Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in recess until 9:45 a.m. Friday, September 14; that on Friday, the Senate conduct a pro forma session only with no business conducted; that at the close of the pro forma session, the Senate stand adjourned until 2 p.m., Monday, September 17; that on Monday, following the prayer and the pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired and the time for the two leaders reserved for their use later in the day; that there then be a period of morning business until 3 p.m., with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees; that at 3 p.m., the Senate resume consideration of H.R. 1585, the Department of Defense authorization bill.

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

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider Executive Calendar Nos. 297 through 301; that the nominations be confirmed and the motions to reconsider be laid on the table, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate then return to legislative session.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in recess under the previous order.

Mr. President, this morning, following any remarks of Senator McConnell and myself, the Senate will immediately resume consideration of the Transportation Appropriations bill. There are no votes presently scheduled.

Last night, there were discussions about the possibility of the Republicans offering an amendment on the subject of Mexican trucks, which is the subject of the pending Dorgan amendment. We are all hopeful we can work something out on that this morning regarding the Dorgan amendment and the so-called alternative amendment to that.

It is my understanding Senator Coburn is going to arrive about 10:30 this morning to start offering amendments on problems he has with this legislation. As I mentioned last night, he tends not to speak for long periods of time, but he does have a number of amendments. He hasn't decided how many that will be. We hope we can proceed on that as quickly as possible.

At 12 noon today, the Senate will observe a moment of silence in commemoration of the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attack. Both the Republican leader and I encourage Members to come to the floor for this observance.

Also, the Senate will recess from 12:30 to 2:15 for the regular party conference meetings.

Yesterday, I indicated that today would be a late night as we work toward completing this legislation. There is no reason we can't complete this bill tonight. If we complete it tonight, of course, there will be no votes tomorrow. As indicated, there would be no votes after 1 o'clock anyway, so we should do our best to complete this legislation tonight.

It could be a very late night, but we have two of our most competent, experienced legislators doing this bill--Senator Murray and Senator Bond--and we do hope we can move forward on this legislation.

Mr. President, following the moment of silence at noon, I ask unanimous consent that the two leaders be recognized for whatever time they may consume.

Mr. President, I understand H.R. 1908 is at the desk and due for a second reading.

Mr. President, I now object to any further proceedings.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that if the Senate receives the message from the House on H.R. 1538, the Wounded Warrior legislation, with a request for a conference with the Senate, the Senate agree to the request and the Chair be authorized to appoint conferees.

Mr. President, I say to my friend, if he heard my request-- maybe he was diverted momentarily--I said that ``if'' the Senate receives a message from the House on H.R. 1538, the Wounded Warrior bill, with the request for conference, then the Senate agree to the request.

Madam President, in 10 seconds, I will ask that the Chair announce the Senate will stand for a moment of silence.

Madam President, we will now begin a moment of silence honoring the 9/11 victims and their families.

Madam President, 6 years ago today, 2,974 men, women, and children became innocent victims to a cowardice and hatred we will never understand. I remember very clearly watching from the windows of the Capitol, S-219, as smoke billowed from the Pentagon in the clean morning air.

I remember the care taken amidst the panic to ensure everyone was evacuated safely when word came of another airplane heading toward the U.S. Capitol. I remember how our voices joined to sing ``God Bless America'' on the Capitol steps, which was our way of showing the country that its Government was still whole.

But what I remember most was how our Nation stood as one, in lines to give blood, stretching long hours; the food and clothing banks overflowing with donations; contributions, financial in nature pouring in, many giving more than they could afford to help families who had literally lost everything.

As our country stood as one, the world stood with us. The headline of

one European newspaper read: ``We are all American.''

On this anniversary, and all those to follow, we must never forget the innocent lives we lost that day or the burden we bear for the freedom we cherish. Yet we must always remember the endless well of compassion and rejection of despair that followed. These past 6 years we have faced great challenges. But though our scars will never fully heal, our spirit will never be broken. We are all American.

