Don Nickles

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I will repeat to my friend and colleague, the chairman of the Finance Committee, I will work with him to try to come up with a package that can pass this Congress this year. I want it to pass, and I want it to be signed into law. To come up with a package that the administration is opposed to means it will not become law. Some of us want to alleviate some of the problems. This particular bill the Senator has asked to pass by unanimous consent, which means no Senator gets to offer any amendment, flies in the face of Senate tradition. Senate tradition has always been--I did a little homework on Medicare. Twenty-two of twenty-three significant Medicare changes passed the Finance Committee in a bipartisan fashion and passed the Senate usually with overwhelming numbers--not all the time but usually with overwhelming numbers. So I was sincere in saying let us refer it back to committee, let us have some amendments, let us have some votes, and maybe we can come up with a bipartisan package that then will have momentum to pass on the floor. I might remind my friend and colleague from Montana, my suggestion was that is the way we should do the prescription drug bill. We did not do that on prescription drugs, and we ended up with no bill. Seniors got zero, and I am afraid if we continue going down this path on the so-called Medicare adjustment give-back bill, they will end up getting zero. I would like for us to provide some assistance by passing something that could become law. When I objected to this previously--I believe it was a week ago Friday, October 4--there was not a Congressional Budget Office scoring. The bill was just introduced, and I said: How much is it going to cost? To my colleague's credit, he said about forty-some-odd billion dollars, and it was forty-some-odd billions dollars. I said: How much will it cost the first 2 years? Because sometimes these 10-year estimates do not mean a lot but the first year or two does. He said that over the first 2 years it would be $10 billion. We did get CBO's estimate, and the first year's cost, 2003, was $10.1 billion. The second year's cost, 2004, was $11.8 billion. So the total cost is almost $22 billion the first 2 years, so it is twice as much as it was estimated in the original 2 years. That is real money. Can we do this right? We have a letter from AARP, and I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. NICKLES. AARP, which I do not always agree with, basically says-- I will read this one sentence: AARP opposes give-back provisions without drug coverage in Medicare, and our 35 million members will not understand how the Senate can take this course of action. They have stated they are opposed to doing a give-back bill on a stand-alone basis. The House passed a Medicare adjustment bill, or give-back bill, in addition to passing prescription drugs. I know the Senator from Maine has indicated an interest in trying to do that. Asking unanimous consent to pass it without amendment would deny the Senator from Maine the opportunity to offer an amendment either in committee or on the floor. It would deny the Senator from Alabama the chance to do more for a rural provider wage adjustment, which I know Senator Sessions has repeatedly said he wanted to address. He should at least have that opportunity, either in committee and/or on the floor. To do something strictly by unanimous consent denies them that opportunity. I make those points, but I am still willing to work with our colleagues to see if we can do an affordable bill, one that can pass both the House and the Senate and be signed by the President this year. Maybe that is this week, maybe it is next week, maybe it is the week after election, but I am willing to do that this year. I am willing to try to get all parties together so we can actually not make campaign statements but we can change the law and have that law changed by a signature of the President. I think that is doable, but we are going to have to get all parties together, and to my knowledge that has not happened at this point. I yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I wish to make a couple of comments. Parliamentary inquiry: Are we going to be in morning business until 3?

