Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each, with the time counting postcloture.

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize and honor Ms. Gloria Hughes for her committed service to Nevada. Ms. Hughes will be retiring on June 30, 2008, after over three decades of service in the Mineral County Assessor's office.

Ms. Hughes began her service in 1973 as a deputy clerk. She then served as deputy assessor, senior deputy assessor, and chief deputy assessor. In 1994, she was elected to her first of four terms as assessor.

As sssessor of Mineral County, Gloria has worked tirelessly to improve the quality and efficiency of her office, never losing heart when she encountered obstacles. For example, Gloria won a 12 year battle to obtain an office vehicle, which helps the staff fulfill their appraisal duties throughout rural Mineral County. Ms. Hughes' realization of this goal and others like it ensured that her office was consistently the best it could be. Indeed, the State department of taxation repeatedly gave the Mineral County Assessor's office perfect marks in every category of methods and procedures of tax assessment.

True to her nature, Ms. Hughes expresses regret that she will not be able to see all of her goals for Mineral County realized, but is optimistic that the dedicated employees she leaves behind will fulfill them when the time is right.

Gloria will be missed by her employees--whose best interests she worked for ceaselessly--and the citizens of Mineral County who were the fortunate beneficiaries of her fervent commitment to her job, her county, and her state.

I am grateful to Ms. Hughes for her service and proud to honor her and her achievements.

Mr President, I rise today to recognize Bob Stoldal, a legend in Nevada news and the Las Vegas community for more than 40 years. Mr. Stoldal's first experience in a news office came in 1960, working for the Las Vegas Review Journal--first as a janitor, then as a typesetter. In the next year he was hired by KLAS radio as a graveyard- shift radio disk jockey, where he was known to his listeners as Bob Free.

Over the past five decades, Mr. Stoldal has worked as a reporter, anchor, news director, and vice president of news for KLAS. He was the first ever general manager of Las Vegas One and held that position for the past 10 years.

Bob's dedication to accuracy in media content and high ethical standards in broadcast journalism have defined his career. He demands journalistic excellence and integrity from himself and those who work for him. Bob's demand for excellence has earned KLAS countless national and regional awards and recognitions.

Besides upping the ante for Nevada journalism, Bob Stoldal has impacted the field on a national level. Mr. Stoldal has been a staunch advocate for cameras in courtrooms and pioneered the charge to allow cameras in southern Nevada's courtrooms, adding a degree of public scrutiny to our legal system.

Mr. Stoldal's dedication to Las Vegas and his community extends far beyond the realm of media. Bob Stoldal has donated countless hours to the public good, working on State and local boards, commissions, and museums. He currently serves as chairman of the Nevada State Museum and Historical Society and the Las Vegas Historic Preservation Commission.

As a member of the Nevada Broadcasting Hall of Fame and the longest serving employee of KLAS, Bob Stoldal is a legend in the field of journalism; his insight, dedication, and integrity will be missed by all. I wish him an enjoyable retirement and all the best in his future endeavors.

I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 6040.

I ask unanimous consent the bill be read three times and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table with no intervening action or debate, and any statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, we are going to come in tomorrow and see what we can get accomplished. I believe we can get a few things done. I have already outlined what we need to do before we leave. With some cooperation we can get that done. If not--as I said here about a half hour ago, 45 minutes ago--if people want to play out this clock, people will have to be here Friday and Saturday. I hope that would be it, but we will have to wait and see. In that the Fourth of July doesn't occur until a week after we leave here anyway, people should keep in mind that there may be a need for us to work the next few days. I hope that is not necessary. We will have to see what happens. It is a shame.

I know we talked about the fact that we need to complete the housing bill, but we will complete that the first week we get back. By then Senators Dodd and Shelby maybe will have more things worked out with the House.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 9:30 a.m. tomorrow, Thursday, June 26; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate then resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 6304, the FISA legislation, and the time during the adjournment count postcloture. I further ask that Senator Murkowski, or designee, control the time from 1:30 to 2:15 p.m. tomorrow, and that the time count postcloture.

