Floor Statements

Mr. President, it is my understanding that S. 3158 is at the desk and due for a second reading.

I object to any further proceedings with respect to the bill.

Mr. President, would the Chair report how much time is left on general debate on the bill.

Mr. President, I yield back all time remaining on the bill on the majority's side.

I note the absence of a quorum.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I direct this comment through the Chair to my distinguished colleague, the Republican leader. All time has expired. Under the rules in the Senate, we start our vote-athon now, as the Republican leader knows. I would ask my friend, is it the desire of the minority that there be time before each amendment and a response to that?

Mr. President, I say again through the Chair to my colleague and those Members of this body, we do not have to agree to 1 minute, but we want everyone to understand we have tried to be as fair as we can through this whole process. There are some who said: Why should we waste--there would be 43 minutes or 46 minutes. I think there are 23 amendments pending, so that would be 46 minutes. But we want to be fair. In recent years, we have agreed by unanimous consent to have 1 minute to explain the amendment and 1 minute to disagree with the amendment. I think that is the appropriate thing to do. We want to make sure everyone is treated fairly.

But I alert everyone: The Chair is going to enforce--we are not waiting for the Parliamentarian--the Chair is going to enforce that to the letter of the law. Every time the Presiding Officer is here, there will be 1 minute--if this consent agreement is agreed to--there will be 1 minute to explain the amendment and 1 minute to disagree with the amendment.

Yes.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent, as I directed, or asked, that there be 1 minute to explain the amendment and 1 minute to disagree with the amendment.

Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent that after the first amendment, on which we will do our normal 15 minutes with 5 minutes of time after that, all votes thereafter be 10 minutes. I ask unanimous consent that prior to each vote there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided and controlled in the usual form; that upon use or yielding back of that time, the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the amendments and the motions in the order they have been offered--I think that is the fair way to go so we are not trying to catapult over other amendments people may have offered at an earlier time--with no intervening amendments or motions in order prior to a vote; further, that after the first vote in this sequence, the succeeding votes be limited to 10 minutes each.

The reason I suggest 10 minutes is I have been told by Senator McConnell and others they want an opportunity to offer amendments, and this will maybe allow them to offer a few more.

Mr. President, I also note that with just the amendments that have been proposed, if we are fortunate, it will probably take 9 hours or so, maybe more than that, to get rid of those. There will be continuous votes without any breaks. We are not going to have any breaks unless something untoward happens. Senators should be advised that they should remain close to the floor during this process. If people are not here at the end of the time, we are going to close it up. We need to move on. We have other things we have to do prior to the recess. I have to work with the Republican leader. It has taken an enormous amount of time to do this. Everybody stay here. It works a lot better if my colleagues stay close to their seats and, hopefully, we will have an orderly process as much as possible during the vote-arama.

Mr. President, USA Today-Gallup reported that the people of America, the citizens of America, favor what we did by a score of 49 to 40. That is a pretty significant majority. People support this legislation. Why? Because they are tired of being treated by the insurance industry the way they have been treated.

My friend talks about the mountain of debt of this bill. We have rules and guidelines in this body, in this Congress, and one of them is we have an independent body that has been set up, not by Republicans, not by Democrats, but by us. It is independent. It is not partisan. That agency, the Congressional Budget Office, determined this bill over the first 10 years will save about $140 billion; over the next 10 years, $1.3 trillion. This is make-believe they talk about all these things that are going to cost so much--$1.3 trillion.

I also have to comment on this. My friend, the Republican leader, talks about how hard they were working yesterday when we were at a 45- minute meeting at the White House while the President made history signing for the first time in 100 years major health care reform in this country. They were working so hard here. They were working so hard today that they refused to let committees meet to hold sensitive, important hearings for our country.

Carl Levin had to cancel a meeting because the Republicans refused to allow that meeting to go forward, dealing with the safety and security of this Nation. Claire McCaskill, with her subcommittee, had to cancel a hearing dealing with having police officers trained in Afghanistan. Canceled. Working hard, they are, to throw a monkey wrench in everything we are trying to do for the American people.

To in any way denigrate, as has been done this afternoon, Chairman Max Baucus and Chairman Chris Dodd and the work done by the man replacing Ted Kennedy is an outrage. Max Baucus devoted his life to this legislation for the last 2 years: the number of roundtable discussions with Finance Committee members and invited guests, 3; the number of papers outlining health care reform, significant, important papers that were distributed to everybody around the country interested in health care, 4; the number of meetings of the Gang of 6--three Republicans and three Democrats--31 meetings; the number of member meetings on health care reform, 141.

