Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business tonight, it stand adjourned until 9:15 a.m. Friday, March 9; that on Friday, following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date; the morning hour be deemed expired and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that the Senate then resume consideration of S. 4, and that the time until 9:30 a.m. be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees; that at 9:30 a.m. the live quorum with respect to the McConnell cloture motion be waived and the Senate then vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the Cornyn amendment No. 312, as modified; and that Members have until 10 a.m. to file any germane second-degree amendments.

Mr. President, the bill managers and their respective staffs have been working today to clear any amendments that are noncontroversial. They were getting close to having that package cleared, but it didn't work out. They will continue to work, hoping we will be able to clear some amendments during Friday's session.

After the cloture votes tomorrow morning, we will have more to say about the schedule with respect to S. 4, the 9/11 legislation. I would like to be more specific, but I can't be because there are still a lot of balls in the air and they have to come down before we can decide what the weekend schedule, if any, will be.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate--and the Republican leader has cleared everything that I have done to this point--I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. President, I am sure it is difficult for people who live outside the Washington, DC, area to understand why we are not going to be able to have a couple votes this morning. I have not had a chance to speak with the Republican leader. I apologize. There is nothing to apologize for, I just have not had the opportunity to do that, or to talk to the two managers of the bill. But in Washington, it is different than a lot of places. We have several bridges that feed into this area coming from Virginia. A lot of the staff and Senators live in Virginia when they are here attending sessions of Congress.

To make a long story short, we have essential staff who are not here right now. We have Senators--at least one Senator stuck on a train because of the bad weather. As I say, it might be difficult for people who see a lot of snow all the time to understand why an inch or two or three of snow causes all these problems, but it does. It has been that way and will continue to be that way.

Because of that, I am going to ask consent that the votes scheduled to occur at 10 a.m. occur later this afternoon. We will try to do it at about 1 o'clock. One reason we cannot back the votes up is because we have a joint session of Congress with King Abdullah, the King of Jordan, who has been such a good ally--he and his father--of our country, and a lot of us are looking forward to hearing that speech he is going to deliver.

Order of Procedure

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the votes scheduled to occur at 10 a.m. occur later this afternoon. I will work with the Republican leader to make sure it is a time that is convenient.

Mr. President, I would say the two votes we had lined up we have been wanting to do for a while, the one offered by the manager of the bill, Senator Collins, and the one offered by Senator McCaskill. We will try to do those votes first and then move on to other matters.

Staffs are also working to see if we can come up with an agreement on the nongermane amendments. We have a number of nongermane amendments on both sides. We are going to try to set up votes on those. One of the things we have to make sure is covered in any consent agreement is, if we do vote on these nongermane amendments, it does not change what would be germane postcloture because, in fact, if we did not do that, there would be a lot of things that would be germane postcloture that should not be attached to this bill. But we have very able staff who can work on this along with the managers of the bill.

I again apologize to everyone, but those are the facts of life in the bitter winter of an inch of snow in Washington.

Mr. President, I now ask unanimous consent that the McCaskill amendment No. 316 be modified to be a first-degree amendment and that the Lieberman amendment No. 315 be withdrawn.

Mr. President, I withhold for 1 second.

Mr. President, I renew my unanimous consent request.

Mr. President, it is my privilege to recognize the outstanding achievements of today's youth in science and engineering. On March 27, I am pleased to join with the city of Las Vegas in welcoming the FIRST Robotics, FRC, Regional Competition to Nevada.

FIRST was founded in 1989 through the vision of inventor Dean Kamen to inspire interest and participation in science and technology. As a result of his leadership, FIRST has grown into one of the leading robotics competitions in the entire country. This

project has even grown to include a partnership with the UNLV Howard R. Hughes College of Engineering.

I am pleased to welcome 12 local teams as well as 50 teams from across the country and the world to Las Vegas and to UNLV. I hope they will be able to enjoy everything Las Vegas has to offer. It is also important to recognize the contributions of the parents, teachers, mentors, volunteers, and sponsors for this event. Without their support, I am certain this event would not be possible.

With the backing of the entire Las Vegas community, I am certain that the FIRST Robotics, FRC, Regional Competition will be an outstanding success. Mr. President, I wish all the participants success in the competition and in the future.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that morning business be closed.

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

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

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider Executive Calendar Nos. 39 and 40; that the nominations be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be laid on the table; that any statements thereon be printed in the Record; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate return to legislative session.

