Pete Domenici

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. It says Senator Boxer be recognized to offer her first amendment. Finally, I ask unanimous consent that following the debate on the above listed amendments--it does not say her second amendment.

Mr. DOMENICI. All right.

Mr. DOMENICI. That is about right.

Mr. DOMENICI. I don't see anyone here who wants to argue in opposition to you. We have already voted. I know the Senator from New York has great, innovative capacity and that he has proudly come up with an amendment the likes of which the Senate has never seen or heard, but I have an inclination that it is similar to what we have voted heretofore; I don't believe it has been offered to do anything other than cause significant mischief to the ethanol bill which is before the Senate, which I understand has very broad support. So my argument would merely be, in all deference, to suggest that enough is enough, and just as we voted heretofore in opposition to the other amendments, we follow suit and vote against the amendment of the distinguished Senator from New York. I only used 3 minutes and I yield back any other time in opposition. I thank the Senator for being generous in only using a small amount of the Senate's time this evening. I do mean the latter seriously.

Mr. DOMENICI. I am so thrilled. That is the first act of generosity that has occurred with reference to the chairman, who has been trying to get this bill completed. I am very thrilled. Tomorrow we will have three votes, as I indicated, starting sometime after 10 o'clock. They will all be on ethanol. We have a bill with all kinds of things in it and we will just be finishing the subject matter of both votes on ethanol. I do thank the minority managers for their efforts, in particular Senator Reid, in trying to narrow down the number of amendments on the Democratic side, which they have done. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent amendment No. 840 be temporarily set aside.

Mr. DOMENICI. On behalf of the majority leader and minority leader and other Senators listed, I send to the desk the ethanol amendment and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, for the benefit of the Senate, we are now back on the Energy bill. The pending business is the ethanol amendment. We did dispose of two amendments yesterday. I am hopeful we will not have to redo them, however there is going to be another amendment, at least one, perhaps two, on the ethanol amendment. But in the meantime, the distinguished Republican whip has requested that he be permitted to speak for 5 minutes as in morning business. I make that request in his behalf.

Mr. DOMENICI. I ask the Chair get order in the Senate so he can be heard.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I know there are many Senators who have plenty to do besides being concerned about this Energy bill on the floor of the Senate. But I want to say for some of us that the Energy Policy Act is a very important subject. The committee has worked very hard. We don't claim to have a perfect bill, but we claim to have a bill that deserves the consideration of the Senate. For all those Senators who want to review the bill and haven't, I hope they will start. For those who have amendments and haven't reduced them to writing, I hope they get going. For those who have questions about the bill, we are going to be here working on it--both the minority whip and Senator Bingaman. His staff is adequate in numbers and capacity and will be available, as will mine. With that in mind, we are back to the point where we have set aside the LIHEAP issue that came about yesterday--the issue with reference to the jurisdiction of the different LIHEAP provisions that we wanted to have in this bill where the chairman of the Committee on Health and Human Resources desires that it not be on the bill but rather be returned to his committee for jurisdictional consideration. That will be taken up later. We are now back to ethanol. Yesterday we had two votes. They were very heavily debated for a long period of time. In each instance both failed. In each instance 60 votes or more were obtained on the side of supporting the bill, which is not just a Republican or Democrat bill. It is a bill put together by Democrats and Republicans, and all kinds of different leadership groups in this country that are concerned about our future in terms of dependence upon oil and its derivatives; those who are concerned about agricultural products and the fact that we produce so much more than we need and that the price is constantly a problem both to the Government because of its support programs and to the farmer because it is difficult to make a living. Those who are concerned about rural America see this bill as a potential for the injection of tremendous amounts of real investments and real jobs and capital into all parts of rural America because facilities will have to be built that will cost billions of dollars in order to comply with the requirements of this national mandate for ethanol use. The mandate is a good mandate. It is a national mandate. It is a mandate that says by a year certain we will be using certain quantities of ethanol in our petroleum products that feed the gasoline tanks, and thus the automobiles and trucks of America that use gasoline and diesel fuel. I am sure there are additional amendments on this issue. I merely wanted to recap for the Senate where we are. I also wish to say that while we have been on this bill for a number of days, it appears that the only amendments are those that pertain to ethanol. I know there are more. I implore Senators, I beg them, if they have amendments, let us get them ready and bring them down here. Who knows, they may have winners. They may have a much better approach to energy independence in this bill. We stand ready to accommodate and get them before the Senate and get the votes on them as soon as possible. What I understand the situation to be now, so the Senators will understand, is that the distinguished minority manager, the junior Senator from New Mexico, has an amendment on ethanol. I understand that when he is finished, the distinguished Senator from New York has an amendment. He told the Senator from New Mexico that he would follow the amendment of the Senator from New Mexico. I hope that will be the case. If he comes forth, we will not have one vote at a time but rather back- to-back votes. There appears to be a couple of other amendments that may be offered before the day is out. Then I suggest that as many Senators as possible begin to try to figure out what they want to do with this bill. I know there are Senators who have not had a chance to make up their mind about amendments but I ask that they do that. Actually, there are many of us who want to get an Energy bill. We think the remainder of this week, clear through Friday, and all of next week ought to be sufficient time to get this done. Some do not think so but I surmise that if we tried, and we had amendments going most of the day, with votes taking place each day, we would be surprised how soon we would get this bill completed. Having said that, I yield the floor to my distinguished fellow Senator from New Mexico, Mr. Bingaman.

Mr. DOMENICI. Will the Senator join me in asking for the yeas and nays on his amendment?

Mr. DOMENICI. Let me ask, does Senator Reid know if there is another Senator who has an amendment?

Mr. DOMENICI. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DOMENICI. Should we put Nickles on the list? We think he will come off.

Mr. DOMENICI. Might we do it this way, so there will be a bit of finality. It is 10 minutes to 5. Could we enter into an agreement that that is it, unless some Senator contacts you or Senator Bingaman or myself by 5 o'clock?

Mr. DOMENICI. That is plenty, 10 minutes. At 5:30?

Mr. DOMENICI. For now we are going with the fact this is all we are aware of. We hope Senators understand we are perilously close to making that a consent agreement but we have not yet, just in deference to somebody who might still come up with a new idea regarding this subject.

Mr. DOMENICI. I understand. To give her a little more time, I understand we could have two votes. What we will tell the Senate shortly, about LIHEAP, which may meet with your approval, Senator Bingaman--the idea would be to bring it back immediately following a vote on your amendment. It would make the pending business the LIHEAP amendments, both of them, at which time we would have a vote on the Domenici amendment that was offered in behalf of the chairman of the committee, and there would be a vote. Immediately following that vote there would be a vote, if required, on the LIHEAP amendment.

Mr. DOMENICI. The Gregg amendment, yes.

Mr. DOMENICI. Right.

Mr. DOMENICI. I wonder if we could agree to vote on the Bingaman amendment and then say, when that vote has been completed and we finish it, there would be 10 minutes for debate, at which time I will give 5 of that to the Senator you just described, for her discussion, or 10, whatever you would like, after which we would have a vote? That gives you what you need and it sets up at least two votes and a disposition of your LIHEAP.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate be in a period of morning business and Senators be permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I commend the distinguished majority whip for his eloquent statement today and compliment him on his persistence with reference to the cause of freedom and democracy in Burma.