Floor Statements

Mr. President, before the majority leader leaves, I ask unanimous consent that in morning business each side get their full half hour. That would extend the vote a few minutes this afternoon.

Yes.

Yes. Mr. President, I yield 15 minutes to the Senator from North Dakota, Mr. Dorgan; 5 minutes to Senator Kohl; and 10 minutes to Senator Stabenow.

Mr. President, we certainly have no problem with that request, just that it come out of the time of the Senator from Pennsylvania, Mr. Santorum.

Mr. President, under the same conditions previously asked.

I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Edwards) is necessarily absent.

I could not hear the Senator's request. I am sorry.

Mr. President, I rise today to express my congratulations and best wishes to my longtime friend and fellow Nevadan, Mr. Breck Wall.

Born in Jacksonville, FL in 1934, Mr. Wall has lived an interesting and exciting life. As an entertainer, he has known many talented and famous people in the world of show business. He has also crossed paths with well-known people in other walks of life. In the early 60s, he performed in the Dallas nightclub owned by Jack Ruby, the man who shot Lee Harvey Oswald.

The Las Vegas Sun has called Breck ``one of the most durable performers in Las Vegas,'' and that is no exaggeration. This year he is celebrating the 45th anniversary of a show called ``Bottoms Up,'' which he created in 1959 at the old Adolphus Hotel in Dallas.

Breck based this show upon slapstick vaudeville comedy, which explains its long-running appeal. The show is very Las Vegas, therefore, is enjoyed all over America.

After producing ``Bottoms Up'' in Dallas and Houston for several years, Breck brought the show to Las Vegas in 1964 . . . and he has never left.

The show is now a Las Vegas institution. It has played at many of the finest hotels in town, including Ceasar's Palace and the old International Hotel where Elvis used to perform--now the Las Vegas Hilton. It is currently enjoying a run of several years at the Flamingo.

Breck has done more than 15,000 performances of this show, but he never gets tired of it . . . and neither do the audiences. The secrets of his longevity are a strong work ethic, and the kind of good nature that brings a smile and laughter to everyone who meets him.

I first met Breck in 1977 when I was chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission. We were introduced by some mutual friends at an event, and we exchanged a few jokes. I could immediately sense Breck's warmth and his sharp wit.

We really became good friends a few years later, when I ran for Congress and Breck helped me with my campaign. Breck has produced shows for my campaign that have been exciting, entertaining and fun.

Helping other is typical of Breck Wall. Despite the demands of his travels and his work, he always finds time to contribute something to his community.

Most recently, he participated in the Golden Rainbow's 17th annual ``Ribbon of Life'' AIDS benefit at the Paris hotel in Las Vegas. This summer show helped raise more than a quarter of a million dollars for an organization dedicated to helping the men, women, and children living with HIV and AIDS.

I ask all my colleagues to join me in sending our good wishes to Mr. Breck Wall as he celebrates the 45th anniversary of ``Bottoms Up,'' a Las Vegas entertainment tradition.

Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, this is bringing a bill up that has some problems in that this matter has not gone before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, at least as far as Senator Bingaman is concerned. I have spoken to him on a couple of occasions, and he has not been given any degree of consideration as to what this final piece of legislation is that is now coming before the Senate.

Additionally, a bill such as this should be brought to the Senate floor and debated like all bills are debated. I do not have a position on this piece of legislation at this time. Personally, I have not read it. I do not know if it is good or bad. But, for the reasons I have announced, in addition to the fact that a number of Senators on this side have some problems, I object.

Mr. President, has morning business time started?

If I may be heard briefly, the Presiding Officer is chairman of the Appropriations Committee. I know the chairman of the Appropriations Committee and Senator Byrd have worked very hard to get appropriations bills through this soon.

I want to respond to my friend from Mississippi to indicate we may not like what is proceeding--that is, the Healthy Forests initiative and the way it has been brought to the floor, and class-action legislation. They are important pieces of legislation; we understand that. But the most important business to be conducted in this body is to finish our appropriations bills. We simply are not doing that.

I am extremely concerned the House is out of session this week. They will be in one week. They have conferences that cannot be completed because they are not here. They are AWOL. In addition to the conference reports--and there are a significant number of those: military construction, Energy and water, Interior, and Labor-HHS--there are six other bills people on the majority side are talking about lumping into one big omnibus bill. That really doesn't work well. Those bills are so large and unwieldy, it is difficult to get the detail to find out what is in them. They become a mishmash of legislation.

I hope Members understand the best thing we can do is work to get these appropriations bills passed. There is no reason we cannot pass them. The bills that have come before the Senate have passed in a reasonably short period of time.

