Floor Statements

Mr. President, the House is going to vote in the next half hour on the recovery plan. We are going to attempt this afternoon to get a consent agreement to move so that we will have a 60-vote margin to approve this legislation. We would do that sometime on Wednesday, late in the day.

In the meantime, we are working to see if we can complete an agreement to move and complete the Indian nuclear treaty, also on the same day. That would be Wednesday. I think we are very close to being able to work that out. That would allow all afternoon today, all day on Tuesday, and Wednesday to work on those two items.

I am happy to yield.

Yes. We have to make sure it passes the House. I am confident that will be the case. Yes, we will work to see if we can get agreement, both the majority and minority, to have a vote on that sometime Wednesday.

I also say I know there is a lot of anxiety, people wanting us to complete this this afternoon. We pushed things a lot, to a 12:30 vote. Many people wanted a much earlier vote. The holiday starts sundown today which, as I understand it, is around 6 o'clock, quarter to 6, maybe even earlier than that. People have to go home so they can prepare for the holiday.

I know people have said let's go ahead and do this anyway. We cannot do that. This is an important piece of legislation. It would be legislative malpractice for us not to talk about it before we vote on it. I am confident everyone understands that.

The one thing I didn't mention is we are going to have to have a final passage vote on the matter on which cloture was just invoked. We will also do

that on Wednesday. We should be able to complete--if things go well, we should complete all of our work Wednesday. The House is leaving today, so that fairly well limits what we can do. But if anyone has any questions, I will be happy to acknowledge them. We are having a caucus at 1:30 so we can talk to Democrats about this recovery program.

I am happy to.

That is right. I do say this will, of course--I could be wrong, but I am very confident there are enough votes to pass this legislation. There will be 60 votes to pass this recovery plan once we get it from the House. That should be in the next several hours. That will give people all the time that they need to talk about it. I do not want to be jammed in that regard. But there is no way we could do it. It is just not fair. This is the Senate where people are supposed to be able to talk. We just can't start voting on something that is costing the country up to $700 billion without at least advising our constituents why we are voting for or against something of this importance.

Mr. President, the House has had--has been debating this since 8 this morning. That is 5 hours. I just think it is inappropriate for us to have that matter--we will not even get the bill for another couple of hours. I think it is inappropriate for us to charge into this without having had the opportunity to work on it. If it passes the House, I have already said publicly I am confident there are enough votes to pass it in the Senate. I have no doubt that is true.

Everyone should just calm down. I know this is a mad rush, but we make mistakes by rushing into things. There is nothing wrong with our talking about this until Wednesday. That is the day after tomorrow. I think the anxiety of the chairman of the committee who has worked so hard on this--I know he would like to get this done so he can go home and spend some time with his little girls. But I think discretion is the better part of valor. I don't think it is appropriate, and I don't think we could do it if we wanted to. We have people who are gone because of the holiday. They are gone right now. It is not fair to them. I do not think it is fair to the body generally that we rush into this, with Senators being gone. There is no question the holiday has been announced for more than a year. For some people this is a very important time of the year for them for their religious observance, and I am not going to tell Senators who are already not here because of this that they are going to miss this most important vote.

I say to my friend, we have both Presidential candidates finally agree on one thing--we should pass this. Both agree. There are the two leaders, Senator McConnell and I have done what we can to advance this program. I have no doubt that it will pass the Senate. We will wait to see what happens in the House, but I have no doubt it will pass the Senate.

I am happy to.

I am happy to yield.

Through the Chair to my friend and all Senators, I have indicated what we have left on our plate to do. I hope we can complete that by Wednesday.

There are other things that could come up that may extend the time. We may not be able to finish things on Wednesday. There are things the House is sending over to us today, or not sending to us today, that we may have to act on. I am going to do my very best, working with the Republican leader, to get us out of here on Wednesday, but that is no guarantee. I am going to do the very best we can, but there may be other things that come up that we are forced to work on. Even though the House is gone, certain things they have done, if we decide we have the opportunity to do those, we may have to do some of those things.

I want everyone to know we will do our very best to get out of here sometime Wednesday night, but there is no guarantee on that, so I wouldn't make plans on Thursday to go golfing or anything like that.

Mr. President, I am pleased that both chambers of Congress passed the Breast Cancer and Environmental Research Act this week.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of women in this country receive the diagnosis of breast cancer. Breast cancer will strike approximately 1 in 8 American women in her lifetime, with a new case diagnosed every 2 minutes.

