Larry Pressler

Mr. PRESSLER

Mr. PRESSLER. Madam President, I understand that some Senators have a problem with this amendment, and I think we will have to resolve those problems at a future time. Does the Senator from Virginia visage this coming up tomorrow?

Mr. PRESSLER. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. PRESSLER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be set aside and carried over until tomorrow.

Mr. PRESSLER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. PRESSLER. Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk for Mr. [[Page S8361]] Dole and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. PRESSLER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now turn to the consideration of amendment 1341.

Mr. PRESSLER. Madam President, I hope that Senators will come to the floor with their amendments because the hour of 7:30 p.m. is approaching, and Senator Dole will be back here then. So I thank the Chair, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. PRESSLER. Madam President, I will take this opportunity to urge Senators to bring their additional amendments to the floor and also to say that I am very proud that 500 delegates at the small business conference today sent over individual letters endorsing the passage of this bill and also urging President Clinton to strongly support it. I know the White House has been a little cool toward this bill, but I hope that they are warmed up by the small businessmen who are in the White House Conference on Small Business. I have a whole stack of letters here, which I will not put in the Record. I might put in the names, but they are from all over the Nation, small businessmen who have come to Washington, who have sent letters urging that the Telecommunications Competition and Deregulation Act of 1995 be passed and that the White House support it and that the Senate version is the version that they are interested in. So I am very proud of that. There has been some talk about big corporate interests and so forth. There has been talk about the cellular valley out here. But these are 500 small business men and women from across the Nation wanting to pass this bill because small business will benefit and small business will be able to participate.

Mr. PRESSLER. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the amendment was agreed to, and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Mr. SIMON addressed the Chair.

Mr. PRESSLER. I commend my friend from Massachusetts. I urge the adoption of the amendment.

Mr. PRESSLER. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the amendment was agreed to, and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Mr. KERRY addressed the Chair.

Mr. PRESSLER. I urge the adoption of the amendment.

Mr. PRESSLER. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the amendment was agreed to, and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 1324 (Purpose: To combat telemarketing fraud through reasonable disclosure of certain records for telemarketing investigations)

Mr. PRESSLER. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the amendment was agreed to, and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Mr. HARKIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. PRESSLER. Madam President, these carveouts are always difficult because when there is a carveout, there are problems for new entrants. I agree with the Senator from Iowa that this is small business. There has been a lot of discussion on this, whether the burglar alarm people should be given a certain period of protection. We hope in a deregulatory bill to get everybody competing as soon as possible. In fact, we had a big thing--at least it was big to me--in the Commerce Committee of keeping even the newspaper publishers without a carveout, without a period of years --they have 5 or 6 years in the House bill. If we are going to have deregulation, we have to get people competing, because new people want to get into the field also out there, new small businesses. As I understand it, there is an informal agreement, if we can use that term, reached that they will not seek beyond 4 years in conference, hopefully. With that understanding, we can accept this amendment. I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. PRESSLER. I ask unanimous consent the amendment be laid aside.

Mr. PRESSLER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. PRESSLER. Madam President, I would like to call up amendment No. 1285 on behalf of Senator John McCain. The intention is for this amendment to be debated and possibly voted on tomorrow.

Mr. PRESSLER. Madam President, I again urge Senators to please come to the floor with their amendments. We are open for business. By 7:30, Senator Dole will return to the floor and look over the amendments that people wish to offer. We are eager to do business over here. I plead with Senators. We are trying to finish up. Please come to the floor with your speeches or amendments. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. PRESSLER. I thank my friend from North Dakota very much for his cooperation on this. Mr. BROWN addressed the Chair.

Mr. PRESSLER. Madam President, I want to thank the Senator from North Dakota because I feel comfortable that our Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee should be an oversight committee for part of the time. We have had two of the larger bills, the tort reform bill, and the product liability bill, coming through our committee. And then the telecommunications bill has occupied a lot of our time. Because we have the NASA space issue, we have the reauthorization of the Magnuson Act, which has had field hearings, we have had a lot of legislation. But I am hopeful that we can have a lot of oversight hearings because I am one who believes strongly that we should have a Congress oversight. David Boren used to say that in his discussions about reforms. That was one of the reforms we were going to have, was to have a Congress with no legislation and oversight, which is kind of the ``Blue Monday'' work of Congress where you just sit and try to improve the Government we already have. So I think the Senator makes a good point. We hope to get into those types of hearings. We have had some already. We will have more. I hear what he is saying. But I think at this particular time in this bill, after all these negotiations and so forth have gone on, that we would have to oppose his amendment at this time. But we hope to work with him on it in the future.

Mr. PRESSLER. Let me first of all commend the Senator from North Dakota. He is my friend. We work together on all kinds of issues, and we will in the future. We will try to make this a part of a hearing or hearings. I cannot guarantee it. There is so much authorization legislation to do in the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, a stack of authorizing legislation to do when we are getting a letter from Senator Domenici as to how to raise about $25 or $30 billion. So we have a lot of work to do in the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. But we will be holding hearings. This will be a part of it. I really wish that my friend from North Dakota would give us a chance in good faith to address this after the proper hearings and take it up legislatively later, if that would be possible. Mr. HOLLINGS addressed the Chair.

Mr. PRESSLER. If my friend will yield, I hate to do this because at 7:30 we are supposed to have the potential list of amendments that we are trying to move forward. There is very little time tomorrow morning. Senator Dole has asked that we vote on as many of these amendments as we can. This has been debated thoroughly.

Mr. PRESSLER. Madam President, if my friend will yield, we have had a long debate on the Senate floor. I thought we had a general agreement. We allowed the Thurmond amendment to be voted on first, in consideration of my friend from North Dakota. We bent over backward to give everybody every chance for this. The bill has been in for a week. I would plead with him, we would like to vote now before Members leave. This subject has been debated so thoroughly and for so many days. We are prepared to vote here on his amendment.

Mr. PRESSLER. I will be prepared to table right now and get a vote on it. Then it will be behind us. Would that be agreeable?