Mark Pryor

Mr. PRYOR

Mr. PRYOR. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Wicker be recognized at 2 p.m. today to speak for up to 20 minutes as in morning business.

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 Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

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

Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote and lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. PRYOR. I yield back the remainder of my time. I move to table the Vitter amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. PRYOR

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. PRYOR

Mr. PRYOR. 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 Thursday, March 6, 2008, at 10:30 a.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building, in order to conduct a hearing. The Committee will review the President's proposed U.S. Coast Guard budget for the 2009 fiscal year. It will also examine programs in the pending Coast Guard Reauthorization Act for fiscal year 2008.

Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, March 6, 2008, at 10 a.m., in room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, in order to hear testimony on the administration's 2008 trade agenda.

Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet on Thursday, March 6, at 10 a.m. in room 628 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in order to conduct an oversight hearing on the State of Facilities in Indian Country--jails, schools, and health facilities. THE PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. committee on the judiciary

Mr. PRYOR. 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 ``Unemployment in a Volatile Economy: How to Secure Families and Build Opportunity'' on Thursday, March 6, 2008. The hearing will commence at 10 a.m. in room 430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. PRYOR

Mr. PRYOR. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. PRYOR. Madam President, before the Senator from Texas leaves, I wish to thank him publicly. He has been very constructive in this process. He has offered a couple of amendments that he feels very strongly about, and we met with him and his staff on them. So I have talked to him about them. He is being very constructive in the process. I thank my colleague from Texas. The other thing I noticed, Madam President, is that Senator Collins of Maine just walked on the floor. This bill has been called the Pryor- Stevens bill, but I could not exaggerate the amount of contribution Senator Collins has made to this effort as well. I have found her, in the last 5 years, to be a wonderful colleague to work with. She has made this bill better in some very fundamental ways--maybe not very exciting ways, but she really focused on one of the major problems we have with the CPSC today, and that is that the CPSC, with all due respect to the people who work there, has been almost incapable of dealing with imports in the way they should. Senator Collins, I believe, had four amendments. We accepted all four. We have worked with her office and with her personally to make sure the language is right, to make sure the policy is right, to make sure it is smart law, which I think it is, and also to make sure it is a big improvement over the present situation; I don't think anybody can look at her sections of the bill and ever say she is not greatly improving our ability to protect our shores from dangerous and unsafe products. I am certainly glad she is here this morning to help manage this legislation. The other point I wish to add is, Senator Collins has a lot of respect on both sides of the aisle. The fact that people know she worked on the legislation gives a comfort level on both sides of the aisle, but certainly on the Republican side, because they have seen how she has conducted her business since she has been in the Senate, but also the fact that she has had hearings in her committee on CPSC and some import problems. She has been a key player, a key architect in this legislation. I thank her. I know we are going to have a lot of amendments today and a lot going on in this Chamber. We are going to try to clear a lot of amendments. Again, I encourage colleagues to come to the floor if they do have amendments or wish to speak. We are going to try to be in that process today of clearing amendments, putting a managers' package together, and having votes. Before the day got crazy and confusing, I wanted to thank Senator Collins for her leadership.

Mr. PRYOR. Yes. I have no objection to that. We have spoken on the Cornyn amendment extensively.

Mr. PRYOR. Reserving the right to object, once the Senator finishes his presentation, we will go back to the pending amendment.

Mr. PRYOR. Madam President, I wish to notify our colleagues that I think we are making great progress on this legislation. Senator Cornyn is here to talk about one of his amendments. We know there are a few other amendments that are being discussed right now, maybe in the cloakrooms or in Senators' offices. That is very encouraging. The feedback we have received has been very positive. It looks as if there are some amendments that will require votes. I encourage all Senators who would like to come and speak to make plans to do that at some point today. I encourage anyone who has any amendments that they would like to have considered to run those down to the floor as quickly as possible, if they have not already. We are really making good progress. I was encouraged yesterday by the vote we had at 5:30. Here, again, we find that the Consumer Product Safety Commission is an agency that needs our reform. They need us to come in and to not just give them more resources--it is not a matter of just throwing money at the problem. They need more tools in their tool box and more resources and a little bit of restructuring. It has, again, been the goal of this legislation to make sure the American marketplace is safe, make sure that when people go to a store and buy a product, they can rely on the fact that there are safety standards, that it doesn't have materials in it that are dangerous or harmful. Really, this is an effort for us to accomplish something great in this Congress, in this election year, for the people of this country. So I thank all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for their diligence in trying to get this done. I ask any colleagues who would like to speak or anyone who has an amendment, please let us know because I am starting to get this sense that there are many who would like to wrap this bill up as quickly as we can. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, just to reiterate what the leader said a few moments ago, we are making great progress. Again, I thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Everyone has been very reasonable. My sense is that this body really wants to get this done tomorrow. I can tell my colleagues right now that our staffs will be working, burning the midnight oil tonight trying to put together a managers' package. We made progress during this vote, with one or two amendments going away. So thank you to all of my colleagues who have been working so hard to get us where we are today. We will continue to work. Again, if any Senator's staff wants to come and talk to us about amendments or something they would like to see in the managers' package, now is the time to do it because we are about to work very hard to try to get this bill done tomorrow.

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

Mr. PRYOR. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. PRYOR

Mr. PRYOR. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. PRYOR

Mr. PRYOR. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 474, submitted earlier today by Senator Feingold.

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

Mr. PRYOR

Mr. PRYOR. Madam President, I understand there are 14 bills at the desk, and I ask for their first reading en bloc.

Mr. PRYOR. Madam President, I now ask for a second reading and, in order to place the bills on the calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I object to my own request, all en bloc.

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

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