Bill Frist

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. I ask unanimous consent to now proceed to the consideration of the conference report to S. 1932, the omnibus deficit reduction bill.

Mr. FRIST. I now move to proceed to consideration of the conference report.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.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, tomorrow we expect to have the remaining conference reports from the House of Representatives. Much of the activity tonight and all of the activity over the course of the day has been the generation of those conference reports. Since neither of those are going to be available to us this evening, there is no reason for us to remain in session. We will turn to one of those conference reports in the morning and hopefully get closer to finishing our work before Christmas.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in adjournment until 9:30 a.m. on Monday, December 19. I further ask that following the prayer and pledge, the mourning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved, and the Senate then proceed to a period for morning business with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, we have returned this evening to session awaiting various conferences to finish their work and for House action on the remaining conference reports. We need to remain in session this evening in case those conference reports do become available. When we are certain one way or the other on the timing of the Defense conference reports, we will make a decision on the length of the session. Certainly if the conference report will not be available before midnight, then I do not anticipate a late evening. We should know something about that within the next couple of hours. We cannot rule that in or out at this point. Therefore, we will monitor the timing closely and then make further announcements. For tomorrow, we continue to try to set votes on seven district judges who are on the calendar. If we are not able to reach an agreement for that shortly--I hope we can set those votes for a time certain so we can alert Members. I will be discussing this shortly with the Democratic leader. Again, we will be doing our best to get word to the Senators shortly as to the schedule for this evening and tomorrow. People have worked through last night and throughout today on these conference reports and there has been a lot of activity in the last hour or hour and a half. Shortly, I will come back to the floor with something more certain in terms of the schedule for later tonight as well as tomorrow.

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 under the previous order.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to H.J. Res. 75, the continuing resolution, which is at the desk; provided further that the resolution be read three times and passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid on the table.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that during the adjournment of the Senate, the majority leader be authorized to sign duly enrolled bills or joint resolutions.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, a very brief comment on this time of year, with a few reflections on a very special time--Hanukkah. Earlier this year, I had the opportunity, once again, to visit the State of Israel. I say without reserve, the land of Israel touches my soul. It does so when you are there and you have that opportunity to visit the Old City, to visit the Western Wall. I took the opportunity to meet with Israelis from all walks of life, visiting several of the hospitals there, and visiting my professional colleagues in medicine. I came to appreciate even more deeply the 4,000 years of distinct and vibrant Jewish culture, as well as the Jewish people's hopeful triumph over adversity and persecution. So now, as Jews all over the world begin to prepare for the celebration of Hanukkah, which this year begins on December 25, I invite my colleagues to reflect on its meaning and its relevance to the continuity of Jewish culture and survival. The First Book of Maccabees, a venerated ancient text, tells the story of a revolt against a tyrant, the King Antiochus. King Antiochus was a tyrant, a cruel leader, who attempted to outlaw the practice of Judaism, to forbid the study of Torah, and to compel, to force the worship of idols. Joined by corrupt politicians in the land of Judea, he succeeded for a time. Eventually, however, a popular uprising, led by a group who called themselves the Maccabees--and that translates into ``hammer''-- expelled his forces and reclaimed the Temple that became the center of the Jewish faith. Upon entering the desecrated Temple, Jewish soldiers and priests discovered that the eternal flame within had extinguished. The last stores of oil, those last little bits of oil, would only keep the lamp lit for a single day. They lit the lamp with the oil that was left, and then something miraculous happened. According to the ancient writings, instead of burning down, the lamp oil continually filled and refilled and refilled, and the light in the Temple burned for 8 full days. One can think of this story of faith and perseverance as truly emblematic of the Jewish journey. Just as, by God's grace, the lamp was continually filled, continually replenished, so, too, has the Jewish culture continued to thrive. In honor of the rededication of the Temple and the Miracle of the Lights, Jews all over the world celebrate Hanukkah by lighting a Menorah and drawing their families close. Children play games and exchange gifts and, as every Jewish family knows, potato latkes and donuts cooked in oil are holiday favorites. As those of us who are Christian celebrate the birth of Jesus this Christmas, let us also reflect on the story of Hanukkah and the ways in which the Almighty touches our daily lives. I do wish my fellow Americans of the Jewish faith a happy Hanukkah and a safe, prosperous holiday season.

