Trent Lott

Mr. LOTT

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, this cloture vote will occur on Thursday unless we are in a postcloture situation on the Treasury-Postal Service appropriations bill, the intelligence authorization bill, or on the energy and water appropriations bill under some other agreement. I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum be waived.

Mr. LOTT. I now withdraw the motion to proceed. I believe I have that right.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I move to proceed to the bill, and I send a cloture motion to the desk.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Yes.

Mr. LOTT. I thank Senator Kennedy, and I thank Senator Domenici for allowing us to have an exchange. I know he is anxious to get his bill done. It is an important bill, the energy and water appropriations bill. It means a great deal to our country. I know he is trying to find a way to proceed. At this point, this is the only option I have. I yield the floor so he may comment on that.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, if I can respond to the Senator's questions and comments, he knows a major effort was made last Thursday evening to come up with an agreement on how to proceed further on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. One of the problems we had then, and we continue to have, is Senators on both sides of the aisle have nongermane, noneducation issues they want to get into or, conversely, amendments they do not want to be offered. I know there had been some suggestion that maybe the NCAA gaming issue would be offered, and there was a feeling on the Democratic side that should not be included in the package of what we proceed to consider. There is at least one Senator on this side who is interested in being able to offer an IDEA amendment which, in fact, relates to education, but there was resistance to that Senator being able to offer his amendment. Then it got into immigration, and we were close to working out an agreement that connected, in a way, this bill with H-1B. In the end, we could not get the agreement. A lot of time was put in on that by Senators on both sides. Senator Daschle and I worked very hard on it. We were up the hill, down the hill. We will keep trying to find a way to go back to this legislation this year and get it completed. I have another idea I am considering right now that will get us back on it in a way that will actually get it to completion. That is my goal. I am not interested in only going back to it and playing games with it and having nongermane, noneducation issues poured on this bill. I want to stick to education. I think we can have a good debate and a lot of amendments that are strictly related to elementary and secondary education. I realize the ingenuity of Senators can stretch the idea of related amendments to education. That is the way I would like to proceed. Right now we are having trouble getting agreement to do appropriations bills and the intelligence authorization bill. I am even worried about being able to go forward with the commitment to begin the proceedings on the China PNTR tomorrow, which I still hope to be able to do, but it is going to take some concessions, again, as to how we proceed to get that done. I will be glad to keep working with Senator Kennedy, Senator Daschle, Senator Reid, Senator Gregg, and Senator Ashcroft. I like the bill. I would like to get it done. I would like to vote on it just as it is myself. I do not think we need to fix it up anymore. It does not need more bells and whistles. Let's just vote. I know others have amendments, and we will try to find agreement.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. I know Senator Kennedy seeks recognition at this time to explain his position. I will stay in the Chamber and will be glad to respond to questions he wants to ask.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period for morning business for 90 minutes, equally divided in the usual form.

Mr. LOTT. Ninety minutes. I believe Senator Kennedy reserved the right to object.

Mr. LOTT. We are now in a period for morning business.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I had hoped we could come up with some compromise agreement about how to proceed to the energy-water appropriations bill, with regard to one section that is very important to a lot of different Senators. We have not come to an understanding on that yet, but I have to take steps now to move toward the consideration of the energy and water appropriations substance. So I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to consideration of Calendar No. 688, H.R. 4733, the energy and water appropriations bill.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, let me renew my request for that, and under a reservation of the right to object, I would be glad to respond. If the Senator would prefer, I would be glad to----