These are not back-room deals. This is how business is conducted in the Senate.

The number of days in the Finance Committee the bill was available before the markup even took place, 6; the total number of amendments posted online before the markup, 564. They were public. Everyone in America could read them. The number of amendments considered during the markup, 135; the number of days the committee spent marking up the bill, 8; the number of days the final bill was available before the vote, 11.

There is more, but you get the picture.

Chairman Dodd conducted the longest markup in the history of the HELP Committee. On what subject? Health care. Public meetings, many of them on C-SPAN.

There is no bill anymore. It was signed into law yesterday. The work that we did here on Christmas Eve, through the storms of 2010, is now the law of this country. We are going to start in just a few minutes making that law even better.

In my State of Nevada, 600,000 people will be able to have insurance who have never had it before; 24,000 small businesses will be eligible for a subsidy for people they employ to have health insurance. They did not have health insurance because they were cheap or mean; they could not afford it. If they would get a palsy, they would cancel when somebody got sick or hurt.

Now someone who is 26 years old can go to college or do whatever they want to do and not worry about losing their insurance until they establish themselves.

This legislation extends Medicare for 9 years as a healthy entity. Medicare is not a perfect program, but it is a good program.

My first elective job was a countywide job in Las Vegas, the metropolitan areas Clark County. When I went on that hospital board, the largest district in Nevada, 40 percent of seniors who came into that hospital had no health insurance. Their sons, their daughters, their mothers, their brothers, their cousins, their neighbors signed for them that they would be responsible for that bill. We had a large collection agency in that hospital. We went after those people.

Not anymore. Now everybody who is a senior citizen who comes into that hospital is taken care of because of Medicare. We extend the life of that program for about 9 years.

I had a letter written to me by a man from Nevada. He wrote to me and he said: Senator, I have a son who has diabetes, but it has become more complicated. Now he has Addison's disease. I lost my job. We have no health insurance. When I go to bed at night and say my prayers, I don't know whether to die or stay alive to help my son. That is how desperate he is.

People such as this man from Nevada are no longer going to have to be desperate. No longer are we going to have 750,000 people file for bankruptcy, 70 percent of them because of health care costs and 80 percent of the 70 percent have health insurance.

The bill that is now the law of this country dealing with health care is a wonderful bill, and we are going to improve it tonight.

Amendment No. 3567, as Modified

Mr. President, we are going to cut the votes off after 10 minutes. We are going to move these as quickly as we can. We want to get through this series of votes as rapidly as we can, and it is going to take hours to do that. People should stay close here. We are not going to take time for fun and games. We have to move through this process. It makes it so much easier if you are here to vote; otherwise, some people are going to miss the votes.

Amendment No. 3570

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Amendment No. 3579

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, we have finished the first tranche of amendments and motions, some 23 in number, all of which were amendments pending at the end of the 20 hours. I think it is time we pause for a minute and find out where we are and where we need to go.

First of all, I congratulate the entire Senate. I think the decorum of the Senate has been maintained in the highest standards. The debate has been good. I especially appreciate the work of the staff, the professionals they always are.

We have handled, as I indicated, 23 amendments and motions. Not a single one has been adopted. All of the amendments and motions have been offered by the minority, which is their right. The average, according to CRS, number of amendments offered during this same type of proceeding is 21. We are two over that now.

I want, of course, to congratulate my friend, Senator Gregg, who has managed these budget-type proceedings on many occasions and is always a gentleman, easy to work with. There could have been a lot of controversy. There has been none. There has been no reading of amendments. There has been agreement that time would be allowed to speak on behalf of amendments.

I think, though--I am speaking to my chairs: Harkin, Baucus, Dodd, Conrad--they agree unanimously we need to just continue. The House of Representatives worked all weekend moving this issue along, and I think we need to move this along and find out if they have to take any action on this tomorrow, which is today.

I say to my colleague, my counterpart, the Republican leader, through the Chair that I think we would like to know what the plans are. We are not going to offer any amendments. We would like to know if there is some indication from the Republican side as to how many more amendments we are going to deal with this morning.

