Pete Domenici

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, we are trying to work on this issue for a couple of minutes. It will not take us long. 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 President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.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. I yield to the Senator from Massachusetts.

Mr. DOMENICI. I understand the primary sponsor and those cosponsoring it will accept a voice vote. Is that the case?

Mr. DOMENICI. I say to the distinguished Senators who offered the amendment, I think their intentions are wonderful, but essentially all we are doing is adding more money to the appropriated accounts. No matter what anybody says it is going to be used for, it will not be used for that; it will be used for what the appropriators say. With that in mind, we accept the amendment if they do not insist on a vote.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, we are going to try to take up six amendments here--three on our side, three on their side. They do not affect the appropriations, total appropriations, because they are offset within the budget, each one, for the amount that is being sought. Can we proceed with Senator Smith, No. 217, in that regard? Is there objection to that?

Mr. DOMENICI. 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. DOMENICI. If the Senator is willing, I would like to do them en bloc.

Mr. DOMENICI. Have we accepted 217?

Mr. DOMENICI. The five amendments I ask be called up and then be considered en bloc for voice vote are Inhofe No. 334, DeWine No. 236, Dorgan No. 196, Mikulski No. 244, and Nelson of Florida No. 335.

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

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, last night we called up amendment No. 237, the Grassley amendment. We agreed to it and then withdrew it. It has now been corrected technically. It was agreed to last night, and we ask that it now be agreed to without a vote.

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

Mr. DOMENICI. We yield back any time in favor of the amendment.

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

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I wish to announce to everyone that we are down to three amendments on our side. There are a few more than that on the other side. I wonder if we could have just a little bit of time. I think it would permit us to work out a number of these. I am going to put in a quorum call. I think it might last as long as 10 or 15 minutes for those who are interested. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. DOMENICI. First, I want to say to the Senate, we are getting very close. We only have about four amendments on each side. We think we can work them out. And if not, we would not have more than three or four votes on what we have remaining. We need some time to work on modifying these amendments to make them acceptable, in most cases. So we can do that properly, we need until about 12:30. We have consulted with the leadership. I ask unanimous consent that we now stand in recess until 12:30. Mr. CONRAD addressed the Chair.

Mr. DOMENICI. From what I can tell, we need the time now to do some work. We can't move ahead with any dispatch now. We would like this time to work on it. There is no outside reason for this. It is our reason, internal to our work.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. The Senator is correct. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DOMENICI. Let's make it sound better and say we thought we had given it to the Senator but perhaps we did not.

Mr. DOMENICI. We have no objection to the amendment.

Mr. DOMENICI. This is a zero effect amendment. It affects the Bureau of Reclamation without affecting the budget in any way. It is a neutral amendment.

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