Floor Statements

I ask unanimous consent the Senate now return to legislative session.

Madam President, I note the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10 a.m., Monday, December 17; that on Monday, 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 reserved for their use later in the day; that the Senate then resume the motion to proceed to S. 2248; with the time until 12 noon equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with Senator Dodd controlling 35 minutes and Senator Feingold controlling 15 minutes of the opponents' time.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

I think this will be the last thing for this week.

I now ask unanimous consent the Committee on Indian Affairs be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 3739.

Before I ask this matter be completed, I want to say here is an example of cooperation between two Senators. Senators Dorgan and Kyl have worked on this for some time. There were some problems that were initially identified, but they have been able to work through this. This is a very important piece of legislation for Senator Kyl. For Senator Dorgan, it is an issue that is in his committee. I think it is terrific that this matter is done.

I now ask unanimous consent the bill be read a third time, passed, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, and any statements be printed in the Record.

I now ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. President, this morning the Senate will immediately resume consideration of the farm bill and conduct a period of debate until 9:15. This debate time is equally divided between the leaders or their designees.

At 9:15 the Senate will conduct two back-to-back rollcall votes. The first vote will be in relation to the Dorgan-Grassley payment limitations amendment. That amendment is subject to a 60-vote threshold.

The second vote will be a cloture vote on the motion to concur to an amendment to H.R. 6, the Energy bill.

Mr. President, we will continue with other amendments and votes with respect to the farm bill today, so Members can expect other votes.

I would remind all Members that we will likely be in recess from 2 to 3 p.m. because Admiral McConnell and Attorney General Mukasey will conduct a secret briefing in room 407. This is prefatory to the debate that will take place soon on the FISA bill.

We are going to do our very best to finish the farm bill today. We have 23 amendments left on the farm bill. We have a lot to do. We are going to do everything we can do so that we do not have to be in session this weekend. It will take cooperation from Members because there are a number of issues that we have to deal with.

We are going to try to finish the farm bill and the Energy bill today. We have a lot of other things to do today. Hopefully, we can get agreement.

I would also say this to all Senators: We are past the point where you can just have your staff call the cloakroom and say: I have a Senator who objects. If somebody wants to object, we are not going to take cloakroom calls during these last few days of the session. We are not going to accept that.

Mr. President, I designate 5 minutes to Senator Bingaman and 5 minutes to Senator Cantwell, two Senators who have been instrumental in bringing this bill to where we are today on energy.

Mr. President, it is my understanding that there is a unanimous consent order in the Senate that prior to the next vote, Senator McConnell and I would be recognized; is that true?

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, my dear friend, the senior Senator from New Mexico, long time chair of the Budget Committee, long time chair of the Energy Committee--and I underline and underscore ``my friend''--said a few minutes ago this bill was bad because President Bush doesn't want certain provisions in it, bad because President Bush doesn't want them.

We are the Congress of the United States. We can like things even though the President may not like them. That is our responsibility constitutionally. It is time for this Senate to vote as a third and equal branch of Government and do the right thing for one of the most pressing problems facing America and the world today--energy. ``Bad because the President doesn't want them.'' That is a direct quote.

Without going into all the details, the fact that the President made the worst foreign policy blunder in the history of the country by having Iraq invaded doesn't mean it is good.

The fact that the President vetoed children's health insurance, giving insurance to 10 million children instead of the 4.5 million children, if we are fortunate enough to extend the bill, doesn't make it good because the President doesn't like it.

Global warming, the President doesn't believe it exists and has refused to even acknowledge the words until a few days ago. Does that make it right? No, it doesn't.

The President believes in certain interrogation techniques involving torture. Does that make them right? No.

We, as a Congress, have to stand up and do what we think is right.

It is time to stop talking and putting America on a path to a cleaner, safer, and more affordable energy future. The Energy bill originally passed both the House and Senate with strong bipartisan majorities. Democrats and some Republicans agree we must pass this Energy bill for four main reasons: No. 1, we must take action that will help reduce the constantly rising price Americans pay for gasoline.

The last time I was in California, I saw one of the marquees, $4 a gallon. In Nevada, everyplace is more than $3 a gallon.

No. 2, we must begin to break our country's addiction to oil. We are addicted to oil. Even President Bush said that. We will use 21 million barrels of oil today. Almost 70 percent of it we import from foreign countries and most are led by tyrannical rulers, despots.

No. 3, we must begin to reverse global warming. It is a crisis caused by our use of fossil fuel.

And No. 4, we must invest in renewable energy. Why? It is good for the environment, and it creates lots of jobs. In Nevada alone, the tax portions of this bill will create thousands of jobs and countless--tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands--jobs throughout America.

