Harry Reid

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, 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.

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

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 623.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. The Senator is filing a first-degree amendment?

Mr. REID. One more shouldn't do much damage.

Mr. REID. I say to my friend again, through you, Mr. President, I am happy to do one, but the managers--I haven't talked to them in the last couple of hours. I am not going to agree to five amendments. I have no idea what is in them. If the Senator wants to lay down one of the amendments tonight, that is fine, but until we have managers on the floor, I am not going to agree to that.

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 I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, the Senate has been considering the supplemental appropriations bill for 2 days now. The Republicans, I am told, are in the process of trying to picture out what they want to do. We have other concerns, as you know. We had the tragedy in Connecticut, and we had the untimely death of our friend Senator Inouye. But time doesn't stop for anything. It keeps marching on, Christmas is coming. We have a fiscal cliff that is on the horizon. So I hope we can make progress on this bill in the morning. If not, I will be forced to file cloture to try to figure out a path forward on this bill. It has been open for amendment. That is what my friends said they wanted, and that is what they have. We have the DOD authorization. We need to complete action on that conference report, which has been completed now. We expect they will file tonight or tomorrow, so we need to complete that before the end of the week. Christman is 7 days from today. We have judicial nominations. We have been making some progress with the district court nominations. We have to do three more before the end of the week. We have executive nominations we need to consider before the end of the week. FISA is an important piece of legislation. Imperfect as it is, it is what is necessary to help us be protected from the evil that is in the world. We have to complete this before we leave here this week. Today is Tuesday. Everyone else can do the math just as well as I can about how many days are left. I ask unanimous consent that at a time to be determined by the majority leader after consultation with the Republican leader, the Senate proceed to consideration of Calendar No. 463, S. 3276; that the only first-degree amendments in order to the bill be the following: Judiciary Committee-reported substitute; Leahy, sunset; Leahy, oversight; Wyden, public reporting; Wyden, backdoor searches; Tester, reverse targeting; and Merkley, declassification of FISA Court opinion; that there be 1 hour of debate equally divided between the proponents and opponents; that upon the use or yielding back of time, the Senate proceed to votes in relation to the amendments in the order listed; that there be no amendments in order to any of the amendments prior to the votes; that upon disposition of the amendments, the bill be read a third time and the Senate proceed to vote on passage of the bill, as amended, if amended. Mr. President, before the Chair rules, it is pretty easy to figure out how much time this includes. This is the better part of a day--the better part of a day if we got this consent done. So I ask that the Chair approve the consent agreement.

Mr. REID. How many amendments are pending?

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I will continue to work on a path forward. If anyone has any ideas how to help me do that, I would be happy to listen to them, but this is something we must do before we leave here. Christmas is not more important than this legislation. I am sorry, I hope I am not offending anyone, but that is the way it is. We have to get something done on this before the end of the year, and I think we will be walking on very, very thin ice to try to wait until after Christmas to try to move this legislation. It is hard for me to comprehend the potential damage to our country if we do not extend this legislation.

Mr. REID. I object. I feel somewhat ill at ease here with not having anyone managing the bill at all, but I would hope that my friend will-- I will talk to Senator Leahy, but I am not in a position here to agree with it. One thing I am not going to do, regardless of what the managers say, is have a big stack of amendments here that we are going to be worrying about. So I don't know where everybody is, but the managers aren't here.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, do we have amendments pending now?

