Judd Gregg

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I also rise to discuss the recent meetings we held in South America. The nature of the meetings has been outlined by the Senator from Colorado and, obviously, the majority leader. I think I should start by saying that I admire the majority leader for putting together the delegation--and I appreciate having participated in it--which was bipartisan. More importantly, the majority leader chose as his first outreach in the area of foreign policy, in the sense of his taking the status of majority leader of the Senate, which is a significant status, to go to these countries in South America--countries which, regrettably, we probably haven't put as much energy and effort into as we should have over the years, and countries that are important to us in a variety of ways. So I think his choice of these three nations--important nations that are major players in our neighborhood--was significant and appropriate. I appreciated the chance to participate in it. In all three of these nations we are seeing significant change-- change which I sort of sense is in a historical context of repeating, in many instances, past actions. South America has, unfortunately, had a history of going from democracy to military leadership to populace leadership and then back to democracy. These three nations have all recently held very democratic elections, and they have elected very outspoken leaders, some of whose views I agree with and some of whose I definitely do not agree with. But they are in the vortex of a movement in Central and South America involving the question of populace socialism as presented by, in part, obviously, Fidel Castro and, more recently, President Chavez of Venezuela. We have seen in that sort of a populist, socialist movement, a distinct antagonism toward democracy. In fact, Cuba hasn't had an election in 40 years. I don't know whether we will see a real election in Venezuela again in the foreseeable future. So I think it was important for us to show the American spirit, which is committed democracy, liberty, and individual rights, and having an electoral process that works--to show that spirit by coming to these three nations that recently held elections and elected new leadership. There are a lot of issues involving these nations. Bolivia and Ecuador and Peru have significant questions relative to poverty. But there are three issues which dominate our relationship with them, which have been discussed already, and which we discussed with their leadership extensively at different levels, starting with the Presidency of those three countries. Of course, the first is the question of illegal drugs such as cocaine. I think it is rather difficult for us as a nation to go to a country such as Bolivia, which is exporting cocaine products mostly to Europe, or Ecuador and Peru, which export it here--it is hard to go to those countries because we don't come with clean hands. Basically, we are the demand. As long as we have the demand in this Nation, which is so overwhelming, somebody is going to supply that demand. So we have put these nations at risk by us having our demand for the use of these illegal drugs, especially cocaine. I feel compassion for these nations in that we have undermined them by our Nation putting so much pressure on them regarding illegal trafficking. You have to admire their leaders. It was great to travel with the Senator from Colorado and his wife. It was nice to have an American face that spoke pure Spanish. It gave us a presentation that immediately gave us identity with those nations. So it was wonderful to have the Senator and his wife there, especially for those of us who allegedly spoke Spanish when we were in college but never really did. Each one of these Presidents was totally committed to fighting illegal drugs. They recognize the harm it is doing to their nations. So we want to support them in that effort. Secondly is the issue of immigration, which again, to some degree, you can understand their problem, which is that they have people who want to support their families and they come to America to do that, and a fair number come illegally. How we deal with that as a country is a big issue for us and for those nations. Money coming back into those countries as a result of Ecuadorians or Peruvians working in America and sending money back significantly contributes to their economy. They want to have the ability for their people to come here legally. We want to structure a system to help them. The reason people are leaving those countries goes to the third issue, which is trade. They need good jobs in their country. There are products that they can provide in their countries which, in the classic context of comparative advantage, they can do better than we can. The same is true vice versa. In fact, we can do a lot of things better than they can. So open and free trade is something they want. Every one of those leaders wants open and free trade with the U.S, which is a very positive attitude on their part because we can produce more products that they need, with value added, and they can produce products we need. I suspect we will be in a surplus fairly quickly with each one of these countries if we go to a true free market. That will raise the standard of living down there, which will relieve, to some degree, the pressure for illegal immigration to the U.S. So it works to our benefit, and not only from the standpoint of