If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. President, we have a very busy schedule this week. We have some work we need to complete. We have, of course, FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act; we have the supplemental appropriations bill; we have the tax extenders; we have Medicare we need to complete; and, of course, we are on housing today. Regarding that, following any remarks I make and those of the Republican leader, we will return to the House message to accompany H.R. 3221, the housing reform legislation. There will be up to an hour of debate equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees prior to a vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the Dodd-Shelby substitute with respect to the housing reform bill. Senators have until 10:30 a.m. today to file amendments to the Dodd-Shelby substitute.

By virtue of the previous order, the Senate will be in recess from 12:30 until 2:15 today for our weekly business luncheons.

Mr. President, let me say a couple of other things. We are going to do a number of judges this afternoon, the exact number of which we don't have worked out just yet, but we are going to do three circuit court judges and some district court judges. I have to confer with Senator Leahy on the number of district court judges.

I would also say to my friend the distinguished Republican leader that I spoke to Senator Feingold this morning regarding the FEC nominations, and it appears very clear we should be able to do them today. In regard to that, I wish to underscore my desire--our desire-- to constitute the Federal Election Commission so it is working.

Just a brief history, Mr. President. Before Memorial Day, there were four FEC nominations pending--two Republicans, two Democrats. At that time, we offered to confirm those nominees by unanimous consent. The Republicans did not take me up on that offer. There would have been five FEC Commissioners today had that been done. In fact, it would have been prior to that recess. There would have been enough to conduct all official business. There was a thought, I assume, on the part of the Republicans that they wanted a full six, and I understand that. So they rejected the offer I made. They wanted to wait until a replacement for the failed nomination of Hans von Spakovsky was received in the Senate. I told the Republicans in December that von Spakovsky would not be approved by this body. Someone should have been cleared to replace him long before now. Nonetheless, I pledged to swiftly move that new nominee, and we have done that. I implored my Republican colleagues to confirm the four who were ready to go so there would be five to restore the agency so it would be workable. That offer was not accepted. The new nominee has now been nominated, and we have waived both the hearing and the markup to speed this up. That makes good

on the pledge we made to swiftly review the nominee, and we did that, again without a hearing and without a markup.

As I discussed on Friday, Senator Feingold--I didn't mention his name at the time, but it is out in the press since then--would like to meet with each of the nominees. That will be completed today. These meetings are important to the Senator. He has the right to do that. I certainly compliment him for caring so much. Four of the five FEC nominations now pending are relatively new to the Senate, and it is certainly within Senator Feingold's right to speak with them prior to their confirmation. This is not unusual. So I look forward to completing that, unless something comes up that I don't understand, and we should be able to do that today. It is very important.

There has been some concern raised by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that the Democrats have set out to delay this FEC being reconstituted so that the Democratic National Committee's lawsuit against Senator McCain may be heard in the court. The DNC sued McCain, alleging that he violated campaign finance laws in the treatment of his primary campaign funding. The court dismissed that suit without prejudice, saying the DNC needed to give the FEC 120 days to act on its complaint before coming to court. The 120 days expires today, June 24.

There is simply no truth to the argument that we are playing this game with the FEC. Democrats have been trying to get the FEC running since it went dark in December. Repeatedly, the Republicans have objected to consent request after consent request. This lawsuit of the DNC's has been out there many months. The decision for setting the deadline for FEC action was made prior to our Memorial Day recess, and the offer to confirm the pending nominations was made before that time.

What this means is that Democrats offered to confirm the four pending FEC nominees--which would have stopped the DNC suit--before Memorial Day. If we were trying to help the DNC's suit, would we have made that offer? I don't think so. Would we offer to waive the hearing and the markup for both Republican nominees so it would be moved quickly? The answer would be no. Of course we wouldn't have done that, Mr. President. As I have told my colleagues, Democrats want a functional agency as soon as possible. That could have happened in May. It could happen today. We want to do everything we can to reconstitute the FEC. It is extremely important to do that.

