Shaken Baby Syndrome Prevention Act of 2010

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Bond), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback), and the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Gregg).

Mr. President, I wish to make a comment. For the benefit of Members, what we are trying to do is to identify those matters we need to try to deal with in the 30 hours postcloture on the START treaty. If Members have amendments they need to deal with, I would appreciate it if they would either communicate with me or with Senator Lugar's staff or Senator Kerry's staff so that we can determine whether to get them on the list and where to plug them in. I would also suggest to Members that there isn't a lot of time left, and if they have comments they would like to make, now is the time to come to the Senate floor. There shouldn't be a minute of quorum call time here. There is a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it. So if Members have something, bring it to us. If they want to speak, they should come to the floor now or as soon as they can get here.

My goal is to get as many of the amendments as possible dealt with, if not with a vote then worked out by unanimous consent. What I have tried to do is to take a universe of about 70 amendments and to consolidate them into a much smaller group. So there are some specific subject areas that are not specifically dealt with. In some cases, the consolidations may not be technically related. For example, Senator LeMieux would like to add to one of the amendments his language dealing with tactical weapons taken from his treaty amendment but to conform it to a resolution of ratification amendment. So we may be even combining some subjects that don't necessarily relate.

The object here is to cover as much ground as possible within a limited period of time, and in order to do that we will need everybody's cooperation. Senator Kerry and I will then--and Senator Lugar, of course--primarily try to make sure everybody gets heard who wants to be heard.

If I can add, I understand Senator Shaheen is in order to speak next, and then Senator Risch is available to begin; am I not correct?

OK. His numbers are 4878 and 4879, so we can begin with one of those, if it is agreeable.

So, Mr. President, it would be in order to call up for consideration--I believe the first is amendment No. 4878, Risch amendment No. 4878.

Well, Mr. President, I said there shouldn't be any quorum call, but we are going to be a couple of minutes here. So I suggest the absence of a quorum until we are ready to go.

Mr. President, in response to the last argument that the Russians don't have any incentive to and we don't believe they are going to build the rail mobile system again, I ask, then: What is the big deal about ensuring in the treaty that if they do, they would be counted under the 700? What is the problem? The problem appears to be that the Russians don't have the same view of this as do my colleagues or the United States Government.

My colleague from Nevada quoted earlier from the Interfax report of October 29, 2010, where the chairman of the Russian Duma--parliament-- committee responsible for treaties, Konstantin Kosachyov, stated--in response to the argument we have just made, that the Senator from Nevada just made, that the treaty should include rail-mobile as part of the 700 limit--he stated, in response to that claim, and in response to the resolution of ratification of the Foreign Relations Committee, that U.S. claim compelled the Duma to stop action on the treaty. He said-- and I am quoting:

The Americans are trying to apply the New START Treaty to

rail-mobile ICBMs in case they are built.

That, obviously, means if he is saying: We would have to stop the Duma action on this if that is what the U.S. Government is going to claim, they are pushing back on this pretty hard. The question is, why? I do not know whether they intend to build the rail-mobile system. I do not much care whether they build it. All we care about is, if they do, it has to be included within the 700 limit.

Now, the report language of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirms the fact that they are not included. Here is what the report language says--and this is in direct contradiction to what was said just a moment ago--this is from page 17 of the report--

Nevertheless, while a new rail-mobile system would clearly

be captured under the Article II limits despite the exclusion

of rail-mobile launchers from the definition of mobile

launchers of ICBMs, those provisions that actually use the

defined term ``mobile launcher of ICBMs'' would not cover

rail-mobile systems if Russia were to reintroduce them.

``Would not cover.''

It goes on to say:

``Appropriate detailed arrangements for incorporating rail-

mobile ICBM launchers and their ICBMs into the treaty's

verification and monitoring regime would be worked out in the

Bilateral Consultative Commission.'' Under Article XV . . .

the Parties may make changes to the Protocol or Annexes. . .

.

We have discussed this in the past. If there is a dispute about what the treaty means, then you go to this dispute resolution group of Russians and Americans, and they try to talk it out and work it out. But there is nothing to say they will, and if the Russian chairman of the committee is already saying we are trying to insert something into the agreement that isn't there, I wonder how successful we would be in working it out.

The report concludes:

If Russia were again to produce rail-mobile ICBM launchers,

the Parties would work within the BCC to find a way to ensure

that the treaty's notification, inspection, and monitoring

regime would adequately cover them.

So it is clear that it does not. It is clear from the report that the language would not cover rail-mobile systems if Russia were to reintroduce them. It is clear we would have to rely upon the Russians' good offices, good intentions, to reach some kind of an agreement with us in the Bilateral Consultative Commission. There are no assurances that will be done.

Why are we willing to proceed with an agreement that has such built in ambiguity? Why say: Well, we will let that be worked out by the BCC when we could work it out right now? It is the same answer we get with respect to every one of these proposals: Well, the Russians would then demand to renegotiate the treaty.

I ask again: Is the Senate just to be a rubber stamp? We cannot do anything to change the treaty or the protocol, or just the resolution of ratification, which is what we are trying to do because the Russians would say no, and, therefore, we cannot do it?

I thought we were the Senate. We are one-half of the U.S. Government that deals with it. The other is the Executive. The Executive negotiated the treaty. Now, why didn't they include this language? We do not know because we do not have the record of the negotiations. What I am told is that it is because the Russians said they would not include it because the rail-mobile system would be unique to Russia, and we do not have such a thing. Therefore, there would be a lack of parity. You could not have such a unilateral provision. So if that is the case, either the

Russians do intend to develop these systems, and they do not want them counted, or there should be no problem with the Ensign amendment, which would ensure that they would be counted.

So you cannot read the report language and agree with what has been said--that the treaty covers these weapons--you cannot read it and believe they would clearly be covered by the inspection and notification and monitoring regime. In fact, it clearly shows that is not the case. What you have to believe is that this built-in dispute in the treaty may well arise if the Russians decide to proceed to develop such a system, and we would then--or would arise if they decide to do that, and we would be required to go to the BCC to try to work it out with them. That, obviously, builds in a conflict that is not good.

As I said before, when you have a contract between two parties, the first thing the lawyers try to do is ensure there are no ambiguities that could cause one side or the other to later come forward and say: I did not mean that. Then you have a legal dispute. But it is one thing to have a legal dispute about buying a car or a house. It is quite another to have a dispute like this between two sovereign nations.

I would note when the United States had a system we might develop, such as the rail-mobile--but we have not made a decision to do it; we certainly do not have it--the Russians knew we wanted to at least study the possibility of developing a conventional Prompt Global Strike capability--that is to say, an ICBM that could carry a conventional warhead rather than a nuclear warhead--and they specifically insisted that we include that in the treaty.

Now, you might say: Well, wait a minute. The Russians apparently argued that they did not want to include anything on rail-mobile because the United States did not have anything on rail-mobile, and that would be a lack of parity--it would be a unilateral restriction-- but the same thing is true with conventional Prompt Global Strike. The Russians have no intension of doing that, apparently. We might, just like for the rail-mobile, the Russians might. Yet they insisted a limitation be put on our conventional Prompt Global Strike--by what?-- by counting them against the 700 launcher limit--exactly the same thing that should be done with regard to rail-mobile.

So, apparently, if we might do something in the future the Russians do not like, we have to count it. But if the Russians might do something in the future we do not like, we cannot count it. Our only relief then is to go to this BCC and hope the Russians would agree to something in the future that they have not been willing to agree to today.

So all the Ensign amendment does is to clear up an ambiguity and avoid a future dispute between the parties. It is clear from the report that it is not covered now. Again, the language, ``those provisions that actually use the defined term `mobile launchers of ICBMs' would not cover rail-mobile systems if Russia were to re-introduce them.''

The report acknowledges that, therefore, in order to apply the inspection and notification and monitoring regimes, you would have to get the Russians to agree in the BCC. Why not solve that problem right now?

Again, we meet with the same argument we are always met with: Well, we do not dare change anything in here because the Russians would disagree.

I just ask my colleagues, again, is there any purpose for us being here? If every argument is, well, we do not dare change it because the Russians would disagree, so we would have to renegotiate it, maybe that suggests that there was not such a hot job of negotiating this treaty in the first place. If the Senate cannot find errors or mistakes or shortcomings and try to correct them without violating some superprinciple that is above the U.S. Constitution, which says that the Senate has that right, then, again, I do not know what we are doing here.

So I urge my colleagues to support the Ensign amendment, as with some other things we have raised, to try to avoid a conflict. Resolve the situation now while we still have time to do it rather than after the treaty is ratified when it is too late.

Madam President, might I pose a question to my colleague because I understand exactly the point he makes. He makes it accurately. I quoted the language that says that it would clearly be captured under article II limits. That is the committee's understanding, which is the point my colleague is making. But I go on to note that the exclusion of rail-mobile launchers from the definition means that it would not cover rail-mobile systems if Russia were to reintroduce them and, therefore, there would have to be work by the BCC to figure out how to deal with those under the inspection, monitoring, and notification regimes.

I understand that our committee says they believe they are captured. I see that in the report. What I am saying is, there is a dispute because the Russians do not appear to agree with that. I would just ask my colleague, how do you square, then, the Russian response? The chairman of their committee--you have dueling committees--in the Duma said:

The Americans are trying to apply the New START Treaty to

rail-mobile ICBMs in case they are built.

It appears to me what he is saying is, but they should not be doing that. In fact, his recommendation, I believe, was the Duma not take action on the treaty if that was our intent.

Yes, of course.

Madam President, if I could just close, and I actually had, I think, yielded the floor. So I appreciate the chance to make this final point.

All the Ensign amendment tries to do is clear up the ambiguity. My colleague says it is absolutely clear to him that they are included. I know the committee says they think it is clear. I do not think the Russians think it is clear, and I think there is a basis for an argument that it is not clear. Why not clear it up?

Before my colleague from Nevada closes, I know this whole argument is based on the proposition that the Russians wouldn't be crazy enough to think about doing a rail system again so we don't need to worry about it. What is all the fuss, is what my colleague said.

Well, here is a December 10--how many days ago is that now? I have forgotten. We are about to Christmas, but I have forgotten the date of today. It is from Moscow ITAR-TASS, English version. Headline: ``Russia Completes Design Work For Use Of RS-24 Missiles On Rail-based Systems.''

I want my colleague from Massachusetts to hear this. The Russians aren't crazy enough to think they could do a rail system. Here is the headline, December 10: ``Russia Completes Design Work For Use of RS-24 Missiles On Rail-based Systems.''

Just to quote a couple lines from the story:

Russia has completed design work for the use of RS-24

missiles railway-based combat systems, but implementation of

the project has been considered inexpedient, Moscow Heat

Engineering Institute Director Yuri Solomonov said. His

institute is the main designer of these missiles. Asked

whether the RS-24 missiles could be used in railway-based

systems, he said, ``This is possible. The relevant design

work was done . . . '' and so on.

I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I am not arguing that this issue has been resolved within Russia as to whether to go forward. I am not arguing whether it is a good thing or a bad thing. I simply submit it in response to the argument that the Russians would be crazy to think about doing this. Either they are crazy or--well, in any event, I would never attribute that motivation to anybody, even somebody from another country. The fact is, they have begun design work on exactly such a project.

Madam President, obviously one of the purposes of these two amendments is to respond to one of the arguments that has been raised in support of this treaty. We have this wonderful new reset relationship with Russia, and were we to not ratify the treaty, that relationship would be frayed, and who knows how much Russia might react to it? It would be harder to get their cooperation on things. Those are all arguments that have been made.

I think one of the points of these two amendments is to show that the reset relationship between Russia and the United States has not produced all that much good behavior or cooperation on the part of the Russians. I earlier detailed all of the ways--at least a few--in which Russia had been very unhelpful to the United States with regard to Iran. I noted I think 2 days ago or maybe yesterday that in the U.N., they were trying to water down a resolution dealing with North Korea that we are working hard to try to obtain. They have been very difficult to deal with with regard to North Korea and Iran. At the end of the day, I think they only do what is in their best interest, in any event--not basing their decisions of what is in their best interests on some concept of a new friendliness with the United States.

I think part of the reason my colleague from Idaho offered these two amendments is to simply demonstrate that this new relationship isn't all that its cracked up to be if they won't even give us some equipment they confiscated when they invaded Georgia. That is not a major point in international diplomacy, and it certainly isn't a major point with respect to U.S. military capability. It is illustrative of something.

The point of the amendment is to say that you have quite a bit of time before this treaty enters into force. A lot has to happen. It is sent to Russia, the Duma has to deal with it, and so on.

Just return the stuff. Maybe that little gesture of good will would help to reestablish this so-called reset relationship in ways they have not been able to accomplish by getting Russian support with the U.N. resolutions and other actions with regard to sanctions on Iran and diplomacy with North Korea.

One can say it is not a big deal, this military equipment, but on the other hand, they say it will destroy the treaty if we have this particular amendment. The reality is that we are simply trying to make a point that the Russians have not acted well in a variety of situations. I cannot think of a better example than the invasion of Georgia, the continued violation of the cease-fire agreement they signed there, and the violation of the U.N. resolution.

I would reiterate, at the summit declaration--this is where the NATO members, meeting in Lisbon last month, joined together to call for a resolution to the problem, saying, ``We reiterate our continued support for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Georgia within its internationally recognized borders.'' And then they urge all to play a constructive role and to work with the U.N. to pursue a peaceful resolution of the internationally recognized territory of Georgia. And then the final sentence:

We continue to call on Russia to reverse its recognition of

the South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions of Georgia as

independent States.

