[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 13024-13025]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST--H.R. 5011

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, as I indicated this morning, we are 
tremendously anxious to move to our first appropriations bill. I 
repeat, the President has been pushing us on these bills. We marked up 
in the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee today the largest Defense 
appropriations bill in the history of the country.
  We have already reported out of the subcommittee and the full 
committee the military construction appropriations bill, and we have 
not been able to get it to the floor. There has been an objection on 
the other side to moving forward.
  Mr. President, some have suggested we just bring it to the floor. We 
cannot just bring it to the floor because then we get into the cloture 
process and that takes many days. We are now trying to go forward on 
the prescription drug bill, and we are in a cloture situation there, 
having filed cloture on the motion to proceed, and we are going to vote 
on that tomorrow unless something comes in the meantime.
  I am basically going to propound the same unanimous consent request I 
did before. The majority leader was on the floor. The Republican leader 
has been on the floor. The Republican leader, to his credit, has said 
he thinks we should move forward with this. Today, I spent some time 
with him and indicated what we can do to move this forward. He had just 
finished a meeting with the President.
  We want to move forward with this bill. We are doing everything we 
can to move forward. We were told the last time the reason we are not 
moving forward--and I spoke with the junior Senator from Arizona, and I 
know how strongly he believes we have to do something about the 
firefighting problems. I am from the West. We have two big fires 
burning in Nevada right now. I am concerned about them, but the 
firefighting problems of our country have never been funded in the 
military construction appropriations bill.
  We are going to have the ability in the supplemental where it should 
be done. It is an emergency. We have been blocked from doing that by 
the administration, but it will be done, as it has always been done 
during my tenure, if not in a supplemental, in the Interior 
appropriations bill, chaired by Senator Byrd, the President pro tempore 
of the Senate. I hope they will allow to us move forward on this.
  There are military projects that will have to wait until we pass this 
bill. So here I go: I ask unanimous consent that at a time to be 
determined by the majority leader, following consultation with the 
Republican leader, the Senate may proceed to the consideration of 
Calendar No. 486, H.R. 5011, the military construction appropriations 
bill, and that it be considered under the following limitations:
  That immediately after the bill is reported, all after the enacting 
clause be stricken and the text of Calendar No. 479, S. 2709, the 
Senate committee-reported bill be inserted in lieu thereof; that debate 
time on the bill and substitute amendment be limited to a total of 45 
minutes, with an additional 20 minutes under the control of Senator 
McCain; that the only other amendment in order be an amendment offered 
by Senators Feinstein and Hutchison of Texas, which is at the desk; 
with debate limited to 10 minutes on the Feinstein-Hutchison amendment; 
that upon the use or yielding back of time on the amendment, without 
further intervening action or debate, the Senate proceed to vote on 
adoption of the amendment; that all debate time not already identified 
in

[[Page 13025]]

