Floor Statements

Mr. President, I would like to enter a unanimous consent request, but I will wait until Senator McConnell, the Republican leader, arrives.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.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 have spoken to a number of my colleagues today--in fact, within the past hour or so. There has been a concern by the minority that there have not been enough votes on this bill.

Keeping that in mind, I am going to propound a unanimous consent request that would allow 20 votes. I will outline it as follows: I ask unanimous consent that at 5:45 today, the Senate vote in relation to Senator Kennedy's alternative to Senator Cornyn's amendment No. 1184; that immediately upon the conclusion of that vote, the Senate vote in relation to Senator Cornyn's amendment No. 1184.

Mr. President, I am going to propound another request. Based upon my distinguished colleague's statement, that we have spent a lot of time on this immigration bill--and every minute of it has been deserved. As Senators will recall, the vehicle that was brought to the floor was the bill that passed the Senate Judiciary Committee last year. It was believed that by spending more time on a bipartisan basis a substitute could be reached, and that was done. We now have before the Senate a substitute amendment that has been bipartisan in nature, with 10 Senators, Democrats and Republicans, having worked this out. Mr. President, we have had a number of votes. Keep in mind the substitute amendment that is now before the Senate is a result of a number of things, not the least of which is all the work that went into the bill that did not go forward last year.

We had numerous votes, and the Democrats and Republicans who put together the substitute took all that into consideration when they came up with the substitute. So we don't need the same number of amendments we had last year.

I think we should have amendments, and I am going to propound a request. This does not limit amendments or limit amendments in the future. As we all know, once cloture is invoked, all germane amendments are subject to votes following that cloture vote during the 30 hours. So we have today, Tuesday, Wednesday, and you will see that we would also have Thursday under one of the proposals I am going to offer. But my concern is, when is enough enough? We have a number of considerations here that are so important to our country. I recognize the importance of immigration, and I am going to do everything I can to make sure people feel they have had an alternative to the substitute that was offered. But there has to be a limit as to the amendments Senators offer.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that tomorrow the Senate vote in relation to Senator Sessions' amendment No. 1235; further, that the Senate vote in relation to the Feinstein amendment No. 1176; further, that the Senate vote in relation to the Inhofe amendment No. 1151; further, that the Senate vote in relation to the Cornyn amendment No. 1250; further, that the Senate vote in relation to the Menendez amendment No. 1194; further, that the Senate vote in relation to the Clinton amendment No. 1183; further, the Senate vote in relation to the Sessions amendment No. 1234; further, that the Senate vote in relation to the Dodd amendment No. 1199; further, that the Senate vote in relation to the McConnell amendment No. 1170; further, that the Senate vote in relation to the Lieberman amendment No. 1191; further, that alternative Democratic and Republican amendments be in order in relation to each of the above amendments, and that the time for each vote be set with the concurrence of both leaders and both floor managers.

Mr. President, the reason here is a little unusual. We have 12 amendments pending. After these are voted on, other amendments will be offered and should be offered. There is no reason to cut off what we have talked about here as being the only amendments.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that if cloture is filed today on the substitute amendment, it not ripen until 6 p.m. Thursday, June 7.

I am happy to do that. I ask unanimous consent that if cloture is filed today on the substitute amendment, it not ripen--there not be a vote on it--until 6 p.m. Thursday, June 7, rather than Thursday morning. That would give us another day.

Mr. President, we have tried to set up 20 votes in relation to amendments, including Democratic and Republican alternatives. We also tried to vitiate the need for a needless second cloture vote on the bill itself, if the substitute amendment is ever adopted. Lastly, we tried to delay the cloture vote until Thursday evening so Members would have more time to debate and dispose of amendments.

Each effort, I am sad to report, was objected to by our Republican colleagues. So as far as I am concerned, they are in no position to complain that they did not get votes on amendments prior to cloture. We offered them votes.

First of all, in this part of my presentation, I want to express my appreciation to those who have worked so hard on this bill, and I hope they will continue to work on this bill. I made a suggestion, and here it is. If they can come up with something better, more power to them.

I have devoted a lot of the Senate's time to this measure, not only this year but last year when I was working with Senator Frist. It is an important piece of legislation. The immigration system is broken and needs to be fixed. We have an obligation to the American people to do that. Do I think whatever we come up with will be perfect? No. But we have, with the help of the President, the opportunity to take this matter to the House, have them work on it, and then again with the President's assistance get to conference and come up with something that would be better than what we passed out of the Senate.

I hope my Republican colleagues are not going to use this as an excuse that they have not had enough amendments offered. That really is not fair, and it is wrong. I say again that I appreciate the work of the managers. Senator Kennedy has worked very hard to work his way through this bill, as have Senators Kyl, Sessions, Cornyn, and people who may not be in support of the bill but at least have tried to improve it.

Mr. President, there is one thing I didn't ask. My staff informed me that I did not ask this: I ask unanimous consent that if the substitute amendment is agreed to, the bill be read the third time, and the Senate vote, without intervening action or debate, on final passage of S. 1348, as amended.

I have a premonition that there may be an objection to that.

Mr. President, one person I did not compliment--and it is my negligence--is the Senator from Pennsylvania, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, former chair of the Judiciary Committee, who has worked very hard on this legislation.

Mr. President, what we have heard are buzz words for this bill is going nowhere. I think that is too bad. As the day progresses, I hope people have a change of heart and that we can work on amendments that can be voted on. Certainly, we don't need my approval for whatever amendments should be voted on.

We are going to file cloture on the bill today. There are a number of exigencies present in the Senate, and we have to move on. The Republican leader has been told by some Senators that more amendments would help. Most of the people who want more amendments have no intention of voting for this bill no matter what we do.

I have made my statement. The Republican leader has made his statement. I hope the managers can figure out a way to move on. Before the close of business today, I am filing cloture.

Mr. President, my counterpart, the distinguished Senator from Kentucky, said this is a 2-week bill, and we are in the second week of this bill.

