[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 163 (Saturday, December 17, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S13953-S13956]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION CONFERENCE REPORT

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I wish to talk about a different bill, a 
bill we thought was finally put to bed yesterday. When we say ``put to 
bed,'' what we conferees mean is the conference is over and that all of 
the members of the conference have signed the conference sheets, the 
signature sheets which signify that document that is attached to those 
sheets is the final version and that then will be presented to both 
Houses for their consideration.
  Senator Warner came to the Chamber last night to express his dismay 
with what we understand now has happened in the House, and that is that 
the House leadership is apparently toying with the idea, considering 
the possibility of trying to insert in that conference report a totally 
unrelated bill that is not part of either the House or the Senate 
Defense authorization bill, which is totally unrelated to the subject 
matter of the Defense Authorization Act.
  To me, it is not important what the substance of the bill is that the 
House Republican leadership wants to attach. The principle is 
important. The principle is one of the fundamental principles under 
which we operate in this body and in this Congress, and that is, once a 
conference report is agreed to, once those signature sheets have been 
attached, nothing can just be inserted, unless, of course, the 
conference report is rejected or the report is referred back to 
conference.
  There are rules that the House gets the conference report first, and 
that allows that body to return a conference report for further 
consideration. But what is happening here is not that there was going 
to be a conference report taken up in the House with a motion to refer 
back to conference to consider other material. Here, apparently, from 
what we understand, the House leadership was attempting to find some 
way to add significant legislation to a conference report on which the 
signature sheet had already been signed by all of us.
  Senator Warner came to the Chamber last night to express his dismay 
with this process. As always, Senator Warner is extraordinarily 
honorable. For him, it is not important what the subject matter of this 
added legislation is. It is the principle involved. It is the process 
involved. We cannot possibly operate under a procedure where after a 
conference is over and the signature sheets are signed that then there 
is an effort made without, I guess, the body reopening the conference 
by sending it back to conference for reconsideration but just simply 
looking for a mechanism to add legislation to a conference report which 
had already been signed.
  Senator Warner said something last night that I concur in 1,000 
percent. In fact, everything he said last night I concur in 1,000 
percent because he is a Senate man. He is an institution man. He loves 
this institution. And the idea that we could have a process where a 
conference report is signed and then, somehow or other, through some 
mysterious mechanism or means, additional legislation is added to it 
without that conference being reorganized and the House, the first body 
that receives this conference report, referring it back to conference, 
is a totally unacceptable process.
  The chairman of our committee, Senator Warner, last night said he was 
not going to accept this process. He would filibuster his own bill if 
it contained material we had not considered and was now showing up in a 
conference report. And I would join him in that filibuster. He would 
exercise the rules of this body to ask the Chair to rule that there is 
out-of-scope material in this conference report, and I would join him 
in asking the Chair to make such a ruling.
  This is separate and apart from whether he or I agree with the 
material which was proposed to be added. By the way, for whatever 
relevance it has, I think probably both of us would be inclined to 
support the material which was intended to be added if it ever came to 
the floor in a proper way. I don't want to commit myself to that 
position because I haven't seen the actual material proposed to be 
added, but what I know of the subject matter, it would be the type of 
change in our law which I probably would support and, without speaking 
for Senator Warner, I think he is probably inclined to support, too. 
That is not the issue. We can't treat our colleagues that way. This is 
a controversial matter which is proposed to be added. There is a very 
strong debate over the subject matter.

