Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that during the pendency of the PEPFAR matter, there be no motions to proceed in order.

Mr. President, in this body, both sides need to exercise good faith. I appreciate very much what the distinguished Republican leader has been able to work out in the last couple hours. We are going to do our very best. This is a very difficult time we find ourselves in in our country. We have housing matters for which I have had three calls today from the Secretary of the Treasury, and he does not call me very often. It is a very serious situation we have with housing. We are trying to get the House to do what we think is right for this country. We know the energy issue is right for our trying to do something.

So, Mr. President, I am going to do my very best. I have expressed to the distinguished Republican leader, unless there is something I do not understand that comes up untoward, we are going to have all those 10 amendments debated and voted upon. And I indicated to the Republican leader that there will be no cloture filed unless he thinks it is appropriate. And if he does not want his fingerprints on it, I will do it on my own, but he will be closely advised of anything we do in that regard.

Mr. President, on behalf of Senators Biden and Lugar, I call up the managers' amendment, which Senator Lugar was on the floor wanting to do earlier today, but because of issues he was unable to do that. So this is the substitute amendment.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be a period for the transaction of morning business, with Senators allowed to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 829, H.R. 3985.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time, passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 611.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that all statements relating to this resolution be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 612.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements relating to this measure be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 613.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements relating to this matter be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, we are going to be able to move through this PEPFAR legislation. It would be good for our country if we pass it. I also have spoken to the Speaker. She agrees with me and Senator McConnell that we should move this housing fix quickly. The President and his people have submitted to us some language that we think, from all we can tell, is appropriate. Senator Dodd is agreeing we should move forward. I think there is a sense we should do this within the next couple of days. This is something that is important.

With the housing crisis, the main reason we do this is to make sure people understand that we have faith in our financial markets. Fannie and Freddie, we believe, with the attention being focused on them over the weekend and today, have stabilized, and that is the way it should be. We are going to try to move forward on this very quickly.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow, Tuesday, July 15; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate proceed to a period of morning business for up to 1 hour, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the Republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling the second half; that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of S. 2731, the Global AIDS bill, and when the Senate resumes consideration of the bill, the majority leader or his designee be recognized to move to table the DeMint amendment No. 5078. I further ask the Senate stand adjourned from 12:30 to 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly policy luncheons.

I would say, Mr. President, Senators should expect the first vote of the day to occur as early as 11 a.m. tomorrow morning.

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

Mr. President, I think it is important to let all Senators know that we worked very hard, late into the night, with significant members of the Senate staff. We worked very hard. In fact, I got home a little bit after midnight this morning, as did others.

We are going to have a couple of votes this evening. The first vote we are going to take is our housing bill, a bill that would help families struggling

to keep their homes and families struggling with the foreclosure crisis--and it is a crisis. The second piece of legislation we are going to vote on is called PEPFAR, an initiative introduced by President Bush in 2003 to confront the crisis in Africa, the continent- wide problem we have dealing with HIV/AIDS, where 8,000 people are dying from AIDS every day on that continent. That is a death toll that doesn't take vacations. They are dying today and they are dying tomorrow. It is a weekend, but that doesn't matter; holidays are not a day off. People continue to die. That is what this legislation is about, to try to stem the tide of this scourge which has swept that continent.

Both these bills, the housing bill and the AIDS bill, rightfully have the support of virtually all Democrats and a significant number of Republicans. Both these bills could have long since been passed and sent to the President's desk and we could have been on other important priorities, such as the energy crisis. I say that with regard to housing. I say that with regard to the legislation I talked about dealing with PEPFAR. They both could have been passed a long time ago.

We now have a situation--I am looking for a chart here. I don't know what happened to it. I would say there is a hunt going on in the cloakroom for our chart. We have a few stacked back there. Maybe one of the Republican staff stole it.

I don't know what happened to it, but let's pretend I have a chart here that says ``82 Republican filibusters.'' Remember, this is our Velcro chart, and you can just peel off the numbers. Here is what we have. We have the Velcro pieces but no chart.

Let's just pretend we have a great big white chart here and the Velcro. See my Velcro? Just pop it on here. It doesn't work. It won't work--well, it is working. It looked a lot better when we had our chart before. Somebody swiped it.

We started in the 50s, and they keep adding up, and now it is 82. Every one of those filibusters has taken huge amounts of time from the Senate. After cloture is invoked, under the rules of the Senate you have 30 hours where basically you can do nothing except wait for the 30 hours to go by with a few speeches. Think about it, 82 times 30-- sometimes the 30 hours wasn't used, but most of the time it was in an effort to obstruct and delay. That is what we have had in the housing bill, and that is what is happening now on this global AIDS piece of legislation.

It is a small number of people holding up these matters, but it is still the Republicans holding them up. Because of the obstructionism we had on these two matters last night, we worked, as I indicated, until midnight. We thought we had an agreement worked out which would have allowed us to proceed, but one Senator prevented us from doing this. Because of that, our bipartisan negotiations late into the night were all for nothing.

