Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, in the history of our country, no one man has done more for one State than Ted Stevens. His commitment to the people of Alaska and his nation spanned decades, and he left a lasting mark on both. From his early military service as a pilot in World War II, to his involvement in the statehood of `The Last Frontier,' to his fierce support and defense of our Nation's military, Ted Stevens was always there, fighting for what he believed in, and usually winning. He was a force to be reckoned with, and we will miss him greatly. We extend our deepest sympathies to Catherine and the entire Stevens family, and to the families of the friends who were lost in this terrible accident.

Mr. President, let me begin by thanking the chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Leahy and Senator Sessions, on conducting a dignified and respectful hearing on the Kagan nomination.

Let me just add that, in my view, the way Republicans on the Judiciary Committee have conducted themselves in the minority over the past few years underscores that the kind of hyperbole and hysteria that has too often accompanied the Supreme Court nominations of Republican Presidents is hardly an essential part of the process. The committee hearings gave Senators and the American people a valuable opportunity to focus our attention on a woman whom President Obama would like to see deciding cases on some of the most important and consequential issues we face as a country. Ms. Kagan will be ruling on some of the most important legal questions that arise during President Obama's administration and long after he leaves office. It was vitally important that we have an opportunity to question her on her views about the law. What we learned from the hearing and what we were unable to learn from it form an important part of the record on her nomination.

But this, of course, is just a part of Ms. Kagan's record. Senators have spent weeks examining Ms. Kagan's experience and background in light of the awesome responsibility that comes with a lifetime appointment on our Nation's highest Court. As I have said previously, my own judgment is that Ms. Kagan is not suited to assume a lifetime position on our Nation's highest Court. Now I would like to explain why in more detail.

As we know, Ms. Kagan does not have the judicial or private practice experience most modern-day Supreme Court Justices have had--far from it. This is relevant not because one has to have prior judicial experience in order to be a good Supreme Court Justice--that is not my view now, and it never has been--but the absence of judicial experience makes it all the more important that we look more closely at the kind of experience Ms. Kagan has, in fact, had. A review of Ms. Kagan's experience reveals a woman who has spent much or her adult life not steeped in the practice of law but in the art of politics.

When we look at her resume, we find a woman who has worked fervently to advance the goals of the Democratic Party and liberal causes, usually at the expense of those with whom she disagrees politically or ideologically. In college, she spent one summer working 14 hours a day for a liberal Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate from New York. When her candidate lost, Ms.

Kagan wrote that it was her hope that one day a ``more leftist left will once again come to the fore.''

In fairness, few of us would want everything we said or wrote as college students put up on a billboard. But the trajectory of Ms. Kagan's career and the records from her time as a political advisor in the Clinton White House suggest someone, as one news story put it, who, long after college and even at the highest peaks of political influence, was ``driven and opinionated, with a flair for political tactics. . . .''

What else do we find in Ms. Kagan's resume?

Well, 8 years after that first Senate race, she volunteered for the Dukakis Presidential campaign, working as an opposition researcher to defend the then-Governor of Massachusetts from attacks and to look for ways to attack the Republican opposition. I note her job as an opposition researcher because it is part of a pattern of partisan political activity and because Democrats themselves have strongly questioned the impartiality of Republicans who have held this type of job.

As a Supreme Court law clerk, Ms. Kagan often inserted her own personal views into her legal advice. In one case, for example, she was dismissive of a man's second amendment claim because it was something that, in her words, she did not find to be ``sympathetic.''

Later, as an aide to President Clinton, she did not serve as an attorney but as a policy advocate, seeking legal advice rather than giving it. It was in this role that she helped lead a task force on changing the Nation's campaign finance laws and gleefully noted when one specific proposal would disadvantage Republicans. She also went out of her way to deter lawyers at the Justice Department from officially noting their serious constitutional concerns with a campaign finance proposal because it might complicate the pursuit of the Clinton administration's political goals.

It was also at the Clinton White House that she suggested turning a routine literacy event at a Maryland school into a chance to score political points against--you guessed it--Republicans. And it was there that she went to extraordinary lengths to prevent the enactment of a ban on partial-birth abortion, a procedure the vast majority of Americans strongly oppose.

