Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Inouye- Baucus amendment to H.R. 1, which is at the desk, be printed.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the adoption of the Bingaman amendment No. 63, as modified, and the passage of H.R. 2, the Bingaman amendment No. 63 be modified further with the changes that are at the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that S. 350 be star printed with the changes at the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the resolution of January 24, 1901, the traditional reading of Washington's Farewell Address take place on Monday, February 23, 2009, at 2 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 2 p.m., Monday, February 2; that following the prayer and the 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, and the Senate proceed to the consideration of H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009; further, that at 3:15 p.m., the Senate proceed to executive session, as under the previous order.

Mr. President, at 6:15 p.m. on Monday, the Senate will proceed to a vote on confirmation of Eric Holder to be Attorney General of the United States.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned as under the previous order.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, as we were completing our last vote last night, I explained to the Members of the Senate what our schedule would be the next few days. Following my statement, Senator Leahy and I engaged in a discussion on the Senate floor about the timing for a vote for Attorney General-designee Eric Holder.

Chairman Leahy expressed an opinion that he and I share: that with the many difficult challenges facing the Obama administration, and particularly the Justice Department, it is imperative for the Senate to confirm Attorney General-designee Holder as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, while it was my strong preference to conduct the vote this week--as I explained to Senator Leahy on more than one occasion I was hoping we would do that when we completed work on CHIP, the Children's Health Insurance Program--I had to inform him that I had a conversation just a few minutes before I made my remarks on the floor with Senator McConnell, and Senator McConnell said he didn't want to move forward until Monday. In the conversation with Senator McConnell I was pleasant, as most of our conversations have been, and I believed I needed to explain to the Senate what the proposal was and what we were planning on doing. The one thing I didn't do is explain to Senator Leahy first--and I should have done that--that we weren't going to be able to complete it after the Children's Health Insurance Program--on the same day at least; we would have to wait and do it later because in the Senate the power of the minority is significant.

I have privately discussed this with Chairman Leahy, that it was an oversight on my part. He wasn't informed of the arrangement I had reached with Senator McConnell before I announced it on the Senate floor. So I apologize to my friend from Vermont, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He has been a good friend, he and Marcel, for so many years, and I am very sorry about the misunderstanding.

Chairman Leahy and I, along with virtually every Senator, agree that we must confirm this exceptionally qualified and talented nominee--and that includes Republicans who feel the same way--as quickly as possible so we can begin the critical work of rebuilding the Justice Department to fight terrorism, crime, and protect the constitutional rights of all Americans. There is no one who has been more of an advocate for having a strong, powerful, fair Justice Department than Senator Leahy. So I am sorry about that confusion, and if I embarrassed him in any way, again, I tell him I am sorry.

I note the absence of a quorum.

If I could interrupt this very interesting debate, as in executive session, I ask unanimous consent that on Monday, February 2, at 3:15 p.m., the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the nomination of Eric Holder to be Attorney General of the United States; that there be 3 hours of debate with respect to the nomination, with the time equally divided and controlled between Senators Leahy and Specter, chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, or their designees; that at 6:15 p.m., the Senate vote on confirmation of the nomination; that upon confirmation, if there be confirmation, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; that there be no further motions in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate resume legislative session.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, this will be the last vote today. We are going to have the Holder debate Monday from 3:15 to 6:15. We will have the vote at 6:15. Monday at about 2 o'clock, we are going to lay down the economic recovery package. That is the stimulus. That will be the Appropriations and Finance pieces. After the Holder vote, we encourage Members to speak about the economic recovery package.

Tuesday, we are going to have a full day of amendments and I hope a number of votes.

On Wednesday, we have a longstanding retreat that the Democrats are going to have a short distance from here off campus. We are going to be in session, come in at 10:30. We solicit the Republicans, while we are in that retreat, to offer amendments. We would hope we would be back by 4:30 and could start voting on some amendments that were offered that day.

