Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Rules Committee be discharged from further consideration of H. Con. Res. 335 and the Senate proceed to its consideration.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when H.R. 6304 is received from the House, it be placed on the calendar.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 3 p.m. this coming Monday, June 23; that following the prayer and the pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate resume consideration of the House message with respect to H.R. 3221, the housing legislation. I ask further that the filing deadline for the amendments to the Dodd-Shelby substitute amendment be 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, June 24, and that substitute amendment is No. 4983.

I further ask unanimous consent that the Record remain open until 2 p.m. today for statements, cosponsors, and bill introductions.

Mr. President, seeing no one else on the floor, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. President, I will yield in a brief minute to the distinguished Senator from Connecticut so he can say some words about the guest Chaplain and his thoughtful prayer this morning.

Following leader remarks--and it does not appear there will be any-- the Senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 6049, the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each, but we expect to begin legislating on the housing legislation today.

Mr. President, what I would like to do is yield to the Senator from Connecticut so he can say some words about our distinguished visiting guest Chaplain.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask the Chair to lay before the Senate a message from the House with respect to H.R. 3221, and that the only amendments in order today be those relating to the subject of housing, except the amendment I will offer on behalf of Senators Dodd and Shelby, in my motion to concur in the amendment of the House, striking section 1, and all that follows through the end of title V, and inserting certain language to the amendment of the Senate to H.R. 3221, and that no other motions, except motions to reconsider and motions to table, be in order during today's session.

I say to my friend from South Carolina, the distinguished Senator, and I remind everyone, that 75 percent of this bill has already been passed and was done by a very big vote.

The 25 percent we are working on now--we hope to work on--is work that has been done on a bipartisan basis. And much of it, if not all of it, was in total consideration with the White House. So I say to my friend, let's go ahead and we will legislate on this bill today, the Senator not objecting. I will be happy to sit down with Senator DeMint alone, with the minority leader, anyone else, and talk about the concerns you have, as you have indicated, as to benefits going to whomever they go to, and let us see if we can get from here to there by approaching it in that manner.

But as I indicated yesterday, this is important legislation. We want to make sure there are no problems with any Senators who have other concerns. So, in short, let me say this: My friend loses nothing by allowing us to go to the bill as indicated in this consent agreement. And then any time during the day, I will be happy to meet with him and the other eight Senators, together or alone, who signed that letter, and the distinguished Republican leader can suggest whomever, if anyone, he wants in on that meeting. I will be happy to work with the Senator.

I say to my friend, through the Chair, I can't give him assurance that there will be a vote, but I do give assurance that we will sit down and talk with him and do what we can to pacify his interests. What I mean by that is, there may be another way we can get from where we are today to where he thinks we should go. We will be happy to work with the Senator throughout the day. I give him the assurance, without any reservation, that his concern is not untoward, and we will be happy to sit down and see if there is a way we can accomplish what he wants to accomplish, as I said, the Senator from South Carolina and the eight other Senators who wrote me the letter.

Mr. President, I move to concur in the amendment of the House, striking section 1 and all that follows to the end of title V, and inserting certain language, to the amendment of the Senate to H.R. 3221 with the amendment at the desk. Basically, so everyone knows what this is, it is the bipartisan Dodd-Shelby amendment.

Mr. President, we have a unanimous consent request that we are going to make when I get the paper.

I ask unanimous consent that the Bunning motion to refer now be in order with respect to the House message regarding H.R. 3221; that there be 30 minutes for debate with respect to the motion; that the time be equally divided and controlled in the usual form; that no amendments be in order to the motion; that the motion be subject to an affirmative 60-vote threshold; that it achieves that threshold, that it be agreed to and the motion to reconsider by laid on the table; that if it does not achieve that threshold, that it be withdrawn and there be no further motions to refer in order during the pendency of this House message.

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

Mr. President, give me the time situation on this half-hour motion?

Mr. President, I will use leader time.

Thank you very much, Mr. President.

Mr. President, this is an extremely important piece of legislation. There is not a place in America that has not felt the burden of the subprime lending crisis. It has spilled over into everything we do in America today.

In Nevada, where we have had a boom for 20 years, that boom is not there now. People were buying homes because we had such growth coming into the community. We have 5,000 to 10,000 people moving to Las Vegas even now. But this has hurt the entire economy of my State.

