Floor Statements

Mr. President, how much time remains on the side of the minority?

Mr. President, we are going to go to the bioshield bill at 11:30. The majority has 45 minutes. We are not going to vote on that until 2 o'clock, anyway. I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed an extra 5 minutes and that the majority also be given 5 minutes.

Mr. President, we have people from the majority coming out here occasionally talking about how important it would be to pass an energy bill. I listened to the President's press secretary yesterday saying: Well, the reason we are not having lower gas prices is because the Democrats won't help with the Energy bill.

This is simply talk. It has absolutely has no merit. All we need to look at is what the administration itself says about the Energy bill. The Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration studied this question and concludes the legislation's incentives to reduce our reliance on foreign oil sources will have a negligible success. The report, prepared by the administration for a Republican Senator, states:

On a fuel-specific basis, proposals in the [conference

report] including changes to production, consumption,

imports, and prices are deemed to be negligible.

The bill won't address our energy needs in the future. It won't protect middle-class families who are being gouged with the gas prices we see today. Nevada has the second or third highest gas prices in the country. Gas prices across the Nation have reached alarming levels, especially in Nevada and California. A regular, unleaded gallon of gasoline costs $2.22 in Las Vegas, $2.29 in Reno, while higher blend fuels are at about $2.50 a gallon. I have to say, this was written on Monday. This is 2 days later. I don't know what it is today. But it has gone up.

Since the first of the year, the price of gasoline has increased more than 58 cents a gallon in Nevada. There is no doubt the price of crude oil has contributed to higher gasoline prices, but this outrageous 58- cent increase in Nevada since January has not been driven by the rising cost of crude oil but by corporate greed and the never-ending quest for profits, no matter what it does to the consumer.

Big oil companies and refiners are getting rich. Middle-class families are getting gouged. I had in my office last week a wholesale distributor from Las Vegas and Reno. If a service station wants some oil products, gasoline, that is where they get it. These companies are going broke because they can't pay for the huge cost of fuel. The markup they get is 2 or 3 cents a gallon. They make 2 or 3 cents a gallon on the fuel they sell. So it is not the service station operators making the money. It is not the person who gives them the fuel. It is the big suppliers. Big oil companies and refiners are getting rich. Middle-class families are getting gouged.

I am not making this up. It is documented. Refiner margins have doubled and tripled. Oil companies weren't content to make 25 cents for every gallon of gasoline.

They now make up to 75 cents for every gallon of gasoline sold.

Look at this. Who is better off? Oil companies report record profit increases. British Petroleum did OK last year, a 165-percent increase in their profits. Chevron-Texaco are the record holders, a 294-percent profit. Exxon-Mobil, a 125-percent profit. Conoco-Phillips, I don't know what happened to this company; they only made a 44-percent increase in profit last year. That is all. Conoco-Phillips is down at the bottom. They made a profit before, but now they had an additional 44-percent increase in profit. I repeat, British Petroleum had a 165- percent increase in profit compared to the previous year; Chevron, a 294-percent increase in profit compared to the preceding year; and Exxon-Mobil, a 125-percent increase in profit. I am not making this up. These companies are gouging.

We have all received letters from our constituents. I have received them from Nevadans whose budgets are stretched. They have to make a choice between food, a place to live, and medicine. This is the way it is. It is too bad. Gasoline is not a luxury; it is a necessity. Families have to put gas in their vehicles so they can drive to work, take the children to school, and go to the grocery store.

Big oil companies control it all. British Petroleum, Chevron-Texaco, Conoco-Phillips, Exxon-Mobil, they make the money. And as long as they can show their shareholders they are doing great, it doesn't matter what is happening to the country or the people who work for these companies. They control the supply. They know families have little choice in the matter. They literally have consumers over a barrel of oil.

While consumers are paying record prices, the oil companies are reaping record profits. These profits are outrageous. I believe in the free enterprise system, but if you carry this to its extreme, there isn't much left for the consumer.

Major California refineries owned by Valero and Tesoro that supply the Las Vegas-Reno area have reported record profits and project even bigger gains in the months ahead. Record profits for big oil; record prices for American families.