I have mentioned the matters we need to complete, and, of course, the one thing I didn't mention was the FAA extension. I asked unanimous consent to do that, and that was objected to yesterday by my friend Senator Kyl on behalf of Senator DeMint. I hope we can get that done. The House is going to pass that today as a temporary extension.

We also are going to bring before the body, within the next 24 hours, the PEPFAR legislation. What is that? It is the AIDS legislation that the President is in favor of and which we have been trying to move. It has been held up on the other side by a Senator or two, and we hope we can complete that. Again, I will ask unanimous consent that be passed today. It is my understanding, having spoken with Senator Enzi, that he and Senator Biden have worked something out on that, and hopefully the Senator on the other side who is objecting to this will no longer object to it.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I hope in a matter of hours that we can agree to the consent request proposed by my friend, the distinguished Republican leader. I don't know what time the last meeting is that Senator Feingold has with the last individual, but as soon as I get word on that, I will immediately come to the floor and accept the offer of the distinguished Republican leader. So I object.

I object.

I object.

I object.

I object.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the motion was agreed to.

Mr. President, for the knowledge of all the Senators here, we are trying to wrap up a number of items today. Today is Tuesday. We have to get out of here by Friday or Saturday, we would hope, at least. We have a lot to do. We need to complete what we are working on now, the housing legislation. We have a number of issues we are trying to work out on judges. We also have to confirm the FEC nominees. We hope to do that later today. We have FISA that we have to work out. We have a supplemental appropriations bill. We have the doctors fix on Medicare. We have the tax extenders. We are working on all these things, so a lot of balls are in the air. I hope Members would be cooperative and try to work through this.

The Republican leader talked to me today, I have spoken to the manager on our side on the housing legislation, and he has spoken to the other manager, Senator Shelby--I haven't had that opportunity--and what we are trying to work out on that is, apparently, there are a number of Senators who asked that consideration be given by the managers to having a finite number of housing-related matters, reviewed by the two managers. That is something we are trying to do to see if we can work out something to speed up the work we are doing on the housing bill. I hope we can do that. If we have the cooperation of Members, we can do that. If people dig in their heels and say we are not going to do that, we might be in a situation where we don't finish the housing legislation. That would be a shame, but that is certainly possible. There is the potential to still have a number of other cloture votes on the housing legislation. So we are trying to work that out. I hope we can do that. The two managers I talked about before have experience and understand what we are trying to do.

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

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule XXII, the Senate now proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 630, the nomination of Helene White to be a United States circuit judge for the Sixth Circuit; that there be 4 hours for debate with respect to the nominations covered under this agreement today, with the time equally divided and controlled between the leaders or their designees; that upon the use or yielding back of time, the Senate proceed to vote on confirmation of Calendar No. 630; that if the nominee is confirmed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table and that President Bush be immediately notified of the Senate's action; that upon confirmation of Calendar No. 630, the Senate then proceed to the consideration and vote on confirmation of the following nominations in the order listed, Calendar Nos. 631 and 632; that with respect to any vote sequence, there be 2 minutes of debate between votes and that any succeeding votes be limited to 10 minutes each; that upon confirmation, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, en bloc, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, provided that no further motions be in order, and the Senate then resume legislative session; further, that on Thursday June 26--this coming Thursday--notwithstanding rule XXII, if it is applicable at all, at a time to be determined by the majority leader, following consultation with the Republican leader, the Senate proceed to executive session to consider Calendar Nos. 627 and 628; that they be debated concurrently for 1 hour, with the time equally divided and controlled between the leaders or their designees; that upon the use or yielding back of time, the Senate proceed to vote on confirmation of the nominations in the order listed, with 2 minutes of debate time equally divided and controlled in the usual form between the votes, and the second vote in the sequence be 10 minutes in duration; that upon confirmation, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, en bloc, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action; further, that if Calendar No. 630 is not confirmed, then all aspects of this agreement are null and void, with no further intervening action or debate, and the Senate then resume legislative session; that any time consumed under this agreement count postcloture, if applicable, provided that no further motions be in order.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that in the consent request I initiated, where I read the words ``then all aspect of this agreement are null and void, with no further intervening action or debate,'' the words ``no intervening action or debate,'' which I read into the Record, be deleted.