That is the kind of cooperation we are getting from the Russian Federation these days. I appreciate the amendments brought forth by my colleague to highlight that fact.

What was the unanimous consent request?

Madam President, that understanding is fine. There are two Members who I think will be ready to go forward with their amendments immediately following the two votes at 6 o'clock.

Again, for benefit of the Members, it is my hope that we can continue to work through as many amendments as possible this evening, maybe have debate a couple at a time and vote, whatever the body desires. But perhaps we could continue at least to work through a few more amendments yet this evening.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Bond), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback), the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Gregg), and the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn).

Mr. President, a point of inquiry before I begin. Is there a reason I should speak to either amendment No. 4860 or amendment No. 4893 first?

Thank you, Mr. President.

Amendment No. 4860

Then, Mr. President, with that, I would like to offer amendment No. 4860, SLCM side agreement, which I believe is pending at the desk. I would ask for its consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, this is actually a very straightforward amendment. It simply seeks to repeat in this New START treaty the same thing the then-Soviet Union and United States did in the previous START I treaty with respect to a particular kind of weapon--a Russian weapon called the SLCM or sea-launched cruise missile.

As part of START I, we reached a binding side agreement--a side agreement--because the Senate had said we needed to include these weapons in the treaty. So a side agreement was reached that they would limit a deployment of sea-launched cruise missiles or the SLCMs due to their impact on strategic stability, the point being that whether these sea-launched cruise missiles are deemed tactical or strategic, they actually have a strategic component, especially if they are sitting right off your coast and they are launched and they can hit your country. So that agreement was put into a side agreement between the then-Soviet Union and the United States.

But when this New START treaty was negotiated, there was no similar side agreement. So there were no restrictions on SLCM deployments. The side agreement in the START treaty limited both nations to fewer than 800 SLCMs with a range greater than 600 kilometers. In the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, the administration committed to unilaterally eliminating our SLCM capability.

The United States will retire the nuclear-equipped sea-

launched cruise missile (TLAM-N).

Under Secretary Miller said:

The timeline for its retirement will be over the next two

or three years.

Now Russia is developing a new version of its SLCM, with a range of up to, approximately, 5,000 kilometers, which is a longer range than some of the ballistic missiles that are covered by the New START treaty.

So that is why we believe there should be a side agreement, just like there was in START I, that deals with these SLCMs. We are not going to have them, Russia is. Yet there is nothing in the treaty that would count their SLCMs against the total limit of warheads or delivery vehicles that are allowed under the treaty or in any other way deal with them.

The administration assures us we should not be concerned about a lack of a formal agreement. Secretary Clinton noted that the START I treaty did have a limitation on sea-launched cruise missiles and said that both parties ``voluntarily agreed to cease deploying any nuclear SLCMs on surface ships or multipurpose submarines.''

But today it is obvious, with the information about Russian plans, that there is going to be a great disparity between the United States and Russia. As I said, it is not obvious that saying one is tactical, as opposed to the strategic weapons that are otherwise limited by this treaty, is a very important distinction. I think it is really a distinction without a difference.

Steve Hadley, the former head of the NSC, said:

And if you're living in eastern or central Europe, a so-

called tactical nuclear weapon,

if you're within range, looks pretty strategic to you. So

what are we going to do about those?

As I said, he was the National Security Adviser.

Ambassador Bob Joseph, in testimony before the Foreign Relations Committee, said:

Every time I hear the term ``nonstrategic nuclear

weapons,'' I recall that no nuclear weapon is nonstrategic.

If you stop and think about it, that is certainly true.

So these weapons, which are very powerful, and can have a range of up to 5,000 kilometers, clearly need to be dealt with.

Now, we did not want to insist that they go back and renegotiate the treaty because we heard that argument before, so what we are suggesting by this amendment is simply to do the same thing we did in START I-- just have it be a side agreement where the two parties would agree to limit the number. Our administration would limit the Russians so they would not have a significant number of these particular weapons.

Just a point, by the way: In the event there are folks who do not believe the Russians intend to rely on their weapons such as the SLCMs, Under Secretary of Defense Flournoy said: The Russians are ``actually increasing their reliance on nuclear weapons and the role of nuclear weapons in their strategy.''

Secretary Gates has made the same point. He said:

Ironically, that is the case with Russia today, which has

neither the money nor the population to sustain its Cold War

conventional force levels. Instead, we have seen an increased

reliance on its nuclear force with new ICBM and sea-based

missiles, as well as a fully functional infrastructure that

can manufacture a significant number of warheads each year.

And the Strategic Posture Commission noted:

This imbalance in non-strategic nuclear weapons, which

greatly favors Russia, is of rising concern and an

illustration of the new challenges of strategic stability as

reductions in strategic weapons proceed.

The point has been made by many others as well.

So I think this is fairly straightforward. It would require the United States to negotiate a side agreement with Russia, very similar to the side agreement we had under START I, to deal with a weapon that we are no longer going to have, but the Russians are apparently developing a new version of, that has a pretty substantial range--5,000 kilometers. Clearly, it is very difficult to distinguish the difference between a weapon like that and the strategic offensive weapons that are otherwise dealt with in the treaty.

I hope my colleagues will recognize this is not a treaty killer, and it is something that needs t be addressed.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, I am a little bit flummoxed here because I thought in a conversation I had a couple of days ago with Senator Kerry that side agreements might be all right; that we didn't want to amend the preamble or didn't want to amend the treaty but that we could perhaps do some side agreements. So we structured this as a side agreement just exactly as was done in START I.

On the Senator's time, I would be happy to.

Mr. President, there was no delay in the implementation of the START I agreement because of a requirement that a side agreement be entered into between the then-Soviet Union and the United States on SLCMs. So I don't buy the notion that this necessarily would delay anything.

Secondly, we are not talking about tactical missile limitations generally. All we are doing is talking about the same kinds of missiles that were the subject of the side agreement under START I. I suspect that part of the reason was because it is pretty difficult to distinguish as to whether these weapons are being used for a strategic or a tactical purpose. Senator Kerry has said they cannot upset the strategic balance. I simply totally disagree with that proposition. They absolutely can upset the strategic balance, depending upon where they are located or how they intend to be used. That is one of the reasons I suspect they were limited under the START I treaty.

My colleague said they can't threaten our submarine fleet at sea and they pose only a limited threat to ICBM sites. Well, that may be the opinion of our experts. They could sure threaten our submarine bases in Washington State at King's Bay. They could take out bases or other assets we have.

In fact, let me quote from a Russian article, the RIA Novosti Report of April 14, 2010, on the Graney class nuclear submarines:

Graney class nuclear submarines are designed to launch a

variety of long-range cruise missiles up to 3,100 miles or

500 kilometers with nuclear warheads and effectively engage

submarines, surface warships, and land-based targets.

Obviously, at 5,000 kilometers, as I said, that is a range longer than some of the ballistic missiles that are covered by the New START treaty. So these weapons--it is a little hard to characterize them as either tactical or strategic. I think it depends upon how they are used.

But the point is, if my colleague believes they can't threaten anything, then what is the problem with trying to set a limit on them? Well, obviously--or at least I assume obviously--the Russians don't want to do that. I assume we raised this, though we don't have the negotiation record, so I don't know whether it was raised. If it wasn't, why wasn't it? And if it was because we didn't think there was any threat to the United States, then I think it would be very important to ask some of our military folks why they think that is the case given the kinds of targets that could be held at risk here and given the fact that we apparently reached a different conclusion during the START I treaty implementation phase when the side agreement was negotiated with the then-Soviet Union.

So I don't think it would delay anything. We do posit it as a side agreement rather than an amendment. We just say that the administration should negotiate so that there wouldn't be a significant number of SLCM deployments by the Russians given the fact that we are not doing any.

I do have to say that I fundamentally disagree with the assertion of my colleague that this kind of weapon can't upset the strategic balance. If you have a weapon that can fly over 3,000 miles with a nuclear warhead, which could be just as big of a nuclear warhead as on a bomber or an intercontinental ballistic missile, with all of the targets on our eastern seaboard or western seaboard that would be held at risk for such a weapon--in fact, 3,000 miles--you won't have to be far off either of our two U.S. coasts to hit most targets within the continental United States.

This is a weapon that it seems to me we should be concerned about. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to support calling for a side agreement that would deal with the SLCMs just as we did under the START I treaty.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I will respond with about 30 seconds. Then I will be prepared to go to my next amendment. Perhaps I can reserve whatever time I have left on there to make a closing argument.

I really do sincerely appreciate the characterization of these issues we have raised as serious and important. I do appreciate that. I do think, though,

that it would be appropriate to have a better response than just that this will upset the Russians, they won't want to do it, so we will have to renegotiate the treaty, and that it will delay things and that will create problems.

The purpose is not to delay, as I said. I don't think the START I treaty was delayed when we reached a side agreement.

I think, in any event, the question is this: Should the United States delay, if that is what is called for, in order to improve the treaty in important respects? If it is conceded that this is an important aspect, then it seems to me that it is worth taking time to do it right.

Most of the arguments that have been made in response to the amendments we have raised boil down to: The Russians won't want to do what you say, and therefore we need to reject your amendment because it would require some renegotiation. I get back to the point I have made over and over: Then what is the Senate doing here? Why would the Founders have suggested we should have a role in relation to treaties if every time we try to change something, the argument is that you cannot change a comma because the other side wouldn't like that and that would require renegotiation?

There is nothing that serious about this treaty that it has to go into effect tomorrow. The Washington Post had an editorial, and they said that no great calamity will befall the United States if this treaty is not concluded before the end of the year. I think that is almost a direct quotation. There is no immediate national security reason to do so. I know the administration would like to get on with it, but no great harm will befall us if we take time to do it right. If we are not willing to do that, the Senate might as well rubberstamp what the President sends up because the argument will be that if we try to suggest changes, the other side will reject them and we could not possibly abide that.

I will reserve the remainder of time on this amendment.

Amendment No. 4893

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 4893, which I believe is at the desk, and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. President, I would have preferred to deal with each of the subjects in this amendment individually because each one is very important. To accommodate the other side's desire to try to get as much done as quickly as possible, we consolidated some amendments, and there is a lot in this. I regret that we don't have time to get into detail about each one of them.

This amendment amounts to an effort to try to improve the verification of the treaty to deal with a variety of issues which have been raised in the past and which we believe are inadequately dealt with by the treaty. One of them involves covers, the kinds of things the then-Soviet Union and now Russians consistently put over the warheads so that it is impossible for our inspectors to see what is under them, to see how many warheads are under them. That has been a problem in the past.

On telemetry, we say the President should certify to the Senate that he has reached a legally binding agreement with the Russian Federation so that each party is obliged to provide full and unimpeded access to its telemetry from all flight tests of strategic missiles limited by the treaty. That is important because while we are not developing a new generation of missiles, the Russians are. We will be denied the telemetry of those missile tests if the Russians decide to deny it. Our intelligence community has told us that this is of great value to us in assessing the capabilities of Russian missiles. Under the treaty, they don't have to provide anything. They could provide telemetry on old missiles they are testing, and they don't have to provide any on any of the new missiles they are testing. We believe that should be done. The same thing with respect to any ballistic missiles deployed during the duration of the treaty.

Then we turn to the subject of inspections. There are different kinds of inspections, but we are talking here about type one inspections in which we say that the United States would consider it a violation of the deployed warhead limit and a material breach of the treaty if the Russians do one of two things: No. 1, any type one inspection that revealed that the Russian Federation had deployed a number of warheads on any one missile in excess of the number they declared for that missile; No. 2, any action by the Russian Federation that impedes the ability of the United States to determine the number of warheads deployed on any one missile prior to or during a type one inspection.

That gets to the issue of covers again. Why is this important? Because we are supposedly counting weapons in this treaty, warheads. There is a limit of 1,550 warheads. How can we possibly verify compliance if, when we seek to count the number of warheads on top of missiles we have designated and have a right to inspect, we can't count the warheads? You tell me how we are supposed to assume how many warheads there are on the top of that particular missile or why we should not deem it a material breach if they declared a certain number of warheads and it turns out there are more.

I think these are commonsense changes that would strengthen the verification provisions of the treaty.

It is too bad Senator Bond is not here tonight. He is the ranking Republican member of the Intelligence Committee. In the classified session we had yesterday, he talked about the deficiencies in verification under this treaty. This subject doesn't permit us to get into a lot of detail in open session.

We have heard a lot about past cheating by the Russians and the kinds of things that were done. What we are trying to do with these basic components is to make it less likely that the Russians would cheat, and if they do, it would less likely have an impact on the

key element of the treaty, which is the limitation on warheads of 1,550.

I will note a couple of things here that put this into context.

There have been allegations that there is better verification than ever before under this treaty. That is just not true. The verification provisions of this treaty are not as strong as under the START I treaty. There is an argument that they don't need to be for various reasons or the Russians weren't willing to allow them to be for various reasons. I don't think you can say the verification is better.

Former Secretary of State James Baker, who testified, said:

The verification mechanism in the New START Treaty does not

appear as rigorous or extensive as the one that verified the

numerous and diverse treaty obligations and prohibitions

under START I. This complex part of the treaty is even more

crucial when fewer deployed nuclear warheads are allowed than

were allowed in the past.

That is obvious. The more you get down to a smaller number, the more important cheating is, the more dramatic the effect can be, and the better verification you need.

