Jeff Merkley

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I first defer to my colleague across the aisle to speak to the bill.

Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, this is simple common sense, that you can drive across your State, but if the place you drop off your food is across the border, you have to put it into an interstate truck to go 1 mile down the road. That makes no sense for farmers, it makes no sense for safety. This is a sort of commonsense solution along borders, allowing farmers to get their food from the farm to the depot, be that an airplane depot, or put it on a barge, put it on a ship, be that put it in an interstate truck. It is common sense. Let's do it.

Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I ask for an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. MERKLEY. I ask unanimous consent for an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I rise to address the Baucus amendment that maintains the core Federal commitment to our timber counties through the Secure Rural Schools and the Payment in Lieu of Taxes Programs. Let me give you a sense of what this is all about. This is equivalent to a farmer who is told by the Federal Government: We have a new set of rules, and you cannot grow crops on your farm any longer, but we are going to substitute payments that you would otherwise receive. Well, the farmer doesn't like it. He would rather grow crops, but what can he do? Then along comes the government a few years later and says: You know what. You cannot grow crops and you are not going to get compensated for our rules that tell you you cannot grow crops. And, of course, that is outrageous. That is like a taking of property, and yet that is exactly the situation that exists for our timber counties in terms of lands affected by the Secure Rural Schools Program. The timber harvest cannot proceed in its original method, and the compensation is not guaranteed to be in place, so we have to fix that. We have to make sure the Federal Government abides by the deals it has struck. This deal is essential to rural timber counties throughout our Nation. It is essential to so many counties in Oregon. Five years ago when my colleague Senator Wyden was working to make sure this commitment was upheld, I was in the role of a speaker, and in that role I organized the delegation of Democrats and Republicans to go out and talk with our county leaders, and there was such mystification about the fact that the Federal Government was not going to stand by the deal it had struck. Today, through the amendment that Senator Baucus, Senator Wyden, and others have been working to put forward, we have the chance to make sure that the word of the Federal Government is good. That is why we need to pass this amendment. I wish to tell you that we are going to put forward an amendment that secured the word of the government for a good long time to come but, unfortunately, it is only a minimalist, 1-year agreement, but that is what we have before us and that is what we must do.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on March 7, 2012, at 10 a.m., in room SD 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Examining Lending Discrimination Practices and Foreclosure Abuses.''

Mr. MERKLEY. 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 meet during the session of the Senate on March 7, 2012, at 2:30 p.m. in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building. The Committee will hold a hearing entitled, ``The President's Fiscal Year 2013 Budget Proposals for the Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.''

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Special Committee on Aging be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 7, 2012, at 2 p.m. in room 562 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled ``Opportunities for Savings: Removing Obstacles for Small Business.''

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be authorized to meet during the session on March 7, 2012, in room SD 50 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building beginning at 10 a.m.

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 7, 2012, at 10 a.m. in room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``The President's 2012 Trade Agenda.''

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, March 7, 2012, at 10 a.m. in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building. The Committee will hold a hearing entitled, ``Priorities, Plans, and Progress of the Nation's Space Program.''

Mr. MERKLEY. 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 March 7, 2012, at 9:30 a.m. in room SH 216 of the Hart Senate Office Building.

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 7, 2012, at 9 a.m.

