Barbara Boxer

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. All right.

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I did not say this was a bad bill. I said this is a beautiful bill with a bad rider dropped on us. That was what I was talking about, the bill that was placed on top of WRDA. It is awful. The White House said: We do not support the kinds of proposals that have been put forward to address the water resource issues in California right now. For every major newspaper in my State to come out--I don't think we ever argue about this because it is a California issue, it is a west coast issue. If it doesn't bother you, fine, but the bottom line is, a beautiful bill was hijacked, and it is going to result in the loss of the fishing industry. I can assure my friend, if you had a proposal-- and you have had some--that threatened your oil industry, you are down there and I say: Fine, that is your job. It is my job to defend my fishing industry. So there is nothing anyone can tell me that changes my mind, even though this puts me in a tough, tough, tough spot because the rest of the bill is beautiful and I greatly enjoyed working on it. But I know this stuff. Every single fishery organization opposes it. It is opposed strongly. Even Trout Unlimited--you know those folks. They don't get involved that often. Every single major newspaper opposes it, every single environmental organization. The White House said: We do not support the kinds of proposals that have been put forward to address some of the water resource issues. Those are the facts. They are not subject to interpretation. So let's be fair. We have a beautiful bill called WRDA. Standing on its own, it is one of my proudest accomplishments that I share with my chairman, but this rider did not belong in it. Our position is, bring this bill down, strip the rider. You will have agreement, you will have the bill, and we can all go home happily. I know that is a very heavy lift, but that is the rationale. I hope when this thing gets to court--and it will get to court--that our words will be entered into the court record here. We know what we are talking about because we are from the West Coast.

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I retain the remainder of my time.

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I yield to Senator Murray for 7 minutes.

