Floor Statements

Mr. President, we have spent 2 weeks on the immigration bill, and we listened to hour after hour of debate. I don't think there is a single Senator, no matter how one may have finally voted on the motion to proceed or not to proceed to the bill, who doesn't see an urgent need to fix our badly broken immigration system. Even those people who oppose this legislation vehemently believe the system is broken and needs to be fixed.

So everyone agrees that we need to fix it, and I think the best way to fix it is to legislate. When it came time to vote on the bipartisan compromise last Thursday, 7 Republicans joined with 38 Democrats to invoke cloture. Let us put that in proper perspective. Fourth-fifths of Democrats voted to proceed to complete this legislation, and one- seventh of the Republicans voted to proceed. That is 80 percent and 14 percent--80 percent of the Democrats said move forward and 14 percent of the Republicans said move forward. Eighty-six percent of the Republicans said no.

Today, in an hour or so, I am going to send a letter to President Bush to lay out my hope that we can still move forward on this legislation, but I want him to know that further progress will require active support from more Republicans, which is something he has to make sure his Republicans understand.

I see in today's Roll Call newspaper that one Republican Senator said: I think the Democrats are going to have to take care of most of those votes, the newspaper article says. Without mentioning the Senator's name, the article states:

Put the onus on Democrats to make up the 15-vote deficit on

cloture, saying Republicans have nearly maxed out support

on their side.

This appears on page 24 of Roll Call: ``I think the Democrats are going to have to deal with most of those [votes],'' the Senator said.

Mr. President, 80 percent and 14 percent. It is the President's bill. So if other Republican Senators feel the

same as the Senator who is expressed on page 24 of Roll Call, saying we have to overcome the 15-vote deficit, it won't happen. We have about maxed out at 80 percent.

The letter I am going to send to the President will say a number of things. Among other things, it will say:

A strong spirit of bipartisanship has held together the

coalition of Democrats and Republicans who negotiated the

compromise and has sustained the Senate through 2 full weeks

of debate on the bill. Unfortunately, that bipartisanship was

largely absent in a crucial vote last Thursday.

Then I will go on to state to the President the percentages I just outlined.

I further say in the letter to the President:

We appreciate the efforts of you and other Republicans who

have worked with us to get the bill this far. But we believe

it will take stronger leadership by you to ensure that

opponents of the bill do not block the path to final passage.

Simply put, we need many more than seven Republicans to vote

for cloture and final passage of the bill.

This letter will be signed by Senators Reid, Durbin, Schumer, and Murray, the Democratic leadership team.

I want to get the bill done. The overwhelming majority of the Democratic caucus has already voted for cloture. The American people are certainly looking to Congress for leadership. We hope President Bush and his Republican allies in Congress will find a way to work with us to deliver this bill to the immigrants, businesses, and all other Americans who deserve it.

If we see new cooperation and a clear way forward from the Republican caucus, I will do everything possible to readdress the immigration issue after the debate on the Energy bill is completed. And it is difficult for me to even say this because I really wanted to move next to the Defense authorization bill. If we can work out something, when we finish this Energy bill, to complete immigration, I want to do that.

Finally, Mr. President, on energy, we will turn our focus this week to one of the great remaining challenges of our time: our national energy policy.

In 1931, Thomas Alva Edison had a meeting with Henry Ford, whose cars were driving up consumer demand for gasoline. This is what Edison told Ford:

I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source

of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run

out before we tackle that.

Here it is, 76 years later--76 years later--and we haven't tackled our addiction to oil, and it has grown into a three-pronged crisis: threatening our economy, threatening our Nation's security, and threatening our environment.

Today, we will use 21 million barrels of oil and tomorrow the same. How much is 21 million barrels of oil? It is a ditch 10 feet deep and 200 football fields long or a ditch 10 feet deep and 11 miles long. Every day, we use that oil--every day.

The bill we begin debate on today--the Renewable Fuels, Consumer Protection Energy Efficiency Act of 2007--takes several major steps toward reducing our dependence on foreign oil, promoting renewable energy that we produce right here in America, and protecting our environment from global warming. This bill is a substitute to H.R. 6. This bill is a bipartisan bill.

A number of my chairmen came to me and said: We have this great legislation in my committee; can we bring it forward? I said: No, we have to have an energy bill; our initial energy bill has to be bipartisan. So the Energy Committee, under the direction of Senators Bingaman and Domenici, came up with a good package. That is part of what we are going to be debating in the Senate.

Then, in the Commerce Committee, Senator Stevens and Senator Inouye also came up with an extremely important piece of legislation dealing with CAFE standards, which is making cars more efficient. That is going to be in the bill to be brought to the floor.

Senator Boxer and Senator Inhofe also worked together to come up with another piece of legislation that we have put in this one bill. Their part of this bill is also excellent and deals with green buildings and making the massive fleet of Federal cars more energy efficient. It is a good piece of legislation, and it is a bipartisan bill.

There will be people wanting to put tax measures on this, but I think we should wait until the tax committee--Senators Baucus and Grassley-- does that. This is a bill which we should try to protect the bipartisan aspect of. It really is quite a good bill, and if we are able to pass it, we will save 4 million barrels of oil every day. That is pretty good.

This bill will set new energy efficiency standards for lighting, appliances, and water use. This bill alone will save \1/2\ trillion gallons of water every year. For a place like Nevada, where we get 4 inches of rain every year in Las Vegas, that is a lot of water.

This is a bill which protects consumers by punishing companies that price gouge and manipulate supply for their profits. It is a bill which invests in carbon capture and storage, and it directs the President and his Cabinet to improve diplomatic relations with our energy partners in order to give us more leverage in the global energy market.

Altogether, this bill will save American consumers tens of billions of dollars every year, cut our oil consumption, reduce our dependence on foreign energy, and, by the way, might just save the planet while we are at it.

It is a good, important bill, a bipartisan bill, and as I have indicated, many of my colleagues will be tempted to offer tax amendments. I ask that they wait until the Finance Committee has had an opportunity to make recommendations on an energy tax amendment before any additional amendments are offered on this bill.

I hope my colleagues will vote in favor of the motion to proceed. In fact, I hope we can proceed to the bill immediately and not have to use the 30 hours. That will allow time for more amendments.

Madam President, I rise in support of S.J. Res. 14, a resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that Attorney General Gonzales has lost the confidence of Congress and the American people. This is a sense-of-the-Senate resolution.

Now, Madam President, let me initially say that I was doing other things and was unable to listen to the remarks of some of my Republican colleagues. I apologize for that. I have had a briefing as to what they said. They have chosen to impugn the motives of the sponsor of this resolution, the senior Senator from New York, Mr. Schumer. I work very closely with this man. I have worked in government most all of my adult life. Rarely have I seen anybody--in fact, I have never seen anyone with the intellectual capacity of Chuck Schumer from New York and his ability to understand what is going on in the State of New York and in our country. Any suggestions that were made to impugn his integrity are unwarranted, out of line, and unfair.

Senator Schumer is a member of the Judiciary Committee. He is a lawyer. As a member of that Judiciary Committee and as a lawyer who cares deeply about the rule of law and the reputation of the Justice Department, he had an obligation to do what he did. There are others who joined with him. Senator Feinstein was out front on this issue with Senator Schumer, as were others. The chairman of the committee, Senator Leahy, has been with them every step of the way.

In my opinion, his work in this investigation has been commendable.

Yes, I am happy to.

Madam President, I appreciate very much the Senator from Vermont, the chairman of our committee, for standing up for what is right. That is what he is doing.

The Senate has a responsibility to express its displeasure with a Cabinet officer who has grossly mismanaged his responsibilities and failed the American people in the process. This is the one and only mechanism we have, short of impeachment, to address malfeasance of a high-ranking Federal official.

