Harry Reid

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Madam President, for the knowledge of all Members, 20 minutes ago or so the House passed by voice vote the--

Mr. REID. Twenty minutes ago the House passed by voice vote the 13- month patch of the SGR. There was work done on a bipartisan basis by all Senators to get a permanent fix. We can only do what we can do. I have had a number of my Republican colleagues come to me and say: We will do this, but you have to get the assurance of the Speaker that he would accept this, and the Speaker would not accept what was being proposed. The original plan was my idea and I am very disappointed it didn't work out, but I have been trying to do it for 4 years, so I am not surprised. But it is no one's fault in the Senate. We have a new chair of the Finance Committee. He has worked very hard on a bipartisan basis to come up with a way to get rid of this SGR once and for all. We weren't able to do that. So the patch we have is imperfect, but it is something that will take care of things. I don't mean to be mean-spirited, but I am tired of people saying you are taking care of the doctors but no one else. We are taking care of patients for the next 13 months--patients--and I think that is extremely important. We have millions of people who have doctors who take Medicare patients. For us not to do this would have been truly unfortunate. I am disappointed we aren't able to get a permanent fix, but we have been able to do that. We should be very happy we have been able to do as well as we have done. I personally am not overjoyed about what is in the bill, but I am satisfied with what is in the bill. I hope we can expeditiously move and get this done today. I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. REID

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 Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order with respect to the motion to proceed to H.R. 3979 be modified so that when the postcloture time is expired the Senate proceed to a vote on the motion to proceed to the bill.

Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that following leader remarks on Monday, March 31, the Senate proceed to the consideration of H.R. 4302, which was received from the House and is at the desk; that there be no amendments or motions in order to the bill with the exception of budget points of order and the applicable motions to waive; that the time until 5 p.m. be equally divided between the two leaders or their designees for debate on the bill; that notwithstanding the previous order, following the vote on confirmation of the Owens nomination on Monday, March 31, the Senate resume consideration of H.R. 4302, the bill be read a third time and the Senate proceed to vote on passage of the bill; that the bill be subject to a 60-affirmative vote threshold; finally, that upon disposition of H.R. 4302, the Senate proceed to vote on the motion to proceed to H.R. 3979, as provided under the previous order. Madam President, I want everyone to understand there will be at least 3 hours of debate on H.R. 4302, and I want to make sure everyone understands I will be giving Senator Wyden the 1\1/2\ hours on our side.

Mr. REID. Madam President, before Chairman Baucus became Ambassador to China, the Finance Committee, under his auspices, negotiated a bipartisan, bicameral bill with the House to repeal the flawed Medicare physician payment system. He worked on that for more than a year. But the committees didn't come to an agreement on the really hard part--how to pay for it. Senator Wyden, the new chairman of the Finance Committee, has come up with a way to pay for it. I support repealing the payment system--the SGR--permanently. I have been in favor of that for a long time, and I appreciate the work done on that in the past period of time Senator Wyden has been chairman of that committee. I repeat, the work done on it for a year didn't have a way to pay for it. So I support repealing this permanently. I believe we should repeal it without pay-fors or by using reductions in the overseas contingency fund, called OCO. The deadline is here. I spoke on the floor this morning, and I say it again. Everyone is saying, Well, why are you helping the doctors? Madam President, I am helping my Medicare recipients in Nevada. They need physicians. And for us to play around with this bill, as we do continually, isn't fair to the patients. Because doctors are unhappy that they do not have some degree of certainty, and that is what they need. So that is why I am for getting rid of this totally. We don't have that now. The House passed a short time ago a patch of 12 or 13 months, which is good. So efforts will continue on the permanent repeal of the SGR, and I support Senator Wyden seeing what he can do to come up with some votes for a permanent repeal. He served a long time in the House and a long time in the Senate and he knows what he is doing. So let us hope he gets enough votes. Until then, we are left with a patch. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Kristopher Sharp, a fellow in Senator Murray's office, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of today's session.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. I now move to proceed to Calendar No. 333.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I will be happy to yield to my friend, the senior Senator from Iowa.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, following my remarks and those of the Republican leader, the Senate will be in a period of morning business until 11 a.m., with the Republicans controlling the first half and the majority the final half. Following morning business, the Senate will proceed to executive session. At 11 a.m. there will be a series of votes on U.S. District Court judges. We will have four votes before lunch, and we will have four more votes, or thereabout, starting at 2:30 on confirmation of these nominations. We will debate the Ukraine bill during today's session and vote on that legislation tomorrow. Measure Placed on the Calendar--S. 2157

Mr. REID. Mr. President, S. 2157 is at the desk and due for a second reading.