Senator McCain said this:

The New START Treaty's permissive approach to verification

will result in less transparency and create additional

challenges for our ability to monitor Russia's current and

future capabilities.

Former CIA Director James Woolsey said:

New START's verification provisions will provide little or

no help in detecting illegal activity at locations the

Russians fail to declare, are off-limits to U.S. inspectors,

or are underground or otherwise hidden from our satellites.

Senator Bond made a comment that I have quoted before, which is this:

New START suffers from fundamental verification flaws that

no amount of tinkering around the edges can fix. . . . The

Select Committee on Intelligence has been looking at this

issue closely over the past several months. . . . There is no

doubt in my mind that the United States cannot reliably

verify the treaty's 1,550 limit on deployed warheads.

To conclude, the amendment would require the President to certify that he has reached an agreement with Russia on the nonuse of covers that interfere with type one inspections and accurate warhead counting during those inspections. It doesn't solve the problem of determining the total number of warheads Russia deploys, but it would reduce a method of deception Russia has used in the past.

On telemetry, the amendment would require the President to certify that he has reached a legally binding agreement with Russia that each party is obliged to provide the other full and unimpeded access to its telemetry from all flight tests of strategic missiles, including on new ballistic missile systems deployed by the Russians. They are free now to encrypt those tests. That makes it much harder to get information we have found to be very valuable.

Finally, with regard to the material breach, the amendment contains an understanding that the United States would consider a violation of the deployed warhead limits to be a material breach of the treaty. This would include any type one inspection that revealed the Russians had deployed a number of warheads on any one missile in excess of the number they declared for that missile or that they continued to use covers that deny us the ability to see exactly how many warheads they have on their missiles.

Mr. President, I hope my colleagues would recognize that verification is a problem under the treaty. This is a modest way to try to deal with specific aspects of that verification. I hope my colleagues would be willing to support the amendment.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

Might we also add that the second two votes would be 10- minute votes?

Might I inquire how much time remains on this side?

Mr. President, let me take 3, 4, 5 of those minutes. I appreciate my colleagues' compliments about important issues being brought up, and I also appreciate their concern that amendments of this significance would cause heartburn for the Russians and might well require them to want to renegotiate aspects of the treaty. I am trying to address that through the mechanism of the side agreement rather than amendment to the treaty or some kind of other more restrictive method. I thought that would be the preferable way to do it.

It is not my intention, as with the previous amendment, to delay things. I do not think it necessarily would. But I do appreciate that on a couple of these items the Russians would not likely want to renegotiate.

I am not so sure that would be the case with regard to the covers, this question of the kind of shroud or cover you put over the missile bus, the top of the missile that has the warheads since the treaty does deal with it, as my colleagues have pointed out, but I do not think it does so in a conclusive way.

The 2005 compliance report issued by the State Department to discuss compliance of the Russian Government with respect to the START I treaty had a couple of longstanding issues. The issue of shrouds was one that they characterized as of long standing. They had a very hard time getting that resolved with the Russians. In the end, there was a particular accommodation reached, but it took forever. And during that time, we did not have the kind of satisfaction we wanted.

We asked how disputes would be dealt with, and we get the same basic answer. That would go to the Bilateral Consultative Commission, the group of Russian and U.S. negotiators who are supposed to work these things out.

What I can see is a kind of repeat of what we had before. They like to cover these things up and that does not seem to me the way to enter into a treaty where we are supposed to be in agreement with our counterparts and yet we have unresolved issues we have to leave to another day to be resolved through a long and probably difficult negotiation process.

Also, my colleague from Massachusetts--these were his words; he was not quoting anyone--thought we had enormous certainty about this. I suggest I do not think the intelligence community would use a phrase such as ``enormous certainty.'' We cannot get into here the degree of percentage they attach to being able to know certain things under this treaty.

Suffice it to say that we are not absolutely sure we can do what needs to be done here, and I do not think characterizing it as ``enormous certainty'' would be an accurate way to do it.

Let me mention with regard to telemetry--first of all, let me correct one thing that is a little bit of misdirection and then agree with my colleagues on something else.

There is a suggestion that we can get telemetry on five missiles, and that is true if the Russians agree. In other words, they have to volunteer to do it. The five missiles they tell us about can be old missiles. They do not have to be new missiles. It is a fact there is nothing in this treaty that requires the Russians or the United States to exchange telemetry on new missile tests; that is to say, tests of missiles currently being developed. There are at least two the Russians are developing right now.

That leads to the second point. I think it is probably true the reason they did not want to agree to this is it would require them to give us very valuable information. Right now, they would not be getting any information from the United States because we are not testing missiles. But I ask, is that an asymmetry that is justified or that justifies a provision that says if you are not modernizing your forces and we are modernizing our forces, it is not fair to have us tell you what our missiles are like?

Under the previous treaty, both sides had to do that, and it gave both sides more confidence. The Russians are developing new missiles. Should we not have some understanding of the capability of those missiles? We are not developing any. It is almost as if the United States would have to be modernizing its forces too in order to be able to justify a provision that said we had to exchange telemetry.

Maybe the United States ought to get on with the modernization of our missile force so we can then go back to the Russians and say: You are modernizing, we are modernizing, now how about the exchange. To me that is not an argument to require the Russians not to provide us information. And in fact, when the shoe is on the other foot, that argument falls by the wayside, and we end up putting limitations in the treaty.

Here is an example. The Russians are not developing and do not seem to have any intention of developing something called conventional Prompt Global Strike, which is a fancy way of saying: Put a conventional warhead on top of an ICBM so you do not have to send a nuclear warhead halfway around the world to destroy a target.

We can see in today's conflict that we are not going to be engaging in a multiple nuclear exchange with another country but might well have a need based upon intelligence that does not have a very long shelf life that we want to send a conventional warhead to a specific target and that is something we would like to develop but the Russians are not interested in doing that. So did we say to the Russians: So because you are not doing it and we are, therefore, we are not going to have any limitation on this? No. We agreed, in fact, to a very important limitation. Any missiles we use in that regard have to be counted as if there were a nuclear warhead on top of it. So there is a 700-vehicle limit. That is all the number of missiles we can have. And yet any missiles that we put a conventional warhead on that have this ICBM range have to be counted against that limit.

Well, the Russians aren't doing it, so why did we have to agree to something they are not doing? That is asymmetrical. That is not parity.

So it is okay for the Russians to say: Hey, if we are doing something you are not doing, we are not going to be bound by anything in the treaty on it. But by the way, if you are doing something we are not doing, we are going to hold you accountable and bind you with a very important limitation in the treaty.

You see, the argument doesn't hold water. Russia and the United States are not acting exactly the same with regard to our weapons. So to argue that anything we are doing differently from the other shouldn't count in the treaty is suspicious. And, in any event, it turns out we don't make that argument.

Let me finish my sentence on this.

In any event, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. If we put a limitation on the United States on something they are not developing, then it is only fair to put a limitation on them with regard to something we are not developing.

Mr. President, I wish to speak briefly to that now, in direct response to my colleague from Michigan.

Mr. President, let me quote from the START I treaty, Text of Resolution of Advice and Consent to Ratification as Approved by the Senate:

The Senate's advice and consent to the ratification of the

START Treaty is subject to the following conditions, which

shall be binding upon the President: Legal and Political

Obligations of U.S.S.R.: That the legal and political

obligations of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

reflected in the four related separate agreements, seven

legally binding letters, four areas of correspondence, two

politically binding declarations, thirteen joint statements .

. .

And so on. The two politically binding declarations are precisely the reference to the limitation of the SLCM numbers for both countries. I mean there is a dispute about whether it is legally binding in the same sense that the treaty itself is, but the heading of this is Legal and Political Obligations of the U.S.S.R., and it goes on to talk about . . .

The United States shall regard actions inconsistent with

these legal obligations as equivalent under international law

to actions inconsistent with the START Treaty.

And so on and so on. We believe these were binding and should be. It is no argument, however, to say that if somebody else didn't see it that way, therefore, what we are asking for here is not

a binding agreement. Whether you call it binding legally or binding politically, in any event, I wish to see it done, because there is no limitation on the SLCMs the Russians are planning to develop, and the submarine that is under development to carry them, and they could have a strategic value as well as a tactical value. They were a subject of the previous START I agreement and I think they should be a subject of this agreement as well.

Let me summarize. The first amendment our colleagues will be voting on is, I believe, the Wicker amendment, and then the second amendment is the amendment which would provide a side agreement for a limitation on the number of Russian SLCMs--the submarine launch cruise missiles-- and the third vote will be on the Kyl amendment relative to verification relating to covers on the ICBMs and telemetry on ICBM tests.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Bond), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback), the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Gregg), and the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Shelby).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Missouri, (Mr. Bond), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback), the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Gregg), and the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Shelby).

Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

I ask the Senator, will you go ahead and handle the unanimous consent agreement on the two amendments. I do not have to be here for that.

Mr. President, I believe the Senator from Arizona is prepared to yield back time, and I will also yield back time.

Cloture Motion

I wish to thank the Senator from Maryland for being a terrific member of the Foreign Relations Committee, and I thank both him and the Senator from New Hampshire for their help here on the floor this afternoon as we try to proceed on amendments as rapidly as possible for our colleagues and also try to negotiate a few of these amendments at the same time as the Senator from Arizona.

Having discussed with the Senator from Arizona the path forward, I assure colleagues that both of us hear the pleas of our colleagues, and we are anxious to try to move as rapidly as possible. But in fairness to my colleague from Arizona, I also want to make certain that he has an opportunity to have his amendments and that the other amendments are properly heard.

To that end, I ask unanimous consent that the following amendments be deemed as pending from those amendments filed at the desk. These would be the amendments eligible for consideration. I am not calling them up yet; I just want this to be a narrow list.

I apologize, Mr. President. I ask unanimous consent that these amendments be in order: Kyl No. 4864; Kyl No. 4892, as modified; Risch No. 4878; Risch No. 4879; Ensign re rail-mobile; Wicker No. 4895; Kyl No. 4860, as modified; Kyl No. 4893; and McCain No. 4900.

Mr. President, I am very grateful to the Senator from Arizona for his willingness to try to do exactly what we have just done, and I pledge to him that I will work as hard as possible on our side to rapidly move on these amendments and to give them time.

I would ask for the cooperation of colleagues who want to speak on the treaty as a whole, that they not do so at the expense of being able to move an amendment. So if colleagues would cooperate with us, we will certainly, in between any activity on amendments, try to accommodate anyone who wants to talk on the treaty.

We are currently working staff to staff and negotiating out these amendments, and on some it may be possible to accept them. We will certainly try to avoid any rollcall votes, if possible. I know a number of colleagues have asked for some rollcalls on some amendments which may not be acceptable. So with that understanding--

No, Senator Shaheen is here managing together with the Senator from Maryland while we are negotiating. So Senator Risch would be in order to move on an amendment immediately.

That is correct.

Mr. President, we would welcome that, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, this won't take too long. Let me say, first of all, I thank the Senator for bringing this up. Let me underscore: This is one of the sort of let's see if we can find a problem, and if we can find a problem, make it into a bigger problem, and then amend the treaty because amending the treaty itself--this amendment seeks to amend the treaty, so here we go right back down the road of the old ``let's open up the negotiations again'' argument. We have been through it so many times here. It has appropriately been rejected by colleagues.

I think the last vote was something like 66 to 30 on whether we will amend the treaty. That doesn't mean he doesn't have a right to raise it, but let me speak to the substance.

Going back in history on the START treaty, which is why this is a complete red herring--if you go back in the history of the START treaty, you will recall that the Soviet Union deployed 10 warheads, 10 MIRV warheads on an SS-24 intercontinental ballistic missile, and Russia deployed some 36 of those SS-24 rail-based launchers the Senator is referring to at the height of their deployment. But to comply with START I and with START II, which interestingly, we worked together on in terms of START II even though the Russians never ratified it--and the reason they didn't ratify it is because we took unilateral action and withdrew from the ABM treaty, and they were mad about it. That is why what we do matters in this relationship. We ratified the START II treaty; they didn't. So the things we choose to do have an effect.

The fact is, thanks to our colleague to my right, the distinguished Senator from Indiana, Mr. Lugar, and Senator Nunn, who had the vision to put together the threat reduction program, that program set out to destroy Russia's SS-24 ICBMs and rail-based launchers.

This is important for all those people who have come to the floor and argued repeatedly that Russia has acted in bad faith in all of these efforts. Take note that Russia continued those cooperative efforts and continued to destroy those rail-based launchers even though they had not signed on to START II. Guess what. The last Russian SS-24 launcher was eliminated in 2007.

Now START I had a specific sublimit on mobile missiles and on rail mobile missiles. So the START treaty's definition, as a result of those two sublimits, the START treaty's definition needed to cover both the rail mobile and the road mobile launchers that were deployed at the time of the treaty. They were both put under the same roof, and that roof was the START treaty's definition. Just like the Moscow Treaty, the New START treaty contains just a plane limit, an overall limit on ICBMs and ICBM launchers, SLBMs and SLBM launchers. We have the two categories and heavy bombers with no sublimits.

That means the characteristics of strategic offensive arms limited by the treaty, in particular the deployed and the nondeployed launchers of ICBMs and the deployed ICBMs and their warheads, those characteristics do not hinge on the treaty's definition of mobile launchers of ICBMs. We don't want them to because we want this big umbrella that covers all of it, which we have the ability to verify.