Mr. FRIST

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

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Defense appropriations will likely be tomorrow. There are several items that remain to be wrapped up. Most of the meetings over the course of last night and today have been with the objective of having that wrapped up as soon as possible, but that will much more likely be tomorrow. It will not be tonight.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, through the Chair, I know it has not passed the House yet. I will have to check and see what the current status is on the Department of Defense authorization. I will have to check and see what the current status of that is. It was my understanding that would be ready at some point--or as of late last night they would be ready sometime today. The House has not yet acted on that.

Mr. FRIST. We know we are not going to have rollcall votes today. We will be in a very short period of time today. I would think tomorrow, depending on how things go over the next couple of hours, we would come in fairly late waiting on action from the House of Representatives. Once we have a better feel when they are going to act tonight or in the morning, we will set a time to open tomorrow. We have not said no rollcall votes tomorrow, but we will be able to say that for sure in just a bit, in all likelihood. Then I expect we will need to come in early Monday and vote early Monday because at that point in time we should have legislation coming from the House. So Monday is going to be a very full day. For right now--we can talk shortly if something else indicates otherwise--we would plan on voting Monday morning.

Mr. FRIST. I think that is a perfect goal and that we mutually share that, that we could start voting as early as Monday morning. Since we will be in tomorrow, if we can update that because most of our--many of our Senators are out around the country, we will do just that.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, today I do not anticipate a lengthy session, but we are here for important work. We need to pass a short- term continuing resolution, and we are waiting for the House to send us a joint resolution. We expect to clear a package of nominations this afternoon, and we will do that block of executive nominations by voice vote. We will also continue to process some of the other legislative items that have been cleared and are ready to move. Final discussions continue on the remaining must-do items, and I am hopeful that we will be soon able to take action on these items over the next couple of days. Members will be asking about the schedule, and I will make further announcements shortly on tomorrow's lineup. I want to confer with the chairmen and principals involved in the negotiation and then say more at the close of business today. Again, we will wrap up our work today in as quick a time as possible, and Members should stay tuned as everything is finalized. There is a lot of work going on in the Capitol today--until late last night and until the early hours of the morning. Just last night and over the last several days we passed very important pieces of legislation. If we look back on Friday, last night, we passed cord blood legislation, which opens up critical new research opportunities and clearinghouses for safe, ethically sound transplantation. That is going to save lives. We passed the Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005, which will provide a second major round of critical tax relief to our brothers and sisters in the gulf coast region. We extended the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, which takes another step toward reducing taxpayers' risk and minimizing the Government's interference with the private market. We passed an important new provision in the Violence Against Women Act, which will protect rape survivors who have already been victimized once by sexual assault. We passed the Bahrain Free Trade Agreement this past week, which enhances our bilateral relationship with a strategic friend and ally. I mention all of these because a lot of them we do actually in what we call wrap-up or by unanimous consent but all are major pieces of legislation. We now have, over the next several days--and I hope it is as few as possible--very important legislation on Defense, both appropriations and authorization, as well as the deficit reconciliation package and nominations that I mentioned. So we have a lot of work to do over the next several days.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I want to make a very brief statement on an issue that I believe requires action before we leave. It is something we have addressed on the floor of the Senate, actually in several different capacities, but I want to restate the importance of that. It has to do with a potential pandemic of an avian or bird influenza--the so-called bird flu. In the 20th century, we have had three influenza pandemics. Remember, about 30,000 people in this country die every year from the seasonal flu. But superimposed on this seasonal flu, on three occasions in the last 100 years, there have been these pandemics. What our public health officials and what our scientists say is, for sure, we are going to have another pandemic. The time is in the near future, and a pandemic is going to occur, but we don't know exactly when. The worst of the three pandemics in the last 100 years was in 1918, the so- called Spanish flu--although it was called the Spanish flu, it probably started actually in Kansas--but that flu went through our population in a period of weeks and killed about half a million people; worldwide it killed somewhere around 40 million people. The Secretary of Health and Human Services, Secretary Leavitt, warns if past is prologue, the world is overdue for another flu pandemic. I agree with that assessment. The pandemic will occur. We do not know exactly when. But we know we are drastically underprepared; not unprepared but underprepared. If we act with action now, we will be prepared. Preparation means much less destruction or potential