Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that William

Greer and Ryan Pratt of Senator Lott's office be granted the privilege

of the floor for the remainder of the day.

Mr. President, I ask that the Chair now lay before the

Senate a message from the House on H.R. 1474.

The Presiding Officer laid before the Senate the following message

from the House of Representatives:

Resolved, That the House disagree to the amendment of the

Senate to the bill (H.R. 1474) entitled ``An Act to

facilitate check truncation by authorizing substitute checks,

to foster innovative in the check collection system without

mandating receipt of checks in electronic form, and to

improve the overall efficiency of the Nation's payments

system, and for other purposes'', and ask a conference with

the Senate on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses

thereon.

Ordered, That the following Members be the managers of the

conference on the part of the House:

For consideration of the House bill and the Senate

amendment, and modifications committed to conference: Mr.

Oxley, Mr. Bachus, Mr. LaTourette, Ms. Hart, Mr. Tiberi, Mr.

Frank of Massachusetts, Mr. Sanders, and Mr. Ford.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate

insist on its amendment to the House bill, agree to a conference with

the House on the disagreeing votes, and the Chair be authorized to

appoint conferees at a ratio of 3 to 2.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate

proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 193, S. 764.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be

read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the

table, with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements

relating to this measure be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate

now proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 195, S. Res.

140.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the

resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to

reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or

debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the

Senate completes its business today, it stand in adjournment until 9:30

a.m., Wednesday, July 16. I further ask that following the prayer and

pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings

be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their

use later in the day, and the Senate then begin a period of morning

business, with the first 15 minutes under the control of the majority

leader or his designee and the next 15 minutes under the control of

Senator Mikulski or her designee, provided that following that time,

the Senate proceed to consideration of H.R. 2330, the Burma sanctions

bill, as provided under the previous order.

For the information of all Senators, at the leader's

request, following morning business, the Senate will take up H.R. 2330,

the Burma sanctions bill, under a 1-hour time agreement. Upon the use

or yielding back of that time, the Senate will resume consideration of

H.R. 2658, the Department of Defense appropriations bill. Under the

previous order, there will be up to 30 minutes equally divided in

relation to the Dorgan amendment and 40 minutes equally divided in

relation to the Bingaman amendment. Following the use or yielding back

of that time, the Senate will proceed to three stacked rollcall votes

related to the Dorgan amendment, the Bingaman amendment, and the Burma

bill.

Therefore, if all debate time is used, the first vote in tomorrow's

session will occur at approximately 12:10 p.m., and that vote will be

the first in a series of three stacked votes.

Following that series of votes, the Senate will resume consideration

of H.R. 2658, the Department of Defense appropriations bill. It is the

majority leader's intention to complete action on that bill tomorrow. I

share deeply that desire. Therefore, any Members who have amendments

are encouraged to contact either me, as the manager of the bill, or

Senator Inouye so that they can schedule the appropriate time for the

amendment's consideration. I also inform the Members that votes should

be expected throughout the day.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, we are ready to go on either bill. We are trying to assure the presence of the ranking members and chairmen of those subcommittees. I prefer to give you that information later today if I may.

Mr. President, we know of only two amendments so far that may come toward this bill. We would encourage Members to come forward and tell us if they are going to offer amendments. It would be our hope that we could proceed with this bill in a fashion that we could come to a final

conclusion tomorrow afternoon and vote on this bill tomorrow afternoon and take up one of the other bills so we can move these bills along. This bill came out of our committee unanimously. We have taken care of most of the amendments in our committee. We will cooperate with you in every way to give you advance notice on the votes. If we can find out the number of amendments that are coming, we might even be able to make arrangements that we would vote early tomorrow morning on the amendments on this bill and just have one vote on the executive calendar.

Mr. President, it is my privilege and honor once again to present to the Senate the Defense appropriations bill for fiscal year 2004. This bill reflects a bipartisan approach that Senator Inouye and I have tried to maintain during the time we have served together on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. It is always a great pleasure for me to work with him and with his staff member Charlie Houy. We believe we have a bill that will meet the approval of the Senate with very few amendments.