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Water and Power be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 7, 2012, at 2:30 p.m., in room 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my intern, B.J. Westlund, be granted privileges of the floor for the balance of today's session.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I rise to address the surface transportation bill that is on the floor. It has been a mark of the challenges this body faces in deliberation that we have now been on this bill for 3 weeks, and we have not had a debate over transportation amendments. But hope does spring eternal. In that spirit, I wished to come to the floor and share some thinking about the amendments that we should be debating and should be approving in this process. Certainly, the underlying Transportation bill is a great step toward our No. 1 goal of passing legislation that would create jobs, put people back to work in the hardest hit sectors of our economy. Building and repairing our transportation infrastructure will create or save 2 million jobs nationwide, good-paying jobs that would provide a huge boost to our struggling construction industry, the families, to the workers, and to our economy. This infrastructure we would be building is a downpayment for the success of our future economy. China is spending 10 percent of its GDP on infrastructure. They are preparing for a stronger economy in the future. Europe is spending 5 percent of their GDP, but in America we are spending only 2 percent. Indeed, it was not but a few months ago that our colleagues on the House side of Capitol Hill said we should cut transportation spending by 30 to 35 percent, which would devastate the infrastructure efforts that are underway, even within the existing 2 percent, the small amount we are spending. Is it any wonder our communities are struggling to repair the bridges and roads we have, let alone to solve the challenges, the bottlenecks in the transportation lines that need to be addressed for the future. We have made a good start in committee on this bill, despite the paralysis on the floor of the Senate. We had elements of this bill go through four different committees and incorporate good ideas from both sides of the aisle in each of those committees and come to the floor in a bipartisan fashion. I wish to share a couple other thoughts to build on this groundwork that came out of our committees, commonsense fixes, cutting redtape, and closing loopholes. The first amendment, No. 1653, is one I am sponsoring with my colleagues Senator Toomey and Senator Blunt. Right now, farmers are exempt from certain Federal regulations when they transport their products in farm vehicles, as long as they are transporting these products inside their own State. But should they venture across State lines, even by just a short distance, then the Federal regulations are triggered. So we have farmers who are simply trying to get their products to market, to the local grain elevator, if you will, and they have to cross a State border and suddenly their challenge becomes very complex indeed. For instance, Oregon farmers who live just across the border from Idaho, in these cases, the best market might be the nearest processing facility just across the State line. These farmers are exactly the same as their counterparts elsewhere, except for one small fact, the processing facility is across the border. This arbitrary distinction can mean major differences in how these farmers and ranchers have to do business in the form of additional burdensome regulations, regulations such as vehicle inspections for every trip the vehicle makes, even if the farm vehicle is simply driving from the field to the barn or having to adhere to reporting requirements for things like hours of service rules, even though the farmer is just driving an hour down the road; or obtaining medical certifications meant for commercial truck drivers. This amendment would simply make life a little easier and more logical for these farmers by exempting them from these regulations designed for interstate transport, not designed to intervene or interfere when a farmer is attempting to take his product to market. We have put limits on mileage and limits on purpose to make sure it serves the intended function--to get rid of that arbitrary boundary that creates a regulatory nightmare. A second amendment is related to freight. The underlying bill has a freight program to improve the performance of the national freight network. That is a proposal that will help make desperately needed improvements. There are a few technical improvements that would further improve the bill; that is, to recognize that funding should be used in the most efficient and effective way to ensure that high-value goods are being moved quickly to market. We often think of freight in terms of volume or tonnage. But when we start looking at the high-tech sector, we can have enormously high- value content such as that produced by the microchip industry in Oregon and the roads necessary to make sure that high-value freight gets to market, which drives a tremendous number of jobs. It is just as important to address as are the routes that involve high tonnage and volume. Let's turn to a third issue, which is ``Buy American.'' I salute my colleagues, Sherrod Brown and Bernie Sanders, for working on these issues. We already recognize the principle that if we are paying to complete a public infrastructure project in America, it only makes sense for American businesses and workers to do as much of the work as possible. Unfortunately, there are several loopholes that have undermined this basic premise in recent years. My amendment No. 1599 is an amendment that addresses one of these loopholes. This summer, construction of a rail bridge in Alaska to a military base will be undertaken by a Chinese company because the Federal Rail Administration, unlike the Federal Transit and Federal Highway Administration, doesn't have the ``Buy American'' provision. An American company was ready to build this bridge, but because of this loophole the contract went to a Chinese company using Chinese steel. Isn't it frustrating that the infrastructure to provide access to a military base involves jobs and the steel going across the Pacific Ocean? Then I wanted to note that a related amendment led by Senator Sherrod Brown, No. 1807, addresses another ``Buy American'' challenge. States have been using a project segmentation loophole to avoid putting Americans to work, to avoid the ``Buy American'' seal. The Bay Bridge in California put in 12 separate projects so that Federal funds would only apply to a couple of those pieces. This allows the bulk of the bridge to be built--you guessed it--with Chinese steel, by Chinese workers. My amendment is modeled after a Republican amendment in the House Transportation bill, by Representative Cravaack of Minnesota, to close this loophole and ensure that the spirit of the law is upheld. These provisions were incorporated into the amendment led by Senator Sherrod Brown. I urge my colleagues to support these amendments to make these commonsense fixes to our transportation program. We must have debate on the amendments on the Senate floor. This room should not be empty. The conversation should not be quiet because transportation is at the heart of our economy. We have a construction industry that is flat on its back. We have interest rates that are low. We have infrastructure that needs to be built. This is a win-win for our future economy and our current workers and our current economy. Let's get to work. I ask my colleagues to continuously object to amendments being debated--for those listening in, the Senate has had a rule that any Senator can block an amendment. We have to get 100 percent of the Senators to agree to bring an amendment to the floor. The social contract that allows this to happen on a regular and orderly fashion in the past has been broken. So while families across this country look to us to put a transportation plan into place for our future economy and to put America back to work now, we are sitting here fiddling. Let's end the fiddling and do our work so America can do its work of rebuilding our highway infrastructure. Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MERKLEY

