John Warner

Mr. WARNER

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, the chairman has advised me that the Inhofe amendment is acceptable to the other side. Would you restate the number of that?

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I want to make sure Senator McCain has adequate time. How much time would he like?

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I would like to read two paragraphs of this letter from the Chairman. Last Thursday the President outlined a sustained campaign to combat international terrorism. The efficient and effective use of the resources devoted to this effort will be the responsibility of the Services and the Combatant Commanders. The authority to eliminate excess infrastructure will be an important tool our forces will need to become more efficient and serve as better custodians of the taxpayers money. As I mentioned before, there is an estimated 23 percent under-utilization of our facilities. We cannot afford the cost associated with carrying this excess infrastructure. The Department of Defense must have the ability to restructure its installations to meet our current national security needs. I know you share my concerns that additional base closures are necessary. The Department is committed to accomplishing the required reshaping and restructuring in a single round of base closures and realignments. I hope the Congress will support this effort. Mr. President, both the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs are acting in accordance with the Commander in Chief, the President of the United States. This BRAC issue is clearly one that our President needs at this time given the extenuating circumstances facing the United States of America. I yield sufficient time as he may need to our colleague from Arizona, Senator McCain.

Mr. WARNER

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

Mr. WARNER. I urge its adoption.

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

Mr. WARNER. I urge the adoption of the amendment.

Mr. WARNER. I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Santorum, I offer an amendment which would authorize an additional $1 million for the Air Force for research, development, test and evaluation for the Agile Combat Support, Integrated Medical Information Technology System Initiative, offset by a reduction of $1 million in the bill from Navy RDT&E funds provided for Modular Helmet Development. I believe this amendment has been cleared on the other side.

Mr. WARNER

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I commend my colleague for his strong stance on base closure. He and Senator McCain have worked for a number of years on this issue. I do not know how many years ago it was I joined on that legislation, and then, of course, we had a problem with the previous administration. Anyway, I was with them up until that problem arrived. So it is indeed long overdue. Even though I am proud to say my State has a very significant share of military installations, I stand with my colleagues and the vote of the Senate Armed Services Committee because I think that is what it should be, an efficiency that should be given to the Secretary of Defense. We need these savings. We need them desperately. Mr. President, I believe that concludes the remarks on base closure. I see the Senator from Oklahoma, one of our valued members of the committee. He wishes to, as I understand it, lay down two amendments for tonight, and then the chairman and I will proceed to do a number of cleared amendments. Am I correct?

Mr. WARNER. I offer an amendment on behalf of myself and my distinguished colleague, the chairman, Mr. Levin. This amendment would eliminate the cap costs that the Congress very wisely and appropriately placed on the costs of the overall renovation of the Department of Defense. Given the tragic attack on September 11--and, coincidentally, that attack was directed at a portion of the building which was the subject of the very contract on which this cap rests--we think it is wise, now, the chairman and I, that the cost of repairing this area of the Department of Defense just would not enable us to work within this cap as now established in current law. This amendment has been cleared by the chairman on his side. I believe we are ready to proceed on it.

Mr. WARNER. We are ready to handle a series of amendments and complete our work on this bill before the Senate tonight. Amendment No. 1660

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, the Senator has received, in accordance with your request, a communication from the Department of Defense. Does the Senator wish to include it in the Record?

Mr. WARNER. That would be----

Mr. WARNER. The chairman has correctly represented to the Senate the status of this bloc of amendments. We concur, of course.

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

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, once again, I thank my distinguished colleague. He and I went out there to the Department of Defense just a matter of a few hours following that attack to join the Secretary of Defense. I think it is important we adopt this amendment, so I urge the adoption of the amendment.

Mr. WARNER. I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

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

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

Mr. WARNER. We are endeavoring to do that on our side. A number of Senators have just returned to Washington. They need just a bit of time to assess this situation. I know there is a strong spirit of cooperation on this side to move forward with the bill and complete it by Wednesday afternoon early. In order to do that, we have to have this type of working document from which to chart our course, night and day, between now and Wednesday afternoon, and recognize that we have to set aside time for the CR when it comes.

Mr. WARNER. I agree.

Mr. WARNER. I do not think we have reached any agreement. We have just come to the floor for the purpose of starting consideration of the bill. I defer to my chairman. As I understand, we have colleagues waiting to move ahead. I am prepared to try to do what we can, subject to his concurrence.

Mr. WARNER. Yes.

Mr. WARNER. I ask my colleague to defer for a moment so that I can recognize the valuable contribution of the Senator from Rhode Island.