Floor Statements

Mr. President, today we are going to move shortly to the Indian health bill. We have a little business we need to take care of prior to that. We are going to be in a period of morning business. We will add to that period of morning business whatever time the Republican leader used. When we get to morning business, the first 30 minutes will be under the control of the Republicans. The majority will control the 30 minutes that follow.

Following morning business, the Senate will begin consideration of S. 1200, the Indian health bill. There will be amendments offered today. We are not going to vote until 5:30. We hope to have a number of votes at that time.

On Wednesday, the Republicans will conduct a 1-day retreat or meeting. They are going to be at the Library of Congress. The Senate will be in session, and hopefully any amendments from the Democratic side will be offered and debated at that time.

Another issue which the Senate will be considering--and I will talk about that in a little bit--is the FISA legislation. That matter is going to expire on February 1.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 419.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to this matter be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, we said farewell last year to our friend, Senator Lott. Today, we welcome his successor, Roger Wicker.

Senator Wicker is no stranger to Washington, DC, having served the people of Mississippi's First Congressional District since 1995.

In the House, he served as the Republican deputy whip, and he served on his party's policy committee for some 6 years.

His distinguished history in the U.S. Air Force has informed his advocacy on behalf of veterans health care and pensions, as well as military construction projects throughout the world. He has also been a strong supporter of health care research and has received numerous awards for his advocacy in this regard.

His background and expertise on these and other issues will surely make him a welcome addition to our Senate. So on behalf of all Democratic Senators, I extend my congratulations to him.

Mr. President, it is good to be back in the Senate. The past 4\1/2\ weeks have been very pleasurable for me. Since I have been the Democratic leader--which has now been for 3 years--it was the longest period of time I have been able to spend at home, and it was a great experience for me. Every day I was able to spend it in my home in Searchlight.

Searchlight, even though it is 60 miles from Las Vegas, is much different in temperature. It rains twice as much--not a lot but 8 inches a year compared to 4 inches in Las Vegas--but it is much colder. It is 3,600 feet high. It has had a number of days in the recent past where the temperature has been 8 degrees. That is the lowest it has ever been, but it has hit that low degree on a number of occasions. This trip home, the lowest it got was 18 degrees, but that was on the same occasion when we had 40-mile-an-hour winds, so it was bitter cold.

But that is one reason I so love Searchlight. The air is pristine and clean and pure. It is refreshing for me to be able to go home. Out my window, on one side of the house, I have set up two little ceramic water dishes, and water comes on there four times a day. Those little animals have it made.

Even though it is wintertime, the quail still come and need a drink of water now and then. If you are lucky, you see a coyote--which I saw on a couple of occasions. As wily and as reclusive as they are, you still see them out wandering around--and all kinds of different birds of different hues and colors.

It may not be very exciting to most people, but for me, one of the exciting events of my trip home was the opportunity to see an animal you rarely see. My wife and I were working in a little study I have there, and we heard three distinct knocks. We didn't know what it was. We got up and looked out the front door--nothing there; we looked out the back--nothing there. I went back to work and a minute or two later my wife says: Get down here. Hurry. So we go to these windows, some picture windows, two large rectangular windows that look out on the area where the ceramic dishes are, and there was a bobcat. For those of us who live in the desert, seeing a bobcat is really almost akin to seeing the Abominable Snowman. Rarely does anyone see a bobcat. They do most of their hunting at night. They are very secretive in everything they do. But this afternoon, this bobcat was there drinking water, very thirsty. I had never seen a bobcat before. Having been born there, raised there, I had never seen a bobcat before. This little animal finished its water, was walking around, saw me in the window and, boy, that little animal hit that window. It was after me and whatever it could see through that window. That was the knock on our window the four times. We have these shutters that when we are not there are down so you cannot see in the house. On this day, the shutters were up and he was looking around and saw inside and he wanted to nose around a little bit and he couldn't do that. Similar to all animals when they are frightened, they jump to protect themselves. Fortunately, even though the animal weighs about 30 pounds, he would have at least took a bite or two out of me. It was great to see. Finally, I got to see a bobcat, but enough of my travel log.