Last week, the Republican minority blocked this crucial bipartisan bill from passing. In order to ease these concerns, we have reluctantly removed the renewable electricity standard from the version of the bill now before us. The renewable electricity standard would have required, by the year 2020, 15 percent of our Nation's electricity come from renewable, environmentally sound sources.

That sounds pretty reasonable, 15 percent by the year 2020. We had to take it out. Taking this step would reduce carbon emissions from powerplants by 126 million tons, reduce the cost of natural gas and electricity bills by between $13 billion and $18 billion, and create good, new American jobs.

This is not the last we will hear of the renewable electricity standard. The

Senate has passed a similar bill before, and we will do it again. But in the spirit of compromise and in a genuine pursuit of progress, Democrats have reluctantly agreed to remove that important provision from the Energy bill. But that is not all.

We also compromised by making changes to the energy tax title to accommodate the Republican minority. I would have preferred to make these tax credits permanent, certainly longer than 2 years.

Unless my colleagues vote for this bill, they are not doing anything to help the production of electricity in our country by alternative means. They are doing nothing. The great entrepreneurial minds of our country need these tax credits. They need incentives to invest billions of dollars into renewable energy. They cannot do it without these tax credits. If they do not vote for this tax provision of this bill, they are doing nothing to change our addiction to oil. But this compromise will ensure that critical investments in clean and sustainable sources of energy will continue.

We have business people looking at new solar, wind, and geothermal projects, and they will be spurred to action if we help them make their investment worthwhile.

I hope we reach the 60-vote threshold and send this bill to the House and on to the President today. I hope many Republicans will recognize the importance of this bill for their States and their country.

The White House is objecting to our provision requiring major oil and gas companies to part with a few dollars--a few dollars--of their billions of dollars of tax breaks they are scheduled to receive over the next 10 years.

Let's be very clear. Our bill eliminates those tax breaks for these huge oil companies, international oil companies, an industry raking in record profits of half a trillion dollars in the last 6 years. Those are profits. We want to do our tax program so we can invest in clean energy.

Democrats and Republicans alike should agree that even without the renewable electricity standard, we have an energy bill that reduces energy costs, begin to break our addiction to oil, and reverse the threat of global warming. This is still an important, historic bill. I am very happy to support it and ask my colleagues from both sides of the aisle to hear the call of the American people for lower energy costs, less oil consumption and a cleaner environment and send this historic bill to the President.

I have been told there are Senators who have voted for our version of the bill--that is, CAFE and renewable fuels standard--who are considering voting against this bill because the President says he is going to veto this bill. That is not good enough. We have to flex our legislative muscles and do the right thing and not be stampeded because of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Democrats and Republicans have to heed that call. This could be the first step toward an energy revolution that starts in America and ripples throughout the world, but it can only start in the Senate today.

Cloture Motion

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

Mr. President, this was a good, hard-fought battle. I am disappointed we did not pick up one more vote, but I know how difficult it was for some of my Republican colleagues to vote the way they did, and I admire and appreciate that very much.

We are going to finish this bill today, if at all possible. What we would like to do is go back to the farm bill for a while, and as soon as we get the path forward on this bill, we will come back. My intention is to eliminate the tax title, and we would vote, then, on a piece of legislation that deals with CAFE and deals with renewable fuel.

Now, we, of course, really believe in the tax title, as I indicated in my speech before the vote, and hopefully we can work together to get that done. We all know we need to do renewable fuel, and really in a big way. I hope my friends on both sides of the aisle will work with us very early next year to get this done. It is extremely important.

But everyone should understand, as disappointed as I am and as disappointed as people throughout the country are, what we are going to wind up with is still historic--the first increase in fuel efficiency standards in 32 years. And we have increased them significantly. There has been a push from everybody to change various portions of what we have left, and there may be a little bit of tinkering with some of it but very little of it.

We are going to move forward as quickly as we can today to complete this legislation. If we have to file cloture on the rest of it, we will do that. If we do that, that will mean there will be a cloture vote on Saturday, just so everyone understands. Hopefully, this is the last weekend before we adjourn for the year, so I hope we don't have to do that. I hope we can have people working here together to maybe overcome some of the procedural hurdles we normally have to go through to move this legislation.

Also, we are going to finish the farm bill this week. Today is Thursday, tomorrow is Friday, and the next day is Saturday. We are going to finish the farm bill. I had a conversation earlier this morning with the Democratic

manager of the bill, I didn't have a chance to speak to the Republican manager, but we would like to have all voting completed tonight or early--sometime before noon--tomorrow. If that is the case, we have a number of other issues that are extremely important that we want to try to get a handle on before we leave. We need to take a look at the intelligence authorization bill. That is a conference report which has been completed. We also have to do the Defense authorization conference report. We need to complete that.