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I am going to speak for a little while and then reserve the remainder. I say to Senator Wyden, thank you for your words. I also wish to explain why it was important to take the time at this late hour. We are all exhausted. We must make this case, and I will tell you why--not only for the history books, but for the courthouse. There is no way that this position is not going to be litigated. That is the tragedy of it, because as my friends know and has been said by all of us, when it comes to water, you need to have everybody around the table. This provision doesn't do a thing to end the doubt. Let's be clear. All it does is take water away from the fishermen and give it to agribusiness. You know, that doesn't help add any water. My colleague from California who has worked so hard on this has had some very good language in there about desalinization and about water recharging, but we have that in the base bill. It is already in the base bill. For the first time, Senator Inhofe and I--and, oh, how I will miss him--made sure we had provisions in the bill that dealt with the drought. We reauthorized the desal program in the United States of America. We have a new program to give funds for new technologies. We have talked about conservation, water recharging, and underground storage, which my friend Maria talked about. It is in the base bill. So to call this rider about the drought is a misnomer. It is about killing off the fishing industry so ag can have more water. That is not doing anything to help. I think a lot of what this election was about, as we look at it, was which candidate really spoke to the hopes and dreams of people who work every day. If we really care about the miners, then we vote against the continuing resolution that turns its back on the miners' widows, and a lot of us did. On this, it breaks my heart to say this, but filibustering against my own bill is ridiculous. It is an out-of-body experience. It is kind of Shakespearean. I don't know if it is tragedy, comedy, or what, but it is unbelievable. What a situation. My last moments in the Senate I am spending against a bill that I carry in my heart. It is a beautiful bill. Yet when are we going to stand up against this kind of blackmail. I don't care whether it comes from a Democrat or a Republican, frankly, and it was not the work of anyone in the Senate. I say to my friends on the Republican side: I don't blame you for this in any way, shape, or form. You did not do this to me, to us, and to the salmon fisherman. You did not. It was done by a House Member who represents Big Agriculture, and he did it because he could. When are we going to stand up and say no? My colleague Elizabeth Warren was speaking about this, and she said something to the effect--I am not quoting her exactly right: You take a beautiful piece of legislation, you add a pile of dirt on it, and then you stick a little Maraschino cherry on the top--whether it is Flint, or whatever it is. Then you put people in a horrible position. So I know this vote may not go the way we want. I have hope that it would. But I understand why it might not. But when are we going to stand and say this is wrong? We have a chance to do it tonight and send a message to everyone. This isn't the way to legislate. This is why people can't stand Congress, with 17 percent approval. If you ask them, do you think it is right to add an unrelated rider in the middle of the night on a bill that has been worked on for 2 years--and, by the way, it is not even in the jurisdiction, Senator Inhofe, of our committee. It is in the jurisdiction of the Energy Committee of Senator Murkowski and Senator Cantwell. It is awful. I say to everyone who is in a Western State--not just west coast but Western States, between 11 and 17 States, depending on how you look at it: The next President of the United States and the one after will have the ability to say: We are building a dam right over here and cut out Congress. Congress has no authority to stop it. It is just incredible. Why would that be done? Why is there that insult to the Members of Congress to take that away? We already don't do earmarks. That is a whole other issue. We are not supposed to anyway. But this is another way to say: Oh, just give it to the executive branch. They will decide where to put dams. I don't know about your experience, but we have had proposals in our State where people wanted to put dams right on an earthquake fault. It took a series of hearings to bring that point to light. Now there won't be any hearings because President Trump and whoever the next President is--because this bill lasts 5 years--will say: You know what, my business interests think it will be good to build a dam right over here, and who cares about the consequences. Look, we know where the people are, the people in my State who really care. Every single major newspaper, every fishery organization--they are frightened. Then when they run them out, they will have more water, and they won't have to fight with them--Big Ag. They will just take the water. That is not right. I represent all of the people, and I have said for a long time that we must resolve these issues together. It is essential. I am going to call on Senator Murray, but I want to say that every environmental group in the country opposes this. The League of Conservation Voters is scoring this, and the Defenders of Wildlife. Trout Unlimited is not a partisan organization. They are recreational fishermen. They are going: Wait a minute; this is a disaster. Environmental entrepreneurs, business people, and very successful business leaders say: Don't do this. I am sad. My consolation is that if we lose this, my State is going to get a lot of provisions. Good for them. I am happy. I worked hard for it. But you know what, this is wrong. The reason I wanted to make this record and why I asked my colleagues to please speak is that I want this record to show up in court. This definitely is going to wind up in court, and I want them to hear that Senator Boxer said this was clearly a special interest provision and at the last minute to simply destroy the fishing industry--the jobs--so that Big Ag could get what they wanted. This is not right, and it is a frontal assault on the Endangered Species Act, just overriding every position. We all know that under the Endangered Species Act, we saved the American bald eagle, the great sea turtle, and the California condor--the most magnificent creatures of God. We never would have been able to save them if we had similar language that said that regardless of whether the scientists say there are only three or four pairs of these creatures left, we have decided it is a problem for the economy. We are going to just not worry about them. We never would have saved any of these--God's creatures. We talk a lot here about God, of our commitment to all of humankind and all of God's creations. We don't have the right to do this. That is why I wanted the time. It wasn't just to hear myself talk. I already gave my farewell speech. That was long enough. I already gave my second speech today. I didn't expect to. Now this is my last one. Madam President, how much time do we have remaining?

Mrs. BOXER. I thank my friend so much. Madam President, how much time remains for us?