I will also state--and I am not as much of a poll watcher as my caucus would tell me I should be--that the polls also show the Republican Members of Congress are not as well thought of as Democratic Members of Congress.

As far as success, I think we have done pretty well this past 6 months. We now have a bill that has been signed by the President where, for the first time in 10 years, we give a raise to the people who need it worst, the people who rely on the minimum wage. Keep in mind that 60 percent of those who draw a minimum wage are women. For the vast majority of those women, that is the only money they have for themselves and their families.

We have tried for 3 years to get disaster assistance for farmers, and we were able to get that. That is now signed into law. The President has made many trips to the gulf, but in this supplemental bill, which we forced the President to sign, we now have monetary relief for people in the gulf affected by Katrina.

We were able to extend the SCHIP program for children's health care. That is a significant accomplishment. That will take care of things until October. We were also--in the legislation that the President signed, that we forced--able to get more than he gave us in the supplemental appropriations bill. We had more money for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan--$4 billion more for medicine and veterans' benefits.

We have been trying for years to get money for homeland security. In this bill, we got it, a billion dollars for homeland security that has long been necessary.

Within the next week or two, we are going to have a conference report that will come forward, sending to the President legislation on stem cell research that will give hope to millions.

I worked, in fact, as late as yesterday with the distinguished Republican leader, and I think we are in a position where we can come up with a satisfactory conference report on ethics and lobbying reform.

So I think we should not be denigrating the work of this Congress and the things we have been able to accomplish, which has been done on a bipartisan basis. We have had to push and pull a little, getting motions to proceed on various pieces of legislation that were necessary, but we were able to do that. So I don't think it is time to denigrate or belittle the Congress based on the polls we have seen.

I repeat, let us not get into poll watching, because if you look at the polls, Democratic Congressmen, Democrats generally, are scored much higher than Republicans. But I repeat, I don't follow polls. I think we should be doing a lot more by what we feel is right to do than what polls show.

I hope the immigration matter can move along. I think the two leaders of the Senate have stated how we feel about this, and now we turn it over to the good hands of our experienced managers.

Mr. President, one of the things I think the managers should do is see if they can get a list of amendments, germane amendments, the minority wants. We have a few on our side. It is at least worth a try to see if we can come up with a list of germane amendments. I ask Senator Kennedy and Senator Specter to see if they can come up with a list of germane amendments that Members think they want to vote on. We already have, as I said, 12 or so pending, and we will take a look at that. I am not even sure the 12 pending are germane. We don't know that either.

Anyway, they can see if they can come up with a list of germane amendments, whether that is three, four, five, whatever it is, and we will take a look at that.

Mr. President, for the benefit of all Members, we are very close, we hope, to having two votes. It should be momentarily, in the next 10 minutes. It might be better.

We are trying to work out something on the McConnell amendment and the Feingold amendment. We have been very close to that for some time now. I am told we are very close to it now. We also have staff, both majority and minority staff, working on setting up about a dozen votes for tomorrow on amendments that are pending.

As everyone knows, I offered earlier today to have the staffs work to find out what votes the minority has that they feel would be germane postcloture, so maybe we can come up with a finite list of those. We are willing to be reasonable, but we do have to move this along.

I have had a number of Members say to me: Well, let us take another week or two on this bill; it is worth it. I know how people feel about this bill. We are not spending another week or two on this bill. It is Tuesday. We still have Wednesday, Thursday, Friday to finish this bill, could work into the weekend if necessary. This is an important bill, but we need to finish it. We need to finish this. That is why cloture will be filed tonight. I have offered a unanimous consent request so we would not even have to vote on it Thursday morning; we could vote on it Thursday night. I have also suggested if people are serious about moving this bill, we only need the one cloture vote on a substitute. That is the way it normally works, anyway; you don't have to turn around and vote on the bill itself. Rarely does that happen. That would only be if someone is trying to stall this matter.

I hope we can dispose of a lot of amendments. I hope tomorrow or the next day we could vitiate the request for cloture and have final passage on the bill. We want to be reasonable. That is why the staffs have been instructed to try to work on a way to get from here to there.

But this stage has been very difficult, because a lot of people who want to offer most of the amendments are people who have no intention of ever voting for this bill, no matter what happens. We are still going to process their amendments. They have a right to their amendments as does anyone else, even though their definition of improving the bill is, I guess, relative.

Mr. President, we still do not have anything here yet.

Mr. President, I say to my friend, the distinguished Senator from Alabama, he has two amendments that are pending now.

We have found in weeks past, months past, it is important to dispose of amendments that are pending; otherwise, you wind up that the person who offered the last amendment controls what goes on here on the floor. There have been a number of additional amendments that have been filed today. As I indicated, staff is now working on a procedure to dispose of all of the pending amendments, have votes on those tomorrow.

As I have said earlier today, in fact a few minutes ago again, often here in the Senate, when we come to situations such as this, we say: Okay, let's get a list of finite amendments. How many amendments do you want to offer? Then we try to work that out. It is a little difficult to do, because any one Senator can stop that. But we are trying to come up with a finite list of amendments. The two managers, Senators Kennedy and Specter, have worked on this, and their staffs are working on this, along with mine. Right now there is an effort to move this forward. I hope we can do that.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time until 7:20 this evening be for debate to run concurrently with respect to the McConnell amendment No. 1170 and the Feingold amendment No. 1176, with the time equally divided and controlled between Senators McConnell, Feingold, or their designees; that no amendment be in order to either amendment prior to the vote; that each amendment must receive 60 affirmative votes to be agreed to; that if they do not receive 60 affirmative votes, then the amendment be withdrawn; that the amendments be voted in the order listed in this agreement; and that there be 2 minutes equally divided prior to the second vote and that the second vote be 10 minutes in duration.

I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate resumes consideration of S. 1348 tomorrow, June 6, there be 2 hours of debate equally divided and controlled between Senators Kennedy and Cornyn or their designees, with the time to run concurrently on the Cornyn amendment No. 1184, as modified, and a Kennedy amendment relating to the same subject, with no amendments in order to either amendment prior to the vote; that upon the use or yielding back of the time, the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the Kennedy amendment, to be followed by a vote in relation to the Cornyn amendment, with 2 minutes of debate equally divided prior to the second vote, and with the above occurring without further intervening action or debate.