I have asked the Federal Trade Commission to stop this price gouging, but they won't act. The FTC continues to study the problem while gas prices skyrocket. We all agree something must be done. It is a simple fact that we can't drill our way out of the problem. We are sitting on less than 3 percent of the oil reserves of the world. This includes ANWR. We consume 25 percent of the oil that is produced, and 97-plus percent of the oil reserves in the world are someplace else.

We need to find an innovative new solution, but this administration's energy policy is stuck in the past. It is slanted toward big oil and special interests generally. This is a policy that was hatched in secret 3 years ago by the Vice President's energy task force. This is the task force that refuses to produce the records of who met, where they met, what they talked about. This has gone to court. They have stalled it for almost 4 years.

This past Sunday the Washington Post reported on the influence that has been wielded in this administration by the people who raised large amounts of money for President Bush's campaign. One of the four people who organized the entire fundraising apparatus was Donald Evans, a Texas oil man. The article also noted the influence of Enron CEO Ken Lay--``Kenny boy,'' as he was called by the President--who served on the Energy Department transition team and recommended two of the appointees to the five-member Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Is it any wonder nothing is being done?

When it comes to national energy policy, this administration is taking care of the Enrons, the big oil companies, while middle-class families and other families are gouged. Our Nation must promote the responsible production of oil and gas, but that doesn't mean we should roll back environmental protections of our priceless public lands to allow drilling. Remember, we cannot produce our way out of this problem.

If we allow drilling in ANWR, with all the roads and other support structures that would be required, we would despoil a national treasure for little long-term gain in energy security.

Instead of squandering our children's birthright for a temporary supply of oil, we should do a better job of conserving.

If all our cars, trucks and sport utility vehicles got an average of 27.5 miles per gallon, we would save more oil in 3 years than could be recovered economically from the entire Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

I know we can do it because we did it once before.

After the 1973 Arab oil embargo, when Americans were forced to wait in

long lines to buy gasoline, we realized that our dependence on oil from the Middle East was compromising our national security.

So we dedicated ourselves to building vehicles that were more fuel- efficient. And by 1990, the average American vehicle got 40 percent more miles per gallon than in 1973.

That is an American success story, a triumph of good old American ingenuity.

We need to redouble our efforts to conserve oil.

We also need the President to stop filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

It is more than 90 percent full. How much is enough?

There have been two major releases of oil from the SPR. Crude oil prices fell sharply each time.

The first SPR release occurred as the U.S. began bombing Iraq on January 16, 1991. The next day crude oil prices fell from $32 to $21 per barrel.

The second release occurred in September 2000. Crude oil prices immediately fell from $37 to $31 per barrel after this release was announced.

The President also needs to pressure OPEC to significantly increase its production quotas to lower the price of oil on world markets.

These are some immediate steps we can take to help middle class families.

But to meet our energy needs over the long term, we need an energy policy that looks to the future.

I have already talked about the need to conserve oil.

Conserving would protect consumers, and it would make our country stronger.

Thomas Friedman, who covers the Middle East for the New York Times, wrote last week that we must renew our efforts to free ourselves from our dependence on oil from that region.

He suggested an effort modeled after the Manhattan Project. That, of course, was our extraordinary race to develop a nuclear weapon during World War II.

The Manhattan Project was a success. It helped keep the world free.

And we can do it again.

We are going to be spending a lot of time this week talking about national defense, about ways to make our country stronger.

Well, we can make our country stronger by finding an efficient and environmentally sound way to produce hydrogen fuel.

We can find a way to produce hydrogen fuel by harnessing our abundant renewable energy sources--the power of the wind, the warmth of the sun, and the heat within the earth.

We need to break this bill apart and extract what is good.

Let's take elements of this energy legislation that enjoy broad, bipartisan support, and move them forward to the President's desk.

I was encouraged that the FSC/ETI bill passed by the Senate last week contains the Energy Tax Incentives.

I applaud Senators Grassley, Baucus, and Domenici for the provision that expands and extends the production tax credit for wind, geothermal, solar, and biomass energy.

The FSC/ETI bill also guarantees a commodity floor price for the Alaskan Natural Gas Pipeline.

I strongly support a price floor and loan guarantees to build an Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline, but this supply won't enter the market for another 10 years.

Senator Cantwell has introduced a standalone bipartisan bill to improve the reliability of our Nation's electric transmission system.

This bill is noncontroversial and can pass both Houses of Congress.

