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“UNANIMOUS CONSENT AGREEMENT--S. 1745” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Senate section on pages S6253-S6254 on June 13, 1996.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
UNANIMOUS CONSENT AGREEMENT--S. 1745
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, June 18, 1996, the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 433, S. 1745, the DOD authorization bill for debate only prior to recess.
Mr. DASCHLE. Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, let me just point out that when we considered the scheduling of the State Department authorization bill some time ago--in fact, as I understand it, it was December 7, 1995--I had an opportunity to conduct a colloquy with the majority leader at the time, Senator Dole. I asked him if it was his intention to bring up the chemical weapons convention at some point during the second session of Congress. His answer was that it was his intention to consider the convention in a reasonable time period, once the convention is on the Executive Calendar.
It has been on the calendar now since April 30. I fully appreciate that the distinguished majority leader is just beginning to put his plans for the legislative schedule together and I would not expect that he would have a date certain, but I ask the majority leader whether the chemical weapons convention could be considered, and if it is his intention to consider the treaty at some point in the future as we take up this particular bill that is very important to many of our Members, and I think some clarification with regard to his intent would be very helpful.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I would like to respond to the distinguished Democratic leader. I think that is a reasonable request.
He is right. I have been on the job as majority leader for a little more than 24 hours, and there are a lot of issues that we are working together on. We are making some progress on those. We will continue to work on the health care reform, and we have not been able to get the budget resolution passed so we can move on to the appropriations calendar.
This is an issue that I had done some work on as the whip, just trying to get an agreement on some other issues, including the missile defense issue. I had never really discussed it, in terms of its relationship to the DOD authorization bill. I know that there are a couple of Senators who have some concerns about it. I have not had a chance to sit down and be briefed with them.
I have a meeting of our committee chairmen scheduled for early next week, Tuesday. I would like to ask the chairman of the committee exactly what his situation is on this legislation. It is obviously very important. The chemical weapons convention is something that we are all concerned about. I think it should be given proper consideration. I hate to use the words reasonable time, because that is what the leader did use in his response to your question at that time, and I believe it was reported out of committee on April 30.
It is not my intention to withhold this convention, but I do want to understand what the problems are, how much time we would be talking about in bringing it up. As the Senator knows, we have a limited number of days in which to do a lot of important work. But I will say this, I am going to talk to those Senators, hopefully tomorrow if they are here, but certainly early next week. And I will get back to the Democratic leader and we will talk about how we can work out an agreement on this issue.
I cannot make a commitment on a date certain at this time because I do not know what the situation is. If you will give me the benefit of a few days, I will try to give a more responsive answer at that time.
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, under the circumstances think that is an appropriate answer and I appreciate the majority leader's willingness to work with us in finding a mutually acceptable time.
With that, I have no objection.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. LOTT. I thank very much the distinguished Democratic leader.
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