[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5511-5513]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT APPROPRIATIONS BILL

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, for the information of Senators and 
staff members, I would like to make a few comments about the Energy and 
Water appropriations bill that we will be moving to at 4 this 
afternoon. Senator Feinstein is in an intelligence briefing and will be 
here about 4 as we will. We will have more to say at that time, but 
here is my view of where we are: At 5:30 today, the Senate, for the 
third time, will vote on whether it is time to cut off debate and 
finish the bill. The first two votes failed, and they failed for one 
reason. They failed because of differences of opinion about the 
amendment by the Senator from Arkansas, Mr. Cotton, which said that in 
the year 2017, the United States could not use tax dollars to buy heavy 
water from Iran as we are doing in 2016. So we will vote for the third 
time today on whether to cut off debate and finish the bill.
  Here is what I would suggest our goal should be. This is just my 
opinion, but I have talked with the majority leader, the Democratic, 
and I have talked with Senator Feinstein and a number of other 
Senators. No. 1, we should dispose of the Cotton amendment the way we 
normally dispose of issues about which we disagree. We should vote on 
them. That is what we do in the Senate--we vote. If you are in the 
Grand Ole Opry, you sing.
  So we have a difference of opinion about the Cotton amendment. Let's 
vote on it. It is relevant to the bill. It is properly filed. It is 
germane. Senator Cotton has been very flexible. He has offered to 
decide it in many different ways. He has offered to modify his 
amendment. He has offered to allow it to be considered separately. He 
has offered for us to vote at a 60-vote level, and then he would 
withdraw it if he should lose. He has offered to vote it at 60 votes on 
cloture on his amendment.
  So he has offered us an opportunity to vote on his amendment in many 
different ways. He just wants a vote. In my view, a Senator who has a 
relevant and germane amendment is entitled to a vote, and I am 
supporting his right to a vote. Then, once we vote on the amendment and 
dispose of it, we should finish the bill.
  So I am optimistic. I see no reason why today or tomorrow--certainly 
no later than Wednesday--we cannot vote on and dispose of the Cotton 
amendment and vote on and finish the Energy and Water appropriations 
bill.
  So I say to Senators and staff members, if I were planning my week, I 
would plan on there being a vote on the Cotton amendment. Now, they may 
ask how I know that. Well, I know this: that any majority leader has 
the right to file cloture on an amendment like the Cotton amendment, 
and by Wednesday we will vote on it at 60 votes. My own view is, since 
we are basically finished with the bill, except for the Cotton 
amendment, why would we not agree to wrap up things and do it tomorrow 
or even today? We could finish the bill today, with a vote on the 
Cotton amendment at 60 votes, with a vote on cloture, and a vote on 
final passage.
  As much as I defend the right of the Senator from Arkansas to have a 
vote, I am going to oppose his amendment on the merits, which I will 
describe in just a minute, but it is time to bring this bill to a 
conclusion. I think most Senators agree with that, and that is what we 
need to do.
  Let me discuss for a moment, remind Senators and those listening, why 
this bill is so important. As the majority leader says, it covers a lot 
of essential services in this country. For example, every time there is 
a flood in the Midwest, 15 or 20 Senators show up wanting more money 
for flood control. Our inland waterways are in need of reconstruction. 
The harbors on the west coast and in Charleston, Mobile, and many other 
places need deepening. We need to stay No. 1 in supercomputing in the 
world. About half of this legislation has to do with our nuclear 
weapons program--modernizing it and keeping us safe. All 17 of our 
National Laboratories are in the Office of Science under this 
legislation. Despite staying within strict budget limits, we have 
agreed to the highest level of appropriations for our Office of 
Science, out of which comes so much of our economic growth, of any 
appropriations bill in history.
  In addition to that, we have gone through a very careful process. 
About 80 different Members of the Senate have come to Senator Feinstein 
and me with policy changes that they would like to see in the bill that 
are in the bill. Eighty means about half Republicans and half 
Democrats. I know that it is important to them because I have already 
heard reports of many Senators being home last weekend taking credit 
for all of these provisions they have gotten in the bill, which we 
haven't passed yet.
  I don't blame them for that. There are a lot of provisions in this 
bill that are important to the country and important to my State of 
Tennessee. I am reminding Senators that this is an important bill in 
which they have had a lot of say. In addition, on the floor, we have 
already processed 17 different amendments--about as many Democratic 
amendments as Republican amendments. We did all of that in a matter of 
3 or 4 days before we reached an impasse on the Cotton amendment.
  We are basically done with step one of our most basic constitutional 
work, which is oversight and appropriations of about $1 trillion in 
spending. This is the first of 12 bills. This Energy and Water 
appropriations bill has not gone across the floor in regular order 
since 2009. It is time we do that. We are very close to doing that.
  Let me say a word about the amendment by the Senator from Arkansas. 
As I said, I have, for the last week, defended his right to have a 
vote, and he will have a vote. Make no mistake about it, he will have a 
vote, but I intend to oppose it on the merits for three reasons. The 
first is this, and let me say this very carefully: If the United States 
is not allowed to buy heavy water from Iran next year as it is this 
year, it creates the possibility that Iran will be able to sell that 
heavy water to other countries, including North Korea, which might use 
it to make nuclear weapons. Let me say that again. If we are not 
allowed to buy it by this amendment, someone else will buy it. Heavy 
water is a distilled form of water. By itself, it is not hazardous. It 
is not radioactive. It can be used for many peaceful purposes. The 
United States uses about 70 tons of it every year. For example, this 
year the Oak Ridge National Laboratory is buying 32 tons from Iran--6 
tons of which we will be used for its big neutron microscope. The rest 
will be sold over time to universities, to hospitals, to manufacturers 
for medical research, for fiber optics--all for peaceful purposes.
  This heavy water--this distilled form of water--can also be used to 
make plutonium to make nuclear weapons, which is why we do not want 
Iran to have it. We want it out of Iran. We want it somewhere else. If 
we don't want them to have it, and if we need it and we in the United 
States don't produce it and we don't buy it, what does Iran do with its 
heavy water? It sells it to somebody else, perhaps. We don't know who, 
but it could be any one of a number of countries, including North 
Korea. In a big meeting over there now--the biggest they have had in 
three decades--they are talking about nuclear weapons.