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I have heard a couple of speeches by our Democrat colleagues that are basically saying the entire fault of the economy is that of President Bush. I just have a little different view and wish to share the view somewhat to balance the record. It is kind of interesting; we are an equal branch of Government, the legislative branch. We are an equal branch to that of the executive. For one branch of Government to say, wait a minute, the economy is bad and it is all the President's fault, I find kind of interesting. We have equal powers under the Constitution. Our powers are a little different. Maybe sometimes the President gets all the credit when things are good and all the fault when things are bad, but that is not quite accurate. Congress shares its portion of responsibility, whether it be good or bad. We have done a couple things that are good and some things that are bad. Maybe I will point out some of those differences. I find it interesting where one branch of Government is faulting the other and assuming that is really the solution. That is not the case. When the recession started, I remember the stock market crashing or falling dramatically in March of 2000. I believe President Clinton was President at that time, and the market continued to fall. It rebounded a little bit in August of 2000, and then it fell a lot more and has been falling since. If you look at the precipitous rise in the stock market, it probably had risen too much too fast, and so it had some falling out to do. It has fallen; I hope it has not fallen too much. Maybe now it has bottomed out and started to increase. Actually, the last few days have been very promising. If somebody just got into the market last Monday or Tuesday, they have made a remarkable rate of return in the last few days alone. I hope maybe the market has bottomed out. To say that is all President Bush's fault is incorrect. The Washington Post on October 25 said: To blame the weak American economy on Mr. Bush is nonsense. That is a direct quote from the Washington Post, which is not exactly President Bush's biggest cheerleader. But they happen to be right. Let me say, instead of just trying to throw rocks at the Bush administration, we should be looking at Congress. What can we do. I don't know that we can just pass a few bills and make everything rosy in the economy. Nor does everything we do have a negative impact. But I do believe we can make a difference. Some of the things we pass can help, and some of the things we don't pass can either help or hurt. I will mention those. I remember a person all of us respect, Chairman Greenspan. His recommendation, his advice to Congress was to do two things: Show some fiscal discipline and also do things that would stimulate trade. And we did pass a bill, trade promotion authority, this year. Due to President Bush's leadership, we did get it through the House and the Senate. It wasn't easy. It wasn't even pretty in some respects. But it passed both Houses. It passed the House by one vote; it passed the Senate by more than that after extraneous measures were put on that were not in the committee. That was not a good way to legislate. There were three bills combined into one. But we eventually did pass trade promotion authority. That was good. That will help the economy. On the second recommendation, Chairman Greenspan said show fiscal discipline. I give the White House high marks in many regards. I give Congress a very low grade. If I was going to grade Congress on fiscal discipline, the grade would be an F. I am critical. I am on the Budget Committee. I used to be on the Appropriations Committee. But for the first time since 1974, we didn't pass a budget. And we have shown no discipline whatsoever. As a matter of fact, for the last two or three Congresses, we have shown very little discipline, whether or not we had a budget. Even when we had a budget in the last 2 or 3 years of the Clinton administration, we continually waived it. If you are going to waive it by declaring things an emergency, or waive it and say it doesn't count, we basically had no budget. So as a result, we had Federal spending climbing and climbing dramatically. Total outlays increased, in the year we just completed, 2002, the fiscal year, by $148 billion. That is the largest percentage growth in spending programs in 20 years. Defense grew by 13 percent. I agree with that. We underfunded defense for many years. Unemployment comp grew by a staggering 72 percent. Medicaid grew by 13.2 percent, the fastest since 1992. Total outlays grew by 7.9 percent in fiscal year 2002. But if you exclude the decrease for net interest, spending grew by 11 percent last year, about 3 times the rate of inflation. And then I look at some of the other things Congress did that affect spending. Now, we can control that. We control how much money we spend. We had a farm bill that was billions of dollars over what was budgeted. The trade adjustment assistance bill had $11 billion of new entitlement spending. We had an emergency supplemental bill that was $4 billion over the President's request. I could go on and on. There was $6 billion in drought assistance that--when we passed the farm bill that was so expensive, the proponents said we won't need to do drought assistance every year. Then we came back and, sure enough, Congress passes billions of dollars more. So my complaint is against Congress because, for the first time, we didn't pass a budget. Then because we didn't pass a budget, we didn't pass appropriations bills. This is embarrassing. Here we are in the new fiscal year and we have not sent the President any appropriations bills. By the end of this week, I think we will have sent the President two appropriations bills--2 out of 13, all of which are supposed to be done by the end of September. And here we are in the middle of October. Congress, on appropriations bills, deserves an ``F'' this year because we have not done a budget, and Congress deserves an ``F'' because we have not done one of our constitutional responsibilities, which is to pass appropriations bills on time. So I look at the Members of Congress who keep throwing rocks at the President, saying the economy is in bad shape. Yet what are we doing? Have we done our job? No. What else could Congress have done? What could the Senate have done? The House passed an energy bill and we spent 7 or 8 weeks on it and it is still stuck in conference. If we would have passed an energy bill that had allowed exploration in ANWR-- the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge--as the House did, we could create hundreds