We have already passed 75 percent of this legislation overwhelmingly. This is a good piece of legislation. Twenty-five percent--an important part of this legislation--has been worked on for 2 months, at least, in great detail by two of the most experienced Senators we have--Senators who know how to deal with the House because they both served in the House, Senators who have been chairmen of committees in the past and now.

Senators Bunning and DeMint have a right to offer this--and that is why we are here--but I think they are headed in the wrong direction. I ask my colleagues to understand that everything in this bill is transparent. There is nothing that is not transparent in nature.

We have to also understand that, for example, one of the programs this motion attempts, perhaps, to suggest--and others would have to make a better determination than I--but suggest that the HOPE for Homeowners Program created in this bill through the bipartisan work of Senators Dodd and Shelby is a taxpayer-paid bailout to lenders. One of the people who have been involved in this provision of the bill for a long period of time has been the Secretary of the Treasury, who, by the way, is a breath of fresh air for the administration. I have great respect for Secretary Paulson. So there could be nothing further from the truth that this is a taxpayer-paid bailout.

First, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the HOPE for Homeowners Program will actually result in a net gain for taxpayers of a quarter of a billion dollars--$250 million.

Second, lenders aren't getting bailed out under this program; lenders must choose to participate. The program is voluntary. Secretary Paulson has talked to me personally about this. He likes it because it is voluntary.

Third, lenders who voluntarily participate in this program will have to take a loss. These lenders will have to agree to accept a new loan at a reduced principal amount to replace an existing loan they have made to a borrower. So if lenders participate, they will lose money, belying the notion that this program is a bailout.

Some of our friends in the Senate claim this motion is not intended to question the integrity of colleagues, and I hope they are right. Whether that is true or not, regrettably, the effect of this motion is to delay the Senate in providing relief to American families, a struggling housing market, and our economy.

As he knows, Senator Bunning is somebody whom I admire greatly because the fact is, I wanted to be a baseball player, not a Senator. I have great respect and admiration for him. Every chance I get--and I think I get on his nerves a lot of times because I continually ask him about his ball games and who was his favorite catcher and all that kind of stuff. So the fact that I oppose this motion doesn't take away from my respect for the Senator from Kentucky, a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

I disagree with Senator DeMint quite often, but I know his heart is in the right place. He is trying to do the right thing. I just think this motion should be overwhelmingly defeated. It would be good for this bill. It would be good for the country, and I believe it would be good for the Senate.

Yes, sir.

Mr. President, that is the last vote for tonight. In the morning, we don't have any votes lined up. We are going to see what, in fact, we can do. It appears at this time that it is going to be difficult to have votes tomorrow, even though the managers want to do that.

Everybody should be on notice that we will be in session tomorrow and on this bill. I frankly don't think there will be any votes because there are procedural hurdles we ran into this afternoon that will make it difficult to do more amendments.

Do the managers disagree with anything I have said?

Mr. President, I also remind everybody that it is obvious we are going to have a lot of work to do next week. We are going to have to have a vote Tuesday morning. It has been longstanding that there will be no votes on Monday. There will be business conducted here on Monday, but we are going to have a vote on Tuesday before the caucuses, and maybe more than one vote before the caucuses.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate receives from the House the veto message on H.R. 6124, it be considered as read, and that it be printed in the Record and spread in full upon the Journal and held at the desk; that the Senate consider the veto message at 5:15 p.m. today, Wednesday, June 18; that the time until 5:30 p.m. be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders, or their designees; that at 5:30 p.m. the Senate proceed to vote on passage of the bill, the objections of the President notwithstanding, without further action or debate.

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

Madam President, this has been a difficult week. We have spent a lot of time in quorum calls. There has been a tremendous number of speeches. All have been good. I have enjoyed every one of them. But we have been working very hard to move to something on which we can work together. The housing bill has been brought to us by two of our most experienced legislators--Senators Dodd and Shelby. They both served in the House of Representatives. They are experienced. They understand how Capitol Hill works. Senator McConnell and I have met with them, and we are now at a point, after a long discussion with them--they have had conversations with the administration; I have not had any, but they have--where Members should be advised that tomorrow morning at 9:30, as soon as the admiral completes his prayer and Senator McConnell and I have anything to say, we are going to move immediately to the housing bill. There has been agreement with the managers, with Senator McConnell and with me, that we are going to legislate on this bill. There will be amendments offered, and we will have amendments debated. We hope we can have some votes scheduled tomorrow. We are going to work, everybody should be advised, on Friday. Monday is a nonvote day. We have a lot of work we need to do on Monday.