[[Page 5512]]

  Respectfully, in my view, this is bad policy. I oppose it. I support 
the Senator's right to have a vote, and he will have a vote, but when 
we have that vote, I will vote no.
  The second reason I oppose the amendment is it doesn't belong on the 
appropriations bill. The Senator has a right to have it on there, but I 
hear a lot of lectures of us appropriators in our Republican lunches 
from distinguished members of our so-called authorizing committees--
committees such as Foreign Relations, Armed Services, Intelligence--
saying: You Senators on the Appropriations Committee are making a lot 
of decisions you shouldn't be making. We should be making the policy 
decisions.
  What is more of a policy decision than what to do with Iran's heavy 
water? This isn't a debate about whether you support the Iran nuclear 
agreement. I voted against that. I am opposed to that. This is a 
question about what do you do about the 200 tons of heavy water that 
can be used either for peaceful purposes or to make nuclear weapons 
over the next few years.
  I would think there would be no issue that would be more suitable for 
discussion by the Foreign Relations Committee or the Armed Services 
Committee or the Intelligence Committee, nor can I think of many issues 
less suitable just to pop up as an amendment on an appropriations bill. 
If we can't decide issues like this that are filled with national 
security implications, why do we have a Foreign Relations Committee? 
Why do we have an Armed Services Committee? Why do we have an 
Intelligence Committee?
  It is not just the possibility that it might go to Iran, the issue 
cuts the other way as well. Senator Cotton or someone else who favors 
the amendment might say: Well, if we buy more heavy water from Iran, 
perhaps that creates a market for Iran. Maybe that incentivizes them to 
make more heavy water and keeps them in production for a long period of 
time. Then, later on, they misuse it. Maybe that is possible.
  Then there is the question of what effect a decision by the United 
States to not allow our tax dollars to buy heavy water for our peaceful 
purposes have on other countries that produce heavy waters, such as 
India, such as Argentina or Canada, which doesn't now produce it but 
uses it. What are the implications? At this time, when there has never 
been a more dangerous recent time in the world, what are the national 
security implications of what to do about Iran's disposal of heavy 
water--water we don't want it to have, water we don't produce but which 
we need, and water we do not want to get into the hands of other 
countries, such as perhaps North Korea, which could use it to make 
nuclear weapons. I cannot think of a more appropriate issue to be 
considered by the Foreign Relations Committee.
  There is a third reason we should take into account when voting on 
this. The President says he will veto it. I will say more about 
Presidential vetoes in a minute. I don't think we should pull the cord 
and stop the train just because the President says he will veto 
something. The White House has said they will veto something 85 times 
in the last year and a half. If we stopped our work every time they did 
that, we would only be meeting on Monday afternoons or Tuesday 
mornings. But we ought to take into account the fact that the President 
might veto it, and placing this amendment on this bill would be a 
sincere but in my opinion a futile gesture because we would end up with 
no amendment after the Presidential veto. We might end up with no 
Energy and Water appropriations bill for yet another year.
  I have some differences with some of my friends on the other side. 
Some of them think that whenever the President says veto, we should 
stop. I don't agree with that. I think we should go ahead. If he wants 
to veto, he vetoes, but I think we should take that into account. Some 
of them say that whenever a controversial amendment comes up, we should 
not move forward with the bill.
  Here is what we agreed to this year. After last year, I agreed, 
anyway, to make sure we did not in the Energy and Water Development 
Subcommittee--and I see the Senator from California is here, which we 
worked on together. We kept controversial amendments off the bill in 
our subcommittee. There were a number that tried to come on. We said, 
if they are controversial, bring them to the floor. Last year on that 
bill went the waters of the United States amendment, and it killed the 
bill. The Democrats wouldn't move forward with it. I thought they 
should have, but they did not. It was not on the bill this year. 
Senator Hoeven held it until we got to the floor. He offered the 
amendment at 60 votes and it didn't pass.