of thousands of jobs. That is still stuck, so the Congress has not passed an energy bill. We have not passed a reinsurance bill. It passed the House and the Senate, but we have not worked out the differences in conference, mainly because the Trial Lawyers Association wants to have the extended ability to sue victims of terrorism. So there are billions of dollars in construction projects being held hostage because Congress hasn't been able to pass antiterrorism insurance. The House passed pension reform months ago. The Senate Finance Committee--of which I am a member--I believe, passed pension reform unanimously in committee. We have not passed it on the floor of the Senate. I urge the majority leader to call that bill up. If you want to talk about 401(k)s, and we want to protect them, and pension plans, and so on, let's pass the bipartisan bill that passed out of the Finance Committee to lend some protection there. We have not moved to make permanent the tax cuts passed last year. I keep hearing people being critical of the tax bill that passed. They want to say that tax bill caused all the deficits. That is totally false. The real cause, or culprit, wasn't the tax cut; it is the fact of the failing economy. The economy is staggering. Income receipts are down, and it is not so much because of the tax cuts but because of the economy. So we need to turn the economy around and allow people to keep more of their own money. Let's make the tax cuts permanent. Some people say, no, let's increase taxes. Let's change the law. I don't think that is the remedy being advocated by many, but I don't think that is a very good solution. Then I heard our colleagues say we didn't pass a prescription drug bill. That is not our fault. The majority leader and the chairman of the Finance Committee never even had a markup on prescription drugs in the Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over that issue. They pulled the bill up on the floor and we debated it for weeks, but we didn't pass a comprehensive bill to add prescription drugs as a benefit for Medicare because we didn't let the Senate work its will. We didn't have it marked up in committee. We didn't allow Members to proceed as we should. I mention those few things. We are getting close to election time, so they want to start throwing rocks at the President and criticizing him for the economy, without saying, what have we done? What has the Senate done? I might say we should be thankful for some things that we didn't do and what some of our friends on the Democratic side of the aisle wanted to do, or have tried to do, which, if they were successful, would have made the economy a lot worse. I will mention one: ergonomics standards. There was a regulation promulgated by the Clinton administration in the last day or two of his term in office called ergonomics standards, which would have cost the economy billions and billions of dollars. I saw one estimate that was up to $100 billion. It was going to have the Federal Government set up a Federal workers compensation system--I started to say ``scheme''-- that would have cost billions of dollars to regulate movement in the workplace. It had such ridiculous rules, such as you could not move over 50 pounds 20 times a day and all kinds of little rules on how OSHA is going to regulate business. Congress wisely stopped that regulation. That was good. Some people still want to pass that. It would have cost billions and billions. Some people say let's pass the Patients' Bill of Rights, which would increase everybody's health care costs. Actually, the Senate passed that a year ago in June. It is interesting to note that the House already passed it a year ago, but we have not even gone to conference on that bill--maybe for a good reason. That bill would greatly expand not only the right to sue the HMOs but also employers for providing health care insurance for their employees. The employers could be sued, and the net result would be that a lot of employers would drop their health care. That would hurt the economy, not help it. Some people say let's increase the minimum wage. That is one of the proposals many Democrats are pushing now--increase that by $1.50 over the next 14 months. That is almost a 30-percent increase. Oh, that is great. What if the business could not pay $6.65? What if this is somebody trying to help at a convenience store, and all they can afford to pay is $5, maybe $6 an hour? We are just going to say that is too bad; we would rather have you unemployed than to have a job like that. If you cannot pay $6.65, you are out of work. CAFE standards: On the energy bill, many Democrat colleagues say let's increase the CAFE standards for automobiles. That is great. We are going to make everybody drive a Volkswagen-type automobile. That is not very safe; that is not what consumers want. It would certainly be detrimental, and it would cost thousands of jobs. I mention these to say that there are two sides to the story. We are a little less than 3 weeks from the election and a lot of colleagues are saying: We want to throw rocks at the President, blame the President for the deficit. So we want to stop making permanent the tax cuts the President already passed; and, incidentally, we want to spend a whole lot more money. So they are against the deficits when it comes to taxes, but in favor of them when it comes to spending money. Whether you are talking about Medicare adjustments, drought assistance, unemployment compensation--which, in a moment, we will probably be debating--we are going to have a major expansion of unemployment compensation, more than double the Federal program that we have today. Some will possibly propose that. It only cost $17 billion. What difference does it make? We don't have a budget anyway. In other words, they don't care about the deficit when it comes to spending--only when it comes to the tax side. I say these things because I think it is important to move together and improve the economy. I think we can do it if Congress works together. We can take a lot of the measures the House passed and we can help the economy. If we would pass an energy bill, a reinsurance bill, pension reform, and if we would be responsible and pass a budget, pass appropriations bills that meet the budget guidelines, I think we could help the economy. I don't think we help the economy by making a bunch of political speeches and blaming everything on President Bush. I yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, may I ask the sponsor of the bill, doesn't this, in effect, provide for a 26-week extension of Federal unemployment compensation instead of 13 weeks?

