Bill Frist

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 382, which was submitted earlier today.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider laid upon the table.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Yes.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, today the Senate will adjourn for the Presidents Day recess. When we reconvene on Monday, February 27, we will resume consideration of the PATRIOT Act amendments bill, and under the agreement reached this week, we will have a vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the bill at 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, February 28, and a vote on passage at 10 a.m. the following day, on Wednesday. The vote on Tuesday will be the first vote of the week. I thank Senator Salazar for today's reading of George Washington's Farewell Address. This tradition has been long-standing. It began in 1892 and became an annual event in the Senate beginning in 1893. Ever since that point in time, we celebrate Washington's birthday with the reading of the 7,641-word address, and the address has been made available to each of our colleagues. I have had the opportunity to read that 7,641-word address. It means a lot to be able to share those words which have been so meaningful and such a tremendous tradition for this body and our heritage and, speaking very directly to the future as well, the tradition that we will continue to pass on and respect.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in adjournment following the remarks of my distinguished colleague from Virginia.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in adjournment under the provisions of H. Con. Res. 345 until 2 p.m. on Monday, February 27. 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 that the Senate then conduct a period for the transaction of morning business until 3 p.m., with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each. I further ask that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of S. 2271, the PATRIOT Act amendments bill, as under the previous order.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I send a second-degree amendment to the desk.

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

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I send a cloture motion on the bill to the desk.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its consideration.

Mr. FRIST. I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, the actions just taken, coupled with the agreement we came to last night, set out a sequence I will review later today. We will have final passage once we get back from the recess. I am very disappointed in the fact that on a bill I know will pass overwhelmingly, by 90 to 10 or 95 to 5, it has been required of us from the other side of the aisle to be here all day yesterday, today, tomorrow, through the recess, Monday when we get back, Tuesday when we get back, and final passage on Wednesday morning, when we know what the outcome will be. It bothers me in two regards. First of all, it is a very important piece of legislation. It breaks down and further defines that rough relationship between our law enforcement community and our intelligence community. It is an important tool for the safety and security of the American people and the protection of civil liberties. The bill has been improved and will be overwhelmingly supported. Secondly, I am disappointed because it means that we effectively have to put off other important business before this body with this postponement and this delay, issues that are important, that are immediate, that need to be addressed. The issue of lobbying reform is underway, and we need to address that on the floor sometime in the near future, such as the issues of LIHEAP and heating, flood insurance, a whole range of bills. It also plays into what has been this pattern of postponement and delay and obstruction. If you look back at what we finished yesterday, the asbestos bill, we were forced to file cloture on the motion to proceed, which delays, in essence, for 3 days, consideration of that bill. We had debate for a day, with the other side encouraging not to take amendments on that day, allowing 2 days for amendments, but, in effect, spending 2 weeks on a bill on which we could have been moving much quicker. Another example--I mentioned it last night in closing--is the pensions bill, a bill that passed this body on November 16, 2005, last year, 3 months ago. We asked the Democrats to appoint conferees on December 15 of last year. We renewed that request on February 1. We have been prepared. We have our conferees ready to go. We know what the ratio is, but we still have not been able to send that important bill to conference. In that regard, I wanted to formally, again, make another request, but we absolutely must begin that conference. Unanimous-Consent Request--H. R. 2830 Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 357, H.R. 2830, that all after the enacting clause be stricken and the text of S. 1783, as passed by the Senate, be inserted thereof, that the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, the Senate insist upon its amendment and request a conference with the House, and the Chair be authorized to appoint conferees at a ratio of 7 to 5.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, the issue is an important one because of the time constraints that were outlined by my colleague from Mississippi. This is something we have to work through. It is pretty simple, pretty straightforward, as my colleague from Mississippi said. We just went through appointing the conferees for the tax reconciliation bill. I had on the floor here a few minutes ago three different people who passionately wanted to be conferees--who worked on it, who deserve to be, yet they are not. Part of leadership is basically saying no. Seven to five is a reasonable number that many people think is too large. Seven to five is what it will be. I am hopeful that over the next few hours we can come to some resolution and appoint conferees. The House is ready to go to conference. We are ready. We asked to go to conference on December 15 of last year, yet we are not to conference. This is a specific problem. Both the Democratic leader and I have talked about this for days, that we both have challenges, but it is something that is pretty straightforward. The bill has been passed, it is ready to go to conference, is addressing a major problem facing people across America, and we need to address it.