I would hope this would set the process in order that we can work through all these amendments. The staffs have been working, lining up other amendments, for votes on those. This is the third time now I have asked for a list of finite amendments. We hope they will be germane amendments but finite amendments. We will see if we can have a period of time that we ask for those. When that time arrives, those would be all the amendments that would be available on this bill. We have done that on many previous occasions. I hope it works.

Mr. President, is the time up?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we start the vote now.

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, we are working in good faith to move this bill forward. We had seven rollcall votes before the recess and six additional amendments adopted by voice vote. That is 13. Yesterday, we adopted four more amendments by voice vote. Today, we had four rollcall votes. Tomorrow morning, we will vote on the Cornyn-Kennedy amendment, eligibility for legalization program, and then we are prepared to enter a unanimous consent agreement for the 10 remaining amendments that are pending. We have done quite well. We will have done 23 rollcall votes when we finish these 3 tomorrow, and we adopted 10 by voice vote. I know the staff has been working on this for some time now. I hope we can work out an arrangement to get rid of the pending amendments and move on to other amendments people talked about all day they want to offer. I think that is appropriate.

Tonight, we are going to, because we agreed to lay down a Domenici amendment and one I am going to offer dealing with earned-income tax credit--those will be the two amendments we are going to lay down tonight. Anyway, somebody else is going to do it. There are two amendments we are going to lay down tonight, so we will have two more that will be pending tomorrow,

and I hope we can arrange votes on those amendments. Once we finish those amendments, I hope other Senators will offer amendments. I hope they will consider some germane amendments.

In addition to the amendments that are pending, we have a number of amendments that are at the desk, I understand, and we have taken a look at those, and maybe we can work something out on those amendments.

This is a difficult bill, we understand that. I hope the offers I made today are considered serious. I repeat, I am not going to go through the litany of amendments, the unanimous consent requests. One is we would vote cloture--rather than Thursday morning, do it Thursday night. That is certainly something we could consider. Anyway, there are all kinds of alternatives we can do to move this bill forward if people want to do that.

As I said, there is no need to run through the unanimous consent requests I did previously. We will call it quits for the night. There is no more business on this bill.

Mr. President, I ask, so the managers don't have to stay around--I wonder if we can move to a period for morning business.

That way, the Senator from Alabama can speak, and I would certainly consent to, when we take up the bill tomorrow, his remarks appearing as though we are working on the pending legislation.

I asked unanimous consent that there be a period for morning business. I know the Senator from Alabama wishes to speak. I assume it is on matters dealing with immigration.

I withdraw my consent for morning business, Mr. President. I think we have a couple of amendments that are part of the 10 we are going to try to get rid of tomorrow.

I say to my friend from Alabama, I think we have made a suggestion, and it is appropriate to move forward, that with regard to the 10 or 12 amendments now pending, we will set up times to vote on these, either by motions to table or if we can work out side-by-sides, whatever it takes, and then move to other amendments.

Certainly, the Senator from Alabama has been patient. We understand he has other amendments he wants to offer. But I object at this time until we get some plan for tomorrow to dispose of these amendments we have.

I have indicated a number of different alternatives, and others may come up with better suggestions. One is, let's get a list of finite amendments from the minority. We will add ours in with those, and we have done that on a number of occasions here. It will have to be done by unanimous consent, but it is worth a try. We can have a list of how many amendments people think are appropriate on this bill. Let's see if we can get that done by tomorrow morning.

We know the Senator from Alabama has a number he wishes to make part of that list, and other Senators have amendments they want to make part of that list. I have seen Senator Thune, Senator DeMint, and Senator Coburn here. There are other people who want to offer amendments, I understand, but let's get a finite list of who wants to offer amendments and what the amendments are.

Yes, I did object. I am sorry I didn't make it clear.

We are on the bill still; is that right?

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

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we now proceed to a period for the transaction of morning business, with Senators allowed to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, the Senate will be in a period for the transaction of morning business until 3:30 p.m. today. The time is divided between the two parties. Following the period for morning business, the Senate will resume consideration of S. 1348, the immigration legislation. There will be no rollcall votes today.

I will meet with the distinguished Republican leader this afternoon and talk about when, if at all, we should file cloture on this immigration bill. We have 14 amendments pending. We need to dispose of those amendments, or most of them, before we move on to other amendments. The managers will be working this afternoon to come up with a package we can start voting on tomorrow. There are important amendments on which people who favor the immigration bill and oppose the immigration bill will want to move forward. They are key amendments, and we need to get them scheduled and disposed of, and the managers need to get that done as quickly as possible.

We had a good debate on this matter the last week we were in session. Everyone has been home, and they have been barraged on all sides of this issue. There are people who think it is the best thing in the world, and there are people who think it is the worst thing in the world. We are going to continue to work on this legislation and see if we can satisfy people so they think it is good legislation and we are working out of a necessity to solve some major problems in America today as relates to legislation dealing with immigration.

I will be happy to yield to my distinguished Republican friend.

Mr. President, it is my understanding that there are two bills at the desk and they are both due for a second reading.

Mr. President, in order to place these bills on the calendar under the provisions of standing rule XIV, I object to further proceedings.

I note that these are the two bills the House has considered dealing with ethics reform. I have had a number of meetings with my distinguished Republican colleague, and we are in the process of figuring out a way we can get to conference with the House on these important issues.

Mr. President, I attended, as Senator Ensign and I do every Memorial Day, a service at the Southern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery, which is located in Boulder City, NV. I am struck by two conversations I had.

One was with a World War II veteran by the name of Ken Brown. Basically, he has lost his hearing. He was a machine gunner on a destroyer. As you know, Mr. President, the noise on one of those ships was deafening, and he certainly was deafened in the process. But he told me--and this is the first time he has ever expressed anything other than total support for what President Bush has been doing as relates to the military--he told me in no uncertain terms that we Democrats were headed in the right direction; we had to stop what was going on in Iraq.