If we look at exactly what the treaty says, it says the following-- and I don't know which lawyers are arguing about this, but the lawyers involved between the Russians and the United States and the lawyers involved on the negotiating team and the lawyers at the State Department are not arguing about this. They understand exactly what the treaty says.

Here is what it says. Article II, 1(a) of the treaty sets the limit of 700 deployed ICBMs, deployed submarine-launched ballistic missiles and deployed heavy bombers. That is really simple. It is very straightforward--700 ICBMs, SLBMs, bombers. We have the flexibility to decide how many of each of those we want to have. We had a debate previously with our colleagues about how many we would have. But that is pretty straightforward. There is no ambiguity in that. Where is the ambiguity--700, all three, and we believe we can count all three. Paragraph 12 of part 1 of the protocol defines deployed ICBM as an ICBM that is contained in or on a deployed launcher of ICBMs. That is pretty obvious. A launcher is a launcher is a launcher.

Paragraph 13 of part 1 of the protocol defines deployed launcher of ICBMs as an ICBM launcher that contains an ICBM and is not an ICBM test launcher, an ICBM training launcher or an ICBM launcher located at a space launch facility. Those are the only three exceptions. That is it. There is no ambiguity.

It seems to me pretty darn straightforward that a rail mobile ICBM, if either side decided to deploy it, obviously falls under the 700. It is so obvious that we should not have to risk renegotiating the entire treaty over something as obvious as that.

I might add, a nondeployed launcher of a rail mobile would fall under the 700 limit in terms of the launchers. I just ask my colleagues to look carefully at this. It would be highly improbable.

The Senator from Tennessee earlier today gave a terrific speech, Mr. Alexander. He said: What is all this fuss about? In the end, we are going to have thousands of these things that can destroy the whole planet anyway.

That came from a person who is pretty thoughtful on these issues, who understands that you have to put this in a context. We are not talking about the Cold War right now. We are not talking about the Soviet Union right now. We are talking about a country with which we have a very different relationship and where we have a whole set of combined interests, and you have to put this treaty into that context. It is highly unlikely that during the duration of this treaty with the Russian Federation, after years of working with the United States to destroy the weapons and work cooperatively under Senator Lugar and Senator Nunn's program, it is unbelievably hard to believe

they are going to divert what we know to be their very limited resources and infrastructure from their planned deployment in order to do new mobile--we have a planned deployment of new mobile-based ICBM forces, and suddenly to have them go out and build and deploy rail mobile launchers, which we would observe unbelievably quickly under our national technical means.

The simple answer is that we know what they are going to do. We have a strong capacity to track what they are doing. We have every reason to believe the Russians agree with what I just said about the allocation of resources. The fact is, the resolution the Senate will vote on, in order to guarantee that we are certain about this, requires the President to communicate to the Russians in the formal instrument that ratifies the agreement, when we ratify it, assuming we do it, will ratify the understanding of the United States that the treaty would cover rail mobile launched ICBMs and their launchers, if Russia or the United States were crazy enough to try to build them. So for the life of me, I don't know what you can do more than that. But we certainly are not going to reopen the treaty for the basis of a nonambiguity like that.

Madam President, the answer to the question--why not clear it up--is because if you clear it up the way the Senator is trying to, you kill the treaty. Pretty simple.

The Senator keeps asking the question, Why can't we do this? We can't do it because it kills the treaty. It is pretty simple. And the Senator knows it kills the treaty.

Now, going beyond that, come back again just for an instant to the substance. First of all, the Russian general

staff--I have been known, as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, to make some comments which occasionally the Joint Chiefs of Staff do not agree with. My comments are not going to drive them to do what they do not agree with. Likewise, the chairman of their foreign relations committee whom he quotes was tweaking us in his comment. But the fact is, the general staff of Russia has made it abundantly clear they do not want to build these rail-based mobile. They have no intention of doing this. They have just been destroying them. They have been taking them down and destroying them in a completely verifiable manner, and the Senator from Arizona cannot contest that. He knows that is absolutely true.

So this is a completely artificial moment designed, as others have been, to try to derail--no pun intended--the treaty.

That said, let me also point out that if you want to try to rein in this issue of rail-based, this amendment is not the way to do it because there are a whole series of protocols set up in the treaty for how you deal with road-based launchers, and you would need to begin to put in place a whole different set of protocols in order to deal with rail-based. So if, indeed, the Russians are, as I said, crazy enough, as they think it would be crazy--that is the way they define it now and we do too--to go back to something we have spent the last 15 years destroying, if that happens, we will know it. Moreover, if it happens, it is counted, as the Senator has agreed, under the article II limits for launchers. So this is a nonissue, with all due respect.

I know the Senator from Nevada wants to take 2 minutes to make a comment, and then I wish to make a unanimous consent request, if I could, after that.

It is my understanding that the Russian referred to in that article is saying how difficult it is to do the rail-based. But here is the simple reality. If they build it, it will count, end of issue. That is why this is unnecessary.

I yield to the Senator from Nevada.

Madam President, I don't think we need to repeat. I appreciate the Senator from Nevada and I understand what he is saying. I completely agree with him about the advice and consent role of the Senate, but part of that role is to make a judgment about whether the consequences of some particular concern merit taking down the whole treaty and putting it back in the renegotiation process. It is not that we can't or shouldn't under the right circumstances; it is a question of balancing what are the right circumstances. We are arguing, I think appropriately, because the report of our committee says clearly that rail-mobile will be covered under article II and this is unnecessary. So weighing it that way, it doesn't make sense to do it.

Let me say to my colleagues that I think we want to move to the Risch amendment, and I think it is the hope of the majority leader to try to have two votes around the hour of 6 o'clock, if that is possible, and then to proceed to the Wicker amendment.

I yield the floor to the Senator from Idaho.

Madam President, I will be very quick. I don't think we need to spend a lot of time on this. First of all, we agree with the Senator from Idaho that under normal circumstances the equipment they have would be best returned to the United States, and there are many good-faith ways in which they might do that. But the fact is that the way this is phrased, it has just two enormous problems. First, it says prior to the entry into force of the treaty. So we are linking this ancillary issue to this entire treaty, which bears on a whole set of other national security considerations.

I want the four humvees back, and whatever the small arms are, which raises another issue, but I am not willing to see this entire treaty get caught up in that particular fracas. We have an unbelievable number of diplomatic channels and other ways of prosecuting that concept, and I pledge to the Senator that I am prepared, in the Foreign Relations Committee, to make certain we attempt to do that, as well as deal

with the question of Russia's compliance with the peace agreement with respect to the cease-fire in Georgia and so forth. These are essential ingredients, and we will talk about that in a moment.

It also says they have to return all military equipment. It doesn't specify. This could become one of those things where we are saying, you have this, and they say, no, we don't. Are we talking about small arms? What about expended ammunition? Who knows what the circumstances are?

This is not the place or the time for us to get caught up in linking this treaty to this particular outcome. I really think that stands on its own.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, this has been cleared on both sides.

I ask unanimous consent that at 6 p.m., the Senate proceed to votes in relation to the following amendments to the START treaty and the resolution of ratification: Ensign amendment No. 4855 and Risch amendment No. 4878; further, that prior to the votes, there be no second-degree amendments in order to the amendment, and that the time before the votes be divided equally between the sponsors and myself or their designees.

Madam President, at this time there is, until we have an opportunity--we were going to work this out with Senator Kyl after the vote. So I object to it at this moment.

I believe Senator Kyl had two amendments he wanted to get up at this point in time.

The Senator from Idaho requested to go to his next amendment, which is No. 4879. That was the one the Senator from Arizona and I were talking about with respect to an issue we wanted to work out with the Parliamentarian before we go to it. I think the Senator and I had agreed he would like to go to two other amendments next in line. We will come back to this issue.

I agree with that completely. We have a fairly limited list, and I think it is possible to move through them rapidly. I appreciate the efforts of the Senator from Arizona to do so.

Madam President, how much time do we have on our side?

I yield 4 minutes to the Senator from New Hampshire.

Madam President, how much time remains?

On both sides? How much remains on the proponents' side?

I suggest the absence of a quorum. I withhold that request.

Madam President, I believe all time has expired; is that correct?

I yield back my time.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I move to table the Risch amendment. I ask for the yeas and nays, and I ask unanimous consent this be a 10-minute vote.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, I understand there will be three amendments we will proceed with. Two will be offered by Senator Kyl and one by Senator Wicker. Senator Wicker is prepared to call up his amendment.

Mr. President, the amendment offered by Senator Wicker is an amendment that is looking for an issue. There is no issue that is joined here with respect to the bilateral commission or what it might do with respect to the creation of rights. But if this amendment were to pass, there would be an issue, not only an issue with respect to Russian participation but actually an issue that could be harmful to the United States. This is a little bit technical and it is a tricky thing to follow in some ways, but let me lay this out.

Under the START treaty, the prior treaty under which we have lived since 1992, and now under the proposed New START treaty, the consultative commission that we create in the treaty will get together in order to work out the problems that may or may not arise and is allowed to agree upon ``such additional measures as may be necessary to improve the viability and the effectiveness of the treaty.'' If those additional measures they might approve at some point in time are changes to the protocol or to its annexes and if the changes don't affect substantive rights or obligations under the treaty, then it is entirely allowable for those changes to be adopted without referring them back to the Senate for any advice or ratification. The Senators' proposed amendment would make it U.S. policy all of a sudden that the phrase ``do not affect substantive rights or obligations'' means ``doesn't create new rights or obligations.'' So there is a distinction between affecting substantive rights and then having the operative language that kicks it into gear become the creation of rights or obligations. This proposal is unnecessary.

Why? We have operated without it for 15 years under the START treaty without a single problem. The New START treaty uses the exact same approach that has worked for 15 years. We have a lot of experience in determining what constitutes substantive rights or obligations.

More importantly, I mentioned a moment ago that this could be harmful to American interests. Here is how. It would actually require that agreements we want to move on and that act in our national security interest would be delayed and referred to the Senate, and we all know how long that could take, even if the new rights or obligations that they created were absolutely technical in nature. No matter how technical or trivial, they have to come to the Senate to become hostage to one Senator or another Senator's other agenda in terms of our ability to move, at least as structured here.

Under START, the compliance commission adopted provisions on how inspectors would use radiation detection equipment to determine that the objects on a missile that Russia declared not to be warheads were, in fact, nonnuclear and, therefore, not warheads. There was absolutely no need for the Senate to hold hearings, write reports, or have a floor debate on that provision, even though it created a new right for the inspecting side and a new obligation for the hosting side in an inspection. We don't want to take away our ability to be able to do that. This amendment would do that.

Similarly, the commission under START reached agreement from time to time on changes in the types of inspection and equipment that a country could use. Equipment changes over time, as we know. Technology advances, so the equipment changes. Giving U.S. inspectors the new right to use that equipment or the new obligation to let Russian inspectors use it hardly warrants referral to the Senate for its advice and consent.

In summary, this amendment is unneeded. We have done well without it. Not well--we have done spectacularly without it for 15 years. No problems whatsoever. On the other side, it is a dangerous amendment because it forces us to delay for months the implementation of technical agreements that our inspectors ought to be allowed to implement without delay.

I reserve the remainder of my time and ask unanimous consent that upon the use or yielding back of time specified below, the Senate proceed to votes in relation to the following amendments to the resolution of ratification: Wicker 4895, Kyl 4860, and Kyl 4893; further, that prior to the votes there be no second-degree amendment in order to any of the amendments and that there be 30 minutes of debate on each amendment equally divided between the sponsors of the amendment and myself and/or my designee or the designee of the sponsors; further, I ask unanimous consent that the time already consumed by Senator Wicker and myself be counted toward this agreement.

How much time do I have remaining?

I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Maryland.

Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Maryland.

Mr. President, the Senator from Maryland is absolutely correct, and I appreciate him pointing that out. I think I have said many times in the course of this debate that it is imperative for us to deal with the issue of tactical nuclear weapons. In fact, the resolution of ratification has a section in it which specifically addresses this and urges the President to move to that.

I might add that the Senator from Florida, Mr. LeMieux--we are just finishing up an agreement on an amendment which will, in fact, add an additional component. It is an amendment we intend to accept, and it will add an additional emphasis on this question of tactical weapons.

But not only is there no benefit to delaying this treaty from going into effect--I mean, that is what the amendment of the Senator from Arizona will do. Until this new verification and limitation mechanism is put into effect--the fact is that most of our experts, from Secretary Gates through Admiral Mullen and others, have all said to us: If we don't get this treaty, we are not going to get to the tactical nuclear discussion with the Russians.

If we were the Russians and the U.S. Senate said: We are not going to do this until this, we would be looking at a long road where we have reopened all of the different relationships and we have discarded this one component of our nuclear deterrent that we find so critical, which is the submarine-launched missiles, the intercontinental ballistic missiles, and the heavy bombers. That is the heart of our nuclear deterrence. We want to know what they are doing and they want to know what we are doing, and that is how you provide the greatest stability.

In addition to that, Secretary Gates and Secretary Clinton have both reinforced that many times, but here is the important thing to think about as we think about what the impact on this treaty would be. Nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missiles--or SLCMs, as we call them in the crazy vernacular of this place--these are tactical weapons, and although this amendment seems to suggest that Russian SLCMs could upset the strategic balance between the United States and Russia, the truth is, they cannot. They don't do what this amendment seems to suggest.