Mr. President, my focus is on this legislation, and I know there are other things we have to deal with before we leave, but I am not concerned about those at this stage. I want to finish this legislation, and I want to do that as quickly as we can.

So I would ask that we just proceed. I hope there aren't that many more amendments, but we are here for the duration.

I would note--and I am certainly in no way trying to denigrate those amendments that have been offered, but we have to understand that not a single one has been adopted. I don't know what we are trying to accomplish. We have listened intently. Most of the comments from our side have been from the chairman of the Finance Committee because most of these issues deal with the jurisdiction he has. But it is very clear there is no attempt to improve the bill. There is an attempt to destroy this bill.

We already have a law in place. It is the bill that we passed on Christmas Eve 2009. That is the law of this land. This is a matter to improve that, and I have to suggest that we are going to continue down this road. I am not sure it is a good picture for the American people, to have all these amendments and not a single one of them having enough votes to pass, but that judgment is not mine. We are here to try to move this along.

The House of Representatives is waiting for us to act, as we speak. I think they have proven they are willing to work hard, as indicated this past weekend and over the last several weeks. So let's continue forward in the same spirit we have gotten this far. But I would hope that my friends understand I think it would be to the benefit of most everyone if we could get out of here at a decent hour today. If it is not, if we are going to keep going, that is the way it is. I am an old marathoner, and getting older every day.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote and lay that motion upon the table.

The motion to lay upon the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, it goes without saying we all appreciate everyone's cooperation, having the Senate work so well, yesterday and today. Therefore, after having had long discussions with my friend, the distinguished Senator from Kentucky, I ask unanimous consent that we are going to adjourn in a few minutes; that we will convene at 9:45 a.m. this morning, resume the bill, consider amendments up to 2 p.m., we will dispose of points of order that have been determined--and one is still under review--by 2 p.m. There will be no further amendments after 2 p.m., and the third reading will occur after points of order are disposed of after 2 p.m.

I ask that in the form of a unanimous consent agreement.

Mr. President, I rise today to honor Ms. Rose Gordon of Reno, NV. Ms. Gordon is a dedicated social worker and public servant who has devoted much of her life to serving the people of Nevada, especially those who are traditionally underrepresented. Her commitment toassisting Nevadans is shown both by her work as a Washoe County social worker and by her involvement in numerous community organizations.

As a social worker, Ms. Gordon has been known for her endless motivation and the sense of self empowerment she gives to members of her community. For 15 years Ms. Gordon has partnered with local school districts to identify potential high school drop-outs and has worked with them and their families to encourage the student to complete high school and receive their diploma. For her efforts to assist children and families, Rose has been honored by the mayor of Reno.

Ms. Gordon has also worked diligently in the pursuit of civil rights for all individuals. Rose has previously held the positions of president of her local NAACP chapter and vice president of the NAACP Tri-State Conference of Idaho, Nevada, and Utah, and continues to serve as an adviser to the NAACP youth council. She is a member of the People of Color Caucus which focuses on the unequal distribution of wealth and knowledge to underserved populations. Through her participation and leadership in these organizations, Rose has been able to assist many members of her community and help ensure equal opportunities for Nevadans.

Ms. Gordon's selfless dedication to assisting individuals who are often forgotten shows that she is a truly great American. She is a leader in the Reno community and an example of how one person with a sense of duty can positively affect many around them.

I am honored today to recognize Ms. Rose Gordon and thank her for her commitment and for the work she has done to serve the people of Reno,

Mr. President, I rise today to honor the work of Judy Treichel, a true and dedicated public servant. Over two decades ago, the Federal Government decided to dump the country's nuclear waste in the Nevada desert, ignoring the opposition of most Nevadans and their leaders and widespread concern that the project was not scientifically sound. Judy recognized that the government's actions were unjust and decided to help lead the opposition to the Yucca Mountain project. So, she founded a nonprofit organization, the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, and dedicated her career to making sure that the people of Nevada and across the country have access to accurate information on the proposed dump at Yucca Mountain and that they are given the opportunity to be heard.

Since 1987, Judy has attended thousands of meetings, hearings, conferences, and classroom discussions related to nuclear waste and Yucca Mountain. As executive director of the task force, she served as the principal liaison between the public interest community and the relevant Federal Government agencies. She brought a public voice to government hearings, technical meetings, and national conferences, and she provided information to grassroots organizations and individuals on the very technical and complicated issues surrounding Yucca Mountain, which concerned and affected their communities. That is how Judy became one of the leading voices in Nevada on the proposed nuclear waste dump.

