Floor Statements

Mr. President, this emergency supplemental would provide an additional $983.6 million for disaster

relief and emergency assistance. It is estimated that the disaster relief fund will exhaust its current funding by the end of July 2003 in part due to higher-than-expected costs for disaster relief, including funding for tornadoes and winter storms. These additional resources are needed to continue to provide necessary emergency assistance.

With respect to the firefighting funds requested by the President, I am pleased to announce that we have an agreement with the administration on funds to continue our battle against fires, particularly in the West and Alaska. The administration has informed me it remains committed to the President's request for emergency supplemental appropriations for disaster relief and recovery efforts. Their commitment to continue to pursue enactment of the full request when we return in September is paramount to the challenges we face.

I ask unanimous consent that the Transfer Strategy statement be printed in the Record.

Is the Pastore rule in effect at this time?

Mr. President, I know the Senator from Illinois is seeking to speak on his amendment. Is there a time agreement on that amendment?

I would like to have an opportunity to speak on the Energy bill. I do not want to interfere with the Senator's amendment if we can get it done.

The reverse is true also. I am glad to yield to the Senator if he would consider giving us a time agreement on his amendment.

I have come to the floor to speak on the bill in general, but I would be happy to have an opportunity to have the Senator from Illinois debate his amendment and have it voted on. As I understood it, that was the plan this morning.

Mr. President, I address the Senator from Nevada. Is it possible to get an agreement on the Durbin amendment?

Mr. President, I will speak briefly. I hope, however, we can move on to the Durbin amendment as soon as we get a time agreement.

Mr. President, one of the basic goals of the Energy bill, as our leader has indicated, is job creation. According to the estimates that I have, based upon the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the natural gas pipeline project to bring Alaska's natural gas to market would create as many as 400,000 job years. There have been various press releases issued in that regard. The more conservative estimates by the Energy Committee staff put the number at 118,000. Even those figures include: 1,650 welders and helpers; 2,000 operators; 135 surveyors; 1,250 laborers; 755 teamsters; 418 inspectors; 90 UT technicians; and 170 salaried foremen. Beyond that are both manufacturing jobs and infrastructure jobs, including airstrip improvements at 5 airports.

Additionally, the project will require an enormous number of buses, loaders, and automatic welders. We will need 440 sidebooms, 225 other sidebooms, 18 trenchers, 250 backhoes, 236 large dozers, 125 stringing tractors, and 1,300 pickup trucks.

I have come to the floor to raise my voice in support of this Energy bill and to urge the Senate to complete it. I commend Senators Domenici and Bingaman and their staffs for their efforts so far. This Energy bill is an important step toward a comprehensive and balanced national energy policy. It contains many important provisions designed to ensure our energy security.

The most important of those, to me, is the authorization for a natural gas pipeline from the North Slope of Alaska connecting through Canada to what we call the Lower 48.

As we are all aware, our country faces a natural gas crisis. The leader spoke of that this morning, and I want to emphasize the importance of his remarks. In the last 10 years, demand for natural gas has increased by 19 percent. It is projected to grow over 50 percent in the next quarter century. Absent a new supply of natural gas, a gap of 15 billion cubic feet per day or 6 trillion cubic feet per year is likely in the next decade.

High natural gas prices have severely impacted our industries and our consumers and are hindering our economic recovery.

The fertilizer industry alone has seen its current operating capacity in the United States for ammonia plants drop to 60 to 65 percent of former capacity. High gas prices are responsible for the closure of almost 20 percent of the nitrogen fertilizer capacity.

This has severely impacted our farmers. They are now paying $350 per ton for fertilizer, more than twice what they paid last year.

Our chemical industry has been similarly affected as high gas prices continue to affect its market share, which again threatens millions of existing jobs.

The chemical industry employs more than 1 million Americans, with 5 million Americans working at jobs dependent upon that chemical industry. Millions of Americans are depending upon our ability to maintain an adequate supply of gas. Our constituents are also feeling the pressure from natural gas prices. Sixty million households in this country use natural gas.

In 1999, their average gas bill was $534. In 2001, the average gas bill was $750. This year, the average gas bill for American consumers at home will be $915--almost double what it was in 1999, Mr. President.

Given these disturbing facts and the negative impacts high gas prices are having on the Nation as a whole, I urge the Senate to act quickly to address this situation. This Energy bill must pass this year. It must be passed by the Senate now before we go on recess so a final conference package can be voted on in the fall.

The Energy Committee has taken the first step towards addressing this situation by including authorization for the Alaskan gas pipeline. The pipeline is vitally important to preventing an even more serious natural gas crisis in the future.

The gas pipeline will increase our supplies. Alaska's gas alone would meet approximately 10 percent of our country's natural gas needs, which means 4 billion to 6 billion cubic feet per day. It will decrease our dependency on foreign gas and imports of liquefied natural gas. It will generate over $40 billion in revenues for the Federal Government. It will create the jobs I outlined earlier.

I do hope the Senate will focus on the jobs created by the Energy bill and particularly the Alaska natural gas pipeline. The gas pipeline translates into 7,000 construction jobs, thousands of manufacturing jobs necessary to create equipment, and thousands of infrastructure jobs.

In addition to the authorization language, the Finance Committee has provided a fiscal incentive package to ensure the pipeline can begin delivering gas as quickly as possible. I will discuss the fiscal package once the energy tax provisions are introduced. We are working with the distinguished chairman of the Finance Committee to assure that those provision meet all the objectives of assuring financing for this enormous project.

I urge the Senate to consider that this is gas that was produced alongside oil at Prudhoe Bay, almost 13 billion barrels of oil to date. As that oil was produced, natural gas was pumped to the surface as well. This gas was then separated from the oil and reinjected into the ground. This is not gas we have to look for; we know where it is. This is 35 trillion cubic feet of gas that is stored beneath Prudhoe Bay.

I point out to the Senate that 35 trillion cubic feet of gas is merely what has already been produced. The North Slope of Alaska has an abundant supply of gas, which has the potential to produce around 100 trillion cubic feet of gas. The Alaska gas pipeline project must begin so that we can start tapping into Alaska's gas reserves. No one is drilling gas wells in my State now because there is no transportation mechanism for gas. The known reserves of natural gas will be produceable as soon as there is a transportation mechanism to bring it to market. This pipeline will be that transportation mechanism to bring Alaska's gas to the Lower 48.

Nothing is more important to our Nation right now in terms of our economy than reassuring our people that we will have the natural gas supplies we need for the future. The Alaska natural gas pipeline can do it. It will help to fill the gap for the immediate future once it is constructed, and the benefits of the Alaska pipeline will have lasting effects on our Nation.

It will take a long time to construct the pipeline. We estimate it will be 2012 or 2013 before that gas actually gets to market. But once it gets to market, it will be competing with new liquefied natural gas that will be coming from foreign sources.

It is estimated that eventually we will import about 6 percent of our gas supplies in LNG. The counterweight to LNG is Alaska's gas. There is no other source in the United States with such an enormous amount of gas.