For many years, going back at least to the Reagan administration, we have considered these kinds of weapons to be nonstrategic weapons, tactical weapons. Even if they are long range, we consider them that. Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen explained why in their answer to a specific question from the Senate. They said:

Russian nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missiles . . .

could not threaten deployed submarine-launched ballistic

missiles (which will comprise a significant fraction of U.S.

strategic force under New START), and would pose a very

limited threat to the hundreds of silo-based ICBMs that the

United States will retain under New START.

In other words, Russian nuclear SLCMs can't take out our nuclear deterrent in a first strike. That means if Russia were to use nuclear SLCMs against us, we could still use most of our strategic nuclear weapons and deliver an absolutely devastating blow in return. No logic in the sort of give-and-take of war planning, as horrible and as incomprehensible as it is to most people with respect to nuclear weapons, but it has all been done, appropriately, because they do exist, and it is important to our security. But no warfighting under those situations is going to reduce our ability to not just defend ourselves but to annihilate anyone who would propose or think about doing that.

Ironically, it was the Soviets who once wanted to do what Senator Kyl is actually seeking to do. They wanted to categorize SLCMs as strategic weapons because we used to deploy a nuclear version of the Tomahawk on our attack submarines, and the Soviets

worked very hard to get the original START treaty to cover SLCMs. Guess what. We didn't bite. We didn't do that. The first Bush administration explicitly rejected those Soviet efforts to add legally binding limits on sea-launched cruise missiles. They considered SLCMs tactical weapons, and they also thought that limits on nuclear sea-launched cruise missiles are inherently unverifiable. That is, in part, because we didn't want to give the Soviets that much access to our submarines in return for access to theirs, and we don't want to do it now with the Russians. Now, maybe people were wrong about that, but I just don't see the wisdom in putting the treaty we have agreed on on the shelf while we go out and try to experiment with a new approach that nobody has argued is imperative for the security of our country.

Back then, we did agree in politically binding declarations to a limit of 880 deployed long-range nuclear SLCMs and to declare at the beginning of the year how many SLCMs we intended to deploy for that year. Those political declarations stayed operative for many years, and, in fact, Secretary Gates stated for the record that as recently as December of 2008, Russia has declared that it planned to deploy zero nuclear SLCMs.

Shortly after START was signed in 1991, the United States and Russia each pledged as part of the Presidential nuclear initiative to cease deploying any nuclear SLCMs on surface ships or attack submarines. So while we have four former ballistic missile submarines converted to cruise missile submarines, we are no longer deploying our nuclear Tomahawk missiles on any U.S. submarines. The Presidential nuclear initiatives are still operative for us and for the Russians, and we think we are more secure that way.

So I see nothing to be gained from negotiating a new binding agreement in the context of holding up this treaty, of putting it on the shelf, and of going back in an effort to do that.

This amendment would delay the New START for months or years, throw an entire curveball back into what I talked about yesterday, which is that theory of negotiation that nothing is agreed upon until everything is agreed upon. And in this case, if we say: Oh, no, ain't agreed upon, sorry, we are coming back to say you have to agree with us on tacticals before any of this becomes law, we have opened the entire negotiation again. How reliable and what kind of partnership is that? I don't think that makes sense. I fail to see any point in going down that road.

I urge my colleagues to defeat this amendment, and I reserve the remainder of our time.

Will the Senator yield?

I would be happy to urge, if he wants to change the amendment or if he wants to submit--it is too late now, but we could perhaps do a modification by unanimous consent to urge the President to enter into an agreement but not shelve the whole treaty until that happens. That is the difference. So I am not going back on the notion. It would be great to get a side agreement, but don't hold this agreement up in the effort to do it.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate votes on the three amendments, as provided under the previous order, those votes occur in the order listed in that agreement.

That is a good suggestion. I ask unanimous consent that the second two votes be 10 minutes in length.

Mr. President, let me first compliment my colleague from Arizona, who has been dogged, if nothing else, in his advocacy with respect to his points of view regarding this treaty. And while I and other Senators may disagree with a specific amendment he proposes because of its impact as well as, in some cases, because of something else, that doesn't mean the Senator isn't raising valid questions for future discussions and things on which we ought to be focused. I know he spends a lot of time with this. I think all of us have a lot of respect for the ways in which he has already impacted this treaty. I give him credit for that.

This particular amendment is a combination of about four different amendments that have come together. I understand why that happened. I am not complaining about that at all. It is just that there is a lot in it, and therefore there are different reasons one ought to oppose this amendment.

Let me say that, first of all, the New START, I think in most people's judgment, addresses the concerns that have been raised by the Senator from Arizona.

The purpose of warhead inspections is to count the number of warheads on the missile. Neither side is comfortable with the other actually seeing the warheads, looking into it and seeing it. We are not comfortable with them doing that to us, and they are not comfortable with us doing that to them. That is not so much about the counting of the warhead as it is often the issue of failsafe devices or counter- shoot-down devices and other kinds of things that might be in there that we don't necessarily have a right to see and they don't want us to see. So neither side is sort of looking at the actual warhead. The START treaty--the original START treaty, therefore, to deal with that issue, lets the inspected party cover the warheads on the front of the inspected missile, but it allows us to inspect any cover before it is used so that we know what it can and can't conceal. We know what that cover is permitting us to see.

What is more, paragraph 11 of section (2) in the treaty's annex on inspections says explicitly--this is in New START:

The covers shall not hamper inspectors.

We did not have that previously. That is new to this treaty.

As a result of what we have learned in START, we have learned how to look and how to ask for things more appropriately, and our negotiators worked that into this treaty so as to protect our interests.

In fact, the covers are not allowed to hamper the inspectors in ascertaining that the front section contains a number of reentry vehicles equal to the number of reentry vehicles that were declared for that deployed ICBM or deployed SLBM.

The virtue of the New START treaty is that these declarations and the specific alphanumeric numbers that are going to be attached to the launchers and these warheads allow us enormous certainty in the randomness of our choices of where we go. If the Russians are cheating or somebody is over for one reason or another, we have great capacity to decide where that might be, where we think the best target of opportunity is, and to lock that place down and go in and check it. There are enormous risks of being discovered as a consequence of the way we have set that up.

The treaty already forbids Russia from using covers that interfere with warhead counting. It would create a very dangerous precedent, in my judgment, to require that we negotiate now, before we put the treaty into effect, a side agreement on the very same thing. That might suggest that other New START provisions do not need to be obeyed because there is no side deal reinforcing them. What is the impact of the side deal? Does the side agreement, incidentally, have to be ratified by the Senate before it goes into effect? There are a lot of imponderables here.

With respect to the agreement on telemetry, the requirement for a legally binding agreement with Russia that both parties have to provide telemetry on all flight tests of ICBMs and SLBMs, which is what the Senator is seeking, would also delay the START treaty into force by the same months or years about which we talked.

That argument has been hammered around here the last 7 days adequately.

This delays the treaty. It does not act to increase the security of our country, and it already is in the resolution of ratification in the treaty.

Given what we already understand, we know that the Russians do not like trading in telemetry. I find it hard to believe, therefore, that if we make this treaty condition precedent on the agreement of a side agreement, which we know the Russians hate to do, that is a way of buying into gridlock, deadlock, nothing.

I do not think anybody would suggest--we have already been through this a little bit, incidentally. I and others strongly urged the President and his negotiators to seek as significant telemetry as possible. For a lot of reasons, it did not turn out that it was achievable from their side, but it also did not turn out it was desirable on our side altogether.

Russia is testing new systems such as the Belava SLBM, and the United States may test only existing types of missiles during the next decade. That is a reason why the Russians obviously resist this very significantly.

A lot of people have suggested that our military does not want to share the telemetry on all our flight tests of ICBMs and SLBMs. They are pretty happy the way the treaty is structured now, including the provisions for telemetry which allow us five telemetry exchanges. We have to agree on them, but they are allowed under the treaty. If that were not true, there is no way the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mullen would have sent the letter he sent to the entire Senate where he stated he wants this treaty ratified now, he wants it implemented now, and he believes, consistent with everything people said within our national security network, that this treaty is both verifiable and enhances our capacity to be able to count and know what the Russians are doing.

The requirement for Russian agreement not to deny telemetry on the new ballistic missile systems it develops during the duration of the treaty is redundant with the previous part about which we just talked.

Again, the amendment requires a side agreement with the Russians. It is the absolute equivalent of amending the treaty itself and, therefore, I would oppose that.

The New START's telemetry exchange regime involves negotiating the beginning of next year, assuming this goes into effect, which missile tests from the past year we are willing to share.

May I ask how much time I have?

Mr. President, I want to reserve time for the Senator from New Hampshire.

The New START regime requires us to negotiate at the beginning of next year what we are going to share. If we do not offer anything interesting, Russia is not going to offer anything. That is the nature of a negotiation. You have to give to get. This amendment would change that basic principle from a negotiated exchange to a literally ``give me something for next to nothing.'' It does not work. The Russians would have to give us the good stuff while we would give them telemetry from launches that were no different from 30 other tests over the last 20 years.

I have to tell you, that sort of agreement is not going to happen. It is in a fantasy land, and the President would never get that side deal with Russia. The New START treaty would never come into force.

I yield the remainder of my time to the Senator from New Hampshire.

Mr. President, do we have any time remaining?

I yield all that time to the Senator from Michigan, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

Mr. President, if any time remains, we yield it back.

What is the parliamentary situation, Mr. President?

Mr. President, before he does that, do we have time remaining on either of those amendments?

I thank the Chair.

How much times remains?

Mr. President, is Senator Wicker here?

I wonder, Senator Kyl, if we can yield back time. I know colleagues are waiting to vote.

Mr. President, by unanimous consent we yield back all time on both sides and go to regular order.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote and to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, let me say to colleagues how we are going to proceed. With the consent of the Senator from Arizona and Senator Lugar, we are going to accept two amendments, I believe. One of them we are checking with the White House and making certain we are all in sync on it. But assuming we are, we will be able to have Senator LeMieux of Florida speak for a few minutes on his amendment. In addition, there is Senator Kyl's amendment, which we will accept.

Subsequent to that, I believe Senator Thune wants to raise an issue regarding an amendment. We will do that. Then I think we will probably be at a point where we will have an opportunity if people want to talk on the treaty, or conceivably even on something else, I imagine there may be a moment there, but I do not want to speak for the leadership on that yet until we have cleared it.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent--the Senator from Ohio has been trying to get the floor for most of the day, and because he wanted to give us the opportunity to move on the amendments, he has been very patient. I ask unanimous consent that he be granted 5 minutes to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, I will do that and guarantee the Senator that his amendment will be adopted. And I thank him. I want to thank Senator Kyl. He has actually--I know we have all been struggling here, but the Senator has been extremely helpful in processing a lot of amendments this evening, and I want to thank him for his good-faith efforts in doing that.

Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Ohio.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, we just have to jump through a few hoops over here. We will not object ultimately, but if I could ask the Senator if we could just wait a little longer, I would object at this time but not ultimately. We need to get this cleared and put all the next steps together into one effort, if we can. It doesn't mean we can't talk about some of the other issues, if you want to, while we are waiting for that to be ready. It might be better to just wait until we have the agreement.

So, in the meantime, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I know the Senator from Florida wants to speak on this amendment. I ask unanimous consent that the following two amendments be considered and agreed to: Senator Kyl No. 4864 and LeMieux No. 4908, as modified.

Mr. President, does the Senator wish to speak?

Mr. President, I thank the Senator. This is a constructive amendment. We all agree that we need to reduce tactical nuclear weapons. Everybody who testified to us reiterated the importance of that being the next step in terms of our relationship and increased stability. NATO allies also said it was essential to proceed to that. The Senator's amendment helps us to make it clear that is the direction in

which we need to go. I thank him for his efforts.

Mr. President, I do object. I want to say to the Senator that I am delighted to have a discussion with him about this particular issue. But I think given the efforts we have made thus far to deal with a fixed set of amendments has been affected somewhat by some of those amendments that were filed late, and also not germane, requiring colleagues at the last minute to consider a lot of issues on the floor that are not pertaining directly to the treaty itself.

The subject the Senator wants to bring up and talk about, which is Russian cooperation on Iran, is absolutely essential to us as a matter of foreign policy. I want to join with the Senator in emphasizing that. I look forward to hearing his comments about it. I think we can have an important colloquy that could add to the record of our discussions with respect to this treaty without negatively impacting the direction we are moving in at this point.

Mr. President, in, I think, 7 days, I have not made an objection to an amendment that we tried to take up. I am sensitive to that because we, obviously, want to provide as much opportunity to go into these issues as is possible. I say to my friend from South Dakota that I am happy to stay here with him and do as much as we could do to impress on anybody the importance of the issue he is raising.

But if we stayed here and went through the process of a vote, which would conceivably take us a lot longer in terms of the other amendments we have to finish tomorrow morning, as well as keep the Senate in even later, only the votes--I think we had only one motion to table. Almost every vote has been straight up or down. The votes have been 60 to 30, or 60-something to 28, or something like that. I think the reason is that there is a fundamental flaw in the approach of this particular amendment and the others we have had because they seek to prevent the treaty from going into force.

The language says ``prior to the entry into force of the New START Treaty,'' the President has to do a series of things. Some of those may read in a fairly straightforward and literal way, but they are not necessarily what can be done immediately or are even subject to our control, in which case we wind up with a treaty that we have actually partially ratified because it cannot go into force, and it may never go into force, depending on what happens with some of those things that are out of our control.