Mr. REID. I would also say to my friend the Senator from Oklahoma that the manager will be here bright and early in the morning. I will call him now.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we be in a period of morning business until 12:30 to allow for tributes to Senator Inouye and the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, following that recess, we will resume consideration of H.R. 1, the legislative vehicle for the supplemental appropriations bill. I yield to my friend, the Republican leader, for a few minutes.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, it is tradition in this body to have flowers on the desk of the departed. We have flying in from Hawaii now a lei that will be more Hawaiian than these roses. I ask unanimous consent that we now have a moment of silence in honor of our departed friend, Dan Inouye.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, following leader remarks, the Senate will be in a period of morning business. The majority will control the first 30 minutes and the Republicans the second 30 minutes. We are in a unique time in history. The Presiding Officer, Senator Coons from Delaware, is the President pro tempore until 11:30 today. As a result of his being given this charge yesterday morning, it spills over into today. Senator Biden is going to come today to swear in Senator Leahy as the President pro tempore of the Senate. All things in life are interesting. Senator Biden lost his wife when he was a brandnew Senator in a terrible automobile accident. She was killed and his two boys hurt badly and a child lost. He has taken this day off for 30-plus years to think about the tragedy in his life, but he indicated yesterday that he would be able to be here at 11:30. So everybody is sacrificing now, and we appreciate it. I know the Presiding Officer had lots to do this morning, and we thank him for being part of the program. We appreciate it very much. The Senate will recess from 12:30 to 2:15 to allow for the weekly caucus meetings.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I came to the floor yesterday minutes after Irene--Senator Inouye's wife--confirmed the death of her husband, my friend, a friend of all of us here. I was, frankly, very emotional and announced to the Senate and the country the death of one of the Senate's all-time greats. So today, upon contemplation and reflection, I am going to say a little bit more about Senator Inouye. His personal friendship I valued so very, very much. He was a colleague but really a friend. He helped me so many times. He helped me to do my best here. My best has been with the help of him. As I mentioned briefly yesterday, he always had so much confidence in me. Years ago, when I was a Senator struggling, as all Senators here, he told me two decades ago I would be running the Senate someday. I never even contemplated, thought about, or desired that. Things worked out that he was right. Senator Inouye, one of the finest men I have ever known, was a real American hero. My friend who is on the Senate floor, the assistant leader, has heard me talk about my mentor, Michael Callahan, who taught me in high school, helped me with money as I was going to law school, and he was on a pension. He was a disabled veteran. He was such a good friend of mine. He and Senator Inouye were friends. They talked about what it is like to not have a limb. While Callahan's was a leg, Inouye's was an arm. They talked and they were friends, and Michael Callahan worked back here as an aide to Senators Cannon and Bible in the summers and got to know Senator Inouye. My thoughts are, of course, with his family, including his wife Irene, his son Ken, their daughter-in-law Jessica. He has a stepdaughter Jennifer, and a granddaughter Maggie, named after, of course, his first wife. Their loss is the Nation's loss. Last night we lost a noble soul. Dan Inouye lived a long productive life. Still, I speak for Dan's Senate family when I say we are devastated by his passing. While we will all miss him, his legacy will live in the Halls of the Senate and the State of Hawaii as long as history is written. His place in the history books will not fade. As the second longest serving Senator in our history, Senator Inouye's career in Congress spanned the life of Hawaii's statehood. Elected to the Senate in 1962, only Robert Byrd served longer. But Senator Inouye's tradition of service began long before he came to the U.S. Senate. He was working as a medical volunteer when Japanese war planes attacked Pearl Harbor. He was just a boy, a teenager. From the time he was just a kid, he wanted to be a medical doctor. But a different fate awaited Dan Inouye. After the attack, as we all know too well, Japanese Americans were deemed enemy aliens and were therefore not subject to the draft. More than 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry were imprisoned in American internment camps. We