Bill Frist

Mr. FRIST

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of the Democratic leader, our colleagues from both Iowa and Massachusetts. It gives me an opportunity to make it clear. My belief both in the science, the potential--we have to be careful not to overpromise. I know my colleagues are aware of that. As a physician, you never overpromise and give false hope. You have to be very careful. On the other hand, I understand the huge promise of this science, the proven therapies of adult stem cells, as well as these magnificent embryonic stem cells. Unfortunately, the only way you can obtain them is from the destruction of the blastocyst. That is the ethical issue everybody struggles with. As majority leader, people come to me all the time and have this discussion in a very personal way, about the complexities and the advancing science coming together in a nexus that we are going to increasingly have to face in this Chamber. Both of my colleagues who have spoken this morning have been real leaders in that field. I, in the last 2 months, have said we have a responsibility to come back and review policy--policy where you have advancing science. You have moral considerations for each one of us, but that is our responsibility. As individuals, we have different feelings, but as a body politic, this body needs to address them. Now, in doing that, I have put on the table, as leader and in discussions with the Democratic leader for the last 6 weeks, the opportunity to address the Castle bill, H.R. 810, which passed the House, and bring it to the Senate floor free of amendments. The bill is not written very well. It doesn't have the ethical construct that I believe we absolutely need. So I think the bill is not ideal. But to give the opportunity to have a vote on that bill, to give the opportunity to have a vote on the cord blood bill, which is proven therapy--and cord blood can be used, and bone marrow transplants are used right now for thousands of people. That is adult stem cells. Then to address the newer science, which is too preliminary but gets through a lot of ethical issues--right now, to get the stem cells, it requires the destruction of the embryo. There is a science out there that is preliminary but promising, and maybe you don't have to destroy embryos to get these cells. That really has been developed in talking to scientists, and that deserves consideration on the floor as well because it gets beyond all the ethical considerations. As we said, let's get clean shots on these three bills so everybody can express themselves and see where the votes are. Others have come forward, and my colleague from Kansas says he cannot agree to that, to giving these bills up-or-down votes on the floor without the consideration also of another very important bill, and that is the cloning bill, which is an element a little bit outside of just the developing embryos and the destruction of embryos. So I put that offer on the table after discussion with the Democratic leader. With that, other people have their individual bills. That is why we are not addressing it right now, because I have not been able to get unanimous consent to do that. What I hope both of my colleagues and others recognize is that I believe, as leader, it is an important issue that has to be addressed by this body. It needs ongoing review, and I am trying to do just that. I have been denied that by the body thus far. To bring up a bill and pass it today, which strikes at the moral and ethical fundamentals of each and every one of us, and try to just take that single bill--or just two bills through without respecting my colleagues, I just cannot do that. I look forward to working with both of my colleagues on this important issue, which I believe needs to be addressed.

Mr. FRIST. I am happy to respond.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I understand there is a technical drafting error in the Craig amendment No. 1605, and I would therefore ask unanimous consent that amendments 1605 and 1606 be modified with the changes at the desk. I would note that these are technical changes only.

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

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I will go through the whole schedule shortly, if I can get through the unanimous consent request. Very briefly, we will have a rollcall vote on CAFTA in about 30 minutes, 25 minutes. Whenever we finish that, it would be the last rollcall vote tonight. We will begin voting again tomorrow.

Mr. FRIST. I have two further unanimous consent requests, and then we can review everything.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, for the last 30 minutes or so, we have been putting together an orderly way to address several issues: the underlying bill, the gun liability bill; CAFTA; and the energy report, which we received from the House. I know a lot of our colleagues are wondering about voting both tonight--we will have one more vote tonight, and I will go through the request--and then we will have a very busy day tomorrow. We will be here late tonight as well. Mr. President, first of all, I will be addressing the issue on gun liability.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 792 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a Dorgan substitute amendment at the desk be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read a third time, passed, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements related to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, through the Chair, in response, let me work out with the Democratic leader what time those votes will be.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, or we could even be before. We could actually come on those amendments before as well.

Mr. FRIST. That is correct. We will determine that before we close down tonight.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9 a.m. on Friday, July 29; 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 proceed to the consideration of the conference report to accompany H.R. 2361, the Interior appropriations bill, as under the previous order. I further ask that following the use or yielding back of the time on the Interior conference report, it be temporarily set aside and the Senate proceed to the conference report to accompany H.R. 2985, the Legislative Branch appropriations bill, as under the previous order.

