Trent Lott

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I now call up amendment No. 4216 at the desk to the pending bill and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. LOTT. I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I now call up the filed second-degree amendment No. 4217 at the desk to the pending amendment and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. LOTT. I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I move to recommit the bill back to the Judiciary Committee to report back forthwith, and I send the motion to the desk.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the motion.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I now send an amendment to the desk to the pending motion to recommit with instructions.

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

Mr. LOTT. I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I send a second-degree amendment to the desk.

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

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 4214 at the desk to the pending first degree amendment and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. LOTT. I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I now withdraw the pending motion to proceed to S. 2557.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there be a period for the transaction of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. LOTT. I might say, Mr. President, I know the Senator from Nevada helped with some of the completion efforts on that energy and water appropriations bill. We should have it ready, hopefully, to be considered tomorrow; if not tomorrow, then the first part of next week. I yield further for his questions and then I have some answers for him.

Mr. LOTT. That sounds like an excellent suggestion to me, Mr. President. If I could respond, of course, the Senator is correct when he noted that we have, I believe, 7 hours of time that will be consumed, if it is all used, to discuss the continuing resolution. And, of course, we would have a vote at the end of that time. Obviously, Senator Reid and others have made their points on the immigration issue. The H-1B issue, hopefully, we could come to agreement to have a vote scheduled on that. And I would like to work with the minority in determining what time they would find agreeable to have that vote. Perhaps we could do that tomorrow. I am fixing to ask consent that we consider the D.C. appropriations bill, which would give us a time agreement on that, if we could get that. On the appropriations bills, it is like all appropriations conferences. They are never closed until they are closed. There are one or two issues that are very important that are still pending on a number of them. Interior appropriations, I believe, is very close to closure. There is still discussion going on with regard to so-called lands legacy funding and the CARA conservation bill. The Agriculture appropriations bill is very close to conclusion. Once again, we have a couple of issues that have to be dealt with in finality. One of them is how do you deal with the sanctions question. A lot of people are making suggestions and, hopefully, a compromise can be reached that satisfies the great majority of the Senate and the House, Republicans and Democrats. We think we are very close on the HUD-VA appropriations bill. The information I get is the administration is signaling that they think that could be an acceptable bill. There might be some issues that would be considered being added to that, not necessarily appropriations bills. The Transportation appropriations bill, I believe, is for the most part done, with one remaining issue that is very difficult to resolve. But I know the Senator from New Jersey has a very passionate feeling about that. I understand that. So there are at least four or five appropriations bills that are pretty close to being wrapped up in terms of the dollar amounts. There is about one policy issue left on each one of them. We hope to have two or three of those done, perhaps in the House of Representatives tomorrow, and then as quickly as we could get to them after that, we would want to do that. I might say, I am expecting that we will be in session obviously on Monday. We do have the Jewish holiday to honor on Friday, September 29. But we will expect to be here on Monday, October 2, and could be having votes on these conferences that Monday. I want to give Senators as much notice as we can, although we have indicated for quite some time that that first week in the new fiscal year, obviously we will have to be prepared to be in session the whole week and into the night, if necessary. Those are the issues we now have identified. There are a number of other issues that are being worked on. The Finance Committee has been doing some work on the railroad retirement bill and on the community renewal legislation, two issues in which I know there is a lot of interest on both sides of the Capitol. I will give the Senator that list, and, hopefully, we can begin to work together to move a number of these. I believe I sense that opportunity now, when maybe it hadn't been quite ready for that earlier.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent 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. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the committee amendments be agreed to.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, Senator Bob Smith has a substitute amendment at the desk and I ask for its consideration.

Mr. LOTT. I ask unanimous consent that the substitute be agreed to.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, in response, I believe the Senate has voted one or more times on all of the issues that Senator Reid mentioned. It is my full expectation that before this session is over a minimum wage bill, coupled with a small business tax relief package that we will have to work through the final details on, will be incorporated in some other bill or moved in one way or another and sent to the President. I fully expect that it will be accomplished. I think maybe the Senator knows there is a Patients' Bill of Rights conference that is still meeting. I think there are meetings, even today, to see if we can come to an agreement to get a bill that truly protects patients, but not just become a bill that provides more opportunities for my brother-in-law to sue people. So I am hopeful on a combination there. In fact, I discussed that with the President directly and said we would still like to see if we couldn't have some sort of a sit-down meeting and a broad, bipartisan, bicameral, ``bi- branch'' of the Government discussion and get an end result. I am still hopeful that can occur. On education, obviously, when we get to the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations conference report, it is going to have funds for education in it--more funds than was requested by the administration or was in our budget resolution. We will have to come to some agreement about how we help local school districts in terms of flexibility, accountability, school construction, and if the best way to be helpful is a bond or some other program. All of that is under discussion now, and it is occurring between the House and Senate and the administration. So certainly I understand that there is a desire to perhaps offer other amendments. I am sure the Senator can understand my feeling that we have already voted on all of those issues, and repeated votes don't necessarily render a result. I think what we need to do in this final period of the session is get agreements and work together. I had a meeting with Senator Daschle. We talked about a bill that has broad bipartisan support--actually, a couple of bills. We looked at whether we can consider them on the floor, or if there is another way we can get a result that would be satisfactory to the largest number of Senators without having an extended cloture process, such as we had on H-1B. I have indicated I would like for us to see if we can find a way to do the railroad retirement bill. But if I bring that up, it probably would have to go through a lot of hurdles, and there is opposition to some aspects of it. Instead of trying to find a way to have a fight, I am trying to find a way to get an agreement and get it done. I certainly understand Senator Reid's position. He has been persistent in that effort, and he has done it without rancor. I appreciate that. As we go into these final few days of the session, hopefully we can keep the channels of communication open and see what we can do to facilitate a conclusion with which most Senators can be satisfied.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I now move to proceed to S. 2557, regarding America's dependency on foreign oil sources.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 813, H.R. 2647.