Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, today the price of oil is $132 a barrel. I do not know how the stock market is going to wind up, but with the slap in the face the economy got today with the unemployment rate skyrocketing and the price of oil $132 a barrel, the stock market is down about 300 points. How it is going to wind up today, I do not know.

Mr. President, on the global warming bill we just completed--and I say ``completed''--we were unable to offer amendments, we were unable to legislate on this most important piece of legislation. The Republicans said what they wanted to do is anytime we mention ``global warming,'' they would mention ``gas prices.''

Well, today, we do not have to guess what we are going to do next because I am going to file cloture on the most important piece of legislation dealing with gas prices we have done in some time.

So, Mr. President, we, as I have indicated, heard the Republicans speak at length about the problem of high gas prices. In doing so, they follow the lead of the majority who have been not just speaking about high gas prices for months but now working to find some solutions. We introduced something called the Consumer-First Energy Act. It was blocked by the Republicans. But now maybe, with gas prices even higher than they were a month ago, our Republican friends are finally ready to join our pursuit of solutions. Perhaps now, after taking their gas prices on the floor of the Senate for a week and talking about it and talking about it, they are ready to back their words with action. So next week they will have a chance--it will be Tuesday morning--to vote on gas prices. We are going to return to that legislation that will relieve the burden of record gas prices for American consumers, both in the long term and the short term.

What is in this bill? The President will remember, one of the things in the bill previously--we had five sections of the bill--one of them said: Mr. President, with the gas prices as high as they are, why do you continue to take this oil, the best oil there is--the sweet crude-- and pump it into the Petroleum Reserve when it is almost filled anyway? So we did that, and that now is not happening anymore. He is not pumping that because we peeled part of that off and passed it individually.

So what is left in our legislation? First, it ends in billions of dollars in tax breaks for oil companies--oil companies whose executives have been hauling in record profits while we pay record prices for gasoline. I don't know what it is in Virginia, but in Nevada the price of gas is now more than $4 a gallon.

As I sat on the floor of the Senate earlier this week, a friend of mine whom I went to high school with--his name is Ted Sandival and I have done legal work for him over the years when I practiced law and we have maintained a relationship--called me. I was wondering what was wrong. In the whole conversation, the only thing he expressed to me that he was concerned about was that he always wanted to buy a diesel vehicle because they last so much longer. So he bought a diesel vehicle and he said: Harry, I can't afford to put fuel in it anymore. I am

paying almost $5 a gallon for diesel fuel.

Well, the oil companies are making record profits. The oil executives are making record salaries and bonuses and are getting record amounts of compensation, and we don't think it is appropriate at this time for the American taxpayers to continue paying billions of dollars in tax breaks to the oil companies. We are going to vote on this Tuesday morning.

The other section of our bill forces oil companies to do their part by investing part of their profits in clean and affordable alternative energy.

Third: We protect the American people from price gougers and greedy oil traders who manipulate the market.

Finally, a bipartisan section of this bill. Senators Specter and Kohl came to see me yesterday, both longtime members of the Judiciary Committee who believe that OPEC and others who are colluding to keep oil prices high should be subject to this Sherman Antitrust Act. Senator Specter went through all the legal reasons, and as we all know, he is a real legal scholar. So I am convinced he is right and we should do this.

The Consumer First Energy Act does exactly what it promises: It ends more than 7 years of the Cheney energy policy that has lined the pockets of modern-day oil barons and left the American people to pay the bill.

Finally, it puts consumers first. Is this a silver bullet ending all the problems? Of course not. But it is a bill that will solve some of the energy problems we have in our country today.

This legislation is an important step that will make a difference, as I have said, in the long and the short run. So I hope the minority will put their votes where their mouths have been all week. Passing this smart, responsible bill will help put American families first and help take another step on the road to a renewable revolution.

Cloture Motion

Mr. President, normally what we do is ask unanimous consent to move forward on this legislation. We know the minority, if they were here, would object. They are not here, so rather than embarrass anyone, I will now move to proceed to Calendar No. 743, S. 3044, and send a cloture motion to the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum be waived.

I now withdraw the motion.

Mr. President, I filed cloture on the motion to proceed to the legislation that I outlined, S. 3044, which is the Consumer First Energy Act. I am going to shortly move to proceed to H.R. 6049, the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008. However, prior to doing that, I was going to ask unanimous consent that if cloture were invoked on the motion to proceed to S. 3044, that then the cloture motion on H.R. 6049 would be withdrawn. Since there is no one from the Republican side here to launch an objection, which I am told they would do, I am not going to ask for unanimous consent today but will do so on Monday when a Republican is here in the Senate.