Mr. FRIST. I further ask unanimous consent that the Senate then resume consideration of the Energy conference report and there be 30 minutes equally divided for closing remarks between the chairman and ranking member or their designees with all of the provisions of the previous consent remaining.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following the CAFTA vote, the Senate proceed to the conference report to accompany H.R. 6, the energy legislation; provided further that there be 3 hours equally divided between the chairman and ranking member or their designees. I further ask consent that following the use or yielding back of time, Senator Feingold be recognized in order to raise a Budget Act point of order and that Senator Domenici or his designee be immediately recognized in order to make a motion to waive the respective point of order. I further ask consent that if the point of order is waived, the Senate then proceed immediately to a vote on the adoption of the conference report with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, a quick review of what we have just done.

Mr. FRIST. All right, Mr. President.

Mr. FRIST. All right, Mr. President.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. 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. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, tomorrow the Senate will complete consideration of the conference reports to accompany the Interior appropriations bill, the Legislative Branch appropriations bill, the Energy bill, and the highway bill. The Senate will also complete action on the gun liability bill with an agreement that was reached this evening. As my colleagues can see, we will have a very busy day tomorrow with rollcall votes throughout. We should be able to complete our business tomorrow. I expect that we will. Again, it will be a very busy day. Senators should remain close to the Chamber throughout the day so that we can proceed in an orderly way for what could be up to 13 votes during tomorrow's session.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, this morning we will begin with a period of morning business for 60 minutes. Following that time, we will resume consideration of S. 397, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms legislation. Senator Kohl has an amendment pending related to trigger locks, and there will be an hour of debate on that amendment prior to the vote. That vote should begin before noon, in the next 2\1/2\ hours. The managers will continue to work through the day to see what additional amendments are ready for votes. The cloture vote could be as early as 1 a.m. Friday morning. We haven't set the vote for that time. I mention that early hour only to highlight the fact that we have so much work to do. We have conference reports, the gun liability bill, nominations, all of which we need to accomplish before we leave for the recess. We have the Interior appropriations conference report that has the veterans health money in it that we have addressed before. We have the energy conference report, which I believe is very close; the highway conference report, which has not been filed yet but which will be hopefully later today. We have the Legislative appropriations conference report. Once we address the pending bill, we can hopefully expedite completion of all of the remaining measures prior to the August break. I will be working with the Democratic leader to schedule these important items over the next couple of days.

Mr. FRIST. I am happy to yield.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, in response to our distinguished colleague from Massachusetts, there have been several filed amendments. I mentioned 1 o'clock today because then we will have the whole universe of filed amendments. We are going to proceed and have a rollcall vote on the trigger lock amendment before noon today, and then we need to look at each of the amendments. Including the amendments mentioned, Senator Levin has an amendment, Senator Lautenberg, and the Senator from Massachusetts has filed two amendments. We will be looking at those amendments over the course of the day.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, reserving the right to object. The issue of support for stem cell research is one that I believe deserves examination by this body. Stem cell research itself is very promising. I ran a very large multidisciplinary transplant center, and part of that was a transplant arm that transplanted literally hundreds of people with cord blood--or with bone marrow transplants, which is very similar to using cord blood, which one of the bills addresses. Passage of that bill would extend that therapy--which is with adult stem cells--with the variance of cord blood. I agree that passage of that bill would help hundreds of people by establishing registries that could be easily accessed. H.R. 810, Calendar No. 119, the stem cell research bill--the bill the Democratic leader mentioned--is also a bill that I believe should be addressed in this body. It is a bill that has passed the House of Representatives in a bipartisan way. In trying to address those two bills, I have extended to both sides of the aisle the opportunity to have clean up-or-down votes on those bills, as well as a fascinating new arena of research--very promising-- that gives an alternative not to the Castle bill or the H.R. 810 bill, but an alternative where you don't have to destroy embryos at all, with the opportunity to develop what are called pluripotential stem cells, or embryonic-like stem cells, which also should be addressed. Thus, my proposal has been to address the cord blood bill, H.R. 810, the alternative new research, where embryos do not have to be destroyed; a cloning bill, Senator Brownback's bill; and a bone marrow bill. I have been unsuccessful in trying to bring that to the Senate floor. There are concerns on our side of the aisle about that approach--having clean votes on these bills. I am not going to give up on the stem cell issue because the research is hugely promising. I think, although each of us has individual thoughts about the potential of stem cells and the moral and ethical issues around stem cells, it deserves our body politic addressing the issue. So with that, I will continue to address the issue. I hope that after we come back over the recess, we will be able to address the issue. I do object to the unanimous consent request, as we finish over the last 48 hours with our business on the floor of the Senate.