Mr. FRIST. Let's decide within the next hour. With the schedule, I know there is still going to be an effort to offer amendments and the like. Why don't we get together and have some sort of announcement shortly to our colleagues.

Mr. FRIST. I object.

Mr. FRIST

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

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, a few moments ago the minority leader was on the floor following up on a discussion that we had had earlier today. I would like to take a moment to respond to his request regarding the pension reform bill conference committee. It looks as though we will have to continue to discuss this over the next 24 hours because we have not made very much progress on a bill that is critically important to the safety and security of the American people. It is being postponed for no good reason. That is what it boils down to. These feeble attempts to explain why we keep putting the bill off are unacceptable at this point. We have to go back to the time line because the facts do speak for themselves. The Senate passed the pension reform bill on November 16 of last year. So that is--November, December, January, February--almost 3 months ago exactly, or close to it. It was passed by a vote of 97 to 2. Almost all of our colleagues in here, 97 to 2, voted for this bill. The House passed its bill about a month later, on December 15. They passed it overwhelmingly, 294 to 132. Shortly after the House passed the bill, we proposed going to conference with a ratio of 7 to 5. That was back in December. It took the other side of the aisle until yesterday to respond. It looks as if it is, again, a pattern of delay and obstruction. They have had over 2 months to broach this concern and resolve the dispute within their caucus as to who would serve on this conference. Our side had to make tough choices, as we talked about this morning. My colleague from Mississippi and another colleague who wasn't on the floor spoke to me thereafter and said: Why wasn't I on that tax reconciliation bill conference? Yesterday, we appointed conferees--two from our side of the aisle and one from their side of the aisle, a total of three. To make these decisions, it takes leadership and calls for leadership just to say this is going to be the number, and let's proceed ahead, and with both the Republican and Democratic caucuses we have to make tough choices and tell our colleagues that not everybody can serve on every conference committee. It may be that there is a legitimate dispute on the other side of the aisle about who should get to serve. But, again, I question this pattern of obstruction and delay and postponement. This may well be another instance of election year delays to slow down the legislative process and try to attempt to keep us from governing in a responsible way. If there is a legitimate disagreement about who they should get to serve on their side of the aisle, I have a proposal that might resolve that matter. We can talk about it tomorrow. I would propose appointing six Democratic conferees, which would address their problem, and nine Republican conferees. This should more than accommodate the request of the Democratic leader, while allowing us to maintain equal representation of the two committees, the HELP Committee and the Finance Committee, which have jurisdiction of this bill. In the meantime, as we discuss and debate this issue, the clock is ticking. We need to appoint conferees right away because, as was explained earlier on the floor today, the first quarter of the fiscal year ends on March 31. Within 2 weeks of that happening, companies have to make contributions to their pension plans. If we don't go ahead and pass comprehensive pension plan reform before then, those contributions may result in bankrupting those companies. So I close with simply saying that time is of the essence. We cannot delay. We need to act now to once and for all get this done, to get to conference so that we can resolve the issues on this particular bill. Mr. President, in direct response to a number of issues that have been raised on the bill on the floor right now, the PATRIOT Act, I have a few comments to make. Once again we have a slow-walking of the policymaking process on the floor. We are slow-walking the PATRIOT Act, a bill that we absolutely know will make this country safer and more secure--an improved bill. Tuesday night, cloture was filed on the motion to proceed to S. 2271, which is a stalling tactic or a filibustering tactic. On the USA PATRIOT Act Additional Reauthorizing Amendments Act of 2006, which is the formal name of this important bill, we had to file cloture because otherwise this bill will continue to be filibustered and postponed indefinitely. Today, we invoked cloture. I think the vote was 96 to 3; I believe that is correct. That shows there is overwhelming support for this bill. I think that reflects what should be the reality, and that is that this bill is going to pass with overwhelming majority support. Yet we have, in essence, wasted yesterday and today, tomorrow, Monday, and Tuesday, until we are allowed to vote on this bill Wednesday morning following the break. Once again, the