Mr. President, I now move to proceed to Calendar No. 767, H.R. 6049, energy production and conservation, and I send a cloture motion to the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum required under rule XXII be waived.

Mr. President, notwithstanding an adjournment of the Senate today, June 6, I ask unanimous consent that the bill relating to the Medicare Improvement for Patients and Providers Act of 2008, introduced by Senators Boxer and Snowe, among others, be considered to have received a first reading and objection made to further proceedings on Friday, June 6; that it then receive its second reading on the next legislative day; and that this request is only valid until 5 p.m. today, Friday, June 6.

Mr. President, I now ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 3:15 p.m., Monday, June 9; 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 motion to proceed to Calendar No. 728, S. 3044, the Consumer First Energy Act.

As I have said earlier, Mr. President, there will be no rollcall votes on Monday. Senators should be prepared to vote Tuesday morning.

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

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I think it is pretty clear what the picture is here. After trying everything that we could to have a regular debate on this bill, we were turned away at every point.

My memory goes back to yesterday, with the unusual, untoward request and objection that we not be allowed to waive the reading of almost a 500-page amendment. So we spent all day yesterday doing that. I think if my friend is interested in doing something about gas prices, that opportunity will come quickly, because we are going to have to vote Tuesday morning on gas prices. It is a very direct, concise debate on gas prices. I hope we will get support from the Republicans on that issue.

It would seem to me, if they are interested in doing something about gas prices, they would vote cloture on that. If they wish to offer amendments, that is the fine. But with all due respect to my friend, who objected to even committees meeting today--committees meeting today--in addition to having the amendment read----

It is both. I object.

And I object, Mr. President.

Mr. President, look at this picture: My friend is complaining about judges. They did this yesterday because of judges. I gave a speech 7, 8 years ago that lasted 9 hours, so they can now say that is fine, these many years later, we are going to force them to read a bill.

Keep in mind, all you people who are watching, we have the lowest rate in decades, some 30 years, of vacancies in the Federal judiciary. Is it an emergency? Of course not. These lifetime appointments make far more money than the average American.

This judges issue they put into this global warming debate is a diversion. President Bush doesn't acknowledge global warming exists, so it is obvious he is not concerned about global warming.

I so admire a few valiant souls, led by Senator Warner, on the other side who do believe it is a critical issue. I appreciate their vigilance and their courage for coming forward and supporting us in trying to do something about global warming.

My friend, the Republican leader, is talking about gas prices having gone up while we have been in control of the Senate for less than 18 months. The President of the United States has been in power for 7\1/2\ years. Gas prices have gone up 250 percent. Gas prices, since the first of the year, have gone up 82 cents.

This whole argument objecting to committees meeting--when the Republicans were in power, there was not much going on with the committees, no oversight. We are having a little oversight. Maybe that is why they don't want us to do the committee hearings.

This whole issue dealing with global warming--we have a memo of theirs saying they are going to play political games--the whole issue relating to this reminds me of the old-time story where a person kills his parents and then seeks the mercy of the court because he is an orphan. That is what they are doing.

This argument is so transparent. After not having allowed us to do anything on this bill, they suddenly walk out here and say: We have something we would like to amend.

We have tried. We have tried. We have a cloture vote set on this issue. We are going to do it in the morning, to allow us to go forward and debate some amendments. We will see what happens on that vote.

The American people understand what the Republican minority has done to the Senate and to our country. It has even spilled over into the House of Representatives in three special elections. The former Speaker of the House of Representatives, the man Speaker Pelosi replaced, in a heavily Republican district in the State of Illinois, that district went Democratic. Why? Because of this going on.

In Louisiana, a House seat that had been Republican for many years, the Democrats won that seat in a special election. In Mississippi, they appointed a Senator to take Senator Lott's spot. There was a vacancy. A Democrat won that. It is going to continue. The American people see this picture.

Several Senators addressed the Chair.

Mr. President, it appears at this time, for the knowledge of all Senators, we are going to try to have a vote as early in the morning as possible on cloture on the global warming bill. Unless someone has some real concerns, we will probably try to do it around 9 o'clock in the morning so people can leave at a relatively early time tomorrow. That should be the only vote we are going to have. We were going to try to do a judge, but the committee's meeting was objected to today, so I didn't believe that was appropriate.

So we are going to do the vote in the morning, and we will have a couple of votes Tuesday morning. Monday is a no-vote day. Hopefully, tomorrow we won't be in too late, but we will be here as late as anyone wants to be here to talk about anything they want.

I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, today is the last day of service for our current page class. On behalf of all Senators, I thank them for the job they do every day for us--running these documents all over the Capitol, rushing around here to make sure amendments are filed appropriately and, for me, often filing cloture motions. They do a lot. The glass of water I have here, as for every Senator, they know whether they want sparkling water, water with ice, cold water, warm water.