Today, we must hold an unnecessary set of votes that could have been agreed to by unanimous consent. No Senator is complaining because we have to be here on Friday. We work when we have to work. But it is just a question of what we should be doing while we are here. We could have been doing other things, but we are here today. We are going to vote on a couple of votes that are unnecessary. We could have been doing other things. We could have spent the time constructively, as I indicated, on other matters.

It is interesting to note that the Senator who has held this up and other Republican Senators--they have been coming to the floor all week criticizing the Senate for not moving to address the energy crisis. But one reason we are not moving forward on a lot of other things, including the energy crisis facing this country, is because we have been held up on so many different bills.

Everyone should know that this is a record that has broken any other time in the history of our country. This is filibuster on steroids. This is the Flo-Jo of filibusters--the great runner. She broke all records. We are breaking all records. If the American people wonder why Congress has not passed yet another piece of legislation to help ease the energy crisis, the housing crisis, and the many other problems facing this country, they need look no further than this number 82, right here. If anyone wonders why the American people are frustrated with Congress, all they need to do is look at the number 82.

Despite these setbacks, this has been a productive week in the Senate. Since the filibusters--plural--have started on the housing legislation, there have been about 130,000 new foreclosures filed. Every legal workday, usually Monday through Friday when the courthouses are open, people are filing 8,500 new foreclosures on homes around the country. That is a lot of foreclosures. We should have worked on this housing bill long ago, and we tried to, but we were held up by the Republican filibusters. We have legislation we are going to vote on this afternoon at 5:20 that will help struggling homeowners and prevent conditions that led to the foreclosure crisis happening in the first place. So we have done that.

Here, Wednesday afternoon, a vote started at 4 o'clock, one of the most historic times in the history of this institution, one of the most historic times in the 230 years-plus of our country being in existence. What was that? We, America, have a lot of wonderful programs. The most successful social program in the history of the world is Social Security, a program that helps those in their golden years with an old- age pension check. Social Security helps the disabled, it helps widows, it helps orphans. It is a wonderful program--that President Bush wanted to privatize. Think about that. Had we been unsuccessful in stopping his privatization, how do you think Social Security recipients would feel today with the stock market going down, down, down? It would have been a terrible decision for the American people.

The other program the President doesn't like is Medicare. Medicare is not a program as successful as Social Security. It is an imperfect program, but it is a good program. It is a program I have seen in my political life. My first elected political job was chairman of the board of trustees of Southern Nevada Memorial Hospital. When I took that job, 40 percent of the seniors who were admitted to that hospital had no way of paying their bill. When I left, Medicare had come into being, and 100 percent of the people who were old, coming to that hospital, had their health insurance taken care of through Medicare. It is an imperfect but good program. President Bush does not like the program. He has tried to privatize it.

What happened Wednesday afternoon at 4 o'clock? The program was saved. The program was saved by virtue of a courageous man named Ted Kennedy who got out of his sickbed, literally, to come here and cast the deciding vote. His was the 60th vote that allowed us to move forward and, I repeat, save Social Security.

Senator Kennedy was a Senator when Medicare came into existence. He said that he would not let it fail, even though we all know it was very dangerous to him, from a health perspective, to fly from Boston down here and then have to fly back after the vote was cast.

But it was a productive week, because not only did he cast the vote that made passage of the bill, but as a result of that, courageous Republicans, realizing he had done what had not been done, stepped forward and said, you know, the President has done enough. We have backed him long enough. We are going to vote the right way.

So we had the original nine, plus nine more. We had 18 Republicans, far more than enough to override a Presidential veto. I hope the President does not veto this bill. I hope he does not. But I am grateful to Senator Kennedy, as are all the American people. We have rules. It is against Senate rules for the people in Galleries to clap. No one could stop them. No one could stop Senators from clapping, cheering, and crying for the act Senator Kennedy performed.

So we did that. We are going to, this afternoon, pass the housing bill and send it back to the House. We also completed FISA legislation. I did not agree with the result, but it was an accomplishment for this body to finally work its way through all the problems we had procedurally to get that complete.

Now, I would hope with the Medicare bill being saved by Senator Kennedy,

President Bush does not veto that. Every day that goes by that he does not sign that bill, people in America are suffering. They are suffering because doctors are going to drop out of the system. As we know, patients will not be taken care of, veterans, whose funding and reimbursement is based upon Medicare, who are part of the TRICARE system, about 8 million servicemen and their families, are being denied those benefits.

So the President should not do this simply because he wants to privatize Medicare. He is not going to win; he is going to lose that battle. So why does he want to do that? We had 355 votes in the House, 69 in the Senate, enough to override the veto. So I call upon the President to not veto this bill; sign it so we can get this worked out, and we will end this situation once and for all.

We have talked about the global AIDS bill. We are moving ahead with this legislation. It continues the support for America's efforts to join the world community in fighting against this disaster we have on that continent, global HIV/AIDS, which is so pronounced in that continent.

President Bush has worked with Democrats and Republicans to help get this legislation passed, over the objections last night of one person, perhaps a small handful urging this one man on. Despite that, I am confidant we are going to pass this legislation.