Then, a wonderful woman came up to visit with me. She visited me a year and a month ago here in my office. Her boy had been killed in Iraq. A year ago, I traveled with her and her husband after the ceremony in Memorial Cemetery in Boulder City out of the auditorium and out to one of the graves. There are 22,000 graves in that new cemetery in Boulder City. It is very new. There are 22,000 graves. One of those graves is her son, John Lukac, who was killed in Iraq. She is as sad today as she was a year ago. She asked me with tears in her eyes if there is some way I can get her to Iraq. She wants to go where her son was killed. We said: No, we don't want you to go to Iraq; you shouldn't go there. She is a wonderful woman, a wonderful mother. This is a wonderful family. Her husband is so gracious and nice.

I am grateful beyond words for the sacrifices of the men and women in uniform from Nevada and around the Nation who have done so much for our country and are serving in the military. We focus on those who have been injured and killed, and those are the people who have given a tremendous sacrifice. But there are other people who serve, and sometimes in not so glamorous positions, but it is as a result of their service that we are able to conduct military warfare as we need to. In this work period, we will continue to do everything we can to honor the sacrifices of these men and women with a responsible end to the Iraq war.

During the work period, I had a chance to visit with many Nevadans. No. 1 on their minds is the war, and No. 2 is the high gas prices. We are better now in Nevada. Gas prices keep going up. We are no longer No. 3 in the Nation. I guess that is some distinction. We have dropped down to 11 or somewhere in that area. And, of course, immigration reform is on everyone's mind. I assured them that these issues--the Iraq war, the situation with the gas prices and, of course, immigration--are on our radar screen. We are going to be working on those issues this work period.

On the first day of the 110th Congress, Democrats, because we won the majority, were able to introduce the first 10 bills, the first 10 priorities as we saw them. Last Friday, we concluded a 7-week work period, and we have taken action on 7 of these 10 priorities.

We passed the toughest ethics and lobbying reform in our Nation's history. We will soon go to conference with the House on that bill.

We passed a 10-year overdue minimum wage that the President has signed.

We attempted to give Medicare the power to negotiate lower drug prices. We were prevented from doing so because of a Republican filibuster.

We passed the recommendations of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission after almost 3 years of them being set aside. We expect to complete the conference on that legislation within the next couple of weeks and send it to the President.

Stem cell research, giving hope to millions of Americans, was again passed in this body, and we expect to send it to the President after conferencing with the House, which we expect to do in the next couple of weeks, and we think in the Senate we are going to send a veto-proof bill to him.

In addition, we were able to pass what was not one of the top 10 priorities but something we have been trying to do for 3 years; that is, disaster relief for the struggling farmers and ranchers in this country.

We were able to send to the President something he signed dealing with giving the victims of Katrina the relief they deserve since the actual hurricane struck. The President has gone there lots of times but refused to cooperate with us in sending the money.

We were able to send a downpayment on SCHIP, which is helping to fund health care for children.

And, of course, we were able to send $1 billion in homeland security. We fought with the President for years. I have to say, his people fought us to the very end. We were forced to take some of that money off homeland security. But with $1 billion, we can at least go forward and do a better job of checking cargo containers coming into this country. We can do a better job of checking for nuclear weapons coming into this country, dirty bombs. We will do a better job of taking a look at what is happening with our rail safety.

So we are comfortable that we have done some good things. We passed a balanced budget that restores fiscal discipline and puts the middle class first--cutting their taxes while increasing investment in education, veterans care, and children's health care.

We began debate on the complex, crucial issue of immigration reform, which I spoke about a short time ago. This week, we are going to complete that legislation and hopefully bring to final passage a comprehensive bill that will strengthen our border security and bring 12 million undocumented Americans out of the shadows and help our economy move strongly.

In the days ahead, we will work to improve the bill to protect and strengthen family ties while improving the structure of the temporary worker program.

Following immigration, we will turn our attention to the 3 remaining bills from the original 10: an energy bill that will take crucial steps toward weaning our country of our addiction to foreign oil; we are going to reauthorize the Higher Education Act which will address skyrocketing costs of college; and a Defense authorization bill to make critical investments to address troop readiness problems in the military, and that debate will be led by the Presiding Officer.

Readiness will be led by the distinguished junior Senator from Virginia, someone who has experience in battle and more than just words. We look forward to following the distinguished Senator from Virginia in making sure our troops are ready, their rotations are right, they are trained right, and that they are not going back, as happened in Nevada 2 weeks ago when someone was going back for a fourth tour of duty and acknowledged to his family he was tired and knew he wouldn't come back. He had survived too many explosions to go back for another tour of duty and survive another explosion, and he was right. He is now dead.

We will also reconfigure our national security strategy to better meet the threats and challenges we face today that the President, we believe, is overlooking.

We have made great progress this year, especially when we have put our partisan differences aside to work toward common goals. But for all the good that has come in the shadow of President Bush's catastrophic Iraq war, we need to do so much more. Ending the war will continue to be our No. 1 priority every single day as the year continues.

The month of May 2007 was the third deadliest month in the war. It was close to being the deadliest, but they didn't break that record, thank goodness. But May was the third deadliest month in the entire 51 months of this war. June is off to a horrifying start. Sixteen Americans have been killed in the first 3 days of the month.

The President's troop escalation is now complete. Yet a New York Times article this morning reports that security goals are far, far, far short of the military's hopes, with just about one-third of Baghdad's neighborhoods in some semblance of order.

In the midst of this growing chaos, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a new bipartisan report just before the Memorial Day deadline. My good friend and colleague, Chairman Jay Rockefeller, working with the vice chair of the committee, Kit Bond--and the Intelligence Committee has become a nonpartisan committee, as it was set up to do-- they worked on a bipartisan basis, and the information they came up with is long overdue. Previously, there was not cooperation between the majority and the minority. The chairman of the committee basically stonewalled everything the committee was trying to get done, and that is the reason we shut the Senate down. But that information has now come forward, and my colleague, Senator Rockefeller, deserves enormous credit for putting together this crucially important report.