These are wonderful, intelligent young men and women. It would have been a wonderful experience to be a page when I was a boy. I hope my vision of the time they have had is appropriate in that they really do have the time I think they are having.

They have seen this body, the greatest deliberative body in the history of the world, debate some very difficult issues. They have seen us succeed at times, maybe not succeed at other times. But I hope they always believe we approach our job with sincerity, of having different views but always striving to make our country stronger.

It is lost on no one that more than a few of our Senators who have served here and served in the House have been pages. Chris Dodd from Connecticut was a Senate page. I talked to him about it today. That was the beginning of his career.

Mr. President, I have in my office right across the hall pictures of my two first grandchildren--two beautiful little girls, little babies. They could not sit up. They were so small, they were propped up against something. One of them was born in September and the other was born in November. Ryan and Mattie--beautiful little babies. But I have in front of that picture a picture of my two oldest grandchildren in their Senate page uniforms. They were Senate pages. Being Senate pages changed their lives, and I am not exaggerating. It was a wonderful experience for my two grandchildren.

I hope the experience for every one of these pages is half as good as for my granddaughters. When I say it changed their lives, I am not joking. Take Ryan as an example. She did not read newspapers. She was not really interested in what was going on in Government. But she now is. She reads, watches the news, and sees people come through the Senate whom she used to work with.

It does not hurt my feelings--and it should not hurt the other 98 Senators--to accept the proposition that their favorite Senator is Robert Byrd. Now, Robert Byrd is frail and not as strong and vigorous as he was when I first came to the Senate. But the pages, when my granddaughters were here, voted for which Senator they liked most, and it was Robert Byrd.

Well, I am confident that as a result of these young men and women being here, they will have a new enthusiasm for public service. I know the Presiding Officer and I believe in government. Government is good. When people are in trouble, where can you go for help? Mr. President, 9/11 said you can look to your God, whoever that might be, you can look to your family, and you can look to government. There are very few places to go other than that. And for government, we need good people, in appointive office and in elective office. I do not think there is a higher calling than public service. I personally feel so fortunate every day to be a public servant. Do we make all the money that people can make on the outside? No. But we make enough money. We make plenty of money. So I hope these young men and women find ways, big and small, to serve and honor the country that we love and they love.

I have the honor in the morning of being able to speak at the pages' graduation. I look forward to doing that. I am going to do that at 10 o'clock in the morning.

But, Mr. President, for today, I wish to enter the names of all of this semester's pages in the Record in honor of their service. The first two names I read off tonight are a couple Nevadans: Danae Moser, Sparks, NV; Andrew Solomon, Gardnerville, NV. Alyssa Abraham, Franklin, TN; Brittany Ashenfelter, Redfield, IA; Joanna Beletic, Arlington, VA; Genny Beltrone, Great Falls, MT; Andrew Carter, Madison, WI; Christopher Cary, Parkville, MO; Phoebe Chaffin-Busby, Little Rock, AR; Allie Dopp, Bountiful, UT; Ronson Fox, Waipahu, HI; Jennifer Goebel, Plano, TX; Adrienne Gosselin, Nashua, NH; Mary Margaret Johnson, Madison, MS; Taylor Johnson, Orrington, ME; Jocelynn Knudsen, Missoula, MT; Olivia Konig, Great Falls, VA; James Lee, Fairfax, VA; Ashley Lewis, Canton, MI; Mark Loose, Anderson, IN; Joshua Moscow, Lexington, KY; Danae Moser--again, I repeat in alphabetical order--Sparks, NV; Hamid Nasir, Anchorage, AK; Evan Nichols, Eaton Rapids, MI; Cody O'Hara, Florence, KY; Reed Phillips, Alexander City, AL; Augusta Rodgers, Winona, MN; Sarah Rosenberg, Chicago, IL; Brandon Skyles, Buckley, WA; Andrew Solomon--I repeat--Gardnerville, NV; Jacob Waalk, Monroe, LA; Ryan Wingate, Montpelier, VT.

I look forward to seeing these fine young men and women at 10 o'clock in the morning, Mr. President.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my brief statement not take away from the 15 minutes that has been allotted to the two managers of this budget conference report.

Mr. President, I wish to have the record spread with how we work together here, not as much as we should, but we do it often.

As everyone knows, Senator Kennedy is ill. He has had brain surgery. He is now in a hospital in North Carolina. Senator Byrd has taken ill. He is in a hospital in Virginia. My Republican colleagues stepped forward. Senator Warner said: I will pair with Senator Kennedy. That is something we used to do a lot. We don't do it as much as we used to. But I will pair, said Senator Warner, with Senator Kennedy. That way he is recorded as if Senator Kennedy were here, he would vote opposite of Senator Warner and therefore it cancels out the votes.