I should mention how glad my fellow Democrats and I were to have our nominee for President here to cast a vote on these important bills. Senator Obama understood the importance of the Medicare legislation, and he stepped down here and voted. But for him we would not have had the necessary votes to pass this. He was also here when the GI bill of rights came up, landmark legislation, repaying our valiant troops who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan and deserve the same rights to be educated as those World War II veterans.

Senator Barack Obama was here to vote on that. On the FISA legislation, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act legislation, Barack Obama cast his vote on that legislation. John McCain did not.

The American people should also know that despite the delay tactics we have seen this week that have kept us from a debate on energy, Democrats and most all Senators, Democrats and Republicans, are committed to addressing the energy crisis with both long- and short- term solutions.

This is not a Democratic or Republican issue. We all acknowledge much needs to be done. Last night I held a meeting a few feet out of this Senate Chamber. I had a productive meeting--We had former Senator Jim Sasser, who was conducting the meeting--Senator Sasser of Tennessee, chairman of the Budget Committee, subcommittee chairman of Appropriations, subcommittee chair on Banking, one of America's great Senators. He was an Ambassador to China when his Senate career came to an end.

He was there as a moderator. We had the director of Global Oil Group--the Yergin Group. He has written books on the situation with petroleum around the world. We had the chief executive officer of United Airlines. Keep in mind, this man has been president of Texaco, the vice chairman of Chevron, and now the chief executive officer of United. If anyone should have an understanding of what is going on with our energy markets, our business community, he should. He was tremendous in outlining this information for us.

We had the head of global commodities at JPMorgan, the portfolio manager of Masters Capital Management, the CEO of NYMEX, and a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law. His expertise is in this area. It was a very good meeting. It lasted a long time.

The group strongly agreed we must take steps to stem speculation in energy prices. Is speculation the only problem? Of course not. But is speculation a problem? Of course it is. This group agreed that speculators drive up prices for their own gain, while the American people are left feeling the pain.

It was agreed that now is the appropriate time for President Bush to draw oil out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, as his father did. It was also agreed we must increase domestic oil production in the 68 million acres of land that oil companies currently lease but are not using.

The group agreed that any oil drilled in America should be sold to the America marketplace, not to China, Japan, India, as is currently happening. By the way, when there was a vote on this, Senator McCain voted that it was not necessary, that American oil produced be used by Americans. He, by his vote, indicated it could be used in other countries. We disagree. The group disagreed last night.

So we need to take steps curtailing energy speculation, we need to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, we need to increase the supply in the 68 million leased but unused acres in America, and earmarking domestic oil for American consumers.

We also agreed last night that combined with increased and sustained investment in clean alternative fuel sources, the wind, the Sun and geothermal, we will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, will strengthen the economy and improve our environment.

If we do all of these, will we solve all the energy problems? Of course not. But we will have a significantly strong step in that direction. That is our roadmap for going forward. We hope both the Republican leader and his caucus will work with us to reject obstruction and embrace the progress that the American people deserve.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, following any remarks Senator McConnell and I may make, we will resume the motion to disagree to the House amendments with respect to H.R. 3221, the housing reform legislation. At approximately 5:20 p.m., the 30-hour postcloture debate time will run out and the Senate will proceed to a rollcall vote on the motion to disagree. Immediately following that vote, the Senate will proceed to a cloture vote on the motion to proceed to S. 2731, the global HIV/AIDS legislation.

Mr. President, S. 3236 is at the desk, and it is my understanding it is now due for a second reading.

Mr. President, at this time, I object to any further proceedings with regard to this bill.

Mr. President, I and a number of people have spoken on the floor about the African HIV/AIDS bill many times, including a number of speeches earlier today. This legislation demonstrates our commitment to helping African nations fight the terrible scourge of HIV/AIDS that is now taking approximately 8,000 lives every day on the African Continent. President Bush called on this Congress to invest in this initiative in 2003, and we worked hand-in-hand with the White House to pass this into law.

Now is the time to continue our commitment to this worthy cause. An overwhelming majority of Democrats and Republicans along with the President supported this legislation. I believe this bill should have been passed weeks ago by unanimous consent. I recognize that a very small number of Republicans have continued to object, and we worked hard to reach a compromise and move forward.

Senators Lugar and Biden have done a wonderful job. The concerns among some Republicans have been addressed in this bill. Senators Biden and Lugar negotiated a bipartisan substitute amendment that added more than 15 Republican amendments to this base bill which itself was a bipartisan bill.

Last night, we agreed to have votes on numerous Republican amendments that were relevant to the bill. Unfortunately, my friends on the other side continue to object, which is why we are here today--principally one objection.

Today, we are going to propose a unanimous-consent agreement that would allow 10 Republican amendments, including amendments from Senators Gregg, DeMint, Cornyn, Bunning----

I think the Republican leader and virtually every single Senator would agree that we have negotiated in good faith and reached a fair agreement. Not a single Senator can legitimately claim that they were not given fair consideration, and we allowed 10 Republican amendments in addition to the Republican amendments there are in the bipartisan substitute.

Thank you. I wanted to say this. The reason that we are here today and not working on other business is one Senator held this up, and so this vote is required. That Senator is not here today. So that pretty well answers the question.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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