It further brings to light the administration's decision to go to war in Iraq regardless of the facts and warnings issued by the Intelligence Committee. The Intelligence Committee foretold much of the chaos we now face. They told the President, among other things, the following: that installing democracy would be a long, difficult, and probably turbulent challenge in Iraq, and that was an understatement; No. 2, that al-Qaida would try to take advantage of U.S. attention on postwar Iraq to reestablish its presence in Afghanistan, and they have done that; that Iraq was a deeply divided society that likely would engage in violent conflict unless an occupying power prevented it, and we have not prevented it; that the U.S. occupation of Iraq would result in a surge of political Islam and increased funding for terrorist groups, and that has proven to be true; that Iraq's neighbors would jockey for influence in Iraq, including fomenting strife among Iraq's sectarian groups, and that is true; that some elements in the Iranian Government could decide to try to counter aggressively the U.S. presence in Iraq or challenge U.S. goals, and they have done that; and, finally, that our action in Iraq would not cause other regional states to abandon their WMD programs or their desire to develop such programs, and that also has proven to be true.

Clearly, the intelligence community got it right, and their warnings were not issued in a vacuum. Perhaps the most striking finding of the report is that all the key administration players were made aware of these warnings--Doug Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, Steve Hadley, Scooter Libby, all key Bush officials at the National Security Council, the State Department, the Department of Defense, and the Vice President were all on the distribution list.

The Bush administration cannot hide behind ignorance. Whether out of hubris or incompetence, the President and his men willfully ignored the experts and sent our troops to battle unprepared for the consequences.

Some might say, what is past is past. If the President's prewar failure was a one-time event, we could maybe forget about it, even though that would be hard. But if President Bush's prewar failure was a one-time event, we could leave it to the historians to study and judge the tragedy of his incompetence. But even today, after almost 3,500 American deaths and more than 20,000 wounded, the President continues to cherry-pick facts in order to paint a rosy but very misleading picture of Iraq.

After tens of thousands of injuries to our troops, the President continues to ignore the advice of experts. After nearly $500 billion of America's treasure has been spent in Iraq--some say it is approaching $1 trillion, but a vast amount of our treasury--he is still dreaming his way through this epic tragedy. The country's eyes are wide open, and it is time for the President to wake up.

I understand some Americans are frustrated that we here in Congress have not been able to move more quickly to end the war. Many who voted for change in November anticipated dramatic and immediate results in January. They did get some dramatic changes. This is what we have given them: more than 75 hearings on Iraq, the Walter Reed scandal brought to light and steps taken to make it right, a supplemental bill sent to the President that set a firm policy to responsibly end the war--only a small step but a step, a second supplemental that set benchmarks and voided the President's blank check--the first was vetoed, this was not.

Our resolve has never been stronger. With a razor-thin majority--and, remember, it is a razor-thin majority--an obstinate President, and a Republican minority that continues to bow to his will, we are nonetheless making real progress. However, under the Senate's rules and our Constitution, there is only so far a determined majority can go, especially with our 49-50 disadvantage, which is due to Senator Johnson's illness. We can only end this war if the President changes course, or more Republicans join with us to force him to do so.

When we take up the Defense authorization bill, we will not just work to correct the President's neglect of troop readiness and protection, we will give our Republican colleagues another opportunity to join us and bring a responsible end to this war. We will fight for that every day this year, as long as the President and a few allies left here in Congress continue to defy the reality the rest of us see clearly.

We owe it to the men and women serving overseas and serving at home, to families who await the return of those overseas, and all Americans who want the Iraq tragedy to finally end.

Mr. President, the Senate will immediately resume consideration of the immigration bill. We have the two managers of the bill here. There will be two amendments from each side to be offered today.

Mr. President, in anticipation of coming back the week after our break, which starts this afternoon, we are going to finish the immigration bill. I hope that we will not have to file cloture. There have been enough amendments offered. I hope we can have a final vote on passage. If things are not going well on Tuesday and Wednesday when we get back, I will consider filing cloture. I will certainly discuss this in detail with the Republican leader, Senator McConnell.

We have made a lot of progress on this bill. It is according to whose view you have as to whether it is forward or backward. As far as I am concerned, the bipartisan agreement that was reached by Democrats and Republicans has put us on a path for resolving one of America's big problems, immigration.

Mr. President, I understand that S.J. Res. 14 is at the desk and is due for a second reading.

Mr. President, I object to further proceeding at this time.

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

Madam President, Democrats earned the majority in Congress last year by strongly opposing the President's failed Iraq policy and advocating restoration of the values of working families in relation to our Government. The American people sent a clear message last November it was time to change course in Iraq. Congressional Democrats made that our top priority in the first day in this Congress, and have every day since. In less than 4 months, we have been able to send to the President's desk a number of things to keep our Government open; and that is the case literally.

In less than 4 months, we have been able to send to the President's desk things he refused in years past, because now there is a Congressional branch he has to deal with.

As it relates to Iraq, the President has vetoed the bill which reflected the wishes of the American public and many senior military leaders and a bipartisan majority of Congress.

Last night we sent him another bill that doesn't go as far as I would like, and the majority of the Democratic Senators, and that is an understatement. But it does begin the process of holding the President and the Iraqis accountable.

Polling Data

I think it is important to note how the American people feel, that this isn't just a bunch of politicians talking in Washington. There was a poll taken by the New York Times and CBS that was reported today. It was a very in-depth poll. When we do polls at home, those of us who serve in government, they do samplings of 400 to 600 people. This poll was twice that big. Almost 1,200 adults were sampled, so the margin of error was very low when this poll was done.

Among other things, it said 61 percent of Americans say the United States should have stayed out of Iraq, and 76 percent say things are going badly there, including 47 percent who say things are going very badly. President Bush's approval ratings remain the lowest of his office in more than 6 years: 30 percent approve of the job he is doing; 63 percent disapprove. More Americans, 27 percent, now say that generally things in the country are seriously offtrack. This is the lowest number of approval and the highest disapproval rating since these polls have been taken.

