quorum call:

mr. levin: madam president?

madam president, i ask further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: withoutmt when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:00 a.m. on wednesday, december 22, following the prayer and pledge, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved until later in the day, that following any leader remarks the senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the new start treaty and, finally, i ask that the time during adjournment or a period of morning business count postcloture. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. levin: madam president, cloture was invoked on the new start treaty today and we hope to reach an agreement to yield back some of the postcloture debate time. we will also work on the 9/11 health legislation and a number of executive nominations.

we -- madam president, we also would hope that we can complete work on the defense authorization bill tomorrow morning as well. -- well early in the day hopefully right around 9:00. senators will be notified when any votes are scheduled and if there's no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it adjourn under the previous order. the presiding officer: the the presiding officer: the

limit the debate on the s.t.a.r.t. nuclear arms treaty with russia sitting at a wednesday vote on ratification. here is some of today's debate on s.t.a.r.t., the treaty that would limit each country to 1550 nuclear warheads, a cut from the current limit of 2200. senators alexander and corker talk about their support of the treaty on the senate floor. also, republicans opposed to the treaty held a news conference at the capitol. this is just over an hour.e to >> madame president, i will vote to ratify the new s.t.a.r.t.twei treaty between the united states

and russia because it leaves ouh country with enough nuclear warheads to borrow in the attace to kingdom, and because the president has committed to and $85,000, because it allows inspection ofe russian warheads and because oui military leaders say it does nothing to interfere with the vf system. i will vote for the treaty because the last six republican secretaries of state support its ratification.tification in short, i am convinced that sr americans are safer and moreaty secure with the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty and without. last week i joined senators and away, cochran and feinstein in l letter to the president stating the we will vote to ratify theai treatyat and to appropriate funs to modernize our outdated nuclear weapons facilities and that he, the president, request the funds in his budget. r last night i received a response from the president saying he would do so.

i ask unanimous consent tohe include both letters in the >> without objection. >> why are these so necessarily linked? the treaty and the plan for nuclear weapons modernization?gg the answer is if we are going to reduce our number of warheads, we want to make sure that we arw not left with what amounts to ao collection off what matches. defense secretary gates said, quote, there is an absolutely no way we can maintain a credible of weapons in our stockpileow without either resorting to testing our stockpile or pursuing a modernization program.ber 2 in the november 24th statementrs senator schogol and corker said, quote, they couldn't support reductions in the u.s. nuclear forces unless there is adequate intention to modernizing thesett forchaes and the infrastructure that supports them, and ofr dese

quote. for senator schogol and corker deserve credit for the efforts to fund properly nuclearmodernin modernization. president obama deserves creditt for updating the nuclearlear significantt way.eviewed ofhave reviewed the so-called 1251 plan leng $85 billionen over the next ten years.utdatedr the outdated nuclear weapons c facilities, i am convinced thepm plan's implementation will make giant steps towardsodernization modernization of thesee will assured the weapons will work it needed. for the post in a statement that hee will ask for these funds and tho support of senior members of the appropriations committee means that the plan is more likely toa become a reality. in the president agrees that inshoe tight budgets the funds should be considered as defense spending.k unanim i ask unanimous consent to include in the record a summaryb of the appropriations

recommended by the plan mandated by section 1251 of the 2000out defense authorization bill. >> without objection. atdment >> madame president i would offer an amendment at the appropriate time to thetiona ton to acquire annual updates of the fall 51 report which the president's letter says he will do. under the terms of the treaty t, the united states may have 1550 deployed strategic nuclear each weapons.o0 each one up to 30 times more powerful than the one used at ha hiroshima to end world war ii.nr the u.s. will also gain valuable data including throughtions inspection operationsth that a e should provide a treasure troveo of intelligence about russian wt activities that we would not the have without the treaty and thad we have not had since the s.t.a.r.t. treaty expired wee december 9th, 2009. over the weekend, the president

sent a letter to the senate reaffirming that, quote, the to united states will continue to d develop and deploy effective missile defense.n there is nothing within thee treaty itself, let me emphasizee nothing within the treaty itsele that would hamper the of development of missile defense or its deployment. intellince our military and intelligence s leaders all have said that. obviously something could happen iaere thefrom united states to withdraw fromti that is any sovereign countries write with any treaty. 2 presi in 2de002, president bc missile treaty because of our desire toi pursue missile defense to protect us from an attack by a rogue state. i ask consent to include in ther record the president's would pre nixon, panresident, reagan, h.w. president george h. w. bush, pri