We have made remarkable progress in the area of breast cancer, but we still do not know what causes breast cancer. Scientists have identified some risk factors, but those factors help explain fewer than 30 percent of cases.

The Breast Cancer and Environmental Research Act would help to establish a national strategy to study the potential links between the environment and breast cancer and would authorize funding for such research. The resulting discoveries could be critical to improving our knowledge of this complex illness, which could lead to new treatments and perhaps, one day, a cure.

Too many women have wanted too long for this legislation to become law. Since former Senator Lincoln Chafee and I first introduced legislation in 2000, it is estimated that 2 million women have been diagnosed with breast cancer and almost 300,000 have died. One of these women, a lifelong Nevadan named Deanna Jensen, championed this legislation and stayed in regular contact with my staff, even while enduring a grueling regimen of radiation and chemotherapy. Sadly, Deanna Jensen lost her battle with cancer on January 7, 2007.

Last session, I had hoped that this legislation would finally become a reality. It was reported out of the Senate HELP Committee, and despite overwhelming bipartisan support for this legislation, the Republican majority would not schedule floor time to consider this bill. On several occasions, I tried to pass this legislation by unanimous consent, but with every attempt, one Senator objected and prevented the Senate from passing this important legislation.

This year, thanks to Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions-- HELP--Committee Chairman Kennedy's leadership and that of Senators Clinton and Hatch, the Senate HELP Committee reported this bill favorably. However, the minority continued to object to our efforts to pass this legislation by unanimous consent. On more than one occasion, I proposed that we consider this legislation under a time agreement that would have permitted a reasonable number of germane amendments and a recorded vote on the bill. Those offers were also rejected, in spite of the fact that over two-thirds of the members of the Senate were cosponsors of this bill.

Over the past several months, this legislation has been the focus of negotiations between the bill sponsors in both chambers and those members whose strong concerns have prevented this legislation from advancing for so long. The resulting compromise is a strong step in the right direction and will finally set us on the path towards obtaining a better understanding of the relationship between the development of breast cancer and the environment. I am pleased that we were able to pass this legislation this week and hope the President will sign it into law without further delay.

Mr. President, I would ask my distinguished friend from Louisiana, the senior Senator from Louisiana, to allow me to conduct some business. It will take a couple of minutes.

I ask the Chair to lay before the Senate a message from the House with respect to H.R. 2095, the Federal Railroad Safety Improvement Act.

The Presiding Officer laid before the Senate the following message:

Resolved, That the House agree to the amendment of the

Senate to the bill, H.R. 2095, an Act to amend title 49,

United States Code, to prevent railroad fatalities, injuries,

and hazardous materials releases, to authorize the Federal

Railroad Safety Administration, and for other purposes, do

pass with a House amendment to the Senate amendment.

Cloture Motion

I move to concur in the House amendment with the Senate amendment to H.R. 2095, and I send a cloture motion to the desk.

I now move to concur in the House amendment with the Senate amendment to H.R. 2095 with an amendment which is at the desk.

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

I ask for the yeas and nays.

I have a second-degree amendment at the desk.

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

I ask unanimous consent that there be no motions to refer in order during the pendency of this message.

Mr. President, I now ask unanimous consent that the cloture vote occur at 12:30 p.m. Monday, September 29, and that the mandatory quorum be waived.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, following the remarks of the leaders, if any, the Senate will proceed to the consideration of the House message to accompany H.R. 2638, the continuing resolution. The time until 10 a.m. will be equally divided and controlled between the leaders or their designees. At exactly 10 a.m., the Senate will proceed to a rollcall vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to concur in the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 2638.

As those of us here have seen, in trying to make entry to the Capitol, there is something of a bicycle race or performance of some kind. It has really slowed things up, so we are not going to terminate the vote in the normal 15-minute time schedule. We are going to make sure people have an opportunity to get here.

I say to all Members, unless something can be resolved by consent, we are going to file cloture today on the Department of Defense authorization bill, which will be a Monday vote. Hopefully, there does not have to be a vote tomorrow. Thirty hours after cloture was invoked on this matter will be sometime tomorrow afternoon. There are a number of ways we can do that. People wanting the extra 30 hours could waive that or they could let us have a voice vote tomorrow. As I understand it, there is only one Senator holding up this bill now. We will work on that during the next hour or so. It appears we may have to be in session tomorrow, with a vote on Monday. I know there is a holiday on Monday starting at sundown and going to sundown on Tuesday.