Public support for the war has eroded: 61 percent say the country should have stayed out of Iraq; a majority, 76 percent, including 51 percent of Republicans, say additional troops sent to Iraq this year by Mr. Bush either have had no impact or are making things worse. Most Americans support a timetable for withdrawal; 63 percent say the United States should set a date for withdrawing troops from Iraq sometime next year. The poll found Americans are more likely to trust the Democratic Party than the Republican Party by a significant margin. More than half said the Democratic Party was more likely than the Republican Party to make the right decisions about the war. More broadly, 53 percent of those polled said they have a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party.

As for Mr. Bush, 23 percent approve of his handling of the situation in Iraq, 23 percent; 72 percent disapprove. Madam President, 25 percent approve of his handling of foreign policy; 65 percent disapprove. And 27 percent approve of his handling of immigration issues, while 60 percent disapprove.

Senate Agenda

Regarding the war in Iraq, I have spoken over the last week to two parents in Nevada--one in Reno, one in Fernley--who have lost sons in Iraq. Multiply that almost 3,500 times. I can't imagine the grief and despair. During the last 3 days, 17 American soldiers and marines have been killed in Iraq, 3 days--9, 2, and 6. It is an American tragedy. As I said last night on this floor, we will not stop our efforts to change the course of this war until either enough Republicans join us with regard to this war to reject the President's failed policies or we get a new President.

At the same time we have opposed the President's Iraq policy, we have moved forward on legislation that invests in our security, our economy, and our health. In a matter of days, we will have as law a raise in the minimum wage. Sixty percent of the people who draw the minimum wage in America are women, and for more than half those women that is the only money they get for their families. It was important that we raise the minimum wage, and we did that. It was long overdue.

We have also provided, and will shortly have signed into law, $400 million to ensure that States don't run out of money for the State Children's Health Insurance Program. In the coming weeks, we will seek to reauthorize this successful program that keeps millions of children healthy. We may not be doing much for adults in health insurance, but we are taking steps forward with our children.

For 3 years we have tried to pass legislation that would give relief to farmers and ranchers. We have been unable to do that. The Republican majority has refused to allow us to do that. Disaster relief for farmers and ranchers, we did that. That is now going to be signed into law, $3 billion. Farms have gone bankrupt in the ensuing years of the need for this relief. I would suggest, if you look on the Internet at what an emergency supplemental is all about, it talks about emergencies that occur during the year--floods, fires, drought, hurricanes, tornadoes. That is why what we did last night, farm relief, $3 billion to help farmers and ranchers recover from drought, flood, storms, and other disasters is long overdue. That will be the law in a matter of days.

Because of global warming, the western part of the United States has been swept with wildfires. In Nevada, millions of acres have burned. When these areas burn, we get noxious weeds that come instead of the plants and grasses that should be there. We are going to have in a short few days relief. The law has been passed, western wildfire relief, $465 million to help prevent and fight wildfires in the west and elsewhere. That is so important.

As I understand, there has been a raging fire on the border of Minnesota and Canada. It has taken days to put that fire out. That is what we are talking about. It should have been done a long time ago. We have had to fight for this. I can remember going to the White House, being told by one of the President's assistants: Don't worry about that. We will do it with one of the regular bills.

We are limited on what we can do on regular bills. This is emergency funding. The President has gone to New Orleans, LA, more than 20 times since those devastating floods that occurred there as a result of Hurricane Katrina. The President has talked about it but done very little. We did something about it. We have overcome the opposition of the White House, and in the bill that we passed last night, we provided nearly $6.3 billion to help the people of the gulf coast affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Homeland security--Senator Byrd, from his seat right here, over the last 5 years has offered many amendments. He wrote a book and talks in his book about the times he offered amendments to do something about homeland security. It was defeated on a straight party line basis many times. Last night we weren't defeated on a straight party line basis. We didn't get enough, but we did get a billion dollars to look at programs that are all so absolutely important and necessary: port security, $110 million; rail and mass transit security, $100 million; explosive detection systems for airline baggage. It is interesting with our airlines, you climb in one of those seats in the airplane. You are seated. You feel pretty comfortable about the person sitting next to you. But you don't know what is in the cargo of that airplane. We got some money for that last night, as well we should. Air cargo security, $80 million to inspect cargo on commercial passenger airlines; $285 million for explosive detection systems for airline baggage. It was long overdue--not enough but certainly a step in the right direction.

The Republicans had a majority of 55 to 45. They couldn't pass a budget because it was so skewed toward the rich, so skewed toward the business community and directed against working class America, they couldn't pass it. We have a majority, with Senator Tim Johnson being ill, of 50 to 49, not 55 to 45. But we passed a budget. We passed a balanced budget that restores fiscal discipline and puts the middle class first, cutting their taxes while increasing investment in education, veterans care, and children's health care.

For the second year in a row, we legislated to give the hope of stem cell research to millions of Americans who suffer from all kinds of diseases. There is one Senator holding up our overriding the President's veto. It could be any one of these Republican Senators. We are at 66. We need one more to override the President's obstinance in the form of this veto.

What the President has done to stifle hope for millions of Americans is wrong. We were at a Senate retreat. Michael J. Fox came in, someone whom Rush Limbaugh made fun of because he shakes when he talks. He has Parkinson's disease. The renown actor came up and talked to us about his money he has put in to find a cure for other people who have Parkinson's disease. He has done good work because the human genome project is completed, and they found the gene that causes Michael J. Fox's neurological problems. But he said: We need more help. Stem cell research would help us find out a way to attack that gene, to take care of that gene. But the President has stifled, stopped, slowed down the hope of millions of people just like Michael J. Fox.