I urge us to move swiftly on this bill, and I will do anything I can to help accelerate the decisions on this bill. Again, I congratulate the two Senators from New Mexico for what they have done so far. I wish we could get together on a bipartisan basis and come up with a substitute. We ought to find some way to resolve these differences. The country needs this energy, and my State and the country need this project. I urge Senators to consider what we have to do to get this Energy bill passed as quickly as possible and that it contain the legislative authorization that is now in the bill and the tax provisions necessary to get the pipeline built.

I yield the floor, Mr. President.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business on a subject of great urgency. I do not know how much time it will take. Senator Burns will join me in a moment.

Mr. President, I have been informed that the House this evening will pass a bill for $989 million dealing with disaster relief. As my colleagues know, we received a supplemental request from the President for $1,550,000,000 for the Department of Homeland Security for disaster response. It is estimated that the disaster fund probably has already run out of money during this month of July. When the money runs out, when there are storms, tornados, whatever they have to deal with, they borrow from other accounts, which means as we get towards the end of this fiscal year those other accounts must come to an end. We have tried to meet the President's request by sending the supplemental as part of the legislative appropriations bill.

The House has refused to conference with us on that bill. Now they are going to send us a bill that is totally inadequate. If they leave this city without giving us a supplemental for fires, it is going to leave the West burning, and it is going to bring to a halt other functions of the Federal Government which must continue through this period until September 30. I cannot believe that they would do this.

The supplemental the President sent to us provided $50 million for NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, to cover unanticipated costs of the recovery and investigation of the Space Shuttle Columbia accident. I am informed that as far as NASA is concerned, the actual costs of the Columbia accident investigation board is about $150 million so far. That means NASA has to take that money out of their current accounts and the remainder of the year they, too, will be strapped and will not be doing the scientific investigations, not be doing the prevention that is necessary in order to get ready for another NASA shuttle flight.

We received the supplemental on July 8. We acted almost as quickly as possible. It is true, we put on that bill the money to save the program for education of young people, AmeriCorps. AmeriCorps is another subject, and I will get into that in a minute. But because we put AmeriCorps on that bill, the House refused to act.

We have offered a series of suggestions.

It is impossible to believe this message I received this morning. We are going to get a bill that has less than $1 billion in it, when the President asked for $1.550 billion for FEMA and he asked for NASA at the same time. He had money in there for firefighting. The President had $253 million for Forest Service and fire suppression. We added $36 million for the Bureau of Land Management.

This is a terrible fire season. I am informed Glacier Park is ready to be evacuated. We have to have some disaster money. When I checked on July 21, the disaster relief fund had $89 million in it. We are currently estimating an obligation rate of about $5.7 million a day on the fires that existed on July 21. There is a whole new series of fires just this week. I cannot believe this.

In addition, there is an obligation to rise to $6.3 million as the disaster activity in Texas ramps up due to Hurricane Claudette.

I hope others will also join to call on the House to give a bill that will meet the needs, particularly the needs of the West. These fires are primarily in the West. The need for FEMA is national. The firefighting conditions right now in the West could not be worse. There is enormous heat in the West, including my State of Alaska. Even with enactment of the supplemental, which we sent to the House, I am told the Forest Service projects will have a deficit of $167 million by September. That is, with all the money we provided for FEMA and for firefighting, the Forest Service alone will have a deficit of $167 million based on projections of July 14th. We have increased fires, particularly in the Park Service area. It is the park that is burning out there now. I cannot believe we cannot have a conference on the supplemental before the House leaves.

AmeriCorps is a problem, too. The Government, by mistake, enrolled 70,000 young people to enter school in September. The moneys that had been previously divided only covered 50,000 young people. The person who made that mistake is no longer with the Government. But the young people are out there now with their certificates. They are entitled to enter school, but the money will not be there. It is the worst situation I have faced as chairman of the Appropriations Committee. We have to have some action by the House before they leave tonight. If they leave tonight without giving us the money we need to meet these disaster needs, I think we are going to have a terrible September.

By the way, the House is going home tonight. They could have stayed another week and we could conference the bills. The bills have been sent to conference. When we come back in September we have to meet with the House in conference and at the same time try to pass the bills we could have passed and should have passed had they sent us the bills in time. They will send us a whole series of bills they are now passing as they leave town. The Appropriations Committee must conference those bills in September and at the same time we must pass the ones they have just passed.

We cannot be two places at one time. The scheduling of appropriations this

year is abominable. Someone mentioned the word ``tirade'' yesterday. This is a tirade, and it is time for a tirade. It is time to be strong in talking to our colleagues in the House. We must have that bill today that covers the disasters the President recognized back in July. They are worse now than when he sent the bill to us.

I hope others who have the knowledge will talk about the firefighting. In Alaska, we have fire conditions we have never faced before. One of the real problems is we have been unable to cut into the areas of the Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service owned by the Federal Government that have beetle kill.

I read just last night, two young fishermen were out and they had an accident. They tried to set a fire to attract the attention of small planes flying in their area. The fire got out of control and burned 40,000 acres before we could even get to it. I don't know how many acres that will burn. But that is the condition that exists in the West today. They built a signal fire and that signal fire is totally out of control now.

We have to have funds to meet this condition this year. It is not satisfactory to say they can borrow money from other accounts. When they borrow money from other accounts, they shut down those activities that primarily exist in the West in July, August, and early September.

I call on the House: Do something; react. The President asked on July 8th. Give us the bill we need to meet the disasters that are occurring right now.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, April 10, 2003, brought a new educational milestone to my State.

On that date, Alaska students from one of the most rural school districts in our Nation were the first Alaskans to take part in a live hook-up with astronauts in space.

Using distance learning technology, youngsters from my States Southwest Region School District spoke to the three-member crew of the International Space Station as astronauts orbited the Earth.

These students were participating in NASA's Teaching From Space Program, which includes science, mat, and geography instruction, and features a live video question-and-answer session with the astronauts aboard the space station.

This session complemented a 6 week educational program, developed by our Challenger Learning Center in Kenai, which was included in the curriculum of the Southwest Region School District.

While the Teaching From Space Program has provided unique and motivating educational experiences to students across our country for many years, only recently were Alaska schools able to take advantage of the NASA program.

Until a few short months ago, no schools in rural Alaska had technology to allow teachers and students to communicate via video with others outside their villages.

Now that is changing, as some schools use distance learning technology to virtually bring new teachers and subjects into their classrooms.

The Southwest Region School District, one of the first in Alaska to install distance learning technology, is located on the southern coast of the Bering Sea, 350 miles southwest of Anchorage.

Eight villages are served by this school district, only one of which is accessible by road. The others are up to 120 miles from the school district's headquarters in Dillingham and may only be reached by air in winter. Some are accessible by river during summer months when, of course, our schools are closed.

The 779 students in the school district are primarily Yu'pik Eskimos. Most non-Native villagers in this region are employed as teachers.

During their 20-minute conversation with the International Space Station crew, students at Manokotak school asked questions about geography and space on behalf of their fellow students throughout the district. They watched as U.S. astronauts Ken Bowersox and Don Pettit and Russian cosmonaut Nikolai Budarin, floating inside the space station, answered their questions.