trade. One of the interesting statistics I saw in Peru was that trade from New Hampshire increased 880 percent over the last 2 years--that increase of New Hampshire-produced goods going into Peru. We started at a very low base, but a couple of corporations I am familiar with have significantly expanded economic activity in Peru and, as a result, the opportunity. So there are two pending agreements, one of which we extended, the Indian Free Trade Agreement and Drug Enforcement Act, and the other the Peruvian Free Trade Agreement. I especially think we need to address the second one. Peru has a government that is more market oriented, that is not pursuing nationalization or quasi-nationalization of any foreign investors there, as has happened in Ecuador and Bolivia. Therefore, we should be sympathetic to that government. This agreement is not going to significantly expand issues that are international in the sense of the free trade bite, and we have those issues with China, obviously, and Southeast Asia. To the extent there are environmental and labor issues with other countries, that is not in play relative to Peru. That is not that big an economy. The Peruvian agreement has been caught up, unfortunately, in this bigger contest in the Congress, and in the popular opinion of American political culture, on the issue of the bigger issue of free trade. We should try to separate it and move the Peruvian Free Trade Agreement forward promptly, if we can, recognizing that it will significantly improve our relationship with Peru and, more importantly, be a statement in the part of the world that we need to have a statement that we are committed to market forces in the face of what is clearly not occurring in Venezuela, which is where you are seeing massive nationalization and a compression and flattening of market forces and a flattening of democratic forces, and that is an issue about which we need to be concerned. If we can assist Peru and Bolivia and Ecuador in being more economically successful in using a market-oriented model, that is going to undermine the capacity of Venezuela to export their form of populace socialism, which in the end is going to lead, if they are successful, to undermining the quality of life throughout South and Central America. So it was, in my opinion, a very worthwhile trip. I learned a great deal and met a lot of interesting people. We had the opportunity to meet extraordinary people who worked in our State Department. Each one is a very talented and dedicated person. The people in the Peace Corps are extraordinary. The people working in the AID and microlending projects are doing good work and, of course, the government officials of each country, including the incoming Presidents. It was very valuable. I congratulate the majority leader for pursuing it. I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. I ask unanimous consent to proceed as in morning business for 15 minutes.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise to talk a little bit about the situation in Iraq and how we are trying to deal with this as a nation. We need to start with, when we are discussing Iraq, what are our national interests and why are we engaged there. Our basic national interest in Iraq is the protection of America, our desire to make sure that we are projecting our purposes in a way that reduces the ability of those who would wish to do us harm in this war against us, which was declared in the late 1990s, when it was obviously brought to our shores on September 11, that in that war we are best postured to make sure terrorists, specifically Islamic fundamentalists who wish to do us harm, are not successful. That is the first purpose of our engagement in Iraq. The second purpose, of course, is to make sure our troops, who are engaged in pursuing this war on the ground in Iraq, are adequately funded and given the support they need in order to do their job and not be exposed to risks which would occur were they not adequately funded and supported. It has been 5 years since we were attacked. That is the good news, that we have not been attacked for 5 years. Obviously, some of that is good fortune and luck, I suspect. But a lot of that is the result of a policy which has essentially said we are going to find the terrorists before they can find us, and we are going to bring them to justice. And we are going to also try to initiate a process where we establish, in the Middle East, an attitude that respects democracy, respects individual rights, respects the rights of women, and respects the approach of a marketplace economy. In Iraq, we have attempted to accomplish that, and much has occurred in Iraq that has been good, although, obviously, there is a lot there that has occurred that has been unfortunate, and there have been mistakes made. But the fact is, they have gone through major election processes. They have elected a government. They have had a number of elections, where a large percentage of the population participated. Women have been allowed out of the household and are participating in society. It remains, however, a nation which is torn by religious strife and cultural and deep ethnic differences. We have not been successful in being able to resolve that and nor have the Iraqi people been able to do that through their democratic process. But the question becomes for us--in light of the President's request that there be an increase of troops, called the surge, of potentially 