This bill was reported out of the full Appropriations Committee on July 9 by a unanimous vote; 29 Senators voted in favor of it and no Senator objected to it. We have sought to recommend a balanced bill to the Senate. We believe it addresses the key requirements for readiness, quality of life, and the reconstitution of our military force.

While we are debating this bill on the floor today, there are hundreds of thousands of men and women in uniform forward deployed and serving our country abroad. They are performing superbly and we are proud of what they are accomplishing.

The Department of Defense now faces three critical and often competing challenges:

First, conducting simultaneous combat and near-combat operations in numerous theaters at the same time--Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Kosovo, to name a few. We have forces spread throughout the world, deployed in more areas and in more strange circumstances than at any time in the history of this country;

Secondly, keeping the readiness of this force at high levels, ready to respond when called upon to carry out the global war on terrorism, is another great challenge;

Lastly, transforming the Department to meet future challenges. We must ensure that our military forces are ready to meet whatever lies ahead as we move through the 21st century.

Transformation is necessary to ensure that U.S. forces continue to operate from a position of overwhelming military advantage.

Transformed forces are also essential for deterring conflict, dissuading adversaries, and assuring others of our commitment to a peaceful world.

This bill Senator Inouye and I present today reflects a prudent balance among all three of these challenges. It recommends $368.6 billion in discretionary budget authority programs for the Department of Defense. This is $3.2 billion below the President's request but within our 302(b) allocations for the Defense subcommittee.

As the Senate will recall, we completed action on a $62.6 billion Iraq supplemental appropriations bill for the Department of Defense in mid-April. This bill rescinds $3.157 billion of those supplemental funds that are not currently required by the Department.

This measure is fully consistent with both the objectives of the administration and the Senate-passed 2004 National Defense authorization bill.

It honors the commitments we have to our Armed Forces. It helps ensure that they will continue to have good leadership, first-rate training, modernized equipment, and quality infrastructure. It also fully funds key readiness programs critical to the global war on terrorism.

These recommendations will make continued progress in supporting our military personnel, their families, and modernizing the force. As always, those are our first priorities.

In highlighting several of the key initiatives, I note the following:

This bill funds an average military pay raise of 4.15 percent and provides $210 million to fund increases in family separation allowances and imminent danger pay.

It does not recommend consolidation of Guard and Reserve personnel appropriations with their respective active component appropriations.

For the Army, it is additional funding for their transformation initiative--the Stryker brigade combat teams.

For the Navy, additional submarine refuelings, advance procurement of LPD-23, and fully funding the last increment of the LHD-8.

For the Air Force, it is fully funding the C-17 aircraft and funding acquisition of 22 F-22 Raptor aircraft.

In light of the contributions of the Guard and Reserve forces and deployments to the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Iraq, this bill adds $700 million of nondesignated equipment funding--specifically for the Reserve components.

The proposal before the Senate funds the President's request for missile defense.

Finally, let me once again thank my cochairman, Senator Inouye, for his support and friendship and invaluable counsel on this bill. I urge the Chair to recognize him for any statement he wishes to make.

Mr. President, there is a substitute amendment at the desk and I ask for its consideration. For the information of all Senators, the amendment is the text of the Senate-reported bill.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, just before I left the floor, I asked that the substitute amendment, which is the text of the Senate-reported bill, be reported. I now ask unanimous consent that the Senate adopt this amendment, make it original text for the purpose of further amendment, and the usual boilerplate language that goes along with that. But I would like to proceed at that point, and I do have Senator Byrd's concurrence on this at this time.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I understand the Senator from New Mexico wishes some time.

Mr. President, I have now served with 11 Directors of Intelligence during my tenure as a Senator. I think I have known each of them personally. In fact, my roots in connection with the intelligence process go back to World War II when I flew an OSS plane into China frequently, and I have had a great deal of interest in the CIA and its operations.