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I love my colleague. However, the White House strongly opposes this rider, and we have it in clear writing. They issued that notice. They didn't issue a veto because, as Senator Stabenow points out, they are torn. But let's be clear. All we have to do is strip this poison pill and we have a gorgeous bill that saves Flint, that helps us all, where we can smile and I can leave here with a really nice lift in my step rather than leaving here sad that we are threatening a magnificent historical industry called the fishing industry, where people go out and work for their families on little boats, some of them big boats. So what we are saying is we have no choice; we have to swallow this poison pill and, thank God, help the people of Flint, thank the Lord. God, we should have done that a long time ago. Oh my Lord, thank you, Jim Inhofe, for your work on that. Thank you, Debbie and Gary and all the staff. But now we have a circumstance where we are saying yes to that and no to our entire industry on the entire west coast. And every single editorial in California, where--as my friend points out, the underlying bill--I have never gotten as much for California; I almost don't want to say it--26 provisions, everything from Lake Tahoe to the Salton Sea, from the Sacramento River to the San Francisco Bay, to Orange County, the Inland Empire, Republican parts of my State, Democratic parts of my State, amazing work that was done. Yet, as we pass this, which we may because of the situation, I want everyone here to understand that there are people who are shivering and shaking because they know the water they need to support their livelihood is going to be diverted away. This isn't a drought provision; this is taking water from one group that desperately needs it to sustain their business--the salmon fishery--and giving it to Big Agriculture. We all need to come together. I represent all of those interests, including urban users and rural users and suburban users and farmers and the fishery. As my friend Maria Cantwell pointed out when she had a voice this afternoon--she said: Can you really think about the long- range issue here, which is if you drive out the salmon fishermen, they are gone, and then all the water can be taken away, and they won't be there? It is so sad to do such a thing without a hearing--without a hearing. By the way, you can say anything. You can say you are saving anything. You can say it; it doesn't mean it is true. So let me say for the court record--because this is going to go to a lawsuit immediately--if you are listening and you are reading this, you can say anything. If you send a bomb over to another country and bomb the heck out of them and they say ``Wait a minute, this is an act of war,'' you can say ``No, it isn't. We said it wasn't an act of war; we are just trying to teach you a lesson.'' You can say anything. It is what you do that matters. And when you have operations language that says you must use so much water, the maximum water, even though the biological opinion says that it will destroy the fishery, this is a real problem. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I want to thank the Senator from Oregon very much. He gets it. We are united on this. We hope our colleagues hear our plea that if we can get rid of this rider, we will have a magnificent bill that was worked on by so many: my friend Jim Inhofe, myself, Senator Merkley in the committee, Senator Fischer--a beautiful bill. Why? Because we worked together. The bill had hearings, saw the light of day. Then literally, literally at the last second, a special interest rider was added. I know this was not the work of the Senate. I love my colleagues here. They did not want this done. It was done. Once it was done, we have to make a decision. You know, before I yield to Ron Wyden, what I want to say is, if you ask people on the street ``Why do you give Congress such low marks?'' people don't like us here. I personally think this is a noble profession. I am so blessed to have a chance to make life better for people. All of us feel that way. But why don't people really appreciate our work? One of the reasons is they put unrelated matters on at the last second, as Maria Cantwell said, simply because they can. This is a bill which is so wonderful for the country. Now they make it so controversial and so difficult for Members to choose. Look at my situation. I have 26 provisions in here for my State. It is magnificent for my people. But yet and still, this rider threatens the entire fishing industry of my State and thousands of jobs all up and down the west coast. For people like my friends from Michigan--they know how hard I worked. They know how hard Maria Cantwell worked to fix the problem in Flint, to replace those pipes. Yet it is in this bill. So it makes it even more cynical that such a thing was added at the end and force people to choose between helping the people of Flint and preserving the tens of thousand of fisherman jobs. This is not right. This is ridiculous and not necessary. If Mr. McCarthy is so powerful, why does he just not introduce the bill as freestanding legislation next year and let it go? But, no, it had to be done on this bill. Why? Because he could do it. I tell you, if he reads the newspaper articles and op-eds that are in every paper in my State, from Republican areas, from Democratic areas, he is not that well thought of for this. It was a big mistake. At this time, I want to yield to my colleague and friend, who, with Senator Merkley, has been an outstanding voice protecting the fishing industry in his State and the beauty of his State, Ron Wyden.

Mrs. BOXER. The Senate is not in order. I can't hear.

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I yield such time as he may consume to Senator Merkley.

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I call on Senator Merkley for as much time as he wishes. Before Maria Cantwell leaves the floor, who is suffering mightily from laryngitis, I have another editorial hot off the press from the Los Angeles Times: ``A water deal that's bad for California's environment.'' I can't tell you how proud this makes me because this means, essentially, every major paper in my State that has really stayed out of this is going in. This is a very long editorial. I will save my comments on it until later. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have the Los Angeles Times editorial printed in the Record.

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, how much time do we have remaining on our inside?