other side seems to be throwing up roadblock after roadblock, demanding unnecessary procedural steps to slow down, to hinder reauthorization of what law enforcement has described as its No. 1 terrorist-fighting tool, the PATRIOT Act. If the delays in any way would change the outcome or alter the outcome, I could understand it, but that is simply not the case. The outcome of this bill is not in any doubt. The PATRIOT Act will pass with overwhelming bipartisan support. It is just being delayed for delay's sake and, to me, that is simply unacceptable. The American people, unfortunately, pay a price for all of this in two ways. First of all, the improved PATRIOT Act, which strengthens that ability to remove those burdens between the law enforcement and intelligence act, is one dimension. Second is, all the pressing issues of securing America's freedom, America's health, improving education, promoting progrowth policy to increase and promote the prosperity of America, all of that gets pushed off to the future. The original PATRIOT Act passed with overwhelming, near unanimous support in its original version. We know it has been instrumental in the successful tracking and arrest of key terrorist figures. Just last week, we learned how, in 2002, a terror plan to hijack a commercial airliner and fly it into the Los Angeles Library Tower was thwarted. Authorities discovered that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, had recruited a suicide hijacking cell to bring down the 73-story skyscraper--the tallest building on the West Coast. Authorities were able to hunt down and capture Khalid Sheik Mohammed, along with his accomplice, Hambali, the leader in al-Qaida, in Southeast Asia, the leader of the terrorist cell, and three of its terrorist members. It was a tremendous victory in the war on terror, and it saved countless innocent lives. But it also reminded us that our enemies are ruthless. It reminded us that they are determined to kill scores of Americans, hundreds of Americans, right here on American soil. They are determined to exploit any weakness or slip through any potential loophole. We cannot let our guard down. We must never, ever let our guard down. We have to stay on the offensive. On 9/11, the enemy was able to allude law enforcement, in part, because our agencies weren't able to share key intelligence information. That is why, within 6 weeks of the attacks on America, Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act with overwhelming bipartisan support. It was near unanimous. The vote was 98 Senators voting in favor. The PATRIOT Act went to work immediately, tearing down the information wall between agencies, and it allowed the intelligence community and law enforcement to work more closely in pursuit of terrorists and their activities. Since then, it has been highly effective in tracking down terrorists and making America safer. Because of the PATRIOT Act, the United States has charged over 400 suspected terrorists. More than half of them have already been convicted. Law enforcement has broken up terrorist cells all across the country, from New York to California, Virginia, down to Florida. In San Diego, officials were able to use the PATRIOT Act to investigate and prosecute several suspects in an al-Qaida drug-for- weapons plot. The investigation led to several guilty pleas. The PATRIOT Act also allowed prosecutors and investigators to crack the Virginia jihad case involving 11 men who had trained for jihad in Northern Virginia in Pakistan and in Afghanistan. We need to continue to provide these tools to track and foil terrorist plots before harm can be done to innocent Americans. The PATRIOT Act has been debated thoroughly. It has been negotiated. It has been drafted, and it has been redrafted again. It is time to bring this process to a close. The bill before us is the result of sincere, good-faith efforts and builds on the work that was accomplished last year to renew the PATRIOT Act. It strengthens our civil liberties protections as well as the core antiterrorist safeguards that have been so critical in fighting the war on terror. In 2006, the USA PATRIOT Act, as written, once passed, will help us to combat terrorist financing and money laundering, protect our mass transportation systems and railways from attacks such as the one on the London subway last summer, and to secure our seaports. It will help us fight methamphetamine drug abuse, America's No. 1 drug problem today, by restricting access to the ingredients used to make that poisonous drug, methamphetamines. So the question before us now is pretty straightforward. It is simple. Why delay all of these provisions any longer? Why wait to move forward to make America safer? Why wait to give law enforcement the same tools they already use against white-collar criminals and drug offenders? It doesn't make sense to postpone, to delay, to wait. Those who are delaying the bill claim they are taking a stand for stronger civil liberty protections. Yet they admit that the renewal of the PATRIOT Act is a vast improvement over current law. Again, why wait to enact the dozens of civil liberties protections in this bill that they have supported for so long. We have a duty and responsibility to protect our fellow Americans. Indeed, it is our highest duty as Senators. I urge my colleagues to move forward to renew the PATRIOT Act. The time to act is now. It is the only, the best, and the right thing to do. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I understand there is a bill at the desk. I ask for its first reading.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask for a second reading, and in order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule XXIV, I object to my own request.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President I am reminded daily of the sacrifice of the men and women of this country who serve or have loved ones who serve in our armed forces. As a Tennessean I often think of the courage and honor displayed by members of the 101st Airborne out of Fort Campbell and the many Guardsmen and Reservists from my State who have served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. These soldiers, many of whom call Tennessee home, make great sacrifices for our Nation. I am saddened to think about those who have been wounded in recent military operations and in some cases are so severely injured that they require extensive medical care, along with years of treatment and rehabilitation. Their future quality of life and ability to provide for their families depends on the treatment and rehabilitation they receive from the country they have served. As a physician I marvel at the great work of my colleagues in the Armed Services Medical Commands who treat the most severely injured military personnel. The use of improvised explosive devices in Iraq has resulted in many injuries including amputations, head trauma, and in some cases partial and full paralysis. We must meet the care and rehabilitation needs of the soldiers who have sacrificed so much for our country. With this in mind I have joined with Senator Lieberman to sponsor a bill to authorize the construction of a world-class state-of-the-art advanced training skills facility at Brooke Army Medical Center. This center will not only serve military personnel disabled in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, but will also provide care to those severely injured in other operations and in the normal performance of their duties, both combat and non-combat related. This center will provide necessary space and facilities for the rehabilitation needs of the patients and their caregivers. It will be constructed on a site sufficient in size to meet the needs of the center's patients and caregivers and will include top of the line indoor and outdoor facilities, a child care center, and other needed support facilities. I am proud of the service of our military personnel both past and present, and this new facility will go a long way in helping to meet their needs both now and into the future.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President I am reminded daily of the sacrifice of the men and women of this country who serve or have loved ones who serve in our armed forces. As a Tennessean I often think of the courage and honor displayed by members of the 101st Airborne out of Fort Campbell and the many Guardsmen and Reservists from my State who have served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. These soldiers, many of whom call Tennessee home, make great sacrifices for our Nation. I am saddened to think about those who have been wounded in recent military operations and in some cases are so severely injured that they require extensive medical care, along with years of treatment and rehabilitation. Their future quality of life and ability to provide for their families depends on the treatment and rehabilitation they receive from the country they have served. As a physician I marvel at the great work of my colleagues in the Armed Services Medical Commands who treat the most severely injured military personnel. The use of improvised explosive devices in Iraq has resulted in many injuries including amputations, head trauma, and in some cases partial and full paralysis. We must meet the care and rehabilitation needs of the soldiers who have sacrificed so much for our country. With this in mind I have joined with Senator Lieberman to sponsor a bill to authorize the construction of a world-class state-of-the-art advanced training skills facility at Brooke Army Medical Center. This center will not only serve military personnel disabled in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, but will also provide care to those severely injured in other operations and in the normal performance of their duties, both combat and non-combat related. This center will provide necessary space and facilities for the rehabilitation needs of the patients and their caregivers. It will be constructed on a site sufficient in size to meet the needs of the center's patients and caregivers and will include top of the line indoor and outdoor facilities, a child care center, and other needed support facilities. I am proud of the service of our military personnel both past and present, and this new facility will go a long way in helping to meet their needs both now and into the future.