There are a lot of reports requested on one thing or another. I think there is a more effective way to go at this, personally, that doesn't wind up with a negative impact on the treaty, where we are veering from our military and national intelligence leaders who would like to see this put into effect as rapidly as possible. The effect of this is not to let that happen as rapidly as possible.

The Senator is 100 percent correct about our concern about Iran. We need Russian cooperation in order to ever have a chance of enforcing the sanctions that have been put in place, as well as finding the other tiers of cooperation that are going to be critical as we go forward, absent Iranian shifts in policy. The fact is, what has happened through Russian cooperation right now is that the most significant sanctions we have been able to put in place to date have been put in place. They were largely achieved because of the relationship President Obama has achieved with President Medvedev and the reset button and the sense that we are coming together, not going apart.

It is easy for us in the Senate to stand here and say we have to require this, we have to require that. A lot of these things I have found increasingly--particularly in this time I have been chairman of this committee--a lot of the things we sometimes do with good intention in the Senate actually very significantly complicate the life and work of our diplomats who spend as much time trying to meet some kind of certification as they do doing the diplomacy they are meant to do.

I am happy to work with the Senator as chairman of this committee. We will have hearings early next year on this topic of Iran and where we stand with respect to that nuclear program. We will look at this issue of Russian cooperation, and we will look at it hopefully within the context of a START treaty that is going to be ratified by the Duma and implemented and that can only strengthen the resolve of both our countries to focus on the challenges of Iran.

I thank my colleague. I have been in that position before when we have not been able to get an amendment in.

I might add, the amendment was filed a day and a half after cloture was filed. I said to Jon Kyl very clearly that we were going to try to be as flexible as we could. That flexibility needed to be mostly focused on those amendments that directly affect the treaty or are to the treaty in its most direct sense. If we raised a point of order, this would be an amendment that would be found to be not germane because it is outside those direct treaty issues. With that in mind, I have taken the position I have taken. But I look forward to working with my colleague, if we can, as we go forward from here.

Mr. President, I say to the Senator, let's commit to work to make sure that happens. I certainly will do that on my part. I look forward to those hearings next year. Perhaps the Senator would even want to find a way to take part in them.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, Senator Reid asked me a few minutes ago if I would communicate where we are with respect to the START treaty, and I will do so.

As it stands now, we have two amendments that remain. One is an amendment by Senator Kyl on modernization, which I believe is the intention, though not yet locked in, of the majority leader to try to take up around 9 o'clock in the morning. We expect to spend somewhere in the vicinity of an hour on it, maybe a little bit longer than that, to accommodate the speakers for Senator Kyl. Then there will be one other amendment after that on missile defense, I believe an amendment that will be offered by Senator Corker and Senator Lieberman together. That amendment will be the last barrier remaining before we can get to the final vote on the treaty itself.

It would be my hope, depending on the negotiations going on and discussions with respect to the 9/11 first responders--those are discussions taking place now--depending on that, we will have a better sense of when that final vote will be able to take place. I know a lot of colleagues are trying to figure that out in the context of flights, family, and other things. Our hope is that will become clearer in the next minutes, hours, moments of the Senate.

That is the lay of the land. I know the chairman of the Armed Services Committee and the ranking member have made their request to the Senate regarding the Defense authorization bill.

Our hope is that tomorrow morning we can move rapidly through the remaining two amendments. It may even be possible for us to accept the amendment on the missile defense. We are working on that language now. If that happens, obviously it will clear the possibilities of a final vote to an earlier hour, again dependent on this discussion regarding the 9/11 first responders.

That is the state of play.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to speak on an issue that is of great importance to my home State of Louisiana: disaster recovery from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita of 2005 and Hurricanes Gustav and Ike of 2008. Almost 5 years after these first two devastating storms, our eyes are still fixed on our shores during hurricane season as our communities and businesses in the hardest-hit areas continue to rebuild. As chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, I remain focused on their ongoing recovery efforts and am here today to introduce a bill that I believe will help these struggling small businesses become successful once again and hire new workers.

Charles R. ``Ray'' Bergeron and his wife's Fleur de Lis Car Care Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, is one of the businesses that need this type of assistance. Small Business Administrator Karen Mills and I toured the Bergerons' business back in June. Pre-Katrina, Fleur de Lis, which opened in 1988, had nine employees. After Hurricane Katrina hit, Mr. and Mrs. Bergeron found themselves having to take out two loans, one for their house and another for their small business. As of our visit in June, the Bergerons were down to two employees, not including themselves, and their business was back at about 40 percent of pre- Katrina sales, due in large measure to the population not returning. Their neighborhood is mostly empty homes, which Mr. Bergeron attributes in part to high flood insurance premiums, high property taxes and high homeowner's insurance.

As of June when I met with them, the Bergerons had a $225,000 SBA disaster loan with a standard 30-year term, which Mr. Bergeron says he will not pay off until he is 101 years old. But just yesterday, Mrs. Bergeron contacted my office requesting SBA assistance with their loan repayment after work to repair the flood-damaged roads surrounding their gas station had cut access to their business for even their most loyal customers. Since the project began, Fleur de Lis' sales have been cut almost in half. This latest challenge comes on the heels of the economic downturn, which caused the station to lay off two employees earlier last year.

The Bergeron's story is one I have heard from countless businesses. Coupled with their recovery from the 2005 and 2008 hurricanes, and more recently, the economic downturn, these businesses--the ones that took the initiative to quickly reopen after the storms--are today struggling with one challenge after another. Yet these ``pioneer'' businesses are the ones rebuilding communities need the most because they serve as anchors. If residents see the Bergeron's gas station, or their favorite restaurant, open, they are more likely to come back to rebuild their homes.

To help ongoing recovery efforts in the Gulf Coast, and to give these struggling businesses immediate assistance, I am introducing today the Southeast Hurricanes Small Business Disaster Relief Act of 2010. I thank my colleague Representative Charlie Melancon for introducing the House companion bill. Our legislation would provide targeted assistance to as many as 22,000 businesses in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. What these particular businesses have in common is that they received SBA disaster loans following the 2005 or 2008 hurricanes. While they have made payments on these loans, I have heard from countless businesses in my State that they could expand operations if they had additional cash flow. This legislation would inject immediate capital into these hardest-hit businesses by giving SBA the authority to waive up to $15,000 of interest payments over 3 years, helping to create or save up to 81,000 jobs.

Under this program, SBA is required to give priority to applications from businesses with 50 employees or less and businesses that re-opened between September 2005 and October 2006 for the 2005 storms or September and December 2008 for the 2008 hurricanes. This ensures that SBA first helps true small businesses and those ``pioneer'' businesses that were the first to re-open after the disaster. The program would end on December 31, 2010.

This program makes a difference because for some businesses, depending on the loan term and loan amount, their total principal/ interest payments could run as high as $1,000 per month. For example, for a $114,000 disaster loan with a 4 percent interest rate and a 25- year term, a business could be paying as much as $400 in monthly interest. In one year, this adds up to $4,800 and almost $14,500 in 3 years. While this is not a lot of money for Wall Street banks or Fortune 500 companies, $15,000 makes a major impact for a gas station with two employees, like Fleur de Lis, or a neighborhood restaurant with 10 employees. These businesses have seen their bottom lines shrink as others on Wall Street received extravagant bonuses. I, for one, believe it is time to help these Main Street businesses, as they are the backbone of our communities.

My legislation also follows legislation approved by a previous Congress. The prior bill came after Hurricane Betsy devastated Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi in September 1965. According to Red Cross reports at the time, between 800,000 and 1 million people were adversely impacted by the hurricane. Before this storm, the only previous disaster of that magnitude was the 1937 Ohio-Mississippi River floods, which forced more than a million people from their homes. In total, Betsy destroyed more than 1,500 homes, damaged more than 150,000, and damaged more than 2,000 trailers. Hurricane Betsy also destroyed 1,400 farm buildings and 2,600 small businesses. At the time, the Senate Committee on Public Works noted in Committee Report 89-917 that, ``The overwhelming magnitude of the vicious storm, surprising even to experienced disaster workers, was more apparent every day as storm victims continued to register for long-term recovery help in rebuilding their lives and homes.''

As part of the review to provide Hurricane Betsy victims appropriate assistance, including a field hearing in Louisiana, Congress determined that the massive scale of this disaster required targeted, disaster- specific programs. In particular, Congress approved the Southeast Hurricane Disaster Relief Act of 1965, Public Law 89-339. This bill authorized various business, homeowner, and agricultural disaster assistance, including loans and temporary rental assistance. In its committee report on the legislation, which is referenced above, the Senate Committee on Public Works wrote, ``This bill contains what the committee believes is needed and necessary to give further aid to the disaster-stricken areas . . . including special measures to help these States in the reconstruction and rehabilitation of devastated areas.'' Among other provisions, Section 3 of the bill authorized SBA to waive interest--for loans above $500--due on the loan over a period of 3 years, but not to exceed $1,800 in interest. The bill was signed into law in November 1965 and Congress later approved $35 million to implement provisions in the Act.

Just as with Hurricane Betsy in 1965, in 2005, Mississippi and Louisiana again saw a catastrophic disaster hit their businesses, farms, and homes. Everyone now knows the impact Hurricanes Katrina and Rita had on the New Orleans area and the southeast part of our State. Images from the devastation following these storms, and the subsequent Federal levee breaks, were transmitted across the country and around the world. Katrina ended up being the deadliest natural disaster in United States history, with 1,800 people killed--1,500 in Louisiana alone. Katrina was also the costliest natural

disaster in U.S. history, with more than $81.2 billion reported in damage.

In Louisiana, we had 18,000 businesses catastrophically destroyed and 81,000 businesses economically impacted. I believe that, across the entire Gulf Coast, some estimates ran as high as 125,000 businesses impacted by Katrina and Rita. Many of these businesses, for various reasons, have not returned or re-opened. By mid-2007, Orleans Parish was still down 2,000 employers, or 23 percent of its pre-Katrina business level. Nearby St. Bernard Parish--which had up to 80 percent of its homes damaged--had the largest percentage decline of 48 percent fewer businesses open, according to Louisiana State University and the Louisiana Recovery Authority. These disasters were followed by the 2008 hurricanes that hit the same areas in Texas and Louisiana. With this in mind, on September 25, 2009, I chaired a committee field hearing in Galveston, Texas. At this hearing, we received a progress report from Federal, State and local officials on the recovery from Hurricane Ike in 2008. We also heard from individual business owners in Galveston who were still struggling a year on from the hurricane.

These Galveston business owners, the Bergeron's Fleur de Lis gas station, and many other ``pioneer'' businesses did choose to re-open and are now struggling to stay alive. As is clear from the Bergerons' story, these businesses have suffered from not one disaster, but three: Hurricane Katrina/Rita in 2005, Hurricane Gustav/Ike in 2008, and the economic downturn. My home State of Louisiana was slow to feel the brunt of the credit crunch and economic meltdown, but last year we began to see the drying up of investments and the shrinking of consumers' pocketbooks. I believe the special program implemented following Hurricane Betsy in 1965 would today greatly benefit businesses in these three states hardest hit by Katrina, Rita, Gustav and Ike. Given the urgent needs of many of these impacted businesses, I will be reaching out to my colleagues in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi to hopefully gain their support for quick passage of this assistance. While I recognize that these are the hardest hit states, I am also interested to hear from my other Gulf Coast colleagues on whether this program would benefit their impacted businesses as well.

In closing, I would like to note that Congress has been generous in providing essential recovery funds following the 2005 and 2008 storms. However, as we approach the fifth anniversary of the 2005 disasters, we must now ensure that impacted businesses can make it past this anniversary--preventing thousands more workers from being unemployed or additional defaults on SBA disaster loans. One important way that this Congress can ensure that these workers remain employed and that these businesses survive, and even grow, would be to relieve some of the interest on these SBA disaster loans. For this reason, I urge my Senate colleagues to support this commonsense legislation which would make a difference for up to 22,000 Main Street business owners and their estimated 81,000 employees in the Gulf Coast.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I am pleased today to be introducing the Small Business Contracting Improvements Act of 2010, legislation designed to protect the interests of small businesses and boost their opportunities in the Federal marketplace.

As Chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, I have focused a considerable amount of energy promoting the interests of small businesses in the federal contracting arena. The legislation I am introducing today marks a critical step forward in this process.

As the largest purchaser in the world, the Federal Government is uniquely positioned to offer new and reliable business opportunities for our Main Street businesses. Government contracts are perhaps one of the easiest and most inexpensive ways the government can help immediately increase sales for America's entrepreneurs, giving them the tools they need to keep our economy strong and create jobs. By increasing contracts to small businesses by just 1 percent, we can create more than 100,000 new jobs--and today, we need those jobs more than ever.

But the reality is, small businesses need all the help they can get accessing Federal contracts. In fiscal year 2007, according to the Federal Procurement Data System, the Federal Government missed its 23 percent contracting goal by .992 percent. That .992 percent represents more than $3.74 billion and 93,500 jobs lost for small businesses. The numbers are even worse the next fiscal, in fiscal year 2008 the Federal Procurement Data System reported that the government missed its goal by 1.51 percent--meaning more than $6.51 billion and 162,700 jobs lost. While these numbers tell the stark story of why this legislation is vital for our small businesses and our overall economy, they are still only a part of the story of why this legislation is needed.