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I want to say to my friends, this is my last moment on the floor of the U.S. Senate. I already gave my farewell, and I thought that was the end of it. I find myself filibustering my own bill, which is really a bizarre way to end my career here. As I said, I always came in defending the environment, and I guess I will go out the door in the same way. I feel that this is something I have to do. The Water Resources Development Act is a beautiful bill. We are going to be voting on it. But, very sadly, at the last minute, a midnight rider was added in the House by Kevin McCarthy, which essentially, according to every fishing group in my State--and I mean every single fishing group and every single fishing group on the west coast, and that covers Oregon, Washington, California--is a major threat to their livelihood, to their future. As everybody talks about the message of this election being the protection of hard-working people, here we have a rider that is slipped in. No one even saw it but 2 hours before, and it turns out that the water the fishermen need to have a thriving business is going to be diverted away from them and done in such a way that it goes against the Endangered Species Act. You will hear people stand up and say: No, it is not true. There is a savings clause; we say no way. The fact is, when you dictate what kind of operations you are going to have in terms of moving water and you say you shall move this water and the other side has to prove it is dangerous, everybody knows where this is going. Everybody knows it is going to be impossible to save the salmon. Here we have the salmon fisheries on the west coast up in arms. Here we have a rider that doesn't even belong in the Environment and Public Works Committee. It should have been discussed with the Energy Committee. It is out of order. The question is, Are we going to vote for a beautiful bill? I just said today that I got more things in here for California than I probably should even talk about because I got so much. There are 26 different provisions for my State, from Lake Tahoe to the Salton Sea, from the L.A. River to the Sacramento Flood Control, to Orange County, to the Inland Empire. The entire State benefits from this bill, and here I stand saying to vote no, but it is because I think we have no right to put this kind of language in at the last minute and destroy an entire industry. It is not right. In addition, this particular rider takes away the right of Congress to authorize dams in all of the Western States. So, people, understand what this does. Kevin McCarthy, I guess, doesn't trust the Members of Congress to authorize new dams and says the President--whoever it is because this bill lasts 5 years--can determine where to put a dam. I don't get it. Don't we trust each other to hold hearings and decide these issues? This is what the rider does; it is devastating to the fishery. Every environmental group that I know of is strongly against it. This vote is being rated by the League of Conservation Voters, and there are chills running up and down the spine of the fishing industry. I have never seen so many editorials against any rider. They have asked me: Please, please bring this down. I am not naive, and I know votes. I know how cynical this whole thing is. Here we have a rider that does not belong on this bill. The jurisdiction was the Energy Committee. They weren't consulted. This rider never had a hearing, never saw the light of day, and was stuck on a bill that I have worked on for about 2 years. It is a beautiful bill, a terrible rider. For me to stand here, in the last breath as a Senator--not in life, I feel very strong, but as a Senator--to say to people that I worked so hard on this bill with Senator Inhofe, it is a beautiful bill; vote no on cloture. It is almost like an out-of-body experience for me, but still, I am asking you to do that. What is going to happen next year? What are they going to hold hostage next year? The people of Flint? No one worked harder for the people of Flint than Maria Cantwell and Barbara Boxer. We held up our bills until they were taken care of. We have a beautiful WRDA bill. It is not perfect, I admit it, but it is excellent. It will create a lot of jobs, and it will make sure that our water infrastructure is up to date. It has ecosystem restoration. By the way, it has a lot of drought-related, important authorizations for desalination, water recharging, water recycling, high technology to bring more water to really take care of the drought. It has it in the base bill. All of that is in the base bill. And in the dead of night comes a midnight rider, and there it sits. It is wrong. It is absolutely wrong. It is very late. We are all very tired. I am very grateful that Maria Cantwell and I, Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden were able to have some time earlier in the day to present the facts, but we wanted to go over it one more time. I know Senator Cantwell has laryngitis and is struggling with her voice, but at this time I would like to yield to her as much time as she might consume.