Patty Murray

Mrs. MURRAY

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous consent that the time be equally divided.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mrs. MURRAY. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mrs. MURRAY. I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each; further, that when the Senate resumes consideration of S. 1243 on Wednesday, July 24, Senator Portman be recognized to call up his amendment, No. 1749.

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, there will be no further rollcall votes tonight. I know there are several Senators who wish to speak tonight. We will begin again tomorrow with Senator Portman's amendment. I ask all Senators who do have amendments on the bill to get them ready. Senator Collins and I are ready, open for business. We want to move this along, and we are ready to go. Please don't wait until the last minute Thursday night. Get your amendments in tomorrow. You will have a much better chance of having them considered. I speak for myself, and I am sure I speak for Senator Collins too. We are much happier to work with you earlier in the process than later.

Mrs. MURRAY. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. MURRAY

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 23, 2013, at 10:30 a.m. in room 328A of the Russell Senate Office building.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate to conduct a hearing on July 23, 2013, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-266 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 23, 2013, at 10 a.m. in room SD-406 of the Dirksen Senate office building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Hearing on the Nomination of Kenneth Kopocis to be Assistant Administrator for the Office of Water of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), James Jones to be Assistant Administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention of the EPA, and Avi Garbow to be General Counsel for the EPA.''

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 23, 2013, at 9 a.m.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 23, 2013, at 10:15 a.m., to hold a briefing entitled, ``Briefing on Nuclear Employment.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 23, 2013, at 2:15 p.m.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet, during the session of the Senate, in order to conduct a hearing entitled ``Hearing on National Labor Relations Board Nominees'' on July 23, 2013, at 10 a.m. in room 430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on, July 23, 2013, at 10:30 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``The 90/10 Rule: Improving Educational Outcomes for our Military and Veterans.'' select committee on intelligence

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 23, 2013, at 2:30 p.m.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on July 23, 2013, at 10 a.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Pay-for-Delay Deals: Limiting Competition and Costing Consumers.''

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Bankruptcy and the Courts, be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on July 23, 2013, at 3 p.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Sequestering Justice: How the Budget Crisis is Undermining Our Courts.''

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 23, 2013, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Examining Financial Holding Companies: Should Banks Control Power Plants, Warehouses and Oil Refineries?

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Subcommittee on Securities, Insurance and Investment be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 23, 2013, at 3 p.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Creating a Housing Finance System Built to Last: Ensuring Access for Community Institutions.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and the Coast Guard of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to hold a meeting during the session the Senate on July 23, 2013, at 10 a.m. in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building. The Committee will hold a hearing entitled, ``New England and Mid- atlantic Perspectives on Magnuson-Stevens Act Reauthorization.''

Mrs. MURRAY

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, let me commend the Senator from Colorado for his critical reminder to all of us about how you can get up each day and never know what life brings to you, but to remember not that the people so senselessly lost their lives, but the courage and passion they have left for all of us. I thank him for that important reminder.

Mrs. MURRAY

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I want to speak briefly about our vote today to confirm Thomas Perez as our next Secretary of Labor, and I want to touch on a couple of reasons, of separate reasons, this particular confirmation is so important for this body and for our country. First, something we have talked about for several days here is providing the President and his administration with the team he needs to help our country grow, for our economy, our families, and communities in every one of our home States. Filling the position of Labor Secretary could not be more important. We all rely on the Department of Labor to do a lot of important work for American workers and American businesses--providing critical workforce development and job training services to help get people back to work or into better jobs, making sure we have high workplace safety standards, improving conditions and opportunities for women, and helping our service men and women find good jobs when they come home. Our country and our economy are stronger when the Department of Labor has a talented, qualified leader at the reins. That brings me to the second reason why this vote is so important, and that is the tremendous nominee we have before us today. In Thomas Perez, the President has nominated someone who will bring passion and integrity and a lifetime of experience to this very important position. Like so many Americans, Mr. Perez comes from very humble beginnings. He is a second-generation American who put himself through college by collecting trash and working in the university dining hall. Since that time, he has spent his career fighting for working families, protecting our important civil rights laws, and turning around troubled agencies. There is no shortage of examples to demonstrate what an effective leader Mr. Perez has been throughout his career. He took an Office of Civil Rights at HHS that had been ignored and lifeless and breathed new life into it. He reformed and rebuilt the Department of Labor in Maryland, and he walked into a very troubled Civil Rights Division at DOJ and, by all credible accounts, he returned high performance, professionalism, and integrity to that agency. In a time when we need to do everything we can to protect and grow our shrinking middle class, Mr. Perez is exactly the right person for this job because in tough times, while we are still recovering from recession, we need strong, experienced leadership at the Department of Labor. My colleagues here today who support his confirmation from both sides of the aisle are not alone. From his time working at the local and State and Federal level, organizations from Maryland and throughout our country have come out to strongly support him as well. That includes organizations that represent women, the LGBT community, the Hispanic community, and many more. Finally, throughout his confirmation process, which at times has been very difficult, Mr. Perez has shown nothing but openness, transparency, respect, and the ability to work together and solve problems. That is why I will vote to confirm him today, and I urge all my colleagues to support his confirmation as well. I yield the floor.