  We honored our word. We kept the controversial amendments off the 
bill in committee, but amendments that are relevant and germane when 
they come to the floor are entitled to be heard. We should dispose of 
the Cotton amendment the way we dispose of our other differences. We 
should just vote on it.
  Especially since the Senator from California is here, let me talk 
about another aspect of our work on the bill that is important in the 
Senate; that is, the word ``restraint.'' For example, Senator Feinstein 
is very concerned about the cruise missile. She could have offered an 
amendment in the subcommittee or she could have today that would have 
made a major change in our policy toward the cruise missile, but she 
chose not to do that. She chose instead to have a hearing. We will do 
that, and then we will take the next step, whatever that turns out to 
be. She knows, if she had moved ahead with that, that would have been a 
very provocative thing to do, made it harder to pass the bill. She 
chose not to do it.
  The Senators from South Carolina, Mr. Graham and Mr. Scott, are very 
concerned about the plutonium MOX facility in South Carolina. The 
administration has recommended that we close it and move to a different 
way of disposing of that plutonium. Senator Feinstein and I agree with 
that.
  We could have tried to make that policy decision in this bill or the 
South Carolina Senators could have tried that, too, but we thought it 
was a policy decision that should first be considered by the 
authorizing committee--in this case, the Armed Services Committee. We 
met with the representatives of Senator McCain and Senator Reed, and 
they have agreed to have a hearing. This is how we are dealing with 
that.
  Senator Shelby, from Alabama, is highly stirred up about what we call 
the Georgia-Florida-Alabama water wars. He would like to have his 
amendment to resolve that problem on this bill, but he has stepped back 
from that on this bill and allowed us to move ahead with it.
  None of those Senators had to do that, but they did that knowing that 
it is the basic constitutional duty of this body to do its 
appropriations work, and they made it possible. I would have preferred 
Senator Cotton not offer this amendment on this bill, but he did. Since 
it is relevant and since it is germane and since we did not deal with 
it in committee, I think the right way to approach it is to say: Let's 
dispose of it the way we dispose of other differences of opinion. Let's 
vote on it and let's move on.
  If I may say through the Chair, before Senator Feinstein came, I 
said, in my view, I wanted the Senators and staff to know we would be 
voting today for the third time on whether to cut off debate, and my 
hope was that we could dispose of the Cotton amendment at 60 votes and 
we could then finish the bill.
  I also said that while I defended Senator Cotton's right to offer the 
amendment and that he will get a vote--because the majority leader has 
the parliamentary tools to file cloture and make sure there is a vote 
on the Cotton amendment by Wednesday--I intend to vote against the 
Cotton amendment because I think it risks the possibility that Iran's 
heavy water might be sold to a country, such as North Korea, that could 
use it to make nuclear weapons. I think first it should be considered 
by the Foreign Relations Committee or the Armed Services Committee or 
the Intelligence Committee. For those reasons, I intend to vote against 
it.
  I am hopeful that when we get to 5:30, maybe conversations would 
continue,

[[Page 5513]]

and the possibility could even exist that we could agree today to vote 
on the Cotton amendment at 60 votes, dispose of it, vote on cloture to 
move ahead with the bill, and have final passage of the bill. If we 
can't do that, I see no reason we can't do it over the next couple of 
days.
  I thank the Senator from California for the way she has worked with 
me on this issue. We have gotten almost to the finish line. She and I 
would like to set a good example for the other 11 appropriations bills 
that are coming up. There are other bills beyond that which we need to 
deal with, such as the 21st-century cures legislation on biomedical 
research, and there is the Zika legislation that many Senators are 
interested in. My hope is that we will find a way to resolve the only 
major issue that remains so we can pass a bill that virtually every 
Senator in this body has some interest in and will probably vote for.
  I am optimistic and hopeful that we can move quickly on disposing of 
the Cotton amendment so we can finish the bill. Ideally we would do it 
today, but we can certainly get it done by tomorrow or Wednesday.
  I yield the floor.

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