[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 172 (Tuesday, December 21, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10888-S10921]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TREATY WITH RUSSIA ON MEASURES FOR FURTHER REDUCTION AND LIMITATION OF
STRATEGIC OFFENSIVE ARMS--Resumed
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the treaty.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
Treaty with Russia on Measures for Further Reduction and
Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms.
Pending:
Corker modified amendment No. 4904, to provide a condition
and an additional element of the understanding regarding the
effectiveness and viability of the New START Treaty and
United States missile defenses.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There will now be 4 minutes of debate equally
divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees.
Who yields time?
The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I believe the Senator from Arizona is
prepared to yield back time, and I will also yield back time.
Cloture Motion
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Having all time yielded back, pursuant to rule
XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending cloture motion,
which the clerk will state.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
hereby move to bring to a close debate on Treaties Calendar
No. 7, Treaty Document No. 111-5, the START treaty.
Harry Reid, Joseph I. Lieberman, John D. Rockefeller, IV,
Byron L. Dorgan, John F. Kerry, Sheldon Whitehouse,
Mark L. Pryor, Jack Reed, Robert Menendez, Mark Begich,
Benjamin L. Cardin, Kent Conrad, Bill Nelson, Amy
Klobuchar, Patty Murray, Barbara A. Mikulski,
Christopher J. Dodd, Richard G. Lugar.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum
call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on Treaty
Document No. 111-5, the New START treaty, shall be brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Bayh) and
the Senator from Oregon (Mr. Wyden) are necessarily absent.
Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator
from Missouri (Mr. Bond), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback), and
the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Gregg).
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Gillibrand). Are there any other Senators
in the Chamber desiring to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 67, nays 28, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 292 Ex.]
YEAS--67
Akaka
Alexander
Baucus
Begich
Bennet
Bennett
Bingaman
Boxer
Brown (MA)
Brown (OH)
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Cochran
Collins
Conrad
Coons
Corker
Dodd
Dorgan
Durbin
Feingold
Feinstein
Franken
Gillibrand
Hagan
Harkin
Inouye
Isakson
Johnson
Kerry
Klobuchar
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lincoln
Lugar
Manchin
McCaskill
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Murkowski
Murray
Nelson (NE)
Nelson (FL)
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Sanders
Schumer
Shaheen
Snowe
Specter
Stabenow
Tester
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Voinovich
Warner
Webb
Whitehouse
NAYS--28
Barrasso
Bunning
Burr
Chambliss
Coburn
Cornyn
Crapo
DeMint
Ensign
Enzi
Graham
Grassley
Hatch
Hutchison
Inhofe
Johanns
Kirk
Kyl
LeMieux
McCain
McConnell
Risch
Roberts
Sessions
Shelby
Thune
Vitter
Wicker
NOT VOTING--5
Bayh
Bond
Brownback
Gregg
Wyden
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 67, the nays are
28. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in
the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
Who yields time?
The Senator from Idaho.
Predator Wolves
Mr. CRAPO. Madam President, I wish to rise to speak about an issue
that has been at the center of debate in the northern Rockies for quite
some time; that is, the issue of the wolf. The wolf was introduced into
the northern Rockies in the 1990s and has flourished. Wolves are now
abundant in the region, but, unfortunately, we have not been able to
return the management of the wolves to the State, mostly due to
litigation and to the inflexibility of the Endangered Species Act. In
the meantime, wolf populations are growing at a rate of about 20
percent a year, resulting in substantial harm to our big game herds and
domestic livestock.
Whenever I am back in Idaho, I hear from hunters who are angry their
favorite hunting spots are no longer rich with elk and deer or from
sheep and cattle ranchers who have lost many a head of cattle or sheep
due to the wolf predation.
The State of Idaho has done everything it has been asked to do in
order to manage wolves, and we continue to be denied that much needed
opportunity. As such, it is time for Congress to act.
I intend to make a unanimous consent request in a few moments. First,
I yield a few moments to my colleague from Idaho, Senator Risch.
Mr. RISCH. Madam President, I join my colleague from Idaho in
underscoring the difficulty we have on this issue. Most people on this
floor don't have a full appreciation of what those of us in the West
have to deal with. Two out of every three acres in Idaho are owned by
the Federal Government. The Federal Government came in, in the mid-
1990s, and forced the wolf upon the State. The Governor didn't want it,
the legislature didn't want it, and the congressional delegation didn't
want it. Nonetheless, the Federal Government brought us 34 wolves. Now
they have turned into well over 1,000, and nobody knows exactly how
many breeding pairs there are. The result is that there has been
tremendous havoc wreaked on our preferred species in Idaho, the elk. We
have done an outstanding job of managing elk, the preferred species,
but they are also the preferred species for the wolf to eat. They are
not vegetarians.
As a result, we have had a tremendous problem with wolves in Idaho,
and we have brought a bill to the Senate to turn the management of
wolves over to the State. All the other animals are managed by the
State. We have done a great job for well over 100 years of managing two
other difficult predators, the bear and various cats. We have done it
responsibly, on a sustained basis, and we want to do the same thing
with wolves.
The Federal Government has to let go of this. We have tried. We have
the Federal courts that have stepped in. I don't quite understand how
the Federal
[[Page S10889]]
court can claim the wolf is still an endangered species, when they can
turn 34 wolves into over 1,000 and the population has exploded.
Nonetheless, they have. It is time for Congress to act.
I yield back to Senator Crapo.
Mr. CRAPO. Madam President, I will make this request on behalf of
myself, Senator Risch, and the Senators from Utah, Mr. Hatch and Mr.
Bennett, and the Senators from Wyoming, Mr. Enzi and Mr. Barrasso.
I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public
Works be discharged from further consideration of S. 3919, and that the
Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; that the bill be read
the third time and passed; that the motions to reconsider be laid upon
the table, and that any statements relating to the measure be printed
in the Record, as if read.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, reserving the right to object, and I do
intend to object, first, let me point out to Senator Crapo, he and I
have worked together on the Water and Wildlife Committee and the
Environment and Public Works Committee. I think we have had a fine
relationship over the past couple years, and we have worked together on
a series of bills that I think will improve water and wildlife in this
Nation. This legislation has not had a hearing and has not been
approved by the Environment and Public Works Committee. It deals with
undermining one of the most important laws in our country, the
Endangered Species Act. That is one of our most important environmental
laws and has protected iconic species such as the bald eagle. The act
has long enjoyed bipartisan support. President Nixon signed the ESA
into law on December 28, 1973.
This bill attempts to solve politically what should be done by good
science. Despite many disagreements in the more than three decades of
the ESA, there has never been a removal of a species by Congress. Also,
there have been efforts made to work out a reasonable compromise as it
relates to the wolf. It is my understanding that it has been blocked on
the Republican side in trying to get that compromise brought forward.
I will make one more suggestion to my friend, Senator Crapo. As you
know, the work product of our subcommittee, along with other bills in
the Environment and Public Works Committee, and some lands bills have
been combined into one bill, Calendar No. 30, S. 3003. I encourage the
Senator to look at that package. If we can get consent to include a
compromise on the gray wolf, we would be willing to try to get it done
in the remaining hours of this session. I offer that to my friend.
Madam President, in its current form, I do object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho has the floor.
Mr. CRAPO. Madam President, I appreciate the comments of my colleague
from Maryland and I appreciate working with him on the committee and I
intend to continue working with him. This is an issue of utmost
importance in those States in this region of the United States. The
longer we wait to resolve this issue, the more difficult it will be.
Cooperation is the key in order for us to get this resolution
accomplished.
I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.
Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, I say to all my friends, it is
imperative we work together to find a compromise. As both Senators from
Idaho know, you and other Senators have been working on a compromise.
Under that compromise, Idaho could have a wolf hunt, as they should.
The State of Montana could have a wolf hunt, as Montana should.
Northern Utah could. All wolves in Utah would be off the endangered
species list. I and others have suggested that wolves in northern Utah
be totally off the endangered species list. This proposal we have been
working on--you, myself, and others, including Secretary Salazar and
the Assistant Secretary of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Services, a
short time ago, all agreed we should allow wolf hunts in all the States
I mentioned. Yet I have to be honest, your side of the aisle has
objected to that. You are not coming up with a total abolition, taking
the wolf out of the Endangered Species Act. That is a solution that
will not pass. We need a compromise.
I end where I began. I strongly urge Senators, next year, to keep
working on a compromise. This is not going to work when the House
passes a bill that totally takes the wolf off the Endangered Species
list, which I know is the game plan. If that happens, we are back into
the soup again. Let's find a solution and compromise that achieves the
results we all want. It is within our reach. It is right there. Because
of this interchange, we will not get it done this year. Our States
desperately need a solution. That proposal was the solution. It was a
compromise that achieved the results intended. I very much hope we can
find a compromise to resolve this.
Mr. CRAPO. Madam President, the compromise the Senator from Montana
refers to--and he is correct, we have been intensely working on this
issue to find a compromise with the administration and the affected
States. The compromise he refers to would have required a change in the
management of the wolf in Idaho that was unacceptable to the Governor
in Idaho and others, including myself and Senator Risch. Although there
was a proposal made, it is not correct that it was approved by
everybody. I believe, though, we are making progress.
I am willing to work with the Senator from Montana and the Senator
from Maryland and others to try not only to find further progress at
this late date in this session or next year, if necessary, to try to
find our way to that solution. I appreciate the willingness of both
Senators to work with us in trying to find that compromise that will
work.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized.
FCC Vote on Internet Regulation
Mrs. HUTCHISON. Madam President, I know the subject we are on now is
the New START Treaty. It is a very important subject. I appreciate so
much all the debate we have had. I hope we will be able to go forward
and allow people to have amendments within this time because it is a
huge issue for our country.
I wish to speak on a different subject right now because it is so
timely. Today, the Federal Communications Commission voted 3 to 2 to
impose new regulations on the Internet. This is an unprecedented power
grab by the unelected members of the Federal Communications Commission,
spearheaded by its chairman.
The FCC is attempting to push excessive government regulation of the
Internet through without congressional authority. These actions
threaten the very future of this incredible technology. The FCC pursuit
of Net neutrality regulations involves claiming authority under the
Communications Act that they do not have. Congress did not provide the
FCC authority to regulate how Internet service providers manage their
network, not anywhere in the Communications Act nor any other statute
administered by the Commission.
Adopting and imposing Net neutrality regulations is, in effect,
legislating. It takes away the appropriate role of Congress in
determining the proper regulatory framework for the fastest growing
sector of our economy. The real-world impact of the FCC's action today
is that it will be litigated. It will take 18 months to 2 years to sort
through the briefings and the court decisions, and it will probably go
to the Supreme Court of the United States. In the meantime, capital
investment will slow in core communications networks, and I cannot
think of a worse possible time for that, as we attempt to create jobs
and fuel a recovery from the most significant recession in years.
Elected representatives should determine if regulation is necessary
in this area. Hearings would bring opposing parties to the table, and
the process would be open. Instead, an unelected and unaccountable
group of regulators are creating new authority to intervene in an area
that represents one-sixth of the Nation's economy.
I wish to go through a few of the specific provisions in this FCC
order. The first one is an order to require broadband providers, such
as Comcast and AT&T, to allow subscribers to send and receive any
lawful Internet traffic, to go where they want, say what they want, to
use any nonharmful online devices or applications they want to use.
These principles are widely supported. I don't object and neither
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would probably anyone. However, these principles are already in use. We
don't need a big regulatory intervention to accomplish these
principles. It is the rest of the order that is diametrically opposed
to this statement of openness and freedom. It installs a government
arbiter to force their idea of freedom on the users of the Internet and
on the companies that are trying to make the Internet the economic
engine of America.
The first provision that deals with this is that networks must be
transparent. It says networks must be transparent about how they manage
their networks, i.e., decisions about engineering, traffic routing, and
quality of service. Transparency requirements usually translate to
reporting and consumer disclosure requirements that are heavily
prescribed and expensive to comply with, and the possible disclosure of
proprietary information could affect competition. The real-world impact
of this is higher costs to consumers. The Commission will increase
regulatory reporting and consumer disclosure requirements as a result
of this provision, and the cost will be passed along to, of course, the
consumers in the form of more expensive services.
The second provision is that you may not unreasonably discriminate.
The FCC's order states that providers may not unreasonably discriminate
against lawful Internet traffic. That sounds fine. But the devil is in
the details. The term is vaguely defined in the order, and how the FCC
interprets and enforces what is unreasonable will determine how
limiting this restriction is. For instance, if a provider notices that
a small number of users are sharing huge files that are leading to
congestion on the network and determines that slowing down those
connections would relieve the congestion for the majority of other
users, the FCC would have the right, under this order, to determine
that such an action is unreasonable.
The real-world impact is that this would diminish the company's
flexibility in managing their own services. The unreasonable
discrimination provision could undermine the providers' ability to
manage their network and guarantee all the users a high quality of
service. Companies that build and maintain the networks that make up
the Internet need the flexibility to manage the exploding demand for
services on their network.
Regrettably, the FCC's order curtails that by establishing that the
FCC would be an approval portal that companies would have to pass
through to manage their day-to-day operations. Surely, there is a
better way.
The next provision requires that broadband providers must justify new
specialized services. Under the FCC orders, providers would now have to
come to the FCC in order to offer consumers a new service, something
that would be creative and innovative. Instead of offering it to the
marketplace and having the competitive advantage from something new,
they have to now expose it to all of their competitors by going through
a regulatory adjudication at the FCC.
Let me give an example of what could happen.
A hospital might want to work with a provider, such as Verizon, to
offer a new telemedicine service for Verizon subscribers that allows
patients at home to interact with their doctors via high-definition
video and uninterruptible remote medical monitoring.
In order to do this, Verizon might have to prioritize that
telemedicine traffic ahead of regular Internet traffic to ensure the
appropriate quality of service, particularly if there is a life-
threatening situation.
The FCC order allows the Commission to determine on a case-by-case
basis whether such prioritization is actually unreasonable
discrimination because presumably the hospital that is offering the
service would be giving better treatment for that telemedicine traffic
than the user's regular traffic.
Going through a whole regulatory process in order to offer that
service is a burden we do not need and that will stifle the innovation
that has been a hallmark of the Internet, which led to the explosion of
opportunities there.
The Commission says it wants innovation to occur, but the language of
the order clearly discourages innovation by forcing companies to pass
through a government regulatory turnstile to determine whether a
particular service, an innovative service, something new that might be
a competitive advantage, something new for quality of life, should be
allowed. This puts the FCC in the position of picking winners and
losers among the new innovative services, and it certainly slows down
the opportunity to have new things coming on the market in what is
usually a fast-paced economic environment.
In some cases, this may be enough to discourage providers from even
entering into the special arrangements necessary to offer such
services. It is a cumbersome process and, furthermore, it is
unnecessary.
In another provision, the FCC order will treat wireless broadband
services more lightly than wireline broadband services, at least for
now. The FCC reserves rights in this order, which are taken without
congressional authority, in my opinion--and certainly the courts will
litigate that and make its decisions--the FCC reserves the right to
regulate wireless just as harshly in the future as they are now
attempting to regulate wireline. For now, wireless providers will have
more leeway to innovate and to manage their networks. But how much
investment are they going to make for the long term if they do not know
what the FCC might foresee in the future that needs fixing, even if it
is not apparently broken.
The real world impact is that wireless is the fastest growing area of
communications markets. The threat that the Commission might later
apply the wireline prohibitions it has ordered today to this wireless
marketplace is a major concern.
I commend the two members of the Commission who dissented in the vote
today--Rob McDowell and Meredith Atwell Baker. They each did op-eds,
one in the Wall Street Journal and one in the Washington Post. I would
say the common theme is that this is a solution where there is no
problem. We have an open Internet. We have an Internet that is working.
It does not need the heavy hand of government. It does not need a
government prism through which to determine if the Internet providers
are doing an allowable service. We have a marketplace, and the
marketplace is working.
This is a time for Congress to take a stand. These regulations will
raise uncertainty about the methods and practices communications
companies may use to manage their networks. Heavy-handed regulation
threatens investment and innovation in broadband services, placing
valuable American jobs at risk.
Why would this be happening in a recession where we are trying to
increase jobs, where we are trying to stop the trajectory of
unemployment in our country?
We need to lay off, and it is time for Congress to take a stand.
Individuals and businesses alike are rightfully concerned about
government attempts to seize control of the Internet. Senator Ensign,
who is the ranking member of a Commerce subcommittee--I am the ranking
member on the full Commerce Committee--together we are going to submit
a resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act in an
effort to overturn this troubling regulatory overreach by the FCC. It
is time for Congress to say we have not delegated this authority to the
FCC. The FCC tried to do this once before using another part of the
Communications Act. They were struck down by the courts. Now they have
gone to a different interpretation in a different section of the act to
try to gain the capability to obstruct freedom on the Internet.
It is a huge and serious issue on which I hope Congress will take the
reins and say to the FCC: If we need regulation in this area, Congress
will do it.
We are elected. We are accountable. People can vote what they believe
is the right approach by what we do. The FCC is not accountable to the
people of our country. Yes, they are accountable to the President and
the votes for today's order were from Presidential appointees of this
administration. It is another big government intervention where we do
not need to suppress innovation.
What we need is to embrace innovation so we can create jobs in this
country with the freedom that has marked the economic vitality of
America for over 200 years.
[[Page S10891]]
We will have a resolution of disapproval at the appropriate time in
the next session of Congress. I look forward to working with other
Members of Congress to take the reins on this issue. It is a
congressional responsibility.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I understand Senator Sessions is on the
floor and wishes to speak. I ask unanimous consent that the Chair
recognize Senator Sessions, and after Senator Sessions, recognize
myself and then Senator Shaheen, so we stay in order, if that is
agreeable.
Mr. SESSIONS. It is agreeable to me.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I wish to take a brief moment to
express my pleasure in the fact that the continuing resolution that
passed and will now be going to the House had within it a provision to
allow the Navy to award the littoral combat ship competition to two of
the bidders. It took a bit of a modification of the procedure to allow
them to do that. It is a product of good news.
At one point in the late nineties, I chaired the Seapower
Subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee. I have been a member of
it. I have seen the development of the littoral combat ship concept.
ADM Vern Clark determined it was the future of the Navy. We expect to
have 55 of them in the fleet. They would be manned by only 40 sailors.
They would be high speed, able to travel in shallow waters, and be
effective for pirates or be effective for mine sweeping and other
activities of that nature.
The House put in this language. We had a hearing in the committee a
few days ago with Admiral Roughead and Navy officials, Secretary of the
Navy Mabus, and representatives from the CRS, GAO and CBO--those ABC
agencies that evaluate these kinds of proposals--and it has moved
forward.
I thank Senator Levin for his leadership. I thank Senator Inouye and
Senator Cochran on our side and the House leaders also who saw fit to
support the Navy's idea. It is not a plan I suggested, but it is one I
believe is good.
The good news is this was enabled by the fact that as a surprise, the
bids on the ships were very much below what was anticipated. The
legislation required that the bids come in under $480 million per ship,
and it looks as if these bids are going to be at $450 million. By
having both shipyards go forward, the Navy gets a fixed price today. In
other words, if aluminum goes up or electricity goes up, the shipyards
are going to eat it. We will bring on both ships at the same time.
Not only that, but we would get 20 ships total in this first tranche
of ships rather than 19. In addition to that, the Navy scores that it
will save $1 billion, and that $1 billion they hope to apply to other
ships the Navy needs in their 313-ship Navy of the future.
Ashton Carter, the DOD's acquisition executive, said:
The U.S. Navy's recent decision to buy both classes of
Littoral Combat Ship due to lower than expected bid prices is
an example of what good competition can do.
It was a competitive bid. I think the Navy may have made a mistake in
not allowing more benefit to the bidders based on how valuable the ship
was, the total value, but they made it a rigorous cost competition and
apparently got very good bids. The average bids were, as I said, $450
million.
The Chief of Naval Operations, ADM Gary Roughead, on December 14--a
few days ago--testified before the Armed Services Committee. He said:
I think the two different types [of ships] give us a
certain amount of flexibility, versatility that one would
not, and as I talked earlier about this ability to mix the
capabilities of a force that we put in there.
This may have been when I asked a question about it at that same
hearing. He said:
I . . . believe that the designs of the ships and the
flexibility of the ships . . . and also the cost of these
ships open up potential of foreign military sales that would
otherwise not be there.
In other words, not only could we create jobs, perhaps 3,000 to 4,000
jobs immediately, but many of our allies, with the approval of the
Defense Department, might want to buy these ships for their fleets, and
we would have the ability to export these products abroad.
Having been involved in seeing the vision of the Navy over a decade
plus and to see that finally come to fruition is good. One Navy
official was quoted in one of the major publications as saying the
nature of these competitions is such there be a 100-percent chance of a
protest, whichever one won the bid, and one reason is because the bid
was so close. We will avoid a protest and will be able to move forward,
get the ships faster, lock in the lowest possible cost, clearly lower
than what would be otherwise, and maybe even be able to save enough
money to build an even larger ship with it.
I thank my colleagues who worked on this issue. I believe it will be
a good thing. One of the ships will be built in my hometown of Mobile,
AL. I know how excited the workers at the shipyards will be to hear
they will have jobs in the future producing one of the finest, most
modern warships in the history of the Navy.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, we are now only hours away from when we
will have a chance to vote on the ratification of the New START treaty.
The Senate has invoked cloture, so we are in that 30-hour postcloture
period. We are now in a period where we need to consider some
additional amendments, and then we will be able to vote on the
ratification. I think that is good news for the United States, for
national security.
I think each Member of the Senate wants to do what is right for our
national security. And I wish to emphasize the point that whenever I
look at a national security issue, I want to get the best advice I can
from the experts--from our military experts, from our experts who are
charged with making sure we have the best intelligence to protect the
security of America, from our diplomatic experts, who understand the
ramifications of what we do here and around the world in other areas of
concern for national security. I would say it is unanimous that the
experts are telling us it is in the security interests of the United
States to ratify the New START treaty.
Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, would the Senator yield for a moment?
Mr. CARDIN. I will be glad to yield.
Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I want to make a 1-minute comment
about a Navy fellow who has been in my office. I am reluctant to
interrupt, but the Senator is so eloquent, I know he can handle the
interruption almost better than anybody else.
CDR Brent Breining has been assigned to my office for the year by the
Navy. I hope it has been beneficial to him. I think it has been. It has
certainly been beneficial to us on a host of matters. He is a man of
ability, of integrity and hard work, and he symbolizes the kind of
bright young men and women we have so many of in our military. I wanted
to take this moment to express my appreciation for his fabulous
service.
I thank the Chair, I yield the floor, and I thank my colleague for
letting me interrupt him.
Mr. CARDIN. I am glad I yielded to Senator Sessions for that point
because I do believe the fellows from the military assigned to our
offices are extremely valuable in our work. I was fortunate to have CDR
Andre Coleman in my office from the Navy, and I can tell you that what
I learned from his presence in my office was important to me, and I
think it really made me much more informed when it came to decisions I
have had to make in the Senate. So this program is a very valuable
program.
I was pleased to yield to the Senator so he could recognize the
person in his office. He is from the Navy? He is a Navy officer?
Mr. SESSIONS. A Navy officer, yes.
Mr. CARDIN. Navy officers are always the best, and coming from
Maryland, where we have the Naval Academy, we were pleased to provide
some help to the Senator from Alabama.
If I can continue on the New START treaty, the real test here is the
national security of our Nation. When you listen to the advice given to
us by our military experts, they tell us the ratification of New START
will enhance our national security. When you
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talk to the people who are responsible for collecting intelligence
information and analyzing that information, they tell us it is in our
national security interest to ratify the New START treaty. When you
talk to the political experts, those who are charged with managing our
foreign policy considerations around the world, they tell us the
ratification of New START will help protect our national security
interest.
The reason is that when you look at this treaty and find out what is
in this treaty that restricts what the United States can do and you
look at the number of deployed warheads and the number of delivery
vehicles we are permitted to have, our experts say those numbers are
clearly achievable for us without compromising whatsoever all of our
national security interests. That is what they tell us. And these
numbers were not developed by the political system; they were developed
by the military experts as to what is reasonable as far as limitations
on deployed warheads.
When you look at the other restrictions--and we have heard a lot of
debate that we are restricted on other defense issues. There is nothing
in this agreement that limits missile defense issues. That is going to
be a matter for our national debate. It will be a matter, in working
with our allies, of analyzing where our current risks come from. But we
can make independent judgments, and we are not restricted at all by the
New START treaty as to how we make those judgments.
What is in this treaty is our ability to verify what the Russians are
doing with their nuclear stockpile and what they are doing with their
warheads and with their delivery systems. It allows us to have
inspectors on the ground. Since the end of last year, we have not had
inspectors on the ground. That is intelligence information that is
extremely valuable for us to have. You can't substitute for that. Yes,
we can get certain intelligence information from the assets we have,
but having boots on the ground is critically important to our national
security. So without the ratification of New START, we do not have the
inspectors on the ground telling us, in fact, what Russia is doing,
inspecting the warheads, and inspecting their delivery systems.
There is a third reason in addition to it being important from the
point of view of what our experts are saying and in addition to the
fact that it gives us verification. It also is a very important part of
our national security system in working with other countries. We want
to make sure we know what Russia is doing, yes. We understand Russia is
a country of interest to the United States. But when you look at
countries that are developing nuclear weapons, we need Russia's help
and the international community working with us to make sure we prevent
countries such as Iran from becoming nuclear weapon states. The
ratification of this treaty will help us in those political efforts.