  Regardless of what our position is, as the chairman and ranking 
member of this committee, we cannot bring back from the conference a 
document which contains material which had never been discussed in 
conference, never the subject of debate in either the House or the 
Senate, was not in the House or the Senate bill, and is totally 
nongermane to the subject matter of the conference report.
  We all know there are items added to conference reports that were not 
in either bill. That happens. But under our rule, the only way it now 
happens is if it is material to which everybody agrees. It cannot be 
material which is not in agreement by the Members of the two bodies. We 
cannot possibly, as a matter of principle, have a process where a 
conference report comes back containing material not germane, not 
relevant, not material to the conference, not the subject of either 
bill that passed either House, and which is added after the signature 
sheets have been signed.
  I wanted to come to the Chamber and say what has happened because we 
heard this effort was being considered--just being considered--by the 
House Republican leadership. Senator Warner and I asked our staff to go 
over to the House and retrieve our signature sheets.
  Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. LEVIN. I will be happy to yield.
  Mr. REID. Through the Chair to the distinguished ranking member of 
the Armed Services Committee, I already gave some remarks on the Senate 
floor last night about my admiration for the chairman of the Armed 
Services Committee. My admiration of the senior Senator from Virginia 
is a volume. I think John Warner is what a Senator is all about, and I 
said that last night.
  I say to my friend from Michigan, I have served in legislative bodies 
a long time. I have been in public service for more than 40 years. And 
my respect for the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee is 
equal to that of the senior Senator from Virginia. There is no better 
Senator than Carl Levin from Michigan--not today or ever. He is one of 
the best ever.
  The working relationship between Senator Warner and Senator Levin is 
what the Senate should be. But I want to say that what is going on in 
this Congress is absolutely untoward. We have a Defense appropriations 
bill that will fund the military, some $450 billion, that is being held 
up by sticking onto that bill drilling in Alaska, drilling oil wells in 
Alaska.
  There is a place for that legislation, but it should not hold up this 
bill, as it has been. As Lord Acton said, ``Power tends to corrupt, and 
absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely.'' That is what we have a 
study of in here: The absolute power of the Republicans controlling the 
White House, the House, and the Senate is leading to a corrupt 
Congress.
  To think that the rules mean nothing, throw them aside, let us change 
them today, we are going to put something on the Defense appropriations

[[Page S13954]]