We have to take a hard look at FISA. It would be in the best interests of the Senate and this country if we could determine what the will of the Senate is on the domestic surveillance program. It expires on February 5. I hope prior to our coming back here in January that we have the Senate's position on that and we send it to the House before we leave here.

Then, finally, it is kind of a moving target, but the spending bill we are going to get from the House--I have spoken to the Republican leader today. We are going to figure a way to go forward on that when we get it from the House. It appears at this time we will get it sometime Tuesday--maybe Monday but probably Tuesday.

Then--there are no secrets here; I wish we could have a few more--we have to do the domestic spending, get that done. Also, as much as it pains me to say this, we have to do something about the supplemental appropriation for the President for the war in Iraq.

Those are the main issues we have. With the little bit of time we have, there are a number of holds we are trying to work our way through. I had a good conversation with Senator Coburn yesterday and he has indicated a willingness to let us move some of those. I hope that in fact is the case. As much as I disagree with Senator Coburn on so many things, I have found him to be an absolute gentleman and someone who is a man of his word. He has different beliefs than I do. He is entitled to those. He does it because it is a matter of principle. That is obvious. From all I know about him, it is not because of political purposes but because it is something he believes in. I came to learn a long time ago that other people's beliefs are as important as mine.

That is the track forward.

I ask unanimous consent we now move back to the farm bill.

Mr. President, my heart is heavy, and I say that seriously, recognizing next year at this time Senator Domenici will be in the last few days of his 36-year service in the Congress of the United States. During 25 years of that, I have worked with him. My next year will be 26 years. As partisan as he is and as partisan as I am, we have worked toward meeting the demands of the State of Nevada, heavily involved in the defense of this country for decades, as is the State of New Mexico. In the process of our working together, we have helped the country. The safety and reliability of our nuclear stockpile as it exists today is a result--and I say this in no way to boast but to be factual--of what Senator Inouye and Senator Domenici and I put into effect as members of the Energy and Water Subcommittee on Appropriations. We do not need to dwell on this longer than to say his dedicated service to the country is something I recognize, the people of New Mexico and of our country will recognize for many years to come.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of the message from the House on H.R. 6, the Energy bill; that the pending motion to concur be withdrawn; that the Senate move to concur in the House amendment with the amendment at the desk; that no other amendments or motions be in order; that there be a time limitation of 30 minutes equally divided between the two leaders or their designees for debate only on that motion; that upon the use or yielding back of time, the Senate, without intervening action, vote on the motion to concur; that if the motion is agreed to, the Senate concur in the House amendment to the title and the motions to reconsider be laid on the table; that if the motion to concur is not agreed to, it be withdrawn and the message returned to the desk.

I would add to that, I say to my distinguished friend, that we would have the final 10 minutes prior to the vote, 5 minutes for Senator McConnell and 5 minutes for me, so that will wind up being about 50 minutes.

Mr. President, a note of information for all of the Senators: We are trying to work out something on the farm bill to complete it, and we are going to complete it this week. Right now, we have one obstacle, and it is an amendment dealing with firefighters. There is bipartisan support for it. I have told those people who like it and don't like it that we can do a number of things. We can have a voice vote on it; we can have side-by-sides. If the opponents of the legislation want a couple of second-degree amendments that relate to that, they can have that. If

that doesn't work, I have no alternative but to file cloture on that amendment. If I do that tonight, there will be a cloture vote on Saturday. I don't want a cloture vote on Saturday--no one does--but we have no alternative. We have to finish what we have to do here.

Now, if I file cloture on it, maybe they would agree to allow us to have the cloture vote tomorrow.

We have some other things we need to do. Everyone should be alerted. With the permission of the--well, I don't need to say the ``permission.'' Whenever we finish the firefighters amendment sometime tomorrow, cloture will be sought on the bill. We still have Republican and Democratic amendments out there floating around. Some people don't come and offer them; some people won't debate their amendments. Once the firefighter issue is out of the way, we are going to see if we can invoke cloture on the bill.

I think there is general consensus that, as with immigration, we have had enough of farm legislation this year. We have all been very patient. It has been a very distressing issue on occasion. We have done a lot of finger-pointing. It is time now that we pass the farm bill. So the issue relating to firefighting is on the bill. It was one of the Republicans' amendments, and now it is a Democratic amendment.

That is where we are. That has nothing to do with some real good news. I just wanted to alert everyone as to what we are doing.