When you put all this together, it gives us what we need for
verification. The restrictions in this treaty were worked out by our
military as being what they believed was right, and it gives us the
ability to continue to lead internationally not just on strategic arms
reduction but on nonproliferation issues. So for all those reasons, I
would urge my colleagues to vote for ratification.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bennet). The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. I wish to thank the Senator from Maryland for being a
terrific member of the Foreign Relations Committee, and I thank both
him and the Senator from New Hampshire for their help here on the floor
this afternoon as we try to proceed on amendments as rapidly as
possible for our colleagues and also try to negotiate a few of these
amendments at the same time as the Senator from Arizona.
Having discussed with the Senator from Arizona the path forward, I
assure colleagues that both of us hear the pleas of our colleagues, and
we are anxious to try to move as rapidly as possible. But in fairness
to my colleague from Arizona, I also want to make certain that he has
an opportunity to have his amendments and that the other amendments are
properly heard.
To that end, I ask unanimous consent that the following amendments be
deemed as pending from those amendments filed at the desk. These would
be the amendments eligible for consideration. I am not calling them up
yet; I just want this to be a narrow list.
I apologize, Mr. President. I ask unanimous consent that these
amendments be in order: Kyl No. 4864; Kyl No. 4892, as modified; Risch
No. 4878; Risch No. 4879; Ensign re rail-mobile; Wicker No. 4895; Kyl
No. 4860, as modified; Kyl No. 4893; and McCain No. 4900.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Hearing no objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I wish to make a comment. For the benefit of
Members, what we are trying to do is to identify those matters we need
to try to deal with in the 30 hours postcloture on the START treaty. If
Members have amendments they need to deal with, I would appreciate it
if they would either communicate with me or with Senator Lugar's staff
or Senator Kerry's staff so that we can determine whether to get them
on the list and where to plug them in. I would also suggest to Members
that there isn't a lot of time left, and if they have comments they
would like to make, now is the time to come to the Senate floor. There
shouldn't be a minute of quorum call time here. There is a lot to do
and not a lot of time to do it. So if Members have something, bring it
to us. If they want to speak, they should come to the floor now or as
soon as they can get here.
My goal is to get as many of the amendments as possible dealt with,
if not with a vote then worked out by unanimous consent. What I have
tried to do is to take a universe of about 70 amendments and to
consolidate them into a much smaller group. So there are some specific
subject areas that are not specifically dealt with. In some cases, the
consolidations may not be technically related. For example, Senator
LeMieux would like to add to one of the amendments his language dealing
with tactical weapons taken from his treaty amendment but to conform it
to a resolution of ratification amendment. So we may be even combining
some subjects that don't necessarily relate.
The object here is to cover as much ground as possible within a
limited period of time, and in order to do that we will need
everybody's cooperation. Senator Kerry and I will then--and Senator
Lugar, of course--primarily try to make sure everybody gets heard who
wants to be heard.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I am very grateful to the Senator from
Arizona for his willingness to try to do exactly what we have just
done, and I pledge to him that I will work as hard as possible on our
side to rapidly move on these amendments and to give them time.
I would ask for the cooperation of colleagues who want to speak on
the treaty as a whole, that they not do so at the expense of being able
to move an amendment. So if colleagues would cooperate with us, we will
certainly, in between any activity on amendments, try to accommodate
anyone who wants to talk on the treaty.
We are currently working staff to staff and negotiating out these
amendments, and on some it may be possible to accept them. We will
certainly try to avoid any rollcall votes, if possible. I know a number
of colleagues have asked for some rollcalls on some amendments which
may not be acceptable. So with that understanding--
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. KYL. If I can add, I understand Senator Shaheen is in order to
speak next, and then Senator Risch is available to begin; am I not
correct?
Mr. KERRY. No, Senator Shaheen is here managing together with the
Senator from Maryland while we are negotiating. So Senator Risch would
be in order to move on an amendment immediately.
Mr. KYL. OK. His numbers are 4878 and 4879, so we can begin with one
of those, if it is agreeable.
Mr. KERRY. That is correct.
Mr. President, we would welcome that, and I yield the floor.
Mr. KYL. So, Mr. President, it would be in order to call up for
consideration--I believe the first is amendment No. 4878, Risch
amendment No. 4878.
Well, Mr. President, I said there shouldn't be any quorum call, but
we are going to be a couple of minutes here. So I suggest the absence
of a quorum until we are ready to go.
[[Page S10893]]
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the
quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, about an hour or so ago, our colleagues
voted on whether we should proceed to final debate and eventually to an
up-or-down vote on whether to ratify the New START treaty. I think it
is safe to say most Democrats, most Republicans--even those two
Independents who hang out with us--have pretty much decided on what
they want to do on that final vote. I think there is a handful of
Senators, maybe a half dozen or so, who are still undecided and trying
to make up their minds. I just want to say I respect that. It is a
serious matter, very serious matter, and there are strong arguments to
be made on either side of this issue.
For those who have already made up their minds, they are probably not
all that interested in what I have to say. But for the handful of our
colleagues who have not decided how they believe we should proceed, how
they ultimately want to vote, I want to take a few minutes and talk to
them.
I want to boil this down into four questions that I have focused on
as I have looked at this issue, looked at the treaty, looked at its
ramifications. I want to start out by mentioning what I think the four
maybe critical questions are that we should be asking ourselves.
The first question is, does this treaty make us safer? I believe it
does. I think absolutely it makes us safer.
The second question is, can we afford not to ratify this treaty? I
believe the answer is no; we cannot afford not to ratify this treaty.
We need to.
The third question is, Can we go on to build a robust missile defense
system, should we need to, if we ratify this treaty? I believe the
answer is yes; we can do that if we need to.
The fourth and final question I want us to ponder is, Is ratification
of the New START treaty the last word on this issue? Quite frankly, the
answer is no, not at all. In fact, ratification of this treaty would
just be another step, an important step, in what has been a decades-
long journey. What I would like to do, if I could, is to take these
questions just one question at a time.
The first question is, Does this treaty make us safer?
One of the greatest threats, and some would say the greatest threat,
to our country and to its people today is the chance that terrorists
might somehow acquire a nuclear weapon and detonate it inside this
country. I ask my colleagues, are we doing all that we need to do to
stop this from happening?
Sure, we can try to hunt down all the terrorists before they strike.
In fact, we are doing that now. But we will never know where every
terrorist is hiding, and I doubt we will ever have the manpower
necessary to hunt them down if we did know where they were and try to
stop them.
Here is what we do know, however. We know where most of the nuclear
weapons on this planet are today. The majority of them are either in
Russia or they are in the United States. I would like to think we do a
good job of securing our nuclear weapons facilities in the United
States. But Russia, as most of us know, is another story. There is a
reason terrorists target Russian nuclear facilities.
While Russian security has improved recently, there are still holes,
some would say gaping holes, in the physical facilities of some Russian
facilities, holes that leave openings for terrorists to gain access to
these weapons. That is one of the reasons we need to ratify this
treaty. It limits the number of warheads that Russia can hold. Fewer
Russian warheads translate into fewer chances that those weapons, those
warheads, will fall into the wrong hands.
Here is another reason to ratify this treaty: Since the original
START treaty expired at the end of 2009, the United States has been
denied the ability to track and to verify the status of Russian nuclear
weapons. The U.S. and Russian cooperation on verifying and monitoring
warheads under the original START treaty helped lay the groundwork
under the Nunn-Lugar cooperative threat reduction program in the 1990s.
This program worked and still works to secure and dismantle Russian
nuclear weapons, to keep them from falling into the hands of terrorists
or rogue regimes.
New START will restore our verification and tracking capabilities
that we lost last year with the expiration of the original START
treaty. This, in turn, will encourage Russia to continue and to
participate in the Nunn-Lugar program. In short, Americans will be
safer if the treaty before us is ratified.
That leads me to the second question, Can we afford not to ratify
this treaty? I believe the answer is no; no, we cannot. Let me say why.
My colleagues opposing this treaty have pointed out what they believe
to be flaws in it. Some of them say the United States should have held
out for a better deal. Others say the United States should have
increased the number of allowed inspections or increased the number of
delivery systems allowed under the treaty. They say the job of the
Senate is not to simply ratify treaties but to debate and to amend
them.
Let me just say, if this were a seriously flawed treaty, I would
agree or if this were a flawed treaty I would agree. But it is not. The
fact that so far all the amendments offered to this treaty have failed,
mostly by large majorities, bears witness to that fact. Sure, we could
amend the treaty language to maximize the U.S. position. We could send
our diplomats back to the negotiating table with the Russians with a
whole new set of terms the Russians will find unacceptable and
ultimately nonnegotiable. When the Russians then walk away from the
talks and the prospects of securing a new treaty die, we will ask
ourselves, was it worth it to oppose ratification? Was it worth it?
When a Russian nuclear weapon goes missing and we are left in the
dark because U.S.-Russian cooperation on tracking and dismantling
warheads died with the treaty, we will ask ourselves, was it worth it
to oppose ratification?
I believe the answer is no. Every living former Secretary of State
from Kissinger to Baker to Rice shares that opinion.
Several former Secretaries of Defense, including Secretaries
Schlesinger, Carlucci, Perry, and Cohen, all believe we ought to ratify
this treaty in order to make our country--our country--safer. I might
add, our top intelligence people agree with them.
This unlikely bipartisan coalition has come to this conclusion
because they are certain that failure to ratify New START leaves our
country less safe and more at risk to terror. We ignore the collective
wisdom and advice of these leaders, past and present, at our peril.
They have no axe to grind. They are calling it like they see it. I hope
we will search our hearts--every one of us--and our minds this week and
come to the same conclusion they have.
Question No. 3 was: Can we build a robust missile defense system if
we ratify this treaty? That is an important question. The answer is
too. And the answer is, yes, we absolutely can. There is simply nothing
in this treaty that limits the United States from building the kind of
missile defense system we might want and that we might need.
You do not have to take my word for it. Last month the Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ADM Mike Mullen, bluntly stated, ``There is
nothing in the treaty that prohibits us from developing any kind of
missile defense.''
Let me say his words again. ``There is nothing in the treaty that
prohibits us from developing any kind of missile defense.'' Those are
not my words. Those are his words. Nothing, nothing in the treaty
prohibits us from doing that.
Just last week Secretary Gates said that the treaty ``in no way
limits anything we want or have in mind on missile defense.'' Let me
repeat that as well. He said, ``The treaty in no way limits anything we
want or have in mind on missile defense.'' In no way.
Simply put, this treaty gives us both what we want and what we need.
It reduces the number of nuclear warheads Russia can possess, and it
does so without constraining U.S. missile defense and deployment.
Some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, who have made
up their minds that they will oppose ratification, dispute the
statements of
[[Page S10894]]
both Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen. Clearly, that is their right
to do so. These opponents to the treaty argue that this treaty would,
in fact, create limitations on our ability to build and deploy a
missile defense system. With all due respect to them, I do not believe
that is true. And, more importantly, neither do our top military and
intelligence leaders, upon whom our Nation depends. They do not believe
it is true either. In supporting this argument, some of the treaty's
critics point to a provision which states we cannot convert nuclear
missile launchers into missile defense launchers. We have all heard
Senators Kerry and Lugar respond to this assertion. We do not want to
make these conversions. We do not want to make these conversions. Why?
Because it is not cost effective. It is cheaper to build new silos
rather than convert the old launchers. This is not a limitation on
missile defense. It is common sense. It is cost effective. And it is
certainly not a reason to vote against this important treaty.
Question No. 4 again. Question No. 4 was: Is ratification of New
START the last word on this issue? And the answer is, not at all. This
is not the last word. In fact, ratification is another step, albeit an
important one, in a decades-long journey. Ratification reflects a
vision shared by Presidents Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, George
Herbert Walker Bush, and George W. Bush, as well as the people of our
country, and the people of the Russian Federation.
Realizing that vision is vitally important both to Russians and to
Americans, our two nations must join to lead the global community on
the issue of nuclear disarmament. If we do not, no one else will.
The next step in realizing that vision requires us to ratify this New
START treaty that is before us this week. Once we have done so, we
should turn to redoubling our efforts to work with Russia, with China,
and our allies to pressure Iran and North Korea to give up not their
nuclear energy programs but their nuclear weapons programs. And as we
do that, we should continue working toward future agreements with the
Russian Federation on reducing tactical nuclear weapons.
Fortunately, in the resolution of ratification that contains the New
START treaty language, there are instructions added by the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee that order--that order--the Obama
administration to pursue agreements on the limits of tactical nuclear
weapons with Russia as well. Two weeks ago, Secretaries Clinton and
Gates said they would pursue such an agreement with the Russian
Federation in the coming years. However, we cannot continue down that
path without first ratifying New START. And we must.
Let me conclude today by asking my undecided colleagues, however many
there are out there, one final question. Here it is: How often do we
see in this body nearly every major national security official from
just about every Presidential administration of the last four decades
come together to support one initiative like this? How often? The
answer is, not very often, at least not on my watch.
As a captain in the Navy, as my State's Congressman, and Senator, as
Governor of Delaware, and commander in chief for a while of our State's
National Guard, I learned a long time ago that the best way to make
tough decisions, to make the right decision, is to gather together the
best and brightest minds that we can, people with different
perspectives, urge them to try to find common ground, and then provide
their recommendations to me.
In the case of this treaty, many of the best and brightest national
security minds our Nation has ever seen, names such as Kissinger,
Powell, Schlesinger, Baker, Hadley, Scowcraft, Shultz, Rice, Nunn,
Warner, Lugar, Kerry, Clinton, Bush, and Gates, agree that we should
ratify New START and ratify it now.
I urge my colleagues who are still undecided on this critical issue
to join me, to join us, in moving our Nation forward by voting to
ratify this treaty.
Before I yield the floor, I want to take a moment to salute Senator
Lugar. I thank you and thank your staff for the terrific leadership you
have provided for years on these issues, along with Sam Nunn, all of
those years ago, and with John Kerry and others today.
I am going to thank Senator Kerry for the terrific leadership and the
great support he has gotten from his committee, from the staff, to get
us to this point today.
I am encouraged that we may have the votes to finish our business and
to conclude by ratifying this treaty tomorrow. I hope that handful of
our colleagues who are out there who are still trying to figure out
what is the right thing to do will maybe find some words in the wisdom
I share today.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Amendment No. 4855
Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we set aside
the pending amendment and call up amendment No. 4855.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Ensign] proposes an amendment
numbered 4855.
Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading
of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
amendment no. 4855
(Purpose: To amend the Treaty to provide for a clear definition of
rail-mobile missiles)
In Part One of the Protocol to the New START Treaty, in
paragraph 45. (35.), strike ``and the self-propelled device
on which it is mounted'' and insert ``and the self-propelled
device or railcar or flatcar on which it is mounted''.
Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I rise today to speak on behalf of this
amendment, which would clear up any ambiguity by adding the rail mobile
definition of START I to the New START treaty.
Specifically, my amendment would amend the protocol annex, part one,
in terms and definitions protocol. Specifically under START I the
definition of rail mobile launchers of ICBMs means an erector launching
mechanism for launching ICBMs, and the rail car or flat car on which it
is mounted.
Unfortunately, there is no such definition in New START. According to
Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the Duma International Affairs
Committee, Senator Kerry's counterpart in the Duma, the understanding
on rail mobile ICBMs presumes that: ``The Americans are trying to apply
the New START treaty to rail mobile ICBMs in case they are built.''
So their definition, their understanding, the Russians'
understanding, is that rail mobile is not included in this treaty. That
is according to Mr. Kosachev's statement in the Duma. By making this
statement, we can infer that it is absolutely Russia's position that
rail mobile ICBMs are not captured by this treaty or subject to the
treaty's limitations. So this is an issue we must address and we must
clarify.
The administration, in a State Department fact sheet, asserts that
rail mobiles are covered under the 700 ceiling of deployed delivery
vehicles in article II. However, Mr. Kosachev's statements imply to the
contrary. Further, if rail mobiles were to fall under that cap, it
would be in the definitions. There is zero mention of rail mobiles in
New START.
My amendment simply clarifies this ambiguity. In the absence of New
START limitations on rail mobile ICBMs and launchers, an unlimited
number of these could be deployed. It may even be possible to take a
road mobile SS-27 ICBM, including multiple warhead versions, and put it
on a railcar. This would not in any way violate the conditions of the
New START limits, because the earlier START I limits on rail mobile
launchers and nondeployed mobile ICBMs do not appear in this New START.
Another way to clarify that ambiguity would be if the administration
gave us full access to the negotiating records. Since they have not,
however, we must amend the treaty to amend the definition back to as it
was in START I.
What happens if the Russian Duma, in its ratification process, adds
language in its version of their ORR, that excludes rail mobile
launchers? What do we do at that time? If they do this, I would think
we would have no choice but to simply take it.
Mitt Romney highlighted eloquently in an op-ed that:
[[Page S10895]]
The absence of any mention of rail based launchers should
be remedied. U.S. advocates of the treaty say that if Russia
again inaugurates a rail program, as some articles in the
Russian press have suggested it might, rail mobile ICBMs
would count toward the treaty limits. Opponents say that no
treaty language supports such an interpretation. Russian
commentators have said that rail-based systems would be
discussed by the Bilateral Consultative Commission. Such
ambiguity should be resolved before the treaty is approved,
not after.
I will yield to the Senator from Indiana.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, the amendment speaks to concerns about rail
mobile missiles. First, I would emphasize it is important to note that
neither side currently deploys rail mobile systems.
The Nunn-Lugar program destroyed the last SS-24 rail mobile system in
2008. They are all gone. Destroyed. The New START treaty is
specifically drafted so that if Russia were to revive its rail mobile
program, it would count under New START's central limits. This is
underscored in our resolution of ratification through an understanding
that if such systems are ever deployed by Russia, they will count as
deployed ICBMs under New START, and that such railcars on BMs.
I submit that the amendment is unneeded. But more seriously, if in
fact it were to be adopted, it would require renegotiation of the
treaty. For that reason, as well as others I have stated as succinctly
as possible, I oppose the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bennet). The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. ENSIGN. Just to address the one point on the clarification in the
resolution of ratification, it has been said that our resolution of
ratification clarifies and we should not need this language in the
definition. Here is the problem I have.
Several years ago when we were debating the Chemical Weapons
Convention and riot control agents, there it is right there in the
resolution of ratification that these riot control agents can be used
in operations to protect civilian life. Yet to this day, our State
Department lawyers continue to argue they cannot, even though in the
resolution of ratification we clearly stated that these riot control
agents, tear gas basically, could be used to protect civilian life. Yet
our State Department continues to argue against that. That is why
putting it in the definitions within the treaty, we believe, is
important to clarify the difference we seem to have with the Russians
based on statements they have made to the press.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, this won't take too long. Let me say, first
of all, I thank the Senator for bringing this up. Let me underscore:
This is one of the sort of let's see if we can find a problem, and if
we can find a problem, make it into a bigger problem, and then amend
the treaty because amending the treaty itself--this amendment seeks to
amend the treaty, so here we go right back down the road of the old
``let's open up the negotiations again'' argument. We have been through
it so many times here. It has appropriately been rejected by
colleagues.
I think the last vote was something like 66 to 30 on whether we will
amend the treaty. That doesn't mean he doesn't have a right to raise
it, but let me speak to the substance.
Going back in history on the START treaty, which is why this is a
complete red herring--if you go back in the history of the START
treaty, you will recall that the Soviet Union deployed 10 warheads, 10
MIRV warheads on an SS-24 intercontinental ballistic missile, and
Russia deployed some 36 of those SS-24 rail-based launchers the Senator
is referring to at the height of their deployment. But to comply with
START I and with START II, which interestingly, we worked together on
in terms of START II even though the Russians never ratified it--and
the reason they didn't ratify it is because we took unilateral action
and withdrew from the ABM treaty, and they were mad about it. That is
why what we do matters in this relationship. We ratified the START II
treaty; they didn't. So the things we choose to do have an effect.
The fact is, thanks to our colleague to my right, the distinguished
Senator from Indiana, Mr. Lugar, and Senator Nunn, who had the vision
to put together the threat reduction program, that program set out to
destroy Russia's SS-24 ICBMs and rail-based launchers.
This is important for all those people who have come to the floor and
argued repeatedly that Russia has acted in bad faith in all of these
efforts. Take note that Russia continued those cooperative efforts and
continued to destroy those rail-based launchers even though they had
not signed on to START II. Guess what. The last Russian SS-24 launcher
was eliminated in 2007.
Now START I had a specific sublimit on mobile missiles and on rail
mobile missiles. So the START treaty's definition, as a result of those
two sublimits, the START treaty's definition needed to cover both the
rail mobile and the road mobile launchers that were deployed at the
time of the treaty. They were both put under the same roof, and that
roof was the START treaty's definition. Just like the Moscow Treaty,
the New START treaty contains just a plane limit, an overall limit on
ICBMs and ICBM launchers, SLBMs and SLBM launchers. We have the two
categories and heavy bombers with no sublimits.
That means the characteristics of strategic offensive arms limited by
the treaty, in particular the deployed and the nondeployed launchers of
ICBMs and the deployed ICBMs and their warheads, those characteristics
do not hinge on the treaty's definition of mobile launchers of ICBMs.
We don't want them to because we want this big umbrella that covers all
of it, which we have the ability to verify.
If we look at exactly what the treaty says, it says the following--
and I don't know which lawyers are arguing about this, but the lawyers
involved between the Russians and the United States and the lawyers
involved on the negotiating team and the lawyers at the State
Department are not arguing about this. They understand exactly what the
treaty says.
Here is what it says. Article II, 1(a) of the treaty sets the limit
of 700 deployed ICBMs, deployed submarine-launched ballistic missiles
and deployed heavy bombers. That is really simple. It is very
straightforward--700 ICBMs, SLBMs, bombers. We have the flexibility to
decide how many of each of those we want to have. We had a debate
previously with our colleagues about how many we would have. But that
is pretty straightforward. There is no ambiguity in that. Where is the
ambiguity--700, all three, and we believe we can count all three.
Paragraph 12 of part 1 of the protocol defines deployed ICBM as an ICBM
that is contained in or on a deployed launcher of ICBMs. That is pretty
obvious. A launcher is a launcher is a launcher.
Paragraph 13 of part 1 of the protocol defines deployed launcher of
ICBMs as an ICBM launcher that contains an ICBM and is not an ICBM test
launcher, an ICBM training launcher or an ICBM launcher located at a
space launch facility. Those are the only three exceptions. That is it.
There is no ambiguity.
It seems to me pretty darn straightforward that a rail mobile ICBM,
if either side decided to deploy it, obviously falls under the 700. It
is so obvious that we should not have to risk renegotiating the entire
treaty over something as obvious as that.
I might add, a nondeployed launcher of a rail mobile would fall under
the 700 limit in terms of the launchers. I just ask my colleagues to
look carefully at this. It would be highly improbable.
The Senator from Tennessee earlier today gave a terrific speech, Mr.
Alexander. He said: What is all this fuss about? In the end, we are
going to have thousands of these things that can destroy the whole
planet anyway.
That came from a person who is pretty thoughtful on these issues, who
understands that you have to put this in a context. We are not talking
about the Cold War right now. We are not talking about the Soviet Union
right now. We are talking about a country with which we have a very
different relationship and where we have a whole set of combined
interests, and you have to put this treaty into that context. It is
highly unlikely that during the duration of this treaty with the
Russian Federation, after years of working with the United States to
destroy the weapons and work cooperatively under Senator Lugar and
Senator Nunn's program, it is unbelievably hard to believe
[[Page S10896]]
they are going to divert what we know to be their very limited
resources and infrastructure from their planned deployment in order to
do new mobile--we have a planned deployment of new mobile-based ICBM
forces, and suddenly to have them go out and build and deploy rail
mobile launchers, which we would observe unbelievably quickly under our
national technical means.
The simple answer is that we know what they are going to do. We have
a strong capacity to track what they are doing. We have every reason to
believe the Russians agree with what I just said about the allocation
of resources. The fact is, the resolution the Senate will vote on, in
order to guarantee that we are certain about this, requires the
President to communicate to the Russians in the formal instrument that
ratifies the agreement, when we ratify it, assuming we do it, will
ratify the understanding of the United States that the treaty would
cover rail mobile launched ICBMs and their launchers, if Russia or the
United States were crazy enough to try to build them. So for the life
of me, I don't know what you can do more than that. But we certainly
are not going to reopen the treaty for the basis of a nonambiguity like
that.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I wish to add parenthetically a footnote to
the chairman's presentation.
As has been mentioned frequently during this debate, for a variety of
reasons, the Russians reduced the number of ICBMs below the totals that
were required by the former treaty. Some Senators, in fact, have said
the New START treaty, by imposing these limits of 1,550 warheads and
700 launchers, inhibits only the United States because, according to
those who have argued this, Russia has already fallen below these
limits.
Let me add, as a point of personal recollection, one of the reasons
the Russians are below some of the standards that have been suggested
is, as they thought more and more about the rail mobile situation, they
decided this was either useless, expensive, or so vulnerable to
potential attack that it was not worth maintaining.
As a result, as has been suggested, as it turned out, using the
Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, the United States and Russia,
quite outside of the last treaty, decided we would proceed under the
Cooperative Threat Reduction Program to simply destroy all the rest of
the rail, which we did.
Just for the sake of exhibit, I have a piece of one of the last rails
to be destroyed. It was presented to us by the Russians with a proper
inscription on the back of it, recognizing their appreciation to the
United States for this destruction. Therefore, logically, to argue that
we are back into a predicament of the Russians wanting to build rails
again and launch missiles and what have you from them negates the
history of cooperation, conversations that may have occurred well
beyond the treaty but that have come from the fact that there were
Americans working with Russians who were not involved necessarily in
specifics of the treaty but, in fact, were able to effect results that
were well beyond what the treaty mandated.
I mention this, again, to indicate that I believe the amendment is
unnecessary. But worse still, adoption of it would, in fact, eliminate
our consideration today. We would go home. It is finished.