20,000 troops, especially concentrated in the Baghdad area, to try to bring more stability to that region--how do we approach this as we move down the road? Well, I think we have to, as we approach this, keep in context what is our goal. Our goal is to protect us--America--from attacks by radical fundamental Islamic movements and individuals, terrorists specifically, and to make sure our troops, who are in the field, are adequately protected and have the support they need in order to do their job correctly. A precipitous, immediate pullout, which is the proposal that has come from the other side in a number of different scenarios, would, I suspect, lead to a number of results which would not be acceptable to us and would undermine our basic purpose, which is to protect America from further attack and to protect our soldiers who are in the field protecting us. How do you manage a precipitous pullout that does not immediately lead to chaos in Iraq, where the sectarian and religious violence has escalated dramatically, where the potential that a client state of Iran will be set up, at least over a portion of Iraq, where safe havens will occur and result for al-Qaida in other portions of Iraq, and where even greater numbers of people--even though that may seem hard to understand--but where even greater numbers of people may die in Iraq, where a massive civil war, potentially in catastrophic proportions in relation to the population there, will precipitate? I do not see how you avoid those occurrences if you immediately withdraw. An immediate withdrawal also leads to the issue of what happens to the troops who are left behind. You cannot get 130,000 troops out of Iraq overnight. It is going to take, even under the scenario laid out here by the Democratic leadership, 8 to 12 months to accomplish that. And if you are doing that in a compressed time--as is proposed by the recent language that has been put forward by some of our colleagues--if you compress that time, you are going to leave some troops behind at significant risk, much more significant risk than if they have the support mechanisms they need in order to do the job right. Is the surge the right approach? Is this concept of 20,000 troops going to resolve this? Is that going to lead us to an Iraq that is more stable? I do not know the answer to that question. I have deep reservations that that is going to accomplish that goal. I have to admit, I suspect if we are able to stabilize certain sections of Baghdad, divided into nine districts, as is proposed--stabilize them in sequence or in parallel--that as you stabilize one district, you are going to push the people who are causing the problems into another place. It is not as if they are going to disappear or even probably be, for the most part, corralled. They are simply going to move. So I am not sure it is going to accomplish its goal. But I do know this: It is the proposal put forward by the people who are on the ground and to whom we have given the responsibility of trying to address this issue of how you deal with an Iraq in the context of the problems which it has. To take the other option is to lead inevitably to a dramatic problem that will be immediate, both for us as a nation, because it will give potentially safe haven to al-Qaida and create an Iran client state, and it will also lead to what I suspect would be a huge explosion in the area of civil war. So although I have reservations, I, also, am not about to vote to cut off the support for the troops who are in the field. Now, I do not command those troops. I am a Senator. I am not the commander of the troops. The President is Commander in Chief. He has literally the unilateral authority to pursue this course of action, unless we vote as a Senate to cut off funding. And the practical implications of us doing that would mean that troops in the field would not have the money they need in order to undertake their own protection. That would be the result of us cutting off funds. That is a vote I am never going to take or support because the first obligation we have is to those soldiers who are in the field. You may disagree with the Commander in Chief's position, but I do not think that as people who are charged with the responsibility of funding the troops in the field, that you take that disagreement to the point of putting them at risk. So that would not be a vote that I think would be a good vote for us, as a Congress, to take. But it appears to me--listening to the debate as it has evolved here--there are some who wish to have it sort of both ways. They want to be able to say one thing but not do what they say. I almost am of the view that we should engage this at the level of substance, and we should have that vote. I am not going to vote for it, but we should have that vote. We should say: OK, if it is the position of the Democratic Party that they want to cut off funds to the troops in the field, if they feel that should be the course of action, so be it. I happen to be attracted, more appropriately, or more positively, to the proposals of the Iraq Study Group. I think they have laid out a blueprint for us to pursue. I am not sure that is going to lead to anything that fundamentally resolves the problem in Iraq, as the problem in Iraq is religious and it is ethnic and it is cultural and it goes back a long way. But at least they have laid out a roadmap. I will not use that word because that word, obviously, has other implications. They