There was a special surprise, when the students learned that Alaska's own NASA astronaut, Bill Oefelein, who hails from Anchorage, flew from Houston to Manokotak to be with the students on their special day.

Many individuals and organizations contributed to the success of this educational achievement. This was a collaborative effort achievement. This was a collaborative effort of NASA, the Southwest Region School District, the Challenger Learning Center, and GCI.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all the individuals names be printed in the Record following my remarks.

Sean O'Keefe, NASA Administrator.

Lieutenant William Oefelein, USN, NASA astronaut: flew to

Manokotak to be on-site with the students.

Gwendolyn Brown, NASA: coordinated public affairs for the

event.

Cindy McArthur, NASA: guided Manokotak teachers through the

Teaching from Space program.

Kelly McCormick, NASA: guided Manokotak teachers through

the Teaching from Space program.

Scott Anderson, NASA: guided Manokotak teachers through the

Teaching from Space program.

Robin Hart, NASA: guided Manokotak teachers through the

Teaching from Space program.

Randy Cash, NASA: managed the audio portion of the program.

Glenn Peterson, NASA: Mission Control Specialist.

Superintendent Mark Hiratsuka, Southwest Region School

District: secured approvals for the program.

Tim Whaling, Southwest Region School District: coordinated

the educational curriculum for the program.

Karen Swenson, Southwest Region School District: secured

approvals for the program.

Steve Noonkesser, Southwest Region School District: managed

the school district's technology and coordination with GCI.

David Piazza, Southwest Region School District: managed the

school district's technology.

Principal David Legg, Manokotak School: secured facilities

and staff for the program.

Kirk Kofford, Manokotak School: prepared students for the

NASA link up and taught the NASA distance learning

curriculum.

Dana Bartman, Manokotak School: prepared students for the

link-up.

Nate Preston, Manokotak School: coordinated photography and

publishing for the program.

Steve Horn, Challenger Learning Center of Alaska: secured

educational curriculum for the school district.

Jamie Meyers, Challenger Learning Center of Alaska:

coordinated curriculum between the center and the school

district.

Martin Cary, GCI: secured telecommunications resources and

personnel to link NASA and the school district.

Greg Dutton, GCI-SchoolAccess: managed GCI's participation.

David Morris, GCI: managed public affairs for the program.

Anna Sattler, GCI: coordinated communication between

participants.

Tom Elmore, GCI: coordinated the video teleconference

connection with school district sites.

Chad Parker, GCI: coordinated technology needs.

Brian Lichner, GCI: managed the NASA TV downlink in

Anchorage.

Rob Knorr, GCI: managed the NASA TV downlink in Juneau.

Greg Farmer, GCI: managed the NASA TV feed in Juneau.

Doug Keil, GCI: connected the NASA TV feed in Anchorage to

GCI-SchoolAccess.

Mark Dinneen, GCI: managed government relations for the

program.

John Raffetto, Infotech Strategies: managed communication

between all participants.

Nicole Angarella, Infotech Strategies: coordinated

logistics and on-site materials.

Tracy Krughoff, Infotech Strategies: assisted school

district with applications.

Angela Mathwig, Infotech Strategies: coordinated logistics

and on-site materials.

Christopher Capps: coordinated astronaut participation.

Mike Donovan Hausler: managed design and production of

graphic art.

Mr. President, if there is no one wishing to speak, I wish to make a short comment.

I know the order is for time on the other side. I ask to use about 5 or 7 minutes.

Mr. President, this is the time of year when Senators have visitors from home. I know many come to my office and ask me personally, What should I see in Washington now?

Last evening, I visited the opening of the Lewis and Clark exhibit, ``Lewis & Clark and the Revealing of America.'' It is at the Library of Congress from July 24 to November 29.

I have asked that a copy of the booklet that is being given out at this exhibit be placed on every Senator's desk. I do hope that will happen. I congratulate the Congressional Caucus on the Bicentennial of Lewis and Clark: Senators Conrad Burns, Larry Craig, Byron Dorgan, and Representatives Doug Bereuter and Earl Pomeroy.

As one goes into the exhibit in the Library of Congress, the first thing one will see is the 1507 Waldseemuller world map. This is the first map that used the word ``America'' in the history of the world. Beyond that, there are a series of maps that lead up to the information that President Jefferson had when he dispatched Lewis and Clark to make their historic journey.

The interesting point about this is that for years, the maps of our part of the world were really kept classified by the Spanish, and it took a German geographer, Alexander von Humboldt, when he visited Mexico City and got access to the archives of Mexico to disclose to the world the maps that had been prepared prior to that time.

Copies of each of those maps is on exhibit at the Library of Congress. It takes us through the total exploration of Lewis and Clark but subsequent explorations of the American West, the Louisiana Purchase, and the total history of our country west of the Mississippi. It is told through maps and through artifacts that have been gathered not only to tell us the geography of our area, but really the dress of Americans at that time, the plants--a total description of the West as it was known then.

What is interesting is that the German geographer who had visited Mexico City actually visited with President

Jefferson prior to the time Lewis and Clark set off, as I said. The information he brought to the public, to the world at that time is just staggering.

I have seen a lot of exhibits at the Library of Congress in my day, and I have the honor to be the chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee on the Library. I believe this is an exhibition that should be called to the attention of every one of our visitors as they come into our offices.

I call to the attention of the Senate also that there is a film program that is going to go on starting Friday, July 25. There will be a series of films shown at the James Madison Building, which is part of the Library of Congress. These films are free and open to the public but require advance notice and reservations to get in. The seating is limited.

They are amazing historic films. It starts off with a 1955 Paramount film which is entitled ``The Far Horizons'' and continues through until November 21. The schedules are shown in the booklet. This is the kind of information I think Senators would be extremely wise to point out to their visitors. All they have to do to make reservations is call the number that is shown in this booklet, and they can have reservations for one of the finest historic films that one could think of. Each Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, between now and November 21, there will be films shown to the public.

I do congratulate the Library of Congress, Dr. Billington and his staff, for putting together this enormous exhibition of the history of our American West. I do hope everyone has an opportunity to take the time to see it. It is not something one can just go in and make a 5- minute visit and look at a map. If they go through that door, they are going to be trapped for at least 30 to 45 minutes, or hours. It is one of the most staggering exhibits I have seen.

At one point, through our electronic means, they have the ability to show the actual outline of our Nation and put it up against the maps that were prepared back in the days before any digital concepts, before any real capability for surveying. It is amazing how close they came to preparing maps that were accurate, and this started off 500 years ago.

This is 500 years of history of the American West, and people can see it in a half hour or 2 hours. I do hope Senators will take the occasion to look at the booklet I have asked the Library of Congress to provide us. Copies of this chart are available to every Senator to put in their office so they can tell their visitors about this amazing exhibition.

In closing, I thank the Senate for the time, and particularly my friends on the other side of the aisle for letting me use some of their time, to speak about this exhibit. This is the work product of not only the Library of Congress, but they give credit to the Bicentennial Congressional Caucus, which is cochaired by my good friend from Montana. He will find an enormous number of photographs and history of his great State where I had the privilege of going to college for a short period of time. I want him to know this is a memory trip for me to go through this exhibition. I do thank him for his work, and I thank the other Senators for their courtesy.