bill. The other aspect of the Defense authorization bill is taking care 
of our men and women who are fighting for us. It does things such as 
taking care of pensions, changes in pay and equipment that the 
appropriations bill funds, which is what the Senator from Michigan and 
John Warner have done.
  I saw the chairman of the Armed Services Committee as I was leaving 
the House yesterday, the distinguished House Member from the San Diego, 
CA area, whom I served with, Duncan Hunter. I asked, how are we coming 
on this? He said, it is done, it is just like this. One could not see 
the line between his fingers.
  Then we come back over here and it is not done. They are trying to 
stick into this some type of campaign finance reform. Think about that. 
ANWR on the Defense appropriations bill and campaign finance in the 
Defense authorization bill. What is this Congress turning into?
  It is almost Christmas and we cannot get our work done. The 
intelligence authorization bill--we have people giving these patriotic 
speeches about all the things that need to be done. We cannot do the 
intelligence authorization bill. That is the bill that directs our 
intelligence-gathering activities in America. Why? Because they will 
not let us talk about Abu Ghraib and what has gone on in the military 
prisons around the world. They will not let us do it, so they are not 
going to do the bill--they meaning the Republican leadership.
  People complain about appropriations bills having stuff in them that 
they should not. Well, anybody who has any thought of an appropriations 
bill being pork, wait until the scope of conference changes.
  The distinguished Presiding Officer of the Senate at this time has 
told me--and I have heard him give public speeches--about how he thinks 
there should not be extraneous things in appropriations bills. Well, I 
say to my distinguished friend, who is a medical doctor and extremely 
intelligent, if you cannot see the incongruity of allowing ANWR to be 
placed on an appropriations bill, then you are a lot less intelligent 
than I think you are. How could anybody allow this to happen?
  Then the final thing I will mention briefly is the PATRIOT Act. The 
PATRIOT Act yesterday was brought to this Senate in the form of a 
conference report. A group of Democrats and Republicans felt the bill 
that passed the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously, came to the 
Senate floor and passed unanimously and was taken to that place across 
the aisle, the House of Representatives, the other body, and came back 
here a different animal, is now a different bill. It was not the same 
thing. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved it unanimously and it 
was approved unanimously in the Senate. It was different legislation.
  That is why human rights and civil rights groups on the right and the 
left politically opposed it. We did the right thing. We want the 
PATRIOT Act to be extended for 3 months to see if Senator Specter and 
Senator Leahy can work something out so that the problems with it--and 
there are significant problems--can be worked out.
  I do not appreciate insinuations and intimations that those people 
who opposed cloture yesterday were unpatriotic. I am opposed to 
terrorists as much as anybody in this country. I voted for the first 
PATRIOT Act and I am glad I did. We sunsetted certain things in that 
first PATRIOT Act because we were pushed, because of the events of 9/
11, to get the law changed so we could go after terrorists better than 
we did. So do not come and give lectures about someone being more 
patriotic than others and understanding the terrorists more than 
others. Everyone in this Senate, Democrat and Republican, is patriotic 
and opposes terrorists, these evil people around the world. We want to 
do everything we can to defeat terrorists, but we want to do it 
recognizing that we in America live by a document called the U.S. 
Constitution that directs what we do.
  We can have security and we can have liberty at the same time. When 
we start saying security is more important than the liberties of the 
American people, this country is in trouble.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Graham). The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask a question of the Senator before 
he yields the floor.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I reclaim my time to the floor if I have 
any time remaining.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. LEVIN. In that case I will not reclaim my time.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I ask the distinguished Democratic leader--he is a 
great and skilled advocate, and I know everybody is a bit frustrated at 
the end of the session, but I do not think he meant to accuse the 
distinguished Senator Cochran and the members of the Appropriations 
Committee, who have reached a little different conclusion than he 
would, of being corrupt. He used that word twice. Perhaps it is 
important for us to recognize that there are a lot of disagreements 
around here.
  Mr. REID. I would be happy to respond to my friend. I respond this 
way: Corruption is more than money corruption. There is intellectual 
corruption. The point I was making with the distinguished Senator from 
Oklahoma, who I care a great deal about, is that people do not like the 
appropriations process because there is too much money being spent on 
extraneous matters that they feel are unimportant, such as a swimming 
pool in Sparks, NV, or something such as that. I am saying if you do 
not like that, then you are going to hate the process after this 
precedent is overruled and you can put anything you want in an 
appropriations bill. There would be no scope of conference and that is 
what I said and that is what I meant.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I want to respond. First, I think it is 
unfortunate when somebody is in the chair that such a statement was 
made without thankfully someone else being in the Chamber to allow me 
the opportunity to respond to it.
  There is a lot wrong with the process in the Senate and I am sure the 
distinguished Senator from Nevada probably has an intellectual heads-up 
on me. I do not doubt that. But what is wrong is deception, not policy 
changes, and you have never heard this Senator say anything about 
problems with putting policy riders on appropriations bills.
  What I have been very clear about from the day I arrived in the 
Senate is that there should not be earmarks that are used in 
politically beneficial ways for individual Members of the body because 
what that does, in fact, is put the country second and us first. It 
puts the next election ahead of the next generation.
  To equate that with policy changes that go along and use my position 
as somebody who is fighting hard to change the appropriations process 
and to use me as an example, because you may not at this time be 
happy--I am not happy we are here, I am not happy that anything gets 
stuck on anything, but I also recognize the history of things that have 
gone on in this body and the other body and how at the end of a session 
things get tacked on to lots of things.
  I will not be used, nor will I allow my position to be used, to wedge 
other people into thinking I am inconsistent, and I will defend 
that. My consistent criticism of the appropriation process is on 
earmarks and on earmarks alone and us living within the amount of 
moneys we have and not using the earmark process to advantage your own 
political career.

  I want to make sure everybody in this country understands that what 
you are talking about is something wholly different than that. This is 
policy. I am not happy about any additional spending that is not paid 
for, I don't care what bill it comes through, and I have made it very 
clear to my leadership, on any bill that comes out of this end-of-the-
year process.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, reclaiming my time, I say through the Chair 
to the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma, first of all, I thought I 
was complimenting the Senator from Oklahoma. If I did not, I apologize. 
I thought explaining--maybe some people watching this don't know that 
you are a medical doctor. I also would say to my distinguished friend 
that when someone is presiding and their name is mentioned, they always 
have the capacity to speak, not as a Presiding Officer but as a 
Senator. So you would have every right to respond if I said something 
with which you disagreed.
  I would say this. The reason I think you should check out what I said 
is