Mr. NICKLES. I object.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I love to hear my friend and colleague from Massachusetts. Sometimes we have a slight difference of opinion on a few of these issues, and I will try to clarify a couple of them. One which he has asked unanimous consent to pass is the unemployment compensation extension. Even in the consent request it says for a 13- week extension of unemployment compensation, but the fact is the bill is for 26 weeks. Right now, it is a Federal program. Let me back up. States have a 26-week program. The Presiding Officer, as a former Governor from Delaware, understands the States have a 26- week program. There is a 13-week temporary Federal unemployment compensation extension we use in times of high unemployment, paid, basically, totally by the Federal Government. The Senator from Massachusetts is saying let's make that 13 weeks 26 weeks, not for a few States but all States, and then for some States an additional 7 weeks. So, basically, all States would get 52 weeks and some States would get 59 weeks. I want to make sure people understand the facts. I do not mind debating facts, but I think we ought to be factual. The fact is he is trying to double the Federal program, and that is very expensive. A simple extension costs about $6 billion or $7 billion. The bill that people have tried to pass now for the third or fourth time by unanimous consent would cost $17 billion. If my colleagues want to be responsible, I will work with them, but we are not going to pass something like this. This is more of a political statement so they can say, we are trying to pass unemployment compensation, and they can have Senator Nickles coming out objecting-- those Republicans will not allow this to pass. I was critical of the fact that the Senate has not passed appropriations bills and critical of the fact that the House has not. The House has not passed enough and neither has the Senate. My colleague from Massachusetts says all of the appropriations bills have to originate from the House. That is not what the Constitution says. The Constitution says all ``revenue raising bills.'' I have article 1, section 7: All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills. It is important we be factual. The House has to originate tax bills. The Senate can pass appropriations bills. I have always asserted our right. Because of tradition, the House wants to pass them first, and that is fine; that can be the tradition. But nothing should keep the Senate from passing appropriations bills first if we so desire. There is no point of order against them whatsoever. A point that was made on the Finance Committee--and I was critical of the Senate for bringing up a prescription drug proposal without it going through the Finance Committee. I did a little homework. Since the creation of Medicare in 1965, 22 of the 23 Medicare expansions passed the Finance Committee--bipartisan, overwhelming. We had a tripartisan bill that had a chance to garner bipartisan support on which many of us were requesting a markup in the Finance Committee, before we got to the floor, so we would have a bipartisan approach when it came to the very important, critical, and expensive extension of prescription drugs to Medicare. We were denied that markup. We are going to have the most expensive expansion of Medicare since its inception, and it will be done on the floor of the Senate without input from committee, without scoring, without the CBO, without expert input. That is a pretty crummy way to legislate. It makes one think the legislation was done more for political purposes than for substantive and legislative intent to make something happen. My good friend from Massachusetts discussed minimum wage. Senator Nickles is opposed. Not all Republicans are. This Republican is opposed to increasing the minimum wage from $5.15 to $6.65 in 14 months. That is a $1.50 increase in 14 months. A lot of people are paying in the neighborhood of $5.15 or $5.50. If they have to pay an extra $1.50 in the next year, many will say, I cannot do that, thank you very much. A small business in Delaware or Oklahoma--maybe it is a McDonald's-- cannot always afford to pass the $1.50 on and some employees will lose a job. Maybe it is pumping gas, sacking groceries, or sweeping floors. My colleague said this is to help increase people's self-esteem and integrity, people who are sweeping the floors. I used to sweep floors. I used to have a janitor service. I used to work for minimum wage, and so did my wife. It was only about 34 years ago we did that, and the minimum wage at that time, if I remember, was a lot less than it is today. It did not hurt my self-esteem. I wanted to make more money, so I started my own business. It was rather successful. My point is, I don't think we improve people's self-esteem alone by saying we will have the Federal Government setting higher standards, and if you cannot make it, we would rather you be unemployed. I would rather have someone working for $5.50 and climb the economic ladder than put that ladder up so high that they cannot get on and they stay unemployed and continue to draw welfare benefits. I hear we want to freeze this Bush tax cut for the ultrawealthy, the tax cuts for the millionaires. When President Clinton was elected, the maximum personal income tax rate was 31 percent. He increased that rate to 39.6 percent for personal income tax. President Clinton did that retroactively in 1993. President Bush, over several years, eventually gets that 39.6-percent rate in an incremental phasing down to 35 percent. In other words, it is still several percent more than it was under President Clinton. It is 4 percentage points, but percentage-wise it is about a 13-percent rate higher than when President Clinton was elected. President Reagan lowered the rate to 28 percent. President Bush, the 41st President, increased it, due to a lot of pressure, from 28 percent to 31 percent. President Clinton took it from 31 percent to 39.6. President Bush, the 43rd President, reduces that rate gradually from 39.6 percent to 35 percent over several years. My colleagues are objecting to that as tax cuts for the wealthy. But that is not nearly as much as the tax increase proposed by the previous administration. It is very important we be factual. The pension bill has been on the calendar since July. Senator Daschle could have brought it up at any point. We have bipartisan support for the Finance Committee bill that was passed in July. The minimum wage has been on the calendar since May. If Senator Daschle wants to bring it up, he can. He is the majority leader. He has that right to bring up the issues. Two or three weeks before the election looks as if it is calculated more for political purposes than for trying to change the law of the land. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I yield myself 5 minutes. Mr. President, I wish to respond to a couple of the statements made by the junior Senator from Minnesota. I don't think they are actually correct in categorizing what happened in 1998. I believe I heard him say then we were very deliberative and the resolution we passed did not authorize the use of force. Well, I will show you what we did in 1998. In 1998, Saddam Hussein had continued his defiance of the U.N. He had not complied with any of the 16 resolutions. So the U.S. passed a resolution saying he should comply, Public Law 105-235, on August 14th. But the deliberative portion was introduced before the Senate on July 31, 1998--placed on the calendar July 27, measure laid before the Senate on July 31--and it passed the Senate with an amendment by unanimous consent. So it passed in one day. I don't remember the number of hours spent in debate, but it wasn't a lot. To say we spent months deliberating it is not accurate. The fact is we passed it in one day. And then to say it had no authorization for force, I don't believe is actually correct either. If you look at the resolved section--I put the 1998 resolution in the calendar because I think it is important. It goes through several items of noncompliance by Iraq. Basically, we are saying we should force or compel Iraq to comply. The resolved section says: . . . the United States of America and Congress assembled, find the government of Iraq in a material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations, and therefore the President is urged to take appropriate action in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States to bring Iraq into compliance with international obligations. I believe in the appropriate action Congress was saying with a united voice: Take military action, if necessary, to get Saddam Hussein to comply with the U.N. resolution. That is what this resolution stated. We passed it unanimously. We also passed, in 1998, the Iraqi Liberation Act. This act did not authorize any additional military force. That is correct with this act, but not with Public Law 105-235. When someone says we didn't authorize force in 1998--yes, we did. The Iraqi Liberation Act didn't have an authorization of force, but it did include a change of regime. It said Saddam Hussein should go. Again, we spoke with a united voice. We passed that by a voice vote. I might mention this to my colleagues. In the House, it passed by 360-38. In the Senate, we received it from the House on October 6 and passed it in the Senate on October 7. We passed it by unanimous consent. We passed it without objection. This resolution says it should be the policy of the U.S. to have a regime change. That became the law of the land. It passed unanimously in the Senate with an overwhelming vote in the House. Then, the earlier resolution that passed on August 14 said the President is urged to take appropriate action to compel compliance with existing U.N. resolutions. That was a strong, united voice. Congress spoke together, overwhelmingly. It was not unanimous in the House, but it was unanimous in the Senate. Both of these resolutions passed in one day. So for people who are saying we haven't been deliberative enough, and what is the consequence of this--what has changed? This Congress, Democrats and Republicans, this Senate unanimously told President Clinton to compel compliance. Also, we stated it was the public policy of Congress to have a regime change in Iraq. I want to clarify the Record and make sure we are factually accurate. Congress spoke in a united fashion in 1998. It was proud to be part of that then, and I am proud to be part of the sponsorship of this resolution, which I believe will also pass with a very strong voice-- after much more extensive debate than we had in 1998. I thank my friend for yielding me the time.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Utah (Mr. Bennett) is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, reserving the right to object--and I shall object--this is not a 13-week extension, it is a 26-week extension, plus an additional 7 weeks for some States. It changes the threshold. It costs $17 billion. A clean extension would be $7 billion. I will be happy to work with my colleagues to come up with something more reasonable and affordable. This bill before us, S. 3009, is not. Therefore, I object.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I had a colloquy with the Senator from Minnesota when he propounded this request a couple days ago, and I asked the question if this was a simple extension. I believe he said it was almost. I have read the bill and have found it is not a simple extension. I ask my colleague, has the bill changed? Is this a simple extension, a 13-week extension of unemployment compensation for all States?

Mr. NICKLES. If the Senator will yield, I am trying to figure out what his bill will do.

Mr. NICKLES. That's fine.

Mr. NICKLES. If my colleague will yield for a question, I guess by the length of the Senator's answer, it is not a clean extension. I am reading on page 4 of the Senator's bill a section entitled ``Adjusted Insured Unemployment Rate.'' Correct me if I am wrong, but this definition basically says people who have exhausted unemployment compensation in the most recent 3 calendar months, even if they subsequently get a job, are still counted as unemployed; is not that correct?

Mr. NICKLES. So the Senator's bill permits individuals who have exhausted their unemployment compensation, and then may have subsequently found a job, to be counted in the unemployment figures, according to this Adjusted Insured Unemployment Rate calculation on page 4?

Mr. NICKLES. If the Senator will yield further, it says: . . . except that individuals exhausting their right to regular compensation during the most recent 3 calendar months for which data are available before the close of the period for which such rate is being determined shall be taken into account as if they were individuals filing claims for regular compensation for each week during the period for which such rate is being determined. In other words, one could exhaust their unemployment compensation, and may or may not find another job in the following 3 months--they are still going to be counted as unemployed according to this definition, which is really yielding a higher figure. I find that totally unacceptable. Maybe it was done in the 1990s, but that does not make it right. Surely we would want accurate unemployment compensation statistics used in determining how many weeks would be available for additional extended benefits. We want to do it right, and I am sure my colleagues from Massachusetts and Minnesota want to as well. This section is not doing it right. This section alone does not make the bill a clean extension. I will be happy to work with my colleagues, but this is not acceptable. So I want to point that out. I want to make another point while I am considering whether I will object to this. This one section is not acceptable. Also, I am finding, after reading the proposal of my colleagues, instead of having a 13- week extension, it is a 26-week extension for all States. That is very expensive. I might ask my friend from Massachusetts, what is the estimated cost of this proposal?

Mr. NICKLES. If the Senator will yield, and I asked a question first. I asked the Senator how much this would cost.

Mr. NICKLES. Fourteen?

Mr. NICKLES. I have not asked unanimous consent. We have an estimate from CBO, that their estimate is $17.1 billion. I realize this bill did not come through committee. I realize this bill did not have a hearing. I realize this bill has not been vetted. I realize it was just introduced last week and the Senator is trying to pass it by unanimous consent. I have just had a chance to start reading the bill, and the more I read it, I find out it is not 13 weeks, it is 26 weeks. I find out it has an Adjusted Insured Unemployment Rate provision, which says we could potentially count some people under this definition who are working. So this bill is not acceptable. To answer my colleague, I may be willing to work with the Senator to find a bill that is acceptable. Certainly, if we did something more along the lines of a 13-week/6-month extension for all States, without jimmying the figures, without using Adjusted Insured Unemployment Rates, without establishing new triggers--since this bill uses different triggers from current law that allows more States to qualify for additional extended benefits--if we treat States the same, basically do 13 weeks for 6 months, I might be willing to do that. I might be willing to shop that with colleagues in the House, and the White House. I believe I heard last week or earlier this week, this is almost a straight extension. The more I read, I find out this is not a straight extension. This is a bill that costs--just as a comparison, the straight six-month extension costs about $7.3 billion. Quickly estimated by CBO, this bill costs $17.1 billion. There is a big difference. Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.

Mr. NICKLES. No, I have not stated that.

Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. NICKLES. Can we have regular order in the Senate.