We can pass meaningful parts of this energy legislation, and begin to implement a strategy that looks toward the future.

We need to act now.

I announce that the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) is necessarily absent.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, may I direct a question through the Chair to the chairman of the committee. Senator Lautenberg wishes to modify his amendment, which doesn't take unanimous consent. Can we get that out of the way?

Mr. President, using what the Senator, the distinguished chairman outlined, we would vote at 5:30 or thereabouts; is that right?

No objection.

Mr. President, I ask my friend to yield whatever time I may consume.

Mr. President, I have been called upon in the past, as have other Members of this body, to interfere with what goes on in corporations--that is, to tell corporations they are limited in what they can pay their corporate executives. I have chosen not to become involved in that. I truly believe, even though some of these compensation packages are outlandish, in my opinion, it is not up to me. In our free enterprise system, it is up to the board of the directors of those corporations to determine what someone is worth. It is inappropriate, in this free enterprise system in which we are living, we take away the ability of corporations to run corporations.

I have always looked at the salaries of ballplayers. We have a 14- year-old boy named Freddie Adu, who is the highest paid player in the American Soccer League. Now, are they paying a 14-year-old boy too much money? He is making more than people who have played soccer for 20 and 25 years. It is kind of up to them to determine how much money he should get.

The average salary of a professional Major League baseball player in America today is around $2 million a year. That is a lot of money for a person who bats a ball, throws a ball, catches a ball, and runs around the bases, but that is what they get in our free market system. They get a lot of money.

My friend Greg Maddux from Las Vegas made $15 million last year. He pitched about 30 times. I don't know how much that amounts to, but that is a lot of money he makes. This year he has taken a tremendous cut in pay. He is only making $8 million a year. However, Greg Maddux is being paid what the market determined he was worth. He was released by the Atlanta Braves and he shopped around. The Mets wanted him, the Baltimore Orioles looked at him, and he determined, rather than go with San Diego and the other teams I mentioned, he would play in Chicago for $7 million or $8 million a year. That is what America is all about, the free enterprise system.

If we want to be picky and talk about how much is too much, we might want to take a look at a man by the name of Reuben Mark--Colgate- Palmolive--who in 2003 was paid $149,970,000. That is a lot of money. That does not take into consideration a lot of the stock options he could have exercised if he had wanted to. I have the amount of money he could make from the stock options he could exercise if he chose to. It is, again, in the tens of millions of dollars. I cannot find it right now. Let's see if I can flip over to that. But it is a lot of money.

George David, of United Technologies, last year made almost $71 million. Again, it does not take into consideration the other money he could have made had he wanted to. Is United Technologies paying him too much money? It is none of my business, I believe, as a Member of Congress to tell United Technologies how much money they can pay George David.

Is it my business to determine how much Lehman Brothers can pay Richard S. Fuld, Jr? Last year he made almost $68 million. I do not think so. I think it is up to this company. Even though I think this is a huge figure to be paid, and I think it is unfair to the stockholders, I am not on the board of directors, and they may know things I do not know. And, in fact, they do.

Henry R. Silverman, with a company called Cendant, made over $60 million last year. Should we interfere with this? The answer is no.

Right here in the Washington, DC, area, there is a man by the name of Dwight Schar. I wish I had known this guy was as rich as he was. Or maybe I do not wish that. When we moved here 22 years ago, we bought the home that he lived in. He was living there. I went and met Dwight Schar, kind of a quiet guy. He did not say much. I understand now why he was unwilling to negotiate

the price of that home. He said that is what he wanted, and he was unwilling to change that. Obviously, he is a good negotiator because last year he made over $58 million from NVR. They build homes.

Oracle Company paid Lawrence Ellison almost $41 million last year. And on and on, with these huge corporate salaries.

Using the logic of my friend, the distinguished junior Senator from Arizona--a fine man; I have great respect for him, but using the logic he used today, then, the free enterprise system really must not apply to everybody, only to some. We know there are companies that are well known around here. As I indicated, Reuben Mark of Colgate-Palmolive was the champion last year, that we know of at least, at $148 million. He did quite well. He had, just from stock alone, $131 million last year. And he is just one of a number of people.