Mr. President, we are hearing a lot about the costs of the war. I am not addressing the need for homeland security per se. But I would point out, this bill before us now is over $29 billion for a Department that did not even exist 6 months ago. During the period of time of the blockade of Iraq following the Persian Gulf war, to carry out the mandates of the United Nations we built a new airbase, Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, the largest airbase in the world. We built a new airbase in Aviano. We built a new Army base in Kuwait. For 12 years, we maintained forces to blockade Iraq and to enforce the no- fly zones set forth by the agreement with Saddam Hussein after the Persian Gulf war.

I have asked the staff to get me the figures of how much that cost, how much did it cost to carry out the mandates of the United Nations following the Persian Gulf war, primarily because he did not comply with the agreement he made at the termination of that war. I believe it goes into the hundreds of billions of dollars that we spent in 12 years.

It is costing us a great deal of money to keep our forces in the field now. Hopefully, that will come to an end soon. But so has the cost of the blockade of Iraq. So has the cost of Prince Sultan. So has the cost of maintaining that Army base in Kuwait. Very soon we will be able to stand down a considerable portion of the people who are at Aviano in Italy. Those costs, by the way, were in addition to the costs we spent in Bosnia during the same period, and in Kosovo during the same period.

The American taxpayer has been bearing an enormous cost for many years to deal with the deployment of forces overseas. Hopefully, what we have done now will bring to an end, or at least to a very low minimum, the cost of maintaining forces in that area.

I believe we have taken actions that were necessary but I also know that we have done a lot to improve the morale of the Air Force. I personally, along

with my good friend from Hawaii, talked with many of the pilots who were flying what we call the CAP, the constant air patrol, over Iraq. They were shot at almost daily by missiles fired by Saddam Hussein. They lived in a period of constant terror, as they flew over those areas, that they would be attacked by the ground-to-air missiles. Thank God, they survived them. But it led to a period of time when our reenlistment rate in the Air Force reversed itself from about 72 percent, down to about 28 percent of our people reenlisted to fly in the Air Force, because of the strain of the constant air patrol over Iraq.

But I do think people ought to keep in perspective, when they say we can afford this, this amendment of the Senator from Connecticut, because we are spending so much money in Iraq--we have been spending a lot of money for a lot of years. The trouble is, we have to come back and have some perspective.

The amendment before us exceeds the budget by an enormous amount. It does not offset that, saying let's stop spending money somewhere else because, in fact, we cannot do that. There is no offset.

Under the circumstances, I think we ought to start having some discipline around here. That is what we are supposed to do because of the Budget Act. The Budget Act was supposed to give us discipline.

We are facing now a constant parade of amendments that the authors know is beyond the budget. The authors know we don't have the money. The authors know we found as much money as we possibly can find to allocate to homeland security for the fiscal year 2004.

I do hope Members will start thinking about the concept of affordability. We will soon stop spending that money that we are spending for the postwar security in Iraq and we will no longer have to maintain the blockade. We have had part of our Coast Guard over there for years, to try to stop the illegal exports and imports into Iraq. We had about 40 percent of our Air Force over there in those two major bases, Prince Sultan and Aviano, to maintain control of the air over Bosnia, Kosovo, and Iraq.

I do think we ought to keep in perspective what we have done, in terms of future expenses for our military. I hope we will not have a justification that we can spend this money the Senator from Connecticut wants to spend because we are spending too much money in Iraq. We are spending a lot of money in Iraq but it is not too much money. It is money well spent because it will terminate the expenses we have had to incur over the last 12 years.

Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President. Is there time in the agreement for opposition to the amendment?

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

I am bothered by the offset on this amendment. In the 2003 bill, we provided $850 million to high-threat urban grants. This bill already contains another $750 million for high-threat urban grants. That is a total of $1.6 billion for high-threat urban grants.

Every community in the country is affected by the alert system. Every community in the country faces increased costs. These megalopolises of the country, the large urban areas, are demanding that everybody pay more for them, but the smaller cities, the smaller counties, the smaller areas, have the same problem. On a per capita basis, it is a higher cost to provide protection to small areas than the high-threat urban areas.

I do not know why we should have New York City and Philadelphia, in particular. They are the ones seeking this money. There is no question there is a need. But there is a need in Peoria. There is a need in Cincinnati. There is a need in Tucson. There is a need in New Orleans.

The money they have taken for this is money that deals with homeland security nationally. One of the offsets

takes moneys from the small universities in the country. We had letters from many Senators asking for money to assist in terms of research, the research base of the country dealing with homeland security problems. We ought to take a second look at what we are doing.

We created this Department of Homeland Security 8 months ago. They already have in this bill and the bill we already enacted $1.6 billion more than the rest of the country. Why should this happen now that we have an offset against two of the most important accounts in Homeland Security? I hope we can talk a little bit more about that before we vote.

I will object to a time agreement until people understand what we are doing. Part of this money is from information analysis and infrastructure protection. It is a directorate, as they call it, in the new Department of Homeland Security. This will limit the intelligence warning and threat analysis functions of the Department we have just created. These are just being set up. This is for the 2004 costs of the Department we have just set up. Why should we take money from that? These are assessments of critical infrastructure, including chemical facilities, drinking water supply systems, arenas and stadiums, our Nation's seaports. This is the money being offset. Do Members with seaports want to put this money into an account that already has $1.6 billion? We ought to stop and think about this.

It would also be offset against the national communication system, as I understand. I will have to study this more deeply. The priority telecommunications programs could not be implemented. We have been interested in a national alert system. In the past, the national alert system went over the radio. Now, few people listen to the radio. They are on cell phones, they are on computers, they watch the television, cable. We are trying to get a national alert system. This offset goes against that study, how to put back into place a national alert system so the Nation will know, an area will know, if there is an extreme threat about which everyone should know.

I understand the Senators from New York and Pennsylvania are trying to increase the amount of money available to their high-threat urban areas. I have a high-threat urban area in Anchorage, too, but we do not have as large a population and we do not have the $1.6 billion either.

The Senate ought to think seriously about what we are doing. I intend to speak further if I can find additional information regarding the exact money that will be displaced by this amendment. The total amount of money here is too much, too soon. We ought to think about what we are doing. I hope others will come forward and take a look at what we are doing.

For those who sent letters asking for money in these areas, particularly in the national intelligence systems and threat analysis, in the areas of chemical facilities, drinking water supplies, utility protection, transportation protection, protection of bridges, this is what the money is. Why should that go to New York and Pennsylvania because they have a problem? Everyone else has, but they have a lot more people. On a per capita basis, we have already given them more money. To give them this additional $250 million is going too far.

I hope the Senate will listen and not adopt this amendment.

I will return with greater details in the future.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield?

I ask for the floor.

Mr. President, I hope the distinguished Senator from New Jersey will reserve the word ``tirade'' with reference to me. I might have a tirade sometime on the floor. I have not so far. And it will not be because of an amendment like this.