I certainly encourage Senators, recognizing that the Russians don't
want the rails, have actually worked in the Cooperative Threat
Reduction Program with Americans to get rid of all of it, plus
everything associated with them, that as a commonsense situation that
seems to be fairly well under control. Even then, the statements we
have adopted as a part of the treaty take care at least of the counting
situation if, for any reason, such an emergence should occur again on
the rails.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, in response to the last argument that the
Russians don't have any incentive to and we don't believe they are
going to build the rail mobile system again, I ask, then: What is the
big deal about ensuring in the treaty that if they do, they would be
counted under the 700? What is the problem? The problem appears to be
that the Russians don't have the same view of this as do my colleagues
or the United States Government.
My colleague from Nevada quoted earlier from the Interfax report of
October 29, 2010, where the chairman of the Russian Duma--parliament--
committee responsible for treaties, Konstantin Kosachyov, stated--in
response to the argument we have just made, that the Senator from
Nevada just made, that the treaty should include rail-mobile as part of
the 700 limit--he stated, in response to that claim, and in response to
the resolution of ratification of the Foreign Relations Committee, that
U.S. claim compelled the Duma to stop action on the treaty. He said--
and I am quoting:
The Americans are trying to apply the New START Treaty to
rail-mobile ICBMs in case they are built.
That, obviously, means if he is saying: We would have to stop the
Duma action on this if that is what the U.S. Government is going to
claim, they are pushing back on this pretty hard. The question is, why?
I do not know whether they intend to build the rail-mobile system. I do
not much care whether they build it. All we care about is, if they do,
it has to be included within the 700 limit.
Now, the report language of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
confirms the fact that they are not included. Here is what the report
language says--and this is in direct contradiction to what was said
just a moment ago--this is from page 17 of the report--
Nevertheless, while a new rail-mobile system would clearly
be captured under the Article II limits despite the exclusion
of rail-mobile launchers from the definition of mobile
launchers of ICBMs, those provisions that actually use the
defined term ``mobile launcher of ICBMs'' would not cover
rail-mobile systems if Russia were to reintroduce them.
``Would not cover.''
It goes on to say:
``Appropriate detailed arrangements for incorporating rail-
mobile ICBM launchers and their ICBMs into the treaty's
verification and monitoring regime would be worked out in the
Bilateral Consultative Commission.'' Under Article XV . . .
the Parties may make changes to the Protocol or Annexes. . .
.
We have discussed this in the past. If there is a dispute about what
the treaty means, then you go to this dispute resolution group of
Russians and Americans, and they try to talk it out and work it out.
But there is nothing to say they will, and if the Russian chairman of
the committee is already saying we are trying to insert something into
the agreement that isn't there, I wonder how successful we would be in
working it out.
The report concludes:
If Russia were again to produce rail-mobile ICBM launchers,
the Parties would work within the BCC to find a way to ensure
that the treaty's notification, inspection, and monitoring
regime would adequately cover them.
So it is clear that it does not. It is clear from the report that the
language would not cover rail-mobile systems if Russia were to
reintroduce them. It is clear we would have to rely upon the Russians'
good offices, good intentions, to reach some kind of an agreement with
us in the Bilateral Consultative Commission. There are no assurances
that will be done.
Why are we willing to proceed with an agreement that has such built
in ambiguity? Why say: Well, we will let that be worked out by the BCC
when we could work it out right now? It is the same answer we get with
respect to every one of these proposals: Well, the Russians would then
demand to renegotiate the treaty.
I ask again: Is the Senate just to be a rubber stamp? We cannot do
anything to change the treaty or the protocol, or just the resolution
of ratification, which is what we are trying to do because the Russians
would say no, and, therefore, we cannot do it?
I thought we were the Senate. We are one-half of the U.S. Government
that deals with it. The other is the Executive. The Executive
negotiated the treaty. Now, why didn't they include this language? We
do not know because we do not have the record of the negotiations. What
I am told is that it is because the Russians said they would not
include it because the rail-mobile system would be unique to Russia,
and we do not have such a thing. Therefore, there would be a lack of
parity. You could not have such a unilateral provision. So if that is
the case, either the
[[Page S10897]]
Russians do intend to develop these systems, and they do not want them
counted, or there should be no problem with the Ensign amendment, which
would ensure that they would be counted.
So you cannot read the report language and agree with what has been
said--that the treaty covers these weapons--you cannot read it and
believe they would clearly be covered by the inspection and
notification and monitoring regime. In fact, it clearly shows that is
not the case. What you have to believe is that this built-in dispute in
the treaty may well arise if the Russians decide to proceed to develop
such a system, and we would then--or would arise if they decide to do
that, and we would be required to go to the BCC to try to work it out
with them. That, obviously, builds in a conflict that is not good.
As I said before, when you have a contract between two parties, the
first thing the lawyers try to do is ensure there are no ambiguities
that could cause one side or the other to later come forward and say: I
did not mean that. Then you have a legal dispute. But it is one thing
to have a legal dispute about buying a car or a house. It is quite
another to have a dispute like this between two sovereign nations.
I would note when the United States had a system we might develop,
such as the rail-mobile--but we have not made a decision to do it; we
certainly do not have it--the Russians knew we wanted to at least study
the possibility of developing a conventional Prompt Global Strike
capability--that is to say, an ICBM that could carry a conventional
warhead rather than a nuclear warhead--and they specifically insisted
that we include that in the treaty.
Now, you might say: Well, wait a minute. The Russians apparently
argued that they did not want to include anything on rail-mobile
because the United States did not have anything on rail-mobile, and
that would be a lack of parity--it would be a unilateral restriction--
but the same thing is true with conventional Prompt Global Strike. The
Russians have no intension of doing that, apparently. We might, just
like for the rail-mobile, the Russians might. Yet they insisted a
limitation be put on our conventional Prompt Global Strike--by what?--
by counting them against the 700 launcher limit--exactly the same thing
that should be done with regard to rail-mobile.
So, apparently, if we might do something in the future the Russians
do not like, we have to count it. But if the Russians might do
something in the future we do not like, we cannot count it. Our only
relief then is to go to this BCC and hope the Russians would agree to
something in the future that they have not been willing to agree to
today.
So all the Ensign amendment does is to clear up an ambiguity and
avoid a future dispute between the parties. It is clear from the report
that it is not covered now. Again, the language, ``those provisions
that actually use the defined term `mobile launchers of ICBMs' would
not cover rail-mobile systems if Russia were to re-introduce them.''
The report acknowledges that, therefore, in order to apply the
inspection and notification and monitoring regimes, you would have to
get the Russians to agree in the BCC. Why not solve that problem right
now?
Again, we meet with the same argument we are always met with: Well,
we do not dare change anything in here because the Russians would
disagree.
I just ask my colleagues, again, is there any purpose for us being
here? If every argument is, well, we do not dare change it because the
Russians would disagree, so we would have to renegotiate it, maybe that
suggests that there was not such a hot job of negotiating this treaty
in the first place. If the Senate cannot find errors or mistakes or
shortcomings and try to correct them without violating some
superprinciple that is above the U.S. Constitution, which says that the
Senate has that right, then, again, I do not know what we are doing
here.
So I urge my colleagues to support the Ensign amendment, as with some
other things we have raised, to try to avoid a conflict. Resolve the
situation now while we still have time to do it rather than after the
treaty is ratified when it is too late.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hagan). The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I appreciate the concerns my colleague
from Arizona is raising in regards to mobile launchers, particularly as
it relates to rail-mobile launchers. But I am reading the same language
the Senator has put on the floor, and it says very clearly that it is
subject to the 700 limit. I think what my colleague is referring to is
the fact that Russia today does not have rail-mobile launchers. So,
therefore, there are other protocols in the treaty in regard to
inspection, et cetera, that are not provided for in this treaty because
it is not relevant since Russia today does not have rail-mobile
launchers. But if they were to develop rail-mobile launchers, they
would be subject to the 700 limitation of launchers, if it was being
deployed. The consultation process will work out the procedures for
adequate inspection.
So I think it is already covered under the treaty. In the language of
the treaty Senator Kerry mentioned it is clear to me it is covered. But
in the report language I think it is stating the obvious.
One last point, and that is, again, you do not dispute the fact that
if we were to adopt this amendment, it would be the effect of denying
the ratification of the treaty until it was modified in Russia, which
is the same as saying we are not going to get a ratified treaty on this
issue.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. KYL. Madam President, might I pose a question to my colleague
because I understand exactly the point he makes. He makes it
accurately. I quoted the language that says that it would clearly be
captured under article II limits. That is the committee's
understanding, which is the point my colleague is making. But I go on
to note that the exclusion of rail-mobile launchers from the definition
means that it would not cover rail-mobile systems if Russia were to
reintroduce them and, therefore, there would have to be work by the BCC
to figure out how to deal with those under the inspection, monitoring,
and notification regimes.
I understand that our committee says they believe they are captured.
I see that in the report. What I am saying is, there is a dispute
because the Russians do not appear to agree with that. I would just ask
my colleague, how do you square, then, the Russian response? The
chairman of their committee--you have dueling committees--in the Duma
said:
The Americans are trying to apply the New START Treaty to
rail-mobile ICBMs in case they are built.
It appears to me what he is saying is, but they should not be doing
that. In fact, his recommendation, I believe, was the Duma not take
action on the treaty if that was our intent.
Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. KYL. Yes, of course.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. CARDIN. To me, it is the language of the treaty itself. The
language of the treaty itself is pretty clear as to what the definition
of a launcher is, with three exclusions. Just look at the language of
the treaty that any type of launcher would be covered.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. KYL. Madam President, if I could just close, and I actually had,
I think, yielded the floor. So I appreciate the chance to make this
final point.
All the Ensign amendment tries to do is clear up the ambiguity. My
colleague says it is absolutely clear to him that they are included. I
know the committee says they think it is clear. I do not think the
Russians think it is clear, and I think there is a basis for an
argument that it is not clear. Why not clear it up?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. Madam President, the answer to the question--why not clear
it up--is because if you clear it up the way the Senator is trying to,
you kill the treaty. Pretty simple.
The Senator keeps asking the question, Why can't we do this? We can't
do it because it kills the treaty. It is pretty simple. And the Senator
knows it kills the treaty.
Now, going beyond that, come back again just for an instant to the
substance. First of all, the Russian general
[[Page S10898]]
staff--I have been known, as chairman of the Foreign Relations
Committee, to make some comments which occasionally the Joint Chiefs of
Staff do not agree with. My comments are not going to drive them to do
what they do not agree with. Likewise, the chairman of their foreign
relations committee whom he quotes was tweaking us in his comment. But
the fact is, the general staff of Russia has made it abundantly clear
they do not want to build these rail-based mobile. They have no
intention of doing this. They have just been destroying them. They have
been taking them down and destroying them in a completely verifiable
manner, and the Senator from Arizona cannot contest that. He knows that
is absolutely true.
So this is a completely artificial moment designed, as others have
been, to try to derail--no pun intended--the treaty.
That said, let me also point out that if you want to try to rein in
this issue of rail-based, this amendment is not the way to do it
because there are a whole series of protocols set up in the treaty for
how you deal with road-based launchers, and you would need to begin to
put in place a whole different set of protocols in order to deal with
rail-based. So if, indeed, the Russians are, as I said, crazy enough,
as they think it would be crazy--that is the way they define it now and
we do too--to go back to something we have spent the last 15 years
destroying, if that happens, we will know it. Moreover, if it happens,
it is counted, as the Senator has agreed, under the article II limits
for launchers. So this is a nonissue, with all due respect.
I know the Senator from Nevada wants to take 2 minutes to make a
comment, and then I wish to make a unanimous consent request, if I
could, after that.
Mr. ENSIGN. Madam President, I think the Senator from Arizona wishes
to make a statement.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. KYL. Before my colleague from Nevada closes, I know this whole
argument is based on the proposition that the Russians wouldn't be
crazy enough to think about doing a rail system again so we don't need
to worry about it. What is all the fuss, is what my colleague said.
Well, here is a December 10--how many days ago is that now? I have
forgotten. We are about to Christmas, but I have forgotten the date of
today. It is from Moscow ITAR-TASS, English version. Headline: ``Russia
Completes Design Work For Use Of RS-24 Missiles On Rail-based
Systems.''
I want my colleague from Massachusetts to hear this. The Russians
aren't crazy enough to think they could do a rail system. Here is the
headline, December 10: ``Russia Completes Design Work For Use of RS-24
Missiles On Rail-based Systems.''
Just to quote a couple lines from the story:
Russia has completed design work for the use of RS-24
missiles railway-based combat systems, but implementation of
the project has been considered inexpedient, Moscow Heat
Engineering Institute Director Yuri Solomonov said. His
institute is the main designer of these missiles. Asked
whether the RS-24 missiles could be used in railway-based
systems, he said, ``This is possible. The relevant design
work was done . . . '' and so on.
I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Russia Completes Design Work for Use of RS-24 Missiles on Rail-Based
Systems
Moscow, December 20 (Itar-Tass)--Russia has completed
design work for the use of RS-24 missiles railway-based
combat systems, but implementation of this project has been
considered inexpedient, Moscow Heat Engineering Institute
Director Yuri Solomonov said.
His institute is the main designer of these missiles.
Asked whether the RS-24 missiles could be used on railway-
based systems, Solomonov said, ``This is possible. The
relevant design work was done, but their development was
deemed inexpedient. I agree with this because the
survivability of this system is not better than that of the
ground-based one, but it costs more.''
The RS-24 Yars missile system was put on combat duty in
Russia this summer.
Earlier, the chief designer of the Moscow Heat Engineering
Institute, which created the system, said that one of the RS-
24 systems had already been delivered to the Strategic Rocket
Forces at the end of last year.
Solomonov said, ``All journalists are writing about Bulava,
but are saying little about the new mobile missile system RS-
24 Yars with multiple warheads that we created at the same
time.''
The Strategic Rocket Forces intended to deploy the missile
system RS-24 with multiple warheads in December 2009,
Commander of the Strategic Rocket Forces Lieutenant-General
Andrei Shvaichenko said in October 2009.
``The intercontinental ballistic missile RS-24 put into
service will reinforce combat capabilities of the attack
group of the Strategic Rocket Forces. Along with the single-
warhead silo-based and mobile missile RS-12M2 Topol-M already
made operational the mobile missile system RS-24 will make up
the backbone of the attack group of the Strategic Rocket
Forces,'' the general said.
Silo-based and mobile missile systems Topol-M, as well as
RS-24 mobile missile systems were designed by the Moscow Heat
Engineering Institute.
The warheads of Russia's newest Topol-M and RS-24
intercontinental ballistic missiles can pierce any of the
existing of future missile defences, Strategic Rocket Forces
Commander, Lieutenant-General Sergei Karakayev said earlier.
``The combat capability of silo-based and mobile Topol-M
ICBMs is several times higher than that of Topol missiles.
They can pierce any of the existing and future missile
defence systems. RS-24 missiles have even better
performance,'' Karakayev said.
The Strategic Rocket Forces have six regiments armed with
silo-based Topol-M missiles and two regiments armed with
mobile Topol-M missiles. Each missile carries a single
warhead. This year, Russia began deploying RS-24 ICBMs with
MIRVs. There is currently one regiment armed with RS-24
missiles.
Speaking of other ICBMs, Karakayev said that RS-20V
Voyevoda (Satan by Western classification) would remain in
service until 2026. ``Their service life has been extended to
33 years,'' he said.
On July 30, 1988, the first regiment armed with RS-20B
Voyevoda missiles was placed on combat duty in the Dombarovka
missile formation in the Orenburg region.
``This is the most powerful intercontinental ballistic
missile in the world at the moment,'' the press service of
the Strategic Rocket Forces told Itar-Tass.
With a takeoff weight of over 210 tonnes, the missile's
maximum range is 11,000 kilometres and can carry a payload of
8,800 kilograms. The 8.8-tonne warhead includes ten
independently targetable re-entry vehicles whose total power
is equal to 1,200 Hiroshima nuclear bombs. A single missile
can totally eliminate 500 square kilometres of enemy
defences.
By 1990, Voyevoda missiles had been placed on combat duty
in divisions stationed outside of Uzhur, Krasnoyarsk
Territory, and Derzhavinsk, Kazakhstan. Eighty-eight Voyevoda
launch sites had been deployed by 1992.
Mr. KYL. Madam President, I am not arguing that this issue has been
resolved within Russia as to whether to go forward. I am not arguing
whether it is a good thing or a bad thing. I simply submit it in
response to the argument that the Russians would be crazy to think
about doing this. Either they are crazy or--well, in any event, I would
never attribute that motivation to anybody, even somebody from another
country. The fact is, they have begun design work on exactly such a
project.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. It is my understanding that the Russian referred to in
that article is saying how difficult it is to do the rail-based. But
here is the simple reality. If they build it, it will count, end of
issue. That is why this is unnecessary.
I yield to the Senator from Nevada.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. ENSIGN. Madam President, to wrap up this debate, let me address,
first of all, the whole idea that changing this treaty in any way kills
the treaty. Under the Constitution, certainly it is the President's
role, the administration's role, to negotiate the treaties. We all
recognize that. But under the Constitution, the Senate is tasked with
advice and consent. That means we are to look at the treaties, and if
we think they should be changed--and we have changed treaties over the
years--then we are free to change the treaties. That is why there is a
process set up, such as this amendment process, to change the treaties.
So if we have fundamental objections to the treaty, I think we can have
a debate on whether we should, on a particular amendment, change the
treaty on the merits of the amendment, but we shouldn't just say we
can't change any part of a treaty because it kills the treaty, because
we have a constitutional role in advice and consent on whether we
approve treaties.
[[Page S10899]]
Just a couple points to make.
First of all, this is from the State Department's Bureau of
Verification, Compliance, and Implementation. I ask unanimous consent
that it be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Bureau of Verification, Compliance, and Implementation, Aug.
2, 2010]
Rail-Mobile Launchers of ICBMs and their Missiles
Key Point: Neither the United States nor Russia currently
deploys rail-mobile ICBM launchers. If a Party develops and
deploys rail-mobile ICBMs, such missiles, their warheads, and
their launchers would be subject to the Treaty.
Definitions: The New START Treaty defines an ICBM launcher
as a ``device intended or used to contain, prepare for
launch, and launch an ICBM.'' This is a broad definition
intended to cover all ICBM launchers, including rail-mobile
launchers if they were to be deployed again in the future.
There is no specific mention of rail-mobile launchers of
ICBMs in the New START Treaty because neither Party currently
deploys ICBMs in that mode. Russia eliminated its rail-mobile
SS-24 ICBM system under the START Treaty. Nevertheless, the
New START Treaty's terms and definitions cover all ICBMs and
ICBM launchers, including a rail-mobile system should either
Party decide to develop and deploy such a system.
A rail-mobile launcher of ICBMs would meet the Treaty's
definition for an ICBM launcher. Such a rail-mobile launcher
would therefore be accountable under the Treaty's limits.
Because neither Party has rail-mobile ICBM launchers, the
previous definition of a rail-mobile launcher of ICBMs in the
START Treaty (``an erector-launcher mechanism for launching
ICBMs and the railcar or flatcar on which it is mounted'')
was not carried forward into the New START Treaty.
If Russia chose to develop and deploy rail-mobile ICBMs,
such missiles and their launchers would be subject to the
Treaty and its limitations. Specific details about the
application of verification provisions would be worked out in
the Bilateral Consultative Commission. Necessary adjustments
to the definition of ``mobile launchers of ICBMs''--to
address the use of the term ``self-propelled chassis on which
it is mounted'' in that definition--would also be worked out
in the BCC.
Accountability: A rail-mobile launcher containing an ICBM
would meet the definition of a ``deployed launcher of
ICBMs,'' which is ``an ICBM launcher that contains an ICBM.''
Deployed and non-deployed (i.e., both those containing and
not containing an ICBM) rail-mobile launchers of ICBMs would
fall within the limit of 800 for deployed and non-deployed
launchers of ICBMs and SLBMs and deployed and non-deployed
heavy bombers.
The ICBMs contained in rail-mobile launchers would count as
deployed and therefore would fall within the 700 ceiling for
deployed ICBMs, SLBMs, and heavy bombers.
Warheads on deployed ICBMs contained in rail-mobile
launchers therefore would fall within the limit of 1,550
accountable deployed warheads.
Applicable Provisions: Separate from the status of the
rail-mobile ICBM launcher, all ICBMs associated with the
rail-mobile system would be Treaty-accountable, whether they
were existing or new types of ICBMs, and therefore would, as
appropriate, be subject to initial technical characteristics
exhibitions, data exchanges, notifications, Type One and Type
Two inspections, and the application of unique identifiers on
such ICBMs and, if applicable, on their launch canisters.
Mr. ENSIGN. Madam President, let me just read one paragraph from
this:
If Russia chose to develop and deploy rail-mobile ICBMs,
such missiles and their launchers would be subject to the
Treaty and its limitations.
That is according to our State Department.
Specific details about the application of verification
provisions would be worked out in the Bilateral Consultative
Commission.
So, in other words, if Russia decides to build these things, then the
verification has to be worked out by the Bilateral Consultative
Commission. It isn't that it is set in there exactly what would happen,
but the verification certainly would have to be worked out.
The bottom line is, we believe there is ambiguity because of the
statements made by the Russians themselves. That is the problem. If the
Russians, in their statements in the Duma, if they have been saying:
Yes, we agree with exactly the interpretation the Americans have been
making, it would be a different story and we probably wouldn't need
this amendment. But because their statements--Senator Kerry's
counterpart in the Russian Duma has said the Americans are trying to
bring into this New START treaty mobile launchers, and the Russians
don't think they should be in there. So we think we should clarify that
language in a very unambiguous way, based on my amendment, to make sure
there is no question on each side.
I appreciate what the Senator from Massachusetts is saying, that they
have destroyed their--it would be crazy for them to build them again.
But as the Senator from Arizona just talked about, they are at least
designing. Maybe they have a better system to use for rail-mobile
launchers. We don't know that. But what we do know is, they don't think
this language applies, the language in the treaty applies to the mobile
launchers. So they could get around this treaty and the number of
warheads they could have, based on the language that is currently in
the treaty.
I just ask our colleagues to seriously consider removing the
ambiguity and voting for the Ensign amendment.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. Madam President, I don't think we need to repeat. I
appreciate the Senator from Nevada and I understand what he is saying.
I completely agree with him about the advice and consent role of the
Senate, but part of that role is to make a judgment about whether the
consequences of some particular concern merit taking down the whole
treaty and putting it back in the renegotiation process. It is not that
we can't or shouldn't under the right circumstances; it is a question
of balancing what are the right circumstances. We are arguing, I think
appropriately, because the report of our committee says clearly that
rail-mobile will be covered under article II and this is unnecessary.
So weighing it that way, it doesn't make sense to do it.
Let me say to my colleagues that I think we want to move to the Risch
amendment, and I think it is the hope of the majority leader to try to
have two votes around the hour of 6 o'clock, if that is possible, and
then to proceed to the Wicker amendment.
I yield the floor to the Senator from Idaho.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
Amendment No. 4878
Mr. RISCH. Madam President, I wish to call up amendment No. 4878.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to setting aside the
pending amendment?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will report.
The bill clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Idaho [Mr. Risch] proposes an amendment
numbered 4878.
Mr. RISCH. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading
of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To provide a condition regarding the return of stolen United
States military equipment)
At the end of subsection (a) of the Resolution of
Ratification, add the following:
(11) Return of stolen united states military equipment.--
Prior to the entry into force of the New START Treaty, the
President shall certify to the Committees on Armed Services
and Foreign Relations of the Senate that the Russian
Federation has returned to the United States all military
equipment owned by the United States that was confiscated
during the Russian invasion of the Republic of Georgia in
August 2008.
Mr. RISCH. Madam President and fellow Senators, I bring you what I
believe to be the first amendment to the resolution of ratification. We
have had a number of amendments that have been to the actual treaty
itself. We have listened to objection after objection that: Oh, my
gosh, we can't possibly amend the treaty because if we do, we are going
to have to sit down and talk to the Russians again.
We don't have to worry about that with this amendment. This is an
amendment to the resolution of ratification. It will not require that
we sit down with the Russians and negotiate. Frankly, I don't know what
is wrong with that. Frankly, I think it is a good idea after all the
problems that have been raised with the treaty. But, nonetheless, if
that is an overriding concern, you can set that aside and listen to the
merits of the amendment.
I have to tell my colleagues that part of this I bring as a matter of
frustration. I have been involved with this for months, and I am so
tired of hearing about accommodation after accommodation after
accommodation to the Russians. It appears, before we even
[[Page S10900]]
started with this, the Russians said: Well, we are going to have to
have in the preamble language that says missile defense is related to
this, and we said no. We have to have the ability to protect our
country and build missile defense. The Russians said it has to be in
there. It is in there. The next thing we said: You know, for 40 years
we have been doing this, and you guys have a 10-to-1 advantage over us
on tactical weapons; that is, short-range weapons. We ought to talk
about that because you want to talk about parity on strategic weapons.
No, it can't be in there. We accommodated the Russians again. Every
time we turn around and put out a problem here--just as we heard on
this rail thing--every time we turn around and put out a problem that
ought to be addressed, the people who are promoting this stand and
apologize, they accommodate, they say it is OK, they overlook it, and
we go on and on and on.
I am sitting here listening to this on the rails, and the one side
says: Well, don't worry about it; they are never going to build this
anyway. We pull up an article that says they are in the process of
doing this. Well, yes, but don't worry about it because it is going to
be counted anyway.
So I have something here that, hopefully, we are not going to
apologize to the Russians for. We are not going to accommodate them. We
are going to tell them that if you want a relationship with us, you
have to be honest with us.