Along with the Department of Defense and State, the Department of Justice is the most important Cabinet agency we have. The Attorney General is responsible for enforcing Federal law, protecting civil rights, and, most importantly, ensuring fidelity to the Constitution of the United States.

Madam President, in my young days as a lawyer and public official in Nevada, during the 1960s, I saw the critical role the Justice Department can play in what is going on in a State. In those days--the early sixties--a person of color, a Black man or woman, could not work in a Strip hotel and could not work in downtown hotels. They weren't there unless they were a porter, a janitor--someplace where they could not be seen. Thousands of people, Black and White, protested that discrimination, but it didn't matter until the Justice Department stepped in. They stepped in and forced it. There was a consent decree entered into between the State of Nevada--I was there. I was Lieutenant Governor, and I helped negotiate that along with Governor O'Callaghan and the attorney assigned to do that. We worked on that for weeks and weeks. But for the Justice Department, that integration of those large hotels in Nevada would have taken place much later. That is what the Justice Department is all about. Major civil rights battles in Las Vegas over integrating the strip would never have been determined in favor of the people of color but for the Justice Department.

You see, the Justice Department is color blind, and that is the way it is supposed to be. It wasn't a Democratic Department of Justice or Republican Department of Justice. It was an American, a U.S. Department of Justice. Its lawyers were fighting for the most American ideal--the right of all Americans to participate in our democracy.

What a proud history this is. What a source of pride it is for our country what the Justice Department in decades past has done. But today under this President, President Bush, and under this Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, the Department of Justice has lost its way.

Now the Justice Department is just another arm of the Karl Rove political machine, where partisanship earns patronage and independence earns contempt.

Today's Justice Department is dysfunctional. I so appreciate the statement made by the former attorney general of the State of Rhode Island, Senator Whitehouse. He laid it out. He has a feeling of what the Justice Department is all about. He spoke from his heart. The Department of Justice's credibility is shredded. Its morale is at an all-time low, and the blame for that tragic deterioration lies squarely on the shoulders of two people: the President of the United States and the Attorney General of the United States, Alberto Gonzales.

We are here today to discuss Alberto Gonzales. Over the past 6 months, congressional oversight has revealed the many ways the crass political calculations in that White House have pervaded the personnel and prosecutorial decisions of the Bush-Gonzales Justice Department. Remember, for 4 years, this was a big rubberstamp, this thing called Congress.

The careers of many fine men and women, lawyers, have been destroyed. One of those is a man from Nevada by the name of Daniel Bogden, a career prosecutor. He worked his way up as a line prosecutor in Washoe County, Reno, NV, and became an assistant U.S. attorney. He--I have spoken with him--wanted to spend his life being a prosecutor, going after people who violate the law. That is over with. Once you are removed from being a U.S. attorney, you can no longer work as a deputy U.S. attorney.

He, I repeat, was a career prosecutor. When my Republican friend and colleague, John Ensign, recommended him to be U.S. attorney for Nevada, he reached what he thought was the pinnacle of his career. Oh, was he mistaken. He has been humiliated, embarrassed, denigrated by this Justice Department for no reason. He worked hard. No one questioned his work ethic.

My son was a deputy U.S. attorney with Daniel Bogden. They worked together. A fine lawyer is Daniel Bogden. He worked hard as our U.S. attorney to protect Nevadans from crimes, drugs and white-collar crimes and earned a wide respect from law enforcement agencies throughout the State.

I repeat, he was fired. To this day, no satisfactory explanation has been provided to Dan Bogden and the people of Nevada.

In light of this evidence, we learned that other U.S. attorneys had been fired at the same time because they failed to pursue partisan political cases. So without any question, there is every reason to believe Dan Bogden suffered the same fate. He was fired for administering justice in Nevada in an evenhanded, nonpolitical way, as he thought as a prosecutor he was supposed to do.

I can remember as a young lawyer, I had a part-time job as a city attorney in Henderson, NV. It is now the second largest city in the State. It wasn't then. I prosecuted criminal cases. I came back to my law firm and I was bragging. That is the wrong word. I was saying: Man, that case, I can't imagine why that judge did that. That wasn't a very good case at all. One of the people

I worked with said: Harry, that is not your responsibility.

I will use leader time now.

Madam President, he said: Your job is not to convict people. It is to do the right thing for the people of the State of Nevada, the city of Henderson, NV.

That is a lesson somebody should have given Alberto Gonzales before he took the job as Attorney General. Dan Bogden was fired for doing his job exactly the way it is supposed to be done.

When he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Gonzales couldn't even say why Bogden was included on the list to be fired. Think about that: A man's career ruined, and the man who fired him or had him fired didn't even know why he was fired.

His lack of memory was astounding. He couldn't recall basic facts, even meetings with the President. Writing in the New York Times, Professor Frank Bowman, a former Federal prosecutor, said, talking about Gonzales:

The truth is almost surely that Mr. Gonzales's

forgetfulness is feigned--a calculated ploy to block

legitimate congressional inquiry into questionable decisions

made by the Department of Justice, White House officials,

and, quite possibly, the President himself.

If Albert Gonzales was not truthful with the Congress, he deserves to be fired--not Bogden but Gonzales.

On the other hand, if the Attorney General was not involved in the decision to fire Bogden and others, he is guilty of gross negligence and deserves to be fired. He turned over the awesome power of his office to a handful of young, inexperienced ideologues and allowed them to carry out a political campaign from the once-hallowed halls of the Justice Department.

But the Attorney General's misdeeds extend well beyond politically driven personnel decisions. As White House counsel, he presided over the development of antiterror tactics that have undermined the rule of law and made Americans less safe. We know now from former Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey the Attorney General tried to take advantage of John Ashcroft's serious illness--was sick in a hospital bed--to obtain Justice Department approval for an illegal surveillance program. He took papers there for him to sign.

Time and time again, Alberto Gonzales has proven beyond a doubt his utter lack of judgment and independence is foremost in his mind. Whether it is tortured reasoning allowing torture or his support of domestic surveillance, firing unfairly U.S. attorneys, hiring immigration judges based on their political affiliation--there is a long list. But let's talk about his being one of the masters of torture in our country.

I have a law review article from Columbia Law Journal, one of the finest law schools in America, the name of which is ``Drop by Drop: Forgetting the History of Water Torture in U.S. Courts.'' This is an article written by Judge Evan Wallach, one of the foremost experts in the world on the law of the war. I am only going to read the last paragraph of this article. He goes into some detail in the article, talking about how this Attorney General's office, this White House counsel, this administration has allowed torture to be part of what Americans do with detainees and others.

Here is what Judge Wallach said:

If we remember what we said and did when our military

personnel were victims, if we remember our response when they

were perpetrators, how can our government possibly opine that

the use of water torture is within the bounds of law? To do

so is beneath contempt; it is beyond redemption; and it is a

repudiation of the rule of law that in our origins was the

core principle of governance which distinguished our nation

from the crowned dictatorships of the European continent.

That is the legacy of this administration and this Attorney General, that law review articles are being written to talk about how awful this Attorney General is and what he has allowed to happen.

To do so is beneath contempt; it is beyond redemption; and

it is a repudiation of the rule of law that in our origins

was the core principle of governance which distinguished our

nation from the crowned dictatorships of the European

continent.

Alberto Gonzales is profoundly unworthy to hold one of the highest and most important offices of our great country. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution reflecting the facts before us. I urge Attorney General Gonzales to resign his office, to give the Department of Justice a chance it needs to recover from his catastrophic tenure. If he does not, I urge President Bush to finally remove him.

Have the yeas and nays been ordered?