The Senate is going to be forever different for me now. For more than a quarter of a century, part of my workplace has evolved around one of the Senate employees: Martin Paone. First, as I was a new Senator, he was always here to help me feel more comfortable and answer, I am sure as we look back, dumb questions we all ask as new Senators, but he was always a gentleman, always willing to give us the information. For the 9 years I have been involved as Democratic leader, he has been available. During the 6 years I spent on the floor as Senator Daschle's assistant and whip, Marty was always there giving me guidance and advice. He was always so very helpful. It is important to have someone who understands these complicated rules we have in the Senate. He has been a terrific coworker and a good friend and I am going to miss him tremendously. As I have said, the Senate will never be the same with Marty not being here.

So it is bittersweet news that Marty is going to be leaving-- retiring. He has served the Senate for 30 years. His story is a remarkable success story. He began his career in the House Post Office to help pay his way through graduate school at Georgetown. Later he moved to the Senate Parking Office before joining the Democratic cloakroom in 1979. With his tremendous intellect and vast knowledge of procedure, it was no surprise that he moved up the ranks to become Secretary for the minority in 1995. It is no exaggeration to say that every single Democrat and a number of Republicans rely upon Marty's expert advice. That has ended. I have been, as I have indicated, one of those who has depended on his expertise. Nothing has happened on the Senate floor, no legislation was considered, no parliamentary procedure enacted without his influence. Countless staff have come and gone over the years, but he has been a constant, steady presence. I am grateful beyond words and express gratitude for his exceptional service. Ruby is someone we see as we come to work every day. She has worked here for many years herself. Marty has three beautiful children: Alexander, Stephanie, and TJ. I have followed their high school athletic careers over the last several years. But he is moving on to new things, new challenges. We will all miss him. We wish him nothing but the best and know he will be a tremendous success.

Although we are sad to say goodbye to Marty, I am pleased to announce we have chosen Lula Davis as our new Democratic Secretary. She is a long-time veteran of this Chamber. Lula has had more than 25 years of Senate service, which began in the office of the legendary Russell Long of Louisiana. Since 1993, she has been a member of the Democratic floor staff. In 1997, she was elected as the first woman ever to serve as Assistant Democratic Secretary. Much like Marty, Lula has risen to become indispensable for all of us. She has big shoes to fill, but I can't think of a more capable person to take on this crucial role.

Replacing Lula as Assistant Democratic Secretary will be Tim Mitchell. Tim is quiet, always available, so important to me. I appreciate his attention to me on so many different occasions. He has served as floor assistant to the Democratic leader, where he has become a leading expert on floor procedure and legislative process. With 16 years of Hill experience and as a policy adviser for the Democratic Policy Committee, research director for Senator Daschle, and a legislative assistant to the Senate Banking Committee, Tim could not be better prepared for some of these new responsibilities.

Finally, I am pleased to announce that Jacques Purvis, a member of our floor staff, will take on Tim's role as floor assistant. A Howard University fellow, Jacques began his career in my personal office. He is a wonderful, fine young man. He has shown enormous skill and has a bright future ahead of him.

I am happy to yield.

I am happy to yield.

Mr. President, Benjamin Franklin once said:

Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your

neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man.

This year, I know all 100 Senators will work to enable the words of Franklin to be meaningful, to make us each a better person and, in a cumulative effort, a better Senate.

Having come back from my time in Nevada, I think it is an opportunity for me to reflect briefly upon 2007, the first year of the 110th Congress. This past year made one thing clear: We in the Senate are at a constant crossroads, with two paths from which to choose. One path is bipartisanship. The other is obstructionism. One path leads to change, the other to more of the same. This is not directed toward Republicans only but certainly Democrats also. Bipartisanship is a two-way street and we have to understand that. One path leads to change, the other to more of the same; the other to finger pointing.

When we chose bipartisanship last year, we made real progress. For whom did we make real progress? We made it for the American people.

With bipartisanship, we passed the toughest ethics bill in the history of our country to ensure a government as good and as honest as the people we represent. With bipartisanship, we finally passed the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission to support our first responders and secure our most at-risk cities. With bipartisanship, we provided our veterans with the largest health care funding increase in history.