We all know, and it has been widely reported, that they cheat. They
are serial cheaters. They cheated in virtually every agreement we have
had with them. If we are going to have a relationship with them and
press the restart button--and I think we should. We should press the
reset button. We should have a decent relationship with them. But let's
wipe the slate clean and let's start with the military equipment they
have stolen from us. That is all this is about.
On August 8 of 2008, as we all know, the Russians invaded Georgia,
and when they invaded Georgia, it was pretty much of a mismatch. They
ran over the top of them, did a lot of bad things, and eventually there
was a peace accord that was brokered by President Sarkozy, and the next
amendment I have deals more in-depth with that.
But when they ran over the Georgians, the American military had just
been there doing exercises with the Georgians because the Georgians
were kind enough to engage with us and help us in Afghanistan. They
were preparing to send troops to Afghanistan to help us. So we
Americans went over there and we said: OK. We need to do some military
exercises, engage in some joint training, so we can get you ready to go
into Afghanistan. We are now preparing to leave. We have completed the
exercises. We are preparing to leave. We obviously took a lot of our
equipment over there, not the least of which were four American
humvees. The four American humvees were shipped to a port in Georgia
and were in the process of being shipped back to the United States.
There is no argument that the title to these four humvees is with the
people of the United States of America. They belong to me. They belong
to you. They belong to the U.S. military. They belong to all of us.
The Russians, when they overran the Georgians and got to the seaport,
found our humvees, and what did they do? Did they say: Well, yes, they
belong to the Americans; we will put them on the boat that is supposed
to go back to the United States? No. They said: We are going to take
them, and they stole them. Today, they still have them.
The United States has asked for the four humvees back. But let me
tell my colleagues where the four humvees are. If you want to see a
picture of them, you can go to msn.com and search Georgia and humvees
and you can see a picture of our humvees. Where are they? They are in
the Russian Central Armed Forces Museum in Moscow, Russia. That is
where our four humvees are. What are they doing there? They are on
display as a war trophy, taken by the Russians as a war trophy. Well,
we weren't engaged in that war.
So if we are going to have a good relationship with them, is it too
much to ask to give us back the property they stole from us a little
over 24 months ago?
So this is an easy one to vote for. I have had discussions with my
good friend from Massachusetts. He said this isn't related. This is
absolutely related. We are entering into a marriage on a very important
issue.
Shouldn't we ask that they give us our stolen property back? And
shouldn't they say: Yes, we want to set the reset button too. We want
to hold hands and sing ``Kumbaya.'' We want to be friends.
Well, that is fine, but give us back our stolen military equipment.
That is all this asks for. It doesn't jeopardize the treaty; it just
says it goes into force as soon as they give us our four humvees back.
I yield the floor.
Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, let me first tell my colleague that I
support the treaty because it is in the best interest of the United
States. It is in our national security interest. It is not an
accommodation to Russia. This treaty helps us on national security.
That is what our military experts tell us. That is what our
intelligence experts tell us. That is what our diplomats tell us. On
all fronts, the ratification of this treaty makes us a safer nation. So
it is not an accommodation to Russia.
On the issue the Senator is concerned about, both the Obama
administration and this body have repeatedly reaffirmed our commitment
to Georgia's territorial sovereignty and integrity. We very much want
Russia to withdraw. We are very sympathetic to the issue the Senator
brings to our attention. We have taken action in this body to support
Georgia's territorial integrity. The START treaty and its ratification
is important in reestablishing confidence on verification as it relates
to our relationship with Russia on strategic arms, but it is also
important for the engagement of Russia on other issues. We can do more
than one thing at a time.
President Saakashvili of the Republic of Georgia said:
We all want--I personally want--Russia as a partner and not
as an enemy. Nobody has a greater stake than us in seeing
Russia turn into a country that truly operates within the
concert of nations, respects international law, and--this is
often connected--upholds basic human rights. This is why I
wholeheartedly support the efforts of European and American
leaders to strengthen their relationship with Russia.
The leader of Georgia understands that a better relationship between
Russia and the United States will help Georgia and its territorial
integrity. This treaty and its ratification will help not only build
confidence between Russia and the United States but will help the other
countries of Europe, particularly a country such as Georgia.
So the chairman of the committee is absolutely correct--and I think
we can verify that with the Parliamentarian--that this is not relevant
on the issue we have before us. It is not part of the treaty we have
negotiated. It is not part of the ratification process. It is not the
appropriate forum for this type of amendment to be considered. It
should be rejected on that basis.
The important thing in moving forward with U.S. influence on Russia
as it relates to its neighbors, such as Georgia, is to move forward
with ratification of this treaty.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. Madam President, I will be very quick. I don't think we
need to spend a lot of time on this. First of all, we agree with the
Senator from Idaho that under normal circumstances the equipment they
have would be best returned to the United States, and there are many
good-faith ways in which they might do that. But the fact is that the
way this is phrased, it has just two enormous problems. First, it says
prior to the entry into force of the treaty. So we are linking this
ancillary issue to this entire treaty, which bears on a whole set of
other national security considerations.
I want the four humvees back, and whatever the small arms are, which
raises another issue, but I am not willing to see this entire treaty
get caught up in that particular fracas. We have an unbelievable number
of diplomatic channels and other ways of prosecuting that concept, and
I pledge to the Senator that I am prepared, in the Foreign Relations
Committee, to make certain we attempt to do that, as well as deal
[[Page S10901]]
with the question of Russia's compliance with the peace agreement with
respect to the cease-fire in Georgia and so forth. These are essential
ingredients, and we will talk about that in a moment.
It also says they have to return all military equipment. It doesn't
specify. This could become one of those things where we are saying, you
have this, and they say, no, we don't. Are we talking about small arms?
What about expended ammunition? Who knows what the circumstances are?
This is not the place or the time for us to get caught up in linking
this treaty to this particular outcome. I really think that stands on
its own.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona is recognized.
Mr. KYL. Madam President, obviously one of the purposes of these two
amendments is to respond to one of the arguments that has been raised
in support of this treaty. We have this wonderful new reset
relationship with Russia, and were we to not ratify the treaty, that
relationship would be frayed, and who knows how much Russia might react
to it? It would be harder to get their cooperation on things. Those are
all arguments that have been made.
I think one of the points of these two amendments is to show that the
reset relationship between Russia and the United States has not
produced all that much good behavior or cooperation on the part of the
Russians. I earlier detailed all of the ways--at least a few--in which
Russia had been very unhelpful to the United States with regard to
Iran. I noted I think 2 days ago or maybe yesterday that in the U.N.,
they were trying to water down a resolution dealing with North Korea
that we are working hard to try to obtain. They have been very
difficult to deal with with regard to North Korea and Iran. At the end
of the day, I think they only do what is in their best interest, in any
event--not basing their decisions of what is in their best interests on
some concept of a new friendliness with the United States.
I think part of the reason my colleague from Idaho offered these two
amendments is to simply demonstrate that this new relationship isn't
all that its cracked up to be if they won't even give us some equipment
they confiscated when they invaded Georgia. That is not a major point
in international diplomacy, and it certainly isn't a major point with
respect to U.S. military capability. It is illustrative of something.
The point of the amendment is to say that you have quite a bit of
time before this treaty enters into force. A lot has to happen. It is
sent to Russia, the Duma has to deal with it, and so on.
Just return the stuff. Maybe that little gesture of good will would
help to reestablish this so-called reset relationship in ways they have
not been able to accomplish by getting Russian support with the U.N.
resolutions and other actions with regard to sanctions on Iran and
diplomacy with North Korea.
One can say it is not a big deal, this military equipment, but on the
other hand, they say it will destroy the treaty if we have this
particular amendment. The reality is that we are simply trying to make
a point that the Russians have not acted well in a variety of
situations. I cannot think of a better example than the invasion of
Georgia, the continued violation of the cease-fire agreement they
signed there, and the violation of the U.N. resolution.
I would reiterate, at the summit declaration--this is where the NATO
members, meeting in Lisbon last month, joined together to call for a
resolution to the problem, saying, ``We reiterate our continued support
for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Georgia within its
internationally recognized borders.'' And then they urge all to play a
constructive role and to work with the U.N. to pursue a peaceful
resolution of the internationally recognized territory of Georgia. And
then the final sentence:
We continue to call on Russia to reverse its recognition of
the South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions of Georgia as
independent States.
That is the kind of cooperation we are getting from the Russian
Federation these days. I appreciate the amendments brought forth by my
colleague to highlight that fact.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama is recognized.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I agree with Senator Kyl and support the
Risch amendment. I remember at a NATO conference not too many years ago
President Bush was advocating for Georgia being a member of NATO, to
show you how serious these matters are. So had we voted to bring
Georgia into NATO--and they were on the short list--we would be in a
situation in which the Russians would be invading a NATO country. The
act of Russia invading Georgia was a dramatic event.
The proponents of the treaty portrayed this matter as advancing our
relationship with Russia. I think Senator Kerry has been not so
aggressive--that hasn't been one of his themes. But a lot of people
have, and I think he was wise not to go down that road.
A lot of people have tried to say we are going to get along with
Russia better by signing this treaty with them. That is not a sound
basis to sign a treaty. We all need a better relationship with Russia.
That I certainly acknowledge. Georgia would certainly benefit from it,
and hopefully the world will have a better relationship with Russia.
But I am unable to fathom a lot of the Russian activities, frankly.
It is just difficult for me. Why have they negotiated so hardheadedly
on this treaty to actually reduce the number of inspections over what
we had in the previous treaty? Why? I thought Russia was about wanting
to move forward into the world and be a good citizen in the world
community. I haven't seen it. I am worried about it.
So the question is, if we abandon or concede too much, are we helping
develop a positive relationship? I think Senator Risch is saying: Look,
we have a serious problem. They are holding our military equipment. Are
we not even going to discuss that?
How do we get to a more positive relationship with our Russian
friends? I think the people of Russia are our friends. How do we get
there? Is it through strength, constancy, consistency, principle, and
position, or is it through weakness, placating, concession, and
appeasing? Is that the way to gain respect and move us into a healthier
relationship? I don't think so.
I think we have only one charge, and that is to defend our legitimate
interests. I believe this administration has been too fixed on a
treaty, and, as one observer and former treaty negotiator has said: If
you want it bad, you will get it bad. In other words, if you want the
treaty too badly, you won't be an effective negotiator. I remember
during this process, on more than one occasion, warning and expressing
concern to our negotiators that we appeared to be too anxious to obtain
this treaty and, if so, the Russians would play us like a fiddle. I am
afraid that is what has happened.
I think this Congress would do the President, the world, Russia, and
our country a service if we said what Senator Risch says: OK, guys, how
about letting our equipment be sent back. If you are not willing to do
that, then we have a serious problem.
I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho is recognized.
Mr. RISCH. Madam President, first of all, to my good friend from
Maryland, I agree with much of what he said about our relationship and
the relationship between Georgia and Russia. I will speak about that in
the next amendment I am going to offer, which is No. 4879, right after
this one. I know the Senator didn't talk about our stolen military
equipment by the Russians.
To my friend from Massachusetts, who responded to what I said, I say:
Here we go again. This is exactly why I brought this amendment. We are
again accommodating the Russians. Why can't we just once ask them to
behave themselves and say: Look, this is not a big matter, but you are
acting like a thief.
Do you want to see what they did? I made reference for you to go on
the Internet to see the pictures, but here they are. If you are a good
American, you can go there and you can watch your property right here
being towed away by the Russians, back to Moscow, to put on display as
a trophy. Here is another picture of it right here. This is even
better. This is one of our humvees being towed by the Russians. This
humvee is headed back to Moscow, where it is now displayed as a trophy.
[[Page S10902]]
Is it too much to ask, where we are going to enter into this
agreement and supposedly befriend and supposedly reset the button on
our relationship, is it too much to say: Look, you stole from us. You
are acting like a thief. Give us back the property we own.
Is that asking too much of the Russians? Can we not just once,
instead of accommodating them, instead of apologizing for them, instead
of saying we should not tie this to that or we will not get it, can we
not just once say: Give us our stolen property back.
That is all we are asking here. It is not a big thing, but it does
give us a clear indication of what they are thinking, of what their
relationship is with us, of what they want their relationship to be
with us.
This is not asking too much. This does not blow up the treaty. It
simply says they pack up the four humvees and, and as soon as they do,
the treaty goes into effect. That is not too much to ask.
I yield to my good friend from Massachusetts.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. Madam President, this has been cleared on both sides.
I ask unanimous consent that at 6 p.m., the Senate proceed to votes
in relation to the following amendments to the START treaty and the
resolution of ratification: Ensign amendment No. 4855 and Risch
amendment No. 4878; further, that prior to the votes, there be no
second-degree amendments in order to the amendment, and that the time
before the votes be divided equally between the sponsors and myself or
their designees.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I will share one thought I remember so
vividly before Russia invaded Georgia. We were at a NATO conference.
There was a discussion outside the normal meeting. One weak-kneed, I
suppose, European explained to the Georgians why it was difficult for
the other nations to support Georgia in their idea to be in NATO and
suggested it was difficult because Russia was a big and powerful
country.
The Georgian replied--and I have never forgotten it--saying: Well,
sir, we think it is a question of values. Mr. Putin said last year the
greatest disaster of the 20th century was the collapse of the Soviet
Union. We in Georgia believe it was the best thing that happened in the
20th century. It is a question of values. We share your values. We want
to be with you.
I have to say it is deeply troubling to me that our Russian friends
are being so recalcitrant and so aggressive and so hostile to sovereign
states such as Georgia, the Ukraine, the Baltics, and Poland. They used
to be a part of the Soviet empire. They are now sovereign nations,
independent in every way.
Conceding, as part of these negotiations, the deployment of a ground-
based interceptor missile defense system in Poland to comply with
Russian demands during this treaty process was a terrible thing,
especially when we did not even tell our friends in the sovereign
nation of Poland we intended to do it before we announced it with the
Russians.
The Senator is just raising a reality. I say to Senator Risch, we
have some problems here, and we might as well put it out on the table,
be realistic about it, and take off the rose-colored glasses. This
amendment is one way to say let's get serious and talk with our Russian
friends about some serious difficulties we have.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
Mr. RISCH. Madam President, I call up Risch amendment No. 4879.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. KERRY. Madam President, at this time there is, until we have an
opportunity--we were going to work this out with Senator Kyl after the
vote. So I object to it at this moment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Mr. KERRY. I believe Senator Kyl had two amendments he wanted to get
up at this point in time.
Mr. KYL. What was the unanimous consent request?
Mr. KERRY. The Senator from Idaho requested to go to his next
amendment, which is No. 4879. That was the one the Senator from Arizona
and I were talking about with respect to an issue we wanted to work out
with the Parliamentarian before we go to it. I think the Senator and I
had agreed he would like to go to two other amendments next in line. We
will come back to this issue.
Mr. KYL. Madam President, that understanding is fine. There are two
Members who I think will be ready to go forward with their amendments
immediately following the two votes at 6 o'clock.
Again, for benefit of the Members, it is my hope that we can continue
to work through as many amendments as possible this evening, maybe have
debate a couple at a time and vote, whatever the body desires. But
perhaps we could continue at least to work through a few more
amendments yet this evening.
Mr. KERRY. I agree with that completely. We have a fairly limited
list, and I think it is possible to move through them rapidly. I
appreciate the efforts of the Senator from Arizona to do so.
Madam President, how much time do we have on our side?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Six minutes.
Mr. KERRY. I yield 4 minutes to the Senator from New Hampshire.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, I thank my colleague from
Massachusetts, Senator Kerry. I wish to respond to Senator Risch's
amendment because I am very sympathetic to the concerns he is raising.
All who watched Russia's invasion of Georgia had to be outraged about
what happened. In fact, I have a resolution I have submitted with
Senators Graham and Lieberman. I hope, perhaps, the Senator from Idaho
might be willing to take a look at this resolution and work with us on
it next year because one of the things it does is it calls upon the
Government of Russia to take steps to fulfill all the terms and
conditions of the 2008 cease-fire agreement, including returning
military forces to prewar positions and ensuring access to
international humanitarian aid to all those affected by the conflict.
It also deals with a number of other provisions in that resolution
with respect to Georgia.
I also point out, as I am sure my friend from Idaho knows, that
Georgia has recognized it is in their interest to have relations with
Russia that can address their border concerns in a way that is
positive, to have Russia working with the international community as
opposed to working as a pariah. They may represent what we have heard
from all our NATO allies with respect to the START treaty; that it is
in the best interest of our NATO allies. We have heard from those
countries that border Russia--Latvia, Poland, and a number of other
countries--that they would like to see the United States ratify the New
START treaty.
I am in agreement with the concerns Senator Risch raised. I have
questions about whether this is the best way to do it, given the
confines of the New START treaty and our efforts to get this into
effect as soon as possible so we do not continue to have a situation
where we do not have inspectors on the ground in Russia who can help
gather intelligence, who can see what is going on with their nuclear
arms in a way that would also benefit Georgia.
I understand the concerns. I agree with those. But I cannot support
this amendment because of the negative impact it might have on
ratifying the treaty.
Mr. RISCH. Madam President, may I respond.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
Mr. RISCH. Madam President, somehow the debate about the relationship
between Russia and Georgia and our relationship as far as Georgia is
concerned has crept into this debate. This amendment has nothing to do
with Georgia, other than the fact that is where the theft took place.
The international criminal offense of theft of our military property
took place in Georgia. That is the only thing Georgia has to do with
this. This has nothing to do with the relationship. Amendment No. 4879
has a lot to do with it. When we get there, we will talk about that.
I regret my good friend from New Hampshire cannot support this
amendment, because although I suspect I will
[[Page S10903]]
support the resolution, we do a lot of these resolutions. We do the
resolution and send it off to the Russians. They are going to be
laughing up their sleeve at us, whilst they are fondling our equipment
that they have possession of.
There are no teeth in these resolutions. We actually have the
opportunity to do something to get our military equipment back. If they
are acting in good faith, if they are people of good will, if they want
a relationship with us, then they are going to have to make a choice:
Do we keep four humvees or do we give them back so this treaty can go
into effect? That is the choice they are going to have to make.
That is not too tough a choice to put on them. Do you want to
continue to be thieves or do you want to be honest about this and
deliver the goods you have stolen? There is nothing wrong about that.
This gives us the opportunity, I say to the good Senator, to do what
you exactly do on the resolution, but it is going to give it some
teeth.
I yield the floor.
Mr. KERRY. Madam President, how much time remains?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Three minutes.
Mr. KERRY. On both sides? How much remains on the proponents' side?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority has 19 seconds; the majority has
3 minutes.
Mr. KERRY. I suggest the absence of a quorum. I withhold that
request.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I, first, thank the Senator from Idaho
for bringing up this issue. I might tell him, I have a laundry list of
issues with which I would like to deal with Russia.
I have the honor of chairing the Helsinki Commission. We have a lot
of human rights issues with Russia, and we raise them all the time as
aggressively as we can. I am proud the Obama administration has raised
these issues at the highest level with the Russian Federation. We are
very sympathetic to the issue the Senator has brought up. It is the
wrong vehicle to deal with this issue. It is the wrong vehicle. This
treaty is important for U.S. national security. That is why I support
the ratification. That is why I urge my colleagues to support the
ratification.
Yes, it is appropriate in our advise-and-consent role for us to take
up issues that are relevant to the subject matter of the treaty. The
problem is, the issues the Senator from Idaho is bringing up are not
relevant to the subject matter of the treaty. Therefore, it is the
wrong vehicle to take up this issue.
I do not want the Senator from Idaho to interpret my opposition to
his amendment as opposing what he is trying to do. I agree with what he
is trying to do. It is the wrong vehicle on which to put it. I urge the
Senator to work with Senator Shaheen, work with the Helsinki Commission
on other issues.
The issue the Senator is bringing up about the return of property is
very important to America. We believe in many cases the Russian
Federation is not living up to their international commitments under
international agreements. We will bring those up, and we will fight in
those forums. But this treaty is in our interest. This treaty and our
actions should deal with the four corners of the agreement.
In that respect, I very much oppose the Senator's amendment.
Mr. RISCH. Madam President, may I claim my 19 seconds.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
Mr. RISCH. Madam President, with all due respect to my good friend
from Maryland, this is exactly the right vehicle to bring this up. This
is a vehicle of trust, and it is a vehicle that puts some teeth in an
otherwise toothless thing.
As far as human rights versus this stolen property, this is very
objective, it is hard, you can see it. The human rights violations I
think are entirely different. They certainly are important. They
certainly rise to as high a level, but this is objective.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. KERRY. Madam President, I believe all time has expired; is that
correct?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 1 minute remaining.
Mr. KERRY. I yield back my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Time is yielded back. All time is expired.
Vote on Amendment No. 4855
The question is on agreeing to the Ensign amendment No. 4855.
Mr. KERRY. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Bayh) and
the Senator from Oregon (Mr. Wyden) are necessarily absent.
Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator
from Missouri (Mr. Bond), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback), and
the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Gregg).
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 32, nays 63, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 293 Ex.]
YEAS--32
Barrasso
Brown (MA)
Bunning
Burr
Chambliss
Coburn
Cochran
Cornyn
Crapo
DeMint
Ensign
Enzi
Graham
Grassley
Hatch
Hutchison
Inhofe
Isakson
Johanns
Kirk
Kyl
LeMieux
McCain
McConnell
Risch
Roberts
Sessions
Shelby
Snowe
Thune
Vitter
Wicker
NAYS--63
Akaka
Alexander
Baucus
Begich
Bennet
Bennett
Bingaman
Boxer
Brown (OH)
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Collins
Conrad
Coons
Corker
Dodd
Dorgan
Durbin
Feingold
Feinstein
Franken
Gillibrand
Hagan
Harkin
Inouye
Johnson
Kerry
Klobuchar
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lincoln
Lugar
Manchin
McCaskill
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Murkowski
Murray
Nelson (NE)
Nelson (FL)
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Sanders
Schumer
Shaheen
Specter
Stabenow
Tester
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Voinovich
Warner
Webb
Whitehouse
NOT VOTING--5
Bayh
Bond
Brownback
Gregg
Wyden
The amendment (No. 4855) was rejected.
Vote on Amendment no. 4878
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Udall of Colorado). Under the previous
order, the question is on agreeing to the Risch amendment No. 4878.
The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I move to table the Risch amendment. I ask
for the yeas and nays, and I ask unanimous consent this be a 10-minute
vote.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The question is on agreeing to the motion to table.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Bayh), the
Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand), and the Senator from Oregon
(Mr. Wyden) are necessarily absent.
I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from New
York (Mrs. Gillibrand) would vote ``yea.''
Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator
from Missouri (Mr. Bond), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback), the
Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Gregg), and the Senator from Oklahoma
(Mr. Coburn).
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 61, nays 32, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 294 Ex.]
YEAS--61
Akaka
Alexander
Baucus
Begich
Bennet
Bennett
Bingaman
Boxer
Brown (OH)
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Collins
Conrad
Coons
Corker
Dodd
Dorgan
Durbin
Feingold
Feinstein
Franken
Hagan
Harkin
Inouye
Johnson
Kerry
Kirk
Klobuchar
[[Page S10904]]
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lincoln
Lugar
Manchin
McCaskill
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Murkowski
Murray
Nelson (NE)
Nelson (FL)
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Sanders
Schumer
Shaheen
Specter
Stabenow
Tester
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Warner
Webb
Whitehouse
NAYS--32
Barrasso
Brown (MA)
Bunning
Burr
Chambliss
Cochran
Cornyn
Crapo
DeMint
Ensign
Enzi
Graham
Grassley
Hatch
Hutchison
Inhofe
Isakson
Johanns
Kyl
LeMieux
Lieberman
McCain
McConnell
Risch
Roberts
Sessions
Shelby
Snowe
Thune
Vitter
Voinovich
Wicker
NOT VOTING--7
Bayh
Bond
Brownback
Coburn
Gillibrand
Gregg
Wyden
The motion was agreed to.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. CORKER. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, we are in a position now--we don't have the
consent agreement completely fixed, but we know what we are going to
do. We are going to have three votes, three different amendments. There
would be a half hour debate on each amendment. So we likely will have a
series of votes at 8:15 or thereabouts tonight. Senator Kerry will
offer a consent agreement to this effect very shortly. In the meantime,
we can start debating one of the amendments.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I understand there will be three amendments
we will proceed with. Two will be offered by Senator Kyl and one by
Senator Wicker. Senator Wicker is prepared to call up his amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi is recognized.
Amendment No. 4895
Mr. WICKER. I ask unanimous consent to call up amendment No. 4895 by
Wicker and Kyl.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Wicker], for himself and
Mr. Kyl, proposes an amendment numbered 4895.
Mr. WICKER. I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be
dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To provide an understanding that provisions adopted in the
Bilateral Consultative Commission that affect substantive rights or
obligations under the Treaty are those that create new rights or
obligations for the United States and must therefore be submitted to
the Senate for its advice and consent)
At the end of subsection (b) of the Resolution of
Ratification, add the following:
(4) Bilateral consultative commission.--It is the
understanding of the United States that provisions adopted in
the Bilateral Consultative Commission that affect substantive
rights or obligations under the Treaty are those that create
new rights or obligations for the United States and must
therefore be submitted to the Senate for its advice and
consent.
Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I rise this evening to offer another
amendment to the resolution of ratification. This amendment rises out
of concerns over the Bilateral Consultative Commission known as the
BCC. The BCC has been referred to numerous times in debate today.
Article XII of the treaty establishes the BCC as a forum for the
parties to resolve issues concerning implementation of the treaty. Part
six of the protocol says the BCC has the authority to resolve questions
relating to compliance, agree to additional measures to improve the
viability and effectiveness of the treaty, and discuss other issues
raised by either party. This clearly is very broad authority given to
the BCC. In effect, the subject matter jurisdiction of the BCC seems
limitless, based on the clear language of article XII.