I have been honored to work with Judy Treichel over the past 23 years, and I can say from experience, that the people of Nevada have been lucky to have such a dedicated and capable woman fighting on their behalf. That is why I was proud to send Judy a note recently letting her know that, with her help, we have won the fight against Yucca Mountain.

Mr. President, following leader remarks, the Senate will be in a period for the transaction of morning business until 3 p.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.

At 3 p.m., the Senate will resume consideration of H.R. 1586, the Federal Aviation Administration legislation. At 5:30 p.m., the Senate will proceed to a series of up to three rollcall votes in relation to the FAA bill. Senators will be notified when we know exactly how many rollcall votes will be necessary before we complete action on the bill tonight.

Mr. President, our country has lost a friend, a patriot, and an environmental pioneer, Stewart Udall. Stewart Udall did more to preserve and protect the American landscape than probably anyone else. He died this weekend. Our thoughts are with his family and many friends.

On my last trip to New Mexico, I had the good fortune of being able to sit and talk with Stewart Udall for about an hour. It was a wonderful experience for me. I had never met him. I had served with his brother in the House of Representatives, but this was the first conversation I ever had with him. It was wonderful. He was physically a little impaired, but his mind was sharp as a tack. We talked about things that had happened or things that were happening. He was in great spirits and good humor. That is how I will always remember him.

The last surviving member of President Kennedy's original Cabinet, Stewart Udall served as Secretary of the Interior for nearly the entire 1960s. In that position for both Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, the man who asked us to not spoil our natural surroundings left an indelible imprint on our land.

His legacy as Secretary of the Interior includes four national parks, six national monuments, eight national seashores, nine national recreational areas, 20 historic sites, and 50 wildlife refuges. That is hard to comprehend.

He was a versatile, talented, and very accomplished man. He served our Nation in the Army Air Corps, later to become the Air Force. He served in Europe during World War II. He was a significantly good basketball player at the University of Arizona. He was an All- Conference guard. He taught students at Yale and wrote books that have been read by millions.

He reached the summits of Mount Kilimanjaro and Japan's Mount Fuji. At 84, he was still rafting the Colorado River and hiking in the Grand Canyon.

Before he was Secretary Udall, he was Arizona's Congressman Udall. Decades later, as I indicated, I served with his famous brother, Mo Udall. Now we are all privileged, we Senators, to serve with Secretary Udall's son and his nephew, Tom and Mark. What a great legacy--two cousins now serving in the Senate. A lot of people do not know their first cousin is Gordon Smith, a former Senator from Oregon. It is an accomplished family.

As a dedicated steward of our environment, Stewart Udall's guiding principle was that our resources are not limitless. They are scarce, he reminded us, and they should be sincerely treasured, always protected, and never taken for granted. The same can be said of Stewart Udall.

Mr. President, the House of Representatives deserves the appreciation of the entire Nation for what it did last night. A clear majority of Congressmen and Congresswomen voted in favor of the bill that a supermajority of Senators passed on Christmas Eve a few months ago. Tomorrow the Senate will begin to put the final touches on this enormous effort.

Last night's vote took both courage and common sense. Their votes were momentous. They were historic. They were right.

After a century of working and waiting, going back to the days of Theodore Roosevelt, real reform will become the law of the land, not in a matter of years or months or weeks but in a matter of hours. In the very near future, various parts of this bill will take effect and improve the life of millions. Soon insurance companies will no longer be able to refuse to cover children with preexisting conditions. They will no longer be able to drop your coverage just because you get sick.

Small businesses that today cannot afford to cover their employees will soon get tax credits to help them right that wrong. Tens of thousands of small businesses will benefit in Nevada alone--24,000 to be exact.

Reform means that if you have a preexisting condition and no health insurance, you soon will be able to finally afford the care you need to get and stay healthy.

If you are stuck in the prescription drug doughnut hole, you will soon get a check to help pay for your medicine. That will help seniors stay healthy while we completely close that loophole, once and for all, for nearly 60,000 Nevada seniors and millions more across the country.

Also, starting this year, no insurance company will be able to impose a lifetime limit on your benefits.

