Floor Statements

Madam President, my good friend, the senior Senator from Iowa, has allowed me to go before him, and I appreciate it. He has been waiting here patiently on the floor. I have a few remarks I wish to make regarding Mr. Geithner.

In this time of economic crisis, I want to add my strong support for President Barack Obama's nominee for Secretary of Treasury, Timothy Geithner.

In the past month, some of our country's largest corporations have announced major layoffs numbering in the hundreds of thousands. On the news this morning, major layoffs have been announced throughout America. Today, it is hard to comprehend, but the Nevada Department of Employment reported unemployment in the State has jumped to 9.1 percent. The foreclosure crisis has not eased. The credit crunch persists. Uncertainty continues to reign on Wall Street, draining pension funds and individual investors of their savings and blocking the flow of credit for families and businesses that need it so badly.

This powerful economic storm that we have never seen before demands strong, decisive, and wise leadership. No one, in my opinion, is more qualified or prepared for the task than Tim Geithner. He has spent his entire career as a public servant. He has worked at the Treasury Department, the International Monetary Fund, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. With his experience and expertise, Tim Geithner could have written his own financial ticket to the private sector anytime of his choosing and made huge amounts of money. But in an age that has been tarnished by corporate greed, I think it is refreshing--and we should all feel that way--to see a man of obvious gifts choose to lead a life of public service. Has he made mistakes? He acknowledged that. Were there mistakes he made that any one of us could have made? Of course.

He was part of the core team that designed the Government's response to the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s, as well as the current crisis. At the New York Fed, he worked with Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke. He has seen the crisis unfold, as well as the initial Bush administrations's response. I think he is uniquely suited to know the difference between what has worked and what has failed. Some has worked and a lot has failed.

During his confirmation hearings and in meetings with Members in recent weeks, Tim Geithner has shown a calm temperament and an eagerness to listen and cooperate with Congress. He clearly recognizes that Congress is an equal partner and that it will take a unified effort to right our economy. Just as important, he understands that part of what we face is a crisis of confidence and that the public's confidence cannot be restored without transparency, oversight, and taxpayer protections.

There are few who envy the road ahead for the next Treasury Secretary. There will be no easy fixes or cheap answers, but no one is better prepared today than Tim Geithner to fill this critical role.

This nominee has my support, and once he is confirmed, I expect him to have the support of Congress in the difficult months and years ahead. I hope the support and I am confident the support will come from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. There are some who may choose not to vote for him, but I would hope that after this confirmation takes place, we will all join to help this good man try to bring our country back to financial security once again.

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

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the consideration of H.R. 2 be for debate only during today's session. There will be no amendments in order tonight.

Mr. President, I rise today to join with the millions of Asian Americans around the country in celebration of Chinese New Year. Last year, I was pleased to introduce a resolution honoring the historical and cultural significance of this holiday, and today, I am equally delighted to recognize all those welcoming in the Year of the Ox.

The festivities surrounding the Chinese New Year are steeped in rich cultural tradition. The 15-day-long celebrations marks one of the most important times for Chinese Americans and Asian Americans from many backgrounds and ethnicities to gather together with family and friends. Mouth-watering aromas will fill their homes as families sit down to New Year's Eve meals, and children will eagerly await receiving lucky red money envelopes. Many will watch or participate in vibrantly colored dragon dances, a symbol of prosperity and good fortune.

In our State of Nevada, the festivities held in Las Vegas, in particular, draw thousands of visitors, where many of the city's hotels feature spectacular decorations, dragon dances, and restaurants serving traditional dishes. And all across our great State, families will flock to community festivals featuring dances, crafts, food, and fireworks-- the sights, sounds, and smells that make Chinese New Year such a jubilant celebration.

This year marks the 4706th year in the Chinese calendar, based on the lunar cycles. As it unfolds, I hope those observing Chinese New Year will enjoy this special time to honor traditions, spend time with their families, and eagerly anticipate what blessings the Year of the Ox may bring. To the thousands of Chinese American Nevadans and many others celebrating today, I send my best wishes for a joyous celebration and a prosperous New Year.

