Harry Reid

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Responding to my friend, the reason we haven't had debates in the Senate on legislation is because Republicans won't let us get on bills. Let's take the bill that we are talking about today. Could we step back just a minute and try to do something that is good for the country? Shaheen-Portman is a good bill for America from last year to this year. My friend can say all he wants about the junior Senator from Louisiana. Everyone knows what he has done on legislation in the past. He called me and told me that we weren't going to move forward on this bill unless he got a vote--what I just talked about. But from the last time we did this bill, these are the amendments that are incorporated in this bill: Collins-Mark Udall on energy efficient schools; Bennet- Ayotte, Better Buildings; Franken amendment to require Federally leased buildings to benchmark energy use data; Mark Udall-Risch, amendment to promote energy efficiency in data centers; Whitehouse-Collins--every one of these bipartisan--on low-income housing retrofits; Landrieu- Wicker amendment on Energy STAR third-party testing; Landrieu-Wicker- Pryor amendment on Federal green buildings; Hoeven-Pryor amendment on water heaters; Hoeven-Manchin and Isakson-Bennet amendments on energy efficiency in Federal and residential buildings; and the Sessions-Pryor amendment on third-party testing. Last month Shaheen and Portman introduced a new version of their bill incorporating all of these changes. The bill has 14 cosponsors, seven on each side. It is sponsored on the Republican side by Senators Portman, Ayotte, Collins, Hoeven, Isakson, Murkowski, and Wicker; and on the Democratic side by Senators Shaheen, Bennet, Coons, Franken, Landrieu, Manchin, and Warner. It will be hard to find a more bipartisan, consensus piece of legislation. All of all of this is a bipartisan piece of legislation, but always it is a shell game. OK, we have got it here. I am trying to figure out where I put that shell. Is it here? Where is that dollar? Is it here?

Mr. REID. I will yield in just 1 second. This is what I talked about earlier. We have been going 5 years with this--5 years--trying to stop anything Obama wants to do. Obama would like to see this passed and so would a bipartisan group of Senators. But for 5 years we have put up with this. It doesn't matter what it is. If Obama wants it, they are against it. We can have all this sweet talk about how the Senate shall operate. The Senate shall operate by allowing legislation to go forward. This is a perfect example but, no, no--I have told them, if they want a vote on Keystone, they have a vote on Keystone. That is not good enough for them. They add four or five other amendments. It is never quite enough. So we can see what is going to happen. They are going to let us on the bill today, and they are going to say: Because we don't get our amendments, we are not going to vote to get off the bill. It has happened time and time again. We waste hours on this. With all this happy talk about how the Senate should operate-- remember, we changed the rules. Why did we do that? Because we had scores of judges that we had to wait for them to give us permission to move to. We changed the rules. We don't in any way apologize to anybody for having changed the rules. This is where we are. Legislation is at a standstill, and we have on the books now 140 nominations that are held up. They have held everybody up. We get a few here and a few there. But the one thing I can't hold up any more are judges. We are moving on the judges. We are going to get the judges done. If they want to continue blocking ambassadors--we have the Secretary of State, the former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who is going to Angola. We don't have an ambassador there. We don't have an ambassador to Peru. In scores of countries we don't have an American representative there. There are some political appointments. We can talk about those separately. Every President has political appointments, but I am not pushing this. What I am pushing is the fact that we have these career Foreign Service officers who have waited an entire lifetime. They have worked in these countries in very difficult situations. They have been political officers, they have been economic officers, and now they get a chance to be an ambassador. It is like going to the Super Bowl in the diplomacy world, and they are not going to get that. I think that the American people understand what is going on. That is why, as a result of polls we have seen, people understand the game the Republicans have played for 5 years. The people are going to have to decide this November as to whether they want another 2 years of obstruction as we have seen it. This is good legislative policy. The Shaheen-Portman bill would be good for the country, but as usual we have a lot that is good for the country--and we have had it. We don't get much done in the Senate. Give us some amendments. This is what they say every time because no matter what we do, it is not good enough. Shaheen-Portman is a good bill. We have 10 new provisions in it. That is not good enough. We can give them a vote on Keystone--that is not good enough, and that is the way it always is. So there are no surprises to me in what they have done today and what they will probably do on Wednesday or Thursday.

Mr. REID. To belittle the President of the United States for wanting to talk about climate change is pretty obviously wrong. One can mischaracterize all they want the fact that President Obama recognizes climate is changing worldwide, but it is truly a mischaracterization if anyone thinks this is not something that is serious. It always appears when we get into a serious debate about a subject, whether it is energy efficiency or climate change, the Republicans want to change the subject, to divert or to obstruct. So what is the Republican answer to this climate change, which is real: more oil production--that is one of their solutions--block regulations to protect health and the environment, deny climate change is happening at all. The senior Senator from Oklahoma says it is a hoax. It is not a hoax. It is real, and I am very happy the President is saying something about this.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. I move to proceed to legislative session.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, there is a cloture motion at the desk and I ask that it be reported.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum under rule XXII be waived.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. I ask the cloture motion be reported.

Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum under rule XXII be waived.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. I send a cloture motion to the desk, Mr. President.

Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum under rule XXII be waived.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. I now move to proceed to legislative session.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. If the cloture motion is at the desk, I ask that it be reported.

Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum under rule XXII be waived.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. I now move to proceed to legislative session.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, because of the conversation with Senator McConnell and me, the time ran much longer than it normally does, so I ask unanimous consent that the vote occur at 11:15 rather than 11. Senator Durbin is here, as well as Senator Warren, with Senators Cornyn and Moran, so we will divide the time equally until then.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. I now move to proceed to legislative session.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. We are going to have, as indicated, a briefing on Ukraine at 5:30 this evening. I alert all Senators we will do our utmost to start at 5:30, and we must end at 6:30. We need everybody on time. If I am there on time, I am going to start it on time, and I will do my utmost to be there on time. People can be called upon for questions in the order they show up at the meeting. Order of Procedure

Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that at 5:30 p.m., the Senate recess until 6:30 p.m. tonight for the purpose of an all-Senators briefing.

Mr. REID. I have had a number of titles, as all we Senators have over the years, but the title that means the most to me has always been ``Dad,'' ``Father.'' It is so important that my five children recognize me as their dad. My oldest child is a daughter, Lana, but I also have 12 granddaughters. As a father and grandfather, I can't imagine the horror of having one of these girls abducted, kidnapped, and stolen--even though Nigeria is thousands of miles away from where we sit today. My nightmare, our nightmare--we are always worrying about our girls-- is a reality in Nigeria. On the night of April 14, more than 250 girls--I don't know the exact number--were stolen from a school by a terrorist group called Boko Haram. These kidnappers, a cowardly group of men--thugs and terrorists--have announced their attention to sell the girls in the marketplace. It was only yesterday the leader of this organization was on television saying we have them and we are going to sell them. How would that make a mother or dad, family member feel? It is sickening to think these girls are at the mercy of these slavers. These are terrible reports. Some say--some of the reports we get--some of the girls have already been sold into Chad and Cameroon. I hope that is wrong. So I, with my colleagues, join with the rest of the world in renouncing these heinous acts. We must remember that this crime is only one of the many acts of terrorism of this awful group Boko Haram. They have done it before against children, against civilians. Today the United States offered its assistance to rescue these girls. Great Britain has done the same, and other countries have as well. Nigeria, in my opinion, has been reticent to receive help. That is not my opinion, but that is what the public reports say. We want to help rescue these girls. We have some assets the Nigerians don't have, as do the Brits and others who want to help. I am concerned the Nigerian Government's response to this crime and to dealing with Boko Haram is very tepid. Nigeria has missed opportunities to collaborate with international partners to fight terrorism in this instance and other instances. Instead of carrying out its own operation--which has been very clumsy, and there has been a disregard for human rights--they should let us help. Let the world community help. The Nigerian Government has been disastrously slow in responding to these incidents--not on this one but on others. I urge the Nigerian Government to use all of its resources and accept international assistance to bring the abductors to justice. The world is watching. Return these daughters to their families. Today we adopted S. Res. 433, which condemned this abduction, to add our voices to those calling for their release. I especially thank Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and all other cosponsors for their hard work on this legislation. The Senate, along with the rest of the world, will continue to do all we can to help our Nigerian friends. We continue to hope and pray for the safe return of these girls to their moms and dads. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time in recess count postcloture on the legislation that is now being considered.

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

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I rise today to honor and recognize the career of Ken Dugan, center director of the Sierra Nevada Job Corps. Ken is retiring this month after spending 39 years in the Job Corps program, 36 of which as a center director. Throughout this time, Ken has worked tirelessly to help improve the lives of at-risk teenagers and young adults through vocational and academic training. When Ken started his first assignment with the San Jose Job Corps in 1975, he never envisioned that almost 4 decades later he would be retiring with the organization. However, Job Corps and its mission soon became a way of life for him. After stints as center director at the San Jose and Hawaii Job Corps centers, we in Nevada were extremely fortunate to have Ken take over as center director for the Sierra Nevada Job Corps, the only Job Corps center in the State. During his 19 years with Sierra Nevada, Ken oversaw the relocation and new construction of the center, the third time he had done so with a center. The new center, with Ken at its head, has greatly enhanced the living and learning environment for thousands of students over the years. During his unprecedented 36-year tenure as a center director, the Job Corps centers Ken has run have been honored with numerous performance awards from the U.S. Department of Labor, not to mention Recognition of Performance and Community Value awards by the legislatures and Congressional delegations of California, Hawaii, and Nevada. On behalf of the U.S. Senate, I commend Ken Dugan on a lifetime of public service, and wish him the best in all his future endeavors.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 368, S. 2262, the Shaheen-Portman energy efficiency legislation.

Mr. REID. Following my remarks and those of the Republican leader, the Senate will be in morning business until 5:30 p.m. this evening. At that time there will be up to two rollcall votes, the first on confirmation of the Moritz nomination to be United States Circuit Judge for the Tenth Circuit, and the next on confirmation of the nomination of Peter A. Selfridge to be Chief of Protocol with the Department of State. Election of Andrew B. Willison

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I now send a resolution to the desk and ask unanimous consent that it be considered.

Mr. REID. This resolution, sponsored by Senators Reid of Nevada and McConnell, is important. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.