[[Page S13955]]

that, under the present rules, you cannot put policy on appropriations 
bills. It is only for money matters. The Senator said he doesn't object 
to policy matters on appropriations bills. I do because right now it is 
not within the scope of the rules. That is what they are attempting to 
change here, and I think it is wrong.
  I say, Mr. President, if I in any way embarrassed the Senator from 
Oklahoma or said something that offended him, I apologize because I 
certainly didn't mean to do that. I thought just the opposite, I was 
trying to compliment him. Maybe I need a lesson in how to compliment 
people, but that is what I was trying to do.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I would tell the Senator from Nevada I 
take no personal offense but would also state there hasn't been an 
appropriations bill coming out of this body in 20 years that hasn't had 
policy changes directed and attached to it. They all do. If you 
seriously look at them, there are policy directions on every one of 
them because the Congress spends all its time appropriating rather than 
authorizing--the very issue the Senator from Michigan is talking about. 
Consequently, this year we are going to appropriate $190 billion on 
items that are not even authorized.
  The Senator from Nevada is gracious. I wanted to make sure my point 
was clear on my position in terms of earmarks and spending. I don't 
like this process any better than he does, but I am willing to do what 
we need to do for our country to get it done. I don't want us to 
corrupt the process, but I will tell you that the process needs to 
completely be revised in terms of appropriations. We should never be in 
this position that we find ourselves today.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  Mr. REID. Through the Chair to the distinguished Senator from 
Oklahoma, one reason I got on this subject is you were quoted 
yesterday--actually, it is now Saturday--you were quoted the day before 
yesterday saying:

       It's wrong for members of Congress to use our troops as 
     political cover for new spending. . . . If Senators want to 
     pass additional funds related to hurricane relief or the 
     avian flu, for example, those measures should be amendable 
     and not attached to must-pass bills that cannot be amended.

  That is my whole point. Why change the rules? I would further say 
that I will not raise the Senator's name again other than the quote I 
just read here.
  I am going to read a letter indicating that I am not out in left 
field about complaining about what is happening to our defense 
legislation, appropriations and authorization. I have a letter here 
dated December 17. I think today is the 18th. It is written to me and 
Senator Frist.

       We are very concerned that the fiscal year 2006 Defense 
     Appropriations Bill may be further delayed by attaching a 
     controversial non-defense provision to the defense 
     appropriations conference report.

  It is ANWR.

       We know that you share our overarching concern for the 
     welfare and needs of our troops. With 160,000 troops fighting 
     in Iraq, another 18,000 in Afghanistan, and tens of thousands 
     more around the world defending this country, Congress must 
     finish its work and provide them the resources they need to 
     do their job.
       We believe that any effort to attach controversial 
     legislative language authorizing drilling in the Arctic 
     National Wildlife Refuge . . . to the defense appropriations 
     conference report will jeopardize Congress' ability to 
     provide our troops and their families the resources they need 
     in a timely fashion.
       The passion and energy of the debate about drilling in ANWR 
     is well known, and a testament to vibrant debate in our 
     democracy. But it is not helpful to attach such a 
     controversial non-defense legislative issue to a defense 
     appropriations bill. It only invites delay for our troops 
     as Congress debates an important but controversial non-
     defense issue on a vital bill providing critical funding 
     for our nation's security.

  The final sentence:

       We urge you to keep ANWR off the defense appropriations 
     bill.

  Signed by:

       General, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.) Joseph P. Hoar; General, 
     U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.) Anthony C. Zinni; Lieutenant 
     General, U.S Army (Ret.) Claudia J. Kennedy; Vice Admiral, 
     U.S. Navy (Ret.) Lee F. Gunn; and Stephen A. Cheney, 
     Brigadier General, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.)

