Trent Lott

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. I now move to proceed to Calendar No. 215.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. I ask unanimous consent the conference report be agreed to and the motion to consider be immediately laid upon the table.

Mr. LOTT. I ask consent that the Senate proceed to the conference report on the bill (H.R. 2670) making appropriations for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2000, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration. The report will be stated.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. The upcoming vote will be the last vote this evening. Senators who wish to debate the partial-birth abortion issue should remain this evening for statements. The next vote will be at 11 a.m. tomorrow morning relative to amendment No. 2321. I thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and both sides of this issue for their cooperation. I yield the floor. Vote on Amendment No. 2319

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Several Senators addressed the Chair.

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

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, let me go ahead then. This will be a little disjointed, but I think I can accommodate all Senators. I now move to proceed to Calendar No. 300, S. 1692, the partial-birth abortion bill, and a vote occurring immediately following 80 minutes of debate, with 30 minutes under the control of Senator Levin, and 10 minutes each for the following Senators: Feingold, Boxer, McCain, Schumer, and Santorum, all occurring without any intervening action or debate. I also ask unanimous consent that Senator Hatch have 5 minutes after the vote to speak on behalf of his colleague, Senator Leahy. I further ask consent that it be in order for me to ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I object to that.

Mr. LOTT. By doing this, the campaign finance issue is put back on the calendar. We can have the debate that is needed on the motion to proceed to the partial-birth abortion bill, and Senators can be heard to express their concerns about the campaign finance issue, as well as the time Senator Hatch asked for after the vote. So I ask unanimous consent that it be in order for me to ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, is the motion to proceed pending?

