Ted Stevens

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, what is the business before the Senate?

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that morning business be extended to the hour of 11 a.m.

Mr. STEVENS. That is for the Senator from Arizona to determine.

Mr. STEVENS. I would expect that. I honor his right to do so. It would be my predilection that you should address that to the leader. The question is how late in the day would the Senator from Arizona finish his brief comments?

Mr. STEVENS. I say with due respect to my friend--and despite words at times, he is my friend--I believe the Senator from Arizona would have to answer that. It is our intention, once the papers are here, to move to proceed to that conference report. That is not a debatable item. There would be a vote immediately. After that, the conference report would be before the Senate, I would ask for the yeas and nays, and it would be a matter of time, how much time the Senator from Arizona wishes to debate the bill. I know of no other speakers.

Mr. STEVENS. Will the Senator yield further? Without question, there will be a vote on the motion to proceed to the Transportation appropriations bill today--without any question.

Mr. STEVENS. Pardon me. I do thank the Senator for yielding. I apologize and yield back to the Senator from Minnesota.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, as the Senator from Arizona knows, I am a member of the conference committee, and I support the legislation he mentions. But I also know portions of it are in this bill and were agreed to by the Transportation conference committee, and the matter he suggests is a leadership issue. I am in no position to negotiate on when the bill, that I also support, would come up. But I do believe our problem is trying to get this bill on its way. We cannot flood the White House with bills, appropriations bills, and expect to get answers in time. We are trying to get them down day by day so we can get some timing and get some response. If the President wishes to veto them, we will have to come back and deal with those, too. But we are trying to move this bill. This bill is ready to go. The Transportation bill is ready to go. It contains a portion of the bill the Senator from Arizona has mentioned--not all of it but a portion of it. It is not negative, but it is not totally positive. I do believe the issue he reaches, whether or not the Senate will allow the consideration of the bill--that is under consideration now in the House--at any particular time, is a matter for the leader to determine, not for me. I would like to move forward with this Transportation bill. I urge my friend to allow us to do that because it is a significant bill, one of the most significant Transportation bills on which I have been privileged to work. It sets a new process for trying to reduce the increasing numbers of drunken drivers on our highways. If there is a safety problem out there that is greater than the one the Senator from Arizona mentioned, it is alcohol. I do not want to see this bill delayed. I would like to see it get to the President. I am informed the President will sign it. I hope he will. We could get it to him today if the Senator from Arizona will allow us to do that. But for now, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. STEVENS. I might say to my good friend from Nevada, and to the Senate as a whole, it has been my request to the leader that we proceed with appropriations bills and only appropriations bills so we can get them to the President. We have been doing that. We do have other appropriations bills on the move now. The Agriculture conference was finished last evening. I do not think we can get to that today. But I do believe we should try to finish the Transportation bill today if we can and take up Agriculture appropriations next week. We have three other conferences that are going forward and we do, I understand, have an agreement now--nearly an agreement on how to handle the VA-HUD bill. So we should be voting on several bills early next week. But I do not know of any other bill that we can get before the Senate today in the form of a conference report. I do think we could handle the VA-HUD bill if we could round up that agreement. It is still waiting for one clearance. I doubt we will finish that one today. We should take that up early next week, however.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. I thank the Senator from Arizona for his normal courtesy to me as manager of the bill that we are trying to bring up. I did not object on my own behalf and he knows that full well. But I do believe we all know what the situation is.

Mr. STEVENS. For one moment for clarification on that.

Mr. STEVENS. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. STEVENS. I object.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Yes, you are. We had a statement you are objecting.

Mr. STEVENS. No, no; if the Senator will yield, Mr. President, I will state categorically I am informed there is an objection on the other side of the aisle.

Mr. STEVENS. I apologize, Mr. President. From the prior conversation, I understood the House had brought its bill out of committee. I understood we were going to await that bill. In any event, I want to say it again, as one who has voted for the bill, I am in the position of representing the leader. Mr. President, I sought to become leader of the Senate once. I lost by two votes. I understand what it means not to be leader, but I also understand what it means to be leader. The leader has asked me to object on his behalf, and I object.

Mr. STEVENS. Reserving the right to object, it is my understanding that there is a process underway right now to see if it is possible to get such an agreement that the Senator from Arizona mentioned. I have inquired, since the last exchange we had on the floor--and I am a person who has voted for this bill in committee, but the problem is there are objections on both sides of the aisle, I am informed, to a unanimous consent agreement which would be necessary to carry out the Senator's current unanimous consent agreement. The difficulty is, there are some Members who are not members of the committee, our Commerce Committee, who have not had time to study that. They have informed the staff on both sides of the Senate, both Democratic and Republican, as I understand, that there are reservations. I cannot call them holds because they have not seen the bill yet; that is, as I understand it, the bill will come over from the House. It will be the House bill we would consider. It is just a very difficult position for me to be in, but as a representative of the leadership in this matter right now, I am constrained to say I am forced to object to the bill I support. I do object to that request. I urge the Senator from Arizona to be part of this process of trying to clear that bill. I will join him. I have been trying to work on that since our last exchange, to see if we can clear bringing up that bill. But there are reservations on both sides of the aisle to that bill, and I am constrained to be in the position, and I am in the position, to say: I object to the request of the Senator.