  That is what we are facing here. We have to get real. The rules we 
have are rules that we should follow. The reason this body has worked 
so well for 216 years is that we have rules, and they are to be 
followed. The debate sometimes is arcane. It takes a long time. 
Sometimes it is difficult to stop people from talking too much. But 
those are the rules we have here, and we should follow them.
  It does not take a rocket scientist to understand that on a Defense 
appropriations bill, we should not be debating ANWR. I say to anyone, 
anyone who is a Senator, we should not let this happen. I don't care 
who puts it on the bill, no matter how powerful the person may be, we 
should not allow that to happen. We should not allow that to happen. It 
is not good for this body, as seen by these senior military.
  To put on Defense authorization campaign finance reform is absolutely 
wrong--wrong.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coburn). The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, first we thank the Democratic leader for 
supporting the fundamental principle that has been violated with this 
authorization bill. It is a very different principle from the one the 
Presiding Officer feels so passionately about. It is a principle which 
I have, I believe, never seen violated.
  The Senator from Alabama, who is on the floor, and the Senator from 
South Carolina, who is on the floor--they signed a signature sheet, I 
believe, on our Defense authorization. I think every Republican and I 
think every Democrat signed the signature sheet.
  The issue which the Presiding Officer feels so passionately about, 
which is earmarks on an appropriations bill and items being added on an 
appropriations bill, raises a whole different issue under a different 
rule. I believe his passion on this issue is admired by many in this 
body. But the principle that Senator Warner and I are talking about is 
a principle which is embedded, it is so fundamental--that once a 
conference report is signed there is no way that it can be or should be 
changed. No way can material be inserted in a conference report.
  This is in all of our interests. If in the conference we decided to 
add material which had not been discussed by either body, that would 
then raise the issue in which the good Presiding Officer is very 
passionately involved. I share many of his concerns. That is not his 
issue. The conference did not add this material. This is not an earmark 
added by the conference, which had never gone through either body. This 
is material that apparently the Republican leadership in the House 
wants to add after the conference is closed, after we signed the 
signature sheets, without going through the process of sending the 
conference report to the House and having them refer it back to 
conference if they want to. None of us can accept that. As a matter of 
principle, we cannot accept that.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. LEVIN. I am happy to yield to my friend.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, this last hour is a good example of what 
we have come to as a Senate and a Nation. I come to the Senate to 
support Senator Levin's statement and Senator Warner's statement. We 
have had a knockdown drag-out over the authorization bill. Everyone 
gave and we got a product the country can be proud of.
  What has happened, as Senator Levin has described, we cannot survive 
politically if this is allowed to stand. A lawyer in private practice 
could get disbarred for doing something such as this.
  My understanding of what has happened--and if I am wrong, I 
apologize, and I hope Senator Levin will correct me if I am wrong--
there was a matter added to the conference report totally unrelated to 
defending our Nation that has a major policy decision--which I happen 
to support, by the way, but not under these circumstances--that 
basically changes the entire political process if it is allowed to 
stand. None of us are safe. Our word means nothing and our signature 
means nothing if you can change the document after everyone agreed to a 
certain set of facts.
  This is a defining moment for the Senate and the House. If we do not 
fix this now, it is going to eat at us all and our country will suffer.
  Mr. LEVIN. If the Senator will yield, my understanding is there is an 
effort being made to insert material. It has not yet been inserted 
because Senator Warner and I, through our staff, asked our staffs to go 
over to the House and

[[Page S13956]]

withdraw our signatures before the material could be inserted.
  It was the effort to insert it, the threat to insert it which was 
transmitted to Senator Warner and transmitted to me through him and 
through Congressman Skelton. This is not an effort on the part of 
Chairman Hunter, by the way. As I understand it, it is the Republican 
leadership in the House that is determined to find a way to insert 
material into the conference report after the signature sheets have 
been signed. That is what I know about it.
  Senator Warner was so disturbed about it, I was so disturbed about 
it, we decided we were not going to take a chance. We cannot risk this.
  Mr. GRAHAM. If the Senator will yield, I wish every American knew 
what was in the Defense authorization bill. In the Defense 
authorization bill are provisions to allow guard members and reservists 
to get health care for themselves and their families. They need it now 
more than ever. They are authorizing bonus programs for people who are 
serving worldwide now who are overtasked and underpaid.
  To take this bill that will authorize much-needed relief to the 
troops in the field, that will keep our equipment modern, will allow us 
to aggressively deal with the war on terror, capture the moral high 
ground with the McCain language, do the habeas reform package we worked 
on--to have that come down by inserting something after the fact is a 
low blow. It will eat away at the heart of this body.
  Mr. LEVIN. I thank my dear friend from South Carolina.
  It is an effort we cannot allow to succeed. We are in bipartisan 
agreement on this issue. It is the deepest form of process where we 
must be able to rely upon each other's commitment and signature. We 
cannot let that shake. There are all kinds of differences in this 
Senate. Sometimes between Democrats and Republicans, sometimes between 
Democrats and Democrats, between Republicans and Republicans. There are 
differences between us and other Members of the Senate. When a 
signature is affixed, when a conference report is signed, we cannot 
possibly contemplate any change in that conference report even if we 
agree with it.
  By the way, as the Senator from South Carolina said, I believe I am 
in agreement with the principle of the material which they seek to add. 
I know Senator Warner told me he is in agreement with it in principle. 
It is bedrock principles. You do not go deeper than this.
  We also have a rule--I know the Presiding Officer is focused on the 
issue I want to spend 1 minute on--we have a rule relative to 
legislating on appropriations, which the Senator made reference to in 
his remarks. We also have rule XXVIII which has to do with material in 
a conference report which is out of scope. That rule was abided by so 
that if anyone ever made a point of order that material in a conference 
report was out of scope, if the Presiding Officer ruled, the body would 
not overrule the Presiding Officer.
  But we made a mistake in the early 1990s when we overruled the Chair. 
There is material added to conference reports all the time, by the way, 
which has the agreement of conferees, which is out of scope that has 
the agreement of conferees. It might not have the agreement of everyone 
in the body, but everyone in the conference report agrees to it. That 
happens all the time. But what never happened until that one moment in 
the early 1990s, a point of order was made that there was material out 
of scope in a conference report and the point of order was sustained by 
the Chair. The Chair was overridden. That created havoc around here. So 
much so that a few years later we restored the rule and we wiped out 
the precedent which was created by overruling the Chair.