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. I ask unanimous consent that after we get an agreement on the time, Senator Hatch be allowed 5 minutes to speak on behalf of his ranking member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, all I was asking was that he have an opportunity to speak very briefly about the 10,000 votes his colleague on the Judiciary Committee has achieved.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I hate to see the minority leader's comments end. They were getting better and better as he got toward the end. I also extend the congratulations of myself, all the Members of the Senate on this side, and on the Democratic side. It is certainly an enviable record: 10,000 votes, 25 years. We all know quite well Senator Leahy's efforts on behalf of the environment, agriculture, judiciary, foreign policy. His efforts are legendary. He has done a great job. Mr. President, today is a special day. In the history of our country, less than 1,300 Americans have served in the U.S. Senate. Being a Senator is a singular honor bestowed on a very few. Today, our friend from Vermont, Pat Leahy has joined a unique club within this unique body. He has cast his 10,000th vote. Think about what that means. When Pat Leahy came to the Senate, as the youngest man ever sent to the Senate by the people of the United States, Gerald Ford was in the White House. Since then, Presidents and majority leaders have come and gone, the Iron Curtain has come crashing down, and Pat Leahy has kept on casting votes. Pat already had remarkable career before he came to the Senate. After leaving Georgetown Law School, he served for 8 years as a state's prosecutor in Vermont where he gained a national reputation as a crime fighter. In 1974, he was named as one of the three outstanding prosecuting attorneys in the United States. Upon entering the Senate Pat became a leader on agriculture, foreign affairs, and the judiciary. His Leahy-Lugar bill in 1994 revolutionized the way the Department of Agriculture does its business and millions of farmers are better off for his efforts. So I echo the sentiments of my friend, the minority leader. We send Pat and his wife Marcelle our very best wishes and our hopes for continued success in the days ahead.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now turn to the consideration of H.J. Res. 71, the continuing resolution. I further ask unanimous consent that the resolution be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, in January of this year I reported on an important public-private partnership to protect our nation's underground infrastructure--electric power and fiber optic cables, telephone lines, water and sewer mains and pipelines. This partnership is based on S. 1115, the Comprehensive One-Call Notification Act, which I introduced in 1997 with the Minority Leader, Senator Daschle. The bill passed the Senate unanimously and became law as part of the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, TEA 21. Among other things, the bill called on the Secretary of Transportation to convene a comprehensive study of best practices in underground damage prevention. This study was completed and released by Secretary Rodney Slater on June 30, 1999. The study has been a model for conducting a cooperative effort between the public and private sectors. All those with an interest in underground damage prevention-- the excavation community, one-call notification center representatives, locating contractors, railroads and underground facility operators worked together to produce the 250-page ``Common Ground'' report. This report is a veritable gold mine of practical real-world advice for all those involved in protecting our underground infrastructure in government and in the private sector. The study is so valuable because of the 160 people with hands-on experience in underground damage prevention who worked together to write it. Nine teams covered the key aspects of underground infrastructure protection: one-call center practices, excavation, mapping, locating and marketing, compliance, planning and design, reporting and evaluation, public education, and emerging technologies. The full study is available at the DOT's Office of Pipeline Safety web page http://ops.dot.gov. Steps are underway to keep this valuable and cooperative spirit alive and make the Common Ground process a continuing one, but this time with private leadership. This year's Senate Appropriations Committee Report on Transportation Appropriations (S. Rept. 106-55) including the following: The Committee believes that the group effort, dubbed ``Common Ground'', has the potential to serve as a basis for a self-sustaining entity that can advance underground damage prevention by identifying and encouraging best practices, providing badly needed public education, and collecting and disseminating information on damage to underground facilities. The Committee directs OPS to use existing resources to support the formation and initial operation of a non-profit organization that will further the work of ``Common Ground'' and implement other innovative approaches to advance underground damage prevention. On October 28, the Office of Pipeline Safety will respond to this direction by convening a public meeting of the Common Ground participants and an even wider group of interests to lay the foundation for the non-profit organization described in this Report language. This non-profit damage prevention organization could be the key to a far more robust and effective national effort to protect our underground infrastructure that would be led and funded by the private sector. To Secretary Slater's credit, the Department understands the importance of letting the private participants take the lead. The Department of Transportation will provide the initial resources for startup, but will then step back, so the private participants can be responsible for defining the path forward for underground damage prevention. In order to succeed, the new non-profit organization cannot be federally run or federally controlled. To succeed it cannot be run or controlled by any one of the interests in underground damage prevention. It must be a cooperative, power sharing enterprise in which excavation community, one-call notification center representatives, locating contractors, railroads, underground facility operators and other important interests join together to make decisions democratically. The potential for such an organization to get things done is simply enormous, because it can include all the important affected interests from the beginning. The private effort and resources devoted to underground damage prevention today are very significant, but fragmented. This non-profit damage prevention organization is the missing piece that can pull these efforts together in a constructive way to create a powerful national impact on the largest preventable threat to our underground infrastructure. I urge all those in attendance at the October 28 meeting to keep this big picture vision firmly in mind. This is a tremendous opportunity that should not be missed. Mr. President, I congratulate Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater for seizing the opportunity offered by the Common Ground initiative. It seems to me that Secretary Slater, Research and Special Programs Administrator Kelley Coyner and Office of Pipeline Safety head Richard Felder all have this exactly right. This effort will be most effective if it is privately led and privately funded. This is an instance, all too rare, where the Federal Government is seeking to return power to the private sector. I urge all the Common Ground private participants--the excavation community, one-call notification center representatives, locating contractors, railroads, insurance providers, equipment manufacturers and underground facility operators to take up the leadership responsibility the Secretary is offering. I will continue to monitor developments in underground damage prevention and the efforts to set up the non-profit privately led organization envisioned in the Senate Appropriations Committee Report. I look forward to working with all involved to further improve protection of our vital underground infrastructure.

Mr. LOTT

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

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

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote and 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 ask unanimous consent that the Governmental Affairs Committee Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, Restructuring and the District of Columbia be permitted to meet on Friday, October 15, 1999 at 9:00 am. for a hearing on Quality Management at the Federal Level.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Friday, October 15, 1999, at 10 a.m. to hold a hearing.

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, in light of the agreement, there will be no further votes today. Members can expect a rollcall vote at 5:30 on Monday relative to an amendment to campaign finance reform or on any judicial nomination or other Executive Calendar matter that may be cleared for a vote. Let me emphasize, there will be a vote or votes at 5:30 on Monday. I hope an agreement can be worked out as to how to proceed on the campaign finance reform debate this afternoon. I had been willing to actually be in on Saturday to have debate on that and/or votes, but that was not well received on either side of the debate and on either side of the aisle. So we will not be in session on Saturday. I am hoping we can have some good debate and we can get an agreement on some amendment or amendments, if we can get more than one done, that actually can be voted on Monday afternoon at 5:30. We will have votes on that or we will have a vote on probably a judicial nominee at that time, if that is what is necessary. I yield the floor.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that with respect to H.R. 2990, the Chair now be authorized to appoint conferees on the part of the Senate.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I appreciate the efforts of the senior Senator from Maine initiating this colloquy, and I concur with the statement of the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee.