Don Nickles

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 358

Mr. NICKLES. I believe the next amendment will be offered by the Senator from Missouri, Senator Bond.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I have great respect for my colleagues from Missouri and Oklahoma and others who sponsor this amendment, but it is irresponsible to basically say 30 percent of highway funds will be funded out of general revenues. Highways have been built and paid for by and large by user fees, primarily gasoline taxes. This amendment says we have an increase in the deficit of about $63 billion over the next 6 years, meaning funded by general revenue financing. That is a mistake. The Federal Government pays 80 percent of the cost of these highways. If you have general fund financing of them, there is no limit on the demands where people are saying we want you to pay for our roads. This is over a 30 percent increase in the highway program, and basically it is unfunded. I urge my colleagues to vote no.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, for the information of all of our colleagues, we will now vote on the sense of the Senate offered by Senator Stevens and myself, and then Senator Conrad and I will work on an additional list of amendments. It is very much our intention to finish this bill tonight. I urge our colleagues to be a little more disciplined as far as sending amendments to Senator Conrad. I appreciate the cooperation of our colleagues. Amendment No. 391 Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Stevens and myself, I send--is the amendment at the desk?

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

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I appreciate the concerns raised by my friend and colleague from West Virginia, who just doubled the subsidy for Amtrak over my opposition. The majority leader has asked me to finish this bill, and we are going to finish the bill. I regret it. I will tell you, I have been here 23 years. We usually spend 1 week on a budget. Undoubtedly, on that last day of the budget, we have a lot of votes. We didn't do a budget last year and we should have. Maybe I should have worked more with the chairman at that time to make that happen. The Congress didn't function because it didn't get the budget done. We are going to finish this budget this week--tonight or tomorrow. I know there are a lot of amendments, but most of them are repetitive. We have dealt with almost every subject area in the budget. The budget is not an appropriations bill. The budget is not a tax bill. We have had people offer amendments as though this is going to micromanage section 750. We don't do that in the budget. We don't write tax bills in the budget. We have had umpteen amendments. Oh, this will finance this, or it will be that portion of a tax bill. That is not what a budget does. A budget says basically how much we are going to spend and how much we are going to take in. We have a budget and we need to finish our work. I know it is unpleasant and painful, and I know people would rather be home with their families, but we have to finish. Two years ago, we had 34 votes-- tons of votes. We eventually passed a budget. I congratulated Senator Domenici because it wasn't easy or pretty. That is the way we are right now. I tell my colleague from North Dakota, we knew this was coming a couple of days ago. I know it will not be pleasant, and we are going to ask people, and some people have to catch planes, and that is unfortunate, but we are going to finish the budget. All these amendments that are pending, for the most part, don't need to be offered. They can be offered if you want--we are going to set an amount for appropriations. Most of those amendments can be dealt with on an appropriations bill or on a tax bill. We are going to have both this year. So I urge my colleagues to show some restraint. I will work with my colleagues, and I think I have considered every amendment fairly. We have not postponed anybody's amendments. I think we have been as fair as possible to everybody. I might mention that 90 percent of the amendments offered on the other side--well, I will be happy to work with my colleagues, but I think it is important to finish our work, whether it is midnight tonight or tomorrow night. It is very much my intention to finish. I urge our colleagues to work together to complete our work.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I tell my colleague from North Dakota that I will let him know of this request. I ask unanimous consent that the only amendments that be allowed to be considered be those filed and presently at the desk.

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

Mr. NICKLES

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

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

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, we are going to soon ask unanimous consent to clear seven amendments that Senator Conrad and I have agreed upon. Prior to that, though, I might ask the minority leader if he has an announcement to try to rally his troops.