Mr. President, we just approved the new Ambassador to Afghanistan. I do recall yesterday we approved the new Ambassador to Iraq. That is pretty good work of the Senate. These are two very important diplomats. They have their work cut out for them. I congratulate both of them.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to S. Res. 100.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stands adjourned until 9:30 a.m., Thursday, March 8; that on Thursday, following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and that there then be a period for the transaction of morning business for 60 minutes, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each, with the first 30 minutes under the control of the Republican leader or his designee and the final 30 minutes under the control of the majority leader or his designee; and that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of S. 4.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the live quorums required with respect to the two cloture motions I filed be waived.

Mr. President, tomorrow we will be in a situation where we can continue to work on, of course, S. 4. I indicated to the distinguished Republican leader yesterday that I am not certain but I think I can get consent as to the cloture motion which was filed by the Republicans earlier today, that we would be happy to vote on that tomorrow sometime. We would also be willing to vote on the two I just filed. If that does not happen, of course, we will be in a situation where we will have a cloture vote on Friday.

As I told everyone here early this week, the first cloture motion which we will vote on will be the one the Republicans filed. If cloture is not invoked, we will immediately move to the cloture motions I filed. There will be 30 hours in relation to that cloture motion if cloture is invoked and, of course, that time won't run out until sometime Saturday.

So it is really up to the minority as to what they want to do. We are willing to move it up 1 day or do it on Friday, whatever is their interest. Remember, 30 hours would not run out until sometime Saturday night. If we voted at, say, 10 a.m. Friday morning, 30 hours would run out sometime Saturday afternoon, 4 p.m. or thereabouts. If that, in fact, were the case and cloture were invoked and there are some germane amendments postcloture, we could dispose of those on Friday.

Anyway, we are in a situation where it appears that unless the minority decides to allow us to have those votes on Thursday, we would be in session Friday for a good part of the day and maybe going into Saturday unless we work something out.

Mr. President, I would say this: The Republican leader is absolutely right, and we have tried real hard on some nongermane amendments to get some votes. It is not all their fault. We have, on our side, a Senator or two who simply will not let us agree to votes on nongermane amendments because they say and have said for the last 2 days: You gave a vote on theirs; why don't I get a vote on mine. So we have agreed to.

As I explained to some Senators assembled here in the well earlier today, when we moved to this bill, I said it would be open for amendment, and it has been, and there is no way we can get out of germane amendments. We can invoke cloture, but they are still available.

On the nongermane amendments, you run into problems like we have run into in these last couple of days. There are some really big issues people are objecting to and not allowing these other amendments to be heard unless they get theirs. We have this habeas corpus issue, and there has been all kinds of talk on that. That is okay, from my perspective, but we have spent a lot of time on that issue before. We have over on this side something dealing with Katrina about which Senator Landrieu feels very strongly. We have a Senator over here who is interested in the PATRIOT Act and changing that. It goes back and forth, with both sides having all kinds of things they want, but it is an open process.

Now, the one thing that maybe we can do in the future to make things a little more orderly is have an open amendment process. But when an amendment is called, we have to dispose of that. What we have tried to do here is have people come and give their statements about amendments they want to offer, and we have allowed them to offer them. What happens is you get too many amendments stacked up, and it gives individual Senators, frankly, too much power because they hold everybody else hostage.

So I think what we are going to do in the future--and I will discuss this in more detail with the distinguished Republican leader--is have open amendments but not allow these amendments to be stacked up. By doing it the way we have done it here, trying to be more open, it takes away a lot of the authority of the two managers because the authority on these bills floats to individual Senators because they have all these amendments and they want to offer them, which I have no problem with, but they won't allow other people to have votes on their amendments unless they get amendments.

This legislative process is the art of compromise and trying to work things out. Quite frankly, during the last couple of days, we have had Senators on both sides who have been very uncompromising, and it has made it very difficult for the managers and I would think Senator McConnell and myself.

Having said that, I appreciate all the problems we have here. Remember, for 220 years, this has been the U.S. Senate. It is a wonderful institution. Sometimes, however, it can be very consternating to work things through, but we will get it done.

Mr. President, if there is no other business and if the Republican leader has no further business, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. President, following whatever time the leaders utilize, the Senate will be in a period of morning business for 60 minutes, with each side controlling 30 minutes and the majority going first.

Following morning business, the Senate will resume consideration of