The staff worked until about 3 a.m. this morning on the bailout. They made significant progress. There are probably 15 issues still left outstanding. Senators are going to have to get together and resolve those. We hope sometime tomorrow evening we can announce that there has been some kind of an agreement in principle so the only thing that will have to be done is to write the legislation. We are still a long way from completing it, but we have made significant progress, as I just indicated. We will keep Senators advised on a timely basis as well as we can.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to Calendar No. 611, H.R. 5159.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment that is at the desk be considered and agreed to; the bill, as amended, be read three times, passed; the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record, as if given, with the above occurring with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I appreciate the bipartisan working relationship on the Rules Committee. Senators Feinstein and Bennett work so well together, and this is an example of that working relationship.

Again, for all Senators, we are going to vote at 10 o'clock this morning.

Under the previous order, the Senate will resume consideration of the House message to accompany H.R. 2638, which the clerk will report.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask that the time be charged against both the majority and the minority.

Madam President, we are now working our way through postcloture time. Everyone has been very courteous and agreeable. We will probably have to spend 2\1/2\ hours before we have the final vote on this CR. It will probably be around 1 o'clock. We would hope that we can condense the time. That would be 1 o'clock today rather than 4 o'clock or 5 o'clock tomorrow afternoon. That being the case, the only matter that is left that we have to be concerned about is the Department of Defense authorization. My plan, as I have explained to the Republican leader, is to file cloture on that today for a Monday cloture vote. We can't wait until Wednesday to do that, for obvious reasons. Now it appears our goal is to try to complete everything next week.

For the information of all Members, staff worked until 3 o'clock this morning on the rescue plan for the financial problems we have in America today.

There are a number of issues that need to be resolved by Members. Chairman Dodd has indicated he is going to get people together sometime today when appropriate. Staff has to move down the road a little bit longer. The goal is to try to come up with a final agreement by tomorrow. Now, we may not be able to do that, but we are trying very hard. It is something I think shows how we can work together. It is an issue on which none of us would like to be working, but we have to work on it.

If we are going to be able to do what it appears we can do, it will resolve a lot of the questions people have around the country because it is not the proposal we got from Secretary Paulson. It is one where Democrats and Republicans in the House and the Senate are working to get an end product.

Without getting into the details--I do not think we should do that now, and I talked to Chairman Dodd earlier today, and he also agrees we should not get into the details right now. But if we can do that, at least announce sometime tomorrow that we have the beginning of an agreement--we are told it is very important we do that--if we could do it by 6 o'clock tomorrow, it would be important because that is when the Asian markets open, and everyone is waiting for this thing to tip a little bit too far, that we may not have another day. But if we can announce an agreement, then it is going to take

some time to draft this because we know people want to read every line, as they should. We are going to work something out on that.

I have spoken to the Republican leader. It is possible, with the agreement of Senators Baucus and Grassley, that we could use a tax measure they already have, that we would start here first. Now, my inclination is not to do that. We should have the House do it first. But there are a lot of possibilities floating around. I am going to keep in as close touch as I can with Senator McConnell, and he will notify his Members when that is appropriate, and I will do the same.

So we will have one more vote today. We think we have that worked out. We do not have the actual agreement--I do have it. Everyone should know I am getting pretty good at reading Lula's writing, which is OK, but not real good.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that all postcloture time be yielded back except that the following be recognized to speak, and at the expiration of that time the Senate proceed to vote on the motion to concur, and there be no further intervening action or debate; that the people who will speak on the motion to concur be Senator Byrd, 15 minutes; Senator Cochran, 15 minutes; Senator Coburn, 15 minutes; Senator Sessions, 30 minutes; Senator Kyl, 10 minutes; Senator DeMint, 15 minutes; Senator Landrieu, 30 minutes.

Madam President, we are happy to change the 30 minutes in the consent that is being sought now to have 1 hour for the Senator from Louisiana. What we have been working on today is that there are a number of agricultural States: Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, and a lot of----

Mississippi, and a lot of other States. We have an agreement that there is a piece of legislation that Senators from a number of States will sign onto, Democrats and Republicans. Senator McConnell and I will do everything we can to bring it up. Everyone understands the Senate rules, and we will do our best to get it up.

Now, we cannot guarantee a vote, but we will guarantee that we will do everything we can to bring this matter before the Senate.

As modified, with Senator Landrieu having 1 hour, 60 minutes.