have laid out a blueprint we can pursue and I believe we should pursue. I, for example, think we should engage both Iran and Syria in diplomacy. I agree with former Secretary of State Baker on that point. The way you engage them--of course, that does not instantaneously give them credibility, but there are ways to engage governments that are so antithetical to us, as has been shown over the years, without giving them inordinate credibility as a result of that engagement. And I think that is appropriate. So there are processes we could follow. But we have to, under any circumstances, get back to what is our basic purpose, I believe, as governors--and I use that term in the generic sense--and it is, A, No. 1, to protect this Nation from another attack. And that means finding the terrorists before they find us and bringing them to justice. And the effort in Iraq was a legitimate and appropriate effort to try to support the construction of a state in the middle of the Middle East which would subscribe to democratic values, which would give its people the opportunity to have a pluralistic society, where individuals are respected, especially women, and as a result to build a center from which we would have the capacity to undermine the Islamic fundamentalist movement's philosophy that Western values are fundamentally at variance with the Muslim religion and the Muslim way of life. And I believe that is still a legitimate and valued purpose. But it all comes back to how it protects us. And it protects us by creating an atmosphere where we can go to the Muslim world and say we are not your enemy, but we are actually an opportunity for you to have a better lifestyle, if you follow the course of action of liberty, freedom, individual rights, rights for women, and a market-oriented approach. That protects us. And that should be our first goal: the protection of America from further attack. We should respect the fact that this administration has succeeded for 5 years in protecting us. Some of that is good fortune, as I said, but a lot of it is the fact that we have reached beyond our borders to find them before they could find those who wish to do us harm. The second purpose must be to make sure the troops who are in the field have the support they need, not only financial and technical and logistical support but the moral support they need, so they know they are fighting for what is an American cause and is going to keep America safe--which they are. And we need to respect them. They are extraordinary young men and women who are on the frontlines of this war against terrorism and who are doing exceptional service for us. So that is a brief outline of my thoughts on this matter. I notice, in the concurrent resolution which was submitted by some of our colleagues, they stated that the primary objective of the strategy of the United States in Iraq should be to have the Iraq political leaders make political compromise necessary to end the violence in Iraq. That is an objective, but that is not our primary objective. To make compromise? Whom are they going to compromise with, al-Qaida? Are they going to compromise with Iran? That is not our objective. Our objective is to, hopefully, have an Iraq that is democratic, is pluralistic, and that is reasonably stable, that is not a client state of Iran, that is not a safe haven for al- Qaida. Our primary purpose in Iraq is to create an atmosphere in the Middle East where people will look at democracy, at liberty and say: It works. Even though I am Muslim, that works for me as a Muslim--where women have a chance to pursue their options, where market forces work. Our other primary purpose in Iraq must be to make sure our soldiers, who are fighting for us and protecting us and who are engaged there, are properly supported as long as they are there. Our Commander in Chief has made a decision to move additional troops in there; and that those troops are equally supported. It is, obviously, a difficult and torturous issue for us as a nation because we are a good nation. We do believe genuinely--I ask unanimous consent for an additional 5 minutes.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, if I could complete a quick thought and then turn to the Senator for his question, my thought was this: This is obviously a torturous issue for us as a nation, because we are basically a very good people. And our history shows that when we use force, we use it for the purposes of trying to free people, of giving people more options and a better lifestyle. We did it during World War I and World War II, and we did it throughout the Cold War. Our success is extraordinary. We have never sought territorial gain, and we do not. We seek to give people the opportunity to pursue the liberties and freedoms which were defined so brilliantly by our Founding Fathers. When we see something such as Iraq, where there seems to be such an inability of the culture to grasp these concepts, even though we are trying as hard as we can to give them that option, it is difficult. But we still can't take our eye off the ball, which is to basically recognize that we are doing this for our national defense, as we try to stabilize a region that represents an immediate threat to us and has already damaged us more than any other event in our history has damaged us, other than potentially Pearl Harbor, and that we have troops in the field who need to be supported. I yield to the Senator from Texas for a question.