Mr. President, we had a little going away party sponsored by the Republican leader and me yesterday in the Mansfield Room. It was a wonderful occasion. It was the farewell to Senator Trent Lott. I said something there that I am saying again here today. Edmund Burke, the famous Irish statesman and philosopher, said:

All government, every virtue and every prudent act, is

founded on compromise.

Listen to what this brilliant man said:

All government, every virtue and every prudent act, is

founded on compromise.

``Compromise'' is not a dirty word. Consensus building is what we have to do. It can be frustrating. It can be exasperating. It can be maddening. But at the end of the day, compromise leads to progress. That is what we have today. Progress. The last time America raised fuel economy standards was 30 years ago. We didn't have airbags, the Internet was a science fiction fantasy, and the closest thing to GPS was a map. You went to a service station and they gave it to you. Today we have hybrid cars, hydrogen cars, ethanol cars, fully electric cars.

Now, after 30 years, we are going to pass a new fuel economy standard. This is not only important, it is historic. This is a good energy bill. There are so many heroes. One just walked past me: Dianne Feinstein. There is lots of credit to go around. It will save consumers money. It will begin to reverse our addiction to oil. It will take a small first step in our fight to turn the tide of global warming. Could this bill have been better? Of course it could have been better. Absolutely. But we are not going to talk today about what could have been in it to make it better. We have been through that. What we want to talk about today is this bill will be a win for the American people.

It may be a split decision, as we have in boxing matches, but if you have a split decision in a boxing match, there are still winners, and we have winners in this matter today. Who are the winners? Not me, not the Republican leader, none of the 98 other Senators are winners. It is a partnership. We have worked together. All Senators and all House Members are going to be able to walk out and hold their chests out, hold their heads high, and say: We passed an energy bill. Not only does Congress get credit for this, the White House gets credit for it. It sets new fuel economy standards for the first time in 30 years: 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel will replace oil by 2022. It creates new energy efficiency standards, everything from light bulbs, to refrigerators, to the construction of new buildings. Because of the Energy bill we will pass in just a few minutes, Americans will save money every day.

I say to the Senate, to the House of Representatives, to the President of the United States: Congratulations.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the immediate consideration of H.J. Res. 69, the continuing resolution just received from the House; that the joint resolution be read three times, passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, all without intervening action or debate.

I would tell everyone this is for 1 week.

Mr. President, was there a request?

Mr. President, I am confident this is the right thing to do. The two managers of the bill are not here right now. Until they return, I think we should wait.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I have no right to suggest the absence of a quorum. The Senator has the floor. I interrupted him.

I say to my friend, I had conversations with the two of them. They are in the back coming up with something in writing to proceed through these amendments.

Go ahead. Regular order, Mr. President, fine.

Amendment No. 3823

Mr. President, I apologize for interrupting. We have been waiting for a lull in the debate. I will send a cloture motion to the desk.

I ask for the regular order with respect to amendment No. 3830.

While the staff is looking for the amendment, let me just say this is a motion I will file for cloture in regard to the firefighters amendment. We have tried almost all day to work out something. I thought we could work out something--side by sides, a couple of second- degree amendments. We have been unable to do so. We had a suggestion from the Republicans that we would have a voice vote. That didn't work out. We had a suggestion that maybe what we should do is try to do a freestanding bill at some later time. We were unable to get agreement to do that.

What we are going to have to do now, which is really too bad, is we are going to send this cloture motion to the desk. That will ripen 1 hour after we come in on Saturday. If Senators are willing to advance the vote, we can do it tomorrow, of course. That not being the case, we have no choice but to do it on Saturday. We have so many important things to do. We can't be stepping on ourselves with 30 hours postcloture.

I have told everyone, as soon as we finish this vote on this firefighting thing, we will have cloture on the bill. It doesn't matter what is pending, what is going on; we are going to have cloture on the bill. Then, when that is over, we have to have a vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the FISA legislation that has been reported by the Intelligence Committee and the Judiciary Committee. We have to finish that. The law expires on February 4 or 5. Senator Feingold and Senator Dodd have indicated to me on more than one occasion that they will not let us go to the bill without a 60-vote margin. So that is where we are. We need to get to that sometime early Monday to get through all the other things we have to do.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from Maine wishes to speak for 3 minutes on this matter, and then I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized following her statement.

Mr. President, it is with some consternation that I rise this evening. We have an amendment that is very important to working men and women in this country. Basically, what it allows is firefighters and police to organize collectively. It is very important that they have that opportunity. That is the legislation before this body, the amendment dealing with firefighters.