destruction by such a pandemic. The avian flu over the last couple of years has spread from East Asia, to Romania, to Turkey. It looks and acts more similar to the virus of 1918 than either of the other two pandemics, the one in 1957 and the one in 1968. If it achieves the final step in what becomes a pandemic, that is, human-to-human transmission--the first couple of steps are that it is a novel virus, a new virus, and that it spreads to other species, multiple species, and the third big step is transmission, human-to-human transmission. In that case, the consequences could be catastrophic both in loss of human life as well as in economic meltdown in many ways. Recently, in the last several weeks, the Congressional Budget Office released a study which I had requested specifically on the economic impact of a serious and a mild pandemic of avian flu. Their report demonstrated--much higher than I expected--a 5-percent decline in our gross domestic product over the course of a year. That is about a $675 billion hit if we were to have a severe pandemic of this avian flu. The clock is ticking. If a pandemic occurs and we are underprepared, if it were to occur today and it were severe, the Congressional Budget Office predicts, with their best economists and access to public health officials, that is what would occur. We need to put the wheels in motion, so when and if that avian flu hits, we are prepared. If we are prepared, we diminish the economic impact dramatically. If we do not act and that avian flu pandemic comes to our shores, we in this Senate will be rightly blamed for failing to do our best to protect the American people, given what our scientists and public health officials say today. That finger will be pointing straight at the Congress if we do not act. The good news is we will act. We plan to act in the bills that have come before the Senate in the next couple of days. We need a six-prong approach. We need to address communications, we need to address surveillance, we need to address the appropriate research, we need to address the whole issue of antiviral agents, the Tamiflu, we need to address vaccines. Right now we do not have any vaccines specific to a virus that would be transmitted human to human. That has to be created after we identify the virus. And the sixth component is what we call surge capacity, the stockpiling of antiviral agents and vaccines. It may sound like a lot of moving parts, but between our researchers and public health officials, our entrepreneurs, our private sector, we do have the intellect, the ingenuity, and the knowledge to get the job done. Our job as elected officials, my job as an elected official and my job as a physician is to see this thing through to make sure we are adequately prepared, and we can look our constituents in the eyes and say we have done everything possible to see that we are prepared for such a pandemic. Our economy, our country, and our lives may depend on whether we take action. The President has laid out a comprehensive plan. It is our job to set aside the appropriate resources but also to give the appropriate incentives to tackle this looming threat. I refer to our colleagues to put aside partisan differences, to hold together, to protect the American people. The flu virus does not know who is a Republican and does not know who is a Democrat. The people who suffer will know who did not get the job done. We do not need to panic. What we do need is to prepare ourselves. Preparation means action, action in the Congress. The American people are counting on it. That is exactly what we will do over the next several days. I yield the floor.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate immediately proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations on today's Executive Calendar: Calendar No. 213, 365, 374, 383, 425, 426, 442, 465, 466, 467, 468, 470, 473, 474, 475, 476, 477, 478, 479, 480, 481, 482; provided further that the Commerce Committee be discharged from further consideration of the following nominations and the Senate proceed to these en bloc: PN1119, PN1120, PN1121, PN1122. I further ask unanimous consent that the nominations be confirmed en bloc, the motions to reconsider be laid on the table, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action and the Senate then return to legislative session.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2141 introduced earlier today.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and any statement related to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Tomorrow, we will return to session to continue to work on the remaining business before we leave. We will need to come in tomorrow in anticipation of the conference reports which will arrive from the House. I do not believe we will need to have any votes tomorrow evening, but we will alert Members if something arises. If we do not vote Sunday, we would start voting early Monday. We have seven district judges on the calendar. I understand some of those may require votes. Having said that, I thank all Senators for their patience during this period. It has been difficult because of our inability, the impossibility to predict with any element of certainty exactly when we will finish. We are working very hard on bills with the House of Representatives. Once those reports are addressed in the House, they can come here. Until that time, we continue to work to see that will occur in an expeditious way. It is the nature of the business. I am appreciative of everyone's assistance.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 6 p.m. on Sunday, December 18. 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 a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

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, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment at the desk be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate concur in the House amendment with a further amendment which is at the desk, the amendment be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and any statements be printed in the Record.