Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be a

period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate immediately proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations on today's Executive Calendar: Calendar Nos. 549, 551, 552, 554, 555, 557, 558, 559, 560, 562, 563, 564, 565, and all nominations on the Secretary's desk.

I further ask unanimous consent that the nominations be confirmed en bloc, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate then return to legislative session.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 399, 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 immediate consideration of S. Res. 400, submitted earlier today.

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

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 401 which was submitted earlier today.

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 Committee on Veterans' Affairs be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 1691 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in adjournment until 9 a.m. on Tuesday, March 14. I further ask that following the prayer and 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 resume consideration of S. Con. Res. 83, the budget resolution, as under the previous order; provided further that there be 40 hours equally divided remaining for debate.

Mr. President, we are going to have a very busy day tomorrow and, indeed, a very busy week. We need to work through amendments on the budget resolution. At 3 p.m. tomorrow, we will have a series of votes on amendments. Senators should plan to be in the Chamber for six back-to-back votes. Senators who are planning to offer amendments should be working with the two managers, Senator Gregg and Senator Conrad. Senators should expect full days and some late nights and should plan their schedules accordingly. There will be additional votes tomorrow after the stacked votes at 3 p.m.

Mr. President, as I said earlier today, we will complete action on the budget resolution this week, and we absolutely must address the issues surrounding the debt ceiling as well.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order.

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

Mr. President, the Democratic leader and I have been in consultation over the course of the morning, and I come to the floor now with a

unanimous consent request. I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the provisions of rule XXII, the cloture vote occur at 2 o'clock today and that second-degree amendments be filed not later than 2 p.m. on Monday, March 13. I further ask that the mandatory quorum be waived.

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

Mr. President, Americans finish what they start, and they expect the Senate to do the same.

I open with that because we find ourselves once again in an unfortunate situation in that until yesterday afternoon, we were making steady progress, working together, all four managers on this important bill on lobbying reform, ethics review reform. We had the opportunity to have it finished by today or possibly tomorrow morning.

This is an important bill. We have come to a general consensus that it had to be one of the first bills we took to the Senate because it is so important to restore trust in this institution. It is a bill about making our Government more accountable, making it more transparent. It is a bill that strengthens our ethics rules to ensure we uphold the very highest standards of integrity. And it is a bill that will help restore America's confidence in this institution, in our Congress, in our Government.

It is also an issue that my friend, the Democratic leader, proposed as his top priority in this Congress. And we agreed. Unfortunately, some of my Democratic colleagues have chosen to hold this bill hostage for a totally unrelated issue. As we have seen even over the last 30 or 40 minutes, things are moving along aggressively toward a resolution. We do not know exactly what the resolution is going to be but toward a resolution.

The distinguished Democratic leader said just 48 hours ago to the effect of insisting that Democrats would not try to stall this lobbying reform bill by offering unrelated amendments, saying that:

I have told the distinguished majority leader this is no

attempt to stall this legislation. I have told the majority

leader that unless there are issues outside of what the two

committees did that are within their jurisdiction, we have no

intention of offering a myriad of issues. We have Members

clamoring to offer--issues on the port security deal . . . we

are not going to do it on this legislation.

That was 48 hours ago, and then in the last 24 hours directly contradicted the assurances he made on Tuesday when he said:

I believe that this lobbying reform is important. I believe

that we need to do everything we can to help restore

integrity to what we do here in Washington. But having said

that, Mr. President, I think it would have been absolutely

wrong for the Senate not to take action yesterday on the most

important issue the American people see today, and that is

port security.

That is from the statement on March 9.

I mention this because if we didn't have this what we call nongermane and totally not relevant amendment to an important issue on which we are making great bipartisan progress, working together--if that amendment had not come up, we would have been able to complete this bill. I have been in discussions with the Democratic leader, and we both understand we have the opportunity to finish this bill in the near future because the amendments are not that tough and there is general consensus around them, but we have to be allowed to finish what we start and not be pulled off with essentially the Senate shutting down last night and over the course of the morning on something that is totally unrelated to the bill itself.

Although I don't want to keep overstating it, there seems to be this pattern of obstruction and delay and pushing things off--Judge Alito, the PATRIOT Act, which, by the way, will be signed in an hour or so, and now on lobbying reform.

Yes, we have a cloture vote here in a few minutes so that we can continue to make progress on this bill. It is not an attempt in any way to foreclose the opportunity to offer lobbying-related amendments. As the Democratic leader knows and we have talked about, we are perfectly willing to agree on a list of amendments related to lobbying and ethics reform. We can set time agreements, debate the amendments, and vote. But what we are opposed to is considering amendments that are totally outside of the scope of the bill that is at hand. We are opposed to amendments designed to score partisan political points in one way or another.

The port security issue, I do not minimize it as an issue. I was one of the very early people who said we need a pause, we need to examine it in detail, and we need to get the information. That process is underway. We have our Commerce Committee looking at overall port security. The PATRIOT Act, signed in 45 minutes, has a whole 13 points on port security. And on what is called the CFIUS review, or the review of the process that created this problem in many ways, I believe, right now our Banking Committee is looking at that aggressively.

The Dubai Ports deal needs to be addressed in a thorough way. That is why we have called for--really, initiated by the Senate--this 45-day period, to collect all the information and consider that information as it comes forward.

We saw, 45 minutes ago, some real positive news that has been brought forward. It shows the importance of sitting back and getting the information. There is a system underway to address the port issue without injecting it into a lobbying reform bill, a bipartisan bill, that in essence brings it to a halt. The administration is moving toward this 45-day review of the deal. Let's get this review. Let's get information as it is underway.

The Senator from New York, I know, has been to the floor several times. In a letter to me this week, he had said--and I quote in the letter--he ``decided not to press for a vote on [his] bill at this time in the hope that this new investigation will be thorough, fair, and independent.''

So, Mr. President, we are about to vote. I do want to encourage my colleagues to vote for cloture because I

want to stay focused on the lobbying bill, which we can finish if we get cloture.

Mr. President, I see the time has come for the vote.

Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, again, this looks like another effort to delay and postpone. Therefore, I object.

Mr. President, I enter a motion to reconsider the vote.