I advise everyone, the break before the Fourth of July starts a week from the day after tomorrow. In that short week, we have 4 days. We have to make sure we complete this housing bill. We will have to take a run at seeing if FISA can be completed. Either the House is going to send us a bill or we have a message here from them and we will work on that. We also have the little piece of legislation, the supplemental appropriations bill. The House is going to have a rule on that tomorrow. We have permission, as I understand it, from the Republican leadership in the House that they can do a same-day rule. That matter will come to us sometime tomorrow night or Friday.

We have a lot to do. We all want to go home for the Fourth of July, and we all need to go home. We have parades and constituents to see. It is an important time. We spend a lot of time here, and it is important we get back to the States during the week rather than only on weekends. I think the Republican leader and I have an agreement on how we will proceed on the housing bill.

If I could say one or two additional things, I received a letter from, I think, nine Republican Senators and their request was totally valid. They said this is a big piece of legislation. Don't rush into it. I advise all Senators who sent me that letter, the legislation has been available all day. I hope they and their staffs looked through it. If there are provisions in it they think should be changed, that is what tomorrow and the next day and Monday will be all about.

While we have a good attendance in the Chamber, during July, there are no Monday no-vote days. In July, we are going to work all the work period. We also have a weekend that we have scheduled that we are going to be in session, July 25 we are going to be in session. Everyone has a lot of notice now to not plan anything for that weekend. We have work we need to do. I will be in close touch with the Republican leader tomorrow and on Monday, before we start our last rush, but everyone will have a good idea of what we are going to do in the next work period. Right now it is a little bit in flux, but we know there are things we have to complete.

This, of course, is the last vote for today. We will start tomorrow morning. Hopefully, we will have some votes.

Mr. President, today following leader remarks, there will be an hour for morning business. Senators will be able to speak for up to 10 minutes each. The Republicans will control the first half, and the majority will control the second half. The Senate will proceed thereafter to the motion to proceed to H.R. 6049, the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act. The time until 12:30 is equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees. The Senate will recess from 12:30 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly caucus luncheons. Following the recess, the Senate will proceed to a cloture vote on the motion to proceed to H.R. 6049, the Renewable Energy Act.

Mr. President, my distinguished friend, the Senator from the State of Arizona, is here. As a result, I am going to propound a unanimous-consent request so as not to cause him to have to spend any time here he would not ordinarily have to do.

The House has passed an unemployment compensation bill. I am going to show the Senate in a little while that we are at 76 filibusters. I am not going to go through another one on unemployment compensation. If we do not agree to pass this bill at this time, there will not be a long floor debate on unemployment compensation. What we will do, it is my understanding this legislation will be in the supplemental we will get from the House. That being the case, we will have ample time to talk about the issue if anybody wants to.

The distinguished majority whip is going to speak on unemployment compensation, as are some others today. But right now I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 780, H.R. 5749, a bill we recently received from the House, the Emergency Extended Unemployment Compensation Act. I ask that the bill be read a third time, passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, we will be willing now to accept that change in the legislation and pass it.

I say to my friend, this, I believe, will be in the package we get from the House, and we will be happy to work with the minority if they feel some changes should be made. There are a number of people on my side who would agree to this, and maybe there are other points on which we can agree.

Mr. President, yesterday was a remarkably good day. When I got out of law school, I went back to Nevada and thought I would be this great golfer. I golfed for 6 months or so, and then realized I was becoming obsessed with the game. Therefore, I decided I shouldn't do this. I had a family, and it took so much time.

For a number of years, I have listened to my friends talk about how much they enjoy golf, and I am sure they do. But it has only been in recent years that the American public has focused on golf, and that is because of Tiger Woods.

I can remember the first time I watched this little boy play. They showed him on the late night shows. Of course, as we all know, it was taped a lot earlier before his bedtime. This little kid, when he was 3 years old, could do remarkable things with his golf club. That is the way it was through his entire career, including at Stanford University.

Over the weekend, we all watched with attention while Rocco Mediate was going stroke for stroke with the great Tiger Woods. They tied in regulation play. They played an extra 18 holes. It was a tie. Finally, yesterday, it was concluded. All of us had mixed emotions as for whom we were pulling. Everyone likes Tiger Woods because he is so good and so nice, but we all also rooted for this underdog.

