Trent Lott

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. At the appropriate time, I will use leader time to wrap up debate on this issue.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, at the request of the Senator from Pennsylvania, Mr. Santorum, and others, we are going to have this vote today. They made the point this was an important issue to them. They thought there should be some discussion about it and asked for an opportunity to have some debate and a vote. Little did I know at the time it was going to be a weekly event. Last week it was the revolving fund loan for steel. This week it is the quota bill. Next week it will be something else. In fact, the Finance Committee has reported out something, and it is probably, of the three options, the only one we should be considering. But do not fool yourselves; this is not an inconsequential vote. Don't be saying we can vote for this on the motion to proceed and then we can vote against it later on. In order to go forward, the proponents have to get 60 votes today but only 51 tomorrow. So I urge my colleagues, do not say, I'll give them a procedural vote. What you may be giving them is something that would be very dangerous, because we then could be voting on the substance itself. I think the consequences of such a vote that would befall America's economy and our trade policy would be dire, indeed. Not only would it increase the burden on our consumers, it would also run counter to our international trade agreements, and it would adversely affect our businesses and farmers that depend upon access to these international markets. There is no question this bill would undercut the economic growth we enjoy today. It would be starting down an extremely dangerous path. We all struggle with similar issues in our own States in one area or another--perhaps agriculture here, textiles there, something else elsewhere. But free trade has been proven, time and time again, to benefit America, to benefit American consumers. It is the right thing to do, and we should not start down the trail of passing quotas here, there, or somewhere else. I urge my colleagues, vote against cloture. I yield the floor. Cloture Motion

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I would like to use some of my leader time now to close debate on this issue. First, I yield a minute to the Senator from Idaho to comment.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, has all time expired?

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I move to table amendment No. 703 and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I notify Senators that this will be the last vote tonight. Tomorrow at 9:30, we will resume consideration of the agriculture appropriations bill which will be clean of the Patients' Bill of Rights. I urge Members to offer amendments to the agriculture appropriations bill as soon as possible. I yield the floor. Amendment No. 702

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I move to table amendment No. 702, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, 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.

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

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

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. The Finance Committee did report it out today. I did vote, along with everybody else, for the nomination. It will be on the calendar tomorrow. I had indicated I assumed that before we went out for the Fourth of July recess, which is a week from Friday, that would be taken up. It very well could be taken up before then. But we have not gotten it on the calendar, and we have not made a definite determination as to when we will call it up. I assume other nominations will be on the calendar tomorrow from other committees, and I hope we have the same approach as we have had this year--including three nominations last week--to move these nominations through pretty quickly after reaching the calendar, barring complications that do sometimes come up, of course.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, the Senate will convene at 9:30 a.m. and immediately resume consideration of the agriculture appropriations bill. It is the hope of the majority leader that the Senate can consider agriculture-related amendments during Wednesday's session of the Senate. All Senators can, therefore, expect rollcall votes throughout the session tomorrow as the Senate makes further progress on the agriculture appropriations bill. Once that is completed, of course, other issues may be considered, but we could consult with both sides of the aisle before we move to the next bill.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. I thank the Chair. I thank Senator Daschle for that approach. We will be working, and we will talk in a few minutes.

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

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I think we would be right back in the position in the morning where we are now on the agriculture appropriations bill. There will be discussions between now and then to see if there is any other way we could approach this issue. If we do not get something worked out, I believe the Senator would be entitled to get recognition to offer an amendment. I have the impression that it would be difficult for us to do that at this time. Mr. President, so we can talk this through, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in adjournment until 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, June 23. I further ask that on Wednesday, immediately following the prayer, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed to have expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate immediately resume consideration of the agriculture appropriations bill.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. As the Senate moves toward consideration of the Foreign Operations Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2000, I want to note the significant efforts being made by the Government of Bolivia in its counternarcotics program. Since taking office in August, 1997, the government of Hugo Banzer has reduced Bolivia's cocaine production potential by a remarkable 40 percent. This is historic progress, which I hope will be emulated by other nations in the region. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter I received from the Vice President of Bolivia, Mr. Jorge Quiroga Ramirez, which discusses the Bolivian Government's plans and seeks continued American assistance in its counternarcotics efforts.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I now ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that following the modification of the pending Sarbanes amendment, the Senate proceed to a vote on the amendment at 5:30 this evening.