Mr. LOTT. I say to the Senator from Massachusetts, I think there is a misunderstanding. I again ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 688, H.R. 4733, the energy and water appropriations bill.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I am disappointed there is an objection. It was my hope we could come to an agreement on how to proceed to this bill in a timely way. I hope we can at least proceed to the bill and begin the amendment process to resolve the differences that may be involved. The Democrats have mentioned section 103 involving the Missouri River is a problem. I understand that. I think once we get to the bill we can resolve that problem.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, today, I have the pleasure to announce that another freshman has achieved the 100 hour mark as presiding officer. Senator Jim Bunning is the latest recipient of the Senate's coveted Golden Gavel Award. Since the 1960's, the Senate has recognized those dedicated members who preside over the Senate for 100 hours with the Golden Gavel. This award continues to represent our appreciation for the time these dedicated senators contribute to presiding over the U.S. Senate--a privileged and important duty. On behalf of the Senate, I extend our sincere appreciation to Senator Bunning and his diligent staff for their efforts and commitment to presiding duties during the 106th Congress.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, today, I have the pleasure to announce that Senator Gordon Smith is the latest recipient of the Senate's Golden Gavel Award, marking his 100th hour of presiding over the U.S. Senate. The Golden Gavel Award has long-served as a symbol of appreciation for the time that Senators contribute to presiding over the U.S. Senate--a privileged and important duty. Since the 1960's, senators who preside for 100 hours have been recognized with this coveted award. On behalf of the Senate, I extend our sincere appreciation to Senator Smith for presiding during the 106th Congress.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I realize there are some 6 minutes left under the time agreement for the Democratic leadership to be able to have comments during the first hour; and then we will have an hour under the control of Senator Thomas. But I will use my leader time now so we will not take the remaining 6 minutes of the Democratic time.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, with regard to the week's schedule, we had hoped we would be making progress now on the energy and water appropriations bill. But a disagreement developed on Friday afternoon, and we are continuing to see if we can work through that. I have spoken to Senator Domenici, the chairman of the energy and water appropriations subcommittee, about trying to find a way to proceed. It is very important legislation for our country. It does involve appropriations for the Energy Department, the very important nuclear weapons labs, as well as water projects all over this country in which Members and States and various groups are very interested. So I hope we can find a way to proceed on that. It has been held up, basically, by a disagreement over how to handle the water levels on the Missouri River, affecting the States of North Dakota, South Dakota, Missouri, and perhaps others downstream. It is not easy to reconcile or to come to an agreement because there are very strong feelings about it, and it is very important to local areas. I know Senator Domenici is ready to proceed. He will be over later to make some comments about the importance of this legislation. We also hope to take up the Treasury-Postal Service appropriations bill this week. It should not be that controversial. I understand there may be some amendments to it; It may take some time, but that is understandable. That is fine. We could do that and still conclude that legislation probably in a day or so. We had hoped that during the pendency of the week we could also go to the Commerce-State-Justice appropriations bill. We had hoped to do all three of them, or at least two of the three, and make some progress on Commerce-State-Justice. We also would like to proceed to the intelligence authorization bill. As is always the case, after the Armed Services Defense authorization bill for the year is done, we, in relatively short order, then go to the intelligence authorization. I do not need to talk about the importance of the intelligence authorization bill and what it means to the security of our country, but we have not been able to work out exactly how to proceed on that either. Then on Wednesday, we had indicated we would go to the China PNTR issue. Indications had been that there would be resistance to moving forward on the motion to proceed, and I would have to file cloture on that, with that cloture motion then ripening on Friday. So we would go ahead and go to that and get over the first hurdle in being able to complete the China trade legislation when we come back in September. We had hoped to go to the Executive Calendar and get some nominations completed this week and also consider some additional judges that might be reported from the Judiciary Committee during the week. All of that right now is in abeyance. We have not been able to get an agreement on how to proceed at this time. I think that is unfortunate because we do have 4, 4\1/2\ days this week in which we need to make real progress on appropriations bills and other issues, as well as the China trade legislation. If we cannot get an agreement here in the next couple of hours or so, then I will have to try to proceed to one of the appropriations bills and the intelligence authorization bill, and perhaps even file cloture on them. Both of those will then ripen on Wednesday. Of course, if cloture is obtained, then we will be on those bills, which will then get tangled up in the China permanent normal trade relations issue. So this is not a good way to proceed, but that may be our only alternative. But I have talked to Senator Daschle this morning. I have talked to Senator Hatch. We will continue to work with Senators on both sides of the aisle to see if we can find a way to make some good progress this week, because this is the last week before the August recess, and it will have an effect on what we are able to do in September.