But we have others who did quite well last year who are almost household names around here--not because they are known as good businesspeople, as are those people I have mentioned to this point; every one of these men I have talked to, Dwight Schar and all the rest, are known as extremely good businesspeople. But as we get down to some of these corporations, for example, we could take a look at David Lesar, who is the chairman and president of the Halliburton Company. Last year he did not do as well probably as some. He only made about $8 million last year from Halliburton. But he has, of course, $26 million in unexercised stock options that he could have used. But I guess with all that is going on with Halliburton--and that, of course, is the basis for this amendment that has been offered by my distinguished friend from New Jersey, Senator Lautenberg.

We do not, as Members of Congress, have the right, in my opinion, to interfere with the private sector. I have no right to say that Freddie Adu is making too much money playing soccer as a 14-year-old boy, or that Barry Bonds is making too much money, or that some guy who is batting .220 playing in the Major Leagues is making too much money being paid $15 million a year. Should we in Congress say that because he is not batting more than .240, his salary should not be more than $6 million? I do not think so.

Do we have any right to tell these companies that I have mentioned here that they are paying their people too much money and that Congress should step in and stop them from doing so? I do not think so. I have never felt that way.

We have here before us now a situation where we have a sense-of-the- Senate resolution. It was filed in that sense because had it been filed any other way there would be technical objections to it. So this is a so-called message amendment. It has no real impact. Even if it passed, it does not mean anything. But it is an attempt to embarrass people. It was offered because people are very uncomfortable with the amendment offered by my friend from New Jersey.

The distinguished Senator from New Jersey has offered an amendment that directs attention to some of the things that are going on with American companies, saying their foreign subsidiaries should not be able to do business with terrorist organizations and countries that work with terrorist organizations.

Mr. President, I was a lawyer. I am not ashamed, embarrassed, or concerned that in the past I have taken cases on contingent fees. What does that mean? It means someone came to me, and they had no money to prosecute their own case, and they said: Mr. Reid, here is what has happened to me.

I can give you a couple examples that come to my mind. I can remember a woman by the name of Billie Robinson who came to me. I mentioned her name once before on this floor several months ago. Billie Robinson came to me. She was from Searchlight, NV, where I was born and raised. When she came to see me, I did not know her. I, of course, had been gone from Searchlight since I was a little boy. But she knew my mother who lived in Searchlight.

She could not talk very well. I proceeded to visit with her, and her problem was this: Billie Robinson had headaches, and she would come over to Searchlight to see various doctors. They told her: The only thing wrong with you, Billie, is you need to sober up. You are a drunk.

What they did not know and she tried to explain to these people is her headaches were so bad she drank a lot. By the time they realized, after about a year and a half, that she was having headaches because she had a tumor--they had misdiagnosed her condition--they operated. That is when it affected her a lot. She was not the same person after the surgery.

So she came to me and said: What should I do? So I represented her. I took that case on a contingent fee. For every dollar I got for Billie Robinson, I got a third of it. That was a standard fee. It still is a fairly standard fee. I did not know if I was going to be able to recover anything because when you go against doctors sometimes these cases are very complicated and involve expert witnesses. They fought this case for a while. Finally, I was able to arrive at an agreement, and we settled the lawsuit for Billie Robinson. I got a third of what we recovered.

Now, how much was I paid an hour? I really do not know. I was probably paid pretty good by the hour. But it was a case that she had shopped around, and other people would not take her case. I took a chance. I advanced fees for Billie Robinson, and I got her enough money that she led a comfortable life. She bought a new mobile home that she parked there in Searchlight. She had someone who could come in and help her. Now, does this Congress have the right to come in and say that the agreement she made with me was a bad deal, that I was paid too much money? I do not think so.

I remember a woman by the name of Joyce Martinez who came to see me. She was a really nice woman. She had been all over town trying to find a lawyer to take her case. This woman was a cocktail waitress at the Hacienda Hotel on the Strip in Las Vegas. She was there in her little skimpy gown they have, serving drinks to people, and the Las Vegas Police Department came and arrested her, took her off to jail because of her having written bad checks. She had not written any bad checks.

So I filed a lawsuit against Safeway Stores, and people, including the judge, said: What are you doing taking our time on this case? I demanded a jury. And I got a lot of money for Joyce Martinez. That was on a contingent fee. I took a chance on that case, and I won the case. I was paid pretty good by the hour. I do not have any reservations about having been paid a pretty good sum by the hour.