Mr. President, this resolution concerns a subpoena for testimony in a criminal case against former Pennsylvania State Senator Vincent J. Fumo in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. In this case, Mr. Fumo and two others are charged with multiple counts of conspiracy, fraud, obstruction of justice, and filing false tax returns. Among the charges is that Mr. Fumo, as chairman of the Senate Democratic Appropriations Committee, arranged for a friend, referred to as ``Senate Contractor No. 5'' in the indictment, to obtain a contract under which he was paid $150,000 over 5 years, but performed little or no work. To rebut the allegation that no work was performed under the contract, the defense has subpoenaed Senator Specter's former chief of staff, David Urban, to testify as a fact witness at trial as to contracts about and a meeting he had with Senate Contractor No. 5 during that 5-year contract. During that meeting, which was a typical meeting for a United States Senate office, Senate Contractor No. 5 explored possible federal funding for a low-income housing project in South Philadelphia. Neither the meeting nor the

project itself are the subject of the criminal complaint. Senator Specter has no objection to allowing the testimony.

The enclosed resolution would authorize Mr. Urban to testify in this matter.

Mr. President, following leader remarks, there will be a period of morning business for up to 1 hour, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each during that period of time. The Republicans will control the first 30 minutes and the majority will control the second 30 minutes.

Following morning business, the Senate will resume consideration of S. 181. There will be 60 minutes for debate equally divided and controlled between Senators Mikulski and Hutchison. At approximately 11:30 a.m., the Senate will proceed to a rollcall vote in relation to the Hutchison amendment. There have been a number of other amendments laid down. Senator Enzi, it is my understanding, and Senator Specter have laid down some amendments. We are going to do our best to dispose of those as quickly as possible today and move on to other things.

We have a number of nominations we have to consider. We have at least one important piece of legislation we must deal with before we get to the economic recovery legislation. So we have a lot to do. We are going to do our best to not have a lot of procedural problems, and I am hopeful we can finish this legislation very quickly today and move on to other matters.

Mr. President, we have been making progress on this bill. People are cooperating. While we have a lot of Senators in the Chamber, I have to add that we have a lot of work to do. I mentioned briefly yesterday, and I will say briefly again today, when the time is up, the vote is going to be cut off. It will affect Republicans and Democrats, but maybe we will get here in time to vote. We cannot hold up this place, we have so much work to do. We are going to finish Ledbetter today or tonight. Whatever it takes, we will finish that. I think we have set a good tone. I hope I do not have to file cloture on this tonight for a Saturday cloture vote. I don't want to do that. We have a lot of other things we can do that we can get done and not have to mess with the weekend.

I am in touch with the Republican leader, and I think we have a way of moving forward next week, but everyone who has amendments to offer on Ledbetter should do it today and we can finish this early this evening, late this afternoon, or sometime tonight.

We have other things to do. We have nominations we have to move. I spoke to the Republican floor staff today. They said they are hotlining a number of nominations. President Obama is getting very anxious on the nominations that have not been approved. He wants to get that done as quickly as possible, to get the country moving with the Cabinet spots being filled.

The manager of the bill, Senator Mikulski, is in charge of this legislation, as she is in charge of everything in her life. I appreciate her good work, and we are going to move this bill. She understands we are going to finish this bill today.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The only problem, I say to my friend from Georgia, is we do not have a copy of it. If we could see it, that would be terrific.

What we are trying to do, I say to Senator Isakson and the rest of the people in the Chamber, is, we have a number of amendments that have been filed. We want to try to set them up. We want to try to set up a process to get rid of the amendments that have already been filed. We certainly look forward to the Senator from Georgia offering the amendment.

I see no reason we should not go ahead and have the Senator offer that now. Everyone should be alerted we are going to have the managers of this legislation clear the decks after Senator Isakson offers his amendment. If people want to offer amendments after that, certainly that is appropriate. But we are going to get rid of these amendments either by tabling them or having votes on them after people have had enough debate on them.

Sure.

I saw it. Just lay it down now.

Amendment No. 37

We have scheduled at 4 o'clock the swearing in of the new Senator from Colorado. We are going to complete this vote before we do that.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Vitter amendment is offered, which will be very quickly, there be 15 minutes for debate, 10 minutes for Senator Vitter, 5 minutes for Senator Mikulski; that upon the use or yielding back of time, the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the amendment; that no amendment be in order to the amendment prior to the vote; that upon disposition of the Vitter amendment, no further amendments be in order, the bill be read a third time, and the Senate proceed to vote on passage of the bill; that the vote on passage would be as if it were a cloture vote, and that if the threshold is achieved, the bill is passed, with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I, on behalf of all Senate leadership, appreciate the way we have moved through this legislation. Now, were all of these votes easy? No, they were not easy. Some of them were difficult votes for a number of my Senators, I am sure on the other side of the aisle as well. But this is the way we need to operate as a Senate.