president george w. bush as well as democratic presidents.i ask o i ask unanimous consent to include in the record the statements of the last sixrepube republican secretaries of state all of whom support ratificatioe of the treaty. >> without objection. madam presiden >> i will votet, to ratify thist treaty but the vote we are abouy to have today is whether to endd the debate. major the majority decision to jam mae through other matters during this lame-duck session has poisoned the well, driven away d republican votes and jeopardize ratification of this important treaty.reaty nevertheless, the treaty wasente may 13th after 12 hearings and n to committees and many briefings the foreign relations committee reported to the senate onbipartv september 16th in a bipartisan . vote of 14 period four.al for several months there were de intense negotiations to developa a realistic plan and the funding

for the nuclear modernization. that updated plan was reportedon on november 17th. proce to the senate voted to proceed to the treaty last wednesday. vot i voted no because i thought there should be more timendment allowed for amendment and debate.d but despite the process i believe the treaty and the nuclear modernization plan maked our country safer and moreow tou secure. it will allow us to resume inspection and verification of disarmament of nuclear weaponsdc in russia. the head of our missile defense system says the treaty will not hamper our missile development program. and if i itf does, we can withdw from the treaty. all six former republican secretaries of state supportrato ratification of this treaty. therefore, i will vote to ratift the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty and during the next several years vote to fund the nuclearan. modernization plan. madamid president, i thank the

cherry and yield the floor. today is a pretty monumental day as it relates to the s.t.a.r.t. monumental treaty that we have beenbeeniscs discussing for some time and tomorrow will be a big day in t, that regard, too, and there is us c nothing i think most of us carer about more than our country being secure. two i have got two daughters.21 they are 21 and 23 and a wonderful life, extended family and there is nothing that i takt more seriously than making sured our country is secure so as a committee when we entered into , discussions regarding theattendf s.t.a.r.t. treaty i attended the been in multiple classified military leaders across the

country, i've been in so manyene intelligence briefings i haveak begun to speak like an so intelligen mce officer and so er. president, i have i want to say that there are numbersar of people that obviout are sthiill making up their mint regarding the treaty and that is why i came to the floor.wh one of the things that we do when we end up ratifying a somei treaty is we have something called a resolution of ratification and no doubt thiste treaty was negotiated by the tea president and his team, the secretary of state and others who work with secretary clinton, and no doubt, that is done by of people on the other side of thei aisle. what i would like to bringtion o people's attention to das whenever we ratify a treaty, we do so through something called a resolution of ratification. and for those who might not have been involved in tup, i' body o

to know that this resolution ofe ratification thanks to theirman goodwill of the chairman of our committee was mostly drafted by republicans. it was drafted by with theerta approval certainly of the chairman, but this was drafted by senator lugar, by myself, k senator, you had tremendous inpust into this, senator isaacson, and so the resolution of a ratification that we are amending today has tremendous republican input. as a matter of fact it was done mostly by republicans, as a matter of fact the resolution of ratification is called lugar corker resolution.ame out this is what came out of the has committee. one of the things that has botss concerned people on both sides of the aisle is the whole issue of modernization and something of duty over the lastt year. w about a year-and-a-half ago ihe met with senator kyl in the begn

senate dining room and we begand looking at the modernization of arse hany people have focused duringt this debate on the fact we have 1550 warheads as they limitation if you will, but they fail to he realize we have over 5,000 ou warheads and our nuclear arsenal, all of which need to be modernized, all of which is getting ready to be obsolete if as a matter of factg it was visiting some of the lastoughou throughout or country there are there a seven facilities that we have is this country that deal with our, nuclear arsenal, and many are ae becoming obsolete and need to have the needed investment.the i watched sadr kafeel for they year in a very methodical way mder his leadership and others working to make sure that the proper modernization of ourarsea nuclear arsenal takes place, and there is no question in my mind, there is no question in my mind