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Without a doubt. My friend is right. It is not like we are dealing with a subject matter that has no solutions, and science has shown us the various ways to do it. Certainly underground storage is fantastic, recharging. There are all these things we know-- recycling, conservation, and desal. These are just some thoughts. My friend is right: The jurisdiction is mostly in her committee. We may have a few things to do. Wonderful. But that is not the important point. To me, the important point is here we have--and I am going to sum it up and then I will yield the floor and hope my friend will take the floor because I need to run and do 17 things, and then I will be back. Here is the situation. We have a Water Resources Development Act bill. It passed here with 95 votes. Nothing passes here with 95 votes, even saying ``Happy Mother's Day.'' It is a beautiful bill, my friend. Is it perfect? No. But it was very good. For my State, for the Senator's State, it was very good. Now, it is moving through the House, and in the middle of the night, without anyone even seeing it, this horrible poison pill amendment is added which essentially is a frontal attack on the salmon fishery and all the people who work in it not only in my State, but in the Senator's State and Oregon. So all of the Senators, save one, are apoplectic about what it means to jobs and what it means to tradition and what it means to have wild salmon. It is very important. So it is a frontal assault on the industry; it is a frontal assault on the ESA; and it is a frontal assault on the notion that there are no more earmarks. Then it has another provision cutting the Congress out of authorizing new dams in all of the Western States for the next 5 years. This is dropped from the ceiling into the WRDA bill. Now, I stand as one of the two people who did the most work on that bill saying vote no. It is very difficult for me. But I think it is absolutely a horrible process, a horrible rider. It is going to result in pain and suffering among our fishing families. With that, I thank my friend, and I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER. I say to my friend, she is so smart on this. Of course that is where we are headed. And I encourage this. If this happens and the Senator and I are not successful and this winds up to be the law of the land--a provision added in the dead of night that forces water to be operated in a certain way that violates the biological opinions on fish, that violates the science--I hope they take this to court day one. I don't care; say whatever you want: Oh, this isn't a violation of the Endangered Species Act. Really? Clearly it is. The Senator is absolutely right. Eighteen years in court over an agreement. That is another reason I am totally stunned at this. But I think it is about what my friend said--who has the most juice, who has the most power to sit down and get someone who is a Senator or a Member of the House to add language? It is a nightmare. The reason we have been obstreperous, the reason we are standing on our feet, the reason we didn't yield to other people is we are trying to make a simple point. The Senator shows it with her chart. For all the people who said we shouldn't do earmarks, this is such an incredible earmark, it actually tells the Federal Government how to operate a water project--it is extraordinary--and to walk away from a biological opinion from the science. Of course it is going to wind up in court. I hope it does. What I would rather do is beat it. What I would rather do is get it out because it is only, as my friend said, going to encourage more similar types of legislating, where people have the power and the money and the ear of a Senator to call up and say: You know what. I am having trouble in my agribusiness. I need more water. It is ridiculous. We are all suffering in this drought, I say to my friend. California is in a drought. There is a lot of rain coming down in the north, very little in the south, and I pray to God it continues. I do. We have been getting a lot of rain so far, but I don't trust it at all. There are two ways to meet this challenge. One way is to figure out a way to get more water to everyone. That means taking the salt out of water--and we do it. I have toured the desal plants, and it is very encouraging. One way is to take the salt out or put more water in the system. Another way is to recycle. Another way is conservation. Another way is water recharging. We know how to do it. The Senator is an expert. All of this is in her committee, which was bypassed. The other way to do is the wrong way to do it, which is take the side of one business group--agribusiness--versus a salmon fishery and destroy the salmon fishery. Then, as my friend points out, in years to come: Well, isn't that a shame? There are no more salmon fisheries, so we get all the water. In the meantime, we are eating farmed salmon, and all these people are out of work and their families are devastated after a way of life they have had for a very long time. So my friend is very prescient on the point, and she talks about the reality. We are here. We are not dreamers. We are realists. We know what happens in the water wars. I continue to yield to my friend.