Former National Security Adviser under President George W. Bush,
Stephen Hadley, appeared before the Foreign Relations Committee and
expressed concerns over this treaty. He stated, with regard to the
Bilateral Consultative Commission:
The Bilateral Consultative Commission seems to have been
given authority to adopt, without Senate review, measures to
improve the viability and effectiveness of the treaty which
could include restrictions on missile defense.
It is that element of Senate review that this amendment would inject
back into the process.
Others have voiced concern that the mandate of the BCC is overly
broad. This should trouble Senators. It is why I offer this amendment
to place proper limits on the power of the BCC.
I hold in my hand a fax sheet written by the Department of State
Bureau of Verification, Compliance, and Implementation, dated August
11, 2010. I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Bureau of Verification, Compliance, and Implementation, Aug.
11, 2010]
Bilateral Consultative Commission (BCC)
Key Point: The New START Treaty establishes the BCC to work
questions related to Treaty implementation. The use of
treaty-based commissions to agree on limited technical
changes to improve or clarify implementation of treaty
provisions is a well-established practice in arms control
treaties.
Background: The New START Treaty authorizes the Parties to
use the Bilateral Consultative Commission (BCC) to reach
agreement on changes in the Protocol to the Treaty, including
its Annexes, that do not affect substantive rights or
obligations. The START Treaty's Joint Compliance and
Inspection Commission and the Intermediate and Shorter Range
Nuclear Forces Treaty's Special Verification Commission were
assigned similar responsibilities by those treaties.
The Chemical Weapons Convention, the Open Skies Treaty, and
the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty provide similar
authority to effect technical changes that are deemed
necessary by the Parties during the implementation of the
respective treaty.
Authority of the BCC: In addition to making technical
changes to the Protocol, including its Annexes, that do not
affect substantive rights or obligations, the BCC may:
resolve questions relating to compliance with the obligations
assumed by the Parties; agree upon such additional measures
as may be necessary to improve the viability and
effectiveness of the Treaty; discuss the unique features of
missiles and their launchers, other than ICBMs and ICBM
launchers, or SLBMs and SLBM launchers, referred to in
paragraph 3 of Article V of the Treaty, that distinguish such
missiles and their launchers from ICBMs and ICBM launchers,
or SLBMs and SLBM launchers; discuss on an annual basis the
exchange of telemetric information under the Treaty; resolve
questions related to the applicability of provisions of the
Treaty to a new kind of strategic offensive arm; and discuss
other issues raised by either Party.
If amendments to the Treaty are necessary, the Parties may
use the BCC as a framework within which to negotiate such
amendments. However, once negotiated, such amendments may
enter into force only in accordance with procedures governing
entry into force of the Treaty. This means that they would be
subject to the advice and consent of the United States
Senate.
This provision ensures that the Senate's Constitutional
role in providing advice and consent to the ratification of
treaties is not undermined.
Rules Governing the Work of the BCC
The BCC is required to meet at least twice each year in
Geneva, Switzerland, unless the Parties agree otherwise.
The work of the BCC is confidential, except if the Parties
agree in the BCC to release the details of the work.
BCC agreements reached or results of its work recorded in
writing are not confidential, except as otherwise agreed by
the BCC.
Mr. WICKER. The fax sheet mentions on more than one occasion that
changes adopted by the BCC cannot affect substantive rights or
obligations. It says under background: ``The New START treaty
authorizes the parties to use the Bilateral Consultative Commission,
BCC, to reach agreement on changes in the protocol to the treaty,
including its annexes, that do not affect substantive rights or
obligations.''
Further down under authority of the BCC, the State Department fax
sheet says: ``In addition to making technical changes to the protocol,
including its annexes that do not affect substantive rights or
obligations, the BCC may,'' and then it lists the six bullets. First,
resolve questions relating to compliance with the obligations assumed
by the parties. Secondly, agree upon such
[[Page S10905]]
additional measures as may be necessary to improve the viability and
effectiveness of the treaty. Next, discuss the unique features of
missiles and their launchers other than ICBM and ICBM launchers or SLBM
and SLBM launchers referred to in paragraph 3 of article V of the
treaty that distinguish such missiles and their launchers from ICBM and
ICBM launchers and SLBM and SLBM launchers. Next, discuss on an annual
basis the exchange of telemetric information under the treaty. Fifth,
resolve questions related to the applicability of provisions of the
treaty to a new kind of strategic offensive arm. And finally, discuss
other issues raised by either party. But the changes may not affect
substantive rights or obligations of the parties.
``Rules governing the work of the BCC: The BCC is required to meet at
least twice a year in Geneva unless the parties agree otherwise. The
work of the BCC is confidential, except if the parties agree in the BCC
to release details of the work,'' and ``BCC agreements reached or
result of its work recorded in writing are not confidential . . . ''
The BCC can agree to amendments in the treaty, but they must be
submitted back to the Senate for advice and consent. It is a very
powerful commission, no doubt. And it is reassuring to have this fax
sheet saying that substantive changes cannot be made by the BCC.
It would be more reassuring if we put this in writing, and that is
what the Wicker-Kyl amendment 4895 does. It is very simple and it uses
the State Department language, stating that provisions adopted by the
BCC that affect substantive rights--and these are the words used by the
State Department in the fax sheet--are those that create new rights or
obligations for the United States and must therefore be submitted to
the Senate for its advice and consent.
The bottom line is this: If it is determined that a substantive
change has been made by a decision of the BCC, then that change should
be subject to the advice and consent of the Senate.
I urge a ``yes'' vote to this very simple but straightforward
amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, the amendment offered by Senator Wicker is
an amendment that is looking for an issue. There is no issue that is
joined here with respect to the bilateral commission or what it might
do with respect to the creation of rights. But if this amendment were
to pass, there would be an issue, not only an issue with respect to
Russian participation but actually an issue that could be harmful to
the United States. This is a little bit technical and it is a tricky
thing to follow in some ways, but let me lay this out.
Under the START treaty, the prior treaty under which we have lived
since 1992, and now under the proposed New START treaty, the
consultative commission that we create in the treaty will get together
in order to work out the problems that may or may not arise and is
allowed to agree upon ``such additional measures as may be necessary to
improve the viability and the effectiveness of the treaty.'' If those
additional measures they might approve at some point in time are
changes to the protocol or to its annexes and if the changes don't
affect substantive rights or obligations under the treaty, then it is
entirely allowable for those changes to be adopted without referring
them back to the Senate for any advice or ratification. The Senators'
proposed amendment would make it U.S. policy all of a sudden that the
phrase ``do not affect substantive rights or obligations'' means
``doesn't create new rights or obligations.'' So there is a distinction
between affecting substantive rights and then having the operative
language that kicks it into gear become the creation of rights or
obligations. This proposal is unnecessary.
Why? We have operated without it for 15 years under the START treaty
without a single problem. The New START treaty uses the exact same
approach that has worked for 15 years. We have a lot of experience in
determining what constitutes substantive rights or obligations.
More importantly, I mentioned a moment ago that this could be harmful
to American interests. Here is how. It would actually require that
agreements we want to move on and that act in our national security
interest would be delayed and referred to the Senate, and we all know
how long that could take, even if the new rights or obligations that
they created were absolutely technical in nature. No matter how
technical or trivial, they have to come to the Senate to become hostage
to one Senator or another Senator's other agenda in terms of our
ability to move, at least as structured here.
Under START, the compliance commission adopted provisions on how
inspectors would use radiation detection equipment to determine that
the objects on a missile that Russia declared not to be warheads were,
in fact, nonnuclear and, therefore, not warheads. There was absolutely
no need for the Senate to hold hearings, write reports, or have a floor
debate on that provision, even though it created a new right for the
inspecting side and a new obligation for the hosting side in an
inspection. We don't want to take away our ability to be able to do
that. This amendment would do that.
Similarly, the commission under START reached agreement from time to
time on changes in the types of inspection and equipment that a country
could use. Equipment changes over time, as we know. Technology
advances, so the equipment changes. Giving U.S. inspectors the new
right to use that equipment or the new obligation to let Russian
inspectors use it hardly warrants referral to the Senate for its advice
and consent.
In summary, this amendment is unneeded. We have done well without it.
Not well--we have done spectacularly without it for 15 years. No
problems whatsoever. On the other side, it is a dangerous amendment
because it forces us to delay for months the implementation of
technical agreements that our inspectors ought to be allowed to
implement without delay.
I reserve the remainder of my time and ask unanimous consent that
upon the use or yielding back of time specified below, the Senate
proceed to votes in relation to the following amendments to the
resolution of ratification: Wicker 4895, Kyl 4860, and Kyl 4893;
further, that prior to the votes there be no second-degree amendment in
order to any of the amendments and that there be 30 minutes of debate
on each amendment equally divided between the sponsors of the amendment
and myself and/or my designee or the designee of the sponsors; further,
I ask unanimous consent that the time already consumed by Senator
Wicker and myself be counted toward this agreement.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. KERRY. How much time do I have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 9 minutes remaining on the
Wicker amendment.
Mr. KERRY. I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Maryland.
Mr. CARDIN. Let me thank Senator Wicker for bringing forward this
amendment. I know it is an amendment he feels very strongly about. I
compliment him because I believe a good part of what he was concerned
about is already in the resolution of advice and consent on
ratification.
As the Senator pointed out, there is a consultation process before
the Bilateral Consultative Commission to meet on any changes that would
modify the treaty itself. There has to be consultation with Congress on
those issues, as the Senator pointed out in his comments. So I think we
have already taken care of the major concern the Senator has that it
would be a substantive decision made by the Bilateral Consultative
Commission.
Secondly, let me point out that whatever the Bilateral Consultative
Commission does, it is limited by the treaty itself, which, hopefully,
will have been ratified by both the United States and Russia. So there
will be a limit on the ratification already in the process.
As Senator Kerry pointed out, we certainly do not want to hold up
Senate ratification for minor administrative issues, knowing how long
Senate ratification of anything related to a treaty could take.
The last point I want to bring out is, the Senator mentioned missile
defense, and I know this has been brought up over and over and over.
But in our advice and consent to the ratification of the treaty, we
have already put in that:
. . . the New START Treaty does not impose any limitations
on the deployment of
[[Page S10906]]
missile defenses other than the requirements of paragraph 3
of Article V of the New START Treaty, which states, ``Each
Party shall not convert and shall not use ICBM launchers or
SLBM launchers for placement of missile defense interceptors
therein.''
So we already put in the resolution the concern that the Senator has
voiced as the major reason he wanted to expand the consultative
process, which is also already included in the resolution.
I think the point Senator Kerry has raised is that this would make it
technically unworkable for the Bilateral Consultative Commission to do
its work if we required Senate consultation or ratification every time
the Commission wanted to meet.
For all those reasons, I urge my colleagues to reject the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
The Senator from Mississippi.
Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, if no one else seeks time on this
amendment, I would be prepared to close.
It may be that my friend from Maryland is satisfied that there are no
restrictions on missile defense in this aspect of the treaty. But it
did not satisfy Stephen Hadley, the National Security Adviser to former
President George W. Bush, who came before our committee with concerns.
It seems to me we have a very simple way to address those concerns.
Let me reiterate to my colleagues the quote of Mr. Hadley:
The Bilateral Consultative Commission seems to have been
given authority to adopt without Senate review measures to
improve the viability and effectiveness of the Treaty which
could include restrictions on missile defense.
I would also agree with my colleague from Maryland that, indeed, the
BCC has the authority to negotiate amendments to the treaty. That is
acknowledged in the factsheet by the State Department.
The simple step beyond that I am trying to do with my amendment is to
make it clear, using the terms supplied to us by the State Department
that say: The BCC cannot make changes that affect the substantive
rights or obligations of the United States. I am trying to make that
part of the resolution of ratification, and that is all it does. It
says if the BCC adopts provisions that affect substantive rights or
obligations under the treaty that create new rights or obligations,
that those changes must come back to the Senate. It is in addition to
the requirement that amendments to the treaty come back to the Senate
for ratification, and it is a protection of the rights of this body to
continue to have a role in substantive modifications that might come
out of the BCC.
I urge the adoption of this amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I will say, I think we just have a
disagreement. I think where Senate confirmation would be at issue is
where there is an amendment to the treaty, and that is exactly what is
included in our resolution.
I think it is unworkable to try to get the Senate involved in all the
changes in trying to say what is substantive and what is not. I think
you would be interfering with the administration of the verification
systems, et cetera. So I would just urge our colleagues to reject the
amendment.
I say to Senator Wicker, I think on our side we are prepared to yield
back. So if the Senator would like to----
Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I yield back.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, we yield back the time on this amendment.
As I understand the unanimous consent agreement, it is 30 minutes per
amendment. Then I think we are prepared to go to Senator Kyl for his
amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, a point of inquiry before I begin. Is there a
reason I should speak to either amendment No. 4860 or amendment No.
4893 first?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator can speak in whatever order he
wishes, but neither amendment has been offered.
Mr. KYL. Thank you, Mr. President.
Amendment No. 4860
Then, Mr. President, with that, I would like to offer amendment No.
4860, SLCM side agreement, which I believe is pending at the desk. I
would ask for its consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, the clerk will report the amendment.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Arizona [Mr. Kyl] proposes an amendment
numbered 4860.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the
amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To require a certification that the President has negotiated
a legally binding side agreement with the Russian Federation that the
Russian Federation will not deploy a significant number of nuclear-
armed sea-launched cruise missiles during the duration of the New START
Treaty)
At the end of subsection (a) of the Resolution of
Ratification, add the following:
(11) Limitation on nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise
missiles.--Prior to the entry into force of the New START
Treaty, the President shall certify to the Senate that the
President has negotiated a legally binding side agreement
with the Russian Federation that the Russian Federation will
not deploy a significant number of nuclear-armed sea-launched
cruise missiles during the duration of the New START Treaty.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, this is actually a very straightforward
amendment. It simply seeks to repeat in this New START treaty the same
thing the then-Soviet Union and United States did in the previous START
I treaty with respect to a particular kind of weapon--a Russian weapon
called the SLCM or sea-launched cruise missile.
As part of START I, we reached a binding side agreement--a side
agreement--because the Senate had said we needed to include these
weapons in the treaty. So a side agreement was reached that they would
limit a deployment of sea-launched cruise missiles or the SLCMs due to
their impact on strategic stability, the point being that whether these
sea-launched cruise missiles are deemed tactical or strategic, they
actually have a strategic component, especially if they are sitting
right off your coast and they are launched and they can hit your
country. So that agreement was put into a side agreement between the
then-Soviet Union and the United States.
But when this New START treaty was negotiated, there was no similar
side agreement. So there were no restrictions on SLCM deployments. The
side agreement in the START treaty limited both nations to fewer than
800 SLCMs with a range greater than 600 kilometers. In the 2010 Nuclear
Posture Review, the administration committed to unilaterally
eliminating our SLCM capability.
The United States will retire the nuclear-equipped sea-
launched cruise missile (TLAM-N).
Under Secretary Miller said:
The timeline for its retirement will be over the next two
or three years.
Now Russia is developing a new version of its SLCM, with a range of
up to, approximately, 5,000 kilometers, which is a longer range than
some of the ballistic missiles that are covered by the New START
treaty.
So that is why we believe there should be a side agreement, just like
there was in START I, that deals with these SLCMs. We are not going to
have them, Russia is. Yet there is nothing in the treaty that would
count their SLCMs against the total limit of warheads or delivery
vehicles that are allowed under the treaty or in any other way deal
with them.
The administration assures us we should not be concerned about a lack
of a formal agreement. Secretary Clinton noted that the START I treaty
did have a limitation on sea-launched cruise missiles and said that
both parties ``voluntarily agreed to cease deploying any nuclear SLCMs
on surface ships or multipurpose submarines.''
But today it is obvious, with the information about Russian plans,
that there is going to be a great disparity between the United States
and Russia. As I said, it is not obvious that saying one is tactical,
as opposed to the strategic weapons that are otherwise limited by this
treaty, is a very important distinction. I think it is really a
distinction without a difference.
Steve Hadley, the former head of the NSC, said:
And if you're living in eastern or central Europe, a so-
called tactical nuclear weapon,
[[Page S10907]]
if you're within range, looks pretty strategic to you. So
what are we going to do about those?
As I said, he was the National Security Adviser.
Ambassador Bob Joseph, in testimony before the Foreign Relations
Committee, said:
Every time I hear the term ``nonstrategic nuclear
weapons,'' I recall that no nuclear weapon is nonstrategic.
If you stop and think about it, that is certainly true.
So these weapons, which are very powerful, and can have a range of up
to 5,000 kilometers, clearly need to be dealt with.
Now, we did not want to insist that they go back and renegotiate the
treaty because we heard that argument before, so what we are suggesting
by this amendment is simply to do the same thing we did in START I--
just have it be a side agreement where the two parties would agree to
limit the number. Our administration would limit the Russians so they
would not have a significant number of these particular weapons.
Just a point, by the way: In the event there are folks who do not
believe the Russians intend to rely on their weapons such as the SLCMs,
Under Secretary of Defense Flournoy said: The Russians are ``actually
increasing their reliance on nuclear weapons and the role of nuclear
weapons in their strategy.''
Secretary Gates has made the same point. He said:
Ironically, that is the case with Russia today, which has
neither the money nor the population to sustain its Cold War
conventional force levels. Instead, we have seen an increased
reliance on its nuclear force with new ICBM and sea-based
missiles, as well as a fully functional infrastructure that
can manufacture a significant number of warheads each year.
And the Strategic Posture Commission noted:
This imbalance in non-strategic nuclear weapons, which
greatly favors Russia, is of rising concern and an
illustration of the new challenges of strategic stability as
reductions in strategic weapons proceed.
The point has been made by many others as well.
So I think this is fairly straightforward. It would require the
United States to negotiate a side agreement with Russia, very similar
to the side agreement we had under START I, to deal with a weapon that
we are no longer going to have, but the Russians are apparently
developing a new version of, that has a pretty substantial range--5,000
kilometers. Clearly, it is very difficult to distinguish the difference
between a weapon like that and the strategic offensive weapons that are
otherwise dealt with in the treaty.
I hope my colleagues will recognize this is not a treaty killer, and
it is something that needs t be addressed.
Thank you, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from
Maryland.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. CARDIN. First, let me thank Senator Kyl for bringing this issue
to our attention. I think this is a very important issue. We have a lot
of security issues as they relate to Russia, as they relate to Europe,
and as they relate to the sea-launch cruise missiles. I couldn't agree
with the Senator more. But this falls under the same category of the
discussion we had earlier about a side agreement on tactical weapons.
These are all beneficial issues, but it is not the key issue that is
before us today. If we were to adopt this amendment, I think we all
would agree it would cause a considerable delay in the implementation
of the START treaty.
Let me remind my colleagues that the START treaty, according to our
military experts, is needed now. We have been a year without having
inspection regimes in Russia so we can get the intelligence information
we need by people on the ground. That expired in December of last year.
So we have already been delayed through this year, and the longer we
delay, the less reliable the information we have for our own national
security.
Although it would be nice to have all of these side agreements with
Russia on a lot of other issues, every time we ask our negotiators to
do that, it takes time. It takes a lot of time to negotiate. It is not
all one-sided when you negotiate. My colleagues know that. We know that
here as we negotiate issues.
This is an important issue, but it shouldn't delay the ratification
and implementation of the New START treaty so that we can get our
inspectors on the ground, giving us the information we need for our own
national security as it relates to the strategic capacity of Russia.
For all of those reasons, I urge my colleagues to reject the
amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, the Senator from Maryland is absolutely
correct, and I appreciate him pointing that out. I think I have said
many times in the course of this debate that it is imperative for us to
deal with the issue of tactical nuclear weapons. In fact, the
resolution of ratification has a section in it which specifically
addresses this and urges the President to move to that.
I might add that the Senator from Florida, Mr. LeMieux--we are just
finishing up an agreement on an amendment which will, in fact, add an
additional component. It is an amendment we intend to accept, and it
will add an additional emphasis on this question of tactical weapons.
But not only is there no benefit to delaying this treaty from going
into effect--I mean, that is what the amendment of the Senator from
Arizona will do. Until this new verification and limitation mechanism
is put into effect--the fact is that most of our experts, from
Secretary Gates through Admiral Mullen and others, have all said to us:
If we don't get this treaty, we are not going to get to the tactical
nuclear discussion with the Russians.
If we were the Russians and the U.S. Senate said: We are not going to
do this until this, we would be looking at a long road where we have
reopened all of the different relationships and we have discarded this
one component of our nuclear deterrent that we find so critical, which
is the submarine-launched missiles, the intercontinental ballistic
missiles, and the heavy bombers. That is the heart of our nuclear
deterrence. We want to know what they are doing and they want to know
what we are doing, and that is how you provide the greatest stability.
In addition to that, Secretary Gates and Secretary Clinton have both
reinforced that many times, but here is the important thing to think
about as we think about what the impact on this treaty would be.
Nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missiles--or SLCMs, as we call them
in the crazy vernacular of this place--these are tactical weapons, and
although this amendment seems to suggest that Russian SLCMs could upset
the strategic balance between the United States and Russia, the truth
is, they cannot. They don't do what this amendment seems to suggest.
For many years, going back at least to the Reagan administration, we
have considered these kinds of weapons to be nonstrategic weapons,
tactical weapons. Even if they are long range, we consider them that.
Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen explained why in their answer to a
specific question from the Senate. They said:
Russian nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missiles . . .
could not threaten deployed submarine-launched ballistic
missiles (which will comprise a significant fraction of U.S.
strategic force under New START), and would pose a very
limited threat to the hundreds of silo-based ICBMs that the
United States will retain under New START.
In other words, Russian nuclear SLCMs can't take out our nuclear
deterrent in a first strike. That means if Russia were to use nuclear
SLCMs against us, we could still use most of our strategic nuclear
weapons and deliver an absolutely devastating blow in return. No logic
in the sort of give-and-take of war planning, as horrible and as
incomprehensible as it is to most people with respect to nuclear
weapons, but it has all been done, appropriately, because they do
exist, and it is important to our security. But no warfighting under
those situations is going to reduce our ability to not just defend
ourselves but to annihilate anyone who would propose or think about
doing that.
Ironically, it was the Soviets who once wanted to do what Senator Kyl
is actually seeking to do. They wanted to categorize SLCMs as strategic
weapons because we used to deploy a nuclear version of the Tomahawk on
our attack submarines, and the Soviets
[[Page S10908]]
worked very hard to get the original START treaty to cover SLCMs. Guess
what. We didn't bite. We didn't do that. The first Bush administration
explicitly rejected those Soviet efforts to add legally binding limits
on sea-launched cruise missiles. They considered SLCMs tactical
weapons, and they also thought that limits on nuclear sea-launched
cruise missiles are inherently unverifiable. That is, in part, because
we didn't want to give the Soviets that much access to our submarines
in return for access to theirs, and we don't want to do it now with the
Russians. Now, maybe people were wrong about that, but I just don't see
the wisdom in putting the treaty we have agreed on on the shelf while
we go out and try to experiment with a new approach that nobody has
argued is imperative for the security of our country.
Back then, we did agree in politically binding declarations to a
limit of 880 deployed long-range nuclear SLCMs and to declare at the
beginning of the year how many SLCMs we intended to deploy for that
year. Those political declarations stayed operative for many years,
and, in fact, Secretary Gates stated for the record that as recently as
December of 2008, Russia has declared that it planned to deploy zero
nuclear SLCMs.
Shortly after START was signed in 1991, the United States and Russia
each pledged as part of the Presidential nuclear initiative to cease
deploying any nuclear SLCMs on surface ships or attack submarines. So
while we have four former ballistic missile submarines converted to
cruise missile submarines, we are no longer deploying our nuclear
Tomahawk missiles on any U.S. submarines. The Presidential nuclear
initiatives are still operative for us and for the Russians, and we
think we are more secure that way.
So I see nothing to be gained from negotiating a new binding
agreement in the context of holding up this treaty, of putting it on
the shelf, and of going back in an effort to do that.
This amendment would delay the New START for months or years, throw
an entire curveball back into what I talked about yesterday, which is
that theory of negotiation that nothing is agreed upon until everything
is agreed upon. And in this case, if we say: Oh, no, ain't agreed upon,
sorry, we are coming back to say you have to agree with us on tacticals
before any of this becomes law, we have opened the entire negotiation
again. How reliable and what kind of partnership is that? I don't think
that makes sense. I fail to see any point in going down that road.
I urge my colleagues to defeat this amendment, and I reserve the
remainder of our time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona has just under 8
minutes.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I am a little bit flummoxed here because I
thought in a conversation I had a couple of days ago with Senator Kerry
that side agreements might be all right; that we didn't want to amend
the preamble or didn't want to amend the treaty but that we could
perhaps do some side agreements. So we structured this as a side
agreement just exactly as was done in START I.
Mr. KERRY. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. KYL. On the Senator's time, I would be happy to.
Mr. KERRY. I would be happy to urge, if he wants to change the
amendment or if he wants to submit--it is too late now, but we could
perhaps do a modification by unanimous consent to urge the President to
enter into an agreement but not shelve the whole treaty until that
happens. That is the difference. So I am not going back on the notion.
It would be great to get a side agreement, but don't hold this
agreement up in the effort to do it.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, there was no delay in the implementation of
the START I agreement because of a requirement that a side agreement be
entered into between the then-Soviet Union and the United States on
SLCMs. So I don't buy the notion that this necessarily would delay
anything.