Mr. President, I will shortly ask that a quorum call begin. We are very close to being able to have something worked out. I have had conversations with my Republican counterpart. What we will do--and the staffs are working on a unanimous consent agreement--we have maybe a Coburn amendment, we have a DeMint amendment, and we have two Menendez amendments. That is likely all we have to finish this bill. We want the debate

to be completed on all of these amendments except for we have asked-- Senator Kennedy has asked and Senator DeMint has asked that they have 20 minutes equally divided in the morning. That will be the only debate in the morning. We will debate the rest of the amendments tonight and we will vote on them in the morning. I think that is in keeping with what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle think would be the best way to dispose of this. I think they are right.

So I am going to suggest the absence of a quorum, and we will see if we can get the staff to bring that out to us very quickly. It should be within the next few minutes.

I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, if the Senator would be kind enough to withhold for a moment. We just want to get Senator Bond so we can do the unanimous consent agreement, and then you would be recognized first as soon as they finish that. Would that be OK?

Mr. President, we have not yet worked out with the minority our being able to go to conference on this. We feel positive we can do that tomorrow. We need to do this. We are in the process of going to conference on the three bills we have already passed. We had meetings at the White House today. We believe it is most appropriate to send the President bill after bill rather than a big bunch at the same time. We hope that by tomorrow we can work it out so we can go to conference. I have no objection.

Mr. President, this morning the Senate will immediately proceed to executive session for an hour's debate regarding three noncontroversial--we hope, at least--District Court nominations. The time is equally divided and controlled between Senators Leahy and Specter or their designees, and Members can expect votes on these nominations to occur at approximately 11 a.m. this morning.

Once the nominations have been confirmed, Senator Barrasso will be recognized to give his maiden speech, and he will be recognized for up to 30 minutes.

I say to Senator Barrasso and others, sometimes these maiden speeches bear fruit. I remember my first speech. I was speaking on the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights, and presiding, as is the Senator from Virginia today, was Senator David Pryor from Arkansas, who was chairman of the IRS Subcommittee of the Finance Committee. Also listening to this speech, fortuitously, was Senator Grassley, who was a member of the Finance Committee--not a senior member but someone who was active. When I finished my speech, talking about the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights making it a more level playing field between the taxpayer and the tax collector, Senator Pryor had written a note, given it to a page, and he said to me he liked what I was trying to do and would help me. I also got a communication from Senator Grassley that he wanted to work on this.

Well, to make a long story short, Mr. President, because of their involvement, I had to do very little. That legislation passed, and it was landmark legislation. It was not because of my ability to communicate as much as who was listening. So I say to Senator Barrasso: You never know what is going to happen with your maiden speech.

Once he has completed his speech, the Senate will proceed to the Transportation Appropriations bill. Senators Murray and Bond are managers, and they are prepared to finish that legislation this week. There should be votes prior to 5:30 or 6 o'clock tonight. After that, we will have no votes.

Tomorrow should be a very long, productive day because at 1 o'clock on Wednesday we can have no more votes. We can do more Senate business, but because of the Jewish holiday there will be no more votes after that time.

Mr. President, on September 17, which is a week from today, there will be no votes but there will be work. I indicated to the distinguished Republican leader and others that we are going to do what we can to see if we can get the DC-Utah congressional thing worked out, the Voter Rights Bill. What we are working on now is to get some type of consent to have a cloture vote on that sometime next week. That hasn't been resolved yet but we are working on it. I have kept Senator Lieberman involved.

Next week, also, we are going to move to the authorization bill for Defense, which has to be completed. We

need to complete this appropriations bill this week, because as soon as we complete the Defense authorization bill, we need to move to Defense Appropriations. That is what we have to complete before the end of the work period.

There are other things we have to do. We have to have some extension or some agreement on what we are going to do with the farm bill. We have SCHIP that we need to work on prior to the end of this month. So we have a tremendous amount of work to do. Last week was a very productive week. We had to work a couple of late nights, but it was worth it. So that should set us up for this week and give us an idea of what we are going to do next week.

I am going to try to work with the minority leader to see what we can work out as to whether we want to have the Iraq votes intertwined with Defense authorization or whether we do not. I have Members telling me on the Defense authorization bill that they are going to offer an amendment to close Guantanamo and offer habeas corpus, so it is going to be a contested piece of legislation. We have to complete that.