Those changes are just a tip of the iceberg. They are only some of the benefits that will kick in almost immediately--some in 3 months, some in 6 months but none longer than what I am going to talk about today--just a fraction of what this bill will do over the long term for the health of our Nation, our economy, and, most importantly, our citizens.

When all is said and done, more than 600,000 Nevadans will be able to access affordable coverage. More than 300,000 Nevadans will get tax credits to help them buy health coverage from the private market. Another 300,000 seniors in the State of Nevada will get free preventive annual services, such as physicals and checkups.

Nevadans who buy insurance on their own will also save money. Because of this bill, their premiums will go down as much as 20 percent, which means Nevada families can save more than $2,000 a year.

This bill will also save our country money and lots of it. Over the next 10 years, it will slash our deficit by $143 billion; in the next 10 years, a $1.3 trillion deficit reduction.

Many Senators deserve credit for getting us this far, and many will help us cross the finish line this week.

I thank especially Chairman Baucus, who oversaw the financial aspect of this bill that will bring down health care costs and vastly reduce our deficit; Chairman Dodd, who oversaw the parts of reform that will ensure more healthy Americans, and they did that in the HELP Committee. Not only will it allow people to stay healthy, it will allow them to stop being sick in the first place. Our friend, Ted Kennedy, must surely be proud of this work. Chairman Harkin, who has led the HELP Committee down the home stretch, deserves our thanks for the work he has done to make college more affordable. Chairman Conrad, who is head of the Budget Committee, will continue to guide us through the budget reconciliation process--a fiscally responsible final piece that will further reduce the deficit, ensure more Americans can afford more health insurance, and fully close the doughnut hole.

I know the other side watched the House vote last night, as we did. As they did, I hope they finally learned that a strategy of delay, myths, and fear might slow progress, but it cannot stop it. I hope this week, when we take up the final revisions of what will soon be the long overdue law, our Republican friends will finally act in the interests of their constituents and not just in the interests of the insurance industry or their political party.

The other side has made it clear they will try to stop progress based on a technicality. But without substance, they are powerless. What this budget process is all about is simply making a good law that we passed on Christmas Eve even better.

The other side is still talking about the number of pages in the bill, but we will not stop talking about the number of lives it will save.

Mr. President, following leader remarks, the Senate will resume consideration of the FAA bill. It is hopeful we will reach an agreement on the slots issue, which has created some controversy in this matter. The Senators involved, both Democrats and Republicans, have been working on this issue, and I hope we can have some agreement that will allow us to move forward to passage of this bill on Monday. This is the only issue that is holding up this bill.

There will be no rollcall votes today. The next vote will be at 5:30 p.m. on Monday.

Mr. President, there are three bills at the desk due for a second reading and I ask that the Chair proceed with that.

Mr. President, I object to any further proceedings with respect to these three bills.

Mr. President, we have an issue and a problem, as we had a long debate dealing with unemployment benefits. We moved forward and passed the bill that would extend them for 30 days. That extension is going to run out before we complete the conference on this bill.

As a result of that, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of H.R. 4851, which is an act to provide for a 30- day extension of unemployment benefits, COBRA benefits, satellite television, poverty guidelines, and flood insurance; that the bill be read three times, passed, and a motion to reconsider be laid on the table.

Mr. President, I agree with my friend from Arizona. I think there should be consultation with his Members, and we hope we can work something out next week.

Mr. President, has morning business been announced?

We are on the bill. That is where we should be.

I note the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, following leader remarks, the Senate will proceed to a period of morning business for 1 hour, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each, with the Republicans controlling the first 30 minutes and the majority controlling the second 30 minutes. Following morning business, the Senate will resume consideration of the FAA bill. We will have debate run concurrently until 11:30 a.m., starting with the Sessions-McCaskill amendment and the Pryor amendment, with the time equally divided between Senators Sessions and Pryor or their designees. At 2 p.m., the Senate will vote in relation to those amendments, with Sessions-McCaskill being the first in the sequence. Additional rollcall votes in relation to FAA amendments are expected throughout the day.

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

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

I ask unanimous consent that the Foreign Relations Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Con. Res. 54.

I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution be agreed to; a Nelson of Florida amendment to the preamble, which is at the desk, be agreed to; the preamble, as amended, be agreed to; the motion to reconsider be laid on the table with no intervening action or debate; and any statements related to this measure be printed in the Record.