Floor Statements

Madam President, I understand there are five bills at the desk due for a second reading.

Madam President, I would object to any further proceedings with respect to each of those bills.

Madam President, America's education system is literally under siege. This terrible recession we are involved in has put millions of families in our country in a desperate economic situation. It has also put our schools at risk.

Since 2008, we have lost 300,000 education jobs, including 200,000 in the last year alone. Without talented, dedicated teachers and support staff, our schools cannot provide the world-class education students need to succeed in today's difficult economic climate. As State and local governments are forced to slash education funding again and again, it jeopardizes the future of millions of children, regardless of where they live or how much money their parents make.

Nevada alone is facing a $1.2 billion budget shortfall in 2011, practically ensuring further cuts to State and local education. But Nevada can ill afford to lose more teachers, police, and first responders. The State has already

slashed State education funding below previous session levels. Any additional cuts will place thousands of Nevada teaching jobs at risk. School districts in Nevada have already made difficult cuts: laying off teachers, eliminating programs, and reducing the number of hours children spend in school.

The State has delayed expansion of all-day kindergarten, eliminated resources for gifted and talented programs, cut a magnet program for students who are deaf or hard of hearing. All around schools have been eliminated.

Further cuts will affect the basic pillars of American education. Already the school board in one county, Lyon County, a rural part of Nevada, has considered moving to a 4-day school week. Students in the United States already spend much less time in school than students in other countries, including those with whom we compete for jobs. Most American people spend a month less in the classrooms than those in South Korea or Japan, whose students are among the highest performing in the world.

At a time when Nevadans are competing for jobs with graduates from countries around the world, as well as those in neighboring States, school districts should not be forced to make decisions such as the one facing Lyon County, NV. The Teachers and First Responders Back to Work Act, filed last night and led by Senator Menendez, will ensure the Lyon County school district will not have to choose between laying off teachers and reducing the school year.

It will protect gains made by school districts such as the one in Washoe County, which increased its graduation rate from 55 percent to nearly 70 percent in a period of less than 2 years. Budget cuts would threaten that progress. The district cannot expect to improve on these gains if it has to jam more students in every class and lay off literacy and math specialists.

The teachers legislation I introduced last night will stem the loss of education jobs and help districts such as Washoe to continue to improve. This legislation will provide Nevada with an additional $260 million to keep teachers in the classroom and maintain class sizes. It will support 3,600 education jobs in the State and give the economy a jolt.

It will not increase the deficit by one penny. It asks millionaires and billionaires to contribute a tiny fraction more to help turn our economy around. That is an idea two-thirds of Americans and a majority of even Republicans support. This Nation's schools have already been hit hard by State and local budget cuts. We cannot afford to lose more teachers or lay off more police or first responders.

In Nevada, local governments have already made the difficult choice to cut almost 9,000 jobs. These unprecedented layoffs have extended the recession and slowed the recovery in Nevada. And further budget shortfalls threaten thousands more jobs. Nationwide, State and local budget cuts will cost as many as 280,000 teaching jobs next year unless we do something about that. This teachers and first responders legislation will invest $30 billion to create or save nearly 400,000 teacher jobs; that is, those who are going to be laid off this year, plus those who have been hurt and laid off in past years. That money will help State and school districts stop more layoffs and rehire tens of thousands of teachers laid off since this severe recession began.

We will also invest $5 billion to retain and rehire the police, firefighters, and first responders to protect our communities throughout this tough economic time. That is why it is so important that the Senate move to this as quickly as possible. Teachers out of work through no fault of their own and students who desperately need a good education are relying on us to act.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I have had several very good conversations with Senator McCain and Senator Levin about the provisions they have spent a lot of time on this morning. Discussions have been very positive. And, hopefully, these concerns can be resolved. Of course, if they cannot be, the only way to resolve them would be here on the Senate floor. I hope in the next several days we can work something out on this somewhat difficult provision that is in the bill reported out of the committee.

First of all, let me say to my friends who came and spoke on the floor today, I understand their concern about the defense of this country. Anytime John McCain comes to the floor or comes anyplace in the world and talks about anything dealing with the security of this country, everyone should listen. He is a man we all know, we respect, and hold in the highest regard, not only because of his legislative skills--he has been a Presidential nominee--but the fact is, he is a certified American military hero. So I want everyone to understand that I have no problem at all with Senator McCain coming to the floor talking about something he knows a lot about.