Several other important bills have passed and will soon be on the their way to the President, such as a continuing resolution. This is not a name I came up with, the ``do-nothing'' 109th Congress. The Republicans controlled by significant margins the House and the Senate, and they have been dubbed by historians and the press as the do-nothing Congress. They did less and served their constituents less days in actual work in the Senate and the House than in the history of the country. They did less and were in session less than the do-nothing Congress of 1948.

One of the things they didn't do is fund the Government. They lost the elections last November and just left town and unfunded the Government. So there was a responsibility upon us, the Democrats, to fund the Government from February 1 to October 1. We did that. It wasn't easy, but we did it.

The 9/11 Commission, the President fought it. But there was a hue and cry to establish an independent bipartisan commission to look at what happened on 9/11, what went wrong. Led by Congressman Hamilton and Governor Kean, this independent bipartisan commission came up with recommendations. We waited almost 3 years for the Republican Congress to do something. They did basically nothing. The 9/11 Commission, in fact, gave the Bush administration failing grades, Ds and Fs, in all that they asked Congress and the President to do. But we, the Democratic Congress, passed all the recommendations of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission after they had been pushed aside for all those years. Now, within a matter of weeks, the House will do the same, and we will send this matter to the President and have him sign it.

Ethics. The most significant ethics and lobbying reform in the history of our country we did as the first bill we took up. With the culture of corruption that existed here in Washington in the 109th Congress with--think about this: Am I making up a culture of corruption? For the first time in 130 years--approximately 130 years-- someone who was working in the White House was indicted. ``Scooter'' Libby was indicted and convicted. Safavian, who was head of Government contracting, appointed by the President and responsible for billions of dollars, was led away from his office in handcuffs because of sweetheart deals he made with Jack Abramoff and others.

On the other side of the Capitol, in the House, the majority leader in the House was convicted of three ethics violations in 1 year. What did they do to respond to that? Changed the ethics rules. He is also under indictment.

So there certainly was a culture of corruption. Staff members are still under investigation. Congressmen are still under investigation because of this culture of corruption. Members of Congress have had to resign or have lost their races because of being involved in unethical and criminal activities.

Yes, there was a culture of corruption, and we took this up as our first legislative measure and passed it. The House passed it yesterday. We need to go to conference now and send that to the President.

As we all know, we have begun debate on immigration reform. We are continuing that the week we get back. We have taken action on 7 of our top 10 legislative priorities we introduced on the first day of the 110th Congress. It is tradition that the majority party introduces the first 10 bills. We did that. Seven of them we have passed.

In the coming weeks, we expect to turn our attention to the remaining three.

Energy. As soon as we finish immigration, we are moving to energy legislation. It is bipartisan. It is legislation that has been reported out of the Energy Committee on a bipartisan basis, legislation reported out of the Environment and Public Works Committee on a bipartisan basis, and legislation that has come from the Commerce Committee on a bipartisan basis.

It is not everything I want but a great start for one of the big problems we have facing America today: energy.

In the State of Nevada, my home, we have the third highest gas prices in the country--Nevada. In Reno, NV, gas prices are around $3.40 a gallon. We need to do something about it.

The gluttony of the oil companies is unbelievable--making tens of billions of dollars. It is so interesting, every time at just about Memorial Day, when people want to travel, their refineries go down, they need repair. Who makes all the money? It is not the person you go to who pumps gas in your car or even a self-service station you go to. They make pennies. They make less than a nickel a gallon. In Reno, NV, and other places in the country, you can pay $3.40 a gallon at the place you buy that gasoline, and that person makes almost nothing. It is made by the gluttonous oil companies, the refiners--record profits, of course.

We are going to take a whack at that. I hope we can get it passed. It has some interesting things in it. One of the things it has is CAFE standards, saying automobiles in our country should be required to have higher mileage per gallon. We are going to try to get that done.

The bill also includes some legislation dealing with alternative energy. We cannot produce our way out of the problems we have in America with oil. We have less than 3 percent of the oil in the world in America. We cannot produce our way out of our problems. We have to lessen our dependence on foreign oil.

Today, in America, we will use 21 million barrels of oil. It is hard for me to comprehend there is that much oil in the ground, let alone our use of it in 1 day. We import about 65 percent of that oil. This oil comes from some of the worst tyrannical governments in the world. Much of that money is used to export communism and other bad things to countries, including to America.

We must lessen our dependence on foreign oil. This administration is the most oil-friendly administration in the history of our country. So we are going to take up this legislation the second week we get back. The bill will dramatically increase America's renewable fuel production so we can begin the crucial long-term effort to reduce our dependence on unsustainable and volatile energy supplies I have talked about.

The bill requires consumer appliances, buildings, lighting and, most importantly, vehicles to become much more energy efficient. The Federal Government's own energy performance will be significantly improved as well.

I so appreciate Senator Bingaman, the chairman of the Energy Committee, and Senator Boxer, the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, whose career has been based on things dealing with the environment. Senator Inouye, chairman of the Commerce Committee, and his right-hand person in this effort, Senator Kerry, have done remarkably good work.

This legislation will address the growing threat of price gouging and energy market manipulation as gas prices continue to set new record highs almost every day.

I have been so impressed with Maria Cantwell, the Senator from Washington, for her continual efforts to go after these big gluttonous oil companies. Her price-gouging legislation and energy market manipulation legislation has been, in my opinion, a picture of how we should legislate.

Education. We expect to address reauthorization of the Higher Education Act in the next few weeks--in the next few months, probably more likely. I hope to do it, complete it, before our August recess.

Since the act was last authorized in 1998, college costs have continued to skyrocket. A growing number of students are being priced out of a college education and all the doors it opens. A child's ability to be educated should not be dependent on how much money their parents have.

I, of course, am a big fan of early childhood education. I was so impressed yesterday, not far from here, the conservative reporter--I should not say reporter--editorial writer, David Brooks, from the New York Times, talked about his belief of young people being educated and how he had become a convert and he now believes that the Government should be involved in getting kids educated.

Many of those lucky enough to make it through college now begin their careers saddled by the weight of the money they have had to borrow. In Nevada, the average debt of a student is $15,000. That is unacceptable. It is not unusual for someone to graduate from medical school owing $150,000.