That is correct, Madam President.

Mr. President, there will be no more votes this evening. If I could, though, have the attention of Senators who are here.

Mr. President, first of all, let me say on this package of judges, we have been working on these for 5 or 6 years. That is how long it has taken. So this is really a step forward. Everyone has cooperated. I appreciate very much the help of the entire Republican caucus. Senator Kyl was especially helpful to work through what we have done. We are going to approve two more judges the day after tomorrow, and then we will see where we go from there on judges.

What I wanted to tell everyone here is we wanted to finish the housing bill tonight. Senator Dodd and Senator Shelby have worked very hard to craft a bill that doesn't go back to the House, but when the House signs off on----

I apologize, it was hard to concentrate on what I wanted to say.

Senators Dodd and Shelby are crafting a bill that can go directly to the President. That is what we are trying to do, craft something on which there has been general agreement with the counterparts of Shelby and Dodd in the House, and it would go immediately to the President. As you know, they can do things very quickly in the House that we cannot do here. That is the goal with housing.

We are going to get there eventually. The problem is the way this is sent to us from the House, the format in which it was sent to us, we are now under cloture. That cloture will run out at approximately 5:45 tomorrow evening. At that time there are two germane amendments that we know of. There are a couple more that are arguably germane. We will see what is the will of the body.

It is my understanding that on those two that are arguably germane, the managers of the bill have worked something out. If there would be no objection, they would accept those. The problem is on the amendments they have worked on up to this time, there has been an objection and we cannot proceed on any of those amendments that Dodd and Shelby have worked out.

Automatically, after the 30 hours is up, we would vote on the germane amendments. No one can stop us from adopting or rejecting those amendments. If we cannot get permission from everyone here as of now--I know of only one holdup on our being able to complete the housing legislation. If we can't get that Senator to sign off on this, then we only have one alternative; that is, we will file cloture on another arm of this housing legislation. We will have cloture on that 2 legislative days later, and then we still have one more to do. That would mean we would have to be here over the weekend. It was not anticipated that we would do that.

In the meantime, having done that, it will hold up our being able to do FISA. We wanted to do a consent agreement on that tonight. I was told that would not be possible.

On that, there are people who do not like the FISA legislation. I recognize that the majority of the Senate does, but some people do not like it. But, in spite of that, I have found the two people who speak out mostly against that--but there are others--are Senator Feingold and Senator Dodd who have been very diligent in their opposition to the legislation. But, of course, they understand the Senate very well.

So what we would like to do is have a cloture vote on the motion to proceed to that, but we cannot do that unless it is by consent. Therefore, we are going to have to do cloture on the motion to proceed to FISA at some later time, and then that only allows us to proceed to the bill. Then we still have to do cloture on the bill.

FISA is a product of the administration. It has passed the House, and that is fine. But we are not going to stop people from going home for the Fourth of July recess over FISA. If people do not want to do it, then we are not going to do it. It is not because we are holding it up over here, is what I am saying. It is being held up by the minority.

We are going to proceed, and we are going to stay here and finish this housing bill. The Case-Shiller Home Price Index registered the largest decline in home prices in that index's history. That is more than 40 years. Consumer confidence is at an all-time low.

So we are going to finish the housing bill. It may knock a few people out of parades on July 4, or whatever--however long it takes us to do this.