Next week will be a long, hard slog. It is up to us how long this takes. We hope we can work things out. I have had a number of conversations with the Republican leader on a way to expedite what we do. We want to make sure everyone has the opportunity to do what they think is appropriate on this bill.

We are going to have some late nights next week. We will do everything we can not to have to work next weekend, but I think that is stretching things. But we will certainly try.

We have had no morning business all week, so, Senators, speak your hearts out tomorrow.

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Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, following the remarks of the two leaders, the Senate will resume consideration of the Children's Health Insurance Program. The time until 11 a.m. will be for debate on the McConnell substitute amendment, with the time equally divided between the two leaders or their designees. I designate Chairman Baucus to handle the work on this side of the aisle. At 11 a.m., the Senate will proceed to vote in relation to the amendment. Additional rollcall votes are expected throughout the day as we continue to work through amendments to the bill.

Because of the Finance Committee and Appropriations Committee being heavily involved in the economic recovery bill yesterday, we perhaps did not get as much done as we normally would have. I expect today to be a day of work done on this underlying legislation. Amendments to the bill should be offered as soon as people feel it appropriate to offer them.

We would like to complete this legislation no later than tomorrow. With a little bit of good luck, we can finish it today, but it likely will be tomorrow. I am confident we will not have to file any procedural roadblocks on either side, and we can move forward on this legislation.

Madam President, I note the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, it is my understanding that the Senator from Florida, Senator Martinez, is going to offer an amendment. The amendment, as I understand it, deals with the Mexico City issue.

I ask unanimous consent that Senator Martinez have 5 minutes to speak, that he be followed by Senator Brownback for 5 minutes; Senator Boxer for 5 minutes; Senator Durbin, 5 minutes; Senator McCain, 5 minutes; and following that, that Senator Menendez be allowed to speak for up to 15 minutes. He is just going to speak on the bill. Then, I would arrange--general debate for Senator Menendez.

I will work with Senator McConnell to follow up with a time for a vote. We would like to do it before 12:30, but I will work with Senator McConnell on that. Also, there would be no amendments in order to the amendment offered by Senator Martinez.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, this will be the last vote tonight. If there are other amendments people wish to offer, we will deal with those.

We hope tomorrow we can start again early. We can come in probably about 9:30 in the morning and start working on these amendments. We have had a lot of votes.

I just had a conversation with the distinguished manager of the bill on our side and he is looking at these amendments. He has indicated for some of them--there are several of them he might look at favorably. But what amendments we have, let's get to them and see if we can finish this tomorrow at a reasonable hour.

I have spoken with the Republican leader. We have had a good conversation. What we wish to consider, subject to the will of the body, is to finish this tomorrow at a good time. We would come in at a relatively decent time on Monday. We would be allowed to move to the economic recovery package. We would complete the 2 or 3 hours on Holder starting at 1 or so in the afternoon. We will have a vote that evening and then spend the rest of the day on the economic stimulus bill--start offering amendments on that on Tuesday or if somebody wanted to offer some Monday night. I think we would save the time Monday night for statements on that legislation and then work toward completing the legislation on the stimulus as quickly as we can.

Remember, our goal is to finish the legislation so that on Monday of the following week we can start doing the conference so we can complete that before the Presidents Day recess.

The Republican leader and I have talked about another issue or two that we might try to complete before the recess while the conference is taking place. We will talk about that at a subsequent time. But I think I have given a general overview of what we think will take place the next week or so.

Mr. President, through the Chair to the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee, that was the conversation. It is true it is a privileged motion but it is debatable. I think we should quit while we are ahead.

If the minority will allow us to go to this at a set time on Sunday, the fastest we could get to it anyway would be sometime--on Monday, I am sorry--the quickest we could get to it likely anyway would be on Sunday and I don't think we need to do that if we are going to have the permission of the minority to allow us to do it sometime early in the day on Monday.