From the Clinton administration, she went on to academia. She had strongly held views and acted upon them there as well. As dean of Harvard Law School, she refused to give our military, at all times, the full and good access to which they are entitled under Federal law. Indeed, she was so driven by her own personal views on this issue that she took a position in a case before the Supreme Court that was so legally dubious that not a single Justice agreed with it.

From Harvard, President Obama--her friend and former colleague at the University of Chicago Law School--selected her to be his Solicitor General. I, and the vast majority of my Republican colleagues, voted against her nomination to that position, given her lack of litigation experience. Indeed, Ms. Kagan made her first oral argument in any court, for any purpose, just last year in the Citizens United case. Having been in the courtroom myself that day, I heard her argue to an astonished Supreme Court that the power of the Federal Government is so vast it can ban political speech with which it disagrees, such as political pamphlets, despite the clear commands of the first amendment to the contrary.

So when we look at Elena Kagan's background, what we find again and again is someone who has worked tirelessly to advance a political agenda or ideology, often at the expense of the law.

Let's look for a moment at her relationship to the current administration.

We know the President and Ms. Kagan are former colleagues and friends. We know that the President views her as an important and loyal member of his team and that he was particularly pleased with her handling of the Citizens United case. And we know the President is confident that Ms. Kagan shares his view that judges should be judged especially on their ability to empathize with some over others--in other words, that she embraces the so-called empathy standard whereby judges act on, to quote the President, ``their broader vision of what America should be,'' which may or may not be what the law says is required. All of which brings us to the question of whether Ms. Kagan is suited to sit on the Supreme Court.

We do not have a judicial or private practice record to go to, but from the record we do have--that of a passionate policy advocate, a zealous political operative, and a loyal member of the Obama administration--the President picked precisely--precisely--the kind of judge he said he would. But is this the end of the inquiry? The President won the election. Ms. Kagan is bright. She has a good humor. Does the Constitution suggest that we therefore must assent to her nomination? Is that what the Founders envisioned?

Well, the Federalist Papers say two things that are particularly relevant here.

First, let's look at Federalist 76, which gives examples of specific disqualifiers for confirmation. The common theme for these disqualifiers is someone who is nominated not because of their objective qualifications but because of a personal connection to the Executive--be it friendship, family relationship, or a belief that they will exhibit a bias. It says the Senate's power to disapprove a nominee ``would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity.'' That is Federalist 76.

Now let's look at Federalist 78, which talks about the role of the courts in our democracy and the proper philosophy for a judge. Here, Hamilton writes that courts may not ``substitute their own pleasure to the constitutional intentions of the legislature.'' He adds that their job must be to ``declare the sense of the law'' and that if, instead, they should exercise their ``WILL''--which he puts in all capital letters--``the consequence would be . . . the substitution of their pleasure to that of the legislative body.'' In other words, Hamilton was cautioning against judges so motivated by their own passions and sympathies that they would use their judicial power to implement, as President Obama puts it, ``their broader vision of'' what ought to be.

So while Hamilton, in Federalist 76, listed some of the reasons for disqualifying a nominee, this was clearly not an exhaustive list. Surely he did not lay out the critical qualification for a judge in Federalist 78 and then leave the Senate powerless to enforce it. Both papers must be read together, not in isolation, which brings us back to Ms. Kagan.

If you believe the role of a judge is to be an impartial arbiter, Ms. Kagan's background as a policy advocate and political lawyer--and oftentimes a very partisan one--cannot be ignored. Indeed, Members of both parties should appreciate the importance of confirming judges who are more interested in what the law says than in how the law can be used to advantage any one side.

As the chairman of the Judiciary Committee once put it:

No one should vote for somebody that's going to be a

political apparatchik for either the Democratic Party or the

Republican Party.

If you believe the role of a judge is to be an impartial arbiter, Ms. Kagan's relationship to the President can't be ignored either. I think our friend, the senior Senator from Ohio, put his finger on what Federalist 76 was talking about in this regard. As he put it earlier this week:

I would argue that General Kagan has been nominated based

on her friendships and her personal attachments with

President Obama and others at the White House, not based on

objective qualities that would indicate she is qualified to

be a Supreme Court Justice.