Our small businesses have been taking the brunt of this economic downturn. In this past year, small businesses accounted for more than 85 percent of job losses. This fact was vividly illustrated to me this weekend when I met with Louisiana business owners and officials. A small business owner who spoke at our meeting told of how he was down from 20 plus employees to three. He was clear that if he had access to federal work he would begin staffing up tomorrow. That is the reason I am introducing this legislation today. These contracting opportunities represent job creation for small businesses in a way that is unique. When large businesses get new work they

typically spread that work among existing employees. When small businesses get these contracts they must staff up to meet the increased demand.

Furthermore, last night President Obama made the case that small businesses need to be the focus of our recovery. I have heard over and over again that small business is the engine that drives our economy. Well, if that is true, then it is time to give that engine some gas. President Obama set the right tone last night and today our bill looks to act on his words and fill that tank as we consider improvements in four key areas.

The first area I attempt to make improvements in is the area of contract bundling. Although contract bundling may have started out as a good idea, it has now become the prime example of the old saying that too much of a good thing can be very, very bad. The proliferation of bundled contracts coupled with the decimation of contracting professionals within the government threatens to kill small businesses' ability to compete for federal contracts.

Our bill looks to address those issues by ensuring: accountability of senior agency management for all incidents of bundling; timely and accurate reporting of contract bundling information by all federal agencies; and improved oversight of bundling regulation compliance by the Small Business Administration, SBA.

The bill also ensures that contract consolidation decisions made by a department or agency, other than the Defense Department and its agencies, provide small businesses with appropriate opportunities to participate as prime contractors and subcontractors.

Another way that this bill attempts to tackle the issue of bundling is by creating a joint venture and teaming center at the SBA. This center will provide technical support to associations and businesses who are interested in bidding on larger contracts as part of small business teams or joint ventures. The bill will also ease regulations that serve as a disincentive for small businesses who want to enter into teaming relationships with one another.

The second area that this bill attempts to address is subcontracting. The Committee has heard from many businesses about the challenges that some small business subcontractors face when dealing with prime contractors. Business owners have related that the way subcontracting compliance is calculated creates opportunity for abuse. They also related that many small businesses will spend time, money and effort preparing bid proposals to be a part of a bid team and that once the contract is won they never heard from the prime contractor again. Many also complain about a lack of timely payments after they have completed work.

This bill attempts to deal with some of these issues by including provisions designed to prevent misrepresentations in subcontracting by prime contractors. To accomplish this, the bill: provides guidelines and procedures for reviewing and evaluating subcontractor participation in prime contracts and provides for speedier payments to small business subcontractors who have successfully completed work on behalf of the prime contractor.

The third area I intend to update is the acquisition process. This bill aims to increase the number of small business contracting opportunities by including additional provisions to reduce bundled contracts by reserving more contracts for small business concerns. The bill accomplishes this by: authorizing small business set-asides in multiple-award, multi-agency contracting vehicles; directing the Office of Federal Procurement Policy to issue guidelines to analyze the use of government credit cards for the purpose of meeting small business goals; and requiring that agencies include meeting small business contracting goals in the performance evaluation of contracting and program personnel.

The last area that I tackle in this legislation is small business size and status integrity. The Committee has heard from a number of small businesses about large businesses parading as small businesses. It is imperative that small business contracts go to small businesses. Small businesses may be losing billions of dollars in opportunities because of size standard loopholes.

This bill attempts to address these issues by making additions to the Small Business Act that are designed to strengthen the government's ability to enforce the size and status standards for small business certification. To achieve this, the new section: establishes a presumption of loss to the federal government whenever a large business performs a small business contract; requires that small businesses annually certify their size status; requires the development of training programs for small business size standards; requires a detailed review of the size standards for small businesses by the SBA within one year; and directs GAO to study the effectiveness of the mentor-protege program.

It is well past time to provide greater opportunities for the thousands of small business owners who wish to do business with the Federal Government. I believe that this legislation is a good step toward opening those doors of opportunity. I hope all of my colleagues will join me in supporting this bill and I look forward to working with them as we work to move this legislation forward.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Madam President, reserving the right to object, and I do intend to object, first, let me point out to Senator Crapo, he and I have worked together on the Water and Wildlife Committee and the Environment and Public Works Committee. I think we have had a fine relationship over the past couple years, and we have worked together on a series of bills that I think will improve water and wildlife in this Nation. This legislation has not had a hearing and has not been approved by the Environment and Public Works Committee. It deals with undermining one of the most important laws in our country, the Endangered Species Act. That is one of our most important environmental laws and has protected iconic species such as the bald eagle. The act has long enjoyed bipartisan support. President Nixon signed the ESA into law on December 28, 1973.

This bill attempts to solve politically what should be done by good science. Despite many disagreements in the more than three decades of the ESA, there has never been a removal of a species by Congress. Also, there have been efforts made to work out a reasonable compromise as it relates to the wolf. It is my understanding that it has been blocked on the Republican side in trying to get that compromise brought forward.

I will make one more suggestion to my friend, Senator Crapo. As you know, the work product of our subcommittee, along with other bills in the Environment and Public Works Committee, and some lands bills have been combined into one bill, Calendar No. 30, S. 3003. I encourage the Senator to look at that package. If we can get consent to include a compromise on the gray wolf, we would be willing to try to get it done in the remaining hours of this session. I offer that to my friend.

Madam President, in its current form, I do object.

Madam President, I understand Senator Sessions is on the floor and wishes to speak. I ask unanimous consent that the Chair recognize Senator Sessions, and after Senator Sessions, recognize myself and then Senator Shaheen, so we stay in order, if that is agreeable.

Madam President, we are now only hours away from when we will have a chance to vote on the ratification of the New START treaty. The Senate has invoked cloture, so we are in that 30-hour postcloture period. We are now in a period where we need to consider some additional amendments, and then we will be able to vote on the ratification. I think that is good news for the United States, for national security.

I think each Member of the Senate wants to do what is right for our national security. And I wish to emphasize the point that whenever I look at a national security issue, I want to get the best advice I can from the experts--from our military experts, from our experts who are charged with making sure we have the best intelligence to protect the security of America, from our diplomatic experts, who understand the ramifications of what we do here and around the world in other areas of concern for national security. I would say it is unanimous that the experts are telling us it is in the security interests of the United States to ratify the New START treaty.

I will be glad to yield.

I am glad I yielded to Senator Sessions for that point because I do believe the fellows from the military assigned to our offices are extremely valuable in our work. I was fortunate to have CDR Andre Coleman in my office from the Navy, and I can tell you that what I learned from his presence in my office was important to me, and I think it really made me much more informed when it came to decisions I have had to make in the Senate. So this program is a very valuable program.

I was pleased to yield to the Senator so he could recognize the person in his office. He is from the Navy? He is a Navy officer?

Navy officers are always the best, and coming from Maryland, where we have the Naval Academy, we were pleased to provide some help to the Senator from Alabama.

If I can continue on the New START treaty, the real test here is the national security of our Nation. When you listen to the advice given to us by our military experts, they tell us the ratification of New START will enhance our national security. When you

talk to the people who are responsible for collecting intelligence information and analyzing that information, they tell us it is in our national security interest to ratify the New START treaty. When you talk to the political experts, those who are charged with managing our foreign policy considerations around the world, they tell us the ratification of New START will help protect our national security interest.

The reason is that when you look at this treaty and find out what is in this treaty that restricts what the United States can do and you look at the number of deployed warheads and the number of delivery vehicles we are permitted to have, our experts say those numbers are clearly achievable for us without compromising whatsoever all of our national security interests. That is what they tell us. And these numbers were not developed by the political system; they were developed by the military experts as to what is reasonable as far as limitations on deployed warheads.

When you look at the other restrictions--and we have heard a lot of debate that we are restricted on other defense issues. There is nothing in this agreement that limits missile defense issues. That is going to be a matter for our national debate. It will be a matter, in working with our allies, of analyzing where our current risks come from. But we can make independent judgments, and we are not restricted at all by the New START treaty as to how we make those judgments.

What is in this treaty is our ability to verify what the Russians are doing with their nuclear stockpile and what they are doing with their warheads and with their delivery systems. It allows us to have inspectors on the ground. Since the end of last year, we have not had inspectors on the ground. That is intelligence information that is extremely valuable for us to have. You can't substitute for that. Yes, we can get certain intelligence information from the assets we have, but having boots on the ground is critically important to our national security. So without the ratification of New START, we do not have the inspectors on the ground telling us, in fact, what Russia is doing, inspecting the warheads, and inspecting their delivery systems.

There is a third reason in addition to it being important from the point of view of what our experts are saying and in addition to the fact that it gives us verification. It also is a very important part of our national security system in working with other countries. We want to make sure we know what Russia is doing, yes. We understand Russia is a country of interest to the United States. But when you look at countries that are developing nuclear weapons, we need Russia's help and the international community working with us to make sure we prevent countries such as Iran from becoming nuclear weapon states. The ratification of this treaty will help us in those political efforts.

When you put all this together, it gives us what we need for verification. The restrictions in this treaty were worked out by our military as being what they believed was right, and it gives us the ability to continue to lead internationally not just on strategic arms reduction but on nonproliferation issues. So for all those reasons, I would urge my colleagues to vote for ratification.

Madam President, I appreciate the concerns my colleague from Arizona is raising in regards to mobile launchers, particularly as it relates to rail-mobile launchers. But I am reading the same language the Senator has put on the floor, and it says very clearly that it is subject to the 700 limit. I think what my colleague is referring to is the fact that Russia today does not have rail-mobile launchers. So, therefore, there are other protocols in the treaty in regard to inspection, et cetera, that are not provided for in this treaty because it is not relevant since Russia today does not have rail-mobile launchers. But if they were to develop rail-mobile launchers, they would be subject to the 700 limitation of launchers, if it was being deployed. The consultation process will work out the procedures for adequate inspection.

So I think it is already covered under the treaty. In the language of the treaty Senator Kerry mentioned it is clear to me it is covered. But in the report language I think it is stating the obvious.

One last point, and that is, again, you do not dispute the fact that if we were to adopt this amendment, it would be the effect of denying the ratification of the treaty until it was modified in Russia, which is the same as saying we are not going to get a ratified treaty on this issue.

Madam President, will the Senator yield?

To me, it is the language of the treaty itself. The language of the treaty itself is pretty clear as to what the definition of a launcher is, with three exclusions. Just look at the language of the treaty that any type of launcher would be covered.

Madam President, let me first tell my colleague that I support the treaty because it is in the best interest of the United States. It is in our national security interest. It is not an accommodation to Russia. This treaty helps us on national security. That is what our military experts tell us. That is what our intelligence experts tell us. That is what our diplomats tell us. On all fronts, the ratification of this treaty makes us a safer nation. So it is not an accommodation to Russia.

On the issue the Senator is concerned about, both the Obama administration and this body have repeatedly reaffirmed our commitment to Georgia's territorial sovereignty and integrity. We very much want Russia to withdraw. We are very sympathetic to the issue the Senator brings to our attention. We have taken action in this body to support Georgia's territorial integrity. The START treaty and its ratification is important in reestablishing confidence on verification as it relates to our relationship with Russia on strategic arms, but it is also important for the engagement of Russia on other issues. We can do more than one thing at a time.

President Saakashvili of the Republic of Georgia said:

We all want--I personally want--Russia as a partner and not

as an enemy. Nobody has a greater stake than us in seeing

Russia turn into a country that truly operates within the

concert of nations, respects international law, and--this is

often connected--upholds basic human rights. This is why I

wholeheartedly support the efforts of European and American

leaders to strengthen their relationship with Russia.

The leader of Georgia understands that a better relationship between Russia and the United States will help Georgia and its territorial integrity. This treaty and its ratification will help not only build confidence between Russia and the United States but will help the other countries of Europe, particularly a country such as Georgia.

So the chairman of the committee is absolutely correct--and I think we can verify that with the Parliamentarian--that this is not relevant on the issue we have before us. It is not part of the treaty we have negotiated. It is not part of the ratification process. It is not the appropriate forum for this type of amendment to be considered. It should be rejected on that basis.

The important thing in moving forward with U.S. influence on Russia as it relates to its neighbors, such as Georgia, is to move forward with ratification of this treaty.

Madam President, I, first, thank the Senator from Idaho for bringing up this issue. I might tell him, I have a laundry list of issues with which I would like to deal with Russia.

I have the honor of chairing the Helsinki Commission. We have a lot of human rights issues with Russia, and we raise them all the time as aggressively as we can. I am proud the Obama administration has raised these issues at the highest level with the Russian Federation. We are very sympathetic to the issue the Senator has brought up. It is the wrong vehicle to deal with this issue. It is the wrong vehicle. This treaty is important for U.S. national security. That is why I support the ratification. That is why I urge my colleagues to support the ratification.

Yes, it is appropriate in our advise-and-consent role for us to take up issues that are relevant to the subject matter of the treaty. The problem is, the issues the Senator from Idaho is bringing up are not relevant to the subject matter of the treaty. Therefore, it is the wrong vehicle to take up this issue.

I do not want the Senator from Idaho to interpret my opposition to his amendment as opposing what he is trying to do. I agree with what he is trying to do. It is the wrong vehicle on which to put it. I urge the Senator to work with Senator Shaheen, work with the Helsinki Commission on other issues.

The issue the Senator is bringing up about the return of property is very important to America. We believe in many cases the Russian Federation is not living up to their international commitments under international agreements. We will bring those up, and we will fight in those forums. But this treaty is in our interest. This treaty and our actions should deal with the four corners of the agreement.

In that respect, I very much oppose the Senator's amendment.

