Trent Lott

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Or if you ask them if they would get in touch with us tomorrow, maybe we can work something out.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask consent that no further amendments be in order to the Interior appropriations bill prior to the cloture vote.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk to the pending campaign finance reform amendment.

Mr. LOTT. For the information of all Senators, this cloture vote will occur on Thursday, September 10. We will have a consultation as to exactly what time. I presume it will be late in the afternoon. All Members will be notified as to the exact time of this cloture vote as soon as the time becomes available. I yield the floor.

Mr. LOTT. I ask consent the mandatory quorum under rule XXII be waived.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, last week, the Senate made good progress, and I want to express my appreciation for the cooperation. We did pass the military construction appropriations conference report, the first appropriations conference report of the year. We also completed action on two other appropriations bills, the foreign operations appropriations bill and the Treasury-Postal Service. In addition to that, we completed action on the Texas Compact legislation and got started on debate on bankruptcy reform. So I think we made good use of our time. There were also some very interesting hearings that occurred last week. I hope we can continue that pace this week. We will have a period of morning business until 12:30 today. Following morning business, the Senate will recess until 2:15 to allow for the weekly party caucuses to meet. When we reconvene after the party caucuses, it is my intention for the Senate to begin consideration of the Interior appropriations bill. That will be the 11th appropriations bill to be considered for the year, leaving only D.C. appropriations and the Labor, HHS and Education appropriations bill. We have not quite a month, but we only have the three remaining bills to get done. With a little cooperation, we can complete them. Hopefully, we will begin to see two or three conference reports cleared each week for the balance of this month. Members are encouraged to come to the floor and offer amendments if they have amendments on the Interior appropriations bill so that we can have debate and votes and make substantial progress on it. We would expect to have rollcall votes this afternoon and into the evening, perhaps, on the Interior bill amendments or any legislative or executive items that may be cleared. Also, as a reminder to all Members, there will be two cloture votes on Wednesday. The first will be on national missile defense. We voted on this a few months ago. Cloture failed by just one vote. I believe, in view of what has been happening around the world--the uncertainty in Russia, the actions by North Korea, and the problem in Iraq--for us not to have a national missile defense, to not have a plan, to not have commitment, is indefensible. I would not want to be on record as not supporting this. The American people expect it of us. If we don't act now, the year 2010 will come and we still will not have a missile defense. With a lot of dangerous people, chances of rogue or accidental launch is there. We should not take it for granted. After we vote on cloture and hopefully complete action on the national missile defense bill, we will then turn to the Consumer Bankruptcy Protection Act. We hope we will get cloture on that. Because of objections from Senator Kennedy of Massachusetts, we had to file cloture on a motion to proceed. If we get cloture on that, then we would move immediately to cloture on the bill itself, if necessary. But I hope we get cloture on the motion to proceed. Then we can work out a way to consider this legislation and Senators would have a chance or chances to offer amendments, if they would like to. This could be a busy week. It could be a productive week. We also will probably file cloture sometime this week, perhaps Wednesday, on the child custody bill, but we will make that decision as we see how the week is proceeding and progressing. We will make that call probably Wednesday. I yield the floor.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Thank you very much, Mr. President.

Mr. LOTT

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

Mr. LOTT. Before I ask for the regular order, let me respond. I am perfectly prepared to go to the Patients' Bill of Rights bill. We have our bill ready to go. We would be glad for Senator Kennedy to offer his bill. We have even offered to have three amendments on each bill and go to final passage. That offer still stands. It is a very fair offer. The minute the Senator and his leadership indicates they are willing to do that, we will be glad to go to both of those bills and have the votes and go to conclusion. Regular order, Mr. President.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I want to give the Senator from Massachusetts one more opportunity to agree to our unanimous consent request that we go to the bankruptcy bill. So I ask unanimous consent, once again, that the Senate now turn to S. 1301, the bankruptcy bill.

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

Mr. LOTT

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

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, for the information of all Senators, this cloture vote will occur on Wednesday afternoon at a time to be determined and announced in advance, after consultation with the Democratic leader. We will talk to him, but it will be some time Wednesday afternoon. I do not know whether it will be 3 or 4, but something like that. All Senators will be notified exactly what time that vote will occur next Wednesday. I now withdraw the motion to proceed.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I move to proceed, in light of the objection, to S. 1301, and I send a cloture motion to the desk.

