John Warner

Mr. WARNER

Mr. WARNER. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I thank my dear colleague. I suggest, indeed, as Senator Ensign has looked into this, the Senate would benefit from his perspective. I suggest we make this the pending amendment, lay it aside such that the Senate can proceed to the votes on the other two amendments. I don't know that there is any urgency. As long as it is the pending amendment, it can be brought up at any time the Senator from West Virginia so desires, either to be amended or voted in its present framework. I would be happy to yield the floor for the purposes of the distinguished Senator from Nevada addressing the Senate on this important subject and confer with the Senator from West Virginia briefly. I have an appointment with the British Minister of Defense. He is in my office. I would like to keep that for a brief period and then return to the floor.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent then that the Senator from Nevada be recognized for such time as he wishes to take on the Byrd amendment in its present configuration at the desk and then, at the conclusion of the remarks of the Senator from Nevada, we proceed to the scheduled votes under a previous order. Then immediately following the last vote, this becomes the pending amendment.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I again join my colleague from Michigan and our distinguished colleague, a member of the committee. As the Senator says, it is all about veterans, and this is a most deserving class. This is the group that has done a minimum of 20 years, and a loyal spouse that has gone through all of the challenges that face families in career military service. This is something that has been studied in the Congress for a very long time. It is the subject of a study now. As a matter of fact, it is going to be the centerpiece of a study. As you know, Mr. President, we have the commission on the future of the Guard and Reserve and retirees, and so forth, constituted by the Congress, which has now had its first meeting. So I urge colleagues on this side of the aisle to follow my lead and support the amendment of the Senator from Florida. There was a time in which I thought I would try to work on a second- degree amendment. In consultation with a wide range of my colleagues who have expressed strong support, as I have, we decided not to do that. And then there was the thought about, you know, it is a technical thing under the Budget Act. But I don't think it is appropriate to go through that exercise. So I suggest to all Members of the Senate to give a ringing endorsement to this amendment, and I will be among those to cast the first ``yea'' vote. Again, I congratulate my colleague.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, under regular order, if the yeas and nays have not been ordered, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. WARNER. We do. I think perhaps we should ask for the yeas and nays on the Snowe amendment at this time.

Mr. WARNER. That will be a 10-minute vote on that amendment.

Mr. WARNER. Under the original order, we were to have the Byrd amendment which would experience the full length of time for an amendment. This was subject to 10 minutes. I think we had better reconstitute that UC to say that this amendment will be given the full 15 minutes, the Snowe amendment to have the 10 minutes.

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

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, there is no objection. We have examined the amendment. It is a technical amendment that is needed by the Department of Defense to administer this program and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I speak in strong opposition to this amendment. I thank the Senator from Maine for accepting a number of the problems that I described yesterday, but there still exists an enormous number of problems associated with this amendment. For 16 years and five BRAC rounds, we have tried, in an equitable way, to work with the communities and return these properties. On occasion, they have been sold and funds given to the Department of Defense, put in an escrow account in the Treasury for expenditure of cleanup of other sites and associated costs connected with the transfer of properties and the conclusion and implementation of the BRAC decisions. This would wipe out that whole framework of legislation that has been passed by this body and has effectively worked for the communities for all of these years. We simply cannot, at this point in time, accept this type of change in our statutory framework as a matter of equity.

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

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I understand we will now proceed to a brief colloquy between colleagues on both sides of the aisle with regard to the Levin amendment. That colloquy should, in total, not exceed about 10 or 11 minutes, and then we will proceed to a rollcall vote. At this time, shall we ask for the yeas and nays on the Levin amendment?

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, may I remind colleagues we will try to maintain this as a 15-minute vote because thereafter we have a vote on the amendment of the Senator from Rhode Island and we want not to inconvenience several Members who have very legitimate reasons to not be present after these two votes.

Mr. WARNER. On our side, we would be happy to accommodate that vote following the vote on the amendment of the Senator from Rhode Island.