The one thing we noted yesterday is this golf tournament took place in San Diego. The sun was shining, and it was a beautiful day for golf. That is what the commentators kept saying. We were literally stuck in the rain yesterday. Those of us who were here last night about 4 o'clock saw a violent storm. There was lightning, thunder, driving rain, and lots of wind. As a result, I spoke with Senator McConnell, and we thought it was best to delay the vote. We had people calling saying: I am stuck in Richmond. One Senator was supposed to go to Dulles. She had to land in Richmond. Another Senator was stuck in Buffalo. We had people stuck all over the country. So we did this, and it was the right thing to do.

We intended to vote on the motion to proceed to the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act, known as the tax extender bill. Some on the other side, I am sure, may have welcomed yesterday's delay, but we are where we would have been last night. We need to return to a vote on the motion to proceed to the tax extender bill today, and we will do that, as has been indicated.

The cornerstone of this legislation is an extension of incentives for businesses to invest in clean, renewable energy. Right now, we reward these innovators who are blazing the trail to a greater, cleaner, more affordable energy future, but we don't reward them very much. These people are creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. The potential is out there. If we can pass this legislation, it would mean so much to the American economy and the world ecology, the world environment.

This is not just the Democrats talking. Somebody I have gotten to know over the years is a man by the name of T. Boone Pickens. As I understand, he is from the State of Texas. He has proven one thing: He knows how to make money. He has proven he is willing to take chances, and most always his chances turn out good at the bank for him.

What T. Boone Pickens has now decided to do is make money on renewable energy. He has done so much in the State of Texas alone. He, among others, thinks we should pass the legislation that is so important to give these tax credits to the American entrepreneurs so they will create jobs.

Here is a chart: Republican filibusters and counting, 76. For a long time, we had to keep creating new charts because they kept filibustering so much and it got to be a burden. So what we have done is we put Velcro on this chart. We can peel these babies off. Because the Republicans are so often filibustering, we now have a Velcro chart. We hope we don't have to change this too much more, the ``7,'' or change the ``6.'' Of course, we changed that a couple times last week. The Republicans are filibustering what T. Boone Pickens and others want.

There are hundreds of thousands of jobs, millions of jobs out there we could create if we have this tax incentive. They are doing it other places. In Australia, they are in the process of constructing a solar energy plant. That one plant will be 10,000 megawatts. They can do that all over Australia. It is an Australian company that is heavily involved now in California and other parts of the West.

These tax credit extensions will continue to encourage the renewable energy industry in States all over the West, States that have wind and Sun, and some States, such as California or Nevada, have a lot of geothermal. If the Senate does not act to extend these tax incentives, this research and entrepreneurship will literally be in jeopardy. Thousands of Americans will lose jobs. They are already in the process of losing jobs because the tax credits are about to expire.

We need an opportunity to move away from $140 barrel oil imported from unstable regions and unfriendly governments. There is no problem facing America that American ingenuity cannot handle. Failing to pass this tax incentive legislation will mean stacking the deck against innovation.

The minority is saying we shouldn't pay for these extensions, we should run up the red ink. During the last 7\1/2\ years, we have had the master at running up the red ink in the White House. We have now almost a $10 trillion deficit. We are saying we should pay for this legislation. The House has already done that.

The setoffs are very simple. One tax that does not kick in we have extended on a number of occasions in the past. The Republicans did this. We want to do it again. We also believe these offshore shenanigans that are taking place in America where they put these phony companies offshore to get tax breaks should come to an end. And that is what we have done. Most of it would be directed toward billionaires. These hedge funders have recognized they had a good deal going, and they have indicated, with rare exception, that they think it is a good idea. So it is not as if we are trying to ramrod some vicious tax increase to the American middle class. In fact, that is not the case.

We cannot let this legislation fail, and the Republicans are going to let it fail unless we get cloture on this legislation. Not only does this legislation do good things for renewable energy and job creation, but it also expands the child tax credit for families of 13 million children; it provides as many as 30 million homeowners with property tax relief; it helps 4.5 million families afford the cost of college with the tuition deduction; it allows millions of teachers to deduct out-of-pocket classroom expenses; and it levels the playing field by providing tax relief to people living in States with no income tax through the State and local sales tax deduction. Our economy is losing jobs, for 6 months now losing jobs, hundreds of thousands of jobs. In the 8 years President Clinton was President, almost 23 million jobs were created. In this administration, it is quite to the contrary. The disastrous Bush economic policy is the reason we have these job losses, a policy that Republican nominee John McCain wants to preserve. We think this is wrong.