I have learned in that timespan that intelligence--good intelligence--is essential to force projection and protection of our Nation. Unfortunately, we cannot publish a list of the numerous occasions in which men and women in the intelligence community have literally saved the lives of U.S. military and civilian personnel. Sometimes I wish we could tell the whole story. It would put into better perspective the few mistakes the intelligence community sometimes makes.

However, mistakes in interpreting intelligence data can and will be made. The CIA has not often admitted blame for serious mistakes. Taking responsibility has not been their strong suit in the past, and I have not always been happy with the information the CIA has produced.

In working with the intelligence chief, George Tenet, to fully disclose information we have needed to determine proper funding levels in our Appropriations Committee for programs and projects he oversees, I can assure the Senate he has always been fair, just, and open with us.

Mr. Tenet is responsible for the accuracy of intelligence information his agency provides to the President and the Congress, and he has now acknowledged the CIA's error in interpreting data relating to the President's State of the Union comment about Iraq.

For this I think he should be commended, and that is why I have come to the floor: to commend him for his action. Few in this town often take the clear path to acknowledge error. The intelligence and defense committees are rightly investigating the events leading up to this mistake, but I am hopeful that as the Congress and the executive branch proceed to determine how this mistake occurred, all realize that those of us who work with him on a daily basis, including the President, trust and rely on George Tenet and are ready to defend him as a good man and excellent DCI and a man of intelligence, honesty, and candor.

Mr. President, 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 have been conferring with our staff, with Senator Inouye's staff, and with Senator Inouye. We request any Member who wants to present an amendment for inclusion in a managers' package to disclose that amendment to us by 3 tomorrow afternoon. We make that request because we do have the necessity of having full disclosure of what is in that package. It is often easier to handle some of these very small amendments that move money from one place to another or have a particular interest for one post or one military establishment or another, and we prefer to handle it in the way of offering those as one series of amendments in a managers' package if we can.

We cannot do that unless people come forward and contact us. We have knowledge of several Members who have small amendments of that type, and we wish them to know at this time that in order to get this package cleared in advance with Senator McCain and others we want to have those disclosed to us by 3 tomorrow or the Members will be compelled to offer the amendments individually.

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 send an amendment to the desk for Senator Inhofe to make available from amounts available for research, development, test and evaluation, Air Force, $4 million for cost- effective composite materials for manned and unmanned flight structures.

I also send to the desk an amendment for Senator Dodd to increase the

amount of Army RDT&E funds available for the broad area unmanned responsive resupply operations aircraft program.

I also send an amendment to the desk by Senator Snowe to set aside Navy operation maintenance funds for the Navy Pilot Human Resources Call Center in Cutler, ME.

I also send an amendment to the desk for Senator Breaux to make available from amounts available for research, development, test and evaluation, Navy, $4 million for Navy integrated manufacturing development.

I ask unanimous consent that they be considered en bloc.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendments be agreed to en bloc.

I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, this is an example of some of the amendments that we are trying to process as quickly as possible. They have been referred to Members involved, including Senator McCain. They have been cleared for action. I urge Members of the Senate to come forward if they have such amendments so we might be able to dispose of them this afternoon.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, for the leader, I ask unanimous consent that at 5:30 today the Senate proceed to executive session and an immediate vote on the confirmation of Calendar No. 293, Samuel Der- Yeghiayan, of Illinois to be a U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Illinois, without further intervening action or debate; provided further that immediately following that vote, Calendar No. 292, Robert Brack, to be a U.S. District Judge for the District of New Mexico, be confirmed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table. Finally, I ask unanimous consent that following that action, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action and the Senate resume legislative session.

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 ask unanimous consent that there now be a period for the transaction of morning business until the hour of 5:30 p.m., with Senators permitted to speak therein for not to exceed 5 minutes each.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Aaron Ver, an intern for the Defense appropriations subcommittee, be granted privileges of the floor for the duration of the consideration of this bill.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Eugene Moran, a fellow serving in Senator Cochran's office, be granted floor privileges during the consideration of this Defense appropriations bill.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Kathryn Kolbe, a legislative fellow in the office of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, be granted floor privileges during the consideration of the Defense appropriations bill.

Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Mikulski, I ask unanimous consent that Michael Hadley, a defense fellow in her office, be granted the privilege of the floor during consideration of H.R. 2658, the Defense appropriations bill.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent, on behalf of Senator McCain, that a legislative fellow, Navy CDR Edward Cowan, be granted the privilege of the floor during the consideration of H.R. 2658, the Defense appropriations bill.

Mr. President, there are 15 minutes on the motion of the Senator from Alabama to strike. He will have 7\1/2\ minutes, and the other 7\1/2\ minutes will be under my control.

First, I would like to see if the distinguished Democratic whip would like to make some comments. I do have a motion to make.

I ask unanimous consent that the modification I send to the desk to amendment No. 1201, offered by Senator Reid and myself and Senator Feinstein, previously agreed to, be modified pursuant to this amendment, and I ask unanimous consent that the following technical modification to amendment No. 1206, offered by myself and Senator Landrieu, be further modified by the language at the desk.

These amendments were modified on the floor, and last evening we discovered they had to be perfected, so I ask unanimous consent.

The Senator has 7\1/2\ minutes.

Mr. President, I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Maryland, and 4 minutes to the Senator from Missouri.

Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. President, I regret deeply the necessity to move to table the motion of the Senator from Alabama. There has been a serious mistake in this program, and these young people were notified they would be enrolled in August and September.

The statements made on both sides are absolutely correct. Both sides have

a point; that is, this should not have happened. But it did happen, and we felt compelled to keep the commitment to those people who were told they would be enrolled and to put up the money so they will be enrolled for the school year that starts in September.

I do hope the Senate understands we will do everything possible to prevent this from happening again. I commend the Senator from Maryland and the Senator from Missouri for their diligence in finding out what happened and for bringing this to our attention, but there is no other way than to keep the commitment we have made and to see to it that AmeriCorps does continue to enroll these people. The enrollment for next year, as I understand it, will be at the authorized level of 50,000. I think that is the problem, to make certain that does not happen again.

Mr. President, I move to table the amendment. I believe the yeas and nays have been ordered; is that correct?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order to ask for the yeas and nays at this time on the bill itself.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order to ask for the yeas and nays on the military construction bill which will later be before the Senate.

Mr. President, I do ask for the yeas and nays on the military construction bill.

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, what is the pending business?

Mr. President, this will be a 10-minute vote; is that correct?

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, for the information of the Senate, it is my intention to ask the majority leader to

bring the Defense appropriations bill before the Senate on Monday. That will be announced later, I hope. We hope we can have the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee bill, then the Labor appropriations bill, then the Homeland Security bill considered next week by the Senate.

I thank the Senate for their cooperation on this bill. This is another 10-minute vote; is that correct, Mr. President?

Will the majority leader yield for a question? Could we get an agreement now that the amendments that are to be presented to the legislative branch bill be presented tonight, the debate finish tonight, and we will vote tomorrow on them--not have any rollcall votes tonight but have all the amendments be brought before us tonight and the arguments start and we will schedule the votes for tomorrow morning?

I know there are several Members who have talked to me and they have other events. This is sort of surprise. We are trying to get the bill finished by tomorrow. If the leader would agree, we would get consent that all amendments must be filed and we will debate them tonight-- however late it takes--and vote on them tomorrow.

Mr. President, we are awaiting the Senator from Nevada.

Let me state for the Senate that it would be my intention to move to close debate and consideration of any further amendments to title I and title II following the statements of the two managers of the bill. We have no notice of any amendments by any Member wishing to offer to title I or title II. Title III is the portion of the bill that contains the supplemental provisions and that will be open to debate.