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

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the attack on women's health care that has been taking place over the last few weeks. There has been a heated debate in Washington about access to contraception for all women, regardless of her employer. There is a fundamental question here: Do women get control over their health care or do a small handful of people--the presidents of companies and the presidents of insurance companies--get to choose for a woman whether she has access to birth control? First, I think it is important to note that 98 percent of all women have relied on contraception at some point in their lives. The nonpartisan scientists and experts at the Institute of Medicine who first recommended covering contraception without a copay did so because there are tremendous health benefits that come from use. But now some in this Chamber are holding up this transportation bill, a bill that would create more than 1 million jobs across the country and 7,000 jobs in Oregon, because, apparently, it is a higher priority to take away women's health choices, to come between a woman and her doctor. How is this relevant to a transportation bill? The answer: It is not. But regardless, we are going to vote on an amendment to this bill that would allow those CEOs of companies and insurance companies the right to refuse coverage not just of contraception but of any health care service they consider in violation of their personal convictions. So the personal convictions of one will be imposed on the dozens or hundreds of thousands of employees of that company. That is an incredible philosophy. I wish one of my Republican colleagues was on the floor to have a little conversation about it, because I would simply ask the question: Please explain why you think that the CEO of a company should get to come between a woman and her doctor and choose what health care she has access to. We talk a lot about big government. Well, this is big government. This is big government, giving power to an individual who runs a company, making choices for dozens or hundreds or thousands of their employees. Not only are we talking about contraception but any health care service. A company CEO could deny access to HIV or AIDS treatment, to mammograms, to cancer screenings, to maternity care, to blood transfusions. The list goes on and on. The Blunt amendment would allow an employer who objected to premarital sex to deny an unmarried pregnant woman maternity care. Is that right, that an employer should make that choice for all the employees who work for him or her? The Blunt amendment would allow an employer to deny children of employees access to vaccines because the CEO has a conviction that the vaccine poses a risk. Is that right, that the leader of a company should make that decision for Americans, coming between them and their doctors? The Blunt amendment would deny all health coverage if a CEO believes that physical health problems are simply God's will. That is the imposition of one's religion on those who work for you, making it their religious requirement. That is not the way the Constitution is designed. The Constitution is designed to allow us to all follow our own course, not to impose our course on everyone else through an employment relationship. The Blunt amendment would allow a CEO to say we are not going to cover end-of-life care because, in that conviction of that CEO--whether it be a man or a woman, the CEO believes that such end-of-life care is interfering with God's will. The Blunt amendment would allow an employer to deny access of folks who suffer from obesity to health care-related obesity programs because they believe that obesity comes from a moral failing. I think we can all understand with these examples that this is simply wrong--simply wrong--that a CEO should be able to take their personal convictions and impose them on their employees. This amendment is just the latest in a litany of extraordinary and extreme efforts by my Republican colleagues to curtail women's access to health care services. In the last year alone, Republicans nearly shut down the government over Planned Parenthood, tried to eliminate title X funding for low-income women's health, and tried to take away preventive services such as cancer screenings for women because of ideological objections. What this amendment is all about is that a few powerful CEOs dictate health coverage for the rest of America. If this, giving the powerful few the ability to dictate coverage for everyone else, isn't an overreach by an overly intrusive government, I don't know what is. Some have said that blocking women's coverage of contraception through their insurance doesn't affect access. They say that contraception doesn't cost that much; that, in the words of one Republican House Member, there is not one person who has not ever been able to afford contraception because of the price. Well, tell that to our young women between age 18 and age 34 who actually know what contraception costs. More than half of women struggle to afford it at some point. Tell that to a young couple struggling to figure out how they can afford to buy their birth control and put food on the table for their children. Tell that to a college student deciding whether to buy textbooks or fill her prescription. The truth is, contraception is hugely expensive without insurance. Based on information compiled by the Center for American Progress, the cost to an average woman using birth control pills continuously between age 18 and menopause would be more than $66,000 over the course of her lifetime if she had to pay out of pocket. I think this point bears reinforcement, because I would never have imagined that that is the price of birth control. I think the House Member I was quoting probably had no idea of what contraception costs, $66,000 for a woman between the age of 18 and menopause. Where I come from, that is a lot of money. A lot of money. That is 5.5 years of groceries for a family of four. That is putting two kids through the University of Oregon with 4-year degrees, not including the cost of room and board. That is a downpayment on a nice family home. In fact, where I come from, that is a third of the price of a nice family home. I think a lot of families would wish they had extra cash in their pockets right now. And I certainly have heard from many women in Oregon who are extremely concerned about the impact this amendment would have on their pocketbooks and on their health. Therese from Washington County writes to me: As one of your constituents, and a practicing Catholic woman on birth control, I am urging you to please back up the President on this most recent decision requiring contraception coverage for all of their employees . . . There are many, many reasons women use the pill in addition to preventing pregnancy. I have issues with pre-menopause. There are lots of women I know who have heavy periods, horrible acne, endometriosis, debilitating cramps . . . the list goes on. And to not treat these ailments because the treatment also prevents pregnancy is to allow women to suffer. Bridget from Multnomah County writes: This amendment does not protect religious freedom. Rather, it empowers insurance companies and businesses to impose their religious views on their employees and the insured. It is an example of government intrusion into the personal lives of millions of women who would prefer to privately make their own choice about family planning, without politicians interfering. It is incredibly, vitally important to me that you do not support this amendment. I happily attended a Catholic college and cannot imagine what I would have done had I found out that my health insurance did not cover birth control. . . . This would be a disastrous decision. It is not Congress's job, it is not an employer's job, to impose our beliefs on others. Let's let women and families make their own health care decisions without the heavy hand of government intrusion being provided from my colleagues across the aisle. Let's not put government between women and their doctors or between men and their doctors or between families and their doctors. I am committed to fighting for women's health and will do whatever I can to defeat this amendment--this amendment, which is so wrong on health care and so wrong on imposing religious views of one or personal convictions of one on the many. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on February 15, 2012, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Nominations.''