Mr. President, we have worked long and hard on this piece of legislation. It is a very complicated bill, as it should be, because we have a complicated problem--that is immigration. We have come a long way since we started the debate on this matter. It is fresh in my mind what went on last year when we had the debate on an immigration bill that passed the Senate. Last year we worked long and hard. We had 23 rollcall votes prior to cloture. Seven amendments in addition to that were done by voice vote last year. Postcloture, we had 3 that went by voice, there were 11 that were voted on.

This year we have had 28 rollcall votes on amendments. We have had 14 amendments by voice, a total of 42 amendments. So we are way ahead of where we were last year.

I understand that people were concerned yesterday about not having enough amendments. I think everyone had an opportunity to offer amendments. But it is interesting--we had people who were saying: This amendment that passed is a deal breaker. On the other side: We had an amendment that passed that is a deal breaker. So I guess whether a bill is improved is in the eye of the beholder because there was certainly disagreement about what improved or didn't improve the bill. I also think it is interesting people agitated for amendments and then, when the vote didn't go their way, they were upset.

This is a bill we have pushed down the road a long way. I hope we can finish it. I spoke last night--I don't know what time it was, it was 4:30 a.m. European time. I called to see if Mr. Bolton, the President's Chief of Staff, was with the President. He was. I didn't want to disturb him at that time of day. But I did have a good long conversation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, Judge Chertoff. That was 10:30, 11 o'clock last night. I explained to him how this legislative process works. He asked me to go over it with him again because he wanted to make sure he understood it.

I told him, as much as any piece of legislation we have had here-- other than the supplemental appropriations bill this past 6 months-- this is the President's bill. He has worked long and hard. He has had Cabinet officers working with Democrats and Republicans to come up with a bill, the so-called compromise. Some call it a grand compromise, but it is at least a compromise. I told him the vast majority of Democrats want this legislation to move forward. I think someone should get word to the President that, if this bill goes down with the vast majority of the Democrats voting for this action to move forward--if the Republicans vote against it, he and I discussed what the headline is going to be. The headline is going to be: Democrats Vote To Continue This Bill, the Republicans Vote Against It--The President Fails Again.

I don't think that is good. I think we need to show we have the ability to work with the White House.

I know there are some people who would like us to stay on immigration for the rest of this work period. We have 3 weeks left. It would make some people as happy as larks to be able to spend the rest of this work period on immigration. Why? Because some don't want us to go to the next two matters we are going to have to deal with.

No. 1 is energy. When we went home during the Memorial Day break, there were two things people wanted to talk to me about. One of them wasn't immigration. The Iraq war and gas prices, that is what people wanted to talk about wherever I went. I spent a lot of time in Nevada, but I traveled to other places in the country. It was the same there: Iraq, end this war, and do something about these gas prices.

We are going to take up energy. That will be what we do after we do the immigration bill. So I know some people don't want us to go there. After we finish that, we have the obligation to do, for our military and our country, a Defense authorization bill. Again, there will be a debate on Iraq. I am sure some will want to talk about timelines. I am sure some will want to talk about readiness. I am sure there will be people wanting to talk about transitioning the mission. Maybe there will be some efforts to do away with the original authorization of the war. I don't know for sure. That is an issue some people would just as soon we stay away from.

I know people would like us to stay on this forever, but the question is, When is enough enough?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the cloture vote be delayed to occur today at 5 p.m.

Mr. President, I am disappointed because, as I indicated, last year we had 14 votes postcloture. But I have learned a little bit about this place, that sometimes you have to do indirectly what you cannot do directly. It makes so much sense that, if people want more amendments, it would be wise to agree to our suggestion that we put over the cloture vote to later this evening. We could process amendments during that time and have a cloture vote tonight.

I understand there is going to be an objection, but I am going to do indirectly what I can't do directly. That is, everyone should know, if cloture is not invoked this morning--if the Republican leader says he is going to recommend to all his folks that they vote no on cloture, I am sure cloture will not be invoked. But everyone should know, we are going to have another cloture vote this early evening. We are going to process as many amendments, in the meantime, as we can. I hope there could be some more work done on what other amendments postcloture; that is, germane amendments. I know of a couple that are germane. I have told people they can have votes on those. I repeat what I have said on this floor several times, what I have told the managers of the bill and I have told individual Senators: We are not going to block, as we can do, procedurally, votes on the germane amendments that are postcloture. We are going to go ahead and process as many of those as we can reasonably do. If we have to spend the 30 hours doing it, we will. Otherwise, we will get a list of amendments that the Parliamentarian will determine are germane, and we will set up a period of time to vote on those and move on.

So I would hope that everyone understands that if cloture is not invoked, we are going to go ahead, and I will get on the right side of the issue, as we have to do here procedurally, to have the ability to bring this up early evening time. During that period of time, I hope the people who feel they have not had enough amendments are assuaged and we can go ahead and have a cloture vote and move forward. I had a member of our caucus explain it this way, Mr. President. She said: It is like running a marathon. I told her afterward that I was envious that she had thought of this and I hadn't because I have run a few marathons. She described it so well. It was Senator Cantwell from Washington. She said: You know, about the 22nd-mile mark, you are really tired, and you think, maybe I should have quit earlier. But I can see the end up here now, and I am going to go ahead and finish the race.

That is how I feel. There are times during this debate that I feel we would all be better off having walked away from it. It was hard. All of these phone calls coming into our offices, people accosting you as you walk out of the building, lobbying groups for and against this. But we have withstood that. Now, as Senator Cantwell said, I think we may be about at the 24-mile mark.

As with a marathon, Mr. President, there are times when you are running a marathon that you feel euphoric--I feel so strong, I am out here alone, I am able to travel those miles--and then, just like that, it can change. Well, the euphoria is gone. The determination is here. I think we need to complete this marathon. So I am disappointed we are not going to have cloture today. But everyone should know we will have cloture again later on in the day.

I ask unanimous consent, Mr. President, that the cloture vote on the bill be delayed to occur only if the substitute amendment is agreed to.

I know the manager of the bill is here. The two leaders have used a lot of time. If you would like us to extend the time--OK. We can go right to the amendments. Thank you for being so patient.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided before the cloture vote.

Mr. President, I think the distinguished Republican leader has outlined the problem, the problem that exists with the Republicans in the Senate.

The reason there weren't a lot of cloture motions filed in the last Congress is, as the distinguished Republican leader has pointed out, we believed in legislating, not delaying. Most of the motions that have been filed regarding cloture have been on motions to proceed to bills-- dilatory tactics by the Republicans--and it is very frustrating to them that in spite of that--in spite of that--we have been able to accomplish much, including ethics lobbying reform, minimum wage, 9/11 Commission recommendations. We did the budget. We were able to do the continuing resolution. We did stem cell research. We have done some very good work, and we are going to continue to do that.

We have spent a lot of time on the Republicans delaying what the American people want us to do, and that is legislate. In spite of that, we were able to move on and do some significant legislating, as we are going to continue to do.

As I said this morning, we want to finish this legislation in a positive vein. The minority said they wanted more amendments. They got more amendments. We don't know if there is a magic number, but we will work and make sure--I think we are in the process now of lining up four amendments on each side. We should dispose of those fairly quickly. I have indicated that we are willing to do whatever is necessary postcloture to take care of as many of the postcloture germane amendments as we can. We are happy to do that. This is very important.

I spoke last night to the Secretary of Homeland Security, one of the people who represented the President in these negotiations. This bill that is on the Senate floor is not a Democratic bill. It is a bill that has been worked on by Democrats and Republicans in cooperation with the President of the United States and his people. My message to Secretary Chertoff last night was that--it seems a little unusual to me when we have worked so hard and we have offered opportunities for all of these amendments, and we are going to offer more. My message to him is, why in the world would anyone object to delaying the cloture vote? But that is what has happened.