But I call the Senate's attention to pages 58 and 59 in the committee report. I will state to the Senator from New York that he is in error. The .7 applies to the basic grants; it does not apply to this program at all. The .7 does not apply to this concept we are talking about now, nor the money to which he is referring.

If you look at page 58, it shows the committee recommendations for the information analysis and infrastructure protection system. It is a national system.

I call your attention to page 59:

The General Accounting Office has reported that chemical

facilities present an attractive target for terrorist

activity. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that it

would cost $80,000,000 over 5 years for vulnerability

assessments at nearly 15,000 chemical facilities across the

United States. Therefore, the Committee [is directing this

money to be spent for that.]

We make a direct request for a report on the matter. The systems we are dealing with here are systems that deal with the Nation. But, in particular, it is:

. . . the creation of the National Cyber Security Division

within Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection and

recommends $32,800,000 for the integration of physical and

cyber infrastructure monitoring and coordination from the

funds made available for information and warning advisories,

and $65,700,000 for cyberspace security from the funds made

available for remediation and protective actions.

We expect to move into this whole concept of critical infrastructure protection. That needs:

. . . key asset identification, field assessments of

critical infrastructures, and key asset protection

implementation to help guide the development of protective

measures to harden facilities and assets.

It is a national program from which this money is being taken. The inference here is this is surplus money. This is not enough. We don't have enough for this system. We don't have enough money for what the Senators from Pennsylvania and New York want. But the point is, some of this protection starts at home. Some of it starts at home. Some basic concept of protection is the responsibility of every government in the United States. But the one responsibility we have here is the national system of identification of those facilities and assets that are critical, and also the establishment of a national alert system. This money is not enough for either one. But the Senators from New York and Pennsylvania want to take $250 million from a fund that is already insufficient, based upon the General Accounting Office report.

I do hope Senators will take a look at how this money is allocated:

Intelligence and Warning: Threat determination and

assessment, Information and warning advisories, Protecting

Critical Infrastructure and Key Assets: Infrastructure

vulnerability and risk assessment, Remediation and protective

actions, National Communication System.

That gets the bulk of it, the national communication system, finding some way to put an alert system back in place that will notify everybody if there is a national disaster. That does not exist any longer. It did, back in the days, as I said, when we all relied on radio. That got tested once a week, in fact, or once a month--whatever it was. But how long has it been since you had a test on a system? There is no test possible coming through cell phones, through computers, through the cable systems, through the satellite systems. They are not coordinated at all. We need a national system of alert and this is going to go toward that, starting it up.

The bulk of the money that they are taking is in protecting critical infrastructure and key assets. That is where $95 million is for the infrastructure vulnerability and risk assessment; $383.9 million for remediation for protective actions nationally. This is protecting the ports of New Jersey, of New York, of California, Florida, and even Alaska. But identifying the need for protection.

Why take that money out when we are just setting up the Department of Homeland Security and this is the basic money we need now? We need it now.

The Senators from New York and Pennsylvania want money to be there in case they need it if there is another national alert. There may not be one. But there is a need for this. The General Accounting Office insists the No. 1 responsibility of Congress is to deal with the vulnerability assessments of 15,000 chemical facilities and other similar assets around the country. Chemical facilities in particular, and the costs associated with protecting those chemical facilities, are essential to this homeland security.

I urge the Senate not to take this action. It will also go into the Science and Technology Directorate, taking money from the research and development capabilities of the entire Department of Homeland Security. The reduction would severely limit the university-based centers program.

As I said before, nearly every Senator has made a request. I have the list here, by the way. Here it is. These pages, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5--6 pages, single spaced, from Senators addressing this one particular account.

Senators, if you ask for this money and you expect to get it--we have not earmarked any money; isn't that correct?

There is no money earmarked. But money, as much as we could possibly put, is in the discretionary fund--and I think almost every Senator has asked for money in this area: Vulnerability protection, disaster assistance programs, homeland security initiative at the University of Washington, University of Nebraska. Maybe I should read them all, when we look at it: College of William and Mary, George Mason, VMI, Utah, LSU, Wichita, Montana State, Colorado, University of Delaware, Brown University, University of Rhode Island, University of Georgia, University of New York, SUNI Maritime College.

I could go on and on. Almost every college that has a capability of being involved in this assessment and determination of how to protect these facilities has asked to get involved. We could not do that. So we set up a fund and the Department will determine how many of these universities can lock together and give us the assessment that the General Accounting Office says is absolutely essential.

If you take the money for something that might happen, how are you going to know when it does happen?

This is the beginning of the homeland security assessment of threats and establishing an alert system. This amendment takes from both. I think that is absolutely wrong. I hope we will get other people to comment on this amendment. I understand the need. There is overwhelming need throughout the country for homeland security money.

I congratulate the chairman of the subcommittee, the distinguished Senator from Mississippi, for what he has done, along with his staff. They have

allocated it in a way that is really fair. These other amendments so far have been to add money beyond what we have available. This is taking money that has already been assigned by the committee and the subcommittee to a specific account and putting it in another account and saying it was shortchanged. But there is already money in that account. The account they are adding to already has in this bill $750 million. It had $850 million in the bill we passed earlier this year. That is enough. Compared to the rest of the demands in this country, that is enough for that fund.

I urge the Senate to disapprove this amendment.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry be allowed to conduct a business meeting during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 24, 2003. The purpose of this meeting will be to mark up H.R. 1904, the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 24, 2003, at 9:30 a.m., in open session to consider the nominations of General Richard B. Myers, USAF, for Reappointment as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and reappointment to the grade of General; and General Peter Pace, USMC, for reappointment as Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and reappointment to the grade of General.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 24, 2003, at 9:30 a.m. to hold a Africa Subcommittee Hearing on the Congo Basin Forest Partnership.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet for a hearing on Federal Biodefense Readiness during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 24, 2003 at 10:00 a.m. in SD-430.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a markup on Thursday, July 24, 2003, at 9:30 a.m. in Dirksen Room 226.

I. Nominations:

James O. Browning to be United States District Judge for the District of New Mexico;

Steven M. Colloton to be United States District Circuit Judge for the Eighth Circuit;

P. Kevin Castel to be United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York;

Sandra J. Feuerstein to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York;

Richard J. Holwell to be United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York;

H. Brent McKnight to be United States District Judge for the Western District of North Carolina;

R. David Proctor to be United States District Judge for the Northern District of Alabama;

Stephen C. Robinson to be United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York;

Rene Alexander Acosta to be Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, United States Department of Justice;

Daniel J. Bryant to be Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Policy, United States Department of Justice.

II. Bills:

S. J. Res. 1, A joint resolution proposing an amendment to the constitution of the United States to protect the rights of crime victims [Kyl, Chambliss, Cornyn, Craig, DeWine, Feinstein, Graham, Grassley];

S. 1301, The Video of Voyeurism Prevention Act of 2003 [DeWine, Schumer];

S. 1177, Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act [Hatch, Grassley, Kohl];

S. Con. Res. 40, Designating August 7, 2003, as ``National Purple Heart Recognition Day'' [Clinton, Biden, Chambliss, Durbin, Edwards, Feingold, Feinstein, Hatch, Kennedy, Kohl, Leahy, Schumer, Specter];

S. Res. 124, Designating September 28, 2003, as ``National Good Neighbor Day'' [Burns, Hatch, Kohl];

S. Res. 167, Recognizing the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Harley-Davidson Motor Company [Campbell, DeWine, Feingold, Kohl].