have seen the pictures. We have heard the stories. They were in prison. Yet Dan Inouye and other Japanese Americans, in spite of the unfair designation of being an enemy alien, volunteered to fight for this Nation's freedom overseas, although many of their own families were denied freedom at home while they were overseas. Senator Inouye fought courageously with the famous 442nd Regimental Combat Team in World War II and was grievously wounded in battle in Italy. A paragraph or two is written about why a Medal of Honor recipient was given this award. The words for his Medal of Honor are as follows: On April 21, 1945, Inouye was grievously wounded while leading an assault on a heavily-defended ridge near San Terenzo in Tuscany, Italy, called Colle Musatello. The ridge served as a strong-point along the strip of German fortifications known as the Gothic Line, which represented the last and most dogged line of German defensive works in Italy. As he led his platoon in a flanking maneuver, three German machine guns opened fire from covered positions just 40 yards away, pinning his men to the ground. Inouye stood up to attack and was shot in the stomach; ignoring his wound, he proceeded to attack and destroy the first machine gun nest with hand grenade and fire from his Thompson submachine gun. After being informed of the severity of his wound by his platoon sergeant, he refused treatment and rallied his men for an attack on the second machine gun position, which he also successfully destroyed before collapsing from blood loss. As his squad distracted the third machine gunner, Inouye crawled toward the final bunker, eventually drawing within 10 yards. As he raised himself up and cocked his arm to throw his last grenade into the fighting position, a German inside fired a rifle grenade that struck him on the right elbow, severing most of his arm and leaving his own primed grenade reflexively ``clenched in a fist that suddenly didn't belong to me anymore.'' Inouye's horrified soldiers moved to his aid, but he shouted for them to keep back for out of fear his severed fist would involuntarily relax and drop the grenade. As the German inside the bunker reloaded his rifle, Inouye pried the live grenade from his useless right hand and transferred it to his left. As the German aimed his rifle to finish him off, Inouye tossed the grenade off-hand into the bunker and destroyed it. He stumbled to his feet and continued forward, silencing the last German resistance with a one-handed burst from his Thompson before being wounded in the leg tumbling unconscious to the bottom of the ridge. When he awoke to see his concerned men of his platoon hovering over him, his only comment before being carried away was to gruffly order them to return to their positions, since, as he pointed out, ``nobody called off the war!'' That is the citation on his Medal of Honor. His arm was later amputated in a field hospital, and he was sent back to the United States to recover. But it took years for him to recover. I remember in the LBJ Room over here, after Patty Murray and others talked about what a difficult time returning veterans were having from Iraq, him talking about some of his experiences. They trained him to drive vehicles. He took driver's license tests in more than one State. He became very personal and talked about some of the things they taught him--missing an arm--that he had to do. It was a remarkable presentation that he made. Senator Inouye did not talk very much. He was a silent man--did not talk very much at all. He had a dynamic voice. We have not felt that voice in the last few years because he has not been as powerful as he was as he has aged, but what a beautiful voice he had. In that hospital they took him to in Michigan, Senator Inouye made two lifelong friends: one, Senator Bob Dole who, as we know, became majority leader in the Senate and Republican nominee for President of the United States; his other lifetime friend the late Senator Phil Hart, who was known as the conscience of the Senate. The Hart Building, the massive Senate office building, is named after him. Asked by his son why, after being classified as an enemy alien, he and the members of the famed 442d fought so heroically, Senator Inouye said, in his usual calm manner, ``for the children.'' And for the children there could be no finer role model than Senator Dan Inouye. He was a recipient of the Medal of Honor and the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest honor the Congress can bestow. He received the Distinguished Service Cross, a Bronze Star for valor and, of course, a Purple Heart. Dan Inouye showed the same dedication in Congress that he displayed on the battlefield. I want to take a little bit here and talk about a meeting I had--I mentioned it very briefly last night, but it was 10 days ago. I knew Senator Inouye was not feeling well so I went down to his office. He has a remarkable office. It is a