I think that is unfortunate because I told the Secretary of Homeland Security, Judge Chertoff, the message in the newspaper is going to be: Democrats Support Cloture to Continue Debate on Immigration; Republicans Oppose It--President Bush Fails Again.

Let's have some successes around here. We need to work with the President. He needs to work with us. Here is a way that it can be done.

I know there are people who want us to stay on this bill for the rest of this work period, but we have other things we need to do that some do not want us to work on. When we went home for our Memorial Day break, what were the issues people talked about more than anything else? Ending the war in Iraq and gas prices. So when we finish this, we are going to move on to energy--gas prices. When we finish that, we are going to move to the Defense authorization and again have a debate on ending the Iraq war. I know people don't want us to do that, but we need to do that. That is what the American people want us to do.

So I cannot accomplish directly what I think should be done, and that is have a cloture vote that is successful right now. But I can do indirectly what I can't do directly. If the cloture vote doesn't succeed, I will change my vote so I will be on the winning side, and I will bring up the cloture vote later today. We are going to continue working this bill.

As my friend, the distinguished junior Senator from Washington said this morning in a caucus we had, she said: You know, what we have done here is like a marathon. When you run a marathon, you run 22 miles, you have 4 miles more to go, and you look back and think of all the times you wanted to quit, but right now, as tired as you are from running a marathon, you can see the end.

The race is up there and we need to continue. This is a marathon. We owe it to the American people to move forward on this legislation to improve a broken system. That is what we are trying to do. I hope my Republican colleagues vote for cloture. If they don't, they will have another opportunity later today and, hopefully, we can process some amendments in the interim.

Mr. President, I have a lot to say about the failed Attorney Generalship of Alberto Gonzales, but this is not the time to do that. I may not have that opportunity because the only issue that will be before the Senate is a simple vote on a motion to proceed. If the minority does not wish to proceed to have a vote of confidence on him, it will not happen. If there were ever an opportunity for a legislative body to speak about what is going on in the administrative branch of Government, it is with what is happening in that Justice Department.

All you need to do is read the newspaper today to find out what is going on in that Justice Department. Should we have confidence in Alberto Gonzales? I don't think so.

But we are on immigration. This is a day for getting along. I am going to do the best I can to get along, and I hope everyone will do that and continue to work on a bipartisan basis to move forward on immigration.

Cloture Motion

Mr. President, I enter a motion to reconsider the vote by which cloture was not invoked.

Cloture Motion

Mr. President, I enter a motion to reconsider the vote on which cloture was not invoked.

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

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

I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized at any time today when I return to the floor.

So it doesn't frighten people, the only reason I intend to do that is because we are working on a unanimous consent agreement now, and Senator Dodd can speak or Senator Sessions can speak or whoever wants to talk--they can do that. At least we can get the consent done. What we are working on now is to have three Republican amendments, three Democratic amendments. I hope we can get that done very quickly.

I say to my friend, we have a unanimous consent request we want the Senator to look at. It lines up a number of Republican votes and Democratic votes. We need the Senator to sign off on it.

Mr. President, I would sure like to be able to get this unanimous consent agreement. We keep changing things around and have decided we don't need to have an equal number of Democrats with Republicans. Let's get what we can. We have three Republicans lined up. They are all important amendments that the Republicans and Democrats have. I hope we can get this done.

We have a vote at about 3 o'clock. We changed the time to 10 minutes each, I say to my friend from Alabama, because people have had the opportunity to speak already, except for Senator Webb.

Mr. WEBB addressed the Chair.

If the Senator will withhold.

Is it OK that we do this?

Mr. President, we have been told that the Republicans are interested in more amendments. We finished the vote approximately 2 hours 15 minutes ago. We have been trying for that period of time to get up some Republican amendments. We had four and four, and they would not agree to that request. We had three and three, and they would not agree with that request. Then three Republican amendments, two Democratic amendments, and they would not agree to that request.

I repeat, it is time for the President and his folks to get involved in this matter. This is the President's bill. This isn't a bill we came up with. Democrats and Republicans working in unison with the administration came up with a bill. We want to help. No one has worked harder on the President's bill than Senators Kennedy, Feinstein, and Salazar. I would sure hope we get some help. We can't have Republican members vote on it if they won't let us call up amendments.

The distinguished Senator from Alabama is interested in this bill. We know that. He has spoken long and hard about his opposition to this legislation. But it is just not appropriate that the minority can have it both ways. They want these amendments but don't allow us to call them up. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Come the end of the day, when we have a cloture vote, they will say: You didn't give us any more amendments. They didn't get more amendments because they wouldn't let us call up more amendments. And they have control over that.

So, Mr. President, I think we need to have the record reflect that this bill isn't going anyplace, but it is not our fault. I repeat: This is a bill which was negotiated in good faith by Democrats and Republicans, and it is the President's bill. He says he wants this. Why can't we get this agreement?

Here are my friends. I see on the floor my distinguished friend from Alabama. I have told him personally, and I will tell him publicly--and I have said this before--there are times I don't agree with him, but with Jeff Sessions, you never have to guess where he stands on an issue, and I appreciate that. We know where he stands on this issue of immigration. But having said that, can we do this agreement?

Well, he is part of the deal here.

If I could say, through the Chair, to my distinguished friend, we did have this set up so we could vote at 3 o'clock. Senator Dodd has already spoken; Senator Webb has already spoken. He is part of the agreement. Senators Grassley, Coleman, and Brownback have not spoken, so we have put 15 minutes in here for those three Senators. It should be equally divided, but we can make it----

Be happy to.

Mr. President, it is obvious we are not going to be able to complete the President's legislation based on the request of my friend from Alabama. I took math at Searchlight, NV, Elementary School, where 1 teacher taught all 8 grades, but I can still figure out what 5 times 45 is, and it is a long time--hours. It is approximately 4 hours.

Be happy to yield for a request of my friend.

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

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

Mr. President, it has been now 2\1/2\ hours. We have tried every possible way of getting an amendment up to vote on it. We have tried this. We have tried that. We have tried this. We have tried that. We have tried everything.

There are individuals who don't like this bill. The Senate being as it is, they have a right to object to what we do.

And they are objecting; that is for sure. The objections have been nonpublic to this point, but it is frustrating because the people who want to move this bill forward, Democrats and Republicans, are being thwarted in their effort to do so.

As I have said before, we need to make sure the record is clear we are not trying to impede the offering of amendments. There have been some who oppose the legislation and are concerned there hasn't been the ability to call up amendments and have them pending. But until we disposed of the 14 pending amendments yesterday, it was thought by most to be inappropriate to call up more amendments and have, instead of 14 pending amendment, 28 pending amendments. I am going to ask unanimous consent in a minute that we vote on five amendments. Originally, we started the day with four on each side. Then we had three Republican and three Democratic. There was objection to both of those. So I said: Fine, let's have three Republican and two Democratic. There was objection.

We thought we had it worked out once, and then the time for debating these was a lot of time, which is another indication there are some who, no matter what we do, we can't move forward on this legislation.

I know I am being repetitive, but this is not a Democratic bill. The Democrats have helped get this bill to where it is.

The main proponents of this legislation on the Democratic side have been Senators Kennedy, Feinstein, and Salazar. On the Republican side, we have had a number of people work very hard: Senator Specter, Senator Kyl, and others. I appreciate how hard they have worked. This is a bill that is bipartisan in nature, supported by the President of the United States. I wish to help the President. I am not always in a position to do that. I think I am in a position to do that now, and I have done everything I can with this piece of legislation to do that. So I will ask consent that we have a series of votes set up. When I finish that consent, I will call up some amendments and have them set aside.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the time until 4:15 p.m. today be for debate with respect to the following amendments; that the time run concurrently and there be whatever the allocated time is from now until 4:15 of debate with respect to each amendment, equally divided and controlled in the usual form, with no amendment to be in order to any of the amendments covered under this agreement prior to a vote; that at 4:15 p.m., the Senate proceed to vote in relation to each amendment in the order listed here; that once this agreement is entered, the amendments that are not pending be reported by number; and that prior to each vote there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided and controlled; and after the first vote in the sequence, the remaining votes be 10 minutes in duration.