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 24, 2003 at 2:30 p.m. to hold a closed hearing.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on National Parks of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 24, 2003 at 3:00 p.m. The purpose of the hearing is to conduct oversight of the competitive sourcing effort within the National Park Service.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce and the District of Columbia be authorized to meet on Thursday, July 24, at 10:00 a.m. for a hearing entitled, ``Then and Now: An update on the Administration's Competitive Sourcing Initiative.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space and the House Subcommittee on Science and Space be authorized to meet on Thursday, July 24, 2003, at 10 a.m. on Space Commercialism.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Vote on Amendment No. 1346

Madam President, before the Senator leaves, I wish to say categorically that had I been the Vice President of the United States, based upon the intelligence briefings that I have participated in now for over 20 years, I would have made exactly the same statements the Vice President made.

I believe sincerely that the record of history shows clearly that Iraq has tried to acquire and did acquire nuclear capability in the past. The Israelis destroyed it once. We know he was trying again to reestablish them.

There is no question that he had weapons of mass destruction. He used

them on the Iranians. He used them on the Kurds. Gas is a weapon of mass destruction.

There is also no question at all that he had the vehicles to transport weapons of mass destruction. Why did he build the vehicles if he didn't have them?

This nit-picking at the language that was used--it was used, we now know, in error in terms of veracity as far as the reliance upon the concept of what the British had because it was later disclosed that one of the things they had was a forged document. Why did the United Nations, 17 times, ask to examine that country to find the weapons of mass destruction if the world did not believe he was after weapons of mass destruction, after he used them on the Iranians more than 15 years ago? They bombed the plant that absolutely had the reactor in it. And we knew he had weapons then.

I have to say that when we look at what has happened, when our troops went into those barracks after the war commenced, they found that the Iraqis had special masks to protect them against weapons of mass destruction. We don't have those kinds of weapons.

The Senator is a member of the Intelligence Committee. I am reliably informed that at a classified session yesterday he asked CIA Director George Tenet the very questions which he has asked on the floor, and he received the answers. Some of the Members don't like the answers, but they received them. Had Director Tenet took responsibility for a mistake in his agency--clearly he had problems about the way that document was handled and in terms of the speech.

This is the third time this has come up now on this bill. This amendment would fence the Community Management Agency of the CIA, one of the most important and vital works of the agency. It would take $50 million from them.

I am not going to do it now, but sometime in the future I am going to ask the Senator whether he believes that he never had weapons of mass destruction. Does he believe Iraq never had weapons of mass destruction? Does he believe there was no reason to go in there and do what we did?

The problem is this amendment standing alone would deny the following programs funding:

Assistant Director of the CIA to allocate their collection efforts against terrorists and other high-priority target activities. This is their central community program.

Talking about the intelligence community, one of them is the National Drug Intelligence Center's Analysis of Information for Narcotraffickers--a vital concept that deals with counterterrorism activities.

The second is the National Counterintelligence Oversight Analysis Assessment of Vulnerabilities to Foreign Intelligence Services.

The next is efforts to improve the intelligence community's expertise in foreign languages.

This was identified as the key unmet need by the joint inquiry that investigated the 9/11 activities.

Each of those programs is essential to our national security.

In order to make his point on this concept, the Senator again seeks to fence off $50 million for those vital activities. I hope the Senate listens to us about what he is willing to do in order to make this statement again.

I shall move to table this amendment. But, again, I have been asked this question many times personally at home by the press and by family friends. Some of us are exposed to intelligence at a very high level of Government. We can't come out and talk about it.

I noticed in the paper yesterday that some of our people because of this issue are starting to ``lip off'' about intelligence matters that should be classified. The Senate and the Congress should come back to order on that. We are allowed access to classified information--and to have us, because of some question about one phrase in the President's speech, suddenly decide that classification means nothing, is wrong, and it is not in the best interest of the United States.

Now, Senator Inouye and I have been involved in extremely classified information for years. As a matter of fact, at our request, there was what we call a ``tank'' built in our building so we could have those people come visit us and we would not have to go out and visit the CIA or the other intelligence agencies. And we do listen to them.

Based on everything I have heard--everything I have heard; and the two of us have shared the chairmanship of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, which is defense intelligence related, since 1981-- everything I have heard convinces me, without question, that Iraq tried to develop a program of weapons of mass destruction, and did, in fact, have weapons of mass destruction. And we were justified--just as the Israelis were over 15 years ago when they went in and bombed one plant--we were justified to go in and just absolutely disestablish that administration because it had rebuked the U.N. 17 times in terms of the attempt to locate those weapons of mass destruction and to do what Saddam Hussein agreed he would do after the Persian Gulf war. He agreed to destroy them. He admitted he had them. He agreed to destroy them. And we tried to prove he destroyed them. Now, what is all this question about whether he had them? Because he admitted he had them.

It is time we settle down and get back to the business of providing the money for the men and women in uniform around the world, and to ensure that the people who conduct our intelligence activities have the money to do what they have to do.

The extended debate on this floor about intelligence activities because of that one 17- or 16-word--I don't remember--the small phrase in the President's State of the Union message is starting to really have an impact on the intelligence-collecting activities of this country. We do not want to besmirch that. We have the finest intelligence service in the world. If someone made a mistake--and now it has been admitted there was a mistake; not in whether or not he was trying to put together his nuclear weapons program--the mistake was in reference to what the British did have; and it was later found that the foundation for what the British thought they had was a forged document.

Intelligence is absolutely essential to a nation that bases its capability to maintain peace on force projection, and we have to rely on many people to provide us information. Human beings make mistakes. God forbid that anyone would ever say because of one mistake we should harness the core efforts of our intelligence efforts and deny them the money this bill has for them to proceed until this commission, which the Senator wants to create, reports. I cannot believe we would delay the release of these funds for those reasons.

The ongoing efforts of the Intelligence Committee are known. The Senator is a member of the Intelligence Committee. We who are members of the Subcommittee on Defense Appropriations have access to everything they have access to, because we manage the money that finances the agencies they investigate. So there is a whole series of us here who have access to extremely classified information.

We classify it primarily because there are so many people involved that many lives might be in jeopardy if we disclose the sources of that information or we disclose the impact of that information in terms of the relationship to some of the programs we are funding today.

I urge the Senate to settle down. I urge the Senate to settle down. We do not need this continued debate about the words in that State of the Union message. That is history, and it is going to be examined in terms of politics in the future.

Now we had arranged the schedule this morning so we could conduct our business and still start the markup of four separate appropriations bills. I must be absent now as chairman of the committee for a period of time.