Mr. LOTT

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

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I rise at this time to talk about our beloved friend, Senator Paul Coverdell of Georgia. I had hoped to be able to make some further comments last week, after it fell my duty to come to the floor and announce his very untimely death, but I just could not do it because I was so emotionally disturbed and grieving over the loss of this good friend. I guess maybe the week and the services in Georgia on Saturday have helped me come to peace with this very difficult loss and to say a fond farewell to my good friend from Georgia. But I wanted to speak now because I felt, even this morning, a void for this week; Paul will not be here. He will not be here saying, What can we do next? How can I help? He was willing to work with all of the Republicans and all of the Democrats, going over to the Democratic side of the aisle and seeking out Senator Harry Reid or Senator Torricelli, trying to find some way to make a bipartisan piece of legislation possible. So we will have a void this week. But, as I was thinking about it a few moments ago, there will be a void forever in the Senate with the loss of Paul Coverdell because his was an unfinished symphony. A lot more beautiful sounds were going to come from that somewhat uncertain trumpet from Georgia. Folks have talked about his flailing hands and his squeaky voice, but that is what really made Senator Coverdell all the more attractive. He was not always as smooth as some of us like to think we might be, but he was always effective. Maybe it was because of the way he presented his speeches and the way he came across in his daily relationships with all of us. The Chaplain of the Senate, Lloyd Ogilvie, at the church services in memory of Paul Coverdell on Saturday, referred to him as a peacemaker. And maybe this is a good time of the year to be thinking about the beatitudes because I think it really did describe Paul. Even though he felt very strongly about the issues he believed in or that he was opposed to, he was always binding up everybody else's wounds. He would find a way to make peace and get results. I thought the Chaplain's description of him as a peacemaker was apropos. When I did my Bible study this morning, I came to that particular passage, ``Blessed is the peacemaker.'' Again I thought, that is just one more message about Paul and the great job he did in the Senate. I met Paul years ago actually, way back in the 1970s when there was a very fledgling Republican Party in Georgia. We didn't have much of a Republican Party at that time in my State, but we were beginning to make progress. Maybe Georgia was even a little bit behind us. I remember going down to Atlanta and then having to go to Albany, GA, to attend events, then back into Atlanta. It was one of those occasions where a number of Congressmen and Senators came in for a fly around the State, and then we all came back in for the big dinner. It was logistically hard to orchestrate. Then I finally met the maestro; the maestro was Paul Coverdell. Typically, I learned later, it was the way he would work. He had five or six of us come in. We went to five or six different places in the State like spokes on a wheel. We came back. We had dinner. It was a very effective event. Everything worked like clockwork. It worked like clockwork because Paul Coverdell was making it happen. In those days, as I recall, he was in the State legislature, in the State senate. They had three Republicans. He was the minority leader. They had a minority whip and they had a whipee. There were three of them. That is the way he used to describe his powerful role in the senate, although, as I came to find out a lot later, he was a very effective member of the State senate, working as always both sides of the aisle, even though he only had three in his party in the State senate at that time. Of course, he went on to work in the Bush administration in the Peace Corps. I wasn't quite sure what that meant, but I am sure he did a great job at the Peace Corps. I remember then supporting him when he actually ran for the Senate in 1992. I wasn't that intimately involved in the campaign but knew him to be a good man. I remember making a pitch for him both here and in Georgia. When I really got to know him was when he came to the Senate. Almost immediately he started throwing himself into the fray, whatever was going on. I remember we had the Clinton health care plan. I think he made 147 appearances in one State or another, on one occasion or another, against the Government takeover of health care. He felt passionately about it. He took off on the trail with Senator Phil Gramm and Senator John McCain. They had a lot to do with the eventual, and in my opinion, appropriate demise of that legislation. I learned that he wouldn't just talk a good game or wouldn't just give direction; he would put his body on the line. He would go anywhere, anytime to see that the message was delivered. Immediately he started saying: If we are going to do this in a positive way, if we are going to be fighting this legislation, how are we going to get our message out? He would be persistent about it. He would follow you around and keep wanting to talk about it. I remember he actually instigated meetings, at that time between the Speaker of the House and me, first as whip and then as majority leader, in which he would get the two of us together. He would have charts. Here he is from Georgia in probably his fourth year in the Senate, and he is using charts to explain the situation to the Speaker of the House and the majority leader. Only we listened because he had thought about it; he was organized. He had some ideas. I remember one occasion he said: You have to come to Atlanta. I said: I don't want to come to Atlanta. He said: Just come for lunch; Newt and I want to sit and talk with you. So I flew down. We had lunch. He had charts and he had a video this time. He talked about how we should be planning our strategy. Then we flew back. I thought about that many times, in a way, the temerity of that. But that was Paul. Nobody objected. Nobody took it as a threat. Nobody worried he was stepping on their turf. And thank goodness, somebody was thinking and planning. That was Paul. Then after that, of course, he got involved as a member of the leadership team. I really liked that because I can remember very early on I realized that if there was a task that needed to be performed that nobody else