I would also say, to show what we are trying to do in good faith, when there was a request on the other side to have a large block of time, on this side we agreed, 30 minutes, 5 minutes. We want to try to move this along. Thirty minutes for the proponents and 5 minutes for those opposed. The amendments are Dodd 1199; Brownback 1160; Webb 1313; Grassley-Baucus 1441; and Coleman 1473.

Madam President, is there an objection?

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the following amendments be called up and set aside: Sessions 1323, Thune 1174, Baucus-Tester 1236, Menendez 1317, and Sanders 1332.

I am sorry. I ask my friend, does he object to calling up these amendments?

I would only say to my friend, and those within the sound of my voice, I didn't come up with these amendments or the numbers. These were done by the Republicans and the floor staff of the Republicans, indicating the ones Senators had been waiting on for a while. We are happy to have a number of other pending amendments, and we will work with the two managers to see if we can get others. We thought this was a good place to start. But obviously, some do not believe it is a good place to start. I am sorry we are not able to move along. I say in the most positive way, there is good faith on both sides of the aisle to move this legislation. I, of course, was disappointed in the earlier cloture vote, but I was told before the cloture vote took place what was going to happen because there was a genuine need on the other side for more amendments. I understand that. I accept that. I am not the judge of what is to be enough. We have tried hard, and I will keep trying, but I do say everything we have tried doesn't work. There are people in years past who know more about Senate floor procedures than I, but I know a little bit. I don't know of anything I have missed to try to bring up other amendments in a bipartisan way. There is no one at this stage trying to take advantage of anyone else.

This is an effort by Democrats and Republicans who want to help the President get a bill he believes in, for which I have publicly said I appreciate the President doing this. For me to say this, after all the battles the President and I have had, is good for the President and for me. I wish to do something to move this along. The American public needs the cooperation of Democrats and Republicans, with the President joining in.

I apologize to everyone for whom we have not been able to figure out a different way to go forward. We are going to continue to try.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

First of all, Mr. President, let me tell everyone within the sound of my voice, no tricks. What I am doing is trying to protect those people who feel it would be to the advantage of the country and the Senate if we got a bill. This doesn't change any of the things I have said privately to Senators or publicly. Basically, what I am going to do is send a couple of amendments to the desk so there is some control over amendments that are offered. This will allow those of us who feel there should be a bill some control over the next amendment that is offered.

Again, no tricks. I have alerted everyone the best that I can what I was going to do, and I hope this works out well. I am confident we are doing the right thing.

Amendment No. 1492 to Amendment No. 1235

Mr. President, I call up a second-degree amendment, which is at the desk.

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

Mr. President, I ask for the regular order with respect to the Dodd amendment.

Mr. President, I call up the amendment that is at the desk.

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

Mr. President, I will be seated in a brief period of time, but I wished to let everyone know we have people working in different rooms in this building trying to come up with some way for us to move forward. We have tried on a number of occasions this afternoon to have amendments. We started at noon--6\1/2\ hours ago. We have been thwarted at every attempt. So we are arriving at a point now where I hope there can be agreement as to how we proceed. If not, we will proceed anyway in a manner I hope will be in keeping with the intent of the Democrats and the Republicans and the White House.

I do say in this interim this afternoon that I have had some interesting calls from people who care a great deal about this bill. One of the choice experiences of my life was a year ago, in my office, right back here, on a Saturday. We were debating immigration. I had the good fortune to meet for the first time Cardinal McCarrick and Cardinal Mahony, and they were very interested in doing something that would help the immigration problems they see on a daily basis.

I had the good fortune to speak to those good men during the past hour or two. The reason I mention the meeting of that Saturday is that some people know I am not a member of the Catholic faith. I have the greatest respect in the world for Catholics. The best friend I ever had in my life was a devout Catholic. He went to church every day. He was Governor of the State of Nevada and I was Lieutenant Governor. He taught me how to fight. He was my best friend. He taught me in high school. He died in church. He went to church every day, and he went to church one morning, put his head on his shoulder, and died.

For someone who set such a great example for Christianity and goodness, there couldn't be a better way for this good man, Michael Callahan, to die. But the reason I mention that is that as the meeting was breaking up, and there was some staff there, I said, I have the good fortune of being able to meet with prominent people on occasion, but this is a special meeting for me. I would like to be able to tell my children and grandchildren about this meeting. So before we go out to the press, could we say a prayer together?

We gathered there in my conference room and Cardinal Mahony said a prayer for our country. When he finished, Cardinal McCarrick said a prayer for me. That was one of the highlights of my life. When it was over, Cardinal McCarrick said: Well, I am not going to be able to tell my children and grandchildren about this, but I can tell my nieces and grand nieces about this.

So during the 6\1/2\ hours we have been away from the floor, there have been a lot of good people working on a way to finalize this legislation, and I hope that everyone understands the efforts I have made now. It is not an effort to trick anybody or deceive anyone. It is an effort to try to move this legislation forward.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Georgia be allowed to speak for up to 12 minutes.

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

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

Mr. President, I am going to move briefly to proceed to a motion to reconsider, but I wanted to tell all Members that this vote is not going to be a 20-minute vote. There are people coming from all over the country, both Democrats and Republicans. I don't think it matters. This is going to be the last vote of the night, anyway, but this vote will go a little longer.

I ask unanimous consent that the motion to proceed to the motion to reconsider the failed cloture vote on the substitute be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be agreed to, and the Senate proceed to vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the Kennedy-Specter substitute amendment No. 1150.

I move to reconsider the vote.

Cloture Motion

I move the Senate proceed to consideration of the Energy bill, H.R. 6.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there be a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, this has been a very difficult time. I think there has been a lot of bending over backward to accommodate people who have wanted to offer amendments. Initially, as you will recall, the negotiators were given quite a bit of time, and then when that ``quite a bit of time left,'' they wanted another week and they got that.

After the debate started, the majority leader said, this is a 2-week bill, and it is. I extended debate past the recess. During the floor debate, we have disposed of 42 amendments, including 28 rollcall votes. Last night we asked for consent to move the cloture vote from this morning to tonight so we could have another full day of amendments. That didn't work out.

I understand why some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle thought maybe that wasn't a good idea. But I thought we could, after cloture was not invoked this morning, move some other amendments. We tried hard to do that. We were unable to do that. I tried every possible way to get amendments up today; every possible way.

A real short recounting of this. I offered votes on eight amendments, four on each side. Then we tried six, three on each side. Again, my friends on the other side of aisle objected to that. Then I tried three Republican amendments, only two Democratic amendments. That was objected to by my colleagues on the other side.

Finally, I tried to get a significant number of additional amendments pending so they could receive votes after cloture. That was objected to. Republicans even objected to calling up their own amendments.

So having spent all day trying to diligently work out a way to vote on Republican and Democratic amendments and facing objections from my Republican colleagues, I found the only thing we can do is try to get cloture tonight.

I was hoping my friends on the other side of the aisle would understand that small groups shouldn't dictate what

happens around here, but that is what happened.

But I, even though disappointed, look forward to passing this bill.