Madam President, I have prepared a speech that I want to give for my friend. We have worked together for so many years. I am going to do that on Monday. We are going to be in session on Monday, and we will likely have a vote Monday on the Defense Department authorization bill. If we don't, we are still going to be in session. I think we send the wrong message to America if we leave here with this bailout not having been done. So I am going to give my speech on Monday about you, I say to the Senator, and that would be a good time to give one.

Madam President, we will have time next week to make sure we do. There are a number of Senators who want to say a few words or many words--whatever they choose--about departing Senators. So we are going to have plenty of time to do that next week.

Mr. President, this is a great accomplishment for this Congress. Of course, we have battled our way through a lot of things, but this is an excellent piece of legislation. We funded the troops in more ways than one. Not only have we done the Defense appropriations bill, but we have done VA-HUD and Homeland Security. I wish we could have done all the appropriations bills, but we haven't done that. But we have funded the Government until March 6. I appreciate the cooperation of the distinguished Republican leader and all Senators because it took all Senators to get to the point where we are. I appreciate it very much.

We are going to have no more votes today. We will let everyone know as soon as we can as to what we are going to do on Monday. We are going to be in session on Monday. The question is, What are we going to do on Monday? We may have to have a vote on the Defense authorization bill. We may have to have a vote on the Amtrak bill. I failed to mention one thing to the Republican leader. I told him we had two things that were absolutely necessary. I forgot to mention one of them. We have to do, of course, the Defense authorization bill. We have to do Amtrak. We have to do the nuclear treaty with India. I have indicated to them we have a lands bill we are taking a look at, a package of bills. Each one of these is something we could complete next week.

For people who are concerned about the Indian nuclear agreement--and there are several Senators who have concerns--all we would be doing is running out the statutory time. At the end of that time, Senators have 10 hours of debate time. Then we vote. So there are very few hurdles we have to jump through on that other than running out the 30 days. We can do that the easy way or the hard way. Time started running on September 8. Those are legislative days we are in session.

Those are the things we have to do before we leave. Of course, I haven't mentioned the big one, which is the financial rescue plan. As I said this morning, staff worked until early this morning. I had a briefing an hour ago from my staff. Progress is still being made. They only have a handful of issues, literally, maybe a handful and a half, left that the Members of Congress who are part of this negotiation will finalize, and they will bring them to the respective floor leaders. Hopefully, we can bring it to the floor at a very early time.

As I indicated this morning, one of the things we want to do is have an outline of an agreement by 6 o'clock on Sunday because that would give recognition to the Asian markets opening. That is an important message. We have to make sure the markets aren't volatile.

We tend to look at the Dow Jones, but as we have learned--as I have learned--there are a lot of other financial indicators that are extremely important, and this week they have been in big trouble. As we have said, and will say, this is more than just a concern to Wall Street. A lot of these things would have a dramatic, fast impact on Main Street. That is what the negotiators are working on.

So no more votes today. We will let everyone know as soon as we can what votes there will be on Monday. If we have a vote on Monday, it is a very narrow window because of the holiday that starts at sundown on Monday night. That vote would be between 11:30 and 12:30.

Don't forget Arkansas.

Mr. President, I ask the Chair to lay before the Senate a message from the House with respect to S. 3001, the Department of Defense authorization bill.

The Presiding Officer laid before the Senate the following message from the House of Representatives:

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate concur in the House amendment to the Senate bill, and that the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I have said on many occasions--and I say it again--this bill is a great piece of work.

Has the bill passed?

OK. Now, I said it before, and I will say it again: I so admire and respect the two managers of this bill who have worked together on this bill for 30 years. There was a time this year when we thought this would be the first year in those 30 years that my friends have worked on this bill that it would not pass. And it did. It is done.

It is a great day for America. It is a great day for our troops. As I have said to my two friends, I appreciate so much being able to work with you. It is a great honor for me that the two distinguished senior Senators, whom I have so much respect and admiration for, would allow me to, being a part of the Senate, come and offer this consent agreement. I am going to talk on Monday about my friend from Virginia who is leaving. So I will save those words for him. He already knows the knowledge I have of our friendship.

Mr. President, I came to the floor and waiting was my friend, Senator Durbin of Illinois, the assistant Democratic leader. He is always available. Whenever the Senate needs him or I have a problem, he is the first person I call. He gets little notoriety or credit for all the work he does.

We came to Washington together in 1982 as freshmen Members of the House of Representatives. I have had the good fortune of being able to serve with him for some 26 years. He is such a good friend, such a great orator, has such a great mind. He is such a great asset to the Senate, to me, and, of course, to the State of Illinois.

