[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Page 17415]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, later this morning the Senate is going to 
resume consideration of S. 1197, the National Defense Authorization Act 
for Fiscal Year 2014. I will have a full statement to make on this 
legislation later today. However, I would like to take just a moment to 
talk to my colleagues about where we are on the bill and how we would 
like to proceed.
  Last night, the majority leader asked for unanimous consent to bring 
up side-by-side amendments on subjects that we know we need to debate 
and vote on--military detention at Guantanamo and sexual assault and 
misconduct in the military. Each amendment and side-by-side was to be 
subject to a 60-vote threshold. Unfortunately, there was an objection 
to this request. As a result of that objection, the majority leader 
filled the amendment tree on our bill.
  Now we are in a position where we are going to need the cooperation 
of all Senators to get this important bill passed, as we must, in the 
limited time available to us before Thanksgiving week in order that we 
will have time to go to conference, get a conference report, and bring 
that conference report back to the House and Senate.
  It remains our intention to bring up and vote on as many relevant 
amendments to the bill as possible, and I know the Republican manager, 
ranking member Senator Inhofe, shares this objective. Toward this end I 
expect there will be further attempts later in the day to reach a 
unanimous consent agreement on the first amendments to be brought up, 
and that will be a repeated unanimous consent request that was offered 
last night for those first two amendments.
  It is also our intention to clear amendments, as we have always done 
on this bill. I urge our colleagues, if you have amendments, to file 
them, bring them to us, so we can try to clear them. The majority and 
minority staffs of the Armed Services Committee are working hard. We 
hope to have a first package of cleared amendments ready for 
consideration later today, and we will continue to go through that 
process during the week.
  Finishing this bill is going to be a very difficult task. We have 
managed to do it for the last 51 years, and I am confident, with the 
cooperation of all Senators, we will be able to do it again this year. 
We must for the sake of our troops, their families, and our Nation.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.

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