  That is what the issue is in the defense appropriations bill. That is 
what this issue is going to be. That is different from legislating on 
an appropriations bill. Forgive me for getting into the details, but I 
spent a few days studying the difference and I don't want to waste my 
effort the last few days to try to understand this distinction. The 
issue on the appropriations bill, since all of us are friends and we 
are sitting here on a Saturday evening talking to each other this way, 
the difference on the appropriations bill and not legislating--I forget 
the number of the rule, but is not rule XXVIII--there is a different 
rule from the one that is at issue on defense appropriations.
  The issue on the defense appropriations bill is whether we would 
overrule the Chair who will rule that the Arctic drilling issue is out 
of scope and out of order, and whether we are then going to override 
that ruling and put us back in the same morass we were in in the early 
1990s, which caused us a few years later to reverse that precedent, 
undo that terrible precedent which actually made our rules into mush. 
We cannot have a rule which sometimes applies and sometimes does not, 
we override it every other day and restore it every other day. We 
cannot operate that way and hold our heads up as being legislators.
  I thank my Chair and my friends for their patience. Let me close by 
confirming what the Senator from South Carolina said about the 
importance of the bill. It increases pay by 3.1 percent, which is half 
a percent higher than inflation. We have been fighting for that a long 
time. It increases the death gratuity to all active-duty deaths from 
$12,000 to $100,000, retroactive to the beginning of Operation Enduring 
Freedom. It authorizes a new special pay of $435 a month during 
hospitalization. It authorizes new leave for up to 21 days when 
adopting a child. We can go on and on. The Senator from South Carolina 
mentioned a few of them and my friend from Alabama knows this because 
he works hard on these issues, too.
  We are trying to put items in here in this bill which are good for 
the troops, good for their families, good for the Nation, good for our 
security. We cannot watch this effort go down the drain after it was 
such a tremendous effort made to finish this bill. We set a record, 
folks. We had the shortest period of time to do an authorization bill 
and we had the record number of amendments that we were able to 
resolve. We set two records on this bill. Those records go down the 
drain unless the House leadership decides they are not going to try to 
do something that, as far as I know, has never been done before, which 
is to insert material in a bill somehow after the signature sheets have 
been signed.
  There is a process. If the bill goes to the House and they want to 
refer it back to conference to consider something, in scope or out of 
scope, that is their right. But when this threat came that they were 
looking for a way to insert other matter into this conference report, 
after we had signed the sheets, Senator Warner--I cannot pay enough 
tribute to Senator Warner--is taking a very strong stand against the 
leader of his own party and the House of Representatives. I commend him 
for it. I hope the leadership of the House will relent and allow us to 
move forward with this important bill.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I will follow up on that. I think the 
House leadership and many on this side do feel the language would be 
good for the country and it is the right thing to do. And if everybody 
agrees, a lot of things happen around here. But if Senator Levin and 
Senator Warner have concluded they do not want to discuss any 
additional additions, it is not going to happen; it is just not going 
to happen. Unanimously, if anybody agreed to add something, something 
that everybody likes, maybe it could occur. Sometimes one side has to 
push a little harder to make sure the other side understands how 
strongly they feel about it. But at some point, if Senators Warner and 
Levin do not agree to this alteration, it is not going to be in the 
bill.
  So as a legal principle, I know they used to always say: There ain't 
no harm in asking. So they have tried. But I am not sure it will work 
if we are not going to see their support for it.

                          ____________________