When we sought and found common ground, we passed the first minimum wage increase in 10 years to help the hardest working Americans make ends meet. When we sought and found common ground, we helped struggling homeowners, a few--we have a lot more to do--to at least be aware of and avoid foreclosure. When we sought and found common ground, we enacted the largest expansion of student financial aid since the GI bill. When we sought and found common ground, we passed an energy bill that will lower gas and electricity prices and begin to stem the tide of global warming. Could we have done more with that Energy bill? Of course, we could, and we are going to try in the next few months to enlarge upon it.

Time and time again, we have proved that bipartisanship works. Far too often, unfortunately, others chose the other path--the path of being an obstructionist. We saw that on Iraq. Most Republicans chose to stick with the President's policy that has devastated our Armed Forces, compromised our security, and damaged our standing around the world. We saw it on Medicare drug prices. We were unable to get

done something that is so common sense. The American people say: Why couldn't you do that? What we wanted to do was allow Medicare to negotiate for lower priced drugs. We couldn't get it done. We saw it on children's health. We tried, and we had good bipartisan cooperation. We passed it, but the President vetoed it, and we were unable to override that veto. It is often we see how destructive partisanship can be. So let's hope the old way of doing business is no longer this year's way of doing business.

Many of last year's problems have grown worse--all we have to do is look at the morning newspaper--and many new ones have arisen. Last year, the subprime lending issue was not part of our mantra. Now it is in every speech anyone gives in the political world. We can no longer turn to the old playbook of political posturing. We must end that. We have to do better.

What are the new and growing challenges? We don't need an economics professor or philosopher to tell us: A walk through a neighborhood most anyplace in this country to see the sea of for sale signs, foreclosures are all over this country. All it takes is a trip to a gas station or even drive by a gas station to see people are paying over $3 a gallon most everyplace in this country.

All it takes is a glance at the headlines in the newspaper to see the rising violence and turmoil all across the globe.

Like all of my colleagues, I spent a lot of time back home, and we talked about that. Mr. President, in Nevada, things have changed. But to show you, in a sparsely populated State such as Nevada, similar to the State of my colleague, the Presiding Officer--Nevada is a sparsely populated State. To show how people are so concerned about this country, in an hour and a half on Saturday, 30,000 new Democrats registered to vote in Nevada. In an hour and a half, during the caucuses we had, 30,000 new Democrats registered to vote. Think about that. In the State of Nevada, there were 30,000 new Democratic registrants in an hour and a half. Why? Because we have an economy that is sliding toward recession. Hundreds of thousands of families are at risk of losing their homes--millions, really, not hundreds of thousands. The price of gas and heating homes is skyrocketing to alltime highs. New threats of violence, war, and terrorism are emerging at home and abroad.

Regarding the war in Iraq, it is debatable now how much we are spending there. Is it $10 billion or $12 billion a month? And now we have, during this break we have had, a Republican frontrunner for the Republican nomination for President who says we will have to be in Iraq for as long as 40 more years. This war will soon be going into its sixth year. We are now an occupying force in Iraq.

So together we must address these growing challenges, both foreign and domestic.

At home, the first thing we have to work on is the economic stimulus package. During the break, I spoke to the Secretary of the Treasury at least eight or nine times. He is concerned, and we are all concerned. To be effective, this stimulus plan must be timely, targeted, and temporary. It must be timely because America needs relief right now. It must be targeted because for too long the Republican approach has been to put money in the pockets of corporations and the wealthy rather than the working families who need it most. It must be temporary because, as important as it is to help people right now, we don't do ourselves or our economy any favors by saddling our children and grandchildren with mountains of debt, as has happened over the past 7 years.

If the President and congressional Republicans work together with us to pass this short-term stimulus plan that follows these principles, we can make a real and immediate difference in people's lives and perhaps stave off this looming recession. I call upon all of my colleagues-- Democrats and Republicans--to come together to pass the stimulus package this work period. We have 4 weeks, and we must do it during this 4-week work period. We will meet with President Bush today to continue working out this plan.

While we await the results of the discussions on the stimulus package, we will begin this year by addressing other important issues, such as Indian health. We have to do this. The sickest and worst health care in America is on Indian reservations. That is why we are doing this. Native Americans all over America have the highest rate of diabetes, tuberculosis, and other dread diseases. We must address the health care of the poorest of the poor. They are the poorest of the poor--Native Americans.

This legislation will allow Indian and tribal health providers to offer long-term health care services and even hospice care and will provide diabetes and youth substance abuse programs to urban Indians and will encourage State-tribe agreements to improve health service delivery. We would like to finish that as soon as possible. After we finish that, we will return to the foreign intelligence surveillance bill.