I move to table the Senator's amendment, and I ask unanimous consent that the vote on that occur at a time to be determined by the majority leader after consultation with the minority leader. At the time of the stacking of votes on this and other amendments, I shall seek approval for a recorded vote on this amendment.

Madam President, I have a motion to table. Has the motion to table been accepted by the Chair?

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the time for that vote be determined by the majority leader after consultation with the minority leader.

I have no objection if the Senator wishes to respond. I wish to get my motion to table on the record, and I am happy for the Senator to speak after that motion in relationship to the amendment. I have no problem with that. I just want to get my part of this business done so I can go chair that committee markup.

Is there an objection to my request that the motion to table vote be postponed until a time certain to be determined by the majority leader after consultation with the minority leader?

I am prepared to yield the floor, and you can talk as much as you want.

Will the Senator yield?

I would be prepared to make a request that after Senator Durbin makes his remarks there be a period for morning business during which the Senator from North Dakota may be able to speak for up to 30 minutes on a matter not related to this bill.

That is fine.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Wyoming have 10 minutes to speak on the bill, and following that time, the Senator from North Dakota have 30 minutes as in morning business, and following that the Senator from----

Minnesota.

Could it be that we agree to 30 minutes of debate pertaining to matters relating to this amendment, notwithstanding the motion to table has been made? Is that agreeable? That will give us enough time to get back.

It is roughly 11 o'clock.

Mr. President, I don't know what the Senate would do without the assistance of the distinguished Democratic whip. We have in history Light Horse Harry, and this is our ``Heavy Horse'' Harry. He does the heavy work around here, and we all appreciate him.

Will the Senator yield?

Mr. President, the Senator from Delaware is a pilot and I am a pilot, and we are quite interested in this subject. We have had fairly long discussions about C-5As and C-5Bs. As I have told my friend from Delaware, I have conferred at length with the Air Force, and the Air Force just does not want to have money earmarked solely for C-5As. They will agree, if we want to do so, to specifically state that this money we have in the bill can be used for C-5As or C-5Bs for the kits. Some of the C-5As may, in fact, be eligible for such new kits, making them, as the Senator would say, 21st century capable.

The Air Force, however, objects to this amendment because this amendment--the Senator from Delaware has not offered it yet, but the Senator from Delaware is considering it, and I have reviewed it--would take money from the overall account. It would, in fact, diminish the moneys that are available for C-17s and other procurement of aircraft.

We are more than willing to allow the Air Force to make the determination which C-5As should be modified by these kits, but, again, I have to state to my friend, we must oppose the concept of having this money taken from the procurement account for the purpose of modernizing the C-5s against the wishes of the Air Force.

There is a study underway, as I understand it, which may identify C- 5As that would be kept. I would even be willing to specify the money could be used for any of those planes that were designated in that mobility study to be eligible for the kits. But the Senator's amendment is still not acceptable.

I hope he will work with us and work with our staff in the remainder of the afternoon and see if we can work out something that is agreeable.

We have deterred from the regular order to which we agreed last night, and that was that Senator Byrd would offer the next amendment. So I hope my friend from Delaware will allow a distinguished senior Member of the Senate to proceed with his amendment, and we will try to work out some kind of accommodation with regard to the amendment of the Senator from Delaware.

I know Senator Biden is also very much involved. Perhaps between now and the time we return from the address to be given to us by the distinguished leader of the British Parliament, we can come to some satisfactory agreement with the Senator from Delaware.

Will the Senator yield to me for a question?

Will the Senator yield to me for a question?

Mr. President, with regard to the question of the Senator from Maryland, does the Senator from West Virginia know that yesterday I pointed out the report we have from the Congressional Research Service is that no President has ever asked for funds for war in advance? No Senate has ever appropriated moneys based upon contingencies, predictions of how much would be spent for war.

In the Balkan situation, President Clinton did send money for the peacekeeping operations following the conflict in the Balkans. But I am really informed--does the Senator realize no President has ever conducted war financing the way the amendment of the Senator would require the President to do it, if it were a legislative mandate?

Parenthetically, as part of that question, though, I wonder if the Senator understands, we are prepared to accept the Senator's amendment because it is a sense-of-the-Senate resolution which would indicate a request from the Congress that the President consider, in effect, to change that policy and submit a budget request in this instance which we are perfectly willing to support, to send to the President. But does the Senator realize, the statement of the Senator from Maryland indicates he thinks we should have before us now to include in the 2004 budget an amount that someone predicts will be necessary to fight a war when we don't know what the contingencies are, we don't know what the requirements are?

I wonder if the Senator heard the distinguished Senator from Hawaii yesterday when he explained his position as a platoon leader, and as a platoon leader if he had been asked how many grenades he was going to use in the next engagement, or how many rifle bullets he would need in the next engagement, or whether he could tell how much he would need for the next engagement so it could be passed on up to the President of the United States as to how much money we would need to conduct the war in Italy, it couldn't have been done. It can't be done now.

Does the Senator understand why we are opposing this? It is contrary to the tradition of the United States. And it is contrary to common sense to ask for a contingency budget request in the budget itself for operations considering what is going on in Iraq today. This could expand tomorrow or cease the next day. The contingency concept for a war like this cannot be predicted for a Presidential budget to be presented to the Congress. And it is presented 9 months before it goes into effect.

We are saying the President, in his submission in January, should give us a budget to tell us how much we will spend in a war and that the spending would commence at the start of the following October.

With due respect, does the Senator not agree that the problem we have here is to understand the President submitted this 2004 budget before the war began? How in the world can we expect the President to include in this 2004 budget request a request for expenses that may occur after October 1 of this year in terms of Iraq? Every President has financed those in the same way. Every single war has been financed the way this President is trying to finance this war.

I am asking that question of my friend from West Virginia. He has the floor. I would like to get into this debate some kind of a balance with regard to how we are doing it. The Senator has the right to send a request to the President saying it ``should'' be done in a different way. But to say it ``must'' be done a different way, we oppose.

Mr. President, the Senator is very kind. I have a whole lot of questions to ask. But I prefer to get on with the debate.

The only question to the Senator is that I would respectfully ask if he understands that we are willing to take the amendment as the Senator has drafted it because it seeks a change in policy and it is a sense-of-the-Senate resolution. We are seeking that change in policy.

Again, parenthetically, I believe the time may come when we have wars or postwar engagements of such magnitude that we should find a new way to budget contrary to past procedures.

But, again, I urge the Senator from Maryland to understand that history goes against the policy he has suggested.

I hope the Senator from West Virginia understands my feeling in terms of the way we are handling things now. Does the Senator realize there is $32 billion left from what we provided in the supplemental for the war in Iraq? It is no-year money. It is not money that would cease to be available after September 30. We gave the President $62.6 billion, and it was no-year money. It did not have to be spent by the end of September.

We have, in fact, appropriated money which, if this afterwar resistance--whatever it is--diminishes, should be enough money. We should not have to have another request.

That is the position this Senator takes. Does the Senator understand my position on that?

This will be my last interruption. Will the Senator yield to me for one other question?