Secondly, we are not talking about tactical missile limitations
generally. All we are doing is talking about the same kinds of missiles
that were the subject of the side agreement under START I. I suspect
that part of the reason was because it is pretty difficult to
distinguish as to whether these weapons are being used for a strategic
or a tactical purpose. Senator Kerry has said they cannot upset the
strategic balance. I simply totally disagree with that proposition.
They absolutely can upset the strategic balance, depending upon where
they are located or how they intend to be used. That is one of the
reasons I suspect they were limited under the START I treaty.
My colleague said they can't threaten our submarine fleet at sea and
they pose only a limited threat to ICBM sites. Well, that may be the
opinion of our experts. They could sure threaten our submarine bases in
Washington State at King's Bay. They could take out bases or other
assets we have.
In fact, let me quote from a Russian article, the RIA Novosti Report
of April 14, 2010, on the Graney class nuclear submarines:
Graney class nuclear submarines are designed to launch a
variety of long-range cruise missiles up to 3,100 miles or
500 kilometers with nuclear warheads and effectively engage
submarines, surface warships, and land-based targets.
Obviously, at 5,000 kilometers, as I said, that is a range longer
than some of the ballistic missiles that are covered by the New START
treaty. So these weapons--it is a little hard to characterize them as
either tactical or strategic. I think it depends upon how they are
used.
But the point is, if my colleague believes they can't threaten
anything, then what is the problem with trying to set a limit on them?
Well, obviously--or at least I assume obviously--the Russians don't
want to do that. I assume we raised this, though we don't have the
negotiation record, so I don't know whether it was raised. If it
wasn't, why wasn't it? And if it was because we didn't think there was
any threat to the United States, then I think it would be very
important to ask some of our military folks why they think that is the
case given the kinds of targets that could be held at risk here and
given the fact that we apparently reached a different conclusion during
the START I treaty implementation phase when the side agreement was
negotiated with the then-Soviet Union.
So I don't think it would delay anything. We do posit it as a side
agreement rather than an amendment. We just say that the administration
should negotiate so that there wouldn't be a significant number of SLCM
deployments by the Russians given the fact that we are not doing any.
I do have to say that I fundamentally disagree with the assertion of
my colleague that this kind of weapon can't upset the strategic
balance. If you have a weapon that can fly over 3,000 miles with a
nuclear warhead, which could be just as big of a nuclear warhead as on
a bomber or an intercontinental ballistic missile, with all of the
targets on our eastern seaboard or western seaboard that would be held
at risk for such a weapon--in fact, 3,000 miles--you won't have to be
far off either of our two U.S. coasts to hit most targets within the
continental United States.
This is a weapon that it seems to me we should be concerned about.
Therefore, I urge my colleagues to support calling for a side agreement
that would deal with the SLCMs just as we did under the START I treaty.
I reserve the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland is recognized.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I say to Senator Kyl, these missiles are
not strategic. Do they affect our strategic balance? I say that
everything in our defense toolbox can affect our strategic balance.
That was taken into consideration in the negotiations. I thank him for
bringing this issue to our attention, but for the reasons we have
stated, we urge our colleagues to reject the amendment.
We are prepared to go to the Senator's next amendment if he is
prepared to go forward.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I will respond with about 30 seconds. Then I
will be prepared to go to my next amendment. Perhaps I can reserve
whatever time I have left on there to make a closing argument.
I really do sincerely appreciate the characterization of these issues
we have raised as serious and important. I do appreciate that. I do
think, though,
[[Page S10909]]
that it would be appropriate to have a better response than just that
this will upset the Russians, they won't want to do it, so we will have
to renegotiate the treaty, and that it will delay things and that will
create problems.
The purpose is not to delay, as I said. I don't think the START I
treaty was delayed when we reached a side agreement.
I think, in any event, the question is this: Should the United States
delay, if that is what is called for, in order to improve the treaty in
important respects? If it is conceded that this is an important aspect,
then it seems to me that it is worth taking time to do it right.
Most of the arguments that have been made in response to the
amendments we have raised boil down to: The Russians won't want to do
what you say, and therefore we need to reject your amendment because it
would require some renegotiation. I get back to the point I have made
over and over: Then what is the Senate doing here? Why would the
Founders have suggested we should have a role in relation to treaties
if every time we try to change something, the argument is that you
cannot change a comma because the other side wouldn't like that and
that would require renegotiation?
There is nothing that serious about this treaty that it has to go
into effect tomorrow. The Washington Post had an editorial, and they
said that no great calamity will befall the United States if this
treaty is not concluded before the end of the year. I think that is
almost a direct quotation. There is no immediate national security
reason to do so. I know the administration would like to get on with
it, but no great harm will befall us if we take time to do it right. If
we are not willing to do that, the Senate might as well rubberstamp
what the President sends up because the argument will be that if we try
to suggest changes, the other side will reject them and we could not
possibly abide that.
I will reserve the remainder of time on this amendment.
Amendment No. 4893
Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 4893, which I believe is at
the desk, and ask for its immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Arizona [Mr. Kyl] proposes an amendment
numbered 4893.
Mr. KYL. I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be
dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To provide that the advice and consent of the Senate to
ratification of the New START Treaty is subject to an understanding
regarding the non-use of covers by the Russian Federation that tend to
interfere with Type One inspections and accurate warhead counting, is
subject to the United States and the Russian Federation reaching an
agreement regarding access and monitoring, and is subject to a
certification that the Russian Federation has agreed that it will not
deny telemetric exchanges on new ballistic missile systems it deploys
during the duration of the Treaty)
At the end of subsection (a) of the Resolution of
Ratification, add the following:
(11) Covers.--Prior to entry into force of the New START
Treaty, the President shall certify to the Senate that the
President has reached an agreement with the Government of the
Russian Federation on the non-use of covers by the Russian
Federation that tend to interfere with Type One inspections
and accurate warhead counting.
(12) Telemetry.--Prior to entry into force of the New START
Treaty, the President shall certify to the Senate that the
United States has reached a legally-binding agreement with
the Russian Federation that each party to the Treaty is
obliged to provide the other full and unimpeded access to its
telemetry from all flight-test of strategic missiles limited
by the Treaty.
(13) Telemetric exchanges on ballistic missiles deployed by
the russian federation.--Prior to the entry into force of the
New START Treaty, the President shall certify to the Senate
that the Russian Federation has agreed that it will not deny
telemetric exchanges on new ballistic missile systems it
deploys during the duration of the Treaty.
At the end of subsection (b), add the following:
(4) Type one inspections.--The United States would consider
as a violation of the deployed warhead limit in section 1(b)
of Article II of the Treaty and as a material breach of the
Treaty either of the following actions:
(A) Any Type One inspection that revealed the Russian
Federation had deployed a number of warheads on any one
missile in excess of the number they declared for that
missile.
(B) Any action by the Russian Federation that impedes the
ability of the United States to determine the number of
warheads deployed on any one missile prior to or during a
Type One inspection.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I would have preferred to deal with each of
the subjects in this amendment individually because each one is very
important. To accommodate the other side's desire to try to get as much
done as quickly as possible, we consolidated some amendments, and there
is a lot in this. I regret that we don't have time to get into detail
about each one of them.
This amendment amounts to an effort to try to improve the
verification of the treaty to deal with a variety of issues which have
been raised in the past and which we believe are inadequately dealt
with by the treaty. One of them involves covers, the kinds of things
the then-Soviet Union and now Russians consistently put over the
warheads so that it is impossible for our inspectors to see what is
under them, to see how many warheads are under them. That has been a
problem in the past.
On telemetry, we say the President should certify to the Senate that
he has reached a legally binding agreement with the Russian Federation
so that each party is obliged to provide full and unimpeded access to
its telemetry from all flight tests of strategic missiles limited by
the treaty. That is important because while we are not developing a new
generation of missiles, the Russians are. We will be denied the
telemetry of those missile tests if the Russians decide to deny it. Our
intelligence community has told us that this is of great value to us in
assessing the capabilities of Russian missiles. Under the treaty, they
don't have to provide anything. They could provide telemetry on old
missiles they are testing, and they don't have to provide any on any of
the new missiles they are testing. We believe that should be done. The
same thing with respect to any ballistic missiles deployed during the
duration of the treaty.
Then we turn to the subject of inspections. There are different kinds
of inspections, but we are talking here about type one inspections in
which we say that the United States would consider it a violation of
the deployed warhead limit and a material breach of the treaty if the
Russians do one of two things: No. 1, any type one inspection that
revealed that the Russian Federation had deployed a number of warheads
on any one missile in excess of the number they declared for that
missile; No. 2, any action by the Russian Federation that impedes the
ability of the United States to determine the number of warheads
deployed on any one missile prior to or during a type one inspection.
That gets to the issue of covers again. Why is this important?
Because we are supposedly counting weapons in this treaty, warheads.
There is a limit of 1,550 warheads. How can we possibly verify
compliance if, when we seek to count the number of warheads on top of
missiles we have designated and have a right to inspect, we can't count
the warheads? You tell me how we are supposed to assume how many
warheads there are on the top of that particular missile or why we
should not deem it a material breach if they declared a certain number
of warheads and it turns out there are more.
I think these are commonsense changes that would strengthen the
verification provisions of the treaty.
It is too bad Senator Bond is not here tonight. He is the ranking
Republican member of the Intelligence Committee. In the classified
session we had yesterday, he talked about the deficiencies in
verification under this treaty. This subject doesn't permit us to get
into a lot of detail in open session.
We have heard a lot about past cheating by the Russians and the kinds
of things that were done. What we are trying to do with these basic
components is to make it less likely that the Russians would cheat, and
if they do, it would less likely have an impact on the
[[Page S10910]]
key element of the treaty, which is the limitation on warheads of
1,550.
I will note a couple of things here that put this into context.
There have been allegations that there is better verification than
ever before under this treaty. That is just not true. The verification
provisions of this treaty are not as strong as under the START I
treaty. There is an argument that they don't need to be for various
reasons or the Russians weren't willing to allow them to be for various
reasons. I don't think you can say the verification is better.
Former Secretary of State James Baker, who testified, said:
The verification mechanism in the New START Treaty does not
appear as rigorous or extensive as the one that verified the
numerous and diverse treaty obligations and prohibitions
under START I. This complex part of the treaty is even more
crucial when fewer deployed nuclear warheads are allowed than
were allowed in the past.
That is obvious. The more you get down to a smaller number, the more
important cheating is, the more dramatic the effect can be, and the
better verification you need.
Senator McCain said this:
The New START Treaty's permissive approach to verification
will result in less transparency and create additional
challenges for our ability to monitor Russia's current and
future capabilities.
Former CIA Director James Woolsey said:
New START's verification provisions will provide little or
no help in detecting illegal activity at locations the
Russians fail to declare, are off-limits to U.S. inspectors,
or are underground or otherwise hidden from our satellites.
Senator Bond made a comment that I have quoted before, which is this:
New START suffers from fundamental verification flaws that
no amount of tinkering around the edges can fix. . . . The
Select Committee on Intelligence has been looking at this
issue closely over the past several months. . . . There is no
doubt in my mind that the United States cannot reliably
verify the treaty's 1,550 limit on deployed warheads.
To conclude, the amendment would require the President to certify
that he has reached an agreement with Russia on the nonuse of covers
that interfere with type one inspections and accurate warhead counting
during those inspections. It doesn't solve the problem of determining
the total number of warheads Russia deploys, but it would reduce a
method of deception Russia has used in the past.
On telemetry, the amendment would require the President to certify
that he has reached a legally binding agreement with Russia that each
party is obliged to provide the other full and unimpeded access to its
telemetry from all flight tests of strategic missiles, including on new
ballistic missile systems deployed by the Russians. They are free now
to encrypt those tests. That makes it much harder to get information we
have found to be very valuable.
Finally, with regard to the material breach, the amendment contains
an understanding that the United States would consider a violation of
the deployed warhead limits to be a material breach of the treaty. This
would include any type one inspection that revealed the Russians had
deployed a number of warheads on any one missile in excess of the
number they declared for that missile or that they continued to use
covers that deny us the ability to see exactly how many warheads they
have on their missiles.
Mr. President, I hope my colleagues would recognize that verification
is a problem under the treaty. This is a modest way to try to deal with
specific aspects of that verification. I hope my colleagues would be
willing to support the amendment.
I reserve the remainder of my time.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the
Senate votes on the three amendments, as provided under the previous
order, those votes occur in the order listed in that agreement.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. KYL. Might we also add that the second two votes would be 10-
minute votes?
Mr. KERRY. That is a good suggestion. I ask unanimous consent that
the second two votes be 10 minutes in length.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, let me first compliment my colleague from
Arizona, who has been dogged, if nothing else, in his advocacy with
respect to his points of view regarding this treaty. And while I and
other Senators may disagree with a specific amendment he proposes
because of its impact as well as, in some cases, because of something
else, that doesn't mean the Senator isn't raising valid questions for
future discussions and things on which we ought to be focused. I know
he spends a lot of time with this. I think all of us have a lot of
respect for the ways in which he has already impacted this treaty. I
give him credit for that.
This particular amendment is a combination of about four different
amendments that have come together. I understand why that happened. I
am not complaining about that at all. It is just that there is a lot in
it, and therefore there are different reasons one ought to oppose this
amendment.
Let me say that, first of all, the New START, I think in most
people's judgment, addresses the concerns that have been raised by the
Senator from Arizona.
The purpose of warhead inspections is to count the number of warheads
on the missile. Neither side is comfortable with the other actually
seeing the warheads, looking into it and seeing it. We are not
comfortable with them doing that to us, and they are not comfortable
with us doing that to them. That is not so much about the counting of
the warhead as it is often the issue of failsafe devices or counter-
shoot-down devices and other kinds of things that might be in there
that we don't necessarily have a right to see and they don't want us to
see. So neither side is sort of looking at the actual warhead. The
START treaty--the original START treaty, therefore, to deal with that
issue, lets the inspected party cover the warheads on the front of the
inspected missile, but it allows us to inspect any cover before it is
used so that we know what it can and can't conceal. We know what that
cover is permitting us to see.
What is more, paragraph 11 of section (2) in the treaty's annex on
inspections says explicitly--this is in New START:
The covers shall not hamper inspectors.
We did not have that previously. That is new to this treaty.
As a result of what we have learned in START, we have learned how to
look and how to ask for things more appropriately, and our negotiators
worked that into this treaty so as to protect our interests.
In fact, the covers are not allowed to hamper the inspectors in
ascertaining that the front section contains a number of reentry
vehicles equal to the number of reentry vehicles that were declared for
that deployed ICBM or deployed SLBM.
The virtue of the New START treaty is that these declarations and the
specific alphanumeric numbers that are going to be attached to the
launchers and these warheads allow us enormous certainty in the
randomness of our choices of where we go. If the Russians are cheating
or somebody is over for one reason or another, we have great capacity
to decide where that might be, where we think the best target of
opportunity is, and to lock that place down and go in and check it.
There are enormous risks of being discovered as a consequence of the
way we have set that up.
The treaty already forbids Russia from using covers that interfere
with warhead counting. It would create a very dangerous precedent, in
my judgment, to require that we negotiate now, before we put the treaty
into effect, a side agreement on the very same thing. That might
suggest that other New START provisions do not need to be obeyed
because there is no side deal reinforcing them. What is the impact of
the side deal? Does the side agreement, incidentally, have to be
ratified by the Senate before it goes into effect? There are a lot of
imponderables here.
With respect to the agreement on telemetry, the requirement for a
legally binding agreement with Russia that both parties have to provide
telemetry on all flight tests of ICBMs and SLBMs, which is what the
Senator is seeking, would also delay the START treaty into force by the
same months or years about which we talked.
That argument has been hammered around here the last 7 days
adequately.
[[Page S10911]]
This delays the treaty. It does not act to increase the security of our
country, and it already is in the resolution of ratification in the
treaty.
Given what we already understand, we know that the Russians do not
like trading in telemetry. I find it hard to believe, therefore, that
if we make this treaty condition precedent on the agreement of a side
agreement, which we know the Russians hate to do, that is a way of
buying into gridlock, deadlock, nothing.
I do not think anybody would suggest--we have already been through
this a little bit, incidentally. I and others strongly urged the
President and his negotiators to seek as significant telemetry as
possible. For a lot of reasons, it did not turn out that it was
achievable from their side, but it also did not turn out it was
desirable on our side altogether.
Russia is testing new systems such as the Belava SLBM, and the United
States may test only existing types of missiles during the next decade.
That is a reason why the Russians obviously resist this very
significantly.
A lot of people have suggested that our military does not want to
share the telemetry on all our flight tests of ICBMs and SLBMs. They
are pretty happy the way the treaty is structured now, including the
provisions for telemetry which allow us five telemetry exchanges. We
have to agree on them, but they are allowed under the treaty. If that
were not true, there is no way the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff Admiral Mullen would have sent the letter he sent to the entire
Senate where he stated he wants this treaty ratified now, he wants it
implemented now, and he believes, consistent with everything people
said within our national security network, that this treaty is both
verifiable and enhances our capacity to be able to count and know what
the Russians are doing.
The requirement for Russian agreement not to deny telemetry on the
new ballistic missile systems it develops during the duration of the
treaty is redundant with the previous part about which we just talked.
Again, the amendment requires a side agreement with the Russians. It
is the absolute equivalent of amending the treaty itself and,
therefore, I would oppose that.
The New START's telemetry exchange regime involves negotiating the
beginning of next year, assuming this goes into effect, which missile
tests from the past year we are willing to share.
May I ask how much time I have?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts has 6 minutes.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I want to reserve time for the Senator from
New Hampshire.
The New START regime requires us to negotiate at the beginning of
next year what we are going to share. If we do not offer anything
interesting, Russia is not going to offer anything. That is the nature
of a negotiation. You have to give to get. This amendment would change
that basic principle from a negotiated exchange to a literally ``give
me something for next to nothing.'' It does not work. The Russians
would have to give us the good stuff while we would give them telemetry
from launches that were no different from 30 other tests over the last
20 years.
I have to tell you, that sort of agreement is not going to happen. It
is in a fantasy land, and the President would never get that side deal
with Russia. The New START treaty would never come into force.
I yield the remainder of my time to the Senator from New Hampshire.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I will speak only for about 1 minute and
then give the rest of my time to Senator Feinstein who wishes to speak
to the question of the covers.
I do not want to speak to the technicalities that have been raised,
but I want to make two points in response to Senator Kyl's concern
about verification.
We should all be concerned about the fact that right now we have no
inspectors on the ground. We have no way to verify what is going on in
Russia. Anything that delays our ability to get that intelligence back
on the ground in Russia adds to the urgency of the situation. That is a
very important point.
The other issue he raised was relative to why do we need to do this
now. The fact is, as Senator Kerry pointed out, we received a letter
from ADM Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, yesterday that
said the sooner we ratify the treaty, the better. James Clapper,
Director of National Intelligence, said about New START the earlier,
the sooner, the better we get this done. There is a lot of reason to
believe we need to act on this treaty and need to do it now.
I yield to the Senator from California.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New
Hampshire.
Senator Kyl is a very smart man. This is a major amendment. In my
view, it is a deal breaker. It is a poison pill for the entire treaty.
It essentially provides real changes in the treaty.
It says the President, prior to the treaty going into effect, must
certify that he has achieved certain side agreements, and those side
agreements strike directly at some of the heart of the treaty.
Therefore, it will effectively, in my view, be unacceptable to the
Russians and will destroy the treaty.
The treaty now says you cannot block an inspector's ability to
ascertain warheads on a reentry vehicle. That covers the cover issue.
This again says that telemetry by a prior agreement--that there be a
side agreement on full access to telemetry for all missiles, and then
on new missiles, is one-sided. Clearly, this is not going to be
acceptable. Then it goes into the type one inspections.
If you are for the treaty, there is only one vote, and it is to vote
no. I very much regret this because I respect the Senator. As I see
it--and there are things I cannot go into here that I tried to go into
yesterday--this is a poison pill amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. KYL. Might I inquire how much time remains on this side?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 7 minutes remaining.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, let me take 3, 4, 5 of those minutes. I
appreciate my colleagues' compliments about important issues being
brought up, and I also appreciate their concern that amendments of this
significance would cause heartburn for the Russians and might well
require them to want to renegotiate aspects of the treaty. I am trying
to address that through the mechanism of the side agreement rather than
amendment to the treaty or some kind of other more restrictive method.
I thought that would be the preferable way to do it.
It is not my intention, as with the previous amendment, to delay
things. I do not think it necessarily would. But I do appreciate that
on a couple of these items the Russians would not likely want to
renegotiate.
I am not so sure that would be the case with regard to the covers,
this question of the kind of shroud or cover you put over the missile
bus, the top of the missile that has the warheads since the treaty does
deal with it, as my colleagues have pointed out, but I do not think it
does so in a conclusive way.
The 2005 compliance report issued by the State Department to discuss
compliance of the Russian Government with respect to the START I treaty
had a couple of longstanding issues. The issue of shrouds was one that
they characterized as of long standing. They had a very hard time
getting that resolved with the Russians. In the end, there was a
particular accommodation reached, but it took forever. And during that
time, we did not have the kind of satisfaction we wanted.
We asked how disputes would be dealt with, and we get the same basic
answer. That would go to the Bilateral Consultative Commission, the
group of Russian and U.S. negotiators who are supposed to work these
things out.
What I can see is a kind of repeat of what we had before. They like
to cover these things up and that does not seem to me the way to enter
into a treaty where we are supposed to be in agreement with our
counterparts and yet we have unresolved issues we have to leave to
another day to be resolved through a long and probably difficult
negotiation process.
[[Page S10912]]
Also, my colleague from Massachusetts--these were his words; he was
not quoting anyone--thought we had enormous certainty about this. I
suggest I do not think the intelligence community would use a phrase
such as ``enormous certainty.'' We cannot get into here the degree of
percentage they attach to being able to know certain things under this
treaty.
Suffice it to say that we are not absolutely sure we can do what
needs to be done here, and I do not think characterizing it as
``enormous certainty'' would be an accurate way to do it.
Let me mention with regard to telemetry--first of all, let me correct
one thing that is a little bit of misdirection and then agree with my
colleagues on something else.
There is a suggestion that we can get telemetry on five missiles, and
that is true if the Russians agree. In other words, they have to
volunteer to do it. The five missiles they tell us about can be old
missiles. They do not have to be new missiles. It is a fact there is
nothing in this treaty that requires the Russians or the United States
to exchange telemetry on new missile tests; that is to say, tests of
missiles currently being developed. There are at least two the Russians
are developing right now.
That leads to the second point. I think it is probably true the
reason they did not want to agree to this is it would require them to
give us very valuable information. Right now, they would not be getting
any information from the United States because we are not testing
missiles. But I ask, is that an asymmetry that is justified or that
justifies a provision that says if you are not modernizing your forces
and we are modernizing our forces, it is not fair to have us tell you
what our missiles are like?
Under the previous treaty, both sides had to do that, and it gave
both sides more confidence. The Russians are developing new missiles.
Should we not have some understanding of the capability of those
missiles? We are not developing any. It is almost as if the United
States would have to be modernizing its forces too in order to be able
to justify a provision that said we had to exchange telemetry.
Maybe the United States ought to get on with the modernization of our
missile force so we can then go back to the Russians and say: You are
modernizing, we are modernizing, now how about the exchange. To me that
is not an argument to require the Russians not to provide us
information. And in fact, when the shoe is on the other foot, that
argument falls by the wayside, and we end up putting limitations in the
treaty.
Here is an example. The Russians are not developing and do not seem
to have any intention of developing something called conventional
Prompt Global Strike, which is a fancy way of saying: Put a
conventional warhead on top of an ICBM so you do not have to send a
nuclear warhead halfway around the world to destroy a target.
We can see in today's conflict that we are not going to be engaging
in a multiple nuclear exchange with another country but might well have
a need based upon intelligence that does not have a very long shelf
life that we want to send a conventional warhead to a specific target
and that is something we would like to develop but the Russians are not
interested in doing that. So did we say to the Russians: So because you
are not doing it and we are, therefore, we are not going to have any
limitation on this? No. We agreed, in fact, to a very important
limitation. Any missiles we use in that regard have to be counted as if
there were a nuclear warhead on top of it. So there is a 700-vehicle
limit. That is all the number of missiles we can have. And yet any
missiles that we put a conventional warhead on that have this ICBM
range have to be counted against that limit.
Well, the Russians aren't doing it, so why did we have to agree to
something they are not doing? That is asymmetrical. That is not parity.
So it is okay for the Russians to say: Hey, if we are doing something
you are not doing, we are not going to be bound by anything in the
treaty on it. But by the way, if you are doing something we are not
doing, we are going to hold you accountable and bind you with a very
important limitation in the treaty.
You see, the argument doesn't hold water. Russia and the United
States are not acting exactly the same with regard to our weapons. So
to argue that anything we are doing differently from the other
shouldn't count in the treaty is suspicious. And, in any event, it
turns out we don't make that argument.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time on this amendment has
expired. The Senator has time remaining on the previous amendment.
Mr. KYL. Let me finish my sentence on this.
In any event, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. If
we put a limitation on the United States on something they are not
developing, then it is only fair to put a limitation on them with
regard to something we are not developing.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, do we have any time remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 1 minute 40 seconds remaining.
Mr. KERRY. I yield all that time to the Senator from Michigan, the
chairman of the Armed Services Committee.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I thank my good friend from Massachusetts.
There has been reference made to a side agreement which was entered
into at the time of START I. There is a major difference between what
happened then and what is being proposed by Senator Kyl now.
That side agreement, first of all, was in front of the Senate but
there was no effort at that time to do what Senator Kyl's amendment
does, which is to say prior to the entry into force of that treaty the
President shall certify to the Senate that there was a legally binding
side agreement. That was not part of START I, and it would seem to me
would absolutely derail this New START agreement.