We are going to take the bill off the Senate floor, as I just indicated and we have done. But there are ways we can do this. There could be an agreement of a number of amendments. I am saying to everyone here, I would do my very best to have more Republican amendments than Democratic amendments. I know some of my colleagues don't want me to say that, but I would be willing to do that, with a time certain for passing this bill. Hopefully, we can do that in the next several weeks. There is a lot of support for this bill on the outside. The problem was on the inside of the Senate Chamber.

People have worked very hard on this bill. One of my colleagues in my office today, who has worked on this bill so hard, shed some tears. This is a bill about which people have a lot of emotion.

I have to acknowledge that my first reaction was, look how many votes they gave us, six or seven. All the Democrats could have voted for cloture--and we did, all but 10--and we still couldn't have gotten cloture. That was my reaction, to be upset. But there is no reason to be upset. I think we have to look toward passing this bill. It is something that needs to be done. There are some really good things in this bill. The DREAM Act--I will not belabor the point, but I will just briefly say that in Smith Valley, NV, a little mining community, a number of years ago, this beautiful child came up to me, a senior in high school. I knew she wanted to talk to me, and she did. She said: I am the smartest kid in my class. I can't go to college. My parents are illegal. What am I going to do, Senator? She couldn't do anything. I don't know what she is doing now. She is a grown woman, probably working on the onion farms in Smith Valley. Maybe she got married. I don't know what happened to her. She should have been able to go to college. We had a provision in this bill to allow people like that young lady to go to college.

A young man in Reno, NV, a small-in-stature Hispanic--he would be the master of ceremonies at events. He could sing. He could talk. It took me a number of years to realize he was in the country but he had bad papers. He couldn't drive a car. I haven't seen him for a number of years, don't know what has happened to him. He couldn't go to college. Under this legislation which is now no longer on the Senate floor, he could have had a pathway to legalization. He already knew English. He spoke better English than I do. Get a job, pay taxes, stay out of trouble--I am confident he would do that--pay some penalties and some fines to go to the back of the line, to be able to come out of the shadows, get the ability to drive a car. But we are not going to be able to do that for him now.

I have every desire to complete this legislation. We all have to work--the President included--to figure out a way to get this bill passed. I am a creature of the Senate. I understand we live by the rules that govern this body. A small number of people can disturb what goes on here. My disappointment--and I have expressed this to Senator McConnell--is I wish more of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle had in effect thumbed their nose at a few of these people and voted for cloture, at least giving us more votes than what we got. It didn't happen. There are personal reasons for doing that. I accept that. But in my office, about 7 o'clock tonight, a number of we Democratic Senators met there and made a commitment to each other that we are going to do everything we can to pass this bill as soon as we can. When is that? I don't know. But we are going to work hard. We are going to try to put aside the hurt feelings we have and move on with the anticipation that this bill is something the country needs, and the Senate needs to do this. I hope we can figure out a way to do so.

Mr. President, the distinguished Republican leader has laid out the problem: We are very close. At some point, we will be ready to vote for cloture. We need more votes on amendments, even though we have had more than on the bill last year. We are getting close to being prepared to vote for cloture. We have spent so much time on this bill trying to make people happy whom you couldn't make happy on this bill anyway. They had no intention of voting for the bill, voting for cloture. But we spent an inordinate amount of time----

Mr. President, in a brief minute.

I want the right tone set here. I don't want this to be an adversarial process. This is not a battle between Reid and McConnell. The votes show what happened. It doesn't take Einstein to figure that one out. Republicans didn't vote for cloture. They hadn't had enough. What is enough? I don't know what is enough.

One of the elements that hasn't been mentioned here tonight--but only in passing, because I want to set the right tone--this is the President's bill. Last year, we passed the Democratic immigration bill. We passed it with help from some courageous Republicans. Here, part of those courageous Republicans met with some very strong Democratic Senators, working with Cabinet officers, to come up with a bill. They came up with a bill. The press has declared this to be the grand compromise. I accept that term. Where are

the President's men? Where are the President's people helping us with these votes?

We are finished with this for the time being. As we have been for days, we are going to have a list for you right away. We should have it by 5 o'clock tonight. We will have it for you in the morning. We are very close. At some point, we are going to do this. Pretty soon, we will have enough votes so we can support cloture. We are prepared to vote for cloture but not right now.

I want to finish this bill, but I can't do it alone. We can't do it alone. We did more than our share here tonight on cloture votes. We picked up seven votes during the day from the vote this morning to the vote this evening. But we need some help. I would hope the President understands that it is only going to be about 16 months until there is an election for a new President, either a Democratic or Republican President. He has a relatively short period of time to help us with this piece of legislation.

People know I am very concerned about what comes up on the floor. I am very time-conscious with what needs to be done. I am not always right, and I acknowledge that. But no one can take away from the fact that I try to get as much as we can out of this Senate. I am going to continue to do that. Part of the time I want to make sure we are able to add into the picture is time to do an immigration bill, but we over here can't do it alone. We need some help. We have an opportunity, as I said before. We want this number of amendments, and we are not going to go for 34. I heard that one yesterday. But whatever it is--10, 6, 5, 4, 3, a time for final passage--we will find time to get this bill up. If they--meaning the other side--have another idea how to get it done, we will work with them. We want to pass this bill. We are committed to immigration reform. We believe our country needs it, not only for the people who live in this country but people outside the country who recognize we have the ability to solve our own problems. Immigration is a problem. We are committed to work on it. And we will continue to do that. I hope for the good of this country we can move forward in a positive manner and pass this legislation.

I say again, let's have President Bush work with us. I want to work with him. You do not hear that from me very often. I will do whatever I can to have this part of his legacy, his immigration bill. I want no credit for it. No one else wants any credit for it. It can be his bill because if we pass this, there is credit to go around for everybody.

Mr. President, keep in mind the logic of this. It has been made graphically clear to me that the Republicans wanted more votes on their amendments. One problem: They objected to bringing up their own amendments. It makes it a little tough to vote on them. It is like having a basketball tournament where you have the five players on each side, and they are going to have a tournament, and the winner is the team with the most points, but--one problem--nobody will supply a basketball. That is what we had here.

The logic of the statement of my friend from Kentucky leaves me without a lot of understanding. They want more amendments. We did everything we could to have amendments today. I will go through it again. We started out with eight. They objected to it. Six, five; they objected every time. We said: Do you want more amendments pending? Here they are. We will give you six or eight. Objection.

So we know where we are. But let's realize where we are and not make up the facts. The real true facts: We wanted to give the Republicans votes on amendments. Voice votes did not count. It had to be rollcall votes. And I accepted that. But we could not get any kind of votes because we could not get amendments up--not for our fault.

So, Mr. President, I do not want to leave this floor tonight without stating how much I admire and appreciate seven courageous Republicans who did the right thing. They know what went on here in the last few days is wrong. They voted for cloture tonight. I am confident that others will join them in the future, if we have to do cloture again. But everyone--everyone--should acknowledge that what these seven Senators did was not easy. It is an act of courage that they did this.

While my compliments for them may not be very much, when the history books are written, this will be a profile in courage for their doing this tonight. I am convinced that is true. I admire them and appreciate what they did, setting an example.

I think we have all said enough, but I want to get the last word. So if people want to say more, I will--

Mr. President, last word--I hope. You cannot have votes on amendments that people do not let you bring up to vote on. There is no basketball, remember. We have a game going but no basketball.

Mr. President, in reading this morning's paper, I was reminded of the times I would read Dr. Seuss to my boys and my girl. In today's New York Times, Tom Friedman quotes Dr. Seuss as follows:

Then he shut the Things

in the box with the hook.

And the cat went away

with a sad kind of look.

``That is good,'' said the fish.

``He has gone away. Yes.

but your mother will come.

She will find this big mess!

And this mess is so big

And so deep and so tall,

we can not pick it up.

There is no way at all!''