As for the empathy standard, well, empathy may be a very good quality in general, but in a court of law it is only good if you are lucky enough to be the guy the judge empathizes with. It is only good enough if you happen to share the judge's ``broader vision of what America ought to be,'' which is the exact opposite of what the author of Federalist 78 had in mind.

Let's say you are a pro-life group challenging a restriction on late- term abortion and you are appearing before a Justice Kagan. In light of the lengths

she went to in order to arrive at her preferred result on the subject of partial-birth abortion, do you think you are going to get a fair shake?

Let's say you think the government is infringing upon your second amendment rights. Given that she dismissively said she is not sympathetic to this sort of challenge, do you think she is going to apply the law or her own broader vision of how America should be?

Let's say you are a conservative nonprofit group that wants to publish a pamphlet or show a movie before an election. In other words, let's say you are a group such as Citizens United. Given her record of partisan advocacy, how do you think you are going to fare before her in that case?

Ms. Kagan has never made a secret of her professional aspirations. She has cultivated all the right friendships along the way, including the President of the United States. This is all well and good but, in my view, it strains credulity to think that Ms. Kagan's strong political views will be more constrained by the Constitution once she reaches her goal than they have been up until now.

Some of Ms. Kagan's supporters would like us to focus on her personality. They say she has a knack for making friends and getting along well with different kinds of people. Once again, these are all fine qualities. No one has any doubt that Ms. Kagan is bright and personable and easy to get along with. But the Supreme Court is not a social club. If getting along in polite society were enough reason to put someone on the Supreme Court, then we wouldn't need a confirmation process at all.

The goal was not to determine whether we think someone is smart and easy going; it is whether someone can be expected to be a neutral and independent arbiter of the law rather than a rubberstamp for this administration or for any other.

Whether it is small claims court or the Supreme Court, Americans expect politics to end at the courtroom door. Nothing in Elena Kagan's record suggests that her politics will stop there.

Ms. Kagan's background as a political operative, her lengthy resume of zealous advocacy for political and ideological causes, often at the expense of the law and those whose views differ from her own, her attachment to the President and his political and ideological goals, including his belief in the extraconstitutional notion that judges should favor some over others, make her precisely the kind of nominee, in my view, the Founders were concerned about and that Senators should have reason to oppose.

For these reasons, I will vote against the nominee, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

I yield the floor.

I object.

Mr. President, we just confirmed 47 nominations plus 3 district court judges, a circuit court judge, and we will continue to work on the balance of these when we return.

Mr. President, I say to the Senators, go ahead and finish the fascinating discussion.

Would the Senator from Tennessee yield for a question?

I was not here for the beginning of the discussion between the Senator from New Hampshire and the Senator from Tennessee, but I recently had an opportunity to speak to the National State Legislators convention, which happened to have been in my hometown of Louisville. Speaker Pelosi was there as well. My staff, in doing research and putting together my remarks, discovered that currently the single biggest source of revenue for State governments is to borrow money that is coming down from Washington. They are getting more from us than their sales taxes, their income taxes, and their property taxes. The States are simply becoming completely dependent upon us.

As I have heard both of my colleagues point out, we are sending this borrowed money down essentially so they do not have to make the tough decisions they would otherwise have to make. So I would ask my friends: When does it end? When does this dependency come to an end? I thought last year it was supposed to be timely, temporary, and targeted.

Mr. President, I thank my friends from Tennessee and New Hampshire. I was going to make some opening comments, but I would also add that my opening comments are somewhat related to the colloquy my colleagues were just having about the bill we will be voting on shortly.

We also heard an expression from the voters of Missouri yesterday who voted on a referendum on the issue of whether it is a good idea for the Federal Government to require individuals to retain health insurance, and 70 percent in Missouri, just yesterday, expressed their opposition to the notion. I know that is in court being litigated right now, as to whether it is appropriate for the Federal Government or constitutional for the Federal Government to require everyone to have a government- prescribed health care policy, but we had an expression of the people from Missouri yesterday as well on that aspect of what the Federal Government has been doing in the last year and a half. I thank my colleagues for their enlightened comments.