This Congress has no right in our free enterprise system to second- guess what Joyce Martinez did. What we are doing here is saying that attorneys, who entered into contracts to represent people--and sometimes not contracts, sometimes the State came in later and looked at the good works that they did--I do not know all the facts of this tobacco stuff, but I do know there were a number of lawyers, a handful of lawyers, in America who decided they would take on the tobacco industry.

It took a lot of money to fight one of the biggest businesses in the world, tobacco. And after many years, they won. It is a benefit to everyone in America that they won because now they cannot at will go out and solicit young children to smoke cigarettes and to become sick and addicted to tobacco. We owe those lawyers a debt of gratitude, not to say they are making too much money. Had it not been for those lawyers, we would still be having children openly and notoriously being attacked by advertising and other means to start smoking. That is what they did. The lawsuits uncovered the fact that they knew how much tobacco was addictive, and they went after these children. These children now are dying of emphysema.

I don't know for sure, but Smarty Jones' owner, I will bet, was a big smoker, and I bet he started as a kid. That is why you see him now being wheeled around and trying to breathe through that apparatus.

At my home in Searchlight, Fritz Hahn had a place there and watched my home for 15 years. He started smoking as a teenager. He is dead now, having died within the past 6 weeks as a result of tobacco, cancer of the throat. He suffered and suffered, and he is

dead. Now as a result of the work of these tobacco lawyers, there are going to be fewer Fritz Hahns in the world. I don't apologize for how much money these lawyers made. They did me, my children, my grandchildren, and my children's children a favor.

I also believe the pending amendment is discriminatory, unprecedented, unconstitutional, and just plain bad policy. This amendment endorses the idea that Congress should fix the rates attorneys are allowed to charge for providing services, not for everybody but certain types of clients. If a lawyer earns more than Congress allows, that person will have to pay back the extra or pay a 200-percent penalty. A 200-percent tax on income is unprecedented in this great Nation. Our Nation's tax system has never had this before. Never in the history of this Nation have we assessed a 200-percent tax on income that is legally earned that I have heard of.

Justice Marshall said it best when, in the infancy of this country, he declared the power to tax is the power to destroy. There could be no better illustration of that concept than this amendment.

In this Congress, my friends on the other side pay a lot of lipservice to the free market. But they don't like the free market very much now in this case with this amendment. First of all, this amendment would interfere with legal private contracts just like the one I had with Joyce Martinez, just like the one I had with Billy Robinson. Legal fees are not assessed taxes. They are not assessed out of the control of the clients. When someone wants to hire a lawyer, they can generally choose from a variety of attorneys who will perform the necessary services.

I gave two examples where these women couldn't find anybody else to represent them. I have taken a lot of cases, I am sorry to say--I am not sorry to say, it is part of the system. I have taken cases where I didn't get anything back, but I thought I was doing the right thing by taking them. I can remember a case where a little girl stepped off a schoolbus and was hit by a car on Russell Road in Las Vegas. I tried that case to a jury. I thought I deserved to win that case. I lost it. I felt bad about that. But that is what our free enterprise system is all about, the free market system.

This amendment would interfere with legal private contracts. Clients don't have the power to negotiate rates with attorneys they retain all the time. If a client feels a rate is unfair, there is nothing to prevent that client from taking the business elsewhere.

Beyond being bad policy, I oppose this amendment because it encourages constitutional taking of private property. By forcing attorneys to return their fees or suffer a 200-percent penalty without any semblance of legal process, this amendment demands these professionals simply hand over to others income they have lawfully earned.

There may be some who believe a tobacco lawyer earned too much money, just as I feel Reuben Mark made too much money, just as I feel George David made too much money, Richard Fuld made too much money, Henry Silverman made too much money, and Dwight Schar made too much money. But it is not my right as a Member of this Congress to tell them they can't make that much money.

It is no secret why Members of the other side of the aisle, in my opinion, are interested in passing this kind of amendment. This amendment uses the Tax Code and the full power of big Government to punish one particular kind of lawyer, the kind who tries to protect consumers from big corporations.