I hope in addition to the other things the majority leader wants to do, he will focus on these appropriations bills. They are important. It is not good to have large, unwieldy omnibus bills, and it appears it is being done for reasons I don't fully understand. Part of it is simply that the numbers are not there and there is some effort being made, especially in light of the $87 billion and the attention focused on that, the $21 billion spent on Iraq and very little being spent in America--the American people are concerned. These bills being brought to the Senate would focus more direct attention on that.

Reserving the right to object, I say to my friend, is there any way we could get a little more time on that?

That will be fine. I ask that the time between now and 2:15 be equally divided, even though my friend gave a very fine speech and took a long time. But we won't count that against morning business.

I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from New Mexico.

Reserving the right to object, whose time is it taken from?

Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. President, Senator Hatch has been courteous as always. He is slated to speak at 2:30 p.m. He said the time for morning business can be extended until 2:35. It is OK with him that we extend morning business until 2:35 with the time equally divided. I ask unanimous consent that be the case.

Mr. President, 2:35 p.m.

I yield the remaining time on this side to the Senator from North Dakota, Mr. Conrad.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

As I am here in the Chamber today, there are four members of the Appropriations Committee: The Presiding Officer, the senior Senator from Vermont, the Senator from Nevada, and the Senator from Illinois. This morning I asked, Why aren't we able to do appropriations bills? The House has gone home. They are AWOL. So matters that we have to resolve in conference we can't do either. We have six that have not passed this body. The Senator from Vermont hit the nail on the head.

I commented this morning, we can think of a lot of reasons that the bills haven't passed. One is what the President has done with the monetary functions of this country. The economy is in disastrous shape. If we did these appropriations bills now, there would be a focus on each bill. The people of America would say: Well, they can't do that for us. Look at what they have just done for Iraq with $21 billion.

So the Senator from Vermont hit the nail on the head. I compliment him for recognizing the problem we have. What are we going to do? I think the Senator from Vermont will agree, we are going to have an omnibus bill with as many as 10 appropriations bills jammed into it.

The Senator is correct. We are going to have an ominous omnibus bill. It is too bad we are going to do that because it will be a massive document. It will be done at the last minute. There will be a lot of little things jammed in there by the leadership. And then, of course, as the Senator knows, conferences that we do have are just one- sided. They don't include us in them. It is a funny way to run the country. This decision has been made by a Republican President, a Republican-controlled House and Senate.

I appreciate very much the Senator yielding.

I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Biden), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Edwards), the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry), the Senator from Louisiana (Ms. Landrieu), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Lautenberg), the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Lieberman), the Senator from Maryland (Ms. Mikulski), the Senator from New York (Mr. Schumer) and the Senator from Oregon (Mr. Wyden) are necessarily absent.

I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) and the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Lautenberg) would each vote ``yea''.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, this is a very important piece of legislation. A significant majority of Senators on this side of the aisle want to do something about this legislation which is known as the class action legislation. But we are terribly disappointed with the procedure that has been used to get us to where we are. For example, Senator Breaux has been one of our point people on this and has worked very hard to try to get the issues resolved. Everyone knows how fair he is and how he is the dealmaker here in the Senate.

For this and many other reasons, on behalf of many Senators on this side, we reluctantly object.

No objection.

Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to a group of people who are giving their time and energy to make southern Nevada a better place to live.

Like every other city in the Nation, the city of Las Vegas faces the challenge of providing essential services on a tight budget. And the most essential service of all is public safety.

This challenge is particularly difficult in the Las Vegas area, which is adding more than 6,000 new residents a month. While the national average is about 2.5 police officers for every thousand residents, we have only 1.7 officers per thousand in Clark County.

Simply put, we need more police officers in Las Vegas and Clark County. There is no easy answer to this problem--but fortunately there are hundreds of people who have become part of the solution.

The Las Vegas police department sponsors a Metro Volunteer Program that allows citizens to assist police officers in a variety of tasks, from assisting tourists to arranging for abandoned vehicles to be towed.

Some of these volunteers visit schools to present programs on safety and crime prevention, while others compile databases that are used to track crimes and solve cases.

For every hour that a volunteer performs one of these tasks, that is another hour that a sworn police officer is out on the street fighting crime.

Over the past year, 318 volunteers contributed more than 42,000 hours of service to the Las Vegas Metro Police Department. That is the equivalent of 21 full-time police officers on the street, who would not be there otherwise.

In this way, the Metro Volunteer Program is making our community safer. So I salute the volunteers on behalf of all of the citizens of Clark County. I also salute Sharon Harding, the coordinator of the Metro Volunteer Program, and Sheriff Bill Young, who is always looking for ways to better protect and serve the citizens of Clark County.