Let me thank Senator Wicker for bringing forward this amendment. I know it is an amendment he feels very strongly about. I compliment him because I believe a good part of what he was concerned about is already in the resolution of advice and consent on ratification.

As the Senator pointed out, there is a consultation process before the Bilateral Consultative Commission to meet on any changes that would modify the treaty itself. There has to be consultation with Congress on those issues, as the Senator pointed out in his comments. So I think we have already taken care of the major concern the Senator has that it would be a substantive decision made by the Bilateral Consultative Commission.

Secondly, let me point out that whatever the Bilateral Consultative Commission does, it is limited by the treaty itself, which, hopefully, will have been ratified by both the United States and Russia. So there will be a limit on the ratification already in the process.

As Senator Kerry pointed out, we certainly do not want to hold up Senate ratification for minor administrative issues, knowing how long Senate ratification of anything related to a treaty could take.

The last point I want to bring out is, the Senator mentioned missile defense, and I know this has been brought up over and over and over. But in our advice and consent to the ratification of the treaty, we have already put in that:

. . . the New START Treaty does not impose any limitations

on the deployment of

missile defenses other than the requirements of paragraph 3

of Article V of the New START Treaty, which states, ``Each

Party shall not convert and shall not use ICBM launchers or

SLBM launchers for placement of missile defense interceptors

therein.''

So we already put in the resolution the concern that the Senator has voiced as the major reason he wanted to expand the consultative process, which is also already included in the resolution.

I think the point Senator Kerry has raised is that this would make it technically unworkable for the Bilateral Consultative Commission to do its work if we required Senate consultation or ratification every time the Commission wanted to meet.

For all those reasons, I urge my colleagues to reject the amendment.

Mr. President, I will say, I think we just have a disagreement. I think where Senate confirmation would be at issue is where there is an amendment to the treaty, and that is exactly what is included in our resolution.

I think it is unworkable to try to get the Senate involved in all the changes in trying to say what is substantive and what is not. I think you would be interfering with the administration of the verification systems, et cetera. So I would just urge our colleagues to reject the amendment.

I say to Senator Wicker, I think on our side we are prepared to yield back. So if the Senator would like to----

Mr. President, we yield back the time on this amendment.

As I understand the unanimous consent agreement, it is 30 minutes per amendment. Then I think we are prepared to go to Senator Kyl for his amendment.

First, let me thank Senator Kyl for bringing this issue to our attention. I think this is a very important issue. We have a lot of security issues as they relate to Russia, as they relate to Europe, and as they relate to the sea-launch cruise missiles. I couldn't agree with the Senator more. But this falls under the same category of the discussion we had earlier about a side agreement on tactical weapons.

These are all beneficial issues, but it is not the key issue that is before us today. If we were to adopt this amendment, I think we all would agree it would cause a considerable delay in the implementation of the START treaty.

Let me remind my colleagues that the START treaty, according to our military experts, is needed now. We have been a year without having inspection regimes in Russia so we can get the intelligence information we need by people on the ground. That expired in December of last year. So we have already been delayed through this year, and the longer we delay, the less reliable the information we have for our own national security.

Although it would be nice to have all of these side agreements with Russia on a lot of other issues, every time we ask our negotiators to do that, it takes time. It takes a lot of time to negotiate. It is not all one-sided when you negotiate. My colleagues know that. We know that here as we negotiate issues.

This is an important issue, but it shouldn't delay the ratification and implementation of the New START treaty so that we can get our inspectors on the ground, giving us the information we need for our own national security as it relates to the strategic capacity of Russia.

For all of those reasons, I urge my colleagues to reject the amendment.

Mr. President, I say to Senator Kyl, these missiles are not strategic. Do they affect our strategic balance? I say that everything in our defense toolbox can affect our strategic balance. That was taken into consideration in the negotiations. I thank him for bringing this issue to our attention, but for the reasons we have stated, we urge our colleagues to reject the amendment.

We are prepared to go to the Senator's next amendment if he is prepared to go forward.

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

Mr. President, about an hour or so ago, our colleagues voted on whether we should proceed to final debate and eventually to an up-or-down vote on whether to ratify the New START treaty. I think it is safe to say most Democrats, most Republicans--even those two Independents who hang out with us--have pretty much decided on what they want to do on that final vote. I think there is a handful of Senators, maybe a half dozen or so, who are still undecided and trying to make up their minds. I just want to say I respect that. It is a serious matter, very serious matter, and there are strong arguments to be made on either side of this issue.

For those who have already made up their minds, they are probably not all that interested in what I have to say. But for the handful of our colleagues who have not decided how they believe we should proceed, how they ultimately want to vote, I want to take a few minutes and talk to them.

I want to boil this down into four questions that I have focused on as I have looked at this issue, looked at the treaty, looked at its ramifications. I want to start out by mentioning what I think the four maybe critical questions are that we should be asking ourselves.

The first question is, does this treaty make us safer? I believe it does. I think absolutely it makes us safer.

The second question is, can we afford not to ratify this treaty? I believe the answer is no; we cannot afford not to ratify this treaty. We need to.

The third question is, Can we go on to build a robust missile defense system, should we need to, if we ratify this treaty? I believe the answer is yes; we can do that if we need to.

The fourth and final question I want us to ponder is, Is ratification of the New START treaty the last word on this issue? Quite frankly, the answer is no, not at all. In fact, ratification of this treaty would just be another step, an important step, in what has been a decades- long journey. What I would like to do, if I could, is to take these questions just one question at a time.

The first question is, Does this treaty make us safer?

One of the greatest threats, and some would say the greatest threat, to our country and to its people today is the chance that terrorists might somehow acquire a nuclear weapon and detonate it inside this country. I ask my colleagues, are we doing all that we need to do to stop this from happening?

Sure, we can try to hunt down all the terrorists before they strike. In fact, we are doing that now. But we will never know where every terrorist is hiding, and I doubt we will ever have the manpower necessary to hunt them down if we did know where they were and try to stop them.

Here is what we do know, however. We know where most of the nuclear weapons on this planet are today. The majority of them are either in Russia or they are in the United States. I would like to think we do a good job of securing our nuclear weapons facilities in the United States. But Russia, as most of us know, is another story. There is a reason terrorists target Russian nuclear facilities.

While Russian security has improved recently, there are still holes, some would say gaping holes, in the physical facilities of some Russian facilities, holes that leave openings for terrorists to gain access to these weapons. That is one of the reasons we need to ratify this treaty. It limits the number of warheads that Russia can hold. Fewer Russian warheads translate into fewer chances that those weapons, those warheads, will fall into the wrong hands.

Here is another reason to ratify this treaty: Since the original START treaty expired at the end of 2009, the United States has been denied the ability to track and to verify the status of Russian nuclear weapons. The U.S. and Russian cooperation on verifying and monitoring warheads under the original START treaty helped lay the groundwork under the Nunn-Lugar cooperative threat reduction program in the 1990s. This program worked and still works to secure and dismantle Russian nuclear weapons, to keep them from falling into the hands of terrorists or rogue regimes.

New START will restore our verification and tracking capabilities that we lost last year with the expiration of the original START treaty. This, in turn, will encourage Russia to continue and to participate in the Nunn-Lugar program. In short, Americans will be safer if the treaty before us is ratified.

That leads me to the second question, Can we afford not to ratify this treaty? I believe the answer is no; no, we cannot. Let me say why.

My colleagues opposing this treaty have pointed out what they believe to be flaws in it. Some of them say the United States should have held out for a better deal. Others say the United States should have increased the number of allowed inspections or increased the number of delivery systems allowed under the treaty. They say the job of the Senate is not to simply ratify treaties but to debate and to amend them.

Let me just say, if this were a seriously flawed treaty, I would agree or if this were a flawed treaty I would agree. But it is not. The fact that so far all the amendments offered to this treaty have failed, mostly by large majorities, bears witness to that fact. Sure, we could amend the treaty language to maximize the U.S. position. We could send our diplomats back to the negotiating table with the Russians with a whole new set of terms the Russians will find unacceptable and ultimately nonnegotiable. When the Russians then walk away from the talks and the prospects of securing a new treaty die, we will ask ourselves, was it worth it to oppose ratification? Was it worth it?

When a Russian nuclear weapon goes missing and we are left in the dark because U.S.-Russian cooperation on tracking and dismantling warheads died with the treaty, we will ask ourselves, was it worth it to oppose ratification?

I believe the answer is no. Every living former Secretary of State from Kissinger to Baker to Rice shares that opinion.

Several former Secretaries of Defense, including Secretaries Schlesinger, Carlucci, Perry, and Cohen, all believe we ought to ratify this treaty in order to make our country--our country--safer. I might add, our top intelligence people agree with them.

This unlikely bipartisan coalition has come to this conclusion because they are certain that failure to ratify New START leaves our country less safe and more at risk to terror. We ignore the collective wisdom and advice of these leaders, past and present, at our peril. They have no axe to grind. They are calling it like they see it. I hope we will search our hearts--every one of us--and our minds this week and come to the same conclusion they have.

Question No. 3 was: Can we build a robust missile defense system if we ratify this treaty? That is an important question. The answer is too. And the answer is, yes, we absolutely can. There is simply nothing in this treaty that limits the United States from building the kind of missile defense system we might want and that we might need.

You do not have to take my word for it. Last month the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ADM Mike Mullen, bluntly stated, ``There is nothing in the treaty that prohibits us from developing any kind of missile defense.''

Let me say his words again. ``There is nothing in the treaty that prohibits us from developing any kind of missile defense.'' Those are not my words. Those are his words. Nothing, nothing in the treaty prohibits us from doing that.

Just last week Secretary Gates said that the treaty ``in no way limits anything we want or have in mind on missile defense.'' Let me repeat that as well. He said, ``The treaty in no way limits anything we want or have in mind on missile defense.'' In no way.

Simply put, this treaty gives us both what we want and what we need. It reduces the number of nuclear warheads Russia can possess, and it does so without constraining U.S. missile defense and deployment.

Some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, who have made up their minds that they will oppose ratification, dispute the statements of

both Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen. Clearly, that is their right to do so. These opponents to the treaty argue that this treaty would, in fact, create limitations on our ability to build and deploy a missile defense system. With all due respect to them, I do not believe that is true. And, more importantly, neither do our top military and intelligence leaders, upon whom our Nation depends. They do not believe it is true either. In supporting this argument, some of the treaty's critics point to a provision which states we cannot convert nuclear missile launchers into missile defense launchers. We have all heard Senators Kerry and Lugar respond to this assertion. We do not want to make these conversions. We do not want to make these conversions. Why? Because it is not cost effective. It is cheaper to build new silos rather than convert the old launchers. This is not a limitation on missile defense. It is common sense. It is cost effective. And it is certainly not a reason to vote against this important treaty.

Question No. 4 again. Question No. 4 was: Is ratification of New START the last word on this issue? And the answer is, not at all. This is not the last word. In fact, ratification is another step, albeit an important one, in a decades-long journey. Ratification reflects a vision shared by Presidents Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, George Herbert Walker Bush, and George W. Bush, as well as the people of our country, and the people of the Russian Federation.

Realizing that vision is vitally important both to Russians and to Americans, our two nations must join to lead the global community on the issue of nuclear disarmament. If we do not, no one else will.

The next step in realizing that vision requires us to ratify this New START treaty that is before us this week. Once we have done so, we should turn to redoubling our efforts to work with Russia, with China, and our allies to pressure Iran and North Korea to give up not their nuclear energy programs but their nuclear weapons programs. And as we do that, we should continue working toward future agreements with the Russian Federation on reducing tactical nuclear weapons.

Fortunately, in the resolution of ratification that contains the New START treaty language, there are instructions added by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that order--that order--the Obama administration to pursue agreements on the limits of tactical nuclear weapons with Russia as well. Two weeks ago, Secretaries Clinton and Gates said they would pursue such an agreement with the Russian Federation in the coming years. However, we cannot continue down that path without first ratifying New START. And we must.

Let me conclude today by asking my undecided colleagues, however many there are out there, one final question. Here it is: How often do we see in this body nearly every major national security official from just about every Presidential administration of the last four decades come together to support one initiative like this? How often? The answer is, not very often, at least not on my watch.

As a captain in the Navy, as my State's Congressman, and Senator, as Governor of Delaware, and commander in chief for a while of our State's National Guard, I learned a long time ago that the best way to make tough decisions, to make the right decision, is to gather together the best and brightest minds that we can, people with different perspectives, urge them to try to find common ground, and then provide their recommendations to me.

In the case of this treaty, many of the best and brightest national security minds our Nation has ever seen, names such as Kissinger, Powell, Schlesinger, Baker, Hadley, Scowcraft, Shultz, Rice, Nunn, Warner, Lugar, Kerry, Clinton, Bush, and Gates, agree that we should ratify New START and ratify it now.

I urge my colleagues who are still undecided on this critical issue to join me, to join us, in moving our Nation forward by voting to ratify this treaty.

Before I yield the floor, I want to take a moment to salute Senator Lugar. I thank you and thank your staff for the terrific leadership you have provided for years on these issues, along with Sam Nunn, all of those years ago, and with John Kerry and others today.

I am going to thank Senator Kerry for the terrific leadership and the great support he has gotten from his committee, from the staff, to get us to this point today.

I am encouraged that we may have the votes to finish our business and to conclude by ratifying this treaty tomorrow. I hope that handful of our colleagues who are out there who are still trying to figure out what is the right thing to do will maybe find some words in the wisdom I share today.

I yield the floor.