A Republican governor in the State of Nevada, Kenny Guinn, my friend, established what is called in Nevada the millennial scholarships, giving scholarships to large numbers of children who have a B average when they graduate from high school. With what are those scholarships paid? Tobacco money. From where did the tobacco money come? From these lawyers who went to court and took a chance. That is where the money comes from.

In Nevada, as in many other States, there are programs similar to that. We are saying, what did these lawyers do to earn their money? Ask a kid going to college in Nevada who wouldn't have the opportunity to go to college but for Kenny Guinn's millennial scholarships.

These lawyers, the ones they are trying to castigate and punish here, are the lawyers who try to protect consumers from big corporations. These tobacco companies are big corporations, and due to the lawyers they are getting smaller all the time. The same people who want to cut taxes for the wealthiest corporations in our country now want to impose an unprecedented 200-percent tax on attorneys who hold these powerful companies accountable when they cause injury to ordinary Americans and their families.

This amendment sets a terrible, horrible precedent that next we are going to be looking at these salaries. Next we are going to be looking at Freddie Adu's salary to see if he is making too much money or that man who plays baseball who is batting .210 and getting paid $18 million a year.

If we look back, it is a dark chapter in the history of our Federal Government, but one of the articles of impeachment against President Nixon dealt with his abusive and discriminatory use of tax laws to harass his political enemies. I don't compare this to that, but I think it is something that draws reference, that what we have here is an effort to punish and use discriminatory tax laws to harass someone you don't like, the tobacco lawyers.

This is a bad amendment. I am confident people of goodwill will join together, Democrats and Republicans, and resoundingly defeat this very un-American amendment.

Mr. President, Senator Levin is in the Chamber. I asked that he allow me to speak again, which he indicated he will.

There is 32 minutes left; is that right, Mr. President?

Mr. President, a great book, certainly a classic, was written in 1776 by Adam Smith called ``The Wealth Of Nations.'' This was the first time it was put down on paper that someone understood, from an economist's point of view, what the free enterprise system was and could be, and that is the basis for our country, this free enterprise system we hear so much about, capitalism, free markets. That is, in effect, what this debate is all about.

It is about free markets; what people have the right to do and not do. We have given an illustration of baseball players and other court cases. The top 10 executives, as far as compensation in 2003, made about $14.6 million a month. That is what they made. I think my math is right. No, the top 10 executives made last year about $600 million. That is a whole lot of money, as we know. Is that too much money, more than half a billion dollars for the top 10 corporate executives in America to make?

As I said before, I think so, but what right do I have to go to Nevada businesspeople--take, for example, the MGM corporation. MGM corporation, the vast majority of stock is owned by one of my former clients, Kirk Kerkorian, a great businessman, a wonderful human being. I have no idea how much Kirk Kerkorian makes, but he does not pay himself much money. He drives a relatively small car. He has a few things that appear to be luxurious, but not too many. He pays his corporate executives lots of money. Why? Because they deserve it.

His No. 1 executive is a man by the name of Terry Lanny. Terry Lanny makes lots of money. According to the figures here, he did not make the top 10, but he is way up at the top. Why? Because the marketplace indicates that is what Terry Lanny is worth. It is no different than these lawyers. Terry Lanny has a contract. I have not seen it, but it calls for compensation today, next year, and I am sure years after that. If he left today, Kirk Kerkorian's company would keep paying him deferred compensation. That is what it is all about. That is what these lawyers have. We have no right to interfere.

We are talking about some law professor. I have the highest respect for law professors, but they are some of the most underpaid people in America, and I bet they are so jealous of people making money that they could hardly wait to run to tell somebody they are being paid too much. Windfall--anything to a law professor is a windfall. So I am not impressed with a law professor saying some lawyer is making too much money.

What I would like to say is that law professor should be out seeing how much money he can make, but I am not going to say that. What he is doing is second-guessing what the free market does.

I understand the examples my friend from Arizona has given, how he thinks my argument is distinctive from the facts, but I think it is pretty clear what I am talking about, the points I have made.

The example he has given with the fiduciary trust relationship is a totally different situation. The distinguished Presiding Officer is a lawyer who is certainly qualified to discuss legal matters, having been the attorney general of one of the most populated States in America. We know problems arise with people who have trust agreements. Many of them are not lawyers, and there has to be some control set because they do have a fiduciary relationship. Many of the people they represent are babes in the woods, so to speak, and there has to be some oversight there, and I agree with that. But I am not here to say corporate executives make too much money, or, I repeat, ballplayers make too much money, and lawyers make too much money. I think we should let the market control this situation.