Does the Senator recall that in the 2003 budget request President Bush asked for $10 billion for contingency operations for defense emergency response funds for Afghanistan, the war on terrorism, and the activities that were going on at that time, and that he and I joined together in denying that request? We denied the request because we did not believe we should appropriate moneys based upon a contingency request.

No. We turned it down in the omnibus, also.

The Senator was talking about the money we put in in January. That was money that already had been spent in Afghanistan and the war on terrorism. And we included those funds at that time in the omnibus bill. But we turned down the $10 billion for the contingency operation. I didn't like the defense emergency response fund. The Senator from West Virginia didn't like the defense emergency respond fund that just sits out there--a big pot of money which they can take money out of without telling us what they are going to spend it for.

We face two different problems: One is that we have a request in the budget for a big pot of money that they are going to spend any way they want when we have always requested that we get money based on how much expenses had actually been incurred in fighting an engagement.

Does the Senator disagree with that?

That is why we support the Senator's request. That is why the Senator's request for the sense-of-the-Senate resolution is imminently sensible. And I would like to follow that procedure. That is not the procedure we followed in the past. This President is following precedence in connection with the way he has, in fact, presented the budget for 2004 and the supplemental request for the war in Iraq.

I thank the Senator.

Will the Senator yield just for a clarification?

My staff informs me that the Senator has the numbers turned around. There were $15 billion, of which $4 billion have been used. We are certifying there are $11 billion left now.

The distinguished Senator from West Virginia still has

the floor. If he will let me respond, parenthetically, again, the Senator is correct, if the expenses continued at the rate of the expenditures for the months of June and July--the two 4 weeks just previously--the Senator is correct, the account was $3.9 billion a month for those operations. We do not consider that even today the activities are continuing at the same rate they were in the average per day for the last 4 weeks.

In addition to that, there is $45 billion in specific service accounts that are in fact going to be used in Iraq. So we are not dealing with something where there is no money provided. There is $45 billion in specific unit accounts where that money will be spent in Iraq. And it is an augmentation because of the Iraqi conditions.

Mr. President, the reliance of the Department of Defense on supplemental appropriations for contingency and peacekeeping operations began with the end of the last Persian Gulf War, and the introduction of United States military forces into the Balkans.

Excluding the costs of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the incremental costs of U.S. peacekeeping and contingency operations from fiscal year 1991 to 2003 total $36.8 billion.

Congress has debated and passed a supplemental appropriations bill for the Department of Defense every year from fiscal 1991 to the current fiscal year. The Congress has debated funding these operations from offsets within other discretionary programs, or from within the defense topline.

Beginning with the supplemental request of the Clinton Administration for fiscal year 1998 Congress has provided defense spending as an emergency or provided funding without offsets.

The Appropriations Committee attempted to mitigate the need for emergency supplementals by creating the Overseas Contingency Operations Transfer Fund in the defense bill, and the Clinton Administration still found it necessary to request emergency supplementals.

In March of fiscal year 1998, the Clinton Administration sought $1.9 billion for ongoing operations in Bosnia and Southwest Asia. In fact, the Senate considered an amendment to strip the emergency designation from those funds. That amendment was defeated 92 to 8.

Since the 105th Congress, supplemental defense appropriations have been provided as emergencies or without offsets. The Congress passed two supplemental defense bills in fiscal year 1999 totaling $19.1 billion.

The Senate will recall that the President requested a $10 billion contingency fund for the global war on terrorism as part of the fiscal year 2003 budget request.

The Congress rejected that request until the Administration could better define the costs of contingencies. Those funds were appropriated as part of the Omnibus Bill passed earlier this year.

The Clinton Administration was aware that operations in Southwest Asia and the Balkans were ongoing, yet chose not to fund fully those operations in the budget request. As I stated earlier, the Congress passed emergency supplementals for fiscal years 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2002.

The Congress has passed nine consecutive supplemental emergency defense appropriations without offsets.

Funding from the fiscal year 2003 supplemental was used to offset the difference between the President's budget request for fiscal year 2004 and the discretionary total in the budget resolution.

As operations progress in Iraq the Administration will better define contingency costs. That is the position taken by the Congress last year--and the approach to funding used by the Clinton Administration to fund peacekeeping in the Balkans.

The Appropriations Committee will examine the costs of operations in Iraq as they are identified. The Senate will have the opportunity to consider those costs in any necessary supplemental. That has been the approach to funding contingencies taken by this body for 6 years.

Mr. President, I would like to try out a unanimous consent request. There is pending my motion to table the Durbin amendment and there is pending the Byrd amendment. The Senator from West Virginia wishes to have a rollcall vote. Senator McConnell would like to have 5 minutes to speak before these votes commence.

I ask unanimous consent that we vote on the Durbin amendment following Senator McConnell's statement of not to exceed 5 minutes, and that is on or in relation to the amendment. I have made a motion to table that. After that, I ask that we have a vote on Senator Byrd's amendment, which I shall support. That will have everyone here in time to go and listen to the Honorable Tony Blair, if we can get started in a few minutes.

I support Senator Byrd's amendment because it is a sense-of-the- Senate resolution saying that any request for funds for the fiscal year for the ongoing operations in Afghan and Iraq should be included in the annual budget and that any such funds provided should be provided in the Appropriations Act for such fiscal year to appropriate specific accounts for such acts.

I support that concept. I do say what it really says to me is that the President's budget would contain an estimate of the costs for an ongoing operation and we would allocate the funding to the specific accounts subject to our approval of the estimates based upon specific hearings before our committee and listening to the representatives of the various services of the military. I think that makes eminent sense. It is a change of policy, in my judgment, and therefore it is a sense- of-the-Senate resolution seeking the President's concurrence in that policy.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Kentucky be recognized for 5 minutes and, following that, we vote on the amendment of Senator Durbin; and I ask that it be in order to ask for the yeas and nays on my motion to table the Durbin amendment.

I am willing to reverse that order. I modify the request and ask that the Senator from Kentucky speak for 5 minutes, and following that the vote on Senator Byrd's amendment, and following that there be a vote that would occur, with a limitation of 10 minutes, on my motion to table the Durbin amendment. Following the Durbin amendment, we will be walking down the hall to go over to a joint session of Congress.

Right.

Have the yeas and nays on Senator Byrd's amendment been ordered?

I ask for the yeas and nays on the Byrd amendment.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate resumes consideration of the Defense appropriations bill following the statement of the right honorable Mr. Blair, the Senator from West Virginia be recognized to offer another amendment.

Respectfully, that is sort of asking me the same thing as the contingency question. I am prepared to argue with the Office of Management and Budget and the White House that the procedures should be changed. After the initiation of war Congress should have estimates, as indicated by the Senator's amendment. Therefore, I support it. Whether we will be successful, God knows.

This is a 15-minute rollcall vote and will be followed by a 10-minute rollcall vote on the Durbin amendment. I urge Members to vote promptly so we may leave the body at 3:40 p.m. to listen to Mr. Blair.

I thank the Senator.

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

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business until the hour of 5 p.m., with Senators permitted to speak therein for not to exceed 1 minute each to comment on the historic speech we have just heard.

Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Idaho since his State was mentioned.