I called Pete Domenici at home last night and said: Pete, as you know, Senator Byrd is sick. Would you pair with him? He didn't hesitate a half a second. He said: Of course I will.

Now, I want everyone to understand how much I personally, as do we all, appreciate these men stepping forward and doing this in a time of need. It would be easy for them to say wait until we get everybody here and we will have a vote.

But in addition to that, Judd Gregg last night said: I would be happy to pair with someone if that is necessary. This is above and beyond the call of duty. Senator Conrad has spoken many times about his affection for Judd Gregg. They have worked so closely together for so long. I also feel he is one of America's very good Senators. Very few people are as well prepared as he is to come to the Senate. He has been a Member of the House of Representatives, he has been Governor of his State, and now a Senator. He and I don't agree with a lot of the votes we do here, but as far as him being a good legislator, he is truly a good legislator.

So Senator Gregg, Senator Domenici, and Senator Warner I would acknowledge are very outstanding not only Senators but human beings.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my statement and that of Senator Conrad's not take away from the time of Senator Gregg because he needs all the time he can get to show that this is the biggest tax increase in the history of the world.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the motion to proceed to S. 3036 be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid on the table.

Mr. President, I send the Boxer substitute amendment to the desk.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be waived.

Mr. President, the American public has had the opportunity for the last 8 hours to watch what is wrong with the Republican minority. No wonder an election in a heavily Republican House district, the seat of the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dennis Hastert, goes Democratic big time; a House seat in a special election in Louisiana, which has been Republican for a long period of time, went Democratic; and a seat in the State of Mississippi, in a special election, went Democratic. All you have to do is look at the picture of what has been going on here today to understand why.

It seems the Republican minority wants to do anything they can to maintain the status quo. They do not want legislation, and they have proven that time and time again. I want everyone to understand that because of the Republicans, we are going to have to have a vote. In a short time, I am going to call a live quorum and people are going to have to take off their pajamas, turn off their TV sets and head for the Capitol, and they should do that because that is what we are going to have, as the terminology is here, in a few minutes.

Now, I want also people to kind of get the other picture. The Thursday before our recess, 13 days ago, we were working on a package of nominations. I worked with the Chief of Staff of the President of the United States, Josh Bolten. We cleared a lot of names. The vast majority of them, 80-some, were Republicans, Republican nominees. There were a handful of Democrats, five--I don't know how many. It was all done. I thought we had worked this out with the Chief of Staff, the President's Chief of Staff. But lo and behold, at the last minute, no. So I thought, well, we would start early this time. So a couple days ago I started working again with Josh Bolten, and the last couple days, in fact 3 days, we have been working. He has had somebody work with my Chief of Staff and my appointments person, and I thought we

were making a lot of headway. We did another deal. We learned at the last minute that the Republicans don't want it. They do not want their own people, one of whom was a Secretary of the Cabinet.

So this is the stall that is taking place, for reasons that are-- well, the American people can see.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I move to instruct the Sergeant at Arms to request the presence of absent Senators, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to be patient for a short time.

First of all, these valiant people who are sitting in front of the Presiding Officer have been required today to read for more than 8 hours--total, without any breaks, 8 hours--for no reason other than the Republicans are trying to maintain the status quo in everything.

Talk about this picture: reading an amendment that is done extremely rarely. We had our staff check, and it is done every decade or so. This was a bill of some 500 pages. The bill has been available for people to read long before today. The substitute amendment has been ready long before today.

As I said earlier this week, manmade pollution is causing the Earth to warm. The science is crystal clear. We have for more than 100 years been taking carbon out of the Earth and putting it into the sky. It is causing our Earth to have a fever. Our Earth is sick, and we must look at the sickness and try to do something about it.

The warming is clear. It has already harmed our environment and our economy. We know that. The scientists know that. You can see it all around us. It is causing more frequent and more intense drought, wildfires, and floods.

Western wildfires. I look around this room, and I see Senator Baucus, I see the Senator from California and the Senator from Washington. In the last 30 years, 72 more days of wildfire season--72 more days-- lightning striking in those 72 days. More fires. Fires are more intense.

Floods, tornadoes. At least 110 people have been killed in the United States so far this year by tornadoes, putting this year on track to be by far the deadliest year in the history of tornado deaths. The average for recent years is 62 tornado fatalities for the entire year. We are just completing May, and we are already at 110 deaths. January had 84 tornadoes. The 3-year average for the month is 34. It is approximately three times the average. February had 148 deaths compared to a 3-year average of only 25. Multiply that, Mr. President. That does not include the records that are unverified for March, April, and May. One tornado season does not make a long-term climate trend. We understand that. But it should give Senators pause and should make them want to limit these kinds of global warming risks.