Were all of these amendments offered germane? No. But the people have a right to offer amendments. So I appreciate everyone's cooperation to this point. We are going to move forward, we hope, to work out, and we are going to clear, some of the nominations of President Obama tonight or tomorrow.

We also hope we can arrange to have, Monday night, a vote on Treasury Secretary-designee Geithner. We will try to do that at a time convenient. It has been suggested to me that time would be about 6 o'clock. We will probably come in sometime in the afternoon. It is my understanding that people who are for and against him want 2 hours of debate equally divided. But if people want to talk more, we can come in earlier in the afternoon and do some morning business, and people can talk about whatever they want during that time.

We also understand we are going to be able to move to the SCHIP bill without filing cloture. I was going to file cloture on that tonight, but it is my understanding that we can start that Monday night and work through the amendments on that next week. We are going to finish that next week. I understand there will be a lot of amendments. I am sure that is the case.

The reason we have to complete work on it next week is that we must move to the economic recovery package. We only have 2 weeks to finish that. I want to spend a good, long, hard week finishing what we are doing before we send our product to the House because we need that final week to make sure we do conferences and messages and work out whatever differences we have between the two bills.

We are not going to be able to take our recess for Presidents Day unless we finish that legislation. I think everyone agrees, Democrats and Republicans agree, we need to get this done. The imperative of doing this every day becomes more pronounced, in my mind. We had our Democratic policy committee today where we had Alan Blinder, who is a Democrat; Martin Feldstein is a Republican; and Mark Zandi, who I think is a Republican. I am pretty sure he is. He was one of Senator McCain's chief advisers. They all agreed and, in fact, Mark Zandi said to me before the presentation: You are going to be hearing from dark, darker, to darkest. We have economic problems that have never been seen in this country or the world before and we have to work to see what we can do to help alleviate the problems that exist out in that difficult financial world in which we find ourselves.

So that is why people should not plan on next weekend going home. You should plan on being here. If there is a way we can work our way around that, I will be happy to do that. But I think the chances are quite slim that we would be able to do that.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that on Monday, at 4 p.m., the Senate proceed to Executive Session to consider the nomination of Calendar No. 3, Timothy Geithner to be Secretary of the Treasury; that there be 2 hours of debate with respect to the nomination, equally divided and controlled between the chair and the ranking member of the Finance Committee or their designee; that at 6 p.m., with no intervening action or debate, the Senate proceed to vote on confirmation of the nomination; that upon 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 ask unanimous consent that upon disposition of the Geithner nomination and resuming legislative session, the Senate proceed to Calendar No. 18, H.R. 2, the Children's Health Insurance Program Improvements Act.

Mr. President, following leader remarks, the Senate will proceed to executive session to consider the nomination of Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State. There will be up to 3 hours of debate equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees. The designee I have on this side is the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator John Kerry.

The Senate will recess from 12:45 until 2:15 p.m. today to allow for the weekly caucus luncheons. We tried to make it clear last night, but if we did not, for further clarification I ask unanimous consent that the time during the recess not count against the time reserved for debate on the nomination.

Mr. President, upon disposition of the Clinton nomination, the Senate will resume consideration of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and debate the pending Hutchison amendment. We hope to complete the vote on that today. I understand there are other Senators who have amendments to offer. I ask they be ready to offer them sometime this afternoon or this evening. In addition, the managers are working on an arrangement to consider additional amendments in order to complete any action on this bill. This bill is open for amendment when we finish the Clinton nomination, so I hope people are ready to work on that.

Madam President, I appreciate the leadership of the chair of our Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Kerry. In the short time he has assumed the responsibilities of that most important committee, he has done a remarkably good job, and the best is yet to come. He mentioned here briefly some of the things he wants to do dealing with the scourge we find ourselves in with global warming, and it is going to be remarkable, the work he does.