The other product we have that we want to finish before we go home is the supplemental appropriations bill. Again, there has been a delicately crafted piece of legislation that has come from the House. They worked very hard to get the House leadership to approve that, Democratic and Republican. The President of the United States has signed off on it. Is it everything that I want? Is it everything we want over here? The answer is no. But I think it is something that will pass with a very large margin over here. But we cannot get to it unless people allow us to get to it. So that, too, would have to wait until we get back after the July 4 recess.

I think that would be a shame. We have been told that the Pentagon can pay the bills until about the middle of February. Then they are out of money.

I want the President and all of his people to hear what I am saying. We are not holding up the supplemental. We, the Democrats, are not holding it up. We, the Democrats, are not holding up FISA.

We also have a matter that we need to complete, and that is the Medicare fix. It is the doctors fix. That is what we call it. But, again, today the House passed that by a 350-some-odd margin to whatever makes up 435--passed that overwhelmingly, again, with the sponsorship and leadership of the House leadership, Democrats and Republicans. We are going to take that up before we go. We have to. Not only that, if we do not pass that legislation before we go, we do not have the doctors fix taken care of, but that has a snowballing effect.

What it does is all insurance companies base their reimbursement on what the Medicare Program is. There are two things we have to do before we go home for July 4: Housing and Medicare. We do not have to do it if the Republicans don't want to do it--we don't have to do FISA, and we don't have to do the supplemental. We can do it the week we get back after July 4.

There are other things we would like to do--the FAA extension for 6 months. I tried to move to that yesterday. It was objected to. We want the President and others who have worked so hard on this global AIDS bill--we would like to get that passed. I was told by Senator Biden today that should be worked out tomorrow. But we can't do any of this as long as people are holding us up on this housing bill.

One Senator I talked to tonight who I thought was holding up the housing bill--which is true--did not object to our going to FISA. But others have.

I do not know how much more direct I can be. I want to pass the supplemental. I want to pass FISA. I want to pass the Medicare fix. I want to pass housing.

I do not particularly like FISA, and I am going to vote against FISA. But I have an obligation as the majority leader to move legislation that the majority of the body wants to go forward. The majority of Republicans and a significant number of Democrats want FISA to pass. But I am not going to ask people to stay here next week because there is someone over here holding up the President's bill. I am pointing to the Republicans.

I am willing to be as reasonable as I can. I think we showed that on the housing bill when I brought up a piece of legislation that Senator DeMint and others wanted to move forward on--and Senator Bunning. We did that to show good faith in reporting this housing bill. But with home prices continuing to fall, foreclosures continuing to rise, 8,800 foreclosures a day--a day--the time to act is now.

I have said on this floor many times, the housing bill is bipartisan. Dodd and Shelby have done a remarkably good job. I hope those people who are trying--I don't know what their message is. To show the power of a Senator? I acknowledge, one Senator has a lot of power. But I think they should recognize they are holding up a lot of stuff.

Mr. President, I would say one final thing. There is a time when we need to work together. The Republican leader recognizes that; I recognize that. This is the time. We need to figure out a way to get from here to there. We are going to do our very best.

I think our messages--we don't need to worry about those next week. We can come back and do that after the break. We really need to try to get this done for the American people. It would be good for the American people if we could do something on one of the major crises we have faced in our country, and that is this housing debacle. It is very difficult.

Everyone knows that I do not throw a lot of bouquets to the administration, but I throw them a bouquet on their willingness to work with us on the supplemental because they were willing to bend a little bit here and there. I repeat, was it everything that I wanted, that we wanted? No, but a tremendous step forward. I compliment and I applaud the President and the people who worked with us to get to the point where we are. I would be ashamed to have to wait until after the Fourth of July to do this bill; that is, the supplemental appropriations bill, because even though what we are going to be voting on only deals with the GI bill of rights and the unemployment compensation and those other things, if we do not act, the war funding doesn't go forward. We do not have to vote on war funding. We have already done that.