Mr. GREGG. Answering the Senator through the Chair, that seems to me to be the logical approach. As I mentioned earlier, there are some who seem to want the language of opposition but don't want the responsibility of opposition. If the case is that some believe we should have immediate withdrawal, then that ought to be put on the table in a context which would have the force of law and effect, and let us vote on that. I would vote against it, but let us vote on it.

Mr. GREGG. Yes, I yield to the Senator from Texas.

Mr. GREGG. Responding to the Senator through the Chair, the Senator makes a good point. My big concern goes to the morale of the troops in the field. What are they thinking? What are they thinking as a young 19-, 20-, 22-year-old soldier in Iraq today when they hear this discourse going forward and they are asked to go out on patrol, and they are told that maybe the troops their military leadership says it needs to support them is an issue? It is a legitimate issue as to how long we should allow this to hang out there. Let's have the debate. Let's resolve our national position as to what it is going to be, at least for the next year, if we get that far, and resolve it so that we know where we are; otherwise, we do harm to our national policy, because it is so disruptive to have this many voices at the same time claiming legitimacy and, more importantly, it does harm to our troops in the field, which is my primary concern. I thank the Senator from Texas for his questions and yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG

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

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I will speak briefly on the second look at waste amendment which I have offered which has generated a fair amount of interest and discussion in this Senate. It is an amendment that essentially is an enhanced rescission amendment. It is not a line-item veto. I am a great admirer of the Senator from West Virginia. I have enjoyed serving in the Senate and being educated by him on all sorts of issues. I respect his view on the importance of the power of the purse and identify with it. That is the essence of the legislative branch's source of power. But I must respectfully disagree with his characterization of this amendment, and I believe I can defend that position effectively and respond to the points he has made and make it clear to our colleagues that we are not voting on line-item veto. Back in 1995, a line-item veto was given to the President. It was ruled unconstitutional. This amendment is not that proposal or anything similar to that proposal. I said earlier today, to compare this amendment to the line-item veto amendment is akin to comparing the New England Patriots to the Buffalo Bills. They may be in the same league, but they have no identity of ability or purpose, as far as I could tell. The enhanced rescission language which I have proposed--which is essentially second-look-at-waste language--the purpose of it is to give the Congress another look at provisions that may have been buried in a bill and which the executive branch thinks need a second look. The enhanced rescission language which I have proposed essentially tracks the proposal that was put forward by, at that time, Senator Daschle as their alternative to the line-item veto. It has the same essential purposes, except it is weaker, quite honestly, than what Senator Daschle proposed. It allows the President to send up a group of rescissions, in our case four. Under the Daschle proposal, he could have sent up as many as 13 different packages. Those rescissions, if a Member introduces them, must be voted on in a timeframe; the same thing as the Daschle proposal was. Those rescissions, under the Daschle proposal, were not referred to committee but under our proposal do go back to committees of authorization--a weaker proposal than the Daschle proposal. Both Houses must act on the rescissions, not just one House, for the rescissions to survive, and they must be acted on with a majority--the same thing as the Daschle proposal. The President is limited in the amount of time that he can hold the money. The timeframe under the Daschle proposal was, I believe, longer than under our proposal. I am not absolutely sure of that, but our proposal limits him to 45 days that he can hold that money, pending the Senate taking action. There is some sunlight between the two because the Daschle proposal allowed motions to strike in specific instances, if there were 49 Senators agreeing to the motion to strike. I have said I am open to that as a concept, were we to get into a process of amending the proposal I have proposed. But that is an element of difference. But there is very little else that is different between what I am proposing and what Senator Daschle proposed as his rescission package. This is not a line-item veto amendment. It reserves to the Congress the authority to make the final call. All it gives to the President is the ability to ask us to take another look at something. That is pretty reasonable in the context of what we see today because we see all these omnibus bills arrive at our doorstep, spending tens of millions, in some instances hundreds of billions of dollars, and in those bills a lot of language works its way in that could be suspect, a lot of earmarks, a lot of things which maybe do not have majority support, but the President gets this big bill. He has to sign the whole thing or the Government shuts down or something else heinous happens. So it is reasonable to say: All right, let's take out those earmarks and send them back up and give Congress another look. It gives the President no unique authority--no unique authority--that could be identified as a line-item veto. There is no supermajority which is the essence of a line-item veto, no capacity to go in and delete something from a bill which is the essence of a line-item veto. It simply gives him the capacity to say to Congress, four times: Take a look. See if these rescissions make sense. The Daschle amendment was so far from a line-item veto that the most effective spokesperson in opposition to line-item veto in this Senate, in my lifetime, and probably in anybody else's lifetime, cosponsored the Daschle amendment. That was Senator Byrd. So I would ask Senator Byrd to take a serious look at what I have offered and say: Aren't we dealing with apples and oranges? Yes, I can understand his opposition to line-item veto. That is fine. That is his position. It has been well said for years. The argument of the importance of protecting the power of the purse is a good one. It is critical--critical. But this rescission language does not affect that. It does not affect the power of the purse. It is not a line-item veto amendment and so far from it that it basically tracks the Daschle amendment. In fact, I ask unanimous consent that the Daschle amendment be printed in the Record.

Mr. GREGG. As to this amendment, on March 23, Senator Byrd rose and said: `` . . . I am 100 percent behind the substitute by Mr. Daschle, and I ask unanimous consent that my name may be added as a cosponsor.'' This amendment is essentially what I have offered as the second-look- at-waste amendment. In fact, I will be honest, I would be willing to probably modify my amendment to basically track the Daschle amendment exactly. I have some differences with the Daschle amendment. I do not think in some places it is constructed as well as mine because it has 13 shots from the President. I happen to think that is a mistake. And it is not referred to committees, which I think is a mistake. I would be willing to offer it. If that is what it takes to mute the argument that this is a line-item veto amendment, then I will do that because this is not a line-item veto amendment. So my immense respect for the Senator from West Virginia and my very high regard for his arguments as to why he opposes the line-item veto remain. I continue to have enthusiasm in both those accounts for him. But I have to say I think for him to characterize this amendment as a line-item veto amendment is incorrect. This amendment is much better characterized as being close to, in fact, the child of, the Daschle amendment of 1995, which had broad support on the other side of the aisle, as I have already mentioned. With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG. Of course.