if it were not for the it discussion of this treaty we would not have the commitment the that we have today on modernization.mr. present, t mr. president, this is the 1251 report that is required bythis defense authorization.pdat this has been updated twice due to the efforts of republicans led by senator kafeel who has done an outstanding job. this has been updated twice. first we had a five-year update. about 60 days ago and a tenure update the team thereafter. this is our nuclear pla modernization plan and i would i like u inanimous consent to enti this into the record ass part ot the state. >> is their objection?d. into the >> mr. president, the reason i would like to enter that in the record is over the next ten years with this calls for is of $86 billion -- $86 billion w ioh of investment throughout the

facilities throughout our n country on the nuclear tmaments, and over $100 billios on the delivery mechanisms toard ensure that these warheads or deliverable. one might say that's great, bute hell are we going to be sure? how are we going to be sure thas the appropriators actually ask for the money? the rec mr. president, i would also like to enter into the record a on letter signed on december 16th by the chairman inouye, diannela feinstein and lamar alexander lk and i'd like unanimous consent record.je >> without objection. >> mr. president, that letter says to the president they will ask for the money necessary to modernize the nuclear a arsenalr that they agree to ask for the money as a part of their you appropriations bill. then you might say what about

willac the president and hishat budget ask congress to ask for , that money? -- so o mr. president, our presidig officer, i would like to ask unanimous consent to have athe e letter from the president of the united states on december thepps 20th to the appropriators thaten just wrote the letter it, mentioned seeing that he in facf would ask for those funds in thn budget that he puts forth in the next few months.unanimou i would ask unanimous consenthe for those to be entered into the record. >> without objection. l >> mr. president, they're has there's been a lot of discussion about many things come and i ame going to move to missile defense in just a moment, but i dsn nuclear issues threatens the national security moreal than ot not investing in the arsenal we we havand i think what you're seeing here is a commitment by y appropriators on the senate side, the president of theos united states, those in theng tt military complex believing thato

modernization has to occur and g candidly the only thing to data would keep us from actuallyeedst doing modeornization the way itb needs to be done with the republican appropriators so i my just want to say to my friendssh on this sideat of the aisle that this seems to me that through senator kyl's efforts and of people working in a cooperativer wayy we have been very successft in getting the commitment thatn. we need on the modernization, w and by theou way i would have it not think wehi would be talkinge about the issue of modernization today, s something that hasn't , been done for many years to thif scale we would not be talking weout that if it were not fortra have enhanced our country's national security just by having this the date. s mr. president, i would say we ri have sought and received a commitment that otherwise we n would notot have received if its were not for the discussion ofey

this treaty and the two are peoy related. i've heard a lot of people say there is lno real relationshipap between the two, there's a lotha of relationship between the twow and i think americans want toe g know if we are going to limit ourselves to 1550 warheads thatw we know th kat they operate and, know that they can be delivered and we know that the thousands of warheads we have that are nos deployed are morehead still will be kept up. missile we talked a lot about missilend defense, mr. president, and i se just want to say i have been of treaty, i've been through every word of the amex, i've been wd f through every word of thecountli protocols, i've been ine toay countless briefings, andothing n mr. president, i would like to s say there is nothing in this lim treaty that limits our missile a defense other than the fact that we cannot convert icbm launchere that we launched on the offense for missile defense, something our military leaders do not want

to do. that is the most expensive way of creating a missile defensehin system that is something they do di discussions brought up because in the preamble something was stated the was non-binding and so how do we clear that? letter? where is the letter? of a a letternt that the president st to us absolutely committing -- absolutely committing to thethas missile defense system that is now being deployed in europe, na absolutely committing to a national defense system, and mr. president i have assurance the resolution of ratification we will codify the operative words in the president's commi language committing to all fours phases of our active missileilem system and committing to those things we need to do as itationa relates to our national defense

system and making that a part of the resolution of ratification.g mr. president, presiding say t officer, what i would say to you is i doubt very seriously that v we would have received the types of commitments, stridentas it commitments from the president d it relates to missile defenst today if we were not meeting this treaty. . to that ask unanimous president's language becomes a part of this the presid resolution of ratification. >> without objection.y >> mr. president, let me come t: my last point by saying this. it is obviously of to us as senators -- we areha of matters. are taking up today. it is up to us to do the due have the to intelligence briefings to look what this treaty itself says and look what our force structure