Mr. WARNER. I stand in opposition to the amendment for many reasons which I have stated on three previous occasions, including early this morning addressing this amendment. The distinguished Senator from Delaware talked about looking forward to our troops. I draw the attention of colleagues to Defense Department directive No. 3115.09 issued on the 3rd of November of this year in which they set forth the new regulations and rules with regard to treatment of prisoners. The directive provides overarching policy to the Department. It codifies existing departmental studies, including the requirement for humane treatment of captured or detained persons during intelligence interrogation and questioning, assigns responsibilities for interrogation planning and training, and establishes requirements for reporting violations of the policy regarding humane treatment. Section 3443 is a directive addressing some specific abuse detailed in past investigations. The directive specifically requires the Central Intelligence Agency interrogation must follow Pentagon guidelines when questioning military prisoners and that a DOD representative be present. Further, this release should be followed by the revision of the Department of the Army Field Manual which is the subject of the McCain amendment, which I strongly support, on interrogations which this Senate overwhelmingly directed become the U.S. standard as part of the amendment proposed by Senator McCain. Our Government collectively is moving in the right direction to correct the problems of the past, clearly, such that the whole world knows how our Nation stands against this type of abuse that occurred in the past. I strongly urge our colleagues not to start up another commission in the middle of our war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and for the next year or 18 months begin to go over the material which this Senate time and time again has addressed in debates, on which our Committees on Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, and Armed Services have reviewed this question with some dozen investigations conducted by our Government, largely the Department of Defense. I yield the floor. Order of Procedure I have an agreement regarding future votes so Senators can make their plans. I ask consent following debate on the Levin amendment, which is now concluded, Senator Reed be recognized to speak for not more than 5 minutes in relation to his amendment; further, that following the statement, the Senate proceed to a series of stacked votes in relation to the following amendments: Levin amendment 2430; Byrd amendment 2442, as modified; and the Reed amendment 2427. There is no time here for Senator Byrd. I amend this to allow 2 minutes by Senator Byrd and a minute by the Senator from Virginia who intends to support Senator Byrd. Further, provided that no second degrees be in order to the amendments prior to the votes. Finally, there be 2 minutes equally divided between the votes.

Mr. WARNER. We will now proceed to the debate on your amendment.

Mr. WARNER. In no event would we lose the opportunity to have the votes.

Mr. WARNER. I will restate the unanimous consent request in the hopes it can be agreed to. I ask consent that following debate on the Levin amendment--that debate has taken place--we go to the Byrd amendment. That would require 2 minutes by the Senator from West Virginia, 1 minute by the Senator from Virginia, following the vote on the Levin amendment, and then we proceed to the Reed amendment with 5 minutes on both sides with regard to debate prior to the vote on the Reed of Rhode Island amendment.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I strongly urge colleagues to support the Byrd-Warner amendment. I am the principal cosponsor. I commend my distinguished colleague from West Virginia. The Department of Defense was established in 1947, over a half century ago. It has served the Nation well, but there have been many changes. This will give the Armed Services Committee, the Government Operations Committee, perhaps other committees of Congress, a chance to take a good look at that Department and how best, if necessary, to restructure it to meet the future challenges before us. I thank the Senator from West Virginia. I urge all Senators to vote in favor of the amendment.

Mr. WARNER. My understanding is the yeas and nays have been ordered on the amendment, as modified.

Mr. WARNER. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, under the regular order, the Senate will now proceed with the Reed of Rhode Island vote, with 5 minutes for the Senator from Rhode Island and 3 to 4 minutes for the Senator from Virginia.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, in opposition to the amendment, I bring to the attention of our colleagues that the CTR Program, of which our distinguished colleague from Indiana, Mr. Lugar, was the principal author and sponsor, is fully funded at the budget request of $415.5 million. There still remains an unobligated balance of $107 million from the 2005 funds. So this category of our important work is fully funded and moving ahead on its schedule of expenditures. In contrast, the Missile Defense Program this year took a $1 billion cut as part of the internal DOD budget deliberations, and missile defense is also reduced by $5 billion over the period 2006 to 2011. By adopting the Reed amendment, we would have a fracture in the long-lead funding, resulting in a production break which, on the assumption it would be restarted, would cost the taxpayers another $270 billion. Mr. President, I say to my colleagues, I have a sheet here that shows how three consecutive times this Chamber has voted basically on this amendment and defeated it. A $500 million cut by Senator Levin was defeated in June of 2004 by 56 votes, followed by a Boxer amendment limiting deployment of ground-based interceptors, defeated by 57 votes, and a Reed amendment again defeated by 53 votes--incidentally, all of those having some measure of bipartisan support. So we are revisiting the same issue. I strongly recommend to my colleagues that this amendment not be adopted. Have the yeas and nays been ordered, Mr. President?

Mr. WARNER. I so request the yeas and nays.