Mr. LOTT. Madam President, I believe we will be waiting for the managers of the State Department authorization bill to come back to the floor. We had a time agreement on the State Department authorization, and we had hoped to complete that bill last Friday, but for a variety of reasons we weren't able to do so. We did get a list of amendments. I believe we have some pretty tight time agreements on those amendments. We need to move forward with getting to a conclusion early this week on final passage of the State Department authorization. That will be helpful in dealing with other issues pending before the Foreign Relations Committee, including possibly some nominations that have been pending there, because of the very serious nature and the need to get the State Department reauthorization done. So we will go back to that and the managers will be coming to the floor shortly, I am sure, and then we will have a vote, as agreed to, at 5:30 this afternoon on the pending Sarbanes amendment. With that, I am glad to yield to the Senator from Massachusetts.

Mr. LOTT. That is correct, but it is temporary. We basically now are dealing with three different issues--the State Department authorization, which began last Friday, the agriculture appropriations bill, and the managers of that appropriations bill were able to get, I believe, a couple hours of time on that, and now the Patients' Bill of Rights issue. We will go back to the State Department authorization and, hopefully, we can complete that, and then all of the interested Senators who would like to be heard in a reasonable period of time on the Patients' Bill of Rights, we will work that out for tomorrow. Senators Nickles, Collins, Frist, Santorum, and others will probably want to be heard on that, and I know a number of Senators on your side. We want to work with Senator Kennedy and Senator Daschle to see how we set that up.

Mr. LOTT. I intend to do that, but I have to say, within reason. That would be in the eye of the beholder. I know there are Senators on both sides of the aisle who want to speak about this issue and want to talk about the alternative proposals. We will line up a time to do that. I can't say right now, without talking to the managers of the two other bills and with Senator Daschle, exactly when that will be or how long it will be. We will work that out this afternoon or tomorrow morning.

Mr. LOTT. Regarding the juvenile justice bill, you will recall I made a commitment we would bring that up and debate and amendments would not be shut off. But it was with some assurances that we would finish it by Thursday night of the week it came up--I think on Monday. As a matter of fact, it was the following week before we were able to finish it. That is why I think we need to get some clear understanding of exactly what time would be involved and when the votes would occur. I will make sure we get that clarified before we go forward.

Mr. LOTT. Madam President, if I could reclaim my time, I am glad to try to enter an agreement as to how this issue would be handled. We are ready to go. But the comment about gatekeeper--we have a lot of important work to do here. Agriculture, obviously, is a very important issue, and State Department authorization is very important, and intelligence authorization is very important. We have appropriations bills we need to move through. We have a limited amount of time in which to do that. We have this week and next week before the Fourth of July recess. Therefore, there must be some reasonable understanding, some reasonable agreement about how much time or what amendments will be offered. We do that all the time. Every Senator knows we enter into agreements to limit amendments or limit time. If we can get that worked out, then we will go forward. The alternative is that we can have debate on this tomorrow, and we can have a couple of votes and sort of see where we are and then decide how to proceed after that. But I believe we have broad support outside of this Chamber and in the Senate for the alternative that we have. Great work has been done by Dr. Frist and Senator Collins and Senator Jeffords, a broad group within our conference working with Senators from all regions of the country who understand this problem. We are ready to do it. As soon as you can decide you are ready to have a vote on the merits of the two packages pending, with a reasonable number of amendments, we will do that. We are going to have to get some order as to how that is done, and we will do that or we will just vote on the packages as they are and let that happen. I think we can keep wrangling back and forth. I invite others to join in the opportunity to discuss exactly the substance of the two bills and also how we will handle them. I see the chairman is here, and Senator Specter from Pennsylvania is here, and others. I yield the floor.

Mr. LOTT

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