But I do want to remind everyone that we are now in the 10th month of this Congress and we have been blocked, obstructed, prevented, and held up from moving legislation for 10 months. We have wasted months and months because of obstructionism, threats to shut down the government.

Think back a little while on trying to get the government funded until the 1st of October. I do not know at this stage how many votes we had but at least a half dozen extending the government for a week, a few days, with the threat of the government shutting down with every one of those extensions of the continuing resolution.

Then we moved to a new stage in the history of our great country; that is, extending the debt ceiling. Times in the past it has been done routinely--hundreds of times--18 times during the Reagan administration. But, no, we took months to do it for President Obama. And that has prevented us from doing a lot of the routine work we need to do here, including the Defense authorization bill. These items used to be routine under Democratic and Republican Presidents. But in this Congress, Republicans have turned even routine matters into crises.

Since the beginning of the year, they have blocked jobs bills using obstructionist tactics. They have filibustered everything by amendment. Remember the small business innovation bill--a bill I like to talk about because it has been one of the best things that has happened to this country. Small business entrepreneurs, people who had ideas on how to improve the economy did good things with these small grants they got. My favorite, of course, is the electric toothbrush, but there were other things that have been done. But that bill traditionally has been handled with minimal controversy--in fact, no controversy--always passes unanimously with help from both sides. Republicans amended this little piece of legislation--so good for our country in creating jobs-- to death. The process took nearly 2 months. There was the Economic Development Revitalization Act, something that started during the time Richard Nixon was President. We did this routinely, most every time by unanimous consent. A bill that creates lots and lots of jobs, employment for our country--the Republican Senators blocked this bill, dragging out the process for months. Their obstructionism has cost this country millions of jobs, including 2 million that would have been created by the American Jobs Act.

Suddenly they are calling for a return to regular order. Well, after 10 months of dragging out the most routine matters, preventing the normal order of business here in the Senate, suddenly they are calling for us to move quickly on the Defense authorization bill, something that should have been done some time ago. They are threatening to shut down the government if they do not get their way. We have coming up, in less than a month, another threat by the Republicans to shut down the government. That seems to be the mantra: If we do not get what we want, we will close the government.

The continuing resolution expires on November 18, right before Thanksgiving. My colleagues are right about the Defense Authorization Act--absolutely right. We need to do this. We have always done it, and we are going to do it this year. As I said to Senator McCain on a number of occasions, and Senator Levin, I am eager to find a path to get this done.

My colleagues have said several times that they believe these provisions ought to be considered in regular order and that the Senate ought to proceed to debate them. As I indicated a few minutes ago, if that is the only avenue we have, then that is what we will do.

The Defense authorization bill is going to get done this year. But we have been held up for 10 months in doing the ordinary process this government is required to do.

I would be happy to yield to the Senator from Illinois.

In response to my friend's question, he is absolutely right. Remember, this is not an Obama-driven

program. It started during the George Bush era. Why? Because George Bush was President of the United States on 9/11, and he recognized the importance of doing this in a fashion that would maintain the civility of our criminal justice system.

I say to my friend, I want to make sure--I will repeat what I said earlier. No one is saying we are not going to do the Defense authorization bill. We are going to do that. But we are really, because of being jammed, as I have tried to outline here to the entire country, and being unable to get our work done here these last 10 months, we are trying to find time to do lots of things. That is why we have come up with this unique way of moving appropriations bills. We are doing them together--three at a time rather than one at a time--in an effort to do what I have been asked to do by the Speaker of the House: Do what you can to get these appropriations bills done. Senator McConnell suggested something. We are doing our very best, but we have been held up from doing the ordinary business. I gave two examples that were about as good as you could give of our trying to do things to create jobs in America today. We have been stymied from doing that.

So I say to everyone here that I am really somewhat at a loss for words, for an organization here--the Republican caucus has done everything they can these past 10 months to stop us from moving forward. Remember, the No. 1 goal of my friend the Republican leader-- and I admire his honesty--he said his No. 1 goal was and has been to defeat President Obama. As a result of that, we have not been able to do the government's business, because everything they can do to slow down government is something they believe will help them a year from now.