Mr. NICKLES. If the minority leader will yield, I would very much appreciate it--I know you don't want to get into the details, but having final passage of the budget by 7 o'clock tonight would be very much appreciated by all Members of the Senate. I appreciate the cooperation of the minority leader. Amendments Nos. 353, 283, 390, 388, 389, 309, 296 As Modified, En Bloc

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that seven amendments--No. 353, Senators Smith and Clinton's sense of the Senate dealing with health care coverage; No. 283, Senator Feinstein and others' sense of the Senate dealing with criminal alien assistance; No. 390, Nickles' technical correction, Social Security administrative expenses; No. 388, Senator Voinovich's sense of the Senate CBO report on liabilities and future costs; No. 389, Senator Hutchison's sense of the Senate dealing with the Corps of Engineers; No. 309, Bingaman language change to Medicaid Reserve; No. 296, Senator Rockefeller's sense of the Senate first responders, with a modification that is presently at the desk--be considered en bloc, agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid on the table en bloc.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I thank our colleagues for their cooperation and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I wish to join our colleagues in congratulating Senator Sarbanes on the milestone, and his accomplishments in the Senate. Democratic Caucus

Mr. NICKLES. If the leader will yield, I have a couple of comments. One, I appreciate the cooperation of the leader and Senator Daschle and Senator Reid and Senator Conrad. But just for the information of our colleagues, we are going to have a very tough couple of days, a lot of work to do on Tuesday and Wednesday. I urge our colleagues to be ready to go. I think the order called for us going into session at 9:30 Tuesday morning. Today, we worked long and hard. We had about 15 rollcall votes, and I believe we accepted probably another 15 amendments, counting the last 7. It is going to be very challenging work. So I urge our colleagues to be notified of the fact that they need to be here at 9:30 Tuesday morning and expect a long day--a lot of votes on Tuesday and a lot of votes on Wednesday. It is going to take the cooperation of all Members for us to meet this ambitious goal. It will not be easy and it probably won't be very pretty. Hopefully, we will be successful in meeting our objectives. There is nothing in the unanimous consent agreement saying we have to agree to 40 amendments?

Mr. NICKLES. I just wanted to make sure.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to Dr. Lloyd Ogilvie, who served as our Chaplain in the Senate since 1995. Dr. Ogilvie has been an outstanding Chaplain to the Senate. He is a person I think all of us have grown to know and love and appreciate. He has been our mentor, our companion, our friend, our brother, and our Chaplain. He has provided great leadership, great prayers. He has prayed for us many times, and not just in his official capacity as Chaplain of the Senate. He has prayed for us individually as Members. He has prayed for our families. He has been with us through a lot of difficult times, challenging times, exciting times. We want him and his family to know they are very much in our thoughts and prayers. His wife Mary Jane is a lovely lady. And she has experienced some very challenging physical tribulations of late. We want both Dr. Ogilvie and his wife Mary Jane to know they are in our thoughts and our prayers. We certainly miss him as our Chaplain. He has been kind enough to not only meet with us in the morning and lead us in prayer, but he has met with many of us on a weekly basis--Members of the Senate and also our staffs, and also other people who work in the Senate. He has been a great mentor and friend. We are certainly going to miss him as our Chaplain of the Senate.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Will the majority leader yield?

Mr. NICKLES. I concur with what the leader said and also with my colleagues both from Nevada and North Dakota. I encourage colleagues if they do have amendments to please share those with us. We have three amendments in the queue. We are happy to look at amendments. We may be able to accept some amendments. We may want some modifications and may want to have some substitutes. However, I would like to avoid, if possible, the vote-arama. I don't think it makes the Senate look very good. There are 14\1/2\ hours remaining on the resolution. I would like people to have a chance to be able to debate their amendment. Even so, I encourage Senators, if they have amendments, let us look at them before they send their amendments to the desk. We want to be able to look at those amendments on both sides. I encourage colleagues on this side, if they have amendments, the Senator from North Dakota is entitled to look at those amendments. But they can have a chance to debate those amendments, have some debate time throughout the day. I expect we will have a lot of votes today and a lot of votes tomorrow. Colleagues should be aware. Also, they should be prepared, if necessary, to stay on Saturday for a lot of votes. I hope and expect we could conclude either very late tonight or sometime tomorrow but, if necessary, on Saturday.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I object.

Mr. NICKLES. I object.

Mr. NICKLES. For the information of my colleague from New York, we would be happy to have----

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, for the information of our colleague, it takes unanimous consent. We have amendments that are pending, so we have to set those amendments aside. We wish to review amendments before we do that. I am happy to have my colleague from New York begin discussing his amendment. We will review the amendment at some point. I am sure we will be happy to have the amendment sent to the desk--just not yet.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I do not believe the amendment should be pending.