Mr. STEVENS. Reserving my right to object, I ask the Senator through the Chair a question. Is that a unanimous consent agreement that involves bringing the bill before the Senate without the ability of any Member of the Senate to object at that time to its consideration?

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask consent that the Senate now proceed to the Transportation appropriations conference report, notwithstanding the receipt of the papers from the House. I further ask consent that the conference report be considered under the following time agreement: 10 minutes for the chairman and ranking member of the Appropriations Committee; 10 minutes for the chairman and ranking member; of the appropriations subcommittee; and 15 minutes under the control of Senator McCain. I further ask consent that following the use or yielding back of time, the Senate proceed to vote on the adoption of the conference report, without any intervening action or debate.

Mr. STEVENS. I thank the Senator for his normal courtesy. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for just one moment?

Mr. STEVENS. For the purpose of managing the floor, would there be an objection if we extended morning business until 11 a.m.? The papers are not here on the Transportation appropriations bill.

Mr. STEVENS

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

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. One of the interesting things about John Kluge's remarks was when he referred to himself as a young boy who came to this country at the age of 8 as an immigrant and he had one possession. It was a small Dresden figurine; it was a horse. That is all he owned when he came to this country. Today, as Senator Dodd has said, through the process of freedom in this country and his basic knowledge as a human being, he is one of the richest men in the world. I think to be in the man's presence is an honor. He is one of the great people of this country. Yesterday, after I attended this ceremony and was going back on the subway, one of the operators of the subway noticed I was smiling. That is strange around this place, as people know. I said: Yes, I've just been to a delightful ceremony. I told him that this man came to this country as an immigrant boy of 8 with one little possession, that he still has, had amassed this great fortune, and he had just given the Library of Congress $60 million. The driver of the subway said: He came here with nothing? I said: That is right. And he has just given this great gift to the Library? And I said: That is right. And he said: That man is truly blessed. That is my feeling about John Kluge. He is a truly blessed man.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, yesterday, as chairman of the Joint Committee on the Library of Congress, it was my privilege to join Vice Chairman Bill Thomas and Dr. James Billington out by our Ohio Clock to announce the largest gift in the history of our Library in 200 years. There has never been a greater gift to the Library of Congress. As the Senator from Connecticut has said, John W. Kluge is a marvelous individual who is renowned in the international corporate community as one of the Library's staunchest supporters and most devoted people to the Madison Council. As a matter of fact, he was the founder of the Madison Council. He has now given the Library a gift of another $60 million. Mr. Kluge's leadership in the Madison Council has enabled the Library to raise a total of $222 million in private donations for the Library over the last 10 years. His contributions alone amount to $73 million. Yesterday's gift of $60 million will establish The John W. Kluge Center and Prize in the Human Sciences which will endow 5 scholarly chairs, and fellows, and will recognize areas of study not currently covered by the Noble prize structure. The Center will endow chairs in areas such as American law and government, American cultures and societies, technology and society, and modern culture. The Librarian will make the appointments in consultation with the Library's Scholars Council, and the first chairs will be awarded in 2001. The Kluge Prize in the Human Sciences will include areas of study not covered by the Nobel Prize, including areas such as history, anthropology, sociology, literary and artistic criticism. Strangely enough, I had been discussing with one of my esteemed friends a similar type of approach to cover areas not covered by our Nobel Prize process. The prize will be a cash award of $1 million. In addition, the award ceremony will recognize a lifetime of achievement in the Intellectual Arts, just as the Kennedy Center Honors recognize lifetime achievement in the performing arts. As Dr. Billington noted, ``the Kluge Center will help bridge the divide between the academic and political worlds, between knowledge and power.'' He summed up the need for the Center best when he said, ``We need broader and deeper exchanges; to make time for greater contemplation, what Milton called `wisdom's best nurse'.'' I speak for all of the Joint Committee members in saying that we are deeply grateful for the support the Library has received from Mr. Kluge, and the private sector under Dr. Billington's leadership. Over this past year, and in celebration of the Library's Bicentennial, the private sector has supported hundreds of activities. With Mr. Kluge's extraordinary gift of $60 million, the total amount of gifts and donations to the Library during its bicentennial year from the private sector, particularly the Madison Council, totals $106 million. On behalf of the Joint Committee on the Library, I extend Congress' deepest thanks to John Kluge, and all of the members of the Madison Council. Their generosity has been outstanding. It has helped to make possible the digital initiatives at the Library, and has added priceless collections over the past 10 years. The nation owes Mr. Kluge a debt of gratitude for his generous support. I ask that a copy of the remarks that Mr. Kluge made regarding his gift be included in the Record as well as an article that appeared in the New York Times. It is my hope that Members will read his remarks. They are significant. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of his remarks be printed in the Record.