I know there is some urgency in this, but the Senate, being as it is, we only need one person on the other side to say to do it at a later time and we are obligated to do that.

I understand how my friend from Vermont feels. I have to say I think we should accept ``yes'' for an answer. It may not be the exact time we want, but I think it is a pretty good package.

We would go to work on this at a reasonable hour early in the afternoon on Monday. The Attorney General will be approved sometime early in the afternoon on Monday--probably about 5 o'clock. And we would be able to go at that time to the economic recovery package. We would not have to file on that.

I think we are doing pretty well here. Everyone seems to be getting along well. I don't think we need to have a

long debate that is unnecessary over the weekend when we would only save, at most, 24 hours anyway.

I know how much the chairman has worked on this, but I think it is better that we go as I have outlined.

Madam President, following leader remarks, the Senate will resume consideration of the Children's Health Insurance Program. At about 12:30 p.m. today, Kirsten Gillibrand will take the oath of office to become a Senator representing the State of New York. Following the swearing in of that Senator, the Senate will recess until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly caucus luncheons to meet.

This week, we are going to legislate. There will be no morning business. We want to have all the time that is necessary to work on this important legislation dealing with children's health. I hope people will be ready to offer amendments. We have worked with staff on the Republican side of the aisle, and we have it set up that we have three amendments that will be laid down very quickly. By that time, we should be able to even schedule some votes for this afternoon.

I want to make sure everyone has the opportunity to offer any amendment they want to offer. What we are going to try to do is not have a bunch of them stacked up. I think that can sometimes be very troublesome. But we will work, as we proceed through the legislation, as to what amendments need to be pending. We are here to legislate. We hope that if people have concerns about this important legislation and they think it can be made better by taking something out or putting something in, that is what they should do. We want everyone, when they offer their amendments, to have ample time to debate them, as we did with the first piece of legislation we dealt with, the Lilly Ledbetter legislation. After there has been ample time for debate, there can be motions to table. There are some Senators who may, for various reasons, agree to have up-or-down votes. We are here to legislate.

This morning is a little difficult because we have the Finance Committee meeting to complete their work on the recovery package. There are 200 amendments that have been filed in the committee, and they have to work their way through those amendments. That should take the better part of the day, at least many hours. It is estimated from 4 to 8 hours to complete the markup.

The Appropriations Committee markup is at 10:30 a.m. also. There are people from the Finance Committee who will be coming here on a rotating hour-by-hour basis so there will be floor coverage. So there is no reason not to be able to legislate and talk about this legislation in any way Senators feel is appropriate. Rollcall votes are expected to occur throughout the day. There will not be any votes before we complete our caucus luncheons.

Madam President, there is an amendment at the desk that I wish the clerk to report.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

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

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

Mr. President, in accordance with S. Res. 18, I announce that the following Democratic Members have been assigned to the following committees: Agriculture, Mr. Bennet and Mrs. Gillibrand; Banking, Mr.

Bennet; Environment and Public Works, Mrs. Gillibrand; Foreign Relations, Mrs. Gillibrand; Homeland Security, Mr. Bennet; Aging, Mr. Bennet and Mrs. Gillibrand.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that, at 5:25 p.m. today, the Senate resume consideration of the DeMint amendment, No. 43, with the time until 5:45 p.m. for debate with respect to the amendment, with the time equally divided and controlled in the usual form, with no amendment in order to the amendment prior to a vote; that at 5:45 p.m. the Senate proceed to vote in relation thereto; that upon disposition of the DeMint amendment, the Senate resume consideration of the Hatch amendment, No. 45, with 2 minutes of debate equally divided and controlled prior to a vote in relation to the amendment, with no amendments in order to the amendment prior to a vote; that upon disposition of the Hatch amendment, the Senate proceed to executive session and the Banking Committee be discharged from further consideration of the nomination of Daniel K. Tarullo to be a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; that the Senate then proceed to vote on confirmation of the nomination; that upon confirmation, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action; that the Senate then resume legislative session; further, that after the first vote in this sequence, the remaining votes be 10 minutes in duration.