As I was just indicating, this morning's paper carried an important message for us in Washington--a message that many of us have been trying to get across for more than a year. If there was any doubt that Americans are tired of being told their views are irrelevant by the people they elected to represent them in Washington, last night's vote in Missouri should dispel it.

All throughout the health care debate, Democratic leaders in Washington told themselves they could do what they wanted and then persuade Americans after the fact that it was OK. Last night, the voters in Missouri overwhelmingly rejected that notion. The people of Missouri have sent a message to Washington: Enough is enough.

They rejected the apparent belief by the current administration and Democratic leaders in Congress that they know best--that distant bureaucrats and lawmakers inside the beltway have a better grasp of what ails people in places such as St. Louis than they do, and that lawmakers here have a right to impose their prescriptions on the people out there whether those people like it or not.

More specifically, the voters of Missouri sent a clear message that the Federal Government has no business forcing people to buy health insurance against their will. I applaud them for it. Throughout the health care debate, Republicans heard the concerns of our constituents and insisted on the kind of commonsense solutions they were asking for--solutions that would actually do something to lower the cost of care. Democrats preferred to do their own thing.

They said: Let's raise taxes and cut Medicare to expand government and then try to convince people it is in their best interest.

Well, the voters of Missouri showed us last night that Americans will not allow this blatant power grab to stand without a fight. They don't think bureaucrats in Washington have a right to force them to buy government-designed health insurance, and they don't think States should be forced to put millions of new people into Medicaid--as our colleagues from New Hampshire and Tennessee were just discussing--any more than they think we should bail out the States again this week with billions more in spending at a time when neither we nor the States can afford it.

Washington needs to take care of its own fiscal mess, not deepen it by bailing out the States. We need to start listening to the concerns of the American people rather than trying to force them to go along with far-reaching laws they do not want, either through unpopular legislation or misleading PR campaigns like the one we saw earlier this week in which the administration sought to convince seniors their health care plan wouldn't do what we all know it will do.

Americans weren't kidding when they said they opposed the health care bill, and they are not going away. This

is just the beginning. Some of us have been saying it for more than a year. The American people will be heard. Whether it is the failed stimulus, the health care bill, or the financial regulatory bill, Americans are more intent than ever on reversing the trend of centralizing more and more power in Washington. They are alarmed at the fact the Federal Government is now, for the first time in our history, the single largest source of revenue for the States. For the first time in our history, the Federal Government is the single largest source of revenue for the States. They know that with more power in Washington comes less accountability, and they are fighting back.

The lesson is clear: Americans expect the people they elect to put their interests and the interests of the country first. It is time to follow through on the kinds of changes Americans actually want to see. It is about solving the crisis in front of us instead of using them to force a vision of America that Americans don't share.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

I will proceed on leader time.

Will the majority leader yield for an observation?

We had this conversation earlier today on the telephone. I think filing a cloture motion is completely unnecessary and--

I cannot imagine what incentive anyone would have to create the scenario under which the majority leader is concerned with.

Yes. I would say to my friend the majority leader, I would be willing to consider that. The point I am trying to make here and the Senator from Alabama has tried to make is we are unaware of anybody on our side who does not expect a vote on Kagan on Thursday. As you and I have discussed on and off the floor, the thought was that we would have the Kagan vote. That would be the last vote prior to the August recess. That is the scenario under which we have been operating, and I am perplexed as to why my friend the majority leader feels this is a step he needs to take.

Madam President, I appreciate the majority leader withholding. We can continue to discuss this, even tonight if he would like, the two of us, privately.

Fair enough.

Mr. President, the American people have run out of patience with Washington's response to the recession. The first response was a so-called stimulus bill that was meant to keep unemployment under 8 percent. But after borrowing $1 trillion, unemployment is stuck well above 9 percent--some would argue closer to 10 percent. Now Democrats in Washington want to do it again.

Later on today, our friends on the other side will vote for a summer sequel to the original stimulus. A year and a half after the first stimulus, the seemingly unlimited spending continues.

You will recall the original stimulus was meant to be timely, targeted, and temporary. Yet here we are again, a year and a half later, and they are already coming back for more. The $100 billion they got for teachers the first time wasn't enough.

