Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session and the HELP Committee be discharged from further consideration of PN-924, 567 nominations in the Public Health Service received by the Senate on September 8, 2011, beginning with Aysha Z. Akhtar and ending with Mykah N. Wynter; 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 the nominations; that any related statements be printed in the Record; and that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate consider the following nominations: Calendar Nos. 371, 372, 373, 374, 375, 376, 377, 378, 379, 381, 382, 383, 384, 385, 386, 387, 388, 389, 390, 391, 392, 393, 394, 395, 396, 397, 398, 399, 400, 401, 402, and all nominations placed on the Secretary's desk in the Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, and Navy; 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 that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 282, submitted earlier today.

Mr. President, this resolution concerns a request for testimony in related civil actions pending in Arizona Federal district court. In these actions, plaintiffs claim that Arizona local officials hosting a Senator McCain town hall meeting allegedly violated plaintiffs' rights by prohibiting their distribution of political literature at the meeting and subsequently enacting a policy limiting the use of county facilities to the conduct of official government business. The defendants have requested a declaration from a member of Senator McCain's staff who witnessed relevant events. Senator McCain would like to cooperate with this request. This resolution would authorize testimony in connection with these actions.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider laid upon the table, without any intervening action or debate, and that any statements relating 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 3:30 p.m., Monday, September 26; that following the prayer and the pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed to have 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 period of morning business until 4:30 p.m., with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each; and that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of the motion to concur with respect to the House message to accompany H.R. 2608, which is the vehicle for the continuing resolution and the FEMA funding, with the time until 5:30 p.m. equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees; further, that the second-degree filing deadline for the motion to concur be at 5 p.m. on Monday.

Mr. President, the next rollcall vote will be at 5:30 p.m. Monday on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to concur in the House message to accompany H.R. 2608 with an amendment, which is basically a 6-week continuing resolution to fund the government, together with FEMA.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate adjourn under the previous order, with the understanding that the vote at 5:30 Monday will be continued more than the normal time, but people need to be reasonable. We cannot leave it open forever.

Mr. President, I yield to my friend, the junior Senator from Delaware.

Mr. President, following leader remarks, the Senate will be in a period of morning business for an hour, Republicans will control the first half and the majority will control the final half. Following morning business, the Senate will resume consideration of H.R. 3832. Later today, the Senate will complete action on the GSP and TAA bill. There will be up to five rollcall votes in relation to amendments and passage of this bill. I will work with the Republican leader to set a time it is convenient to do that.

For the benefit of the Senators, so we can look at the schedule a little bit this evening, first of all, I appreciate the support for this trade adjustment assistance from my Republican colleagues. It is an important piece of legislation. I am glad we are able to complete this at least in the Senate.

As I have said many times, we have to make sure the House also passes this. I have been told by the Speaker and others in the Republican leadership in the House that they will do that. I am hopeful and confident they will. Once that is done--and they have ways of making sure through a rule they can issue, it would not be sent to the President. They do not have to enroll it until the trade bill is passed. Once the trade bill is passed, of course, they would send the trade adjustment assistance to the White House.

This is the first step of this agreement, I don't need to tell everyone here--I have spoken to the Republican leader many times--I do not support any of those trade agreements, but I am going to live up to what I said I would do and do what I can to move those through the Senate as quickly as possible so there are fair votes on all of them. We are waiting for the House to take action also.

Finally, without belaboring the point on trade adjustment assistance, I repeat what I said earlier. I appreciate very much the support of the Republicans in getting the votes necessary to pass this bill. It was a nice vote and I appreciate it very much.

As far as the rest of the evening, I just talked with the House Democratic leadership, some of them, and right now the Republicans are still trying to get enough votes to pass something over there. Right now they have not been able to do that so they have not even asked for the rule to be issued. We are waiting to see what they do. Some of the reports out of the House are troubling, to say the least. One of the latest proposals we have heard--remember, one reason this went so bad is that 53 House Republicans wrote a letter to the Republican leadership in the House and said, unless you cut back the CR--remember, that is an agreement we worked on for 3 months to get agreements so we took care of the 301(a)s and 301(b)s for the rest of the year. They said until you cut that by $28 billion, we are not going to vote for it--$28 billion.

The latest we have heard from the House in an effort to satisfy the $28 billion that the 53 Republicans want is they said they are going to cut renewable energy projects by another $110 million. So if that goes through, then the 53 Republicans, instead of settling for $28 billion, are going to settle for $110 million. From Las Vegas, those are not very good odds in a card game.

I hope we do something that is fair and realistic. I hope they send us a CR. I hope they send a reasonably important number on FEMA. We know what is needed. The Secretary of Homeland Security was in Joplin, MO, today, looking at the devastation there and the work that has stopped in that town that was struck by winds of 300 miles an hour.

We are here. We are going to have a caucus in 20 minutes, but I cannot see us doing anything tonight.

Surely.

I understand what my friend is saying. I am sure if we took a vote, everyone would agree on that. If we don't get that bill until after midnight tonight, there is a limit as to what we can do. It may be necessary to come back sometime tomorrow morning. I have a number of us over here who have important things to do, not only legislatively but some with their own personal business. So I understand

if we have to come back tomorrow, we will try to do it as early as possible. We have some very serious things to do here. We have millions of people who are struggling because of this disaster relief. We talk about disaster relief as if it is some number up in the air, but these are jobs we are talking about. These are millions of dollars we are talking about providing for renovation, repair, and all of the other things that need to be done in the disaster areas. These are jobs. People are waiting to do that work and, of course, the CR is very important.

I would hope the House would send us something that is fair and reasonable, because if it is more of the same as yesterday, I do not think they are going to get the Democratic votes in the House. I do not think they will get any over here. This is not a high school game of ``I've gotcha.'' We are willing to be reasonable, but we are not willing to vote unreasonably.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that we now proceed to H.R. 2883.

Madam President, I do not think there is any further debate on this measure.

I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be laid on the table with no intervening action or debate and any statements be printed in the Record as if read.

Madam President, I understand that S. 1619 is at the desk and due for its first reading.

I now ask for its second reading and object to my own request.

Madam President, I now ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9 a.m., on Friday, September 23; 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; following any leader remarks, the Senate be in a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak up to 10 minutes each.

We await the House action on the continuing resolution. We will notify Senators when the votes are scheduled.

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