, John, George, and Sophia--for quite some time. I think the Nation is very lucky to have a man of the caliber of John Negroponte on deck, so to speak, and willing to take the assignment of being the new Director of National Intelligence. He has had considerable experience as an ambassador. I remember full well the first time I met him was in Honduras when he was the Ambassador there. We had a rather severe problem, as people will recall; we called them the Contras. But I got to know him fairly well in the time we were down there. When he returned to Washington, I met his wife and was with him and spent time with him on a family basis. I have spent time with him now in his various positions he has had since that time, at the U.N. and in Iraq. He is a man of great talent and depth. I believe there are many of us--and I am one of them--who had severe questions about the direction we were taking in terms of this new Director of National Intelligence and how it would relate to existing agencies and to the State Department and to the Department of Defense and to the National Security Agency and all others who are involved in intelligence and relate to those in the Congress who have the oversight responsibility for the intelligence function and for the classified areas of the activities of our Nation. John Negroponte is a man who can do this job. He is a man of great talent. But more than that, he has demonstrated the ability to work with people and various entities, not only here in our country but throughout the world. This new Director of National Intelligence could well become the most important Cabinet position we have in the years to come. John Negroponte is the man to fashion that office, to determine what it needs in order to function properly at the beginning, and to set the course for this new intelligence agency. So I am here to urge that the Senate promptly approve this nomination and confirm John Negroponte so he can start on this very important task. I yield the floor.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, we will soon have a time for a recorded vote. I will yield the floor at the appropriate time, if the Chair will notify me when it is time to start that vote. Mr. President, there are a series of amendments now that have been filed on this bill to earmark money in the portion of the supplemental dealing with Defense. Our subcommittee and the full Appropriations Committee did not earmark any money in the Defense portion of this bill. It was my position and the position of the Senator from Hawaii, Mr. Inouye, that this is, after all, supplemental money on an emergency basis to deal with the problems of those who are in combat now: Iraq and Afghanistan and the war against terror. We have urgent needs of those people. This money must be approved and must be available to them no later than the first week in May. Under those circumstances, I have come to the floor to tell the Senate now we are going to oppose any amendment that would earmark money in this bill. There are some legitimate desires here on the floor for the Department to spend some of the money it has for specific purposes. I think a sense-of-the-Senate resolution in most of those instances would call that matter to the attention of the Department, and to a great extent I believe the Department would follow the suggestion of the Senate--of the Congress, if you want to make it a sense-of-the- Congress, as an amendment to this bill. We can change the amendments into a sense-of-the-Senate concept. But we cannot start taking these amendments. We turned down the amendments that came to us in subcommittee. We turned down the amendments that came to us in markup in the subcommittee. We turned down the amendments when they came to the full committee. Now to have them come to the floor in a cloture situation I think exacerbates the situation. This is to say it is my intention to move to table any amendment that will attempt to earmark money in this bill or elsewhere for nonemergency purposes. I know of none of them I have seen that are emergencies that have been filed on this bill. But I assure the Senate we are sympathetic to many of the amendments. As a matter of fact, I think I may have cosponsored one or two of them myself in connection with previous bills, the annual appropriations bills for Defense. But this is a supplemental. It is primarily designed to provide emergency funds. This is not the time for us to be taking up policy questions that should be addressed in the authorization bill or amendments that should be offered to the bills when we bring the bills out of the committee dealing with fiscal year 2006. I believe it is almost time for the vote that is scheduled. Again, I urge my friends who have offered these amendments to stay on the floor and discuss them with us. Again, I say, many of them are very well intentioned. I personally would support them in many circumstances, but I cannot in good conscience do that now. We should take this bill as clean as possible to conference and get it out of conference as quickly as possible. I yield the floor.

Mr. STEVENS. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. (The remarks of Mr. Leahy, Mr. Reid, and Mr. Baucus are printed in today's Record under ``Morning Business.'')

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I view this as a technical amendment to last year's bill. Last year, we provided these funds for the maritime cargo terminal, primarily because it is going to present us now with one of the most high-speed, advance-design capabilities of handling military sealift requirements. This provision clarifies the intent of the funds provided in prior fiscal years and provides authority to the Navy to execute those funds as we intended. The Navy says it needs this amendment in order to do that. We tried to clarify this issue in the 2004 bill but the Navy lawyers again said it wasn't sufficient. They want the greater authority to execute the funds in the way that is necessary for this port authority. Our language in the bill has been now reviewed by the Navy. The Navy now agrees with this language. If we finally enact this language, it will be sufficient to carry out our original intent. I see the Senator from Arizona is on the floor. It is my intention to make a motion to table this amendment but I would be pleased to yield to the Senator. I do not want to offer my motion in a manner that would reduce his right to speak on the amendment. Does the Senator wish time on this amendment?

Mr. STEVENS. I understand the Senator from Oklahoma has four amendments--three more?

Mr. STEVENS. Two more. I think they are all to the Defense portion of the bill. Are they? Is this the only one to the Defense portion of the bill?

Mr. STEVENS. I yield the floor.

Mr. STEVENS. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 471

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, Senator Warner has offered an amendment relating to delaying the decommissioning of the John F. Kennedy aircraft carrier CB-67. Is that the pending amendment? Amendment No. 516

Mr. STEVENS. Is the Warner amendment scheduled for a vote?

Mr. STEVENS. I ask unanimous consent the vote on the Warner amendment be scheduled to accompany the next vote requested by the Senate. I have been unable to make the statement I wanted to make on this amendment. I have been taken away for several other problems. I don't know when the next vote will be scheduled. But I do wish some time to discuss the amendment.

Mr. STEVENS. I ask unanimous consent that be postponed until the next amendment that is scheduled.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, do I have a couple of minutes before the vote?

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

Mr. STEVENS. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from West Virginia.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, is the Warner amendment the pending amendment?

Mr. STEVENS. I have come to the Senate to oppose this amendment.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I have not had the opportunity to speak on this amendment. I seek to oppose it. I ask unanimous consent that we have 15 minutes on each side on this amendment.