Forget about the fact that more than a third of the original $100 billion hasn't even been spent and that none of the extra money they are asking for has to be used to retain teachers. Our friends on the other side are now in the business of paying for States to hire more workers even if they can't afford it on their own. Why? Why? Because it creates a permanent need for future State bailouts, at a time when we can least afford it.

The same with health care spending: The original stimulus included about $90 billion in additional Medicaid spending--funds that were said to be timely, targeted, and temporary. Yet here we are, a year and a half later, and they want billions more.

Let's be clear: This bill is a brazen attempt to funnel more money to public employee unions before an election at a moment of record deficits and debt, and to set the stage for a massive tax hike before the end of the year. It is time Democrats in Congress stop funneling billions of dollars to their favorite constituencies and asking the American people to pay for it with higher taxes. It is time they actually do something to address the jobs crisis in this country rather than using this and every other crisis as an opportunity to advance their vision of government without bounds.

Enough is enough. Democrats can say these bills are a response to the job crisis all they want, but the American people have already issued their verdict. The American people have seen the bitter results of the Democrats' so-called economic agenda. Every bill they pass only adds more burden on the people we need to get us out of this economic ditch. Whether it is the health care bill or financial regulation, every bill they pass seems to have as a prerequisite that it kill more jobs. If a bill doesn't kill jobs or make it harder to create them, they are not particularly interested.

When the centerpiece of your jobs agenda is to pass a bill that adds another $34 billion to the national debt to get checks to millions of chronically unemployed Americans who can't find work in the climate you have created, then it is time for a different approach. The approach of the past year and a half isn't working. Unemployment has now been above 9 percent for more than a year. Yet Democrats can't seem to come up with anything other than to expand the size of government, transfer more Federal dollars to the States.

Americans are tired of their tax dollars being spent on more government, more regulations, more taxes, and more burden. They want new solutions that actually enable businesses to recover. Those are the kinds of solutions Republicans are offering and that Americans want.

Mr. President, the President today announced his plans to transition the mission of our military in Iraq from combat to an advisory and assistance mission. For context, it is worth remembering that prior to the full deployment of this force, some Democrats were already declaring the surge the President is referring to today as a complete failure.

But thanks to the vision and the determination of General Petraeus, General McChrystal, and Ambassador Crocker, the counterinsurgency strategy was allowed to take root and to succeed. The population was protected, al-Qaida in Iraq was weakened, and, crucially, our political relationship with the Maliki government grew stronger.

None of this was easy. Between that brave decision to execute a counterinsurgency strategy, the surge, and the Anbar awakening, we had to prevail on many votes on timelines for withdrawal and fights over whether we would ever fund ongoing combat operations--all of which allowed for the strategic framework agreement and the security agreement between the U.S. and Iraqi Governments--by the way, executed in the previous administration--that outlined drawdown of forces and the transition of mission the President announced today. Of course, the Iraqis must work through the formation of the next government and continue to combat insurgents.

There are valuable lessons in all of this as General Petraeus works to build the Afghan security forces and defeat the Taliban. The surge in Iraq helped create the conditions that resulted in the security agreement between our two countries, which took a lot of hard work, and back in 2007, some--including the current President and Vice President--thought it could not be achieved. The credit, of course, goes to General Petraeus, General Odierno, our fighting forces, Ambassador Crocker, and our Iraqi partners. It is their sacrifice we should remember today.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I had the opportunity to hear the distinguished Senator from Maine, a few moments ago, speak on the measure before us and how it has seemed to become completely enmeshed in the political agenda of the other side. I commend her for her efforts to get this bill right. Senator LeMieux was on the floor earlier, another one of our colleagues on the Republican side who worked long and hard to get this bill across the finish line.

But I must say, it takes a lot of effort to make a partisan issue out of a bill that should have broad bipartisan support. You have to go out of your way, as Senator Snowe pointed out, to make a small business bill controversial, but our friends on the other side have managed to pull it off.

