Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 323, which was submitted earlier today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow, Wednesday, November 16, 2011; that 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 for their use later in the day; that following any leader remarks, the Senate be in a period of morning business for 1 hour, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the majority controlling the first half and the Republicans controlling the final half; and that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of H.R. 2354, the Energy and Water appropriations bill.

As I indicated an hour or so ago, Mr. President, I hope we are going to be able to get some kind of agreement on the Energy and Water appropriations bill. We also have to consider the continuing resolution, the conference report on the first minibus we did, and the Department of Defense authorization bill. So we have a lot to do in a short period of time. Senators will be notified when votes are scheduled.

If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. President, we will be in a period of morning business until 3 p.m. today. During that period of time, Senators will be allowed to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each. Following morning business, the Senate will adopt the motion to proceed to the consideration of H.R. 2354. There will be no rollcall votes today. The next rollcall votes will be Tuesday morning in relation to two U.S. district judges.

Mr. President, last week something wonderful and unusual happened here in the Senate: We passed a worthy piece of legislation with a nearly unanimous vote. On the eve of Veterans Day, we honored this Nation's service men and women by passing bipartisan legislation to spur hiring of this country's nearly 900,000 out-of-work veterans. Two hundred fifty thousand of these unemployed veterans became members of the Armed Services because of the global fight on terror basically in the last 10 years. I trust our action last week meant as much, or more, than our words of thanks and praise for these dedicated men and women who serve us so well. But the Senate has much more work to do this work period, this week and into next week, if necessary. I hope that same spirit of cooperation will hold during this next few days. The Senate has much more work to be done, as I have indicated, because we have work that is essential to the functioning of our government.

As we continue to focus on the efforts to create jobs and get our economy moving again, we must also pass appropriations bills, which is part of our yearly responsibility. This week, we will consider an appropriations package that includes Energy and Water, Financial Services, and State and Foreign Operations. We need cooperation to move this important piece of legislation. The legislative tree will not be filled, but we need to agree on the way forward. We need to have some responsible way to move forward on these amendments. We are not going to have another situation such as we had a few weeks ago, where we worked until early in the morning--not that the long hours hurt, but we had hundreds of amendments and we had no way of moving through those without having a lot of votes, some of which were totally unnecessary.

We have the continuing resolution we must do before the end of this work period. Although I know there will be some strident debate over amendments to both the appropriations bill and the Defense authorization bill we have to do, we have to work together if we are going to move forward on the Nation's business.

Last month, the Senate passed a bipartisan minibus that included Agriculture, Commerce-State-Justice, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development. Those appropriations bills were essential, and we were able to complete that. That experience proved that, with cooperation, the Senate can work through the normal appropriations process, but it does take cooperation.

The Senate will consider the conference report on that minibus this week. That conference report will include another short-term continuing

resolution that will take us through December 16, which will give Congress the time it needs to complete important work--passing appropriations bills.

This week we will also confirm a number of judges who are crucial to help ease the backlog in our Nation's jam-packed courts. We have the supercommittee which is functioning. All 12 members are trying to come up with some reasonable way forward to do something about the debt.

So we have the supercommittee, we have the Defense authorization bill, we have the appropriations bill, we have a conference report, and we have the deadline that is facing us. We have to get all this work done by this weekend. If not, then we get it done before Thanksgiving, which is a week from Thursday. So as you can see, the Senate has a substantial amount of work to complete in the 10 days before Thanksgiving. I want to be clear that we are going to work up until the last moment before the holiday, if that is what it takes, to get these important tasks done. With cooperation, we can get it all done this week. But we have a lot to do, and I understand that, but I do hope we can work together to complete this country's necessary work.

Would the Chair announce the business of the day.

Mr. President, I failed to note that Senators Feinstein and Alexander, the managers of this appropriations bill we have, are going to be here on the floor this afternoon to give their opening statements. So if Senators have amendments, they should talk to the two managers of the bill. I think that works much better than firing up amendments and hoping some of them stick.

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

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business with Senators allowed to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the nominations on the Secretary's desk in the Coast Guard; that the nominations be confirmed en bloc, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to any of the nominations; that any statements be printed in the Record; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action and the Senate then resume legislative session.

I ask unanimous consent that the HELP Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 199, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements related to this matter be printed in the Record.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 322.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. President, as in executive session, I ask unanimous consent that the injunction of secrecy be removed from the following treaty transmitted to the Senate on November 14, 2011, by the President of the United States: Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter, and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing, Treaty Document No. 112-4. I further ask consent that the treaty be considered as having been read the first time; that it be referred, with accompanying papers, to the Committee on Foreign Relations and ordered to be printed; and that the President's message be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m. tomorrow, Tuesday, November 15, 2011; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that following any leader remarks, the Senate be in a period of morning business until 11 a.m. with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the majority controlling the first half and the Republicans controlling the final half; that following morning business, the Senate proceed to executive session, as provided for under the previous order; that following the votes in executive session, the Senate recess until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly caucus meetings; and at 2:15 p.m. the Senate resume consideration of H.R. 2354.

Mr. President, Senators, then, should expect two rollcall votes at noon tomorrow. Those votes will be on the confirmation of Sharon Gleason to be U.S. District Judge for the District of Alaska and Yvonne Rogers to be U.S. District Judge for the District of Northern California.