Mr. GREGG. Second look at waste.

Mr. GREGG. Well, the fundamental difference from the line-item veto is that it does not require a supermajority to reject the idea of the President. It requires a majority of both Houses--both Houses have to have a majority vote in favor of the President's position. Therefore, either House can strike down the President's position. So you retain-- we, the Congress--the power of the purse.

Mr. GREGG. It is my understanding, from the constitutional lawyers whom we have had look at this, that this would solve the constitutional issues which were raised by a line-item veto because it is not a line- item veto.

Mr. GREGG. Well, Mr. President, the administration asked for 10 times. The Daschle amendment had 13 times. We reduced it to 4 times, for the exact point that the assistant Republican leader made, which was we did not think the Congress should be able to have these issues wrap up our schedule. Under this schedule, each rescission would be subject to 10 days before it had to be voted on. I am perfectly agreeable, should we get this into a process where we can amend it, as I said earlier, to include strike language or consider that and to also include language which would take it down to fewer times. That is not a problem, as far as I am concerned. We settled on four, arbitrarily, to say the least.

Mr. GREGG. To answer the Senator's question, absolutely, that is what it would do. It, essentially, would create another mechanism where Congress would have a light-of-day experience on things that tend to get buried in these omnibus bills and may have to make a clear call as to whether that spending was appropriate. So, yes, it is very much an issue of fiscal discipline. It is very much an issue of managing earmarks.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, my understanding is that when the Senate turns to minimum wage, the majority leader, or his designee, will offer a substitute amendment that will be fully amendable; is that correct?

Mr. GREGG. Further, I understand the majority leader is aware that I have agreed to withdraw my amendment on this bill, the lobby reform bill, and I will be here Monday to offer my language to the minimum wage bill.

Mr. GREGG. Further reserving the right to object, I understand that the majority leader will be unable to reach consent for a time agreement to vote on my amendment; therefore, it is likely that a cloture motion will be filed on my language on Monday. I expect my language to be the first amendment to the bill.

Mr. GREGG. I thank the two leaders for their assistance in this process. I believe this is a reasonable way to bring up the amendment that I have offered and to move this bill at the same time. I understand that on Monday it would be the expectation that nobody will be complaining that I have it on the wrong vehicle.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, will the Republican leader yield for a question?

Mr. GREGG. So I can understand the parliamentary situation, I did offer this amendment last Wednesday. It does deal with earmarks. We have, as I understand it, spent 8 days of legislative time on this bill, of which almost 4 days have been consumed in a discussion of earmarks with the majority--not the majority but the plurality of amendments that we have actually voted on dealing with earmarks. Now, in that context, I guess my question would be this: Why would you have to pull the bill down in order to take this amendment up later? Why in 15 minutes is it not possible to dispose of this amendment? It requires a supermajority because it is subject to a point of order. That saves the majority leader time wherever he wants to give us time later. Why do you have to pull a bill down to dispose of an amendment which is pretty relevant to what we have been discussing and you can do it in 15 minutes?

Mr. GREGG. If I may ask further, this amendment, which I call a second look at waste, and some people have characterized it as enhanced rescission and others have called it the line-item veto, essentially allows the President to send up a package of rescissions, which I presume he would have taken out of omnibus bills, which I presume will be mostly earmarks for us to take a vote on. Isn't that something we have been discussing, this concept of earmarks, throughout the debate on this lobbying bill? And isn't this lobbying bill very much tied into the earmark issue? Isn't one of the real issues of lobbying the ability to establish earmarks by using influence?

Mr. GREGG. My final question would be, why don't we just vote on this amendment and get it over with? I presume the good leader from the Democratic Party, who is an exceptional leader and does a great job, will probably beat me on this amendment. It will be over in 15 minutes, because he has kept the votes to 15 minutes. And we can wrap this baby up.

Mr. GREGG. Will the Senator yield for a question?