Mr. President, we must pass a FISA law that gives our law enforcement officials the tools they need to fight terrorism, without infringing on the fundamental rights of law-abiding Americans. We have always been willing to work with the President to give him the constitutional authority to meet the post-9/11 challenges. All he had to do was tell us what he needed. It wasn't until we read in the New York Times that he was doing things that were contrary to law that we decided we had to do something legislatively. If he had come to us, we would have done anything we could to maintain the framework for a constitutional form of government to help whatever problems there might be.

With the current law set to expire soon, Democrats are resolved to replace it with a new and stronger one. Senator Rockefeller, Senator Leahy, and their committees--both Democrats and Republicans--believe the law needs to be changed. Hopefully, we can do that. Last month, I requested a 1-month extension of the current law to allow lawmakers additional time to do just that. The present law expires in just a few days, on February 1. That request I made to extend the law was objected to. With just a few days left before the expiration, I will renew my request for an extension. After we act, the House has to act on this bill. They have not done that. The failure to extend the present law for 1 month could lead to the law no longer being something that guides what happens in this country. Some may want that. I think the majority of the Senate doesn't want that. We need time to do that.

The Defense authorization bill--we have to finish that this work period. Hopefully, we can do it by unanimous consent. I personally thought the veto was unnecessary. I think the Iraqi Government, which we have funded with hundreds of billions of dollars, should stand up and be responsible for what has taken place in that country in years past.

I have had one serviceman from Nevada, who was tortured in the first war, who sought compensation in court, and the Bush administration joined in fighting the relief he sought. We tried to do things legislatively to help, and the Bush administration stopped that. He did veto it. We are where we are. Iraq's treatment of American servicemen during the first Gulf war was important. The bill should not have been vetoed. It was.

We will be as agreeable as we can be to get this money. Hopefully, today we can finish this legislation. It is something we need to do. The Wounded Warrior legislation is in here and an additional pay raise for the troops. We will do what we can on that.

There are other things we look forward to this coming year. We want to make sure we do something about product safety legislation. We want to have toys, for example, that are sold that are safe and that don't make kids sick. We will also look at patent reform.

So we have a work-filled legislative session that I have outlined. We have a number of things we cannot put off, and we are going to have to spend some long hours here in the Senate. Hopefully, we won't have to work weekends. I hope that is not the case. FISA, for example--I have had a number of Senators say they want to go to these very important discussions in Doha that start this week. We cannot do that unless we somehow resolve this FISA legislation, either extending it or completing our work. We may have to finish that work this weekend. We have energy legislation on which we have indicated we are going to move forward.

We won't do it this work period, but we have a bipartisan piece of legislation that came out of the Environment and Public Works Committee dealing with global warming; it is the Lieberman-Warner legislation. We need to get to that. We have to be concerned about children's health and what we can do in that regard.

Can we accomplish these goals? Yes, we can. It won't be easy, and it cannot be done if we resort to the same business as usual. We have a shortened time period. We have the Presidential election coming up, and we have contested Senate seats that take a lot of the time of incumbent Senators and the challengers. Last year, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle broke the 2-year record of filibustering in just 1 year. I hope that isn't the case this year, that we don't break another record.

Our work has begun in this new year and new legislative session. Hope springs eternal, and I repeat what I have said before: If we accomplish things here, there is credit to go around to both Democrats and Republicans. Everybody can claim credit for what we do. If we are not able to pass legislation, there is blame to go around for everybody. I hope we can move forward on the important legislation that faces this country and needs to be done.

Mr. President, in a few minutes, I am going to ask unanimous consent to take up the authorization bill for the Department of Defense for fiscal year 2008. But before we proceed to consider and pass this important legislation, I want to take just a moment to advise my colleagues of the unfortunate and troubling path that this legislation has taken since the Senate last voted to pass it on December 14.

On December 19, the same day the other body adjourned its first session, the Congress sent to the President legislation, H.R. 1585, that was identical to the bill we are about to take up and pass, with one substantive difference regarding section 1083 and several associated technical corrections necessary due to the delay of the bill's enactment.