Mrs. BOXER. My friend is very knowledgeable and very smart. People tend to look at a provision, I say to my friend, in a very narrow way. They say: Oh, what is the difference? It doesn't matter. But my friend is right on the bigger picture. If all the fishery dies and all of the jobs with the fishery die and there is no demand for the water for the fish anymore, my friend is right. That relieves the discussion. So, yes, you know what it reminds me of, I say to my friend. I don't know if she agrees with this analogy. But I remember once when they said: Let's raise the retirement age for social security because people are working longer and it will help the Social Security trust fund. Well, if you take that, my friend, to the ultimate, why don't we say people should work until they are 90? Then there won't be any Social Security problem because everyone will die before it kicks in. It is the same analogy here: You kill off all the fish and the entire salmon fishery, then all you have is agriculture demanding water, and then they will try to step on the urban users and suburban users and the rural users and say: We are the only thing that matters. And they are already using, under most analyses, 80 percent of the water in my State. So you are right. You kill off the fishery, then that is one less stakeholder to care about. You tell people ``Don't retire until you are 90,'' the Social Security trust fund will be very vibrant.

Mrs. BOXER. Well, we have no choice, because, as the Senator from Washington knows, my State gets a lot of water out of the Colorado River. It is under a lot of stress. We have a lot of problems. My heart goes out to every single stakeholder in my State. That is why I am so chagrined at this, because we all have to work together, I say to my friend, in our State. We are all suffering because we don't have the water we need. But the way to deal with it is not to slam one complete industry called the salmon fishery, which not only impacts my State but the Senator's State of Washington and Oregon was well.

Mrs. BOXER. Absolutely. What is such a joke is that my Republican friends, who were just objecting to our having an amendment to take this earmark off, always give big speeches about how Congress is putting all of these earmarks in. Well, this is a clear earmark because it is directing a project to run in a certain way and diverting water to a special interest and taking it away from the fishery. Therefore, by its very nature, it is giving a gift of water to big agribusiness and letting the salmon fishery just go under. I would say to my friend that the reason she is down here is that this is not just about California. The provision is called California drought. It is not about the drought. It doesn't cure the drought. Yes, my friend is right. Every provision, including the one about giving President-Elect Trump the right to decide where a dam will be built and taking it away from Congress, that all belongs in the jurisdiction of the Senator's committee. I am surprised Senator Murkowski isn't here because this is a direct run at her as well as the Senator from Washington.

Mrs. BOXER. Yes. I wish to yield my time to my friend. But here is what I am going to say right now. The Senator from Washington is absolutely right that this issue has been around California for a very long time. So I will yield my time to the Senator from Washington--I yield for a question. I can't yield the full time; I can yield for a question. But the answer to the other question is of course the Senator is right. She talks about the movie ``Chinatown.'' Do you know what year? I think it was the 1980s, a long time ago. I remember it well. It was about the water wars, and it resulted in people dying. It was corruption. It was about who gets the water rights. Here is the deal: Here we have our beautiful State and, as my friend knows, because of the miracle of nature, Northern California gets the water; Southern California--it has been called a desert. So we have always had a problem. When I came to the Senate, we had 18 million people, and now we have 40 million people. So we have urban users, suburban users, rural users, farmers, and fishermen. We have to learn to work together. Do we do that? Not the way Kevin McCarthy did it, which is a grab for big agriculture, which destroys the salmon fishery and is going to bring pain on the people who drink the water from the delta because it is going to have a huge salt content that has to be taken out before they can drink it. So this is the opposite of what ought to happen. I yield back to my friend for another question.

Mrs. BOXER. And Faye Dunaway, just so you know.

Mrs. BOXER. That was a good test. We can see where this is coming from, I say to my friend from Washington. All we are asking for is to go back to a bill that we worked on for almost 2 years, and now we are looking at a situation where we will be harmed in many ways by this rider. When I say ``we,'' I mean our States. We have thousands of salmon fishery jobs that will be lost. We have a frontal attack on the Endangered Species Act, which has been called out by every major environmental group in the country. We have letters from every salmon fishery organization saying that this is dangerous. Yet all we are asking for is a simple amendment to strip out a midnight rider, and the Republicans object. In that rider, it takes away the right of Congress to approve dams. So whether it is in Colorado or Wyoming or California or Washington or Oregon or Montana--and there are many other Western States--the President-elect will have the right to determine where to put a dam. He will have the ability, for the first time in history, to authorize the building of dams. And the answer comes back from those who support the rider: But Congress has to appropriate. Well, we know where that goes. I have been here a long time. All you need is a little appropriation every year, and the deal continues. So we have a circumstance on our hands. I know people in the Senate are really mad at me right now. What a perfect way for me to go out. I was a pain in the neck when I came, and I am a pain in the neck when I go.

Mrs. BOXER. Thank you. Unanimous Consent Request So on behalf of my friend from Washington and myself, I ask unanimous consent that we be allowed to offer an amendment to strip a rider that was placed on the bill by Kevin McCarthy in the House, and it is 98 pages, and it is in the House bill. It is called the California draft provision. I ask unanimous consent that we be allowed to have an amendment to strip out that language.

Mrs. BOXER. Then I would ask through the Chair, what would the appropriate language be to get unanimous consent? Is it to allow an amendment to do that? Would that be the right way to go?

Mrs. BOXER. A unanimous consent request is not in order?

Mrs. BOXER. Excuse me?