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I rise to draw my colleagues' attention to an issue of great importance to our rural communities. If Congress does not act, many of our rural counties will face an increasingly dire state of affairs in the months to come. Across the United States, timber counties are facing local budgets suddenly and deeply in the red. This fiscal crisis could mean reduced schooldays, fewer sheriffs, more offenders on the street, and cuts to other basic county services. Congress has the power to avert this impending disaster, and Congress must utilize that power. So we must act without delay to extend the Secure Rural Schools and Communities Self-Determination Act. Secure Rural Schools is not an entitlement program; it is a commitment this Nation, our Federal Government, made to rural forest counties out of fairness and common sense when it determined it would put environmental overlays over large blocks of forest land that we dedicated to timber production with revenue shared with the local county. This contract between the Federal Government and our rural counties has been at the foundation of our National Forest System, and we in this Chamber need to honor it. Many folks come here and talk about how the Federal Government needs to uphold its share of the bargain. Well, this is an explicit contract with our rural counties, and we need to uphold that bargain. Since 1908--more than 100 years--the Federal Government has appropriately shared timber revenues with counties for the infrastructure they develop because this timber land is in Federal hands and produces no property tax revenue to support that infrastructure. Let me give some background on what the scale of this issue is for States such as Oregon. Oregon has 2.2 million acres of O&C lands. These lands were granted to the Oregon and California Railroad in 1866 and later reverted to the Federal Government when the railroad failed to live up to its terms of the grant. They also included a class of lands that originated from a similar situation--the Coos Bay Wagon Road lands. These lands make up a large percentage of the acreage in southern and western Oregon. Then there are Forest Service lands-- timbered lands owned by the Federal Forest Service--that make up 14 million additional acres across the State of Oregon. When you add it all together, more than half of Oregon's lands are federally owned. That means they do not produce a penny of property taxes to support infrastructure in our rural counties. The O&C lands and the Wagon Road lands were dedicated to timber production, with the counties receiving 50 percent of all revenues. Counties with national forest lands received 25 percent of the timber revenues. This created jobs and a source of money to provide counties with that needed infrastructure. In the early 1990s timber production began a long decline--a precipitous decline. Trends such as automation and trade hit the sector hard, as they had so many more sectors. On top of this, there were the environmental overlays that dramatically reduced timber harvesting. To compensate for the newly imposed Federal structure that changed the entire pattern of timber production in our rural counties, our National Government developed the Secure Rural Schools Program to provide payments to counties based on historic timber harvest levels but no longer tied directly to the annual timber harvest. This type of arrangement is not unique to Oregon, nor are the problems arising from the lapse of the Secure Rural Schools Program. There are a great many States, particularly in the West, where much of the land is federally owned and counties rely on this program and similar programs to support key infrastructure. It is no wonder that when the Secure Rural Schools payments lapsed in 2006, drastic measures had to be taken to adjust to the loss. Let me give some sense of what this is like in Oregon. In Josephine County--southern Oregon--two-thirds of the county's general fund came from county payments. So loss of county payments means cutting public safety programs. Overnight, in 2006, patrols were cut down to just six individuals to cover an area the size of the State of Rhode Island. In Lake County, where Federal lands make up 61 percent of the county, they cut their Federal road department from 42 individuals to 14--14 folks for a road department covering a land area equal to the combined size of Connecticut and Delaware. In Jackson County, where one-third of the general fund comes from Federal payments, the county eliminated 117 jobs in parks, human services, roads, and public safety, and they closed all of their libraries. Let me be clear. When the Federal Government fails to uphold the contract it has struck with our rural timber counties, the suffering is intense. It is an embarrassment that we would permit the Federal Government not to fulfill its commitment under this framework. This impact is so substantial that the Oregon