What I want to focus on today is the manner in which the President chose to exercise his veto prerogative. As the Chair and our colleagues are well aware, the Framers of our Constitution deliberately gave the President only a limited or qualified veto power, one that could be overridden by Congress if it could muster a two-third vote in both Houses--a formidable challenge. But President Bush was not satisfied simply to veto the bill and risk an override, as contemplated under our constitutional process.

Rather, on December 28, the President issued a memorandum of disapproval stating that, because the other body had adjourned its first session, while the Senate remained in session to protect its advise-and-consent prerogative, he considered the bill pocket vetoed, relying upon the constitutional provision that protects against the Congress's adjourning in order to prevent the President from exercising his veto power. But the President did not actually pocket the bill. Instead, using the mechanism provided in the rules of the other body for such periods as the December holidays, the White House returned the bill, with the President's veto message, to the Clerk of the House, for transmission to the full body when it reconvened last week. The President said that he was returning the bill ``to avoid unnecessary litigation'' and ``to leave no doubt'' that he was vetoing the bill.

The Constitution does not provide for double vetoes: A bill is vetoed either by being returned or, if return is prevented by Congress's adjournment, by being pocketed. Here, the President returned the bill to the other body through delivery to the Clerk. Obviously, the adjournment did not prevent the bill's return. Accordingly, the bill was not subject to a pocket veto. Had the President not returned the bill within the 10 days--excluding Sunday--prescribed by the Constitution, the bill would have become law without his signature. That fact explains why the President returned the bill.

Indeed, in 1983, President Reagan attempted to pocket veto a military aid appropriations measure during an analogous adjournment--the break between the first and second sessions of the 98th Congress. On a bipartisan basis, the Senate joined a group of Members of the other body to challenge that attempted misuse of the pocket veto in a Federal court case called Barnes v. Kline. Although the decision was subsequently vacated because the fiscal year for the military aid bill had expired in the meantime, thereby mooting the case, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected the Executive's attempt to pocket veto the bill and held that, because it could have been returned to the House, under the Constitution the bill had become law. The court held that three factors, when taken together, establish that adjournment of the first session of a Congress does not prevent the President from returning a bill under the Constitution: First, ``[t]he existence of an authorized receiver of veto messages''; second, ``the rules providing for carryover of unfinished business'' in the second session of a Congress; and third, ``the duration of modern intersession adjournments.''

In that decision, the court of appeals built upon the foundation laid by our colleague, the senior Senator from Massachusetts, who, a decade earlier personally had argued and won the case Kennedy v. Sampson in the same court, thereby establishing the President's duty to return bills to Congress, through its appointed officers, during intrasession adjournments. As the court made clear, during both types of adjournments, the application of the pocket veto clause has necessarily been guided from the beginning by its ``manifest purpose.'' And that purpose is solely to ensure that the Congress cannot deprive the President of his right to exercise the qualified veto, not to permit the President to accomplish what the Framers of our Constitution denied him--by transforming the qualified veto into an absolute veto.

I have gone into some detail in explicating the background and history of the pocket veto controversy because of its importance to our constitutional system of separation of powers and checks and balances between the branches. The President should abandon the strange and unseemly practice

of maintaining that he cannot return a bill to Congress, while simultaneously returning the bill. Such game-playing is unworthy of the Office of the President and breaks faith with the brilliant, carefully crafted system that the Founders bequeathed to us and future generations.

However, much as part of me would like to see Congress take the opportunity provided by the President's action here to establish definitively the Congress's constitutional power to override a veto exercised during its adjournment, the Nation's security and the care of our troops and wounded warriors demands that we get this bill signed into law as soon as possible. This bill provides important congressional authorizations and guidance for the Nation's defense budget, a 3.5-percent 9 pay raise and key bonuses for the troops, legislation to improve the system of care for our wounded warriors, and authorization to establish a war profiteering commission. The President's veto of this bill in December has already delayed these provisions for too long.

I also want to reiterate that it is my belief that the Government of Iraq should take responsibility for what has taken place there in years past, including the brutal torture of American POWs. Congress has gone on record repeatedly--most recently, in overwhelmingly passing section 1083 of the conference report to H.R. 1585 last year in both the House and Senate and sending it to the President--to support the efforts of these Americans who have suffered so much for their country to hold their torturers accountable. This administration has been fighting for years to oppose efforts to win compensation for these American soldiers, which is, frankly, a disgrace.