Global warming is easily the gravest long-term challenge that our country and the world faces. It is the most critical issue of our time. The American people have a right to expect their legislature, their Congress to address this issue. That is why we decided a number of months ago that the Senate should take up climate change on June 2. We did so to let the American people know that the Senate was prepared to act, and put all Members of this body on notice we were going to act. Senators should begin preparing for this important debate, is what we said, so we could hit the ground running and truly legislate on this most important issue.

Late last month, I sought permission to proceed to the climate change bill and was informed by the Republicans that they would object to this request; and they objected. Had the minority, the Republicans, not objected last month, the Senate could already be in its third day of legislating on this important bill.

But where do we find ourselves? We find ourselves confronting an orchestrated effort by the Republican leader to delay and obstruct. We have seen this play a record number of times before this body. In 10 months we all know they broke the 2-year filibuster record.

We are now, I believe, at 72 filibusters for this Congress. There is one difference in this instance. We have actually been provided with a copy of a page from the Republican playbook and how they intend to thwart this body from acting on this important legislation. This was provided to us by a lobbyist involved in Republican strategy meetings. Let me read verbatim what this e-mail says. It is too bad the press galleries are bare because it is almost midnight:

The thinking now is to still use as much of the 30 hours

post-cloture on the motion to proceed for debate on

thematically-grouped amendments. The goal is for a theme

(example: climate bill equals higher gas prices) each day,

and the focus is much more on making political points than in

amending the bill, changing the baseline text for any future

debate or affecting policy.

Let me repeat the last sentence:

The goal is for a theme (example: climate bill equals

higher gas prices) each day, and the focus is much more on

making political points than in amending the bill. . . .

That is what they say. So this Republican strategy memo could not be more clear. The Republican plan for dealing with the greatest challenge facing this world and this Nation is more about making political points than legislating. Those are not my words; that is what they say in their memo.

But there is more to this cynical strategy that is completely out of touch with this body's obligations and the American people's expectations. Continuing from a Republican strategy memo, I will quote:

GOP anticipates a struggle over which amendments are

debated and eventually finger-pointing over blame for demise

of the bill. In the GOP view, this will take at least the

rest of this week, and hopefully into next week.

Mr. President, you could not make anything up more cynical. This is the truth and they say truth is stranger than fiction, and this certainly is. They go on to say:

At some point, Reid will have to move from the bill, and

GOP plans to oppose UC and potentially force debate on

debatable motions, and vote against cloture on any such

motion. While Reid will eventually be able to circumvent by

moving to a privileged vehicle or using some other

parliamentary maneuver, the bottom line is that the GOP--

The Grand Old Party--I bet President Abraham Lincoln would be happy about this one--

very much wants to have this fight, engage in it for a

prolonged period, and then make it as difficult as possible

to move off the bill.

Again, as they say, they want to make political points. Anybody watching this debate will know the Republicans have fully executed this strategy. What did they do today to execute in making political points? That is some political point. It is routine here to not read the amendments, but they said ``we object.'' So we proceeded to have the amendment read. They executed this strategy and they have done it well, and they tried to make political points. I have no reason to doubt that they are prepared to go the final mile to stretch out the final consideration of this bill before finally killing it.

In case anybody needed more proof about their desire, I offered, with our staffs, several consents that would have stopped the obstruction we have witnessed in the past few days. My consents would have allowed the Senate to move forward to complete action. Isn't that an interesting concept? A bill is offered--and I have been around here a long time, and some people have been here longer than I have, but I defy anyone to say they have ever laid down a perfect piece of legislation.

That is why we have the amendment process. A bill was laid down and we thought there should be an opportunity to try to make the bill better. That certainly wasn't what they had in mind. In keeping with the strategy spelled out in this Republican memo, their response was that we are not going to allow this; we are going to object, object, and object. Their obstructionism is disappointing to me personally and, obviously, to the American people.

I repeat what I said earlier this evening. Is it any wonder that Speaker Dennis Hastert's long-time Republican district, in a special election, went Democratic? Is it any wonder a long-time Republican district in Louisiana went Democratic? Is there any reason to not understand why the special election in Mississippi went Democratic? Of course not, because the American people are seeing what is going on here. The American people want us to do things.

Do you know what the Republicans get glee out of doing? They are happy that our approval rating is about the same as the President's. Isn't it wonderful that they are a part of this body, 49 of them, and there are 51 of us, and they are boasting about the fact that the people don't think much of Congress. Why don't they? Look at this Republican memo. That should give you some inclination as to why the American people feel the way they do.

This important legislation has been worked on very hard on a bipartisan basis. Is it perfect? Of course not. Shouldn't we be able to move to try to amend this and have the old-fashioned debate to move forward on it? I commend Senators Boxer, Warner, and Lieberman. They have worked so hard, and I appreciate their caring about this issue.

At this point, I think we have some very serious problems here. I will go through this. We have been told what the answer is going to be. Specifically, to every request that we have given to staff as to how to proceed on this bill, there is an objection.

I want everybody here to know what I have gone through a little bit. Listen to this. The Thursday before we went out, I worked very long and hard and spent hours working with the President's Chief of Staff, to work out some way to move forward on these nominations. We had more than 80 Republicans and a handful of Democrats. I thought if you have the President's Chief of Staff working on something for several days, that should be sufficient. But guess what happened. I am here late at night with loyal Lula, and everybody else is gone. We asked unanimous consent and there was an objection. I called the Chief of Staff and said, ``What's this all about?'' Nothing happened. Remember, one of them--I personally asked Chairman Dodd to do a special meeting to get the Secretary of Housing out of the committee. He held a special meeting in the President's room back there. We did that for the President of the United States, so he would have a Cabinet officer in Housing. Today was the culmination of 3 days of work with the President's Chief of Staff on nominations. We added more people than they requested. We only have 5; they are way over 80 now. I thought we had it all worked out. We called Joe Biden, who had a hold on somebody. Joe, the man that he is--always willing to go the extra mile to work things out--said go ahead. The person was Jim Glassman. Some of us know who Jim Glassman is--not exactly a bipartisan person who has been around Washington. He was going to replace Karen Hughes in that position in the State Department. We worked very hard to get that completed and released. The reason we worked so hard is Mr. Bolten said they would appreciate us doing this because if we don't do it tonight, he is going to withdraw. We went the extra mile and worked for a couple of hours getting him cleared. We thought we had a deal. I give it to Lula Davis, the secretary of the majority, and she submits it to the minority and we wait all day.

Listen to this. They have rejected it. Guess what. Out of nowhere, they want three district court judges. I have not talked to the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Senator Leahy has always been good on district court judges. But they want three district court judges, and I had never even heard their names. How unfair could they be?

So again, Mr. President, wherever you are--probably sleeping, as you should be--you are not going to have a Secretary of Housing because the rules around here seem to be only for one side. I worked very hard to try to get this done. We are going to continue to try for some basic fairness. We have an obligation ourselves. All of the nominations don't come from the White House. We have nominations ourselves to fill various positions. We will have a new President in 7 months. I have the obligation and the honor of submitting names to the White House. We have some people we wish to get, too. It is not just a one-way street, even though they may think it is.

I think that what we have seen here is outlandish, unfair, unreasonable, and

not in keeping with this body. I have been here a while, and we work on comity. We work together. That isn't the way it is now. I understand how upset the Republicans were in November of 2006 when we got the majority. Quite frankly, Senator Schumer and I worked closely, and we thought we might be able to get the majority, but we weren't certain. We got the majority and we were happy--but it is a slim majority. My friends on the Republican side have to get over it. We are in the majority, as slim as it might be. For the next 7 months, I am committed and I will try to work with the President. It has been difficult to do for 7 years and 5 months, but I am never one who is without patience. I will continue to try to move forward on nominations and anything else we can work on together.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the substitute.

Mr. President, I have a perfecting amendment to the substitute at the desk and I ask for its consideration.

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

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I have a second-degree amendment at the desk, and I ask for its consideration.

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

Mr. President, I have an amendment at the desk and I ask for its consideration.

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

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I have a second-degree amendment at the desk.

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

Mr. President, I have a cloture motion at the desk on the substitute amendment, and I ask that it be stated.

Mr. President, I ask that the mandatory quorum call be waived.

Mr. President, I move to commit the bill to the Environment and Public Works Committee with instructions to report back forthwith with an amendment.

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

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I have an amendment to the instructions at the desk and ask for its consideration.

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

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I have a second-degree amendment to the instructions at the desk, and I ask for its consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to Calendar No. 743, S. 3044, the Consumer-First Energy Act of 2008, at a time to be determined by the majority leader, following consultation with the Republican leader.