Now, people say: Well, doctors make a lot of money. They do not make that much money. One of my friends, a prominent physician in Las Vegas--I do not think he will mind me mentioning his name; if he does, he can call me--Dr. Tony Alamo worked hard all his life--his father came in a boat from Cuba--believes in education. The senior Tony Alamo did everything he could to get his kids educated. He had a boy become a doctor.

Now, young Tony is one of the lucky ones because his dad has done so well with the rags-to-riches story in America, and I am sure as to his debt, his dad could help him pay it off, if necessary. But Dr. Alamo is very unusual because he has parents who can help him. He has explained to me that when doctors graduate from medical school, they get a job, and a lot of jobs now are with managed care, being they are all over, and they are salary jobs. They have difficulty with their salary job paying off their loans.

Our legislation will increase the maximum Pell grant, reduce student loan interest rates, expand loan forgiveness programs, and cap student loan payments at no more than 15 percent of their income. Our bill takes important steps to address this alarming and growing crisis.

We are going to take up the next work period the Defense authorization bill. One of the things we talked about doing in one of our 10 bills is to rebuild our military. It is in a state of disarray, disrepair. We learned that when we found out from the Governor of Kansas, after that tornado, that half of the equipment of her National Guard was in Iraq. Could not respond to the crisis there. It is that way all over the country.

Jim Webb, who is a Senator from Virginia--Jim Webb has a resume of an American hero because that is what he is. He is a graduate of the Naval Academy, fought heroically in Vietnam, earned medals for heroism, was badly injured. His military career ended not because he wanted it to but because he was hurt and had to get out.

He believes the most important thing we can do to hold the President's feet to the fire in Iraq is force him to make sure our troops are ready to go to battle, they are trained properly, they have that equipment. He has an amendment we are going to work on to get in the Defense authorization bill.

One of the boys killed from Nevada this past week was on his fourth tour of duty in Iraq. His friend said: He told me he survived four explosions, and he didn't think he would survive another one. He did not. It was an awful death. We now have two hostages, prisoners of war in Iraq. Remember, when they were captured, they did not know who for sure the three were because they knew there was a body in the Humvee. So I called and talked to the dad, and he prayed that his boy was not in the Humvee, that he was a prisoner. But it didn't work. His boy was incinerated in the Humvee. They could only find out who he was with DNA. He was on his fourth tour of duty.

That is what Jim Webb is advocating. That is what we advocate. We are going to take that up in the Defense authorization bill, to make sure our troops have what they need. They do not have that now.

The bill last night that we passed provides funding to ensure our troops, until the first of October--active and retired--get some of the money they need. But we have to restore and renovate what has been ruined and damaged in Iraq.

Jack Reed, a graduate of West Point, believes it will take nearly $100 billion to bring our military up to what it should be. We are going to work toward that in the Defense authorization bill. That committee is chaired by Carl Levin. So we are going to make investments, critical investments to address troop readiness problems in the Army and Marine Corps caused by the President's flawed Iraq policy.

We will take a number of steps to reconfigure our national security strategy to better meet the threats and challenges we face today. That includes returning focus to the growing and increasingly overlooked problems in Afghanistan and working to improve special operations capabilities.

So once the next work session is complete, we will have taken action on all 10 of our day one priorities and passed most of them with overwhelming bipartisan support.

Now, we have had to fight to get that support, with cloture, on many different issues to get to where we could have a vote. But we have made it, and I appreciate that help from the Republicans.

We have also successfully addressed many crucial issues not on that list. The FDA reauthorization bill we passed facilitates the timely review of new drugs while improving the safety of the medicines patients take and the food we eat. We passed the Water Resources Development Act, known as WRDA, the first one in about 6 or 7 years. It will protect America's environment and keep our economy strong. We also passed the America COMPETES Act, which is an act to return our country to a position of leadership in science, research, and technology.

I would say by far the most important fight we have taken up this year is our effort to oppose the President's failed Iraq policy and bring the war to a safe and responsible end. The next work period, as I have indicated, will oppose the President's failed policy regarding the war at every turn. The Defense authorization bill will be a major part of that battle. We will continue this fight every day. We have had some bipartisan victories this year and some tough fights as well. Progress especially on the war has not come easy and that is not likely to change. But if we continue to work in good faith, seeking bipartisanship at every opportunity, I have no doubt we can accomplish great things for the American people.

Madam President, are we in morning business?

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators allowed to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate immediately proceed to executive session

to consider Executive Calendar Nos. 53, 54, 55, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 103, 110, 112, 114, 116, 118 through 137, 141, 144 through 151, and all nominations placed on the Secretary's desk; that the nominations be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that the Senate then return to legislative session.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the recess or adjournment of the Senate, the President of the Senate, the President pro tempore, and the majority and minority leaders be authorized to make appointments to commissions, committees, boards, conferences, or interparliamentary conferences authorized by law, by concurrent action of the two Houses, or by order of the Senate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that on Thursday, May 31, from 10 a.m. to 12 noon, notwithstanding the recess of the Senate, the Senate committees may report legislative and executive calendar business.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar No. 110, S. 398.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment at the desk be considered agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read the third time and passed, the motion to reconsider laid on the table, and that any statements relating thereto be printed in the Record, as if read, with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. 1532.

Madam President, one of the things in the bill we passed last night that was put in by the Democrats was $40 million to take care of some of the emergency issues in Kansas. That was the right thing to do. This legislation we are passing now will extend tax relief to residents and businesses of Greensburg, KS, as a result of that tornado. I have spoken to Senator Roberts about this. He worked on this hard and I am glad we were able to satisfy his requests.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read the third time, and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, that any statements relating thereto be printed in the Record, and that the bill now be held at the desk pending action by the House of Representatives.

Madam President, it is my understanding that there are two bills at the desk, and I ask for their first reading, en bloc.

I now ask for a second reading, en bloc, and object to my own request, en bloc.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, I also wish you a happy birthday.

Thanks for being here on your birthday. I appreciate it.