In light of the President's veto over this issue, I call on him and his administration to work with the POWs and their family members to facilitate negotiations with the Government of Iraq. It is my understanding that the administration has been working with Iraq to settle gulf war commercial debts with foreign corporations such as Mitsubishi of Japan and Hyundai of Korea through issuance of Iraqi bonds. This mechanism takes no funds from the reconstruction of Iraq. It is beyond me why the administration would refuse to do at least that for the POWs. The administration needs to make this right.

The bill (H.R. 4986) was ordered to a third reading and was read the third time.

Mr. President, I am glad we have a large number of Senators here today. I want to go over the schedule for this week.

First of all, I am going to ask unanimous consent, and I will do that now, that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. 2541, which is a 30-day extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act we are going to be dealing with; that the bill be read three times, passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

The reason I ask consent on this legislation is that this bill expires on February 1. The House has not acted on this bill yet, so when we pass this bill, the House has to pass their bill, and there has to be a conference. I hope we could have this extension. I need not belabor the point. I asked this consent before we left; I ask it again.

Mr. President, for all Members here, we are on the Indian health bill now. I hope we can complete that bill tomorrow. The Republicans are having a retreat. They are having theirs tomorrow; we are going to have ours in 10 days or so. There will be activities on the Senate floor tomorrow, but there will be no votes. If there are any votes tomorrow, it will be after they finish their retreat, after 6 o'clock tomorrow night.

So we hope some work can be done on this bill tomorrow. We know the Republicans will be absent, so that makes it very difficult.

We have to finish FISA this week. Everyone should be aware of that point. We have to finish it this week. I know there are important trips people want to take. We have the very important economic conference in Davos that Democrats and Republicans alike would like to go to.

I say, unless we finish the bill Thursday--and we will not be able to get to it until tomorrow night--unless we finish the bill on Thursday, then we are going to have to continue working this week until we finish this bill. We have to finish this bill. It is not fair to the House to jam them so that they have 1 day to act on this legislation. If we finish it this week, I have spoken to the Speaker today and they will work to complete this matter next week. It would be to everyone's advantage if we had more time to do this.

I respect what the Republican leader has said, but everyone here should understand all weekend activities have to be put on hold until we finish this bill. Now, it is possible we could finish it fairly quickly. We are going to work from the Intelligence bill, and if amendments are offered that people don't like, I would suggest they move to table those amendments. Because if people think they are going to talk this to death, we are going to be in here all night. This is not something

we are going to have a silent filibuster on. If someone wants to filibuster this bill, they are going to do it in the openness of the Senate.

We are not going to say, well, we can't get 60 votes on this. We are going to work toward completing this bill as quickly as we can. I would rather we didn't have to do this. And maybe if we get to it on Thursday, we can finish it Thursday. If not, hopefully on Friday. But I know of no alternative. This work period is very short. We have, after this week, only 3 weeks.

I have had many meetings, and they have been bipartisan in nature, to try to come up with a stimulus package that is so important to our country. Everyone has seen what has happened to not only our own stock markets but those around the world. We may not be in a recession, but people are looking at an economic downturn as concerning to everyone, including the President. So we have a lot to do this work period. I have only mentioned a couple issues we need to work on, but there are a lot of others, of course, we need to do also.

Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 1255

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to consideration of Calendar No. 213, H.R. 1255, Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2007; that the amendment at the desk be considered and agreed to; the bill, as amended, be read a third time, passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; that any statements relating thereto appear at the appropriate place in the Record as if given; and that there be no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, through the Chair to my friend from North Dakota, we have a Presidential debate going on now. Democrats and Republicans are talking about health care. I say to my friend, there is no place, no people in America more badly in need of health care than Native Americans. In Nevada, we have 22 different tribal organizations. The sickest, the most dependent people on health care are Indians. We had hospitals that used to exist where they could go, but they are gone. We had a hospital that was brand new. It was never staffed. The people have to drive 110 miles over the worst roads in Nevada to go to the hospital--these Native Americans.

So I say if we, as a people, have any concern about health care, please direct it to the Native Americans. No one needs it more than they do. That is what this legislation is all about. We have legal responsibilities to take care of it, and we have neglected those responsibilities. We as a Federal Government have neglected those responsibilities.