Mr. President, in light of that objection, I now move to proceed to Calendar No. 743, S. 3044, and send a cloture motion to the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the cloture vote occur on Tuesday, June 10, at 12 noon with 20 minutes immediately prior to the vote equally divided and controlled by the two leaders or their designees, with the majority leader controlling the final 10 minutes.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

I now ask that the cloture motion be withdrawn.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I have already expressed my appreciation to the staff for all their hard work. I have been informed by the minority that we need not be around here tonight having to vote on our ability to adjourn, so Senators, if they wish, can leave now and the two of us will terminate business. I thank everybody for their patience. I am sorry they had to come back tonight.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 4 p.m. on Thursday, June 5--that is tomorrow--the Senate proceed to the consideration of

Calendar No. 753, H.R. 6124; that there be 60 minutes of debate divided in the following manner, and upon the use or yielding back of the time, the Senate vote on passage of the bill: Senator DeMint, 30 minutes; Senator Coburn, 20 minutes; 10 minutes total to be controlled by the bill managers, Senator Harkin and Senator Chambliss; further, that no amendments be in order to the bill.

Mr. President, let me explain, this is the never-ending farm bill. We are going to try it again. Tomorrow we hope we can pass it and send it to the President quickly. We hope to send it to the White House in the next day or so. The House has already approved it. This will take care of the clerical error we had previously.

Mr. President, I would hope my friend the distinguished Republican leader would stay on the floor a brief time. The chairman of the Judiciary Committee is here, the Democratic assistant leader is here, and they have a few things to say and I have a few things to say.

Mr. President, let me say, first of all, with all due respect to my friend the distinguished Republican leader, the substitute has been around for 2 weeks. The summary has been around. Anyone who had a question about this, all they had to do was call Senator Boxer, Senator Lieberman, or Senator Warner. They know this bill upside and downside. So to say they just got it today, that is how we do things here; the summary has been around a couple of weeks. Anyone who wanted to see the guts of the bill could look at it.

I will in a short time, but let me also say this. I only point this out to show how Orwellian my friend's statements are. They wish they could offer amendments on the bill? Now, think about that for a minute. Why aren't we offering amendments on the bill? Because they won't let us. We have tried working, as I have indicated, in every possible way--two amendments, germane, relevant, five amendments. No.

So I would also say, with judges, let the world understand that there is no crisis in the judiciary. The Federal judiciary vacancy rate is the lowest it has been in decades--not a few days, weeks, months, years--decades.

I, with the consent and understanding of my friend, Pat Leahy, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, pledged that I would use my good faith to have the Senate consider three court of appeals nominees before the Memorial Day recess. I didn't say who they would be. And we tried very hard.

I stated explicitly that we couldn't guarantee--and that is in the record--I couldn't guarantee the outcome because it depended on factors beyond my control. The Senate did in fact confirm Virginia Supreme Court Judge Steven Agee to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in May. In addition, Chairman Leahy expedited Judiciary Committee consideration of two seats to the Michigan Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in light of the pledge I made. These nominations were the result of many years of negotiations between the White House and Michigan Senators. This has been going on for 6 years.

Unfortunately, Republicans on the Judiciary Committee objected to expedited consideration of the Michigan nominees. One of them had already been approved to be a Federal district court judge. This is now to be a circuit court judge. He already had an ABA approval of high ranking, high approval. They said: No, we want the ABA findings again before we are allowed to do anything. As a result, it was impossible to have the Senate consider these two additional nominees before the recess, despite my best efforts.

We have treated President Bush's judicial nominations with far greater deference than President Clinton was afforded by a Republican- controlled Senate. Mr. President, 70 Clinton nominees were denied hearings or floor consideration. Three-quarters of President Bush's court of appeals nominees have been confirmed while only half of President Clinton's appellate nominations were confirmed. My friend says what goes around comes around. We are not following that because we believe we should not treat them like they treated us. I said that a long time ago, and we have not. We have been generous in what we have done. The lowest vacancy rate in the Federal system for decades is what we now have.

Last year the Senate confirmed 40 judges, more than during any of the three previous years with Republicans in charge. Let me say to my friend, and I am going to yield to the chairman of the Judiciary Committee--let me say to my friend, the distinguished Republican leader: Everyone knows, even though it sometimes has been painful for all of us, that the chairman of the Judiciary Committee wants a recorded vote on these judges. That has been a standard rule that we have had.

We have three on the calendar, and I understand two more you reported out today, or very recently. We have five district court judges. I say to my friend, the Judiciary Committee member who takes as much guff as any Member of the Senate because of this committee, he has the most sensitive issues that come before this body, and he holds up very well and is a patient man. But as I say, I ask the question through the Chair to my friend: Has anyone come to you in the last week and said they wanted to do a district court judge?

There is no question about that.

I very definitely am.

Mr. President, let me say this. I would say through the Chair to my friend, the distinguished Republican leader, the district court judges, the

first I heard about them was tonight, whatever time it was--late this evening. Senator Leahy and I are happy to take a look at these district court judges. We will work together and see what can be done with them. But I say to my friend, I would hope that you would reconsider taking us at our word. We will take a look at the district court judges. Senator Leahy has said he has never been talked to about it. I never have been. We focused on the circuit court judges. I say to my friend, you want to talk about ``let's get back to doing things the way we used to,'' let's do the Executive Calendar. And the district court judges, we will take a look at those.

