Trent Lott

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet in executive session on Friday, July 21, 2000.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Forests and Public Lands of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Friday, July 21, 2000, at 9:30 a.m. to conduct an oversight hearing. The subcommittee will receive testimony on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement implementing the October 1999 announcement by President Clinton to review approximately 40 million acres of national forest lands for increased protection.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Reserving the right to object, and I will not object, I know a lot of Senators on both sides are wondering about the proceedings at this time. I understand there are at least a couple of amendments that may take a few minutes. And then, of course, we are not sure at this point whether they would require a recorded vote or not, and then final passage. We still hope to get an agreement that would allow us to go to the marriage penalty tonight, and have an hour of debate on that, and then continue on that tomorrow. And beyond that, we will have to get an agreement worked out. I urge my colleagues to, if they will, agree to time limits and cooperate with the managers as much as they can. We need to finish this bill in the next 30 minutes, if we can, and get an agreement on how we proceed for the rest of tonight, tomorrow, and Monday. So I withdraw my reservation. And I thank Senator Durbin for allowing me to do that at this point.

Mr. LOTT. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I thank the manager of the Agriculture appropriations bill for allowing me to begin this unanimous consent request and for his patience in working through this long series of amendments. Again, I thank Harry Reid and Senator Daschle for their work with us. We have a unanimous consent request so Senators will know how to proceed tonight. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the reconciliation/marriage tax relief conference report to H.R. 4810, and there be up to 90 minutes for debate this evening, to be equally divided between the two managers. I further ask unanimous consent that when the Senate reconvenes at 9 a.m. on Friday, there be 30 minutes of debate on the marriage tax penalty conference report, to be equally divided between the two managers, and following the use or yielding back of time, the Senate proceed to the vote on adoption of the reconciliation/marriage tax relief conference report, without any intervening action, motion, or debate. I further ask consent that following the disposition of the marriage tax relief conference report on Friday, the Senate immediately proceed to executive session in order to consider the following nominations, that they be considered en bloc, confirmed en bloc, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, the President be notified, and the Senate return to legislative session. Those nominations are: Johnnie Rawlinson, to be a Ninth Circuit Judge; Dennis Cavanaugh, to be a district judge; John E. Steele, to be a district judge; Gregory Presnell, to be a district judge; and James Moody, to be a district judge. If we can get an agreement, Senator Daschle and I are prepared to go forward with the Department of Defense appropriations bill. We don't have that yet, but we will try to clear that on both sides.