beautiful office. But there is not one single thing on the walls depicting what a great man he is. There are no awards, there are no commemorative statues. All he has in his office are pictures of Washington and Hawaii. That is the humility he showed his entire life. There was no staff there, just the two of us. We talked for an hour. I would have always remembered it, but his having passed away yesterday, it will be embedded in my mind. As we left, we both lamented the fact that we had not been able to sit down and talk like that enough. He professed at that time--these were his words--how ``lucky'' he had been his whole life. He said, ``I've got a little emphysema now.'' I said: It is not from smoking. I have never seen you smoke. He said: No, I learned to smoke in the war as a boy, a teenager. He smoked from 1944 to 1967, when they told him he had lung cancer. They were wrong, but in the process they took part of his lung out, half of his lung. He talked about how lucky he had been, surviving what he thought was lung cancer, but also how lucky he had been his whole life. For example, the war. I am sure that most people would not reflect on such massive injuries as being lucky, but he considered it lucky that he lived. There were other examples he gave. He had been called upon, with three other soldiers, to cross a river in the dark of night to find out what was going on on the other side of the river. He and his companions, in the dark of the night--they didn't have all this fancy gear to see in the dark; they did their best--they crossed that cold, cold river. It took many hours. They came back, did their report, and he laid down on his bunk. He had an ingrown toenail that hurt every step he took. So he is lying on his bed and he said, ``Here is why I am so lucky. A medic came by, looked at me, looked at my foot, and he said you have gangrene poisoning; we have to get you out of here. They took him out and he said: How lucky I was I was not in battle that day--when half of his companions were killed. He also talked about preparing for another battle. He is getting ready to do this. He is a private; he may have been a corporal, I don't really remember. He said a sergeant came to him and he said: ``Inouye, report to the colonel.'' He doesn't know what is wrong. He goes, reports to the colonel. The colonel says very curtly: ``You have to meet with the General today.'' He said the only reason he would know of to meet with the General was a court martial, because that is what everybody thought. So he goes to headquarters. He sees the General. The General tells Senator Inouye: ``I am promoting you to be a lieutenant.'' It was a battlefield promotion. But he said: ``I was lucky. I was lucky I became an officer but,'' he said, ``I was lucky I was not in the fight that day because we also had huge losses.'' When he was scheduled to come back to America--another one of his lucky experiences--they had a transport plane to take him back. His arm is gone by then. He is told we don't have room for another litter, for another patient on the airplane. You can't go. He of course was disappointed. The plane crashed and killed everybody on the plane. So Dan Inouye was a person who considered himself lucky. Those of us who knew Senator Inouye consider ourselves lucky, just being able to know the man. After Hawaii received its statehood in 1959, Dan Inouye served as its first Congressman. Three years later he was elected to the Senate, and he was a soft but powerful voice for the people of Hawaii ever since. There are many personal courtesies he extended to me that I will never forget. It may not seem like much, but I was scheduled to be in Florida and I promoted this--I was a new Senator--and the great Senator Inouye was going to be there. I got a call from Henry Giugni. Most of us who served here knew him. He used to be Sergeant at Arms. For a long time he was Senator Inouye's chief of staff. He said, ``I checked his schedule and it's his wife's birthday and he is not going to be able to go.'' I said I understand that. Within an hour I got a call from Senator Inouye. He said Millie understands that totally. He said we will celebrate the birthday the day after tomorrow, when I come back. He was someone who was so self- sacrificing for other Senators. As Senator Inouye's colleague from Hawaii, Senator Akaka, said last night: His legacy . . . can be seen in every mile of every road in Hawaii, in every nature preserve and every facility that makes Hawaii a safer place. He fulfilled his dream of creating a better Hawaii. He was a strong supporter of the University of Hawaii, a strong supporter of George Washington University Law School. He got his bachelor's in Hawaii, his law degree at George Washington. He was a determined representative of this Nation's fighting men and women, a long-time leader of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. As I mentioned briefly last night, there has been, in my many years in the Congress--I have been here as long as my friend the assistant leader here who is seated next to me today; we have been here 30 years--there has been no one I have ever known in my 30 years who did more and fought more for the fighting men of this country. He believed that the Nation's commitment to the members of his Armed Forces did not end with their service. For fear it would be lost, and it should not be lost, I want to spread on the Record what this good man did at a prayer breakfast a couple of months ago. I can't remember if the Presiding Officer was at the prayer breakfast, but I know my friend the assistant leader was there. Senator Inouye had never, ever in his 50 years in Congress spoken at a prayer breakfast, but he decided to come. He had great vigor until just recently. He campaigned in this last cycle. He traveled to Alaska to help Senator Begich a few months ago. He campaigned in Nevada, in Arizona, all over the country. He had great vigor. But he came to the breakfast and talked to us about his experiences. When he was a boy, he never, ever had a gun. That was not anything people did in Hawaii. So he was surprised after he got in the Army that he was such a great shot. He was the best--the best. As a result of that he became a sniper in the European theater. With great humility he explained he could remember killing his first person. He could remember they were trying to take a farm house and they shot a bazooka into it and he rushed in and there was a man there. The man reached in his pocket. Of course Senator Inouye thought he was reaching for a weapon, and the man was killed. And Inouye saw that he was reaching for a picture of his family. He said he came to the realization at that time that he was not killing enemy soldiers, he was killing other human beings. Although he had to continue doing what he did, he ended his presentation by saying, ``I know exactly how many people that I killed.'' He said, ``A lot of people go to bed at night counting sheep. Even though I am an old man, I go to bed at night many times counting people.'' He was somebody who, as a result of his experiences, voted against war from then on. He did not support the Vietnam War, Iraq War 1 and 2, Afghanistan--even though he made sure that these people had all the supplies they needed, our military force. They are the greatest fighting force in the world. A lot of that is directly attributable to Senator Inouye. Talking about bipartisanship, he lived that. He was a fine Democrat. He was a progressive Democrat and was proud of that. But he never hesitated to cross over and work with other Senators. The best example of that was Senator Stevens, who was killed in an airplane crash fairly recently in Alaska. Hawaii and Alaska--these two fine men representing the two newest States in the Union, became like brothers. That is the truth. It is really a shame that Dan is not with us anymore. He was never afraid to speak out against discrimination and was an important advocate for Native Hawaiians and Asian Pacific Islanders. He was the Chair of the Indian Affairs Committee. Prior to that time, with all due respect to all the other Chairs, it was not a committee people knew much about. Senator Inouye made that committee a powerful committee. He traveled the country receiving all the accolades from these tribes that had never been recognized, that had never had someone who became their advocate--and he was. He put the Indian Affairs Committee on the map. He served as chairman of the Commerce Committee, the Appropriations Committee, the President pro tempore of the Senate, the first Chair of the Committee on Intelligence. He served as a member of the Watergate Committee and was chairman of the Special Committee Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair. I repeat, this man has been one of the greatest Senators in the history of this great country. He had a deserved reputation as a bipartisan bridge builder. He always put his country first and his party second. In 1968 Senator Inouye gave a memorable keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention. He spoke eloquently of the country's struggles with racism at a time of deep division. He also spoke from the heart. This is part of what he said: I wish to share with you the most sacred word of Hawaii. It is aloha. To some of you who visited us it may have meant hello. To others aloha may have meant goodbye. But to those of us who have been privileged to live in Hawaii, aloha means I love you. So to all of you, my fellow Americans, aloha. That is what he said those many years ago. So today it is with a heavy heart that those of us who loved Senator Inouye say ``aloha'' to a great man, a legend of the Senate. His final, dying word was ``aloha.'' He did not mean goodbye. He meant, ``I love you.'' Senator Inouye, I love you.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 622.

Mr. REID. 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.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that we proceed to Calendar No. 233, S. 1793.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate observe a moment of silence for the tragedy.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, following leader remarks, the Senate will be in a period of morning business until 3 p.m. today. Following morning business, we will begin consideration of H.R. 1, the legislative vehicle for the supplemental appropriations bill. That bill will be managed by Senator Pat Leahy. At 5 p.m. the Senate will proceed to executive session to consider the Olguin and Durkin nominations, both to be U.S. district judges of Illinois and California, respectively. At 5:30 p.m., the Senate will vote on confirmation of the nominations. It is expected there will be a rollcall vote on the confirmation of the Durkin nomination and a voice vote on the confirmation of the Olguin nomination.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, this afternoon the families of Newtown, CT, are burying two 6-year-old boys--Noah Pozner and Jack Pinto. Noah turned 6 last month. Even though he was only 6, Jack was a New York Giants fan. In the days to come, many of their classmates will also be laid to rest--the victims of a tragedy too terrible to comprehend. Twenty little girls and boys, twenty tiny daughters and sons, sisters and brothers, friends and playmates, twenty children who will never grow up to learn to drive, go on a first date or graduate from high school, twenty 6- and 7-year-olds who will never have the chance to fall in love, get married or have children of their own: Noah and Jack, Charlotte, Daniel, Olivia, Josephine, Ana, Dylan, Madeline, Catherine, Chase, Avielle, Jesse, Grace, Emilie, Caroline, Jessica, Benjamin, Allison, and James. No words of condolence could possibly ease the pain of families who lost cherished little children, but I hope it is some small comfort that the entire Nation mourns with them. My heart and warm wishes go out to all those affected by Friday's massacre. My thoughts are with the students and faculty of Sandy Hook who witnessed such unspeakable violence. Newtown and the Nation have seen great evil. We have also seen incredible bravery. In her final act on Earth, 27-year-old Victoria Soto hid the children of her first grade class in closets and cabinets and then sacrificed herself to save them. Dawn Hochsprung, the principal, forcibly--as the word goes--attacked the assailant, and he killed her. Mary Sherlach, Lauren Rousseau, Rachel Davino, and Anne Marie Murphy also died trying to safeguard the children in their care. These six educators devoted their lives to teaching Newtown's children how to read, how to add and subtract, and how to be good boys and girls. They gave their lives to keep these children safe. They are a source of hope in a hopeless situation. I commend the teachers of Sandy Hook Elementary who didn't hesitate when they saw danger coming. Some barricaded their students inside classrooms or hid them in closets, preventing an even greater loss of life. I thank the first responders who rushed into the school, despite the danger and horrors around them, knowing they had a job to do. It is hard to comprehend this type of tragedy, let alone recover from it. But in the words of Helen Keller: ``Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.'' As the families of Newtown mourn, all America mourns with them, and we will stand with them as they overcome this suffering and begin the healing process. Part of the healing process will require Congress to examine what can be done to prevent more tragedies such as the ones in Newtown, CT; Aurora, CO; Oak Creek, WI; and Portland, OR. These are fairly recent. As President Obama said last night, no one law can erase evil. No policy can prevent a determined madman from committing a senseless act of violence. But we need to accept the reality that we are not doing enough to protect our citizens. In the coming days and weeks, we will engage in a meaningful conversation and thoughtful debate about how to change laws and culture that allows this violence to continue to grow. We have no greater responsibility than keeping safe our most vulnerable and our most precious resource--our children. Every idea should be on the table as we discuss how best to do just that.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, today we have an opportunity to pull together to help the citizens of New York, New Jersey, and other parts of the Northeast as they recover from the damage of Hurricane Sandy. As we did when Hurricane Katrina struck the gulf coast and Irene struck communities up and down the eastern seaboard, we have an opportunity to help make families and communities whole again. I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will join me in moving quickly to send aid to those affected by Sandy as they continue to recover and rebuild. The Senate must move swiftly to approve the supplemental disaster act and act to give the intelligence community the tools it needs to keep our Nation safe before the Christmas holiday. In short, before we leave for Christmas, we are going to have to finish our work on Sandy and FISA. They are both extremely important and they have to be completed. So everyone should understand we have that to do. We will see if anything changes, but it appears we are going to be coming back the day after Christmas to complete work on the fiscal cliff and a few other leftover items.