Madam President, we are moving forward on the vote on the nomination of Senator Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State.

Senator Clinton is uniquely capable and profoundly prepared to lead our

State Department at a time of unprecedented global challenges, and at a time when quick confirmation of President Obama's national security team is critical to protect us here at home.

We face two wars abroad, a complex and unpredictable crisis in the Middle East, the nuclear ambitions of a volatile Iranian regime, together with the complexities of dealing with North Korea.

Senator Clinton has earned the admiration and respect of the global community with her understanding that our international power must be both strong and smart, that the true measure of our influence is not just the size and strength of our military, but also how we use other tools, including diplomacy and foreign assistance, to make the world safer and more free.

Senator Clinton's exemplary qualifications and wise world view were demonstrated in her confirmation hearings, where she showed a tremendous breadth and depth of knowledge on the major foreign policy issues we face in the world today.

We all remember Hillary Clinton's arrival in the Senate a few short years ago--8 years ago. Some wondered--and some out loud--whether a former First Lady who had become a favored target of the rightwing could forge the relationships necessary to be an effective Senator for the people of New York State. She answered that loud, and she answered it very clear.

Some questioned whether a person of such national and international acclaim would put in the time to get to know the inner workings of the Senate and the nitty-gritty of the legislative process. She answered that big time.

It took no time for Senator Clinton to make believers from those doubters. She became an instant favorite of Democrats and Republicans alike, a forceful advocate for both smart foreign policies and domestic policies, and a remarkably effective student of bipartisanship.

In her time as First Lady of our country, serving as an American emissary to the world, and then in the Senate as a member of the Armed Services Committee, Hillary Clinton built the diplomatic skills and breadth of knowledge one needs to be our next Secretary of State. She has the full package.

All but one member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted to approve this outstanding nominee. Democrats and Republicans alike stand in support of our friend and colleague, Senator Clinton.

I want spread on the Record my appreciation for John McCain coming to the floor and saying: Let's approve her now. He tried to do that earlier today.

I ask all my colleagues to join me in sending the world a clear message that we stand behind President Obama and our new Secretary of State as they proceed together to the task of rebuilding our foreign policy to be stronger, smarter, and more able to effectively lead the world with moral strength once again.

Madam President, first, we yield back all time on both sides.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now vote on confirmation of the nomination of Senator Clinton to be Secretary of State, with the remaining provisions of the previous unanimous consent agreement in effect.

I would also say this: For all the new Senators and those who may have forgotten, we are starting this vote a little earlier, so we will be lenient here and not tie down the 15-minute rule. But in the future, we are going to start this Congress as we ended the last one. We are going to have 15-minute votes. There will be a 5-minute time period for people who are late getting here. But at the end of 20 minutes, the votes are going to be closed. This will be hard on Democrats and hard on Republicans, but it is a lot harder on everybody waiting around here for these people to come to vote. So some people are going to miss some votes, and I am sorry about that, but it is better for the body if we have votes that end when they are supposed to.

As soon as this matter is completed relating to the confirmation of Hillary Clinton, we are going to go back to Ledbetter. We would hope that the Kay Bailey Hutchison amendment in the form of a substitute, which has been offered, can be debated today and that we can vote on that this evening.

Madam President, would the Senator from Texas yield without losing her right to the floor?

There is a lot of time. We are going to be in session as long as people want to talk. The issue before the Senate now is an amendment offered by the Senator from Texas. Senator Mikulski, who is managing this bill, has been trying to get a time as to how long the debate will take on this tonight. The distinguished Republican leader asked that we try to figure out what amendments are going to be laid down tonight, and we will try to set up a series of votes, if necessary, in the morning. So no one should feel they are being cut off. There is plenty of time. We are not going anyplace tonight. We are on the Ledbetter legislation. I would hope we could work our way toward a vision of completing this legislation sometime early tomorrow. I appreciate the Senator from Texas moving forward with this.

I know the strong feelings of the Senator from Vermont about this Ledbetter legislation. It is a legal issue, and he is chairman of the Judiciary Committee. But I hope everyone will be calm and relax. There is plenty of time for everyone to say whatever they want tonight.

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 the immediate consideration en bloc of S. Res. 18 and S. Res. 19, submitted earlier today; that the resolutions be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table en bloc. They have been approved by the Republican leader.