We will later ask consent that all amendments and all motions to title III be offered tonight and debated tonight with the votes to occur on any matters which will be brought to a vote tomorrow morning. That is not the agreement yet but that is the agreement we will seek.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, if the distinguished Senator from Nevada would allow us, we just put out the hotline on both sides. I want to make sure no one has objections until we get final consent.

Mr. President, we have not had any response to the request concerning title I and title II. So at this time, I ask unanimous consent that title I and title II be considered closed and not be available for amendments or motions or points of order or any action at all as we consider the rest of this bill. That leaves title III which is the supplemental portion available completely for consideration of the Senate.

Mr. President, I call to the attention of the Members of the Senate that in this bill we have before us now--the House bill, as amended by the Senate bill--we have title III which deals with supplemental emergency appropriations for 2003.

In this bill is $1.550 billion for the Department of Homeland Security for disaster response. It is estimated that the disaster relief fund will exhaust its current funding by the end of this month, July 2003, in part due to the 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.

There is also a NASA provision that provides an additional $50 million for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. These funds will cover additional and unanticipated costs associated with the recovery and investigation of the Space Shuttle Columbia accident, such as collection and reconstruction of the orbiter Columbia, and computer analyses of potential failure scenarios and impact testing of space shuttle wing components.

We also have an amount in this bill for firefighting. We ask the Senate to provide an additional $253 million to the Forest Service for wildland fire suppression and emergency rehabilitation of burned areas to ensure sufficient funding for the 2003 fire season.

We also ask for an additional $36 million for the Bureau of Land Management for wildland fire suppression and emergency rehabilitation of burned areas to assure that sufficient funding is available for the 2003 fire season.

These funds will bring the total fiscal year 2003 funding available for wildlife suppression to a level equal to the 10-year average, which includes the severe 2002 fire season.

I am on notice there are several amendments we will be considering. I ask my friend and colleague from West Virginia if he has any opening statement to make concerning the supplemental request in this bill?

I thank the Senator.

I know the Senator from Nevada has an amendment I join in offering. I remarked today at the hearing that we had in the Appropriations Committee on the Interior appropriations bill, 2.2 million acres of my State burned last year. We have a series of very devastating fires going already. One of the worst problems we have is the infestation of insects in trees that now have been dead for a couple of years. If a fire starts in those areas now, we will have a catastrophe of unknown size. I join the Senator from Nevada in offering an amendment to provide additional funds to deal with fire prevention as well as the firefighting amendments we have in the bill already.

I yield to the Senator from Nevada.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Nevada for sending the amendment of Senator Feinstein at my suggestion. The amendment will make money available for a fund that is depleted. That fund is available under this amendment to fulfill the request or attempt to fulfill the request of the Governor of any State to deal with the trees that are dead or dying because of infestation of these beetles. They are not all the same types of beetles but the result is the same. Dead timber is nothing but fuel for an enormous fire, if one gets started in the area of that. That happened in what we call the Millers' Reach fire north of Anchorage. I personally watched it from a helicopter. The sinuosity of that fire just followed right through the dead areas. Then it came back to burn the whole area. Once it started, the fire just kept burning out.

I think the answer is to try to deal with the dead trees as quickly as possible and protect particularly the developed areas as much as possible from these areas. This amendment will allow Governors of any State to request funds to deal with that. Again, this is 2003 money. We are not talking about an enormous sum. This is money for the balance of this year. We hope the bills for 2004 that will come before the Senate later will adequately cover all those items. I join the Senator from Nevada and hope the Senate will approve this amendment. I ask for its consideration.

If the Senator would check with her staff, I have already cleared her amendment with regard to moneys to go into that account in a similar way we have done for this beetle problem.

I ask for adoption of the amendment.

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.

Amendment No. 1200, As Modified

Mr. President, I am informed this amendment has been discussed with the Department of Education and at this time, the best I can say is I am willing to accept the amendment and take it to conference. This is the first time we have seen the amendment, and it is somewhat complicated. But it goes to a point I understand Secretary Paige has discussed with the Senator from Iowa and it does affect three States. I cannot commit that it will absolutely come out of conference, but I will do my best to hold it. Right now, not having any further information than I have just received, I believe it is worthy of the Senate adopting the amendment so we can take it to conference. And we will work with the Senator from Iowa if there are any comments that come from the administration in the meantime.