Mr. LOTT

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

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

Mr. LOTT. For the information of all Senators, this cloture vote will occur on Wednesday, 1 hour after the Senate convenes and establishes a quorum, unless changed by unanimous consent. All Senators will be notified as to when cloture will actually be scheduled, but again, to reiterate, this cloture vote will occur sometime on Wednesday morning of next week. I withdraw the motion to proceed.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. I commend the chairman of the Treasury-Postal Service Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee for the work he has done on this. It was a little bifurcated. We did work on it back before the recess, but he continued to work, working with his colleague from Wisconsin, and they produced a bill that I obviously believe has broad support. I thank them for their willingness to cooperate and go ahead and get this completed today. They have done good work, and I hope that they will get into conference early next week and have a conference report completed that we can send to the President in short order. So I thank them for their efforts and thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for allowing us to get through this list of amendments we had and complete this legislation. Mr. President, I believe we are ready to go to a vote, but after the vote we will go into recess--temporary recess--so that we can hear, before the Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees, from Scott Ritter, a senior inspector of UNSCOM in Iraq. I yield the floor.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I would like to take a moment during this body's consideration of the Treasury, General Government Appropriations Act for fiscal year 1999 to recognize Senator Shelby for his diligent efforts this year to ensure that the public has access to federally funded research data. Sunshine in government is a principle that enjoys broad support from both sides of the aisle as evident from the bipartisan support of the Freedom of Information Act and the 1986 Community Right to Know Law. While we all agree that this principle is important, the Senator from Alabama has correctly identified a major inconsistency--the public's lack of access to federally funded research data. Currently, there is no systematic government-wide process for the public to access research data supported by federal funds. Equally disturbing is the fact that this research data is often used to support major rulemakings. Because of Senator Shelby's interest in this issue, the Treasury, General Government Appropriations bill for FY 99 contains a requirement that the Director of OMB evaluate current government-wide procedures for making research data available to the public and report back to the Committee on the need for changes to existing procedures. My own view is that reform in this area is long overdue and I would like to commend Senator Shelby for his leadership to help rectify this matter and pledge to work with him and Chairman Campbell in Conference on final language to correct this problem as soon as possible.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet in Executive Session during the session of the Senate on Thursday, September 3, 1998, to conduct a mark-up of H.R. 10, the Financial Services Act of 1998.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, Finance Committee requests unanimous consent to conduct a hearing on Thursday, September 3, 1998 beginning at 10 a.m. in room 215 Dirksen.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent on behalf of the Governmental Affairs Committee to meet on Thursday, September 3, 1998, at 10 a.m. for a hearing on the nominations of Patricia Broderick, Neal Kravitz, and Natalia Combs Greene to be Associate Judges of the D.C. Superior Court.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, September 3, 1998 at 10:30 a.m. in room 226 of the Senate Hart Office Building to hold a hearing on: ``U.S. Counter-Terrorism Policy.''

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, we have failed. For the past nine months, I have worked with the members of the Environment and Public Works Committee and the Administration to draft much needed reforms to our nation's hazardous waste program. These reforms would have made RCRA work more quickly and more cheaply. They would have removed the bureaucratic obstacles that hinder environmental cleanups. They would have given the states the proper authority and freedom they need to responsibly manage their RCRA sites. My colleagues, the Senate has failed to save the federal government $2 Billion this year in clean up costs. Despite our best efforts, agreement could not be reached on a bill to save two billion dollars per year. Early in this Congress, the General Accounting Office released a report highlighting the need for a legislative change in remediation waste policy. The Administration, states, stakeholders--even the EPA-- agreed that only a legislative fix could adequately streamline the program and speed the pace of cleanups. This GAO report also said that a legislative fix would save the federal government $2 billion each year. Unfortunately, the Congress and the administration were unable to come to agreement on how to structure this legislative fix. Discussions among interested parties and legislators clearly showed the need for a bill, but translating this need into legislative language has been difficult. Progress was made, but not enough. And so, Mr. President, the next Congress is tasked with addressing this two billion dollar environment opportunity. Although I am truly disappointed that these many months of educating and negotiating have left us without a bill to champion, I am hopeful that the Senate will return to this issue with renewed vigor next year. I know that Senator Chafee, the Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and Senator Smith, Chairman of the Superfund, Waste Control and Risk Assessment Subcommittee, share my commitment to seeing meaningful RCRA reform enacted in the next Congress and will make it a priority. With this leadership, I believe that we can resolve the outstanding issues quickly and move forward with legislation that will indeed make the cleanup of contaminated sites smarter, faster and better. This is also true of those on the House Commerce Committee as well as many in the Administration. I was encouraged by the RCRA team built this year and look forward to working with this team again next Congress. I again want to stress that the RCRA reform goals have not changed. To make RCRA work more cheaply and quickly, to streamline the bureaucratic process and give more authority to the states and to speed site clean up. It is unfortunate that yet another year has passed without reform. Mr. President, let's make sure Congress gets the job done next year. The nation expects and deserves its RCRA sites to be cleaned up. This nation wants $2 billion in savings each year. I would like to thank my colleagues and their staffs for the work done this session and look forward to redoubled efforts in the 106th Congress. rcra reform will be a priority for the 106th Congress

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, Senator Domenici has been on official Senate business earlier this week and was therefore, necessarily absent for the two votes held on Tuesday and the five votes held on Wednesday. He attended the Summit in Russia. During the Summit an important agreement was signed regarding the management and disposition of weapons-grade plutonium. Senator Domenici was instrumental in first identifying this issue and recommending a strategy for significantly reducing the amount of dangerous plutonium in the world and to make sure that it is kept away from rogue states and terrorists. Senator Domenici's suggestions were a blueprint for taking advantage of this opportunity for the United States and Russia to work together to withdraw approximately 50 metric tons of weapons- grade plutonium from each countries' respective nuclear weapons programs. This is very important arms control/non-proliferation objective. The countries agreed to cooperate in transforming this weapons-grade plutonium into a form that cannot be readily used to make nuclear weapons. This agreement, when its terms are carried out, will make the world a safer place. I am pleased that the Senator from New Mexico represented the majority and the Senate at this United States-Russian Summit.