I will be happy to.

Mr. President, I have been here for a long time--with Senator Daschle, I was here on the floor for 6 years. I have been here for almost 4 years now in my capacity as Democratic leader. The standard operating procedure--and this is in the hearing range of the distinguished chairman of the committee who was the ranking member during part of that time--it always happened. Somebody brings to our attention: We have a judge. Can you help me with it? We don't automatically do the judges.

Nobody asked me. We never worked that way with the judges. We have a very heavy calendar, and Senator Leahy--and I support it every step of the way. We don't do it in wrap-up. We have votes on these judges.

I say to my friend, the Republican leader, we will be happy to look at the district court judges. In the entire conversations we have had dealing with circuit court judges--I understand why they are probably more important than district court judges. They are all lifetime appointments, a pretty good deal.

I hope he would take us at our word, and we will work to try to move through these at some reasonable fashion and get these done because if we don't do it tonight, tomorrow somebody is going to object to something else. I don't think you lose one----

First of all, I literally mean that. I don't know what States they are from. I don't know whether the Senators are Democrats, Republicans, States with both. We have not let that stand in our way in the past with district court judges, but there may be somebody who doesn't like one of them for some reason. You know how things go around here. I can't imagine it would be all of them.

Mr. President, it was just shown to me by my valiant staff--we have a judge from Virginia. We have Warner and we have Webb from Virginia. They get along very well. I am sure that is something we will take a look at. Missouri, the Senators there work well together. We have another Senator from Mississippi--these are things we can take a look at. I can say--we are not here under oath, but I never heard of these judges until just now. We will take a look at them. I can't see why we can't work out something and get them approved in the next little bit.

Yes.

I say to my friend, the Republican leader, we have no intention of stalling, not taking care of district court judges. But let us take a look at them. I don't know if there is some--I don't know. They are reported out of the committee, they are on the floor, there should be no problems with them, and we will do our best to look at them. But I say to my friend, these things I want to get done tonight--this is a Cabinet officer. We have a man, Jim Glassman, Under Secretary of State, who--the President's Chief of Staff says he is going to withdraw his name. He is tired of waiting. He has to get a job someplace. I want to get these done.

As I say, there are some 80 of them or more. We will work on these. I tell you I would even give my friend, the Republican leader--Senator Leahy and I will work on these three district court judges. I read the names. We will try to do them in the next week or so. OK?

Of course.

The Republican leader said we want to work the way we used to in the Senate. Take our word for it. We are not trying to deep six these people. This is the first time I ever heard about it.

I will be happy to yield for a question.

We committed to do the three judges. We got one done. We will do our best to get two done. But we have been held up doing that as the member of the Judiciary Committee understands. We had to wait for the ABA report to come in again. I don't know where that stands, but we are moving forward on those, and we are going to try to do our very best to get those done as soon as we can.

Mr. President, I try to be a very patient man. I know my friend, whom I complimented publicly on the floor, didn't mean what he said this morning about me.

I am sure if that were brought to his attention, he would ask that to be taken from the Record because it is in violation of the rules; basically, that I was clueless. I am sure he did not mean that, but that is what he said. And people said it is a violation of rule XIX.

I say first to my friend from Alabama, he said that. Was it something he did not really mean, that I was clueless? Because that is an insult. I would ask my friend, did you really mean that I was clueless?

I want to be careful. It is late tonight. I certainly do not want to get involved in any friction. I appreciate what my friend said because even though he and I disagree on a lot of things, I do not know of a Member of the Senate who is more sincere in what he does than the Senator from Alabama.

Let me say to my friend the Republican leader----

They are on the calendar. Let me say this one thing to my friend. We have a Judiciary Committee member here. I pride myself in not running my committees. Some leaders have tried to do that; I do not do that. I want to do the best I can in moving circuit court judges, and we have done fairly well in very trying circumstances.

So I say to my friend the Senator from Alabama, I have made a commitment to do three circuit court judges. I will live up to that to the best of my ability. I said prior to the May recess: I cannot guarantee that, but I am going to do my best. I think that it is something Senator Leahy and I have to move forward on.

I ask my friend and I say to the Republican leader, trust us on this. I said publicly here that we will do something to try to schedule these within the next week. We have a few important things, but that does not take long to do that--an hour, an hour and a half.

I ask my friend the Judiciary Committee chairman whether we can work to try to get some votes scheduled on these three whom I noted in the next week.

I would answer my friend in addition to that, the Thurmond Rule is after June 1. There is no Thurmond Rule, is there?

I say, we will get this done.

That is what I said.