If I could say to Senators within the sound of my voice, we would be having more votes today, but I conferred with Senator McConnell. The Finance Committee is involved in marking up the economic recovery plan. There are scores of amendments they are trying to work through so we are limiting the number of amendments today. We are going to work hard tomorrow, as I indicated when we opened today. We are not going to have morning business all week. We are going to get these amendments processed as quickly as we can.

Mr. President, I have conferred with the Republican leader. This will be the last vote today. The Finance Committee is still meeting, and they expect to continue working tonight. I spoke to the chairman just a short time ago. He is going to do everything within his power to finish the markup tonight. We are going to get back tomorrow and again have no morning business. We will be back on this bill tomorrow. Everyone who has amendments to offer, get them ready.

Mr. President, following leader remarks, the Senate will be in a period for the transaction of morning business until 4 p.m. today. Senators will be permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

At 4 p.m., the Senate will turn to executive session to consider the nomination of Timothy Geithner to be Secretary of the Treasury, with the time until 6 p.m. equally divided and controlled between the chair and ranking member of the Finance Committee, Senators Baucus and Grassley, or their designees. At 6 p.m., the Senate will proceed to vote on the confirmation of the Geithner nomination.

Following executive session, the Senate will proceed to the consideration of H.R. 2, the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009.

At approximately 12:30 p.m. tomorrow, Kirsten Gillibrand will take the oath of office and become a Senator from the State of New York.

Mr. President, in the last Congress, the Senate passed an extension of the Children's Health Insurance Program with an overwhelming majority of 69 votes. In a Congress too often marred by partisan divide, this strong vote last session in favor of healthy children briefly stood as a bright example of the good that comes from Government--putting people ahead of politics.

Regrettably, President Bush chose to veto our bipartisan children's health legislation and because of a few too many loyal House Republicans in a narrowly divided House, that veto was upheld.

In Nevada, low-income families have been forced to put their children on waiting lists for future health coverage. In the year and a half since the veto, millions of children have been shut out of regular checkups, medicine, and hospital trips.

From coast to coast, more than 4 million children who would have been covered if our legislation had passed are not getting regular checkups or the care they need when they get sick.

Jeopardizing the health of American children is not a political victory for anyone. It is a loss for everyone, and it is long past time we corrected it.

This week, we have the chance, beginning tonight, to keep our promise to America's children by passing a new Children's Health Insurance Program. With the support of Democrats and Republicans in Congress and a new President in the White House poised to sign this bill into law, we can ensure that more low-income families can provide their children with the medical care they need to grow up strong and healthy.

Our legislation give States the resources and ability to insure an additional 4 million children. Our legislation covers the lowest income children first by giving States new tools to enroll uninsured children who qualify for Medicaid and rewarding States for successful enrollments in the Children's Health Insurance Program.

Our legislation doesn't just provide more children with health care but also improves the quality of care they receive.

In Nevada and across America, the number of uninsured children is rising. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that for every 1-point rise in our

national unemployment rate, 700,000 more children join the ranks of the uninsured. In Nevada and across America, the number of uninsured is rising every day. The number of uninsured children is rising every day, which makes it seem so unbearable for America to have so many uninsured children. The number of children who are not getting checkups, medicine, and emergency care is rising every day.

This week, the Senate will engage in an open, fair, and lively debate on this critical legislation. There will surely be points where Republicans and Democrats disagree on specifics. Democrats would have written this legislation to cover more children, but we compromised to create a bill Republicans would support.

Republicans may raise points of concern during the debate, and Democrats will consider their differing views. But during this debate, we should remember that the overwhelming majority of Democrats and Republicans agree on the fundamentals of this legislation.

I look forward to a productive debate, and I look forward to President Obama signing into law an extension of the Children's Health Insurance Program that will allow children of Nevada and all 50 States to get the care they need and deserve.