I hope this Congress, which talks so much about our capitalistic form of Government, this Senate which talks about it, I hope they will put their votes where their mouths have been in the past.

I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask that the time run against both sides.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

I ask unanimous consent that the distinguished Senator from Nevada, Mr. Ensign, be allowed to speak as in morning business and the time that he uses run equally against both sides.

If Senator Lautenberg wants to come, he can come.

I ask unanimous consent that after we vote on the Kyl amendment, there be 4 minutes equally divided prior to the vote on the Lautenberg amendment.

That is right.

I announce that the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Bod Adebo of Senator Bingham's office be given the privilege of the floor during the pendency of S. 2400.

Mr. President, I ask that the Chair reserve the leadership time of Senator Daschle.

I ask unanimous consent that when the time for the Democrats comes, Senator Dorgan be recognized for 10 minutes and Senator Durbin for 10 minutes.

I agree we need 2 minutes on our side, also.

We do not need the time now.

Mr. President, through you to the distinguished Senator, first, on behalf of the people of the State of Nevada, and I think I speak for the country, the way the Senator has handled this committee with Senator Levin during this very difficult time has been admirable. The Senator is my stereotype of the Senate. The Senator is a proud member of the Republican Party, yet the Senator has the wisdom and the experience to be able to set those partisan desires to one side. That is good for the country. The Senator has certainly indicated that during the past few days. We respect the Senator for that.

Mr. President, we will be happy to cooperate with the distinguished chairman in attempting to finish this bill this week. It is a big ``ask,'' because we have on our side, and the Senator has on their side, Members offering amendments. I see the distinguished junior Senator from Mississippi is shopping an amendment. We have a number of bipartisan amendments being talked about.

We are in the mode of wanting to cooperate. We understand the importance of this legislation. It may be very difficult to finish. We have Tuesday, we have Wednesday, we have Thursday, and Friday.

As the Senator knows, this is the Friday before the Memorial Day recess. The Senator is more experienced than I, but come Thursday night, Friday morning, Members will have parades and things to do so it will be very difficult to finish this bill. However, the Senator should understand that on this side we will cooperate in any way we can to finish the bill.

I announce that the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Inouye) and the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) are necessarily absent.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I announce that the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Inouye), the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry), and the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Lautenberg) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, is there a unanimous consent agreement to set aside an amendment?

Has there been an agreement to set the pending amendment aside to offer this amendment?

I am sorry, Mr. President, if that question was put to the Senate, I certainly did not hear it.

I heard the Senator from New Mexico. I thought he said there had been an agreement to that effect. If you check the record, that is what it said.

So the consent now before the body is, following the disposition of the pending amendment--that is, the amendment of the Senators from Mississippi and North Dakota--Senator Kennedy be recognized to offer his amendment?

Mr. President, if the Senators would be willing to modify their amendment, it is my understanding following the hour and a half that there would be a vote on or in relation to that amendment with no second-degree amendments in order.

I ask that be part of the consent agreement.

I announce that the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Inouye), the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry), and the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Lautenberg) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

I apologize. I thought there was. Will the Senator yield so the Senator can send his amendment to the desk?

Mr. President, there is a unanimous consent request pending?

Mr. President, yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision to reverse the long-standing principle of ``separate but equal'' in our public schools. The ruling handed down in Brown v. Board of Education was the great catalyst America needed to move toward equal opportunities for all children.

On May 17th, 1954, the Supreme Court spoke unanimously: ``. . . in the field of public education the doctrine of `separate but equal' has no place.''

When we talk about Brown v. Board of Education, it is natural to think about its application and enforcement in the South, because that was where the most publicized acts of segregation and discrimination took place.

But it is naive to think that the South was the only region of America grappling with the new educational and racial standard of equality. Western states like Nevada struggled to adapt as well.

Nevada was not a place widely associated with having a large population of African Americans back in 1954 . . . but in fact it was home to many African Americans who migrated from Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas--primarily seeking employment in Law Vegas' hospitality industry.