is.t'sur that is our responsibility and o it is up to each of us, the 100 of us in this body to decidethio whether we have ratified this treaty but i think it is also ao hiast interesting to didn't putt from others and one of thele lio things our side of the ogle to e listen to military leadersr and what they have to say about issues relating to the war in afghanistan and iraq and thcertainly the issue of how we clear enter into nuclear treaties with other countries. unimous mr. president, i would like toit ask heunanimous consent we enter into the record today a letter m to seney from the joint chiefs of staff talking aboutm f their firm commitment for the ts s.t.a.r.t. treaty on the basisun that it increases our national security. i would ask unanimous consentmb0 that this letter dated airal

december 20 at from adderall ouj mike mahlon of our joint chiefst be entered into the record.ject. >> without objection. mr. prede >> mr. president, i would like s to point out, too, for makeup clarification that if you look at the makeup of our joint mulln chiefs admiral mike mahlon, general cartwright, generaly schwartz, general casey, admiral roughead, every single one of these gentlemen was appointed by a republican president and ine e addition to them we have a general in most.f my sense is based on the course o comments he has made over tfhe course of time he would have republican leanings, but each oe these people have firmly stated their support for the treaty. and in closing, mr. president, i would like to also added and ask unanimous consent that the

statement of robert gates again appointed by republican president, head of our defense f the strategic stability at lowea numbers of nuclear weapons rime provide a rigorous inspection regime including on-site access to the russian missile silos,e necessary t flexibility to structure our strategic nucleare forces ds o its merits promp and its prompt ratification wiln strengthen u.s. national ask security.that this mr. president i would ask unanimous consent that this beiw entered into the record. >> there has been a lot ofr. prt discussion, mr. president, abouh the role of the senate in this there are a lot of things that go into the ratification of the treaty and i have laid out adisd

number of things we have discussed the are relevant to the ratification of this treatyi as we move through a processi t like this, mr. president, and i try to make sure that all of the t's are crossed and the allies are dotted that can possibly bed that me as a united state senator feel comfortable that the type of agreement we arenten entering into is one that is in the best interest of our country. mr. president, i have done that over the last year working on rhe nuclear modernization and to again, my hat's off to senator kyle and his great leadership it that regard. i have done that over the courss of this last year as we haveef looked at the missile defense. we have spent incredible amounts of time in our committee makingm sure that people on my side of t the all have that if we are going to haveyed- less warheads deployed, again,nt we have thousands more that ares

not the point that we can assure the american people that they will operate, that they are not r nation security. q so mr. president, the question becomes to me and for all of us, all of us who care so deeplyeplr about our country's national is, security is will we say yes? that signings this treaty,one ratified you this treaty and all the things we've done over the course of time as a result of this treaty is in our country'sy national interest and on thi year-to-date to state my full support for this treaty. to i look forward to itsratication ratification and i hope othersmn will join me in that process. mr. president, on yield the

floor. [inaudible conversations] >> hi, everybody. we've got some schedule issues. to give you an idea where we think we are going and to talk about our view of the s.t.a.r.t. treaty process let me sort of play master ceremonies but since senator barrasso is going to have to leave in just a moment let me ask you to make some opening comments. >> thank you to read just a couple quick things. the confirmation of the treaty requires a two-thirds vote of the senate and that's something the was decided by the founding fathers that woman to make sure that the president, the

administration actually got a right. so, we need some time to make decisions and discussions. but when russia is reported yesterday warned the u.s. not to change the nuclear pact with that says to me is the role of the senate to advise and consent has been removed from us, the effort here is to say you can offer some advice but we are asking you to be a rubber stamp. the senate is not a rubber stamp, not the administration, not to russia and as one senator i am not ready to stand this treaty. i give great concerns and we have raised the concern about verification and we have raised concerns about missile defense. there was significant eagerness on the part of the seven fenestration to get a treaty passed into the senate and in their rush to do that, they have not successfully served the american people fully and that

is why i have significant reservations about the treaty. >> let me just make a couple brief comments and then call on colleagues. the administration did not negotiate a good treaty they went into negotiations with the attitudes the russians just like the guy that goes to the car dealership and since i am not leaving here until yy a car and i think that is the approach that was taken and the result is pretty clear. over time and if we had the right process here for people to have an open mind, to have a good debater and to give up the changes we are proposing i think over time it would be possible to make some chage