Mrs. MURRAY

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I am pleased that yesterday the Senate was able to come together and work out a bipartisan agreement to make some progress on approving President Obama's nominees. This is a great example of the kind of work I hope we can do more of going forward, because gridlock is getting in the way of progress on far too many issues that affect the families and communities we have a responsibility to serve. One of the most egregious examples that still remains is the Republican leadership blocking a bipartisan budget conference--and the regular order they called for--in order, it appears, to gain leverage by manufacturing a crisis come this fall. Democrats have come to the floor to talk about this a lot over the past few weeks. Unfortunately, it seems to be getting worse and not better. We have heard from more and more tea party Republicans about their latest brinkmanship threat. They are now saying: Defund health care reform or we are going to shut down the government. I wish I were making this up, but it is real. The House has already tried to repeal this law 37 times. In fact, just for good measure, they are voting on it again this week. We all know that is not serious. It is certainly not governing. It is pointless pandering, and it does absolutely nothing to help the families and communities we represent. There are so many real problems we all need to be focused on. We need to protect our fragile economic recovery and get more of our workers back on the job. We need to replace sequestration and we need to tackle our long-term deficit challenges responsibly. We have to stop this lurching from crisis to crisis and return to regular order and give families and communities the certainty they deserve. The only way we can do that is if we all work together, and the last thing we need to do right now is to rehash old political fights. Based on what I am hearing more and more of in recent days, not only are tea party Republicans willing to push us toward a crisis this fall, but they will do that to cut off health care coverage for 25 million people and end the preventive care for our seniors that is free, and cause our seniors to pay more for prescriptions. These political games may play well with the tea party base, but here is the reality: ObamaCare is the law of the land. It passed through this Senate with a majority. The Supreme Court upheld it. It is already today helping millions of Americans stay healthy and financially secure. We should all be working together right now to make sure it is implemented in the best way possible for our families and our businesses and our communities. Instead, what we are hearing is some empty political threats and a push for more gridlock here in the Senate. I don't think it is a coincidence that the very people who are now pushing for a government shutdown to defund the health care law are the ones who are blocking a budget conference. If the goal is to simply push this country into a crisis, as it now seems to be for the tea party and the Senate Republican leadership, then those both are ways to do it. When the Senate budget passed, I was optimistic. We worked here for a very long time--hours and hours, well into the night, well into the hours of the morning--and we allowed everyone the opportunity to vote on their amendments. They were voted up or down, agreed to or not agreed to, and we passed a bill, because both Republicans and Democrats said they wanted to return to regular budget order, and they said if we did that, we would get back to a responsible process. I took them at their word. At that time, we had 192 days to reach a bipartisan budget agreement. Three months later, Democrats have come to the floor 16 times to move to the next step of the process: to get us to a bipartisan budget conference with the House. Each time we have asked to do that, a tea party Republican or a Member of the Senate Republican leadership has stood up and said, No, I am not going to let us work out the differences with the House. We are not going to do a budget. We are going to allow things to plod along here until we have a crisis in the fall. There are now less than 3 weeks before we are scheduled to return home--all of us--to our States for constituent work. If we can't get an agreement by then, we are going to return in September with very little time before a potential government shutdown on October 1. We still have a window of opportunity to reach an agreement before we are in crisis mode. I will tell all of my colleagues, it is closing quickly. My colleagues should ask their constituents. They are sick and tired of hearing about gridlock and partisanship coming out of Washington, DC. It has to end. This body had a great conversation on Monday night in the Old Senate Chamber. Everybody had an opportunity to have their say. A group of Republicans, led by Senator McCain, who are very interested in ending the gridlock, worked together with us to solve the problem. In fact, I have to say it has been very heartening to hear from the many Republicans who agree with the Democrats that despite our differences-- and they are many--we should at least--at the very least--sit down in a bipartisan conference committee with the House and try to solve this problem and get an agreement. It started with just a few who were willing to stand up to their leadership, but I think we all should know that chorus is getting louder. Senator Moran, for example, said yesterday: ``I too hope we can have a budget conference because the process needs to work.'' I am sure Senator Moran would agree with me that getting a bipartisan deal is not going to be easy. We know that. We know it is going to be difficult. But we all know it won't be easy unless we get to work now, rather than risking our economic recovery and hurting our families and communities by manufacturing a crisis this fall. I am hopeful the bipartisan spirit we have seen this week will carry over into this budget debate, and that rather than listening to a few, Republicans will listen to the Republican Members who prefer a bipartisan, commonsense approach over brinkmanship and chaos. We still have an opportunity to govern the way the American people rightly expect us to and to come together and try and reach an agreement. I am ready to sit down and go to work with the conservative House majority to try and solve the problem that all of us have come to Congress saying we want to work on, and that is a budget agreement. A budget agreement means certainty for our constituents. It means the ability, no matter how tough the choices for us--and none of us are going to love any of them--to be able to give them certainty so they know how to move forward. Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 33, H. Con. Res. 25; that the amendment which is at the desk, the text of S. Con. Res. 8, the budget resolution passed by the Senate, be inserted in lieu thereof; that H. Con. Res. 25, as amended, be agreed to; the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table; that the Senate insist on its amendment, request a conference with the House on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses, and the Chair be authorized to appoint conferees on the part of the Senate; that following the authorization, two motions to instruct conferees be in order from each side--a motion to instruct relative to the debt limit and a motion to instruct relative to taxes and revenue; that there be 2 hours of debate equally divided between the two leaders or their designees prior to the votes in relation to the motions; further, that no amendments be in order to either of the motions prior to the votes; and all of the above occurring with no intervening action or debate.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, let me explain so that the Senator understands. We are offering in this unanimous consent request to allow the Senate to speak on the very issue the Senator is requesting, to do it in what a democracy does, and to allow an amendment on it and let the Senate speak. That is what we do here. I object to his request, and I reask our unanimous consent request that would allow an amendment on his issue of the debt ceiling and allow this body to speak on it before we go to conference.