Trent Lott

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I understand that Senator Hutchinson is now in a position to have the pending China human rights issue withdrawn. However, before the Senator is recognized, let me put the Senate on notice as to where the bill is going, hopefully, for the next few days, which will take some cooperation, but I believe we are going to get it. I certainly hope so. Following the withdrawal of the China issue and a statement by Senator Hutchinson--and I believe he is on the floor and ready to proceed--the Senate will resume consideration of the DOD authorization until approximately 5 p.m. At that time, the Senate will turn to the Coverdell A+ conference report for approximately 2 hours of debate tonight. The Senate will resume the conference report consideration on Wednesday at 9:30 and, therefore, the vote on final passage will occur around 11:30 on Wednesday on the Coverdell A+ education bill. The Senate will then resume the DOD authorization bill. It is the hope of both leaders that the bill can move forward and be concluded by the close of business on Wednesday. I realize that is a big order, but we are calling on our leadership.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, it sounds to me like 20 minutes, equally divided, should be sufficient. I ask unanimous consent that the time be limited to 20 minutes, equally divided, on this issue.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I urge the leadership of the committee to pursue this issue and, hopefully, get to a conclusion, and then we would go to the Coverdell education conference report immediately after that.

Mr. LOTT. I understand there is a possibility we can go ahead and complete action on the Brownback issue after a statement by the Senator from Kansas and Senator Warner, and perhaps Senator Levin would have something to say. If we can get that completed in a reasonable period of time, we can complete that and then go over to the Coverdell education issue. Do we have any agreement on the time?

Mr. LOTT. On the Brownback amendment, the yeas and nays have not been ordered?

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, first of all, have the yeas and nays been ordered on this issue?

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, let me inquire again about the time so we can get a time agreement. Do we have some indication of how much time is needed? The Senator from Kansas needs how much?

Mr. LOTT. No.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask for division on the Hutchinson amendment.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the cloture vote scheduled for 2:15 today be vitiated, and the order with respect to the Hatch-Feinstein special order now commence.

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

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 ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I move that the Sergeant at Arms be instructed to request the attendance of absent Senators, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I yield to Senator McCain for 2 minutes.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I now move to table the pending motion to waive, and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield, I agree with that part of it. It is a sorry mess. We have gotten into gridlock. And there are lots of explanations for that. I don't think we should start blaming one Senator or one side or the other. But I wanted to commend the Senator from California for the efforts that I was under the impression she had been making with Senator Hatch and others, perhaps on both sides of the aisle, to come up with a bill much different from what is before us--smaller, probably, by $100 billion, with all the components that would really be needed. I want to remind the Senate that I have given a lot of time and a lot of personal effort and have taken a lot of flak for trying to find a way to get a bill through here that was responsible enough that we could choke it down in a reasonable period of time, and we are not there. And I cannot figure any way to get a bill that would be credible that we could get through here. In fact, when we have had some critical votes, they went the wrong way. I am not blaming that on one side or the other. There were some votes on our side that were really disturbing to me, that you are really trying to get something. But what is wrong with this bill now is it has lost sight of the original noble cause of just dealing with the question of teenage smoking and drug abuse, if you want to add that--and I think we should--and some limited effort to address the problems for the States on health problems caused by smoking or research. But we are talking about a bill very different than what you are talking about. If we could wind up somewhere in the area that you are talking about, I would support that. And I want to note that when this point of order is sustained, or we do not waive the Budget Act, the bill does not disappear. It goes back to the Commerce Committee. There has also been a suggestion that we consider having a task force to see if we could come up with something that could resurrect this in a way that would be much smaller, to do what we say that we want done, but without these massive micromanaging government controls that we see in this bill. Most Senators are not happy with this bill. I mean, some don't like it because of, perhaps, the marriage penalty tax, although I think, generally speaking, everybody realizes that is going to happen; it is a good idea. But we have major problems with it over here. But we are stalled out with no end in sight. Even if we get cloture today, which, you know, I hope we don't, there are about seven other opportunities for cloture motions to be filed. The Senate, in its unique way, has not reached a consensus here. We have not reached a consensus. It is like Senator McCain has said before: We can guarantee a vote; we can't guarantee a result. And until we find a way we can get together on something that is much smaller, that is targeted and limited, that is not just more Government from Washington, dictates from Washington--I mean, this thing even has requirements in here that not only you can't have smoking in Federal buildings, you can't even have smoking in front of Federal buildings.