They have outdone themselves. We got this bill in late June. This is July 29. Since then, the Democrats have set it aside six separate times to move on to something else. So, from the beginning, this bill clearly was not a priority to them until they realized they didn't have anything to talk about when they go home in August. I think one Democratic Senator put it best when he suggested this week that a midterm campaign that revolves around his party's agenda and that of the White House is a losing proposition for the majority.

He was summing up their strategy on this bill. They knew they could not run on a record of job-killing taxes, burdensome new regulations, massive government intrusions and record deficits and debt. So what do they do? What do they do? They create an issue where there is none. That is what this debate is all about.

It was clear from the beginning there was a path for this bill to pass with a very broad bipartisan majority. Instead, we are standing here this morning looking at a third version of a bill and we have yet to engage in any substantive amendment process. They have been adding either controversial or completely unrelated matters to the bill--all to avoid any real debate and to avoid voting on Republican amendments.

This bill now has over $1 billion in agricultural spending in it. It has $1 billion in agricultural spending in a small business bill, in the core bill--the most recent version of the core bill. As I said, we have been on this since June 29.

Republicans have asked for a total of eight amendments. That is about two votes a week if we had been on this bill. That is not too much to ask.

It is obvious what is going on. They wanted to make this an issue so they have something to talk about other than their failed economic policies. The President made that clear 2 weeks ago when he accused Republicans of blocking this bill, a statement every single fact checker in town has shown to be false. So they can try to deflect attention all they want, they can manufacture a legislative impasse-- and that is what has happened here, a manufactured legislative impasse--but the American people know what is going on. Nearly every major piece of legislation this Congress has considered has had painful consequences for small business. Nearly every major piece of legislation this Congress has considered has had painful consequences for small business. Attempting to create a controversy is not going to hide that from anyone.

Hopefully, if cloture is not invoked, we can return to the original intent of this bill, strip it of its controversial add-ons and pass a small business bill that attracts broad bipartisan support and helps American small business owners. Given the legislative record of this Congress, they could certainly use the help.

Madam President, reserving the right to object, let me first compliment my friend the majority leader. I think we are beginning to make some real progress here toward making a bill that was initially bipartisan bipartisan again. This doesn't quite get back to where I had hoped we could get, but I think we are making progress.

Therefore, I would encourage my Members to oppose cloture on the vote, but we are going to continue the discussion. This is only 11:30 on Thursday. I think we are getting closer to getting where we may be able to do some business and get this bill out of here, but there will have to be some amendments on our side. Actually, I think our friends on the other side knew it would have to be more than three. I appreciate the movement in the direction with the three, but that would not be enough, at least for this juncture right now, to be satisfactory. Therefore, I object.

Madam President, we turned to this bill initially on June 24. We have left it six times over the

last month. There is widespread agreement on a bipartisan basis that we should pass a small business bill. We are finally making some progress. It has become less a political instrument and more the initial bill, as Senator Snowe has been asking us to do for quite some time. I think we should continue to discuss it after the vote.

It is only 11:30 on Thursday. I think there is a chance we may be able to make some significant progress very soon. In the meantime, we should go ahead and have the vote. The majority leader and I can continue to try to unsnarl this problem and see if we can move forward.

Madam President, the majority leader is graciously giving us three amendments. What I am saying is three amendments is not enough, and he knows that. So we are not expecting to have an unlimited number of amendments, but three amendments will not suffice.

Is that a question?

I will tell my friend from Louisiana that is the sort of thing the majority leader and I work on every day, is to try to determine the number of amendments, and we ought to continue to try to do that.

Regular order.

Cloture Motion

Madam President, reserving the right to object, I think we are making some real headway. I appreciate the majority leader taking out basically the appropriations measures. One was in the underlying bill and the others were going to be offered as amendments.

I had not originally intended to offer a counter UC, but in order to reassure everyone--I know there is support on our side of the aisle if we can get it right--I offer a counter UC which I suppose will be objected to, as I will object to the majority leader's, for the afternoon.

But I want to underscore what he said, which is I do think we are getting closer to getting back to the original bill which started off on a pretty strong bipartisan basis and then seemed to deteriorate over the course of the last month. In fact, we turned to the bill on June 24 and left it six times between then and now.