So I so appreciate the chair of this committee, the ranking member of the committee, Senator Murkowski of Alaska, and I hope the two of you can work hard to get us a piece of legislation we can send over to the House and that the President will sign it. People desperately need this legislation.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, morning business will be what we will do most of the day. We have a 10-minute limitation, as we normally do, except for Jack Reed, who has an order for 30 minutes. We are going to recess today at 12:30 for a Democratic conference and then reconvene at 2:15. We have a number of issues we will be working through today, the House is sending us, we are going to send them. There are, of course, no votes, and we will do our very best to finish as soon as we can. I spoke to both Majority Leader Hoyer and Speaker Pelosi today. They expect to finish around 6 or 7 tonight. So during that time we will be running things back and forth with each other until we get this worked out.

Mr. President, this request has been approved by the Republicans. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate request the House to return the papers relative to H.R. 2764.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to Calendar No. 171, S. 924.

Mr. President, I just returned from the White House for the signing of the Energy bill. It is important to note Senator Cantwell was not at the signing but how important she was. She is not a committee chair, but she was extremely valuable in everything we did getting that Energy bill passed. She was instrumental in working out a number of disputes keeping the bill from passing. But with her hard work, when she focuses on something, it really helps a lot. I have had experience with her in the past. Her work on the Energy bill was extremely invaluable. I appreciate her help very much.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 1784 and the Senate then proceed to its immediate consideration.

I understand there is a substitute amendment at the desk. I ask unanimous consent that the Coburn amendment at the desk be considered agreed to; the substitute, as amended, be agreed to; the bill, as amended, be read a third time, and the Senate then proceed to H.R. 4253, which is at the desk; that all after the enacting clause be stricken and the text of S. 1784, as amended, be inserted in lieu thereof; that the bill be advanced to third reading, passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid on the table; that any statements relating to this matter be printed in the Record without further intervening action or debate; and that S. 1784 then be placed on the calendar.

Mr. President, I have a statement I will give later in the day about what we have done this year. But I want to take this opportunity to reciprocate with the kind words the distinguished Republican leader said on my behalf.

Without in any way taking away from the opportunities we have, Senator McConnell and I, as being Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate, the majority and minority leaders of the Senate, these are wonderful opportunities, honors neither one of us would ever imagine we would have. I have been in government a long time, as has my friend the Republican leader. We both recognize that we have to set an example for the rest of the body in patience, in cordiality, and being gentlemen and friends to each other. I think we have done that.

We have gone through some difficult times, criticized not each other personally but as to what has taken place there has been criticism. That will continue, and there is nothing wrong with that. I would like to say my criticism is constructive in nature, and I hope that is how I take any criticism that I get from the other side.

We have a lot to do next year. Next year will actually be more difficult than this year because we will be in the midst of a Presidential election. For me, though, I will have three Democratic Senators back working full time. That will be very pleasant. We will not have to try to arrange the schedule for all four of them.

Scheduling is hard because the Senate has changed over the years, even since I have been here. Schedules are now a lot determined by airplane schedules, not Senate schedules. But on the one hand, when Senators are forced to think about having to be here and not do their fundraising over a weekend, or going back to their States, we tend to get a lot done. We have had to, on occasion--several occasions this year--say we are going to have to be in on the weekend, but with the exception of one weekend, or maybe two weekends, we were able to get the same amount of work done had we stayed here all weekend.

So, again, I say to my friend, the Senator from Kentucky, the Republican leader, we have a lot to look forward to next year. We are going to see a new President to replace President Bush. We hope that will create, in the last year of President Bush's term, more cordiality between the two of us.

I have a meeting later today with the President's Chief of Staff. I hope that will bear fruit. One of the things we have to work on is to try to not have to be in session during the entire next month. We have Senators lined up to cover that. I hope we can work something out with the White House so that is not necessary because there is a significant number of Democratic nominations and a large number of Republican nominations we would like to clear. Hopefully, we can do that later today.

So I will be back later, but I do want to express my appreciation for the kind words and thoughts of my friend, the Senator from Kentucky.