Legislature, when I was serving as speaker, redirected $50 million in transportation funds to the rural counties. In the year of 2007, I organized a bipartisan, bicameral tour of our most affected counties. We went out to talk to the county officials, and when we came back I advocated for and supported this $50 million emergency transfer to compensate for the fact that the Federal Government was breaking its contract with the timber counties in America. Let's not let that happen again. Later, Congress restored this contract. But here we are now, 5 years later, facing the worst-case scenarios all over again. As Yogi Berra said, it is deja vu all over again. Because we failed to pass an extension before we left for the holidays, the last payment occurred a few weeks ago and timber counties don't know what is going to happen now. They would like to think folks in this Chamber will honor and support sustaining this Federal contract with our rural timber counties, but this Chamber has to act to make that happen. The Eugene Register-Guard recently published an editorial about the situation in Lane County, stating: The emerging picture looks like a multi-car pileup on Interstate 5. Lane County is facing a $14 million shortfall. More than half of this--$7.2 million--will have to be absorbed by the sheriff's office. What does that mean for Lane County? It means the end of 24-hour patrol, with coverage limited to just 16 hours a day. It means so few officers that they would be unable to respond except ``to the most serious of crimes.'' It means parole and probation supervision will be eliminated for hundreds of offenders and 130 jail beds would have to be closed. In addition, the district attorney's office faces a $1.9 million reduction in county funding, which would mean the loss of between 12 to 20 employees in the criminal division and potential shutdown of the county's medical examiner's office. And this is one of the counties that is in better shape. Others could go bankrupt as early as June of this year. As the Register-Guard newspaper says, it is ``a dire predicament, and in desperate need of help from Congress.'' Rural counties in Oregon and elsewhere deserve to have the Federal Government honor its contract and to have the peace of mind that funds guaranteed to pay for their infrastructure are there--for the roads, for schools, for public safety. In this contract between the Federal Government and rural America, the Federal Government must uphold its end of the bargain. Rural counties have been on a roller coaster for far too long. They have been flying off the tracks. Pick any metaphor you want--a pileup on I 5, a roller coaster or a train running off the tracks--this is the situation in our rural timber counties. And those Members who don't have rural counties have other situations where there are vital Federal commitments. This one must be honored by this Chamber. The first step is to extend the Secure Rural Schools Program as soon as possible. President Obama has supported and proposed and included in his budget a 5-year reauthorization of Secure Rural Schools and has made it mandatory spending. This short-term funding is a critical bridge to maintain schools and law enforcement in timber counties while we work for a viable long-term, sustainable management solution for Federal forests. I want to be clear. Timber counties would rather have forest practices that allow sustained production of timber, as these lands were dedicated to. That creates jobs, it supports the whole supply chain, and it provides logs to the independent mills that don't own their own forest land. That is the vitality of rural communities. My father worked at a sawmill when I was born--Harbor Plywood in Riddle, OR, and I lived in the adjoining town of Myrtle Creek. Those of us with a timber background understand the essential nature of this Federal contract. We must get it done in this Chamber. I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I further ask that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements related to the resolution be printed in the Record.

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 378, which was submitted earlier today.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate adjourn until 10 a.m., on Thursday, February 16, 2012; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that following any leader remarks, the Senate be in a period of morning business for 1 hour, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the majority controlling the first half and the Republicans controlling the final half; that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of S. 1813, the surface transportation bill.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the preamble be agreed to, the concurrent resolution be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements relating to the measure be printed in the Record.

Mr. MERKLEY

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