Clark County's classrooms were segregated before the Brown Decision-- and they remained so afterward. While there were no written laws segregating schools in Clark County, there were impenetrable school zoning laws that made it pretty clear that children could only go to school where they lived . . . and because of housing discrimination, most black people lived in concentrated areas.

Brown v. Board of Education was decided in 1954, yet Clark County schools were not officially integrated until much later, when attorney Charles Kellar arrived in Nevada in 1959. Thurgood Marshall, then head of the NAACP Bar Representation Program, solicited Mr. Kellar to move to Nevada to establish a chapter and legal representation.

At the time, one had to live in Nevada for one year before sitting for the bar exam. So, to establish residency, most white law students would engage in paralegal work, Mr. Kellar spent his year studying real estate at an unknown little college called UNLV in order to qualify for residency.

When he was finally eligible to sit for the exam, the hotel he reserved for his stay refused to admit him. He had to spend his two nights sleeping in the airport. To add insult to injury, Mr. Kellar was accused of cheating on his exam, for his results were near perfect. He had to sue the Nevada State Bar in order to gain admission, which he was finally granted in 1965.

The first case he filed was a class action suit against the Clark County School District in 1968, charging that access to an equal, public education was denied to African American students--in spite of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling 14 years earlier. Despite the fact that he won the case, the school district decided to convert the West Las Vegas schools to sixth grade centers, which would be fully integrated. However, the white students would be bused to the schools while the black students would have to walk.

Mr. President, the landscape of Clark County is much different today in the sense that we now publicly educate a much more diverse population of students. But there are still factors in our school system that separate and discriminate against certain groups of students: economic status, English language learners, students with learning disabilities, and so on.

I am concerned about these barriers, just as I am concerned about the gap in academic achievement between different groups of students. This gap says to me that we still have a lot of work to do in terms of providing truly equal opportunities for all of our children.

And even after 50 years, in spite of the law, segregation itself is still alive and well.

Taylor County High School in Butler, Georgia, held its first integrated prom in 31 years last year--in 2003. This year, the white students decided to return to their old tradition of holding their own private party--a segregated prom. It is disappointing to realize that segregation is still preferred by some people. But it just goes to show that we still have work to do.

The Brown decision truly was a landmark . . . it showed that America had come a long way since Plessy v. Ferguson. Before Brown, we knew that segregation was wrong. After Brown, we knew that it was illegal.

That was a tremendous step, and I am certainly grateful for it . . . but we cannot rest on our laurels.

We must keep struggling until we can live up to the spirit of the Brown ruling, and to the letter of the Civil Rights Act that followed 10 years later. Until we provide every child with an equal--not separate--opportunity to get a good education.

Mr. President, I will not object, but I do want to make a statement before the Senate adjourns for the day. The two leaders have been working the last several days to come up with some way to dispose of judges who are on the Executive Calendar. We believe we have done a credible job as a Senate. We have approved 173 judges. There have been five turned down by the minority. We now have the lowest vacancy rate in some 14 years.

There are two problems with going forward. Of course, I don't think it is any secret President Bush has defied the Senate with recess appointments. So we have to have some finality there as to what he is going to do in the future. The other problem is the judges we voted on multiple times before. There has to be some consideration to those issues and how we deal with them. I think with the conversations going on between the two leaders we should be able to do that. I am confident and hopeful we will not need the cloture vote set for Tuesday.

If I may make a comment to the majority leader, we have been told this morning Senator Bingaman will not offer a second-degree amendment to the Santorum amendment; therefore, the managers will accept the Santorum amendment. So I think all we have left on the IDEA bill is final passage.

Senator Kennedy is the godfather to his niece or nephew--I really don't remember who it is--but Caroline's child was confirmed and he will not be able to be here until around 11:30 today, so the majority leader should keep that in mind. If we will vote 12:15 or 12:20, if that meets the majority leader's plans, Senator Kennedy would like to speak before final passage, and, as I indicated, he will not be here until 11:30.

Mr. President, I would just like to say to my Democratic colleagues, the reason we are doing this is

because this involves the death of a police officer, and they have to leave very soon. So I apologize to my friend. We were supposed to get the first half hour of morning business, but we understand and acknowledge the tragedy in the State of Alaska.

Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Daschle, I extend 5 minutes of our morning business time to Senator Kohl, 15 minutes to Senator Corzine, and 10 minutes to Senator Boxer.