this agreement be equally divided and controlled between the chair and 
ranking member of the subcommittee or their designee; that upon 
disposition of the Feinstein-Hutchison amendment, and the use or 
yielding back of all time, the substitute amendment, as amended, be 
agreed to; the bill, as amended, be read three times; that section 303 
of the Congressional Budget Act be waived; and the Senate then proceed 
to a vote on passage of the bill; that upon passage of the bill, the 
Senate insist on its amendment, request a conference with the House on 
the disagreeing votes of the two Houses, and that the Chair be 
authorized to appoint conferees on the part of the Senate, without 
further intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. KYL. Reluctantly, I must object at this time on behalf of a group 
of other Senators and myself, not to the terms of the unanimous consent 
agreement as has been outlined by the Senator from Nevada, but rather 
to bringing up the bill until there has been an agreement reached on 
how to deal with the supplemental funding for dealing with these 
wildfires.
  I think the Senator from Nevada is absolutely correct that that 
funding should be on the supplemental appropriations bill. 
Unfortunately, it has not been put on that bill so far. There are a lot 
of different reasons alleged to exist for that. It seems everybody is 
willing to do it but somehow or another they cannot all get together to 
make it happen, and if it does not happen on that bill, the only other 
alternative is to try to do it on the military construction bill.
  The Interior Department appropriations bill is not likely to be able 
to come before us in a timely fashion so the money that is needed for 
replenishing these Forest Service accounts can be replenished before 
the end of the fiscal year, and that is the reason we have to retain 
this option.
  I hope that within the next several hours an agreement can be reached 
and these funds will be put on the supplemental appropriations bill, as 
the Senator from Nevada suggests, and then we can move on with this 
important legislation. Until then, we do need this as a possible way to 
move forward with the funding that it seems everybody is for but they 
just cannot find a way to make happen.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
  The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I think this is too bad, for lack of a 
better way to describe things. This bill is not the proper place for 
this type of funding. With all due respect to my friend from Arizona, 
this does not create any pressure, holding up the Military Construction 
Subcommittee bill.
  We have to understand that if we are going to take care of the men 
and women who are defending our country, we need to take care of the 
bills that fund them.
  I have indicated I am concerned about firefighting in Nevada. We have 
fires burning as I speak, but never in the history of this country, 
that I am aware, have we funded firefighting through the military 
construction bill, and we are not going to do it in the future. Holding 
up this bill creates a false illusion that we are accomplishing 
something regarding firefighting in this country.
  I hope that in the next couple of hours, as my friend from Arizona 
said, more deliberation can come and that we can move forward on this 
bill.
  I am terribly disappointed we do not have more things declared 
emergencies. It is hard to believe, but the terrible disaster that 
occurred in Oklahoma where a barge ran into part of our interstate 
freeway system, dumped more than a score of cars in the river, killed 
at last count about 14 people, that is not deemed an emergency to fix 
that road. Now if that is not an emergency, I do not know what is. I do 
not know what we are trying to accomplish with the numbers game, but 
that is an emergency, if anything ever was an emergency.
  Those fires that are burning, those are emergencies. They are not in 
the next fiscal year, they are in this fiscal year. The fires are 
burning right now. The fires in Arizona are not even out yet. They have 
them under control, but they will be burning for weeks into the future. 
They have large crews making sure they do not blow up again. I think 
books will probably be written about that fire in Arizona, if not 
articles. They were blowing out fireballs for miles, not a few hundred 
feet or a thousand feet but, by some accounts, up to 3 miles. They were 
blowing out big bombs of fire and starting fires up to 3 miles away.
  I do not know what is happening down at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but 
they have to come to their senses and realize that some things are 
emergencies. The big fire in Colorado was started by somebody who 
worked for the Forest Service. The big fire in Arizona, from the 
information we have now, a firefighter started that fire. It is too 
bad, but they were started. They are emergencies no matter how they 
were started. It is like the fire burning some 30 miles from Las Vegas, 
it was started by lightning, but they are emergencies, and they should 
be declared emergencies, and they should be placed on the supplemental. 
It does not count against any of the numbers we have. They are truly 
emergencies.
  We are going to offer this again before the day is out. We want to go 
forward with that bill. The managers of that bill, the Senator from 
California and the Senator from Texas, have done a remarkably good job. 
This is a fine bill. I think it is remarkable they have been able to do 
the job they have done. They have both tremendous interest in the 
military, and they have both been speaking about the needs they have in 
their respective States and the country.
  The military construction bill goes beyond what we do in this 
country. We have military construction we pay for that is outside this 
country. So I hope my friend from Arizona will do what he can. He has 
tremendous sway with the White House, and that is where the bottleneck 
is, and it should stop.
  In the meantime, let us move forward. We are only asking for a little 
over an hour on this bill to complete it.
  The only other thing, before my friend from Florida begins, is we are 
expecting a very important unanimous consent agreement on 
antiterrorism, and when that comes, if the Senator will allow me to 
interrupt, we will make sure his remarks do not appear interrupted in 
the Record.

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