Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the pending amendments be set aside and the following amendments be made pending: Portman No. 2827; Tester No. 2834; Thune No. 2838; Warren No. 2842; and Bennet No. 2839, as modified.

Mr. HARKIN. I say to my friend I am hopeful we will have final passage today. We are working through it. We are down to just a couple of amendments. I haven't seen any others pop up right now. So I am hopeful we will have this series of votes, people will go to lunch, we will come back, and hopefully we will dispose of maybe a couple more amendments and then we will have final passage.

Mr. HARKIN. If we don't have any kind of extended debate on the floor, I would say probably at least by 3, I would hope we would be finished. If we work out agreement on a couple amendments, we might be done before that.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that following disposition of the Bennet amendment, the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations, en bloc: Calendar Nos. 634, 625, and 550; that the Senate proceed to vote without intervening action or debate on the nominations in the order listed; the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order; that any related statements be printed in the Record; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action and the Senate then resume legislative session; further, that there be 2 minutes for debate, equally divided in the usual form prior to each vote, and that the votes be 10 minutes in length.

Mr. HARKIN. I am told we expect the amendments we are bringing up to be voice-voted this afternoon. Vote on Amendment No. 2830

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote and to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Vote on Amendment No. 2827

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I move to reconsider and then move to lay those motions on the table, for all the voice votes we just considered. The motions to lay on the table were agreed to.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. We yield back our remaining time.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I think the end is in sight, hopefully, on this bill. Our staff has been working hard. We have all been working hard to get amendments worked out. I know both sides have conference lunches that are taking place now. So we hope to come back shortly after these luncheons conclude. We will then be able to move ahead. As I understand it, there are three amendments pending. We don't know whether they will have votes, but we are working on that right now. So I hope we can have final passage on this bill very shortly. Does my friend, the Senator from North Carolina, concur with that?

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, we yield back all time.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, the amendment has the admirable goal of prioritizing funds to low-income families who have children with disabilities. I applaud Senator Vitter's efforts and hope this provides significant reinforcement of what has been the law since 1996--that States must prioritize children from very low-income families who have children with disabilities. This amendment reinforces that by saying the Department of Health and Human Services must meet that promise. There is a provision in there that gives them adequate time to make sure they do that. Again, I thank the Senator from Louisiana for working with us. As I said when this amendment first came up, yes, as someone who has worked on disability issues for most of my adult life, I agreed with exactly what he wanted to do; there were just some language problems. That is the way we get legislation done around here--we work things out and we find the middle ground on which everybody can agree. I thank the Senator from Louisiana for his willingness to work this out. We support the amendment.

Mr. HARKIN. I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Section 8(B)

Mr. HARKIN. Yes, I would agree. As our committee report explains, it is intended that ``States exercise this provision in an attempt to maximize the effective administration and delivery of Federally subsidized childcare, and not for purposes that have a minor effect on childcare.'' I firmly believe, and I know my colleagues will agree, that this provision is not intended, nor should it be interpreted, as one that can be used to rewrite any other current laws, evade central provisions of other current laws, or undermine the goals and purposes of other laws. Certainly, it is not our intent to allow States to change, undermine or threaten in any way current laws.

Mr. HARKIN. The Senator from North Carolina is correct that HHS has shared with me that S. 1086, and any further congressional changes made to S. 1086, would override the May 2013 notice of proposed rulemaking to the CCDF.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, for the information of Senators, we are now down to two voice votes on two pending amendments that have been cleared. We will then have a rollcall vote on final passage. I am hopeful that is going to happen within a very short period of time. In maybe 5 minutes or 10 minutes, I hope we will be ready for a final vote on this bill. With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, we have no further debate on the two pending amendments--Portman No. 2847 and Sanders No. 2846--and the substitute. I know of--Madam President, I was misinformed. I thought those amendments had already been called up. Madam President, I would like to call up in order Portman amendment No. 2847 and Sanders amendment No. 2846 and ask for their immediate consideration.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, as I said, I know of no further debate on those amendments. We are ready to vote.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I withdraw my pending amendment.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, again, I know of no further amendments or debate.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I would like to join my colleagues and thank everyone for getting this bill done. This is a good bill. First, I would again say thanks to both Senator Burr and Senator Mikulski. This is really their bill. They spent the better part of 2 years working this out. I would like to say that we have had a good day here to work this out, as Senator Alexander said. But a lot of that is the preliminary work that goes into developing a bill such as this over a long period of time. So my respect--my great respect--and my thanks to both Senator Burr and Senator Mikulski for getting this bill to where we are now. My thanks to my good friend Senator Alexander and for the great partnership we have working together on the committee. As he said the other day, no other committee has a wider divergence of ideological views than our committee, but I believe, if I am not mistaken, this is the 19th or 20th bill we have gotten through our committee this Congress. Mr. REID addressed the Chair.

Mr. HARKIN. Yes, of course I will yield.

Mr. HARKIN. The leader is right. Senator Lee was very accommodating in letting us move forward on this bill. I appreciate that. We accomplished a lot in the floor process, as Senator Alexander said. I think we can adopt the legislation, making it an even stronger bill. I would not like to thank a lot of the staff. I hope I do not miss anyone. David Cleary, Peter Oppenheim, Patrick Murray, Marty West, and Bill Knudsen of Senator Alexander's staff. I would like to thank Chris Toppings and Natasha Hickman of Senator Burr's staff. I would like to commend the work of Jessica McNiece and Brent Palmer of Senator Mikulski's staff. Finally, I would like to thank Pam Smith, who is not here but who worked on this for a long time, Derek Miller, Mildred Otero, Mario Cardona, Soncia Coleman, Michael Gamel McCormick, Leanne Hotek, Brit Moller, and Aissa Canchola of my staff. I also wish to thank, from the staffs of Senator Murray, Sarah Bolton; Senator Sanders, David Cohen; Senator Casey, Sara Mabry and Christina Baumgardner; Senator Hagan, Ashley Eden; Senator Franken, Gohar Sedighi and Maggie Henderson; Senator Bennet, Juliana Herman and Molly Fishman; Senator Whitehouse, Rick Van Buren; Senator Baldwin, Michael Dinapolo; Senator Murphy, Yoon Hayne; Senator Warren, Julie Morgan; Senator Enzi, Kristin Chapman; Senator Isakson, Brett Layson; Senator Paul, Natalie Burkholter; Senator Hatch, Katie Neal; Senator Roberts, Joshua Yurek; Senator Murkowski, Karen McCarthy; Senator Kirk, Cabe Clurman; and Senator Scott, Elizabeth Simmons. As I said at the beginning of this bill's consideration, this bill represents a strong, positive shift for working families in America who benefit from the childcare subsidy program. I hope my colleagues will join all of us in voting to give this an overwhelming vote of yes on final passage. I know of no further debate on the bill. The bill was ordered to be engrossed for a third reading and was read the third time.

Mr. HARKIN. I ask for the yeas and nays.