Second, that was a political agreement, that side agreement that was
entered into, which would last as long as the Presidents of both
countries were in office but would not necessarily last beyond that
because it was not a legally binding agreement in that sense.
So there are two major differences between what happened at the time
of START I and what is being proposed here by Senator Kyl. I hope we
could defeat the Kyl amendment No. 4860.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, if any time remains, we yield it back.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Time is yielded back.
Mr. KERRY. What is the parliamentary situation, Mr. President?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is still time remaining on the Wicker
amendment, and Kyl 4860.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I wish to speak briefly to that now, in
direct response to my colleague from Michigan.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, before he does that, do we have time
remaining on either of those amendments?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts has time
remaining on both amendments.
Mr. KERRY. I thank the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, let me quote from the START I treaty, Text of
Resolution of Advice and Consent to Ratification as Approved by the
Senate:
The Senate's advice and consent to the ratification of the
START Treaty is subject to the following conditions, which
shall be binding upon the President: Legal and Political
Obligations of U.S.S.R.: That the legal and political
obligations of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
reflected in the four related separate agreements, seven
legally binding letters, four areas of correspondence, two
politically binding declarations, thirteen joint statements .
. .
And so on. The two politically binding declarations are precisely the
reference to the limitation of the SLCM numbers for both countries. I
mean there is a dispute about whether it is legally binding in the same
sense that the treaty itself is, but the heading of this is Legal and
Political Obligations of the U.S.S.R., and it goes on to talk about . .
.
The United States shall regard actions inconsistent with
these legal obligations as equivalent under international law
to actions inconsistent with the START Treaty.
And so on and so on. We believe these were binding and should be. It
is no argument, however, to say that if somebody else didn't see it
that way, therefore, what we are asking for here is not
[[Page S10913]]
a binding agreement. Whether you call it binding legally or binding
politically, in any event, I wish to see it done, because there is no
limitation on the SLCMs the Russians are planning to develop, and the
submarine that is under development to carry them, and they could have
a strategic value as well as a tactical value. They were a subject of
the previous START I agreement and I think they should be a subject of
this agreement as well.
Let me summarize. The first amendment our colleagues will be voting
on is, I believe, the Wicker amendment, and then the second amendment
is the amendment which would provide a side agreement for a limitation
on the number of Russian SLCMs--the submarine launch cruise missiles--
and the third vote will be on the Kyl amendment relative to
verification relating to covers on the ICBMs and telemetry on ICBM
tests.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. How much times remains?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts has 3 minutes
on the Kyl amendment and 5 minutes on the Wicker amendment.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, is Senator Wicker here?
I wonder, Senator Kyl, if we can yield back time. I know colleagues
are waiting to vote.
Mr. President, by unanimous consent we yield back all time on both
sides and go to regular order.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. If all time is yielded back, under the
previous order, the question is on agreeing to amendment No. 4895
offered by the Senator from Mississippi, Mr. Wicker.
Mr. KERRY. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Bayh), the
Senator from Alaska (Mr. Begich), and the Senator from Oregon (Mr.
Wyden) are necessarily absent.
Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator
from Missouri (Mr. Bond), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback), the
Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Gregg), and the Senator from Alabama
(Mr. Shelby).
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 34, nays 59, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 295 Ex.]
YEAS--34
Alexander
Barrasso
Brown (MA)
Bunning
Burr
Chambliss
Coburn
Cochran
Collins
Cornyn
Crapo
DeMint
Ensign
Enzi
Graham
Grassley
Hatch
Hutchison
Inhofe
Isakson
Johanns
Kirk
Kyl
LeMieux
McCain
McConnell
Murkowski
Risch
Roberts
Sessions
Snowe
Thune
Vitter
Wicker
NAYS--59
Akaka
Baucus
Bennet
Bennett
Bingaman
Boxer
Brown (OH)
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Conrad
Coons
Corker
Dodd
Dorgan
Durbin
Feingold
Feinstein
Franken
Gillibrand
Hagan
Harkin
Inouye
Johnson
Kerry
Klobuchar
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lincoln
Lugar
Manchin
McCaskill
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Murray
Nelson (NE)
Nelson (FL)
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Sanders
Schumer
Shaheen
Specter
Stabenow
Tester
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Voinovich
Warner
Webb
Whitehouse
NOT VOTING--7
Bayh
Begich
Bond
Brownback
Gregg
Shelby
Wyden
The amendment (No. 4895) was rejected.
Vote on Amendment No. 4860
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the question is on
agreeing to amendment No. 4860 offered by the Senator from Arizona.
Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Bayh), the
Senator from Alaska (Mr. Begich), and the Senator from Oregon (Mr.
Wyden) are necessarily absent.
Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator
from Missouri (Mr. Bond), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback), the
Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Gregg), and the Senator from Alabama
(Mr. Shelby).
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 31, nays 62, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 296 Ex.]
YEAS--31
Barrasso
Brown (MA)
Bunning
Burr
Chambliss
Coburn
Cochran
Collins
Cornyn
Crapo
DeMint
Ensign
Enzi
Graham
Grassley
Hatch
Hutchison
Inhofe
Johanns
Kirk
Kyl
LeMieux
McCain
McConnell
Risch
Roberts
Sessions
Snowe
Thune
Vitter
Wicker
NAYS--62
Akaka
Alexander
Baucus
Bennet
Bennett
Bingaman
Boxer
Brown (OH)
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Conrad
Coons
Corker
Dodd
Dorgan
Durbin
Feingold
Feinstein
Franken
Gillibrand
Hagan
Harkin
Inouye
Isakson
Johnson
Kerry
Klobuchar
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lincoln
Lugar
Manchin
McCaskill
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Murkowski
Murray
Nelson (NE)
Nelson (FL)
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Sanders
Schumer
Shaheen
Specter
Stabenow
Tester
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Voinovich
Warner
Webb
Whitehouse
NOT VOTING--7
Bayh
Begich
Bond
Brownback
Gregg
Shelby
Wyden
The amendment (No. 4860) was rejected.
Mr. KERRY. 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.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, we are going to have one more vote tonight.
Senators Kerry, Lugar, Kyl, and others are working on how we are going
to work tomorrow morning. They will work this evening. Hopefully, we
can come in at 9 in the morning with, hopefully, an hour of debate on
an amendment, and then we will find out where we are after that. The
reason I asked for the attention of the Senate was to announce that.
However, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Levin, chairman of the
Armed Services Committee, and the ranking member, Senator McCain, each
be recognized for 2 minutes to explain something they are working on on
the Defense authorization bill.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Michigan.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I think all of us have an interest in the
Defense authorization bill. Senator McCain and I have been working on
this bill with members of the committee for about a year. This is a
bill that has a lot of provisions critically important to our troops.
To give a few examples, it authorizes health care coverage for
military children, impact aid to local civilian schools, so-called CERP
authority, which is the commander's emergency response program, and
transfer of defense articles to the Afghan Army. It is about 800 pages.
We have removed from this bill what we thought were the controversial
items so that we could get it passed. We don't have the time to go
through them, but that was our intent. We missed one controversial item
which came over from the House having to do with Guam funding. We have
now reached an agreement that we would remove that provision from the
bill. That is a removal. But we can't add any controversial items to
this bill; it will be objected to.
The only way we can do this for the troops, as we have done for 45
years, is if we proceed with a unanimous consent agreement tonight. We
haven't
[[Page S10914]]
yet gotten there. I plead with our colleagues to let us get to this
unanimous consent agreement tonight. It is the only time we can do it.
The House will be in tomorrow. They could take it up tomorrow, if we
pass it tonight. That is the status.
Senator McCain, I know, will speak on his support. But this is a plea
from the two of us who have worked so hard with Members and our staffs
on a critically important bill.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. McCAIN. The only thing I would add to the comments of Senator
Levin is that there are policy provisions regarding training and
equipment and readiness that cannot be just done by money. These are
important policy decisions, important authorizations, including a pay
raise--not for us. I urge my colleagues not to object to this Defense
Authorization Act. I argue it is critical to sustaining this Nation's
security.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, we will offer this later tonight. We are
not offering it at this time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the question is on
agreeing to amendment No. 4893 offered by the Senator from Arizona, Mr.
Kyl.
Mr. KERRY. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Bayh), the
Senator from Alaska (Mr. Begich), and the Senator from Oregon (Mr.
Wyden) are necessarily absent.
Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator
from Missouri, (Mr. Bond), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback), the
Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Gregg), and the Senator from Alabama
(Mr. Shelby).
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Merkley). Are there any other Senators in
the Chamber desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 30, nays 63, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 297 Ex.]
YEAS--30
Barrasso
Brown (MA)
Bunning
Burr
Chambliss
Coburn
Cochran
Cornyn
Crapo
DeMint
Ensign
Enzi
Graham
Grassley
Hatch
Hutchison
Inhofe
Johanns
Kirk
Kyl
LeMieux
McCain
McConnell
Risch
Roberts
Sessions
Snowe
Thune
Vitter
Wicker
NAYS--63
Akaka
Alexander
Baucus
Bennet
Bennett
Bingaman
Boxer
Brown (OH)
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Collins
Conrad
Coons
Corker
Dodd
Dorgan
Durbin
Feingold
Feinstein
Franken
Gillibrand
Hagan
Harkin
Inouye
Isakson
Johnson
Kerry
Klobuchar
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lincoln
Lugar
Manchin
McCaskill
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Murkowski
Murray
Nelson (NE)
Nelson (FL)
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Sanders
Schumer
Shaheen
Specter
Stabenow
Tester
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Voinovich
Warner
Webb
Whitehouse
NOT VOTING--7
Bayh
Begich
Bond
Brownback
Gregg
Shelby
Wyden
The amendment (No. 4893) was rejected.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. DURBIN. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, let me say to colleagues how we are going
to proceed. With the consent of the Senator from Arizona and Senator
Lugar, we are going to accept two amendments, I believe. One of them we
are checking with the White House and making certain we are all in sync
on it. But assuming we are, we will be able to have Senator LeMieux of
Florida speak for a few minutes on his amendment. In addition, there is
Senator Kyl's amendment, which we will accept.
Subsequent to that, I believe Senator Thune wants to raise an issue
regarding an amendment. We will do that. Then I think we will probably
be at a point where we will have an opportunity if people want to talk
on the treaty, or conceivably even on something else, I imagine there
may be a moment there, but I do not want to speak for the leadership on
that yet until we have cleared it.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent--the Senator from Ohio has
been trying to get the floor for most of the day, and because he wanted
to give us the opportunity to move on the amendments, he has been very
patient. I ask unanimous consent that he be granted 5 minutes to speak
as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. KYL. I ask the Senator, will you go ahead and handle the
unanimous consent agreement on the two amendments. I do not have to be
here for that.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I will do that and guarantee the Senator
that his amendment will be adopted. And I thank him. I want to thank
Senator Kyl. He has actually--I know we have all been struggling here,
but the Senator has been extremely helpful in processing a lot of
amendments this evening, and I want to thank him for his good-faith
efforts in doing that.
Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Ohio.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Thank you, Mr. President.
I appreciate the generosity of the senior Senator from Massachusetts
and especially his leadership on one of the most important debates in
the 4 years I have been in the Senate. I thank Senator Kerry for that.
Omnibus Trade Act/TAA and HCTC
Mr. President, I hold in my hand 500 pieces of paper, 500
testimonials from retirees who lost their pensions and health care
during the GM bankruptcy. These are some of the 50,000 Americans who
will be hurt if we do not pass an extension of the health coverage tax
credit this week before the year is out.
This stack of paper here does not represent Delta retirees and it
does not represent other retirees--thousands of others--who are in the
same boat as the Delphi/GM retirees.
Their pensions have been cut. Their employee-sponsored health care
has been eliminated. If we do not pass the omnibus trade bill--which
includes GSP, trade adjustment, the Andean trade agreement, and the
health care tax credit, and some miscellaneous tariffs--if we do not
pass this, H.R. 6517, they will take in another economic blow. The
blood from this one will be on our hands.
We must pass the omnibus trade bill before this Congress ends. I want
to share a handful of letters. I know the Senator from Massachusetts
yielded for 5 minutes, so I will do this quickly.
Mary Ann from Warren, OH, writes that she lost 40 percent of her
pension, all her health care, and all her life insurance earned from
GM/Delphi. Here is what she said:
My husband is self employed and he is on my healthcare. He
suffers terribly with chronic pain due to degenerative disc
disease. He forces himself to work at least part time but
it's a struggle. . . . I have a cerebral condition recently
diagnosed. I spent a week in the hospital early this year and
am still paying on that too. A 75 percent hike in our
healthcare premiums--
And that is what will happen if we do not renew this, which will help
these 500 and another 50,000--
while we try to pay these medical balances on a reduced
pension would force us and many others into a downward spiral
of existence. Those who we entrust to represent us must
realize that our story could be theirs if life situations
were different. When do we start treating others how we
ourselves want to be treated?
Here are others.
Dan from Columbus, IN, writes:
Dear Senator Brown--I am a retired Delta Air Line pilot.
During my retirement, Delta took my retirement money that I
had spent a career of time accumulating and left me out in
the cold. The health care tax credit stepped in and helped by
giving our family some insurance premium help. Now this is
being destroyed too.
David from Atlanta, GA:
[[Page S10915]]
It is very important that the health care tax credit . . .
be continued. After losing the pension income and insurance
benefits I was promised when I retired from Delta Airlines, I
have made significant adjustments to try to compensate for
the losses.
Still, after cutting back, the cost of living, skyrocketing
insurance premiums, and 2 years of trying to sell my house at
a substantial reduction of price while competing with
foreclosures, the finances of my friends and me continued to
erode.
Gary from Arrowhead, CA: Since Delta Airlines eliminated my pension
and health coverage, I looked forward to a Kaiser Permanente HCTC
qualified health insurance policy starting January 1. Without this HCTC
passage, my premiums will be $2,600 a month.
These go on and on. The omnibus trade bill has received unanimous
approval from every Democratic Member of this body. It is supported by
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Retail Federation, the AFL-
CIO. It is my understanding most Republicans here support it. There are
just a few blocking the passage of it.
On Friday, Senator Sessions objected to a request Senator Casey and I
made to pass the trade act. I understand his objection. I believe it
can be worked through. Senator Sessions said he supports the rest of
the package. I hope this obstruction doesn't interfere with the need to
move on this omnibus trade package. These 500 letters, if each of my
colleagues would read two or three of them, I think they would see how
important it is we pass the Omnibus Trade Act. It is about the trade
adjustment assistance language. It is about 50,000 people who will not
be able to afford their health insurance come January 1. Happy New Year
to them. It also will help us with Colombia and other countries around
the world in our trade policies. This makes so much sense.
Tomorrow, Senator Casey and I and perhaps some others will ask for a
UC. I hope my colleagues can see fit to move forward on this. It is
supported by business groups, by labor groups, by the majority of
people in this body. I am hopeful we can bring in the few people who
still disagree and make this work for our country.
I yield the floor. I thank Senator Kerry for his indulgence.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
Mr. LeMIEUX. Mr. President, I have had the opportunity to work out
with the Senator from Massachusetts an amendment to the resolution,
which I will be offering in a second.
To my colleagues, what this does--we had this discussion the other
day on the treaty. This is an amendment to the resolution that would
require, within a year's time of ratification, that the President of
the United States certify to the Senate that the United States will
seek to initiate with the Russian Federation negotiations on the
disparity between nonstrategic or tactical nuclear weapons and to make
sure we secure those weapons and reduce the number of tactical nuclear
weapons in a verifiable manner.
Remember, the Russians have a 10-to-1 ratio of tactical nuclear
weapons over us--3,000 to 300--not talked about in this treaty, an
important issue. This requires that the President will certify within a
year's time that the parties are going to sit down and have a
negotiation about the disparity, about verification, and about securing
these weapons. It has been agreed to by all parties.
With that, amendment No. 4908 has been cleared on both sides. I now
ask that the amendment, as modified by the changes at the desk, be
offered and agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, we just have
to jump through a few hoops over here. We will not object ultimately,
but if I could ask the Senator if we could just wait a little longer, I
would object at this time but not ultimately. We need to get this
cleared and put all the next steps together into one effort, if we can.
It doesn't mean we can't talk about some of the other issues, if you
want to, while we are waiting for that to be ready. It might be better
to just wait until we have the agreement.
So, in the meantime, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida has the floor.
Mr. LeMIEUX. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I know the Senator from Florida wants to
speak on this amendment. I ask unanimous consent that the following two
amendments be considered and agreed to: Senator Kyl No. 4864 and
LeMieux No. 4908, as modified.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendments (Nos. 4864 and 4908, as modified), were agreed to, as
follows:
amendment no. 4864
(Purpose: To require a certification that the President intends to
modernize the triad of strategic nuclear delivery vehicles)
At the end of subsection (a) of the Resolution of
Ratification, add the following:
(11) Strategic nuclear delivery vehicles.--Prior to the
entry into force of the New START Treaty, the President shall
certify to the Senate that the President intends to--
(A) modernize or replace the triad of strategic nuclear
delivery systems: a heavy bomber and air-launched cruise
missile, an ICBM, and an SSBN and SLBM; and
(B) maintain the United States rocket motor industrial
base.
amendment no. 4908, as modified
(Purpose: To require negotiations to address the disparity between
tactical nuclear weapons stockpiles)
At the end of subsection (a) of the resolution of advice
and consent to the New START Treaty, add the following:
(11) Tactical nuclear weapons.--(A) Prior to the entry into
force of the New START Treaty, the President shall certify to
the Senate that--
(i) the United States will seek to initiate, following
consultation with NATO allies but not later than one year
after the entry into force of the New START Treaty,
negotiations with the Russian Federation on an agreement to
address the disparity between the non-strategic (tactical)
nuclear weapons stockpiles of the Russian Federation and of
the United States and to secure and reduce tactical nuclear
weapons in a verifiable manner; and
(ii) it is the policy of the United States that such
negotiations shall not include defensive missile systems.
(B) Not later than one year after the entry into force of
the New START Treaty, and annually thereafter for the
duration of the New START Treaty or until the conclusion of
an agreement pursuant to subparagraph (A), the President
shall submit to the Committees on Foreign Relations and Armed
Services of the Senate a report--
(i) detailing the steps taken to conclude the agreement
cited in subparagraph (A); and
(ii) analyzing the reasons why such an agreement has not
yet been concluded.
(C) Recognizing the difficulty the United States has faced
in ascertaining with confidence the number of tactical
nuclear weapons maintained by the Russian Federation and the
security of those weapons, the Senate urges the President to
engage the Russian Federation with the objectives of--
(i) establishing cooperative measures to give each Party to
the New START Treaty improved confidence regarding the
accurate accounting and security of tactical nuclear weapons
maintained by the other Party; and
(ii) providing United States or other international
assistance to help the Russian Federation ensure the accurate
accounting and security of its tactical nuclear weapons.
Strike paragraph (11) of subsection (c) of the resolution
of advice and consent to the New START Treaty.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, does the Senator wish to speak?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida is recognized.
Mr. LeMIEUX. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Massachusetts
for working on this with us. I think this is an important improvement
that will require that the United States seek to initiate negotiations
with the Russian Federation within a year's period of time. I thank my
colleague from Massachusetts, as well as other colleagues who were
willing to make this happen as part of the ratification.
I yield the floor.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator. This is a constructive
amendment. We all agree that we need to reduce tactical nuclear
weapons. Everybody who testified to us reiterated the importance of
that being the next step in terms of our relationship and increased
stability. NATO allies also said it was essential to proceed to that.
The Senator's amendment helps us to make it clear that is the direction
in
[[Page S10916]]
which we need to go. I thank him for his efforts.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota is recognized.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that amended No.
4920 be made pending.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I do object. I want to say to the Senator
that I am delighted to have a discussion with him about this particular
issue. But I think given the efforts we have made thus far to deal with
a fixed set of amendments has been affected somewhat by some of those
amendments that were filed late, and also not germane, requiring
colleagues at the last minute to consider a lot of issues on the floor
that are not pertaining directly to the treaty itself.
The subject the Senator wants to bring up and talk about, which is
Russian cooperation on Iran, is absolutely essential to us as a matter
of foreign policy. I want to join with the Senator in emphasizing that.
I look forward to hearing his comments about it. I think we can have an
important colloquy that could add to the record of our discussions with
respect to this treaty without negatively impacting the direction we
are moving in at this point.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, if I might, given that, speak to the
amendment. I regret that the amendment can't be voted on. The process
has been fairly open. A number of amendments have been considered. This
amendment was filed sometime this afternoon. It deals with an important
subject, which is germane to the debate that we are having with regard
to the New START treaty.
One of the predicates for improving the START treaty is the so-called
reset of our relationship with Russia. Of course, the President, as
recently as November 18, 2010, made a statement, which is in this
amendment:
``The New START Treaty is also a cornerstone of our
relations with Russia'' for the reason that ``Russia has been
fundamental to our efforts to put strong sanctions in place
to put pressure on Iran to deal with its nuclear program.''
Accordingly, the advice and consent of the Senate to
ratification of the New START Treaty is conditioned on the
expectation that the Russian Federation will cooperate fully
with United States and international efforts to prevent the
Government of Iran from developing a nuclear weapons
capability.
What this amendment does is to provide some assurance that all those
intentions and statements actually come to pass. It would require the
President to certify to the Senate the following:
Prior to entry into force of the New START Treaty, 1, the
President shall certify to the Senate that (i) the Russian
Federation is in full compliance with all United Nations
Security Council Resolutions relating to Iran; (ii) the
Government of the Russian Federation has assured the United
States that neither it nor any entity subject to its
jurisdiction and control will (I) transfer to Iran the S-300
air defense system or other advanced weapons systems or any
parts thereof; or (II) transfer such items to a third party
which will in turn transfer such items to Iran; (iii) the
Government of the Russian Federation has assured the United
States that neither it nor any entity subject to its
jurisdiction and control will transfer to Iran goods,
services, or technology that contribute to the advancement of
the nuclear or missile programs of the Government of Iran;
and (iv) the Government of the Russian Federation has assured
the United States that it will support efforts at the United
Nations Security Council and elsewhere to increase political
and economic pressure on the Government of Iran to abandon
its nuclear weapons program.
That would be a commitment, a certification, that would be issued
prior to the entry in force of the treaty by the President each year,
and on December 31 of each subsequent year a similar certification
would be issued by the President. In fact, if the President fails to
certify, then it would require that he consult with the Senate and
submit a report on whether adherence to the New START treaty remains in
the U.S. national security interest.
I say this because I think there is a direct connection and
correlation between this treaty and the efforts of the Russians that we
assume the Russians are going to commit to in terms of putting pressure
on Iran regarding its nuclear program and not doing things that would
put in jeopardy the security of the region.
I have to say, obviously, this has a big impact on our great ally,
Israel, as well as the whole region. It would be very destabilizing if
the Iranians have a nuclear weapon. So I think the effort made by the
administration to ``reset relations with Russia,'' bears directly on
this treaty. As I said, it was stated clearly by the President as
recently as November 18, where he recognized that important
relationship. I simply say this amendment, I don't think, is anything
that anybody would not agree with. All it does is require not just a
statement that this is going to be part of our ongoing relationship
with Russia, but it provides an assurance, a certification that the
administration would make to the Senate before the treaty would enter
into force and each year subsequent to that with those basic issues.
The issues are fairly straightforward. It simply requires a condition
that the Russian Federation is in full compliance with all U.N.
Security Council resolutions relating to Iran and the government of the
Russian Federation assures the United States that neither it nor any
entity subject to its jurisdiction and control will transfer to Iran
the S-300 air defense system or other advanced weapons systems or any
parts thereof or transfer such items to a third party, which will in
turn transfer such items to Iran.
While the S-300--for the time being, Russia has refrained from doing
that. There are concerns and reports that Russia has recently provided
Tehran with a new radar system allegedly through third party mediators
from Venezuela and Belarus. So the concern about that coming into Iran
through some third party is also something that I think is of great
concern to America's national security interests as well as those of
our allies.
Mr. President, the amendment, again, is very straightforward. It
requires a certification before the entry into force of the treaty, and
then each year thereafter about those basic conditions that the
Russians be in compliance with U.N. Security Council resolutions, that
they would not try to get the S-300 to the Iranians, directly or
indirectly, and they would continue putting pressure on the Iranians
with respect to their nuclear program.
We know too that the nuclear reactor in Bashir is now producing
plutonium. Russia has fueled a nuclear reactor there that is now
producing plutonium in Iran. That ought to be of great concern to
everybody here as we pass judgment on this treaty, which is obviously
important to our relationship with Russia, but also bears on the
relationship we have with other countries around the world.
I think anybody in the foreign policy community that you talk to
today, when you ask what is the most dangerous threats the United
States and its allies face around the world today, Iran and nuclear
weapons in the hands of Iran top that list.
So the efforts that we make to persuade the Russians to put pressure
on the Iranians and make sure there isn't anything going on there that
would destabilize or put in peril America's national security interest
is certainly an objective we have.
This would require the President certify that those things are taking
place rather than relying on the statements and good intentions of the
Russians. I wish, again, that I could get this amendment pending and
get it voted on. I think it is important to have the Senate on record
with regard to this issue. I regret that the amendment has been
objected to.
I appreciate the opportunity to at least raise the issue, and I
certainly hope it is something that the administration and our leaders
in the Senate and the entire military establishment of this country
pays close attention to in the days ahead. This issue will not go away.
I think it bears definitely on the treaty.
With that, I will conclude my remarks and say I wish we had an
opportunity to get a vote on it.
I yield the floor.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, in, I think, 7 days, I have not made an
objection to an amendment that we tried to take up. I am sensitive to
that because we, obviously, want to provide as much opportunity to go
into these issues as is possible. I say to my friend from South Dakota
that I am happy to stay here with him and do as much as we could do to
impress on anybody the importance of the issue he is raising.