Mr. President, some would say that is what we have in the Senate today--a big mess. But if you go back and read Dr. Seuss, the cat manages to clean up the mess. And as big of a mess as we have with immigration in the United States, we have the opportunity to clean up a big mess. If we work on a bipartisan basis in the next couple of days, we can clean up this mess. If we cannot, then we are back with the cat who didn't clean up the mess and the Senate didn't clean up its mess with immigration.

We have known for 3 months the time set for doing immigration. People worked in good faith trying to come up with legislation, and they were a week short. They said: We need more time. So they got more time. They came up with a bipartisan bill. Ten Senators, Democrats and Republicans, came up with an immigration bill. Is it a perfect bill? Of course, not. Is it a good bill? It is not bad at all. It does some things that I think are extremely important, something I have talked about for a long time based on my experience in Smith Valley, NV, with a girl who couldn't go to college. She was Hispanic. Her parents were here illegally, and this young girl couldn't go to college even though she was the best student in her class. So we have in this bill the DREAM Act. It is a dream for many young Americans.

AgJOBS. We have been talking about an AgJOBS bill for years. This bill has one in it.

Border security. We have talked about the need for border security. This bill provides border security.

Employer enforcement, employer sanctions. This legislation has good employer sanction language. Good enough? Well, we will have to see. Some want to improve it. Maybe that is the way to do things.

Pathway to legalization. For millions of people here illegally with improper papers, a path to legalization is a way to bring them out of the shadows. That is in this legislation.

This year's legislation builds on the bill passed by the Senate last year after extensive committee considerations and many floor amendments. This year, there were lengthy bipartisan negotiations involving about 10 Senators and a number of Cabinet officers, in addition to other people from the White House. The negotiators asked for additional time. We talked about that. It was agreed upon.

We started the floor debate the week before Memorial Day recess. During that week, we disposed of more than a dozen amendments and allowed an additional 14 amendments to become pending to the bill. Proponents of the

bill asked for an additional week of floor debate. I agreed. The minority leader said this time this is a 2-week bill. I agreed with him and scheduled a second week of debate, and that is where we are now.

This week, we have conducted four rollcall votes, adopted four other amendments by voice vote, and we probably would have done more but for the unfortunate death of our colleague and friend, Senator Thomas. Yesterday morning, in memory of our friend, we decided not to work here, and that was the right thing to do. This morning, we have two more votes that are scheduled already on the Cornyn and Kennedy amendments regarding eligibility for the legalization program. We have proposed a unanimous consent agreement. We did that yesterday, and I understand the managers have that fairly well worked out on the 12 pending amendments to have votes on those later today. That was not accepted last evening, but I am hopeful that agreement can be worked out soon.

So it is clear we are working in good faith to process amendments and move forward on this bill. My decision about cloture last night was simply a way to ensure that we finish this bill in a timely manner. By offering to postpone the cloture vote, as I did yesterday, until tomorrow night, I am offering an additional full day of amendments before the cloture vote and, of course, germane amendments are considered postcloture.

I had a meeting in my office just a few minutes ago with a bipartisan group of Senators. I believe there is a good-faith effort being made by a majority of Senators, Democrats and Republicans, to move this bill forward. That is what we are going to try to do.

There are some people, rightly or wrongly--and that is all in the eyes of the beholder--who feel they have not had an opportunity to deal with this legislation. If that is the case, let's see if we can come up with some amendments that will make them happy. We do a lot of business in this body by unanimous consent--in fact, most everything. The cloture vote is scheduled for tomorrow morning, an hour after we come into session. We can change that. It is my hope that we can finish the bill this week. I am very confident we can.

I personally feel an obligation to go to the funeral in Wyoming. Craig Thomas was a Republican with whom I worked very closely on a number of issues, and I had great appreciation and admiration for him. Out of respect for him and Susan, I feel that I need to go to that funeral, and I am sure many others feel the same way. So that is going to change our schedule. It is my understanding that funeral is going to be Saturday. I have notified my caucus, and I have explained to the distinguished Republican leader that we may have to work longer hours this week. But let's try to finish this bill.

There are some, and it is a small number of people, who don't want this bill finished under any circumstances. That happens on a lot of bills, and we have to try to work our way through that.

I hope people understand that I would like to get a bill passed. We have responsibilities as Senators to not only deal with immigration, which is a system, as I have tried to explain with a little vignette from Dr. Seuss, that is badly in need of fixing, but we have a lot of other problems in this country that are badly in need of fixing. So we may have to work hours the Senate hasn't seen very often. We may have to work into the night, tonight and tomorrow night and maybe even Friday and Friday night, and who knows if that will be enough time to get us over the hump.

I hope people will understand that it is not a question of how much time we spend on the bill, it is a question of whether people feel they have had the opportunity to change the provisions that are in the bill. I have gone over most of them: AgJOBS, DREAM Act, employer enforcement, legalization, border security.

I hope we can get this bill done. We can debate this bill all year and end up right back where we are. The American people did not send us here to pontificate; they sent us here to legislate. That is what I am trying to do and most are trying to do.

Recognizing that this immigration system is broken and that we need to fix it, I extend my appreciation to Senators--Democrats and Republicans--who believe this is the time for us to do something important for the country.

I have said on a number of occasions that this bill, when it comes out of this body, is not the last word. We have other ways of working on this bill. We, as Senators, are going to be fully involved in the legislation until it comes out of conference, which is after the House passes a bill which will have the imprint of the White House on it.

So I hope we can move forward in good faith and understand that everything we do in life has deadlines, even our legislation in the Senate.

I will be happy to yield.

I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time until 2 p.m. today be for debate prior to a vote in relation to the following amendments; that the time until then be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the time to run concurrently; that no amendments be in order to any of the amendments covered in this agreement; that at 2 p.m., the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the amendments in the order listed; that there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided prior to each vote, with the vote after the first being 10 minutes in duration, with no amendments in order to the amendments prior to the vote: DeMint No. 1197, Bingaman No. 1267, as modified.

I designate Senator Kennedy to have my time.

Mr. President, staff has been working hard to set up votes on the amendments that have been called up. We ran into a little problem; that is, we had too many Democratic amendments. But we think at this stage they are now working on setting up side by side, in some instances, Republican amendments. We need to clear

off the amendments that have been called up.

Now, as I have just indicated, if we have offsets for the Democratic amendments, we will go ahead and allow those to be called up or have side-by-sides. Once we get this done, I have been assured by both Senator Kennedy and Senator Kyl and others that we can have a list of amendments people need a vote on--not they want a vote on but need a vote on. We hope both cloakrooms have hotlined this and Senators are working on a personal basis with individual Senators.

Hopefully, we can get, by the 2 o'clock time, permission to do away with--I should not say ``do away with''--to dispose of the amendments that have been called up. Then, hopefully, we can shortly thereafter find out what amendments people wish to have votes on. If we can do that, it would really move this ball down the court a long ways.

Mr. President, all first-degree amendments would have to be filed by 1 o'clock. As we have indicated, we are going to try to be fair to everybody. If there are amendments that have been up at the desk, we will certainly do our best to get to those. I think what we need to do is find out, as I have indicated, what needs to be voted on. Some Senators on our side, for example, have been contacted this morning, and they have decided not to offer amendments. The same will happen over there. If people have been waiting around and feel aggrieved they have not been allowed to offer their amendments, of course, we will consider that. But I do not think we need to do anything right now as far as a unanimous consent request in that regard.

We will do everything we can--everybody is working in good faith--to have people feel they have the opportunity to offer their amendments. I know the Senator from Texas--she is gone--she just walked in. I do not know what her amendment is about. I think it is Social Security. I am not too certain. She has been around here a lot. She is entitled, if for no other reason than having the endurance to hang around as long as she has, to have her amendment offered. We will work with everybody, both Democrats and Republicans, to see if we can work something out to have all these amendments offered and a time set to vote on them.