Mr. President, when we come back in January--we are coming back on the 22nd--we are going to immediately move to the Indian Health Care Reauthorization Act. I have spoken to the chairman of the committee, Senator Dorgan. We are going to do everything we can to finish that legislation on January 22. If we can't finish it January 22 or early on January 23, we are going to move immediately to FISA. I have had a meeting today, for example, with General Hayden and Admiral McConnell, to talk about FISA. I have told them it is going to be very difficult to get this done. It expires on February 1. It is something we need to do. It would be in the interests of everyone to have that legislation extended for a year. I offered to do that earlier yesterday, and the White House said, no, that wasn't a good idea.

We are going to do everything we can to complete that legislation quickly when we get back, after we do the Indian Health Care Reauthorization Act.

Also, one of the things we are going to do is, there is one Senator who has held up scores of pieces of legislation that have already passed the House. These bills have all been reported out of the committee by Senators Bingaman and Domenici. They are very important pieces of legislation dealing with the jurisdiction of that committee. What we are going to do, and what we have done, is all those bills that have passed the House of Representatives, we put them into one vehicle over here so we will have one vote.

I have offered to Senator Coburn, who is holding these up--I said, I am willing to let you have two or three votes on these. We have been more than reasonable waiting to work through this, in my opinion. I think it is unreasonable that he has held these up. We are going to complete this legislation one way or the other as soon as we complete these other items I mentioned.

I will have more to say about this in a little while, but I spoke to the Republican leader today, and we both have a good feeling about how we have ended the session. Both of us didn't get exactly what we wanted, but there was a feeling of cooperation and bipartisanship. I hope that spills over into next year--I certainly hope so, and I know Senator McConnell feels that way.

I would like to spend a minute on nominations.

My staff, Ron Weich, who does such a wonderful job for me, indicates I said FISA should be extended for 1 year. It should be extended for 30 days, so we have an opportunity to legislate that during that period of time. I appreciate my staff correcting that statement I made.

We have been working with the White House for the last several days in an effort to reach an agreement that works for both sides regarding nominations. We were unable to reach such an agreement before the Thanksgiving holiday. That led to my calling the Senate into pro forma sessions to avoid the President's very objectionable recess appointments. My hope was I could avoid that prospect for the coming holiday. I tried very hard to work with the President. But he indicated he would still use the period of time that we would be in recess to appoint objectionable nominees.

I said go ahead--here are some. We will give you these--for example, the head of the Federal Aviation Agency, somebody on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Board, the Chemical Safety Board. Go ahead and do those recess appointments.

He wanted a person who cannot get through the Judiciary Committee to be Assistant Counsel to the Attorney General, a man by the name of Bradbury. I talked to various members of the Judiciary Committee yesterday. They don't think the man is somebody who should be confirmed by the Senate. I would say, without a lot of hesitation, there is no chance he would be confirmed. It is my understanding he has already been recess appointed. I can't understand why the President wouldn't do what we have suggested.

My only solution is to prevent this and call a pro forma session again. I thought these jobs--there are more than 50 of them, career- ending opportunities for a lot of these people. These are very important jobs. All of them have to be confirmed by the Senate. I could be a Grinch. I could tell the President I will not move any nominations given his demand to make controversial recess appointments. That would mean more than 50 Republican nominees would not move forward today. So during the holidays it would be: Well, maybe when we come back in a month we can do something.

The Republicans would get about 60 nominations. We would get eight.

But I am not going to do that. I am not going to be the Grinch. We are going to go into pro forma sessions so the President cannot appoint people we think are objectionable, but I am not going to meet stubbornness with stubbornness. It is not good for the body politic; just because someone is being unreasonable means we have to be unreasonable.

Think about this. Because the President wants one person whom we cannot get out of the Judiciary Committee, he is willing to hold everything up. It doesn't sound like much of a compromise to me. I can't understand the rationale behind this.

I have spoken with Josh Bolton. Josh Bolton is a very pleasant person to deal with. He has a boss, and that is the President of the United States. So I called Josh Bolton and told him, as unreasonable as I think our President is being, I am not going to be unreasonable. We are going to confirm these appointments this evening; as I said, about 60 for the Republicans, 8 for the Democrats. And I will keep the Senate in pro forma session to block the President from doing an end run around the Senate and the Constitution with his controversial nominations.

I hope this is a Christmas present for these people. These are important jobs, and I wish them well in their jobs. I wish them all a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year with their new positions.