[[Page S10917]]
But if we stayed here and went through the process of a vote, which
would conceivably take us a lot longer in terms of the other amendments
we have to finish tomorrow morning, as well as keep the Senate in even
later, only the votes--I think we had only one motion to table. Almost
every vote has been straight up or down. The votes have been 60 to 30,
or 60-something to 28, or something like that. I think the reason is
that there is a fundamental flaw in the approach of this particular
amendment and the others we have had because they seek to prevent the
treaty from going into force.
The language says ``prior to the entry into force of the New START
Treaty,'' the President has to do a series of things. Some of those may
read in a fairly straightforward and literal way, but they are not
necessarily what can be done immediately or are even subject to our
control, in which case we wind up with a treaty that we have actually
partially ratified because it cannot go into force, and it may never go
into force, depending on what happens with some of those things that
are out of our control.
There are a lot of reports requested on one thing or another. I think
there is a more effective way to go at this, personally, that doesn't
wind up with a negative impact on the treaty, where we are veering from
our military and national intelligence leaders who would like to see
this put into effect as rapidly as possible. The effect of this is not
to let that happen as rapidly as possible.
The Senator is 100 percent correct about our concern about Iran. We
need Russian cooperation in order to ever have a chance of enforcing
the sanctions that have been put in place, as well as finding the other
tiers of cooperation that are going to be critical as we go forward,
absent Iranian shifts in policy. The fact is, what has happened through
Russian cooperation right now is that the most significant sanctions we
have been able to put in place to date have been put in place. They
were largely achieved because of the relationship President Obama has
achieved with President Medvedev and the reset button and the sense
that we are coming together, not going apart.
It is easy for us in the Senate to stand here and say we have to
require this, we have to require that. A lot of these things I have
found increasingly--particularly in this time I have been chairman of
this committee--a lot of the things we sometimes do with good intention
in the Senate actually very significantly complicate the life and work
of our diplomats who spend as much time trying to meet some kind of
certification as they do doing the diplomacy they are meant to do.
I am happy to work with the Senator as chairman of this committee. We
will have hearings early next year on this topic of Iran and where we
stand with respect to that nuclear program. We will look at this issue
of Russian cooperation, and we will look at it hopefully within the
context of a START treaty that is going to be ratified by the Duma and
implemented and that can only strengthen the resolve of both our
countries to focus on the challenges of Iran.
I thank my colleague. I have been in that position before when we
have not been able to get an amendment in.
I might add, the amendment was filed a day and a half after cloture
was filed. I said to Jon Kyl very clearly that we were going to try to
be as flexible as we could. That flexibility needed to be mostly
focused on those amendments that directly affect the treaty or are to
the treaty in its most direct sense. If we raised a point of order,
this would be an amendment that would be found to be not germane
because it is outside those direct treaty issues. With that in mind, I
have taken the position I have taken. But I look forward to working
with my colleague, if we can, as we go forward from here.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I say to my friend from Massachusetts that
if he would allow me to vote on the amendment, I would try to break
that 35-vote threshold that we have seen, to blow through that cap.
I appreciate the fact that the Senator shares the concerns I have
about Iran. All I would say is I think what this provides is an
additional safeguard as we move into this process and we have this
treaty and a clearly established connection between what is a great
threat, a regional threat and, I would argue, a threat beyond the
region, certainly to our national security as well, the Iranian threat,
and the relationship we have with Russia and this treaty and the good-
faith effort that we are making through this treaty with the Russians
to reset, that this would provide an additional level of assurance that
they are, in fact, cooperating and that they are following through on
the commitments they are making to the administration and to us as we
debate this treaty.
Again, I will not belabor the point. The point has been made. I do
think this is a germane amendment. I take issue with the chairman's
contention that it is not. But at this particular late hour and with
his objection to this, I know I am probably not going to have an
opportunity to have this amendment voted on, but I hope the issue
continues to stay front and center, in front of this body and before
the Foreign Relations Committee and the Armed Services Committee on
which I serve.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I say to the Senator, let's commit to work
to make sure that happens. I certainly will do that on my part. I look
forward to those hearings next year. Perhaps the Senator would even
want to find a way to take part in them.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, Senator Reid asked me a few minutes ago if
I would communicate where we are with respect to the START treaty, and
I will do so.
As it stands now, we have two amendments that remain. One is an
amendment by Senator Kyl on modernization, which I believe is the
intention, though not yet locked in, of the majority leader to try to
take up around 9 o'clock in the morning. We expect to spend somewhere
in the vicinity of an hour on it, maybe a little bit longer than that,
to accommodate the speakers for Senator Kyl. Then there will be one
other amendment after that on missile defense, I believe an amendment
that will be offered by Senator Corker and Senator Lieberman together.
That amendment will be the last barrier remaining before we can get to
the final vote on the treaty itself.
It would be my hope, depending on the negotiations going on and
discussions with respect to the 9/11 first responders--those are
discussions taking place now--depending on that, we will have a better
sense of when that final vote will be able to take place. I know a lot
of colleagues are trying to figure that out in the context of flights,
family, and other things. Our hope is that will become clearer in the
next minutes, hours, moments of the Senate.
That is the lay of the land. I know the chairman of the Armed
Services Committee and the ranking member have made their request to
the Senate regarding the Defense authorization bill.
Our hope is that tomorrow morning we can move rapidly through the
remaining two amendments. It may even be possible for us to accept the
amendment on the missile defense. We are working on that language now.
If that happens, obviously it will clear the possibilities of a final
vote to an earlier hour, again dependent on this discussion regarding
the 9/11 first responders.
That is the state of play.
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to support the approval by
the Senate of the New START treaty.
On December 16, I joined Senators Inouye, Feinstein and Alexander in
a letter to President Obama to express my support for ratification of
the treaty and funding for the modernization of our nuclear weapons
arsenal. At the time, I was concerned that this might not be taken
seriously as a long-term commitment. The President has responded to our
request and assured me that nuclear modernization is a priority for his
administration and that
[[Page S10918]]
he will request funding for these programs and capabilities as long as
he is in office. I appreciate his commitment to this long-term
investment.
The treaty before us is not perfect. Many of our colleagues have
brought forth ideas and offered amendments that will help address
concerns about the treaty. I share concerns about missile defense,
tactical nuclear weapons, and limits on delivery vehicles, but I cannot
deny the potential national security consequences of not ratifying the
New START treaty.
After listening carefully to national security experts and the debate
on the Senate floor, I have been convinced that failure to ratify this
treaty would diminish cooperation between our two countries on several
fronts, including nuclear proliferation, and limit our understanding of
Russian capabilities. Furthermore, failure to ratify this treaty would
cause further delays in getting our inspectors back to Russia after a
1-year absence.
While I am dissatisfied with the way this treaty has been considered
by the Senate in a lameduck session, I take our responsibility to
provide advice and consent to international treaties very seriously;
and I do not think that the politics of the moment should trump our
national security priorities. I am cognizant of the fact that the New
START treaty has received unanimous endorsement by both our country's
diplomatic and military leadership, and it would be an unusual response
for the Senate not to respect and consider their views on how best to
support our national security interests.
I agree with them on the merits of this treaty, and I will support
ratification.
Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, I rise today and proudly stand among the
long, bipartisan list of Senators, statesmen, and military leaders in
support of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. The New START
treaty is critical to our Nation's security because it places limits on
U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, supports an improving bilateral
relationship with Russia, and advances international nuclear
nonproliferation efforts.
Over the last three decades, both the United States and Russia have
benefited greatly from the bilateral reduction of nuclear weapons.
Through the efforts of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush,
the two superpowers embarked on gradual nuclear disarmament, agreeing
to reduce the number of their strategic warheads and deployed delivery
vehicles through the negotiation and signing of the first START treaty.
Under President Obama's leadership, we are now considering the New
START treaty, which, when ratified, will reduce these numbers even more
in both countries.
The ratification of the New START treaty is vital to our national
security.
First, this treaty helps to decrease the threat of nuclear
destruction and strategic miscalculation by requiring the reduction of
strategic offensive arms such as warheads and launchers in Russia and
the U.S. Supporting this effort is a strong verification regime that
includes on-site inspections. Without this treaty, our inspectors do
not have the ability to monitor Russian activities. We have not had
access to the Russian nuclear stockpile for over a year. Our ability to
``trust, but verify'' must be restored.
Second, this treaty reinforces our important relationship with
Russia. It advances our Nation's capacity to build durable,
multilateral cooperation to confront international security risks from
countries like Iran and North Korea. In addition, a strong relationship
with Russia helps to keep available the supply chains that deliver
equipment to the brave Americans serving in Afghanistan.
Finally, this treaty strengthens our nonproliferation efforts around
the world. By ratifying the New START treaty and taking the focus off
of strategic weapons, the United States and Russia can increase their
efforts on tactical nuclear weapons and proliferation. The risks
associated with nuclear proliferation are particularly serious and
include acts of nuclear terrorism against the United States and its
allies and the destabilizing effects of new nuclear arms races.
For many years I have been concerned about these risks. During the
111th Congress, I have introduced bills that would decrease the spread
of potentially dangerous nuclear technologies around the world and
implement key nuclear nonproliferation recommendations offered by the
Commission on the Prevention of the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass
Destruction and Terrorism. I have also called for more oversight of the
International Atomic Energy Agency's Technical Cooperation Program and
its proliferation vulnerabilities. Ratifying the New START treaty will
reinforce these and many other nuclear nonproliferation efforts.
I urge my colleagues to strengthen national security by ratifying the
New START treaty.
Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Mr. President, I rise today to echo the call
of the Senators and Presidents who have furthered the cause of peace. I
rise to continue this body's longstanding work to reduce the threat
that nuclear weapons still pose to our Nation and world.
Much has changed since the groundbreaking arms treaties of the 1990s.
The cold war has ended, and with its end the balance of power changed
greatly. But the threat of nuclear war has not entirely gone away.
Over the last decade, we have seen the U.S. attacked on 9-11. And we
learned about al-Qaida's ambition to acquire a weapon of mass
destruction.
One mishap or one intentional attack is all that is needed to throw
our entire global society into a tailspin.
Thanks to the work done through Nunn-Lugar, the U.S. has been
involved in efforts since the end of the cold war to prevent nuclear
materials from falling into the wrong hands.
But today, with our resources spread thin due to two wars overseas
and the threat from failed states and unstable regimes in possession of
nuclear weapons the risk of nuclear proliferation has steadily
increased.
That is why the goal articulated by President Kennedy, built upon by
President Reagan, and further advanced by President Obama is more
important than ever. Moving toward a world with zero nuclear weapons is
a move toward a safer and more peaceful future.
Through committed negotiations on the New START treaty, the U.S. and
Russia have renewed their commitments to this important goal. Passing
New START would be another momentous step toward that more peaceful
world.
But, as we have all seen in recent days, and over the course of the
year since the U.S. and Russia reached this historic agreement, some in
this Chamber are playing partisan politics with an issue that has the
potential to impact every person in America and across the world.
This political posturing is short-sighted at best. And it is
dangerous at worst. The threat of nuclear weapons is not a partisan
issue. It is an American issue. And, more importantly, a human issue.
When START One was ratified in 1991, it was ratified not with just a
simple majority but with 93 Members of the Senate voting in favor of
the legislation.
Similarly, START Two, ratified in 1993, had the support of 87 Members
of the Senate.
The New START treaty deserves similar support from this body.
Obstruction of this treaty does not strengthen our country. It reduces
our security. And arguments to the contrary go against decades of
bipartisan work to reduce the threat of nuclear annihilation.
Those opposed to ratification say this treaty will diminish our
national security. They argue that we cannot rely on a smaller nuclear
arsenal to effectively deter an opponent.
These concerns have been overhyped and hyperpoliticized. And they
fall flat in light of the scientific evidence provided by our
scientists and engineers at the National Labs.
Along with Senator Bingaman, I helped lead a visit to New Mexico's
National Labs while the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was debating
ratification. The scientists and engineers at the Labs briefed the
delegation, which also included Senators Kyl, Corker, Risch, and Thune,
on issues pertinent to this debate.
After participating in these briefings, I am confident of two things.
One, that the United States can assure our allies
[[Page S10919]]
that our nuclear arsenal remains an effective deterrent. And two, that
our scientists and engineers will be able to verify that Russia is
abiding by its end of the bargain.
New Mexico will be at the forefront of verification measures because
the Los Alamos and Sandia National Labs have the requisite professional
expertise to aid the monitoring of Russian forces.
I have been continually amazed by the work of our National Labs in
New Mexico. The Los Alamos and Sandia National Labs, and the
hardworking men and women who serve there, are truly a treasure of the
Nation.
Unfortunately, some on the other side of the aisle have derided the
labs as ``decrepit and dangerous.'' This poorly imagined and strikingly
inaccurate description couldn't be further from the truth.
Los Alamos National Labs Director Michael Anastasio, Sandia National
Labs Director Paul Hommert, and Lawrence Livermore Director George
Miller, have been unequivocal in their testimony to the Senate Armed
Services Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
They all agree that our labs are prepared to maintain our nuclear
stockpile, and they are ready to lend their scientific expertise to the
overall mission of verification and reduction.
To quote Director Anastasio's Senate testimony:
I do not see New START fundamentally changing the role of
the Laboratory. What New START does do, however, is emphasize
the importance of the Laboratories' mission and the need for
a healthy and vibrant science, technology and engineering
base to be able to continue to assure the stockpile into the
future:
Sandia National Labs also plays a major role in stockpile
stewardship, life extension, and stockpile surveillance.
Director Hommert's testimony makes clear that Sandia understands the
challenges involved under New START but that it is ready to undertake
those challenges. He said:
As a whole package, the documents describing the future of
U.S. nuclear policy represent a well founded, achievable path
forward.
I believe that it is no small coincidence that the progression toward
a world without nuclear weapons will require the continued, diligent
work of those who first created and then secured our arsenals.
The safety, security, and reliability of our available nuclear
weapons will become increasingly important to our country as we reduce
our stockpile.
For New Mexico, President Obama's strategy will mean an expanded role
for our National Labs in managing our Nation's nuclear deterrent.
For our country, President Obama's strategy means that we are one
step closer to closing the curtain of the cold war's legacy of nuclear
arms races.
For the world, it means we will be taking a step forward toward
greater cooperation and peace, and one step back from catastrophe.
Fewer weapons mean fewer opportunities for mistakes or losses of
warheads. Fewer weapons also mean fewer opportunities for unstable
regimes such as North Korea, Iran, or Myanmar, or individuals with
malicious intentions to acquire or build a nuclear weapon.
The two nations with the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons have a
duty to remain vigilant in protecting the rest of the world from the
unthinkable. By ratifying this treaty, the Senate is upholding its duty
to protect our Nation and to protect our shared planet.
President Kennedy said the following during his 1962 State of the
Union Address:
World order will be secured only when the whole world has
laid down these weapons which seem to offer us present
security but threaten the future survival of the human race.
By ratifying this treaty, we move a step closer toward realizing this
legacy and continuing a longstanding policy goal of our country--the
goal of creating a more peaceful and secure world.
Let us continue our work together by ratifying this treaty and
sending a message to the world that the United States of America will
continue making significant steps towards peace.
Mr. BOND. Mr. President, New START is a bad deal for the
United States. It requires us to reduce our deployed strategic forces
while the Russians can add to theirs. This amounts to unilateral
reductions.
The treaty gives Russia political leverage, which they will use, to
try to prevent us from expanding our missile defenses to protect us
against North Korea and Iran. This is unacceptable.
The treaty fails to deal with Russia's reported ten to one advantage
in tactical nuclear weapons or their nuclear, sea-launched cruise
missiles. However, the Treaty will limit our nonnuclear ballistic
missiles.
Compounding these deficiencies, the treaty's verification is weak and
the Russians have a poor compliance record.
As vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, I
have reviewed all the relevant classified intelligence concerning this
treaty. I come away convinced that the United States has no reliable
means to verify the treaty's central 1,550 warhead limit.
It is also inexcusable that the United States has forfeited in this
treaty the rights it enjoyed under START to full and open access to
Russian telemetry. This amounts to giving up the ``keys to the
kingdom,'' as it will harm our ability understand new Russian missile
developments.
The administration has attempted to justify giving up Russian
telemetry on the basis that it is not needed to verify the New START
treaty. This is only true if you believe that the treaty's ten or fewer
yearly inspections of Russian missiles will provide adequate
verification. They do not. In fact, these inspections have three
strikes against them.
Strike One: The 10 annual warhead inspections allowed under New START
only permit us to sample 2 to 3 percent of the Russian force.
Strike Two: The inspections cannot provide conclusive evidence of
whether Russia is complying with the 1,550 warhead limit. If we found a
missile loaded with more warheads than Russia declared, it would be a
faulty and suspicious declaration. However, we could not infer that
Russia had thereby violated the overall 1,550 limit. The Russians could
just make some excuse for the faulty declaration, as they have in the
past.
Strike Three: New START relies on a type of on-site inspections that
Russia illegally obstructed on certain missile types for almost the
entire 15 year history of START. Russia's use of illegal, oversized
covers were a clear violation of our on-site inspection rights under
that treaty. As the old adage goes, ``fool me once, shame on you, fool
me twice, shame on me.''
Common sense tells us that the worse a treaty partner's compliance
history, the stronger verification should be. However, according to
official State Department reports by this administration and the
previous one, Russia has violated, or is still violating, important
provisions of most key arms control treaties to which they have been a
party. In addition to START, this includes the Chemical Weapons
Convention, the Biological Weapons Convention, the Conventional Forces
in Europe Treaty, and Open Skies.
We also know that the lower the limits on our weapons, the stronger
the verification should be. But with these lower New START limits, our
verification of warhead limits is much worse than under the previous
START treaty, with its higher limits.
With all these arguments against the treaty, proponents can only
point to one tangible benefit--that we will know more about Russian
forces with the treaty than without it. This is hardly a ringing
endorsement.
Learning more will hardly compensate the United States for the major
concessions included in this Treaty. What are these concessions?
Unilateral limits, unlimited Russian nuclear systems, limited U.S.
nonnuclear systems, unreliable verification, the forfeiture of our
telemetry rights, and perhaps most importantly, handing Russia a vote
on our missile defense decisions.
In many cases, concerns about particular treaties can be solved
during the ratification process. My colleagues have my respect for
their attempts to do so. Unfortunately, New START suffers from
fundamental flaws that no amount of tinkering around the edges can fix.
For these and other reasons, I cannot in good conscience vote to
ratify the New START treaty.
[[Page S10920]]
Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business for up to 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Cantwell). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Interest on Legal Trust Accounts
Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I rise this evening to talk about a
program that is of great importance to our citizens across America who
are struggling to access legal services. There is a program that is
called the Interest on Lawyer Trust Accounts or IOLTA. This is a very
interesting arrangement that I was not familiar with until I came to
the Senate.
Essentially, IOLTA is interest on lawyer trust accounts, and it works
like this. When lawyers need to put money into a trust account, they
are putting it in that account on behalf of a client or on behalf of an
estate. It is not allowed under the law for the client to earn
interest. However, there is an arrangement that has been made over the
years in which banks agree to pay interest on those accounts, since
they are accessing those deposits--those funds--but the interest gets
donated to legal services for poor Americans across the United States
of America. So it is a win-win. The client isn't allowed to get the
interest, but the banks pay the interest to benefit low-income
Americans across our Nation.
That is the structure of the IOLTA accounts. All 50 States have these
programs. Forty-two States require lawyers to deposit client funds that
do not earn net interest for the client into these IOLTA accounts so
they will earn interest to pay for civil legal services for the poor.
During the financial crisis, the FDIC created a program to guarantee
that the business and trust checking accounts that do not pay interest
are insured--they are guaranteed--and IOLTA was included in this
because they do not pay interest to the client. The Dodd-Frank reform
bill we had, which extended these arrangements for 2 years for accounts
that do not pay interest to the clients, forgot to include the IOLTA
accounts that do not pay interest to the clients but do pay interest
that goes to fund civil legal services for poor Americans in all 50
States.
So we are seeking to fix this glitch. I wish to note that hundreds of
thousands of Americans who don't otherwise have access to legal
services are in a position to benefit when they need such services
across our Nation.
In Oregon, we have the Oregon Law Foundation, the nonprofit,
nonpartisan organization that administers legal aid for the poor. They
benefited to the tune of over $1 million in revenue in 2009. When
interest was a little better, they had more revenue in 2008--$2.2
million. That was a decrease from 2007 of $3.6 million. So as interest
rates have declined, the amount of funds that have gone to fund legal
services for the poor have declined, but still, a few million dollars
is better than none in terms of providing assistance.
In a case such as this--the Oregon Law Foundation--IOLTA funding
makes up 95 percent of their total revenue. So if the guarantee is not
extended for 2 more years, we have a real problem, and it goes like
this. A lawyer has a fiduciary responsibility to a client to put the
funds into an account that protects the client. They would not be able
to put the funds into an IOLTA account if it is not guaranteed, if they
have the option of putting it into a noninterest-bearing fund that is
guaranteed and, thus, the bank's willingness to pay interest. So the
funding that goes for legal services across our Nation will disappear.
I rise to talk about this because the deadline for this is December
31. We have a bill to fix this before the Senate. But for those who are
familiar, in the Senate, any Senator has the ability to put a hold on
legislation, and we have a situation where a Senator has put a hold on
this. I think, in general, this hasn't gotten much attention, the fact
that this assistance that goes to low-income Americans across this
country will be deeply damaged, even if 99 Senators support this,
because we don't have 100 Senators. So I am rising to basically make an
appeal to my colleagues to take a look at the legal programs in your
States that are funded by this.
There are legal education programs that are funded. I hope my
colleagues will recognize that what we have is a lose-lose situation if
we don't change this law, and that lose-lose is legal education and
legal services. The banks will actually make more money because they
will not have to pay interest. So you have a lose-lose and a win--a
loss for the poor, a loss for the students wanting legal education, and
a win for banks receiving greater profits.
In this situation, the banks have been absolutely stellar citizens of
our communities. In Oregon, we have a host of banks that not only pay
interest on these lawyer trust funds, but they have agreed to maintain
a floor of 1 percent interest. I would like to mention these banks
recognized by the Oregon Law Foundation as leadership banks. I believe
this list is as of the end of the year 2009. By mentioning these banks,
I am basically saying thank you to these banks for being involved in
this program. They include: the Albina Community Bank, the Bank of
Eastern Oregon, the Bank of the Cascades, the Bank of the West, Capital
Pacific Bank, Century Bank, Columbia River Bank, Key Bank, Northwest
Bank, Peoples Bank of Commerce, the Pioneer Trust Bank, Premier West
Bank, Siuslaw Bank, South Valley Bank and Trust, the Bank of Oswego,
the Commerce Bank of Oregon, Umpqua Bank--a bank that originated in
southern Oregon, in timber country, Douglas County, where I come from--
U.S. Bank, Washington Trust Bank, and Wells Fargo.
So all these banks have been willing to pay interest on these lawyer
trust accounts, knowing they are doing good work in the community by
assisting legal programs.
I mentioned one of those programs in Oregon. Let me mention a couple
more. The Juvenile Rights Project provides legal services to children
and families who do not otherwise have the means to retain counsel
through individual representation in juvenile court and school
proceedings and through classwide advocacy in the courts, the
legislature, and public agencies. It has the only help line offering
legal advice for children and teenagers in Oregon. So that is the
Juvenile Rights Project.
Disability Rights Oregon. The Oregon Advocacy Center provides
statewide legal services to Oregonians with disabilities who are
victims of abuse or neglect or have problems obtaining health care,
special education, housing, employment, public benefits, and access to
public and private services. Oregonians with disabilities look to OAC--
that is the Oregon Advocacy Center or Disability Rights Oregon--to
protect and advocate for their rights in courts, with public agencies
and with the State legislature.
The Classroom Law Project promotes understanding of the law and legal
process for 15,000 elementary and secondary school students in the
State of Oregon by incorporating the lessons and principles of
democracy into school curriculum. Their programs include the High
School Mock Trial Competition. That is an extraordinary competition. It
is wonderful to see how a high school student can blossom when
preparing to argue before his or her peers the facts of a case and the
legal principles of a case. It is an enormous education.
The Classroom Law Project also includes the Summer Institute training
for teachers. This program enables those teachers to better address the
issues of law and legal process in their classrooms.
Also included is the We the People program on the Constitution and
Bill of Rights. A lot of us often carry the Constitution. We understand
it is the foundation for our government of, by, and for the people, and
we want our children to get an education in the Constitution. This is
funded in this fashion.
We also have help for citizens who are trying to get into a home
mortgage modification, such as HAMP--the Housing Affordable
Modification Program--and also families who are working through issues
of domestic violence.
So here is the situation. Families addressing domestic violence
issues, families addressing wrongful home foreclosures, children--
juveniles--seeking legal assistance, the disabled seeking resolution of
issues regarding access to health care, special education, housing or
employment are being helped. The Classroom Law Project is helping
educate our children about the Constitution, about the Bill of Rights,
funding
[[Page S10921]]
mock trial competitions, and funding the Summer Institute training for
teachers. These are the types of tremendous programs that are funded
through the interest on lawyer trust accounts. That line of funding,
due to a technical overrsight, ends on December 31.
So I am rising to ask my colleagues, if you are the Senator who is
holding this up, I encourage you to get the facts from your State
because all 50 States participate, and then let this funding, provided
through a wonderful arrangement between the banks and our lawyers and
these trust accounts, go forward. Who knows how many thousands, the
multiple of thousands who will be assisted in challenging situations if
we fix this before we adjourn.
I yield the floor.
____________________