Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate come out of morning business and return to the pending bill.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw amendment No. 5031.

Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

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

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I send a second degree to the desk.

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

Mr. President, I now send a cloture motion to the desk on the pending first-degree amendment.

I now send a cloture motion to the desk on the underlying bill.

I ask the mandatory quorum for both motions be waived.

I move to commit the bill to the Judiciary Committee, with instructions to report back forthwith, with an amendment, and I send the motion to the desk.

I ask for the yeas and nays on the motion.

I send a first-degree amendment to the desk.

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

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I now send a second degree to the desk.

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

Mr. President, we can come back and comment on this, but what I have just done is put an amendment on the legislation. The military commission or Hamdan legislation--I have put that as an amendment on the border security fence bill. I say that just so our colleagues will understand the Democratic leader and I are working very hard to reach an agreement, and we are just about there. We need to talk to some more colleagues about how we will address the Hamdan legislation.

Because things are tight in terms of being able to finish the amount of business we need to do in the next 4 to 5 days, what we just went through was to set up a structure whereby we know we are going to be able to finish that. Again, our intent is to work out a plan to be able to address that legislation in a way that is agreeable to both sides. I think we should be able to do that tomorrow morning.

Mr. President, that is exactly where we are. I think the good news is both sides recognize this is a very important issue before this body and before the American people and that we have had a lot of work on this bill to where I think--speaking of the Hamdan legislation--there is going to be very broad support. There are areas people have expressed concern about, and our intent is to work out a unanimous consent agreement hopefully early in the morning whereby we can address those with amendments.

Mr. President, on another issue, I ask unanimous consent that at a time to be determined by the majority leader, in consultation with the Democratic leader, the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 527, S. 3709, the U.S.-India nuclear bill.

I further ask consent that the managers' amendment at the desk be agreed to as original text for the purpose of further amendment and the only other amendments in order be Feingold on Presidential certification, Dorgan on fissile material production, Boxer on Iran, Reid on Yucca Mountain, Craig on Yucca Mountain, with no second-degree amendments in order, 1 hour of debate on each amendment, and 1 hour of general debate on the bill, all equally divided in the usual form.

I further ask consent that following disposition of amendments and the use or yielding back of time, the bill, as amended, be read a third time and the Senate proceed to the consideration of H.R. 5682, the House-passed companion, that all after the enacting clause be stricken and the text of S. 3709, as amended, be inserted in lieu thereof, and that the Senate then proceed to a vote on passage of H.R. 5682, as amended, with no intervening action or debate.

I further ask consent that following passage of the bill, the Senate insist upon its amendment and request a conference with the House, the Chair be authorized to appoint conferees, and S. 3709 be returned to the calendar.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, as the Democratic leader said, this is a critically important piece of legislation. That is why I wanted to bring it forward tonight and am pleased the Democratic leader so strongly supports the legislation. Our challenge will be to figure out how we can address it with the appropriate concerns. And I understand his statement on the managers' amendment of the chairman and ranking member, that there is a little more work that needs to be done.

Enactment of this legislation will create significant export opportunities for U.S. industry, with job creation, with thousands of new jobs created. There are some technical differences between the House and Senate bills that will have to be worked out in conference. Therefore, I do believe we should address this bill before we leave.

Mr. President, right now, I will object to the modification of my unanimous consent request. After a brief discussion, we can come back and see if we are close to being able to take this to the floor under this time agreement, with these amendments. I think we ought to lock it down tonight. With that, I object to the modification.

First, let me go through the remaining business.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session; provided further that the Agriculture Committee be discharged from further consideration of the nomination of Charles F. Connor, PN1911, to be a member of the board of directors of the Commodity Credit Corporation; provided further that the Senate proceed to its consideration, the nomination be confirmed, with the motion to reconsider laid upon the table, and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that the Senate resume legislative session.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 582, which was submitted earlier today.

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 thereto be printed in the Record as if read, without intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 583, which was submitted earlier today.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 584, which was submitted earlier today.

Mr. President, the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions has received a request from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia for records of the committee and testimony by committee staff relevant to an investigation it is conducting into a Presidential nominee's financial disclosure to the committee during confirmation proceedings. The chair and ranking member of the committee would like to cooperate with this request.

Accordingly, in keeping with Senate rules and practice, this resolution would authorize the committee to produce documents for use in this investigation. The resolution would also authorize testimony by committee staff, with representation by the Senate Legal Counsel.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Commerce Committee be discharged from further consideration and the Senate proceed to H. Con. Res. 235.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 613, S. 3679.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the committee- reported amendment be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 630, H.R. 5074.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the bill be read the third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and any statements be printed in the Record.