As I said, I appreciate the work we have been able to accomplish with the administration on this supplemental appropriations bill. Even though, as I have indicated, I am not going to vote for the FISA bill, there are people who have worked on this FISA matter for 3 months or more. Again, the administration worked with them. Did they, on the FISA bill, move enough to make me vote for the bill? The answer is no. But they moved enough to get a lot of people to vote for this bill, and I appreciate that also.

But we could wind up with all this good work being put off. It will be very anticlimactic, the accomplishments that we have made.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I am very pleased that I am finally able to say we are going to restore the Federal Election Commission to a fully functioning six-member body.

The FEC lost a functioning quorum last January when three recess appointments to the Commission expired, leaving only two FEC commissioners. It takes four to conduct official business, so there was no way to conduct business. When the FEC went dark in January, it meant our Nation's campaign finance watchdog was off the beat. It also meant that important provisions of the Democrats' Honest Leadership and Open Government Act would not be implemented.

Most notably, the building of this Federal Election Commission is so very important. I would be remiss to not say that the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act passed on a bipartisan basis. For example, the bundling rules we worked so hard to enact into law were put into limbo. But now with the FEC within a few minutes going to be reestablished, that will not be the case.

Since even before the Commission lost its quorum, I began offering my Republican colleagues votes on the pending FEC nominees, but those efforts were rejected.

Democrats have been united in their desire to have the FEC restored to full power. I am pleased we can finally come together with our Republican colleagues tonight on the nominations.

I would be remiss if I did not speak very briefly about my two Democratic nominees, Steven Walther and Cynthia Bauerly, both outstanding lawyers. I

can tell you even more than that. They are outstanding people and public servants. Steven Walther is from Nevada. He is one of those people who is in public service because he wants to do something to help his country. He has been very active for many years in State bar activities, very involved in the ABA activities, and he gave up a lucrative law practice to come here. He was a senior partner in a major law firm in Nevada. He did this for the right reason.

Both Cynthia and Steven are patient individuals. Steve Walther was first recommended to the President by me for this position on July 6, 2005. That is almost 3 years ago.

He waited almost 3 years for the full Senate to confirm him.

I recommended Ms. Bauerly to the President in July 2007. She has waited for confirmation over 11 months.

I cannot say enough nice things about Steven Walther. I want everyone within the sound of my voice to understand what a man of integrity he is. He is not even a Democrat. He is an Independent. But I have such confidence in his fairness that it did not matter what his party affiliation is. He is a fine individual, has a wonderful family, a son Wyatt who is getting used to the big city of Washington, DC.

I so appreciate Steve waiting since January with basically no job. He has had no paycheck. There has been no FEC. Some people dropped off because they couldn't afford to not have a job. But fortunately, for the FEC and our country, Steven Walther could afford to be unemployed for 6 months.

Again, I want the record spread with my appreciation for Steven Walther's public service and his friendship to me. These two individuals, Bauerly and Walther, have shown exceptional patience which will be an asset to them in their work as Commissioners. I wish them and the FEC very well.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations: Calendar Nos. 306, 624, 625, and 626; that the Rules Committee be discharged from further consideration of PN 1765, the nomination of Matthew Petersen; that the Senate proceed en bloc to consideration of the nominations; that the Senate then proceed to vote on confirmation of the nominations in the order listed; that upon confirmation of the nominations, the motions to reconsider be laid on the table en bloc, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, with no further motions in order, and the Senate then resume legislative session, with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, it is my understanding there are two bills at the desk. I ask for their first reading en bloc.

Mr. President, I am going to object to my own request en bloc, but prior to the Chair accepting my objection, I want everyone to know that S. 3186 is the Warm in Winter and Cool in Summer Act, which is LIHEAP. That is an important piece of legislation. We are going to work very hard to figure out a way to do that within the next 30 days. I would also say that H.R. 6331, the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act, is a bill that overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives to take care of the so-called doctors' fix.

I now ask for their second reading en bloc, and I object to my own request en bloc.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Rick Houghton, who will graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point next year and who now is an intern in my office, be accorded the privilege of the floor during today's session of the Senate.