would do, I could call on Paul; he would be glad to do it. I can remember going down the leadership line: Would you have the time to do this? Do you have the staff to do this? It would come down to the third person. He always sat at the other end of the leadership table. I would get to Paul, having had three turndowns, and Paul would say: Sure, I'll do it. Very quickly I developed the moniker for Paul of ``Mikey.'' I like to nickname Senators. Most of them wouldn't like for me to talk about it publicly. But Paul actually kind of liked being called Mikey. Mikey came from the television cereal commercial where the two kids are pushing a bowl of cereal back and forth saying: You eat it; no, you eat it. Finally, they push it to the third little boy and say: Give it to Mikey; he will try anything. That was the way Paul was. When all the other great leaders of the Senate were not willing to take the time, not willing to do the dirty, difficult, time-consuming job, Mikey would do it. I remember every time I called him Mikey, he would break out in a big smile. Tricia, my wife, picked it up, too. We liked too talk to Nancy about how sorry we were to have kept him tied up a little extra, too, sometimes in the Senate. But Mikey had his work to do. So it was a very affectionate term I had for him, and it described him so perfectly. He was not a funny, ha-ha sort of guy, but he was willing to laugh. He had a sense of humor. He was willing to laugh at himself, which really made him attractive. He was self-effacing. There was no grandeur there. He was, as Phil Gramm said in his remarks at the services Saturday--I believe it was Phil--or as somebody said: An ordinary man with extraordinary talents. He was willing to work hard to make up for whatever he lacked in some other way. He surely was loyal. I never had to worry about anything I said or asked Paul to do being used in an inappropriate way against me or against anybody else. He would handle it properly. And he was sensitive. He was always sensitive: Did I do the right thing? Did this Senator react some uncertain way? I remember asking him to come and help us on the floor on issues he cared about. He really cared about education. He wanted education savings accounts. He believed it would help parents with children in school. He believed it would help low-income parents have the ability to save just a little bit of their money, just a little bit to help their children with clothes or computers or tutoring. If we ever find a way to pass that legislation, instead of education savings accounts, it should be the Coverdell savings accounts. That would be an appropriate memorial and monument to Paul Coverdell. He believed in it. It wasn't a partisan political thing. It was something he thought would make a difference. As for drugs, I remember him following me around in the well heckling me about the need to pay more attention to the drug running in the Gulf of Mexico area across the borders in the Southwest. The Senator from Arizona worked with him on that issue. I remember his commitment to trying to be helpful to the Government in Colombia to fight drug terrorism there. He was passionate about it because he felt it threatened our country, threatened our very sovereignty, and it threatened our children. Once again, as with education, he saw it in terms of what it was doing or could do to our children. Again, he was involved. One of the last discussions I had with him was on the intelligence authorization bill. There is a provision in it which he didn't particularly like. He was determined to have a way to make his case on that. In his memory, we will make sure his case is made by Senator Kyl, Senator Feinstein, Senator DeWine, perhaps others. He really would dig into issues and make a difference. I also called on him at times when there really was nobody else who could take the time to do the job. He worked with us for a solid week on the floor on the Labor, HHS, Education appropriations bill. I came in one day and found that we had over 200 amendments pending. Somebody had to take the time to work with both sides to begin to get those amendments reduced, accepted, eliminated, withdrawn, or whatever. To his credit, Senator Specter said: I would like to have Paul spend time helping me with this. Other leadership members were involved in other issues. I could not be here. Senator Nickles could not be here. We had other things we had to do. Within a short period of time, the 200 became 50. Before the week was out, it was done. Senator Reid will tell you that Paul really made the difference. He didn't just hang out on this side of the aisle; he was rummaging around on the other side trying to see if we could work through it. I remember at the end of the week he was a little pale and, obviously, a little stressed. He came to my office and said: Boy, do I understand a little bit better what your job entails. Well, he was able to do it because nobody felt threatened by Paul. He wasn't getting in my hair, stepping on Senator Nickles' turf, or inappropriately shoving amendments away. He was working with everybody involved. Nobody got mad. Nobody got even. It is sort of a unique thing for a Senator to be able to do that. So I guess I will be trying to find another ``Mikey.'' But I don't think there is one. And so as I thought about doing this speech, I tried to find some statement, some poem, something that would pay a final appropriate treatment to Senator Coverdell. I came across a passage from a poem, ``The Comfort of Friends,'' by William Penn. He said: They that love beyond the world Cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill what never dies, Nor can spirits ever be divided That love and live in the same divine principle: [Because that is] the root and record of their friendship. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. LOTT

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

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Madam President, I note, again, for all Senators, that this authorizes the printing of certain materials to honor Senator Paul Coverdell. We will designate a specific period of time later on this week so Senators who have not spoken will have an opportunity to do so. Of course, we will then pull together into a package all of the statements that have been made about Senator Coverdell for his widow, Nancy Coverdell.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Madam President, I move to proceed to H.R. 4871, and I send a cloture motion to the desk.