I am happy to yield.

Mr. President, through the Chair, in fact, I will need to turn to the distinguished assistant leader as to how much time--I remember we had it locked down to an amount of time. It is about 7\1/2\ or 8 hours. We have a challenging week. We have to get to the DOD appropriations, we have to get to the Homeland Security appropriations, we need to get to the terrorist tribunal legislation, we need to get to the port security legislation, and we need to get to the border fence legislation. We will do our best. I do understand the importance of the legislation, and I want to congratulate the managers and the chairman and ranking member for their great work. I do understand the importance of it.

Mr. President, I recognize the importance of the issue, and we are doing our best to get everything we possibly can done.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in adjournment until 9:45 a.m. on Tuesday, September 26. I further ask that following the prayer and the pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved, and the Senate proceed to a period of morning business for up to an hour with the first 30 minutes under the control of the majority leader or his designee, and the final 30 minutes under the control of the Democratic leader or his designee; further, that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of H.R. 6061, the Border Fence Act. Further, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in recess from 12:30 until 2:15 to accommodate the Democratic policy luncheon; I further ask that it be in order to file first-degree amendments as provided for under rule XXII until the hour of 2:30 on Tuesday.

Mr. President, I just went through a host of issues that we need to consider over the course of this week and our intention to complete our work by Friday or Saturday. It is going to take cooperation, and everybody is working together, as the Democratic leader and I implied a few minutes ago, in how we will address the legislation surrounding the military tribunals. Again, we did file, or I just a few moments ago filed cloture on the Hamdan language as well as on the underlying border security bill. We will work, as we just discussed on the floor, very hard to come to an agreement on how we can address the Hamdan legislation with the appropriate number of amendments. The first of these votes would occur Wednesday morning, as the Democratic leader pointed out, and as I said earlier. If we are able to get an agreement, we could actually be voting tomorrow.

I would be happy to.

Yes. Yes, it is. I think what the Democratic leader said is that there are some changes, but as to what was introduced--Friday, I believe? Friday--so there are some small changes in that, but it has been agreed to by all the parties concerned.

That is correct.

The reason I am turning around is, as the Democratic leader said, people have been working very aggressively since the agreement was reached. And every change, we have really tried to go to both sides--to the House, to the Senate, to the administration--so that we can have as much agreement as we possibly can on this bill. So the changes that have been made have been minor, as just reported to me.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order, following the remarks, up to 15 minutes, as in morning business, by our distinguished colleague from Illinois.

Tomorrow, Saturday September 23--the first day of the month of Tishri on the Hebrew Calendar--Jewish people all over the world will celebrate the holiday of Rosh Hashana. On the 10th of Tishri, October 2 on the Gregorian calendar, will mark the holiday of Yom Kippur--The Day of Atonement. These two days: one a spiritually important New Years celebration, the other an opportunity for solemn reflection coupled with a recognition of God's mercy, rank alongside the weekly Sabbath as the most important holidays in Judaism.

The coming weeks bring two other important, joyous holidays: Sukkot-- a commemoration of the mercy of God that allowed the Israelites to survive while wandering in the desert and Simchat Torah, a celebration of the completion of the annual cycle of readings from the scriptures most sacred to Jews.

In their observances, these holidays run the gamut. Jewish law requires fasting on Yom Kippur while the celebration of Sukkot focuses on festive meals eaten in a temporary shelter. All of them, however, have a common thread: a focus on justice, on the Eternal, and upon improving--healing--the world. On ethnical monotheism. All these are important traditions that Judaism transmitted to Christianity and Islam.

As we enter the Jewish holiday season, I urge all Americans to reflect on the need to heal the world, to work for peace, and to do justice.

And, on this, the day before Rosh Hashana. I wish all of my Jewish friends and colleagues a Happy New Year. L'Shana Tova.

Mr. President, as in executive session, I ask unanimous consent that at 5:20 on Monday, September 25, the Senate proceed to executive session for the consideration of the following judicial nomination on the executive calendar; No. 920, Francisco Besosa to be a United States District Judge for the District of Puerto Rico; provided further that the time until 5:30 be equally divided between the chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee or their designee; provided further that at 5:30 the Senate proceed to a vote on the nomination, with no intervening action or debate; that following the vote the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate then resume legislative session.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 2965 and that the bill be referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.