Thad Cochran

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on Thursday, October 30, 2003, at 2:00 p.m., on ``Monopsony Issues in Agriculture: Buying Power of Processors in Our Nation's Agricultural Markets,'' in the Dirksen Senate Office Building Room 226. Witness list: ``Monopsony Issues in Agriculture: Buying Power of Processors in Our Nation's Agricultural Markets'' Thursday, October 30, 2003, 2:00 p.m., SD-226. Panel I: The Honorable R. Hewitt Pate, Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC. Panel II: Dr. Dee Von Bailey, Professor and Extension Economist, Department of Economics, Utah State University, Logan, UT; Dr. Ronald W. Cotterill, Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT; Professor Peter Carstensen, George H. Young-Bascom Professor of Law, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison,

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, October 30, 2003 at 2:30 p.m. to hold a sub committee hearing on Combating Transnational Crime & Corruption in Europe.

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 30, 2003, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on ``The Treasury's Department's Report to Congress on International Economic and Exchange Rate Policy.''

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet on October 30, 2003, at 10 a.m., on universal service.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Subcommittee on Children and Families and Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on African Affairs be authorized to meet for a hearing on ``A Morale Imperative: Frist Report on the HIV/AIDS Codel to Africa'' during the session of the Senate on Thursday, October 30, 2003, at 3 p.m., in S211.

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. I move to reconsider the vote by which the bill was passed.

Mr. COCHRAN. I move to reconsider the vote

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield, we have a few other amendments being discussed. We think we will be able to clear them. Discussions are underway. Other than those two amendments, I don't think any other amendment will require a vote.

Mr. COCHRAN. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the motion to table was agreed to.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I call up my amendment which is at the desk.

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

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, this is an amendment containing technical changes to the bill and amendments in behalf of the following Senators: Senator Collins, Senators Corzine and Specter, Senator Cantwell, Senator Leahy, Senators Lugar and Harkin, Senator Ensign, and Senator Allard, all of which have been approved by the managers on both sides.

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, Charles Pickering has been subjected to the most intense and thorough scrutiny that I can remember any judicial nominee enduring since I have been in the U.S. Senate. After all of his opinions as a United States district judge have been read and reread and dissected, this is what the record shows. In 13 years on the Federal bench, he has demonstrated a sense of fairness and good judgment that has reflected credit on the Federal judiciary. He has become known throughout our State as someone who is above reproach, who is totally honest and honorable, and who applies the law without regard to race, creed, or ethnicity in an intelligent, thoughtful, and sensible manner. He is widely respected as a United States district judge. I have no doubt that if confirmed by the Senate, he will serve with distinction and dedication on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Before he became a Federal judge, Charles Pickering served ably in the Mississippi State Senate and was the chairman of the Mississippi Republican Party. He was elected county prosecuting attorney after he had been engaged in the practice of law for only 2 years. When Charles Pickering was nominated to serve on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi in 1990, he was approved unanimously by the Senate Judiciary Committee. And he was confirmed unanimously by the U.S. Senate. As U.S. district court judge, he has become one of the highest rated judges in the Nation. Judge Pickering has received the highest rating from the American Bar Association. He has a lower reversal rate than both the national and Fifth Circuit average. Mr. President, 99.5 percent of his cases have been affirmed or not appealed. Of those cases that have been appealed, Judge Pickering has only a 7.9-percent reversal rate, which is 20-percent lower than the national average of the Department of Justice, and two times lower than the average district court judge in the Fifth Circuit. He has been endorsed by the current president and the past 17 presidents of the Mississippi State Bar. He is endorsed by all of the major newspapers in Mississippi. He has also been endorsed by all of our State government officials who were elected statewide, including the Democrats who serve as Governor, attorney general, and secretary of state. The people who know Charles Pickering the best are the residents of my State, and they overwhelmingly support his confirmation as a court of appeals judge. It is time to end this effort to discredit and demean this good man. It is time for the Senate to do what is right and confirm this well- qualified and honorable nominee.

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from New Mexico for this suggested change to the bill. It actually could be argued it is duplicative of a provision that is already in the bill at the request of Senator Wyden and Senator Feinstein, but it is not wholly inconsistent. We think it can be worked into the bill and will not cause confusion, so I am prepared to recommend that the Senate accept the amendment. I hope the Senate will vote for the amendment.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I am advised this amendment would really be a recipe for gridlock in that it mandates new requirements for the Forest Service as well as the Bureau of Land Management--processes they have to carry out and go through before they can engage in any fuel treatment processes. It would require the Forest Service, for example, to prepare a plan for treatment of slash that contains all of the information and data specified in the amendment of the Senator from New Mexico. It opens up the Forest Service to legal challenges if someone has the opinion that the plan is inadequate for some reason. It forces the Forest Service to set up a new system for tracking the implementation of fuels treatment projects, and any followup treatments to them. The amendment would add new reporting processes to hazardous fuel work. The amendment calls for the development of a plan which is already required but requires the agencies to develop multiyear treatment plans and report on those plans on an annual basis. The whole purpose of this legislation is to try to help simplify and get the work done that needs to be done to reduce the chances of devastating fires like we have seen in California, to manage the forests in a more effective way, a safer way, for those who live in those areas, and to get more done in terms of enhancing survivability from insect infestation and generally improve the overall health of our national forest resources. The Forest Service is going to end up spending more time, the Bureau of Land Management as well, in their offices working on plans, than out doing the work that they were actually hired to do under existing legislation. This amendment is, as I have said before, a recipe for gridlock. I urge that the amendment be opposed. I don't know of any other Senators who wish to speak on the amendment. I will be prepared to move to table the amendment when those who want to speak have been heard.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that, notwithstanding the order previously entered, the distinguished Senator from Maine be recognized up to 10 minutes.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Maine for her contribution to the legislation we have before us today. She has been a leader in this effort, and we always appreciate the opportunity of working with her. I thank her for her kind comments as well.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, the Senator from Nevada is exactly correct in the fact that we are going to have to have more cooperation to move this bill along. We agreed before this vote that we could cut off votes after 20 minutes. We had the endorsement of that by the majority leader. But because Senators were on their way to vote and people told us they were on their way to vote, the vote dragged out longer than that. I hope Senators will cooperate with the managers of the bill and leadership and let's get here and vote when the buzzer sounds and not wait until the last minute. These votes are going to be cut short. I hope everyone will cooperate with us.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, after looking at this amendment, I see it clearly increases mandatory spending and, if adopted, would cause the underlying bill to exceed the committee's section 302(a) allocation. Therefore, I raise a point of order against the amendment pursuant to section 302(f) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

Mr. COCHRAN. I ask for the yeas and nays on that.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, let me compliment the distinguished acting leader. He correctly states the content of the conversation that we had which included the majority leader. The custom, in recent history anyway, has been to accumulate amendments and then have the votes stacked to occur at a certain time. That is well and good, if you know how many amendments you have. We don't have a finite list of amendments. That is one thing we need. If Senators would let us know which amendments they intend to offer, we can probably manage this bill more efficiently and save time for everybody. We want to finish the bill tonight. That is my intention. I think that is the intention of the acting Democratic leader as well. The regular order is, if you have an amendment, come and offer it. We will debate it and dispose of it. We will give you a vote on it and move to table it or we will accept it. Senator Bingaman is here with an amendment. It is an important amendment. I understand that he is going to seek the floor and offer that amendment. We will debate it and dispose of it. I very much thank the two leaders for their effort to help move this bill along and ensure that the votes we have are held to a minimum amount of time. We are going to try to enforce that. I thank everybody concerned.