Mr. LOTT. I thank Senator Daschle, Senator Reid, and Senator Cochran for their help in this matter.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, we are working with the managers of various pieces of legislation to determine the best way to proceed. Senator Daschle and I have been discussing how to proceed. We have had a very busy time over the past 8 days. We have had a lot of votes. We have completed a lot of work: The Department of Defense authorization bill-- actually, we completed that with debate at night--the Interior appropriations bill today, the death tax elimination legislation last Friday, and the marriage tax penalty today. The question is how to proceed at this point. We hope we can complete action on the foreign operations appropriations bill so it can go to conference, as we did yesterday on the legislative appropriations bill. Our colleagues will recall, we did take that up but didn't complete it. We need to get that done so that can go to conference and the House and Senate conferees can begin working with the administration to get that important legislation passed. I know they have interest in it. We do, too. We are also committed to getting four appropriations bills done before we go out for the August recess: Agriculture, which is, I believe, ready to proceed. The managers are in the area. Senator Cochran and Senator Kohl are in the area; The energy and water appropriations bill is ready to go when we complete Agriculture; Treasury-Postal Service will be ready next week, and Commerce-State- Justice. That would be 11 appropriations bills. That would still leave the HUD-VA appropriations bill and the DC appropriations bill. But for a variety of reasons, we probably could not get those two done until some time in September, maybe even the middle of September anyway. Now, there are other issues in which Senators are interested. We have been discussing ways to proceed to them, or if we could proceed to them. We had discussed the possibility of going to the NCAA gaming issue. I discussed that with some of the advocates on this side of the aisle at noon today. I understand, in fact, we may not be able to proceed to that because we have to clear it with a lot of different Senators. But we will continue to look to see if we can find a way to have that legislation considered. Senator Daschle will want to comment on a number of these things, and maybe ask questions, too. We still have pending the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. We put about a week or more into that legislation. A lot of amendments have been offered and voted on. There is a feeling, I hope, on both sides of the aisle that we would still like to actually complete that legislation. I would like to consider working on it and at some point proceed the way we did on the Defense authorization bill so we actually get it completed. I am going to talk more with Senator Daschle about that. He will want to consult, I am sure, with the ranking member on his side. I will want to consult with the chairman on our side, Senator Jeffords, and Senator Craig, and others who are involved in that. I continue to urge the Judiciary Committee to make progress on judicial nominations. There are a number of nominations that have had hearings, nominations that are ready for a vote, and other nominations that have been pending for quite some time that should be considered. I have discussed this matter regularly with Senator Hatch, including last Friday afternoon and, again, just briefly yesterday. I cannot make the Judiciary Committee vote. I cannot tell them who to vote on, but I can urge them to continue to work on those nominations that can be cleared and can be reported to the Senate. I have been assured by the chairman that they are going to have a markup and report out some judges on Wednesday of this week or--I thought it was Wednesday. Has it been moved to Thursday? I thought it was 10 o'clock on Wednesday. But they are going to report out judges this week and have at least one more hearing before the August recess. They expect to report out another group of judges next week. In that group will be not only district judges but circuit judges. So I want to make that record clear. With regard to the issue a lot of Senators are interested in, the China permanent normal trade relations issue, we have to finish the appropriations bills. But we are discussing now a procedure, which we can discuss, that would allow us to go ahead and proceed to it, take some action on it next week but recognize that because of the time that could be required in having to debate and file cloture on a motion to proceed, and other cloture motions that might be necessary, we would not be able to complete it and do the appropriations bills next week. Also, I continue to have a desire to find a way for the Thompson- Torricelli issue to be considered, either freestanding or as an amendment. So we need to get that resolved before we actually move to proceed to the China PNTR bill. But I can see, again, the possibility of doing some work on that freestanding at night or doing it as an amendment, or, of course, he may reserve his right and may, in fact, believe he has to actually offer it when we go to China PNTR. So what I am proposing here--and I would like Senator Daschle to comment on it--is that we go ahead and complete action on the foreign operations appropriations bill, send it to conference; that we go to the Agriculture appropriations bill; that we then take up the other appropriations bills in this group --energy and water, Treasury-Postal Service, and CJS--but that we work to see if we can proceed at night, perhaps on Thursday, perhaps next Monday, on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. I need to consult with Senators that have been involved in that from the committee--the chairman and others I mentioned--and Senator Daschle needs to do the same thing. If we could get an understanding that we would work on all these, we would also entertain the idea of proceeding to the China PNTR legislation next Wednesday. I believe, as it now stands, I would have to file a cloture motion on that. That cloture, then, would ripen on Friday; I believe that would be the 28th of July, which would be the Friday that we would hope to go out for the August recess. That would be the final action, unless 30 hours had to be run off of it at that time. Then we would go back to that when we come back after the August recess in September. The positive effects of that would be that we would show clearly we intend to go to this legislation. We are going to work together to get these appropriations bills done. We are going to go to China PNTR. We are going to get over the first hurdle, recognizing that there are several other hurdles that could require quite a bit of time to complete. But those are sort of the parameters of what Senator Daschle and I and others have been talking about. I say to Senator Daschle, why don't I yield the floor so you can make comments on that and/or ask any questions.

Mr. LOTT. If I could respond to Senator McCain's comments, as I indicated to him at lunch, I was prepared and am prepared to move to proceed to that issue. I understand perhaps there may be objection to proceeding. I had hoped maybe we could get an agreement to go ahead and proceed. But we can call it up, and if there is objection, there is objection. We will have to deal with it at that point. Of course, one option is to file cloture to try to overcome that objection. But we would have to factor in the time that would take and how that would play in all these other issues we are trying to balance. Senator Daschle and I thought maybe we could go to it, but we have an obligation. Just like I had to talk to Senator McCain, I need to talk to Senator Brownback. He has Senators he needs to talk to. I believe--I do not want to speak for him--he indicated he thought perhaps there would be an objection to proceeding. We did not think that was the case as early as 11 o'clock today. We will continue to work with the Senator because I am committed to working with him and Senator Brownback to find a way for this issue to come up and be considered. If we can ever get it to a vote, I think the Senator is right; it is going to pass overwhelmingly.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I am glad to yield to the Senator from Michigan.

Mr. LOTT. I thank the Senator. Let me note, for instance, the types of things we do need to accommodate. The Senate tomorrow will want to accommodate Senators wishing to attend the services for Senator Pastore, a great Senator from the State of Rhode Island. A delegation will be attending those services tomorrow morning. We will continue to work, but we will withhold the votes or stack the votes, if any are required, until the afternoon at 2 or 2:30. I don't know exactly what time it would be, but I know Senator Cochran would want to do that. That is the kind of situation we have to try to accommodate. We can't always dictate how we will proceed because we want to do this in memory of a Senator who served in this body for many years. We will continue to act in good faith to try to make sure Senators' wishes are known and accommodated. We may not be able to get them all worked out. As to the NCAA gaming, I thought maybe we could move to proceed to that without objection, but there may be a legitimate one. I had promised a couple of Senators we would make sure they knew of that. I will also need to talk to Senators about the best night that we could do some work on ESEA. Senator Daschle will want to do the same in view of that.