There are some who believe we would be better off having the Iraq matters separate and apart from Defense authorization. I have to work that out first with Senators Levin and McCain. My initial report from them is that they would rather have them separate, but I will work with the minority leader and we will try to finish deciding what we are going to do by Wednesday or Thursday of this week.

I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Biden), the Senator from New York (Mrs. Clinton), the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Dodd), the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Durbin), the Senator from Iowa (Mr. Harkin), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Lautenberg), the Senator from Michigan (Mr. Levin), the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Obama), the Senator from New York (Mr. Schumer), and the Senator from Rhode Island (Mr. Whitehouse) are necessarily absent.

I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from Iowa (Mr. Harkin) would vote ``yea.''

Mr. President, will the Senator withhold for a brief statement to the Senate?

Mr. President, based on my conversation with the Republican leader, there will be no vote on this amendment this afternoon. That being the case, I think it is a fair statement to say there will be no more votes today. I had indicated already we would not have any votes after 5 or 5:30 today. We have at least an hour's debate on this, and the Republican leader said we would not vote on this amendment today.

This means we will have votes in the morning, unless there is something untoward. So everyone should understand we will have votes in the morning, we will have our caucuses between midday, and there is a White House meeting, I know for a few people, but that doesn't mean we could not go forward tomorrow. But we have a lot of work to do on this bill. It is to the Senate's advantage to finish this bill this week. That would mean we will have finished one-third of our appropriations bills, if we finish this bill.

In my brief conversation in the well with a number of Senators a few minutes ago, we have Senators wanting to move the Labor-HHS bill and the Energy and Water Appropriations bill. Those are my only two conversations today. We, of course, have to deal with the Defense Appropriations bill in the near future. So the sooner we finish this bill, the better off we will be. There is a lot of work that needs to be done before the end of the fiscal year, which is in a few weeks. I hope everyone understands that if we are going to maintain some degree of financial integrity, we are going to have to finish these appropriations bills. The Republican leader has told me on more than one occasion that the minority is interested in finishing the appropriations bills, and we have had some good cooperation in the last several weeks. So I do hope we can finish this bill.

There will be votes more than likely in the morning, though.

Mr. President, we haven't made as much progress on the Transportation bill as I had wished, but we

are making progress. This is what happens with these complicated bills on occasion. Tomorrow night people should expect votes into the night. It will not be an early evening tomorrow. We have a lot to do on this bill. I have spoken to the distinguished Republican leader. Senator McConnell said they will have an alternative to the Mexican truck measure offered by Senator Dorgan. Hopefully, sometime in the morning we can get those teed up for a vote. We also have been told by Senator Coburn that he has a number of amendments he wishes to offer. He said he would be here at 10:30 in the morning to begin offering those amendments. I have found Senator Coburn in the past doesn't need to talk very long, doesn't want to talk very long. I am sure that will be the case with this bill. I am glad he is coming over in the morning at 10:30. If others have amendments to offer, they should do so. It is my understanding Senator Coburn has a number of amendments. If that is the case and we can't stack these votes, what we will do is, the first vote could come as early as 11 o'clock or thereabouts tomorrow.

We have a lot to do. The fiscal year is coming to a close, and we have a number of must-do issues. We will work on those. I have spoken today, as I indicated, to the distinguished Republican leader about how we would proceed next week on Iraq matters. I think we are making progress on how we should proceed. These are very hotly contested issues, very important. We want to make sure people have the opportunity to speak on this without delaying things for an extended period of time.

Tomorrow morning I am going to ask consent to go to conference on H.R. 1538, which is the Wounded Warrior/military pay raise bill. There was a Republican objection to that request the last time. I hope this time the result will be different so we can send this important bill, which means so much to our men in uniform, to conference. We need to send that to conference. So we will proceed to that unanimous consent request tomorrow morning. I will not do that tonight.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the HELP Committee be discharged from further consideration of and the Senate proceed to S. Res. 222.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table.