The pleasant thing about this amendment is that it is bipartisan. We have 64 Senators who would have voted for this amendment. We have tried very hard. Everybody knows that I have four Democratic Senators running for President. They are all wonderful, good legislators, and wonderful human beings. One of them is going to be President of the United States, more than likely, next year. But we have tried all day to get a vote. As I indicated a little while ago, we will take a 60-vote margin, a side-by-side or a second-degree amendment, a freestanding bill or whatever other variation I can think of.

My friends are very good--the opponents of this legislation. There are not a lot of them, but there are a few. They know the rules, and they know how difficult it is when we are less than 3 weeks before the first primary, the caucus in Iowa, to get these four Senators here. They were here this morning. There were two important bills, one on energy and one on a farm issue. They were scheduled to come back here. One of them is on a plane coming back here for a morning vote. The word got out that we needed them here. So there has been this stalling. We have no alternative but to come back and fight another day. I say to all Senators that this is a bipartisan bill.

I see my friend on the floor, Judd Gregg. We would not be where we are tonight but for him. It is true. I mean, it is not often that on a labor issue you have someone of his stature on the other side of the aisle supporting this legislation. But I respect those few Senators who object to this. They have the legal rights and procedural rights that they do, and getting my Presidentials back here on Saturday would be hard. We know it is a difficult time for everybody on a Saturday.

Amendment No. 3830, withdrawn

Without belaboring the issue, I ask unanimous consent to now withdraw amendment No. 3830.

Mr. President, it is my understanding that the Feinstein amendment is ready to be adopted.

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

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

I ask the Chair, under the order now before the Senate--

I haven't said anything yet. Mr. President, I ask that the Chair inform the Senator from Nevada if I am right, that under a previously entered order I have a right, after consultation with the Republican leader, to ask that there be cloture right now or whatever time I choose?

So, Mr. President, under the order that is before the Senate, we are going to have a cloture vote on the farm bill after weeks and weeks. Now, I understand there are people who are disappointed. We still have a significant number of amendments. After adding up those that have been objected to, there are 15 by one Senator. So we have 15 plus 11--a lot of amendments.

The time has come that we stop this. We need the farm bill. We need to get a conference. I believe, after conversations I have had with the Republican leader, that this is a bill we can go to conference on. So the time is here. We don't have time for 26 more amendments.

We had a briefing in S-407 today. I don't know how people are going to vote on domestic surveillance and other types of surveillance, but it is an important issue that we have an obligation as Senators to resolve. We had the head of the national intelligence agency there, Judge Mukasey. We have to do that. I am going to move to that bill tomorrow.

As I have stated on the floor, Senator Feingold and Senator Dodd are not going to let us move to that. I have filed cloture on that bill. I know people are disappointed, but we have no alternative. I guess there is an alternative, but I don't think people want to be around here in the middle of next week to finish the farm bill. We will have cloture on it tonight and, as far as I am concerned, we can have final passage as soon as we finish the cloture vote.

For all Senators, the cloture vote will take place at 9 o'clock tonight on the farm bill.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, it is time for the vote to take place in a minute or two. I inform all Members that we will have this cloture vote tonight, and then we are under the rules that there will be 30 hours following completion of that vote. It is my intention, and I think everyone's intention here, to finish this bill and not have it spill into Saturday. We are going to deal with germane amendments pursuant to the rules of the Senate. The managers will work on those during the evening and hopefully early tomorrow we can finish this bill.

Remember, tomorrow we have to finish FHA modernization, and we have to finish the Defense authorization bill. We have a limited time agreement on both of those, an hour each at this time. There may be other issues we are going to try to do. At least that is what we need to do.

Also, as I indicated, before we close business tomorrow, we are going to file cloture on the FISA legislation.

Mr. President, the Senate will be in a period of morning business for 3 hours this morning. The reason for the inordinate amount of time is that--I will make a presentation in a little bit to get this started--we have more than 100 pieces of legislation that are held up, legislation that could move so very quickly, in a matter of minutes. But we cannot do that because there are Republican holds on these bills.

So we are going to go through our period of time this morning, asking consent to move to these bills. We hope some of them will pass. Some of them we should get done.

The leading cause of death in 20 States in the United States for children under age 14 is getting caught in the drains of swimming pools. It has been somewhat noted because John Edwards had one of the first legal cases in that regard.

Alaska, where you would not think there are a lot of swimming pools, or at least I would not, but there obviously are lots of swimming pools, that is the leading cause of death in Alaska for children.

We have a hold on that bill. It passed the House with three dissenting votes, 418 to 3. We cannot pass that. There are children dying while we are not able to proceed on something such as that. There are over 100 issues similar to that. It is not right. So if people wonder why we are spending so much time, that is the reason. Maybe we will get some of these people who are on the other side of the aisle who object to this to come, rather than these hidden holds, and speak.