Mr. LOTT. Any building.

Mr. LOTT. That is just one example. At any rate, I thank you for yielding. I thank you for your effort. Don't give up.

Mr. LOTT. I now send the cloture motion to the desk.

Mr. LOTT. The violation of the Budget Act that I think carries the greatest weight is the exceeding of the caps that were agreed to by category in the budget resolution. That is the major problem with it.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I am sure that a lot of people will read into that vote and other votes any number of things, and I am sure that it will be described by Senators on both sides of the aisle in the way they would like to describe it, maybe even going so far as to impugn the integrity of Senators based on that vote. But all that means to me, as the Senator says, is that we should not waive the Budget Act. We agreed to the Budget Act; we agreed to the budget last year. That is one of the major problems with this whole bill. The original concept that we try to get some limits on teenage smoking, to stop teenage smoking and drug abuse and to deal with some of the problems caused by smoking, that is one thing, but it has gone far, far afield from that. I had planned to comment on some of those later, but I will go ahead and mention them now. The micromanaging in this bill, the exceeding of the budget caps--what really has happened here, while we have a good principle that we can all vote on something right now that will deal with teenage smoking if we wanted to and health problems caused by smoking, what has happened is a lot of people have figured out, ``Oh, look, this is a cookie jar, this is a bill we can use to pay for all these programs that we are not going to be able to pay for''----

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I was going to explain that after I had asked these unanimous-consent requests. Since the Senator has asked, there has been a request and efforts made in the past to get cloture, to have cloture filed and have votes. We have had three of those. This is a cloture motion that we will vote on, instead of 2 days from now, go ahead and vote today to see where we are. It is my intention to vote against cloture. I still think we should not cut off some of the amendments and substitutes that could be offered. We also still have the pending problem of what to do about farmers in this issue. But I think we need to see where we are. I have, over the past several weeks, been hoping that we could come to some resolution on this matter, but we have spent 78 hours or more now and 56 minutes--I guess it is probably closer to 80 or 82 hours. I don't see how we are going to conclude this just by moving along at the slow pace we have been moving along. I think we need to see where the votes are. This cloture vote will give us that opportunity. I think it is important that we not have this vote occur next Monday or next Tuesday. If we file cloture today or tomorrow, that will be the result. After this cloture vote, then we will make a decision where to go from there.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I did not hear all of the remarks of the Senator from Arizona. But I observe the applause that he just received. I join in expressing my appreciation to the Senator from Arizona for the work that he has done in taking this issue up in the Commerce Committee, being willing to deal with it, being willing to deal with the criticism both in this Chamber and other venues for the effort he has made. Also, I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for his cooperation in a number of ways, in the way he worked with Senator McCain. I do have some requests to ask that have been cleared with Senator Daschle, or he is aware of what I am going to ask for. After I make these motions, then I would like to just make some brief comments. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order for me to file a cloture motion on the committee amendment to the tobacco bill, and at the hour of 5:15 p.m. the Senate proceed to vote on the cloture motion with the mandatory quorum under rule XXII having been waived. I further ask that the time between now and 5:15 be equally divided between the two leaders or their designees. I further ask, if cloture is invoked, Members have until the close of business today to file first-degree amendments and until 10 a.m. on Thursday to file second- degree amendments.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. I think it is worth repeating to my colleagues that the Administration's approach to encryption makes no sense. It is not good policy. Continuing to restrict the foreign sale of American encryption technology that is already available abroad, or will soon be available, is anti-business, anti-consumer, anti-jobs, and anti-innovation. The time for a change in America's export regime is long overdue. Unfortunately, the Administration continues to support its outmoded and competition-adverse encryption control policy. That is why this Congress needs to find a legislative solution to this issue. If America's export controls are not relaxed now, then Congress places in peril our entire technology industry. Not just those companies that create and market encryption products and services, but virtually every company involved in the development and sale of computer hardware and software. Congress cannot and will not put America's entire technological base at risk for an ineffective and outmoded export policy on encryption.