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

Mr. LOTT. I understand there may be some clarification that needs to be completed before we can proceed to the appropriations bill for Agriculture.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask consent the vote occur in relation to the Lott amendment notwithstanding the order for the recess of the Senate.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask consent that immediately following the reconvening at 2:15, there be 5 minutes for the managers or their designees for closing remarks, to be followed immediately by a vote on passage of H.R. 4810.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I do have brief remarks before the vote on the next amendment. Are we ready to proceed to that?

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, the amendment we have before us will return to the text of the committee-reported bill. If this amendment is agreed to, we will then be voting on a clean marriage penalty relief bill with the exact text that was reported from the Finance Committee. It is a simple vote. It is a simple choice. Last night the Senate did accept some amendments on several issues that are not relevant to marriage penalty relief, several of them on voice vote, perhaps a couple of them along the way on recorded votes. Some of them are good amendments. We will have another opportunity to vote for them or have them included in other legislation. They are good ideas that deserve to be on another bill. This bill is about tax relief for married couples and about eliminating the marriage penalty when a couple gets married, so I urge my colleagues to support cleaning up the bill so we can pass a clean marriage penalty bill.

Mr. LOTT

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

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to consideration of H.R. 4811, the House-passed foreign operations appropriations bill. I further ask unanimous consent that all after the enacting clause be stricken and the text of S. 2522, as amended, be inserted in lieu thereof, the bill be read the third time and passed with the motion to reconsider laid upon the table. The bill (H.R. 4811), as amended, was read the third time and passed, as follows: Resolved, That the bill from the House of Representatives (H.R. 4811) entitled ``An Act making appropriations for foreign operations, export financing, and related programs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2001, and for other purposes.'', do pass with the following amendment: Strike out all after the enacting clause and insert: That the following sums are appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2001, and for other purposes, namely:

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I further ask unanimous consent the Senate insist on its amendment, request a conference with the House, and the Chair be authorized to appoint conferees on the part of the Senate. I finally ask unanimous consent that S. 2522 be indefinitely postponed

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

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now turn to H.R. 4461, the Agriculture appropriations bill. I further ask unanimous consent that all after the enacting clause of H.R. 4461 be stricken and the text of S. 2536 with a modified division B be inserted in lieu thereof, and that the new text be treated as original text for the purpose of further amendment, and that no point of order be waived.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I know the manager, Senator Cochran, is ready to proceed. We hope to go forward with opening statements and any amendments that can be considered tonight. I will consult with Senator Cochran and the managers about how to proceed throughout the remainder of the night. But we will turn back to this legislation in the morning not later than 9:30. We will have stacked votes, if any are ready by then, at 2:15 or 2:30 p.m. tomorrow. We will indicate a specific time later. I thank the Senator from Mississippi, Senator Cochran.

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 today to introduce legislation temporarily suspending duties on imports of certain piano plates. This legislation is needed to address a difficult situation facing the domestic piano industry. A piano plate is an essential part of a piano. It is the iron casting over which the strings are stretched and tuned by pins inserted in the plate. Baldwin Piano & Organ Company, which employs more than 600 workers in the production of pianos in Arkansas and Mississippi, is one of a diminishing number of piano producers in the United States. Piano plates are produced in the United States by a single company, a competitor of Baldwin, whose production is for the most part captively consumed. As such, Baldwin lacks a domestic source for piano plates, other than the surplus production of one of its competitors. Due to its own demand for plates, Baldwin's competitor cannot meet Baldwin's requirements. Mr. President the history and recent contraction in the domestic piano industry points to the critical need for this legislation. Indeed, were the production of Baldwin or other domestic producers to be curtailed due to the insufficient availability of domestically- produced piano plates, it is likely that this would engender an increase in foreign piano supply, rather than an increase in market share of other domestic producers. This is evident from the fact that, in the early 1980s, there were 15 domestic piano producers supplying approximately 80 percent of U.S. consumption, whereas now only nine domestic producers remain--servicing approximately half, if not less, of the U.S. market. The domestic piano industry is well aware that foreign production stands ready to fill any gap in domestic supply. The legislation I am introducing today would temporarily suspend, through the year 2004, the rate of duty applicable to imports of piano plates provided for in subheading 9209.91.80 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States. Currently, the applicable rate of duty is 4.2 percent ad valorem. If the legislation is approved, the reduction in duty collection is estimated to be between $300,000 and $400,000 per year through 2004. Given the situation currently facing domestic piano producers, it is unlikely that there will be objection from other domestic manufacturers to the legislation proposed today. In view of the fact that Baldwin must resort to imported plates regardless of the duty rate applicable to such imports, and that no appreciable domestic production of piano plates will be displaced by imports, suspension of the duty rate will have no adverse affect upon the domestic industry. This legislation stands to ensure only that a U.S. piano producer will find a reliable source of supply for a critical component and thus will be better positioned to stand with other domestic producers in providing a secure and stable supply of pianos for the domestic market. I ask that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.