I would be happy to.

I appreciate very much the Senator from Illinois reminding me what took place at the beginning of this Congress.

As soon as I answer my friend's question.

I am reminded of what took place at the beginning of this year. We had a number of new Senators--relatively new Senators--who joined with some of the more experienced Senators who wanted to change the way the saw our having done business in the last Congress.

I joined with my friend the Republican leader and said: Let's back off a little bit.

The Republican leader said: We are going to be very discrete in what we do with the motions to proceed, to allow us to get on legislation.

I said: Fine. If that is the case, we will make sure we have the opportunity to offer amendments.

That has broken down big time, I say to my friend, because it is a rare day here that we have been able to move to a piece of legislation without having to go through the process of filing cloture on just the ability to get on a bill. And we have had open amendments, as we did on the small business innovation bill. Guess what happened. It was amended to death. So after 2 months--after 2 months--we gave up. We could not do that bill as had been done routinely in the past.

So I say to my friend, we are going to try it again. We have these appropriations bills. We are going to try to get it done. We are waiting for people to offer amendments, and we are going to try to move through this and get it done. We are going to do the appropriations bills this week. We have other things we need to do. It is an important time in the history of our country to show the American people we can work together. I hope that, in fact, is the case because based on my experience from the beginning of this Congress, where there was supposed to be a good-faith effort to return to regular order, it has not happened.

I would be happy to yield to my friend for a question.

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

Mr. President, I call for regular order with respect to amendment No. 750 and that the amendment be modified with the changes that are at the desk.

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 return to amendment No. 775.

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

Madam President, we have been making progress on this bill. We are going to have one more vote now. We have already set up a vote in the morning. We have an agreement to do so. There will be a little debate prior to that vote.

We hope to be able to work our way through some other amendments. If people have amendments they want to offer, they should do it, because time is wasting. We need to move through this appropriations bill and finish it this week.

Amendment No. 740

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that on Wednesday, October 19, when the Senate resumes consideration of H.R. 2112, the vehicle for the Agriculture, CJS, and Transportation-HUD appropriations bills, the time until noon be equally divided between Senators McCain and Boxer or their designees for debate on the McCain amendment No. 739; that at noon, the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the McCain amendment No. 739; and that there be no amendments or points of order in order to that amendment prior to the vote other than budget points of order.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations: Calendar Nos. 429, 430, 431, 432, 433, 434, 435; 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 related statements be printed in the Record; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action and the Senate then resume legislative session.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Energy Subcommittee be discharged from further consideration of S. 925 and the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of the following bills en bloc: Calendar No. 129, S. 270; Calendar No. 132, S. 292; Calendar No. 133, S. 333; Calendar No. 134, S. 334; Calendar No. 136, S. 404; Calendar No. 184, H.R. 489; Calendar No. 185, H.R. 470; Calendar No. 186, H.R. 765; and S. 925.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the committee amendments, where applicable, be agreed to, the bills, as amended, if amended, be read a third time and passed, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to S. Con. Res 32.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 298.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m., Wednesday, October 19; that following the prayer and the pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed to have 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 for up to 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 Republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling the second half; that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of H.R. 2112, the Agriculture, CJS, and Transportation appropriations bill, under the previous order.

Mr. President, the first rollcall vote will occur at about noon tomorrow in relation to amendment No. 739.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order, following the remarks of Senator Murkowski of Alaska.

Mr. President, following leader remarks, the Senate will be in morning business until 4 p.m. today. Following morning business, the Senate will begin consideration of H.R. 2112, which is the vehicle for the Agriculture, Commerce-State-Justice, and Transportation appropriations bills. At 5:15 the Senate will be in executive session to consider the nomination of Cathy Bisson to be United States District Judge for the Western District of Pennsylvania. At 5:30 there will be a vote on confirmation of that nomination. At 4 o'clock, as indicated here, we are going to move to the appropriations bills. I understand there are a number of amendments on both sides that are available to be offered. I hope Senators will come and offer them as quickly as possible. We will try to work out time agreements. I am anxious to set up some votes before the weekly party caucuses tomorrow.