Mr. REID. I object to any further proceedings at this time on this legislation.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, the Senate took a step in the right direction yesterday. In response to Russia's destabilizing actions in Ukraine, my colleagues and I came to an agreement to vote on the bipartisan Senate foreign relations bill tomorrow. This important measure not only aids Ukraine but it also punishes President Putin and his cronies for their unlawful aggression. It also sends this message to the world: We, the American people, stand with Ukraine. I was happy to hear yesterday the assistant Republican leader--the whip--the senior Senator from Texas, talk about the need to do more. And I agree; we need to do more. I, of course, was a fan--as was Senator Menendez, the chair of the committee; the ranking member, Senator Corker; and our senior policy mentor around here, Senator McCain--of having IMF funding. So I hope we can move beyond what we are going to do tomorrow for the Ukrainian people. Based on what I heard on the Sunday shows, I believe we have bipartisan support to do more for Ukraine, so I invite my friend, the senior Senator from Texas, to work with Democrats to come up with a package of things we can do in the next few weeks to give the people of Ukraine the understanding and the basis for the fact that America will stand with them. What President Putin did is wrong. It is a violation of international law. I think it is too bad he is homesick over the Soviet Union. He is one of the few who looks back with joy at what took place to build the Soviet Union. Tens of millions of Russians were killed--purposely--by the viciousness of the leaders prior to Putin. So let us hope he does not look back on all that as being good. We all know he was part of the KGB and we would hope he would return to having Russia become a civilized nation rather than what the Soviet Union used to be. Unemployment Insurance Mr. President, as the Senate finishes its work on the Ukrainian issue, we will soon have the opportunity to show millions of American families that we also stand by them. It is my sincere hope the bipartisan progress we have just made on the Ukraine legislation will also carry us over to work on unemployment insurance. Certainly we have a bipartisan bill that we have been working on for a long time. President Lyndon Johnson once said: The duty of government is to help people who are caught in the tentacles of circumstance. That is certainly what we have in Nevada with 26,000 people. Around the country more than 2 million people are caught in the circumstance of having lost their job--usually these people are a little bit above 50--and because of the recession they can't find a job. So they need help, and that is what this legislation is all about. In our country today you will find no greater example of people at the mercy of unfortunate circumstances than the long-term unemployed. In the 3 months since the Republicans first filibustered a bill to restore emergency benefits, more than 1 million Americans have lost their benefits. Considering that in the time that was wasted by our Republican filibuster, almost 1 million people in America, in dire need of help, have been told that no help is coming, we are here to deliver a message on a bipartisan basis that help is coming. For people who have worked hard all their lives, worrying about how to pay their rent, put gas in the car, and buy groceries while they search for a new job can be demoralizing, especially when they see nothing good over the horizon. For the long-term unemployed, losing a $300-per-week employment benefit can be the difference between keeping a roof over their children's heads and, as we have heard--because I have read into the record on a number of occasions letters from Nevadans saying they are going to become homeless--going out of business as a family, literally. Here is what one Nevada man wrote to me this month as he begged us to act. His wife had been out of work for months. With resources scarce, the family will be forced to choose between paying their rent or paying for cancer treatments for their 2-year-old son. But here is what he wrote: We keep praying you will do everything in your power to bring back emergency benefits to help us in our most difficult time. This man, and millions of Americans just like him, have waited too long for action. But the Senate has another opportunity to do our job and help those struggling Americans. In the upcoming days the Senate will consider an agreement, negotiated in good faith by a bipartisan group of Senators, including my colleague from Nevada Senator Heller. This agreement will restore benefits to millions of long-term unemployed Americans looking for work. I urge all my colleagues to put philosophical differences aside and help struggling families get the support they need and deserve. All we have to do is work together, Democrats and Republicans, to do what is right for our constituents in their hour of need. Recognition of the Minority Leader

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Madam President, I yield back all time on the next three nominations.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to use leader time for a few minutes.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, the junior Senator from Wyoming has come to the floor several times recently talking about the fact that examples he and other Republicans have given dealing with ObamaCare, examples they think are bad, I call lies. That is simply untrue. I have never come to the floor, to my recollection, and said a word about any of the examples Republicans have given regarding ObamaCare and how it is not very good. But I have come to the floor--I think my friend, the junior Senator from Wyoming, must be getting mixed up about what I have said about the Koch brothers and what they have done regarding health care. But it is easy to get mixed up because I think it is hard to separate the Koch brothers from the Republican caucus, anyway. Mr. President, I have asserted and I will continue to assert that the Koch brothers are trying to buy America, and they are doing it in a number of different ways. They don't believe in Social Security. They don't believe in minimum wage. They don't believe in benefits-- unemployment benefits. They don't believe in environmental laws. As you know and read in the paper, they have a chemical plant. They were fined about $400,000 over the last week or 10 days and ordered to pay about $50 million to bring it up to standard because it was deleterious to the health of people in the area. The Koch brothers are running false and misleading ads all around the country against Democratic Senators dealing with health care. Do they care about health care? Of course not. These are false and misleading ads, and they have gone so far as to have actors there pretending they are from the States, and they not only have done that in one State; they used the same actor in different States. So the record should be very clear. Yes, I have called many, if not most, of the anti-Obama ads by the Koch brothers false and misleading because they are. Vote on Cooper Nomination

Mr. REID. I yield back all time.

Mr. REID

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

Mr. REID

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

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, is the motion to proceed to H.R. 3979 now pending?

Mr. REID. Mr. President, that being the case, I have a cloture motion that has been filed.

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

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following disposition of H.R. 4152, the Senate proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 689; that there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided in the usual form prior to a vote on the nomination; that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid on the table, with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order; that any related statements be printed in the Record; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action and the Senate resume legislative session.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have a cloture motion at the desk.

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