It is not good for the body. If there are problems with a piece of legislation, that is one thing. But take that one case as an example. Following morning business, we will conduct two rollcall votes in relation to the two Gregg amendments. Other amendments will be debated following the Gregg votes and more rollcall votes will occur through the day and into the evening.

I would like to commend Senators Harkin and Chambliss for their work they have accomplished in getting an agreement with respect to the amendments. As to the list of amendments right now, all 20 Republican amendments have been offered; the Democrats have offered 8 or 9.

The work they have done in the last few days I think has been exemplary. While they were successful in getting agreements on these amendments, other amendments will still need to be debated and voted on or accepted by the two managers.

As the year comes to a close, and the first year of the 110th Congress winds down, there is no doubt, if we continue in the current direction, this will be known as the Congress of Republican obstruction.

Already, in 1 year, Republicans have arrived at the all-time obstruction record for a full 2-year session. What we are seeing this year from Republicans is not ordinary obstruction, it is obstruction on steroids. It is terribly damaging to the American people. I do not question the right of Republicans to block bills, in fact, block bill after bill; that is how the Senate has worked. And we all play by the same rules. But because you have the right does not make it right.

On a daily basis, Republican Senators talk about the lack of progress this year. For all we have done, why have we not done more, they say. The answer is obstruction, Republican obstruction. It is disingenuous for Republicans to complain about a lack of progress and then make a concerted effort to block change----

Obstruction of the prescription drug bill, to make medicines more affordable. We have been able to accomplish a lot, but it has been difficult when we have had to file about 60 cloture petitions.

We have been able to do some good things with the minimum wage, 9/11 Commission recommendations, the landmark ethics and lobbying reform, we have done some good work with mine resistant combat vehicles, we have given the National Guard equipment they need, we have stepped in and looked at the plight of American veterans based on the Walter Reed scandal.

We have revitalized the Gulf Coast after Katrina, disaster relief for small business and farmers, Western wildfire relief. We have looked into the scandal relating to the U.S. attorneys. We passed legislation to help correct that. We have passed the WRDA, Water Resources Development Act, and a competitiveness bill led by Senators Bingaman and Alexander, we have been able to get that done.

We have done the most significant change to college education since the GI Bill of Rights. We have been able to do some good things regarding the Internet, keeping the Internet tax free, expanding Head Start. We have done some good things.

But we have been stopped from doing other important things. The prescription drug bill is a perfect example. As we speak, companies can go negotiate for lower priced drugs for their employees. The Veterans' Administration can negotiate for lower prices for veterans but Medicare cannot. There is a prohibition that Medicare cannot negotiate for lower priced drugs. That should be changed. We tried to change it. It was blocked; obstruction of our efforts to change the course in Iraq; obstruction of our efforts to pass an AMT fix in a fiscally responsible way; obstruction of our FHA bill, a bill that President Bush has called upon us to pass that would help Americans save their homes from foreclosure.

These are a few of the well-known examples. My Democratic colleagues and I this morning are going to talk about some of the lesser known priorities Republicans have blocked. These bills might not make headlines, but they will make a difference in people's lives, such as the swimming pool drains I talked about.

All these bills we will seek to pass today will make our country stronger. Every single one of them has fallen victim to Republican obstruction. There are no serious complaints about the bills which we seek to pass this morning, at least I do not think so. Many of them have already more than 50 cosponsors, Democrats and Republicans--we acknowledge mostly Democrats but Democrats and Republicans.

Many have already been overwhelmingly passed by the House of Representatives and could be sent to the President's desk this afternoon. This morning's bills, though, are the tip of the iceberg. We can come to the floor tomorrow or the next day and days after that and seek action on bills similar to these that we are going to talk about.

So we hope in the coming hours, the Republican minority will call off their needless holds, call off their obstruction, call off their political posturing and start working with us to make life better for the American people.

As I indicated, a number of my colleagues will follow. What I am going to talk about now, I am going to talk about the ALS registry-- ALS, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, the Lou Gehrig's disease, this great first baseman for the New York Yankees who was a man of iron who could not overcome this disease.

Similar to all people who get this disease, from the time it is discovered until you die is an average of 18 months. We have all had friends and relatives who have suffered and died from this disease. It is caused by a degeneration of the nerve cells that control voluntary muscle, which causes muscle weakness and atrophy. It is nearly always fatal. It may give victims, as I have indicated, a short time to live.

Once in a while you find someone who lives several years, and that is a blessing in their lives. Early this year, a woman named Kathie Barrett and her husband Martin traveled to Washington, DC, from Sparks, NV, to advocate on behalf of the ALS registry.

What is a registry? It is the first step to solve the problems of disease. Many years ago, they developed a cancer registry. I was involved in setting up one for a disease called interstitial cystitis. It is a disease that afflicts mostly women; 90 percent of the people who

have the disease are women. It is a bladder disease that is tremendously debilitating. I had three women visit me in my Las Vegas office. They did not want to be there. They were there out of desperation. They all had this disease, which was thought for many years to be psychosomatic.

It is best described as shoving slivers of glass up and down one's bladder. What was the first thing we had to do? We developed a registry. As a result of that, 40 percent of the people who have this disease are no longer suffering. They are symptom free.

Medicine was developed. It does not take care of everyone, but because of the registry, they were able to determine how people are affected, where they are affected, in different parts of the country, and how different medicines work. That is what we are trying to do here, develop, on behalf of Lou Gehrig's disease, a registry.

Kathie was diagnosed with this disease in May of 2002. She is still alive, which is a miracle. Despite having a breathing capacity of about 60 percent of normal, with considerable muscle loss in her neck and back, she made the long trip from Sparks, 2,600 miles. She and her husband made that trip because they believe passage of this registry is essential to the search for a cure for this devastating illness.

Every year about 6,000 people learn they have this disease, for which there is no cure, and only one specific FDA-approved drug. That drug works on 20 percent of the patients, and even for them, it extends life for usually less than a year. So for a number of reasons, ALS has proven particularly difficult for scientists and doctors to make progress upon.

One of the reasons is there is not a centralized place for data collected on the disease. Right now, that is the case. There is only a patchwork of data about ALS available to researchers. So this legislation, the ALS Registry Act, will do something that is both simple and crucial. It would create an ALS registry at the Centers for Disease Control to help arm our Nation's researchers and clinicians with the tools and information they need to make progress in the fight against this dread disease.

The data made available by a registry will potentially allow scientists to identify causes of the disease and maybe even lead to the discovery of a new treatment, a cure for ALS or even a way to prevent the disease in the first place.

This may not lead to a cure overnight, but it will give those who suffer reason for hope, real scientific hope. If you are looking for bipartisanship, look no further. The House recently passed a similar measure, H.R. 2295, by a vote of 411 to 3. How often does anything pass the House by such a large margin?

Before the Thanksgiving recess, the HELP Committee in the Senate followed suit by reporting the ALS Registry Act unanimously. What is more, two-thirds of the Senate, Democrats and Republicans alike, are cosponsors. I am appreciative of the work of my Republican colleagues, Senators Warner and Enzi, as well, of course, Senator Kennedy, who is always out front on these issues.

Unfortunately, despite the nearly unanimous support of the House of Representatives, the unanimous committee vote, and the overwhelming support of 67 cosponsors, we have objections--all over here, of course. For Kathie and Martin Barrett of Sparks and many thousands just like them, hope remains unfulfilled. Why has this happened? This crucial bill has been subjected to Republican holds. While some Republicans stand in the way, people's lives hang in the balance. Let's not forget the average life expectancy for an individual with this disease, after it is diagnosed, is 18 months, a year and a half. This is not a moment when we should stall. We don't have a moment to spare. We should send this bill to the President today. I ask my Republicans, please end their holds, end this senseless obstruction. The eyes of the Barretts and tens of thousands of Americans suffering are upon us. Let's honor their courage and grace by fulfilling their hope for a cure.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the ALS bill that is now before the Senate be read three times, passed, and any statements related thereto be printed in the Record at the appropriate place.

Mr. President, isn't this something? Would I modify my request for the Barretts from Sparks to get billions of dollars for the troops in Iraq? The answer is no. We have just appropriated $470 billion, and there will be appropriate measures before we leave here to direct, if the Senate wills, funding for the troops. I think the American people should see this. Would I modify my request to allow for more money for the war in Iraq at this time? The answer is no. This is an issue dealing with Lou Gehrig's disease, not a debate on the war in Iraq. It deals with people who are sick.

I had in my office last night two marines. One of them lost both his legs, a wonderful young man, 21 years old. With him was a man who had just gotten out of bed to come to my office. He was on his fourth tour of duty before he got blown up in Iraq. We care about those people in Iraq. We care about them a lot. That is why we appropriated $470 billion for the military. That is why we are well aware of the need to take a look at funding for more in Iraq. We have given the troops everything they have needed. We, the Democrats, have given them more than the President has requested, with money for MRAPs, for veterans coming home. I hope everyone sees this for what it is.