I urge that the amendment be accepted.

Mr. President, there is still $330,000 left in this account. It is a strange account. There has been extraordinary activity in this account because of the tornadoes that hit the Midwest this year. That is why it is now depleted. There is $60 million in the 2004 bill which will be coming before the Senate next week.

We are dealing with a question of how much money might be needed for prevention in the period between the time this bill is enacted and signed, which we hope will be sometime before the end of this month. At most, we are dealing with 8 weeks of money that might be called upon on the basis of a Governor's request and a Presidential declaration of disaster in taking preparatory steps to prevent further damage.

Again, I am on notice that at least two other Senators intend to ask for similar money. I am told by the people who handle this money that the most that could be used is $10 million. I am prepared to offer an amendment--I will do it or ask the Senator from Louisiana to offer it-- that will put $10 million in this fund to remain available for expenditure. That means, if it is not used in 2003, it will carry over to 2004.

Right now there are no demands, obviously, because there is still some money in the account. In order to be safe, we are willing to ask for an additional amount of $10 million for this fiscal year, 2003.

I inquire, does the Senator want to offer an amendment for $10 million or shall I offer it?

Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

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

Mr. President, this is for the Corps of Engineers flood control

and coastal emergencies fund. It will be available immediately upon the signature of the President.

This bill does have a clause that makes funds in this bill, title III, immediately available to the President for disbursing.

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 shall in a moment make a motion to table the Senator's motion to strike. I want to make sure, before the Senator leaves, that we have an understanding that after having made that motion to table, I shall move to set that motion aside until tomorrow morning, at which time I will ask for 10 minutes equally divided on my motion to table, to be divided in the usual form, which would mean that the Senator from Alabama would have half that time.

I do not make that motion yet because the Senator from Maryland wishes to speak.

There would be 5 minutes. I am opposed, so I would be in control of 5 minutes, and I would be sure to allow the Senator from Maryland to have a portion. I would think Senator Bond might have a portion. I would have a minute, and you each would have 2 minutes. You can speak at length tonight.

Does the Senator wish more than that time tomorrow morning?

We will assure the Senator has 3 minutes.

We will do that.

Madam President, I now move to table the motion to strike filed by the Senator from Alabama. I ask unanimous consent that my motion be temporarily set aside and that the Senate resume consideration of my motion on Friday at a time to be determined by the majority leader after consultation with the Democratic leader.

I further ask unanimous consent that there then be 15 minutes for debate equally divided in the usual form with not less than 3 minutes of that time being available to the Senator from Maryland and that there be no other amendments in order.

I ask for the yeas and nays on the motion to table.

Madam President, I know of no future amendments, unless there is one that has come from the other side. I inquire if there are any other amendments to be filed this evening.

The inquiry is, Why can't we finish tonight? We can't finish tonight because we have a large number of Senators involved in the Judiciary Committee consideration of the asbestos problem. We have been asked not to have the votes. But we have agreed to have them tomorrow morning as early as possible. That would be determined by the leader.

We are at the place where I am inquiring whether there are any further amendments to be offered.

Amendment No. 1201, As Modified

I saw that myself. I was about ready to do that.

Madam President, it is my understanding that the amendment is offset completely and it would be appropriate to consider it at the present time.

Madam President, it is my understanding that this amendment is offset by transferring money from the Commodity Credit Corporation.

I have no objection.

I, too, will do everything I can to support this critical work as we draft the Fiscal Year 04 Energy and Water Development Act.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

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

Madam President, at this time, I think that completes the amendments we know exist for this bill. And I ask the bill be temporarily set aside now so we may move to----

Madam President, I do ask unanimous consent that no further amendments be in order to the pending bill.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be temporarily set aside so we may proceed to the consideration of the military construction bill.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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