That is correct.

Mr. President, if I could just say this--I would say this mostly to the staffs: We do not need a big rush over here as to filing amendments. It does not give anybody any benefit anyway. Just show some discretion on who has to file amendments, and then we will work our way through those and find out how we are going to dispose of them. So I think this is the right thing to do. There is no magic to the next 5 minutes. So we will wait for the next 65 minutes. If people have trouble making that deadline, let us know.

I have no objection.

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

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time until 6:45 p.m. today be for debate prior to a vote in relation to the following amendments; and that the time until then be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the time to run concurrently; that no amendments be in order to any of the amendments covered in this agreement prior to the vote; that at 6:45 the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the amendments in the order listed; and that there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided prior to each vote, with the votes after the first being 10 minutes in duration; that if an amendment on this list is not pending, it is to be called up now. These amendments are Cornyn, No. 1250; Reid, No. 1331; Sessions, No. 1234; Menendez, No. 1194; Kyl, No. 1460; Lieberman, No. 1191; and that a half hour of the minority's time on these amendments be allocated to Senator Sessions, and another half hour allocated to Senator Cornyn.

No.

Mr. President, I say to my friend, at this time tentatively there are three Democratic amendments pending. There are no Republican amendments to match those. When we finish this tranche of votes, we are going to try to complete tonight at least these six more. I understand the Senator has or will refile his amendment, and we will be happy to take that into consideration as we try to move this bill along.

We are working on that now. We are making progress. There are going to be three called up as soon as we get this vote started. That will be the next agreement we will enter into, and there will be three Republican amendments. So if you have something you care about, work with your colleagues over there to see if that can be one of the next three.

Madam President, I appreciate everyone allowing me to say a few words before the vote starts. We have six votes that will take place. Any minute, the votes will start. We worked out an agreement-- tentative in nature, but I think it is fairly firm--we will have six more votes tonight. I want to alert Members we will have more votes tonight. It could be a late night, for sure.

When that is all completed, we will have had--I do not know the exact number--35 votes, or something like that, and it is evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. There is one vote difference as to who offered the amendment. But I think we have made a lot of progress.

I hope people feel they are having an opportunity to have their voices heard in this regard. Within a short few votes, we will certainly have had more votes than we had last year. I am not sure that is a good guide for anything, but that is at least what we will be able to show everyone. I hope people would be able to see that the end is in sight.

Remember, if cloture is invoked on this matter, we will have 30 hours more of amendments. As I have indicated to my friend, the distinguished junior Senator from Arizona and others, upon being asked the question whether all these postcloture votes would take place, the answer is, we are not going to be blocking any people from voting on germane amendments.

I hope everyone understands it will be a late night tonight, and we will start early in the morning.

Mr. President, the earned-income tax credit is an important program that benefits low-income workers with children who are legally working in this country. Those working illegally in this country are ineligible for the earned-income tax credit.

This amendment makes it perfectly clear that nothing in the bill changes the prohibition of an illegal alien's access to the earned- income tax credit. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

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

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Amendment No. 1460

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

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Amendment No. 1182 to Amendment No. 1150

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 1182, the Thomas amendment.

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

I believe there is no debate on this matter.

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

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Amendment No. 1272 to Amendment No. 1150

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 1272 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

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

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, for all Senators, we now have a number of amendments lined up which we can vote on this evening. There will be about 80 minutes, an hour and a half, before the vote starts.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time until 10 o'clock be for debate with respect to the following amendments and that the time be equally divided and controlled between the majority and Republican leaders or their designees, with the time to run concurrently; that no amendments be in order to any of the amendments in this agreement prior to the vote; that at 10 o'clock tonight, the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the amendments in the order listed; that there be 2 minutes of debate prior to each vote, with the votes after the first being 10 minutes in duration; and that if the amendment is not pending, then it be called up now.

The first amendment we will vote on is Clinton, No. 1183, as further modified; second is Ensign, No. 1374; the third one will be Salazar, No. 1384; fourth one is Inhofe, No. 1151; the fifth one is Hutchison, No. 1415; sixth is Vitter, No. 1339; seventh is Obama, No. 1202, as modified with the changes at the desk; and eighth is Dorgan, No. 1316.

Mr. President, I will take just a few minutes. I am sorry to interrupt the debate.

Mr. President, I move to proceed to S.J. Res. 14 and send a cloture motion to the desk.

Mr. President, I withdraw my motion to proceed.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, I now move to proceed to H.R. 6, and I send a cloture motion to the desk.

Mr. President, I withdraw my motion to proceed.

Mr. President, I had alerted the distinguished Republican leader I was going to do this. I had to do it because we had to do it before the night's business ends.

Mr. President, will this be the last vote?

Madam President, I appreciate the remarks of my distinguished counterpart. I think his words convey how we feel about Craig Thomas.

Madam President, we hear it often said that this is a Senate family, and it is times such as these when we do realize we are a family, a very small family of just 100--99 today.

I can remember early last December I called and talked to Craig in the hospital, and he said: I am getting better. And he was. He did get better. It just didn't last, and we all feel so bad about that.

I remember Craig Thomas for his legislative efforts. Wyoming, like Nevada, is a public land State. Wyoming has a lot of public land issues dealing with Federal agencies. I see his colleague here, Mike Enzi, and I can remember working with them on an issue which, to most people, seemed like not much, but to the two Senators from Wyoming and to the Senator from Nevada, it meant a lot. We were dealing with a place called Martin's Cove, and even Senators from Utah were called in to see if we could resolve this, and we were able to resolve it eventually. But Craig was really tough when it came to public lands issues.

I can remember, as can Lula, whom we all know, Craig Thomas' persistence on a piece of legislation on an issue dealing with the potash of a mining company in Wyoming. He would ask us if we had been able to get it cleared. If he asked us once, he asked us 50 times, and we eventually got it cleared. I worked hard on this side for that for a couple of reasons: First, it was the right thing to do, and second, Craig wanted it so badly. So we were able to work that out.

I will miss Craig Thomas. Craig Thomas was the kind of person with whom I liked to deal. He told you how he felt--he wanted this done; he didn't want that done. I recognized that he was very proud of being a Senator.

I would have to say, however, that he was just as proud of being a marine. His Marine Corps service was certainly commendable. He was in the Marine Corps in the late 1950s, 1955 to 1959. He went in as a private and came out as a captain. He was a graduate of the University of Wyoming with a degree in agriculture, and that is why he was one of the leading experts in the Senate--in the Congress, I should say--on agriculture and, of course, issues affecting rural communities.

Madam President, I will ask for unanimous consent in just a few minutes to do away with the votes we had scheduled this morning and reschedule them for later this afternoon so people have the opportunity to come and speak about Craig. And those who aren't able to come, there will be a time set aside where we will recognize the service Craig Thomas rendered to the State of Wyoming and to the country.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the previous order governing the consideration of the immigration legislation be delayed until 2:15 p.m. today and the time between 2:15 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. be divided equally between the managers and the amendment proponents, with the votes occurring beginning at 3:30 p.m., with all other provisions of the previous order remaining in effect.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to a period of morning business until 12:30 p.m., with Senators permitted to speak therein, after Senator Enzi completes his remarks immediately following mine, for up to 15 minutes each--Senator Enzi can speak for whatever time he feels appropriate--that at 12:30 p.m., the Senate stand in recess until 2:15 p.m.; that upon reconvening, the Senate resume consideration of S. 1348, the immigration legislation.

Madam President, I ask that the Senate now stand for a moment of silence in recognition of Senator Craig Thomas.

Madam President, I ask that you now recognize Senator Enzi.