Will I agree to modify my request to allow for more money for Iraq at this time? The answer is no.

Mr. President, the Secretary of Defense, Mr. Gates, told all of us the Wednesday before we broke for Thanksgiving that the troops would be fine--the Army until the first of March, the Marines until the middle of March. That is what he told us. I believe him. I have talked to him since then. He has confirmed that. I know there is spin from the White House that they are going to start laying people off. Let's be realistic.

We have a request before the Senate to allow a registry to be created so we can try to find a cure for a dread disease. We are going to be out of here hopefully in a few days, hopefully a week or 10 days. We are going to complete the funding for our country prior to that time. Part of that consideration--I have spoken to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle--is what do we do about the President's request, his $196 billion request for more money for Iraq. We have to take a look at that. We want to take a look at that.

I am concerned that we fund the Government. We don't want a Government shutdown. Maybe some people in the White House would like that. We don't want a Government shutdown. We are going to work very hard to accomplish that.

Today, there are going to be a number of requests for pieces of legislation that are important. I believe people with Lou Gehrig's disease deserve a few minutes of our time today. That is what I asked that we pass. It was objected to. I understand that, but that is really too bad. That is legislation creating a registry so people can try to find out what causes this disease,

where the disease occurs in our country. It was objected to. That is too bad.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote and move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, the managers have made a lot of progress on this bill today. The end is in sight. We are going to have a couple more votes tonight. There will be a little more debate tonight.

So I ask unanimous consent that the following amendments be debated tonight for the time limits specified in the order listed and that all other provisions of the previous order remain in effect regarding time division and intervening amendments: Sessions amendment No. 3596, 20 minutes evenly divided; Coburn amendment No. 3632, 20 minutes evenly divided; that the Klobuchar amendment be debated tonight for whatever time she may consume of her 30 minutes--she has 30 minutes; whoever opposes the amendment will have 30 minutes; they are going to debate part of that time tomorrow--Senator Klobuchar will use whatever time she feels appropriate tonight within her 30 minutes but the vote occur in relation to the amendment during Thursday's session; that upon the conclusion of the debate with respect to the Klobuchar amendment, the Senate proceed to vote in relation to amendment No. 3596 and then amendment No. 3632--I am sorry, the debate on the Klobuchar amendment will begin after we complete the votes tonight on the two amendments I mentioned--that the following two amendments be debated during tomorrow's session: Senator Brown will have 60 minutes on amendment No. 3819, evenly divided; Senator Tester will have 60 minutes evenly divided on amendment No. 3666.

So in effect, we are going to have debate for a relatively short period of time, and they will yield back their time if they wish. We will have two votes. Senator Klobuchar will start her debate tonight and use whatever of her 30 minutes she desires, and then tomorrow we will have a number of

amendments, but locked in is the Brown amendment and the Tester amendment, as I outlined.

I have spoken to Senator Harkin. He, of course, is in touch often with Senator Chambliss. There is every possibility we could finish this bill tomorrow. As everyone knows, we have some votes in the morning on the Dorgan-Grassley amendment and on cloture on the Energy bill.

After that, we will have to see what happens and try to get back to this bill as quickly as we can.

Yes. I did not have that.

Amendment No. 3803 to Amendment No. 3500

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 3803, which is at the desk, be considered and agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask that the Chair lay before the Senate the message from the House on H.R. 6.

The PRESIDING OFFICER laid before the Senate the following message from the House of Representatives:

Resolved, That the House agree to the amendments of the

Senate to the bill (H.R. 6) entitled ``An Act to reduce our

Nation's dependency on foreign oil by investing in clean,

renewable, and alternative energy resources, promoting new

emerging energy technologies, developing greater efficiency,

and creating a Strategic Energy Efficiency and Renewables

Reserve to invest in alternative energy, and for other

purposes,'' with amendments.

Motion To Concur With Amendment No. 3841

(Purpose: In the nature of a substitute.)

Mr. President, I move to concur in the House amendment to the Senate amendment to the text with the amendment that is at the desk.

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

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

Mr. President, I send to the desk a cloture motion.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the live quorum under rule XXII be waived and that the Senate resume consideration of the farm bill, H.R. 2419.

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

Mr. President, we have had Senator Chambliss and Senator Harkin working on a number of amendments. Senator Coburn is not requiring a vote on his amendment. It has been withdrawn. So tonight under the order before the Senate, we have one vote on the Sessions amendment. After that, there will be no more votes tonight. The first vote in the morning will be at 9:15. We are going to have to keep to the time schedule in the morning because we have four people anxious to go other places tomorrow.

Amendment No. 3596, as Modified