Having said all that, I think we are heading back in the right direction.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the cloture motions with respect to the small business substitute and the bill be vitiated. I further ask unanimous consent that the following amendments be the only amendments in order to the Reid substitute, and there are four: Johanns amendment No. 1099, repeal; Hatch, R&D; Grassley, biodiesel; Sessions, spending caps. I further ask unanimous consent that it be in order for the majority to offer relevant side-by-sides limited to the subject matter of the above-listed amendments. And, as I said last night, we are prepared to enter into reasonable time agreements on each of these amendments.

I object.

Mr. President, I rise to pay tribute to Mrs. Lois Baker and the commitment she made to providing rural health care services to thousands of Kentuckians. Beginning in 1971, Mrs. Baker was the chief executive officer of Mountain Comprehensive Health Corporation, MCHC, which continues to provide the residents of eastern Kentucky with quality, affordable health care. Since opening its first location, a trailer located on the line between Perry and Leslie Counties, MCHC has become a fixture in the region, operating locations in five eastern Kentucky counties. Now, with 250 employees, MCHC proudly serves over 27,000 patients each year.

Mrs. Baker's commitment to the Commonwealth extends well beyond her accomplishments at MCHC. A graduate of Fugazzi Business College and the University of Michigan's School of Public Health, Mrs. Baker served as president of Baker Coal & Land Company and as president of Letcher Manufacturing Company prior to becoming CEO of MCHC. As a member of the admissions committee for the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, Mrs. Baker proudly encouraged students from eastern Kentucky to pursue careers in the medical field and then to return home and utilize their skills to better the lives of their fellow Kentuckians.

Following her recent passing, the Booneville Sentinel published an article commemorating the life and accomplishments of Mrs. Lois Baker, and I would like to share that tribute with my colleagues. I ask unanimous consent that the full article be printed in the Record.

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

Mr. President, I am going to proceed in my leader time.

The small business bill we are now considering has an interesting history, and given the President's recent statements on the bill, it is worth recounting that history.

Remember, we got on this bill in June. But then Democrats took us off of it to move to financial regulation. Then last week, they took us off of it again to move to the DISCLOSE Act.

So if the President wants to criticize somebody about slowing this bill down, he simply has the wrong party. He needs to direct his criticism at Democrats, not Republicans.

The fact is Democrats had other priorities. They thought it was more important to impose job-killing regulations on the financial industry and give even more authority to the kinds of regulators who missed the last financial crisis.

They also thought it was more important to shut up their critics ahead of the fall elections by pushing a bill that amounted to an all- out assault on free speech.

These are the things Democrats have been doing instead of the small business bill. Yet the President continues to claim that somehow Republicans are the problem. Well, it is obvious what they are doing: They want to deflect attention away from the fact that trillions of dollars in government spending and debt has failed.

Spending, debt, regulations, more government--none of it has worked. Now they want to raise taxes on the very small businesses that are trying so desperately to create jobs.

It is time to change course and to do something that will create lasting private sector jobs and get us moving in the right direction.

Democrats can try to deflect attention away from their failed policies all they want, but the consequences of their actions are obvious to the American people.

It is time to put aside the liberal wish list and allow America's small business men and women to do something that has a chance of reviving this economy. Spending, debt, and tax hikes are the last things we need.

Republicans have offered a number of ideas to improve the small business bill and, until now, those amendments have been obstructed by the other side and, along with them, the bill itself.

I am encouraged to see that the majority has changed its mind and now seems committed to staying on this bill, allowing votes on Republican better ideas, and working with us on something other than raising taxes, growing the debt, or burying job creators in a sea of new regulation.

Energy

Mr. President, it is perfectly obvious that Democrats are doing their best to keep us from passing a serious energy bill before the August recess.

Later today, we expect the majority leader to offer the Democratic alternative to the oilspill response that the Republicans proposed last week.

This is not a serious exercise. All indications are that they don't intend to have a real debate about one of the most important issues we face. Anybody who has been here for any period of time knows that energy bills take at least a couple of weeks. So it doesn't appear there is either the time or the willingness on the other side to debate this critical issue.

We would have liked to have had a debate on ideas we have already offered. Our energy bill would give the President the ability to raise the liability caps on economic damages done by companies such as BP, without driving small independent oil producers out of business.