With millions of Americans suffering from job loss, home foreclosures, record gas, energy, and grocery prices, there is no reason on Earth to oppose the bill before us now. I spoke with someone in New Mexico yesterday. He said his home has dropped in value by 50 percent. In many places in America, the value of homes has dropped 25 percent. This bill would create hundreds of thousands of good jobs here at home, lower taxes for American businesses and families and lower energy prices.

Yesterday, my friend, the Republican leader, indicated his caucus plans to oppose this legislation. Why? It seems,

as I have indicated, Republicans object to paying for these crucial tax cuts by eliminating an existing tax loophole that unfairly allows hedge-fund billionaires to avoid paying taxes. Even the hedge funders themselves realize this loophole is unfair and is destined to be corrected. Yesterday, hundreds of major American corporations sent a letter to Congress urging that we pass the bill.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the letter to which I just referred.

Mr. President, I think it is glaring to note that of these major companies--hundreds and hundreds of them that have signed this letter--not a single oil company has signed on. Oil companies don't want us to do this legislation. They want us to keep being beholden to them. But look at the companies that signed onto this legislation: Genetech, Cummins Inc., The Chubb Corporation, Merck, Merrill Lynch, Microsoft, Owens Corning, Pfizer, U.S. Bank, Wachovia, Verizon, and Whirlpool Corporation.

Scores and scores of other major companies are telling our Republican colleagues to vote for legislation the way it is written. They know the bill and they list the number of it. The letter was signed by the ``Who's Who'' of the Fortune 500 companies and many others--titans of American business. Hundreds of small companies in addition to that all agree Congress needs to act now to extend tax incentives for clean energy and innovation to provide the American people with desperately needed tax cuts.

We got nine Republicans when we voted on this last Thursday, and I publicly commended them. I hope we get more today. The record should be very clear that this, the 76th filibuster of the Republican minority, is something that is going to cause the further deterioration of the American economy. We want this legislation passed to help Americans wean themselves from that which is ruining our country economically and environmentally.

So I hope we have some people who will join Boeing, General Electric, Coca Cola, Intel, and other companies I have mentioned and move forward with this legislation. It is vitally important for the American people.

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

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

Mr. President, we have a vote that will occur momentarily. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate in order to conduct a hearing entitled ``Responding to the Growing Need for Federal Judgeships: The Federal Judgeship Act of 2008.'' It is scheduled for 2:30 this afternoon in the Dirksen Building. The witness list is remarkably good. We have the chairman of the Judiciary Resources Committee, Judicial Conference of the United States; the Director of Homeland Security and Justice from the United States Government Accountability Office, William O. Jenkins. That would be an important hearing to go forward. As of now, we have not had consent from the minority to go forward with this.

Mr. President, I understand that my distinguished counterpart has a right to do this, an absolute right. I don't question that right. We will just have to schedule the hearing at a different time, if they don't want to have the hearing. I will, though, briefly comment, quoting Majority Leader Lott from years past. When we go home to our respective States, there are a lot of issues. Every State has the same issues: housing problems, high gas prices, doing something about global warming. When is the last time anyone went home and somebody said to you: Boy, are you guys going to do something about those judges? As Senator Lott said: The question never comes up.

Senator Leahy, chairman of this committee, and I have said before, this Judiciary Committee has wide-ranging jurisdiction over a lot of issues, most of which are extremely difficult to deal with. He does a remarkably good job. I am very proud that he is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. But he and I said we would do our utmost by the Memorial Day break to confirm three more circuit court judges. I think it was three; I don't remember the number. We did our utmost. Senator Leahy did his utmost. But it was slow walked by the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee. So we are at a point now where finally we had two circuit court judges reported out of the committee last week. We are going to vote on those as soon as we can. We have fulfilled our commitment, so no one needs to talk about commitments not being fulfilled.

Again, I didn't invent the Thurmond rule. It was invented by long- time Senator Strom Thurmond, at one time chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He said that after June 1, he felt it was appropriate not to rush into appointing more Federal judges. We have not said that the Thurmond rule is in place. But some said we should have it in place. It is well after June 1, and Senator Leahy and I are still committed to taking care of more circuit court judges. We are going to do that. I am sure there will be opportunities to take a look at some trial court judges. But we are doing our very best.

I admire and appreciate the work of Senator Leahy.

Yes, I will.

I say to my friend, in response to his question, yes. And the Senator from Vermont followed the advice of his colleagues and had someone from the General Accounting Office testify. I appreciate that.

I ask that we have the vote now. Members have been waiting.