I appreciate calling him, as I do many mornings, and he is there very quickly. He helps me work through the day's issues. I publicly acknowledge what a good Senator he is and what a good friend he is.

Mr. President, following the remarks of the leaders, if there are any, we will be in a period of morning business, with Senators allowed to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

I ask that on the Democratic side--we are going to try to do this on a rotating basis--on the Democratic side Senator Harkin and Senator Schumer be the first speakers.

Negotiations on the agreement to vote in relation to the stimulus legislation is ongoing. If we have a vote on that legislation, it will be at 11 or 11:30 a.m. today. That will be the only vote today. We hope to reach agreement so we can have that vote, as I indicated.

We also should tell everyone we are working very hard to do something on the bailout of our financial institutions. We know we have an obligation to do that. A lot of Senators have a lot of questions about where we are in this situation.

We were at the White House last night. Our meeting was reconvened on the second floor of the Capitol last night, and Secretary Paulson was here, Senator Dodd, Senator Gregg, Chairman Frank, and Chairman Baucus. They worked into the nighttime and finished at 10:30, 11 o'clock last night. They are going to reconvene this morning.

Right now, out of 100 percent of the Congress--we have the Democrats in the Senate, Republicans in the Senate, Democrats in the House, Republicans in the House--we only have three of those Members trying to work something out. The House has basically walked away from everything. We were doing pretty well until the meeting at the White House yesterday.

We are going to continue to work hard. We understand the urgency of addressing this situation. We will have more to say about this issue later. We are doing our very best.

I hope the two Presidential candidates will go to the debate tonight and leave us alone to get our work done here. It would be a great aid to what we are trying to do.

We are going to come in about 9:30 Saturday morning. We are going to vote an hour after that time on the CR. There is other business we can do tomorrow. We will try.

It is quite evident we will be in session next week. We have a lot of business to do that has not been done. I will mention a couple. We have the DOD authorization, which is very important, rail safety, Amtrak. Of course, I have already talked about the financial crisis legislation. We have the Indian nuclear agreement. I have had a number of conversations with Secretary Rice and President Bush on this issue. We have another bunch of bills a Republican Senator has held up, and we probably will have to file cloture on those before we leave.

There are a number of moving parts. We are going to try to put them together. We are going to do our very best to keep Senators advised as to what is going to happen chronologically. As everyone who serves in the Senate knows, we cannot be specific at any given time. We will do our best so people have an idea of what the weekend holds and what next week holds.

Next week, as I indicated before, is a little bit more complicated because we have a Jewish holiday starting at sundown on Monday, ending sundown on Tuesday. So we will not be working that period of time, that is for sure.

Mr. President, has my friend completed his statement?

I join in the statement of the distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Committee, former majority leader and minority leader, assistant leader, secretary--no one has a more astounding and accomplished record in the Senate than Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia.

Mr. President, this will be the last time this year we will be able to vote on an economic recovery package. The plan we vote on today will provide targeted investments that will help working people now, not weeks or months from now. The dollars we invest in this legislation will come right back to our economy by creating jobs, rebuild our crumbling infrastructure and help small businesses grow.

With 605,000 jobs lost this year alone, this legislation extends unemployment benefits by 7 weeks across our country and by 13 weeks States with particularly high unemployment rates.

With States across America facing budget shortfalls as revenue dries up, this legislation provides funds to prevent State services like health care and education from deteriorating.

We invest in energy efficiency and clean energy programs to help Americans switch to cleaner energy sources that will cost less as oil prices continue to reach record highs.

We invest in our crumbling infrastructure, which will not only help small and large businesses but will create nearly 400,000 good jobs.

We help Americans who are at risk of losing their homes by supporting the Federal Housing Administration, providing tools to stop mortgage fraud, and funding legal assistance for foreclosure prevention.

This legislation also invests in job training, health care and small businesses to give our working Americans and our economy a desperately needed boost.

As I have said before, Members of Congress from both parties will continue working as long as it takes to resolve the bailout legislation.

But we do not have to wait until that bill is passed and implemented to help struggling American families and businesses. I urge all my colleagues to support these wise investments in the places and people that need help the most.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 5571 and we now proceed to its consideration.

I ask unanimous consent a Conrad amendment which is at the desk be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read a third time, passed, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements be printed in the Record.

I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 3606.

I ask unanimous consent the bill be read a third time, passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and if there are statements I ask consent that they be printed in the Record.