It would lift the administration's job-killing moratorium on offshore drilling as soon as new safety standards are met--a moratorium that one senior Gulf State Democrat says could cost more jobs than the oilspill itself. How can you have a serious energy debate without addressing a problem that a leading Gulf State Democrat said is costing more jobs than the oilspill itself?

Our bill has a true bipartisan commission--with subpoena power--to investigate the oilspill, rather than the President's antidrilling commission.

Importantly, it also takes good ideas from Democrats, including Senator Bingaman's idea for much needed reform at MMS. Surely, we can all agree that this administration's oversight at MMS is in need of major reform.

Our bill includes revenue sharing for coastal States that allow offshore drilling to help them prepare for and deal with disasters such as the one we have right now in the gulf.

We have our own ideas, we have some of their ideas, and our bill doesn't kill jobs; it doesn't put a moratorium on production.

We are not interested in yet another debate about a Democratic bill in which the prerequisite is killing more jobs.

Our bill would address this crisis at hand. Their bill would use the crisis to stifle business and kill jobs in a region that is in desperate need of jobs.

It was my hope we could have a real debate about energy. Clearly, the majority--at least so far--isn't interested in that debate.

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

Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

This is a bill which, at its core, initially had pretty broad bipartisan support. But, as sometimes happens in the Senate, it got all snarled up with a variety of other matters.

I would like to propound an alternative consent with the following explanation. When you review the record on this bill, you will find that we have had exactly two votes. One was a motion to proceed, and the other was on an amendment offered by the majority. The majority leader has filled the tree on three separate occasions on three different substitutes. In effect, we have been completely shut out on the floor in terms of amendments we wanted to offer. We basically had to ask permission to offer amendments. I don't like that kind of process, but to get things moving, we actually gave the other side copies of our first few amendments almost 2 weeks ago--2 weeks ago. We were told the other side would want alternatives to our amendments, and it took until about an hour ago--an hour ago--before they produced their amendments.

So to be clear, the majority leader moved to proceed to this bill on June 24, and since the time the bill was actually pending, the small business bill was set aside to consider six other legislative matters during that period. And although I supported a number of those other issues, the fact is, we have not had any opportunity to offer amendments.

Having said that, I believe a better way forward is as follows:

I ask unanimous consent that the cloture motions with respect to the small business substitute and bill be vitiated.

I further ask that the following amendments be in order to the Reid substitute: the Johanns 1099 repeal, the Hatch R&D, the Hatch tax hike prevention, the Grassley biodiesel, the Sessions amendment on spending caps, a Hutchison amendment on nuclear loan guarantees, a McCain amendment on border security, and a Kyl amendment on death tax.

I further ask unanimous consent that it be in order for the majority to offer a relevant side-by-side to any of the above-mentioned amendments.

Before the Chair rules, I would tell the majority leader that I will work with each of our sponsors to lock in reasonable time agreements on these amendments.

Therefore, Mr. President, I propound that alternative consent.

Reserving the right to object--and I will object--I would just say to my friend that this bill initially did enjoy bipartisan support. But where we stand today, the Democrats want to offer amendments about health care, about educational funding, about FMAP, and about Cobell funding, so we have both sides sort of piling on here.

I guess I would say to my friend from Louisiana that this is a discussion worth continuing with her counterpart, the Senator from Maine, who is our leader on the Small Business Committee, because somewhere in all of this there is a bipartisan bill, if we can structure the right kind of process that eliminates the feeling--beyond feeling, the reality of the minority getting shut out.

Therefore, Mr. President, I object.

I would just say there is now substantial opposition to the bill. I sense a significant lack of enthusiasm on the part of our ranking member. She can speak for herself, but my advice to my friend from Louisiana is that this is worth continuing to discuss to see if there isn't some way to get this bill passed in a form that is acceptable to most of the Senate.

If the Senator will yield for a suggestion.

I was going to say that those points are ones better addressed to the Senator from Maine, and she is not on the floor at the moment. I am sure, if you can discuss it--you know a great deal about it as you have worked on it together. I think you ought to continue to discuss it.