John Glenn

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. That is fine. I am willing to accept it.

Mr. GLENN. But I ask my colleague, is it his understanding this would include an estimate of the cost of executing this Federal mandate?

Mr. GLENN. Offered by 3 o'clock tomorrow, no votes until after 4 o'clock tomorrow.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the previous amendment be set aside, and that I send to the desk an amendment and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, and I will not, where is the Bingaman amendment in the hierarchy now? Is that No. 4 that we have on our list?

Mr. GLENN. I will not object.

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

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. That is correct. But if the CBO has difficulty making an estimate or giving us a figure to go on, then it would be up to the Budget Committee to decide whether to give us the exact figure or to say there can be no figure. I think that is the way the bill is structured right now.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, the way this is set up now is we are supposed to get our estimate from the CBO. They give that estimate then to the Budget Committee. The Budget Committee then has authority, as a range as I understand it--staff can correct me, if I am wrong on this-- if the Budget Committee wished to, if the Budget Committee wanted to pick a figure in their wisdom, then that would be up to them to do that and recommend it to the Senate. I think that is the way it is provided for in the bill.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. GLENN. I think it would be very infrequent they would run into that type of situation where it would spread over our threshold. That is the question you are talking about. We are not talking about whether on a $50 million threshold the estimate is $75 or $100 million.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Parliamentary inquiry. As I understand our situation, amendments can be called up today, we can debate them during the day, but it is just that no votes will occur until after 4 o'clock.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, has that order been set aside?

Mr. GLENN. Would we need to formally set that aside?

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, we have finished checking on our side, and we would be glad to accept the amendment of the distinguished colleague from Oklahoma. As I said earlier, we will be addressing this same regulatory review problem in the Governmental Affairs Committee with the hearing on S. 100, which is legislation I put in on a broader gauge of regulatory review consideration. We welcome the Senator's input on that, so we can work this out together. We would be happy to accept his amendment on this side.

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

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

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, just one further comment. I see another Senator seeking the floor here. Just one comment on this. The only other caveat I had on this, this bill originally set out to deal with unfunded Federal mandates. We now have gotten into public overlap and so on, and we are into cross-pollination here in so many areas. I do not think this particular amendment breaks any new ground in this. So I do not have any objection on that ground. We are going to try to deal with a lot of these things, though, in the regular review of S. 100. I yield the floor.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, the problem of regulatory review is one that goes across the length and breadth of the whole Government, as we are all aware. We can pass all sorts of laws in the Senate or the Congress, the House of Representatives, whatever; we can pass all sorts of laws and then we pass them over to the executive branch to have the rules and regulations written, and sometimes the way things come out is completely different than what we expected when we passed the legislation. So regulatory review is a most important item with which we have to deal. Now, I have been working in this area of regulatory review on the Governmental Affairs Committee for a long time, for a number of years, and I am very concerned about it. I compliment my colleagues from Oklahoma and from New Mexico for the work they have done and the interest they have taken in this particular area, and I think that is great. I had originally thought that perhaps I would oppose this on one ground and that is--not on substantive grounds but on the fact that I have legislation that will be in hearing on February 8 by the Governmental Affairs Committee. It is S. 100. It is a bill that deals with regulatory review in general all across Government. I hope we will take a broad view of this and make more sense out of regulatory review than the way we run it now. We worked with IRA, Information and Regulatory Affairs, through the years, and OMB, through the last two administrations and this administration, and we hope that the new legislation will make more sense out of regulatory review across the whole length and breadth of Government, and make sure that we do not just let the regulation writers proceed without some bridle on them as far as ignoring the costs to public and private interests out there all across the country. So, having said that, I am very, very sympathetic to what the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma is trying to do here in making sure that we get regulatory review. Now, staff tells me that what Senators are proposing here is very similar or nearly identical--very similar anyway to the Presidential Executive order that deals with this same subject. We are checking that right now. We are also checking with some of the people on our side who we think might have a particular interest in this particular amendment, and I will be able to give my colleague an answer as to whether we can accept this shortly. I do not want to delay this. But unless he wanted to talk or somebody else wanted to talk, I would just put in a quorum call at the time until we get an answer back. I hope it will be just a few minutes. It was my understanding in discussing this with my friend from Oklahoma he would be willing to have a voice vote on this and we could get on with other business.

Mr. GLENN. Reserving the right to object--and I will object--we have objection on our side to proceeding with that time limit at this time. We might be able to agree to it later but not now.

Mr. GLENN. In just a moment. I think the distinguished minority leader, I believe, had indicated he might want to have a few words on this. We have sent word in to him that we are down to about the last 5 minutes so we might delay just a couple of minutes here.

Mr. GLENN. I just need a couple of minutes. I want to be added as a cosponsor on this legislation. I do not see how the Government can possibly come down on the side of a government entity that is in competition, in effect, with a private industry, whether it is waste management, whether it is water provision, whether it is sewer provision, whether it is--whatever--and come down and say we will partially federally fund or totally federally fund whatever the mandate is with regard to the public entity and give that competitive advantage to the public entity in competition with a private industry, whether it is electricity or sewer or whatever the provision might be. So I think the amendment obviously makes sense to me. I ask to be made a cosponsor of the amendment and yield the remainder of my time.

Mr. GLENN. Will the Senator from Connecticut yield me 2 minutes off his time?