[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 117 (Friday, August 2, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9527-S9528]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      SMALL BUSINESS JOB PROTECTION ACT OF 1996--CONFERENCE REPORT

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the clerk will 
report the conference report to accompany H.R. 3448.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The committee of conference on the disagreeing votes of the 
     two Houses on the amendments of the Senate to the bill H.R. 
     3448 to provide tax relief for small businesses, to protect 
     jobs, to create opportunities, to increase the take-home pay 
     of workers, to amend the Portal-to-Portal Act of 1947 
     relating to the payment of wages to employees who use 
     employer-owned vehicles, and to amend the Fair Labor 
     Standards Act of 1938 to increase the minimum wage rate and 
     to prevent job loss by providing flexibility to employers in 
     complying with minimum wage and overtime requirements under 
     that Act, having met, after full and free conference, have 
     agreed to recommend and do recommend to their respective 
     Houses this report, signed by a majority of the conferees.

  (The conference report is printed in the House proceedings of the 
Record of August 1, 1996.)
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the adoption of 
the conference report. The yeas and nays have been ordered. The clerk 
will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Washington [Mrs. Murray] 
and the Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Pryor], are necessarily absent.
  The result was announced--yeas 76, nays 22, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 265 Leg.]

                                YEAS--76

     Abraham
     Akaka
     Baucus
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Bradley
     Breaux
     Bryan
     Bumpers
     Byrd
     Campbell
     Chafee
     Cohen
     Conrad
     D'Amato
     Daschle
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Exon
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Ford
     Frist
     Glenn
     Gorton
     Graham
     Grams
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hatfield
     Heflin
     Hollings
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Johnston
     Kassebaum
     Kennedy
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     McCain
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Moseley-Braun
     Moynihan
     Murkowski
     Nunn
     Pell
     Pressler
     Reid
     Robb
     Rockefeller
     Roth
     Santorum
     Sarbanes
     Shelby
     Simon
     Simpson
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stevens
     Thompson
     Thurmond
     Warner
     Wellstone
     Wyden

                                NAYS--22

     Ashcroft
     Bond
     Brown
     Burns
     Coats
     Cochran
     Coverdell
     Craig
     Faircloth
     Frahm
     Gramm
     Helms
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Kempthorne
     Kyl
     Lott
     Lugar
     Mack
     Nickles
     Smith
     Thomas

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Murray
     Pryor
       
  The conference report was agreed to.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which 
the conference report was agreed to.
  Mr. NICKLES. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. FORD. Will the Senator yield to me?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Can I ask for order, Mr. President?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will come to order. Will Senators 
remove audible conversations to the Cloakroom?
  The Chair recognizes the Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, will the Senator yield me 10 seconds?
  Mr. KENNEDY. I yield.


                         Explanation of Absence

  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I would like for the record to reflect that 
our good friend and colleague, David Pryor, has missed votes yesterday 
and today because of the death in his family of his father-in-law and 
the funeral today. I want the record to reflect that because it was not 
official business.
  I thank the Chair.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, in the last half hour, we have 
experienced a double-header victory for the American people: health 
care and a raise in the minimum wage. In a sense, both these bills had 
nine lives, and they needed all of them. But they have come to a 
successful resolution this evening and, hopefully, they will be on the 
President's desk in the very near future.
  I would like to just take a moment--I know others want to address the 
Senate and we still have time for discussion on these two measures--but 
I do want to at this time express my very, very strong personal 
appreciation for the support, the assistance, and the help of our 
leader, Senator Daschle, for his leadership throughout the process on 
both of these pieces of legislation, as well as so much other 
legislation.
  I pay tribute, as I did earlier, to Senator Kassebaum for sponsoring 
the legislation and for all that she has done to move it forward.
  To Senator Harkin for his work on the genetic information, the fraud 
and abuse provisions. He has been tireless in both of these areas, as 
well as many others.
  Senator Wellstone's work on domestic violence, the mental health 
issues has been enormously important, and although we did not achieve 
them in this legislation, I think all of us have an understanding we 
are going to revisit those issues in September, and I look forward to 
joining with Senator Wellstone, Senator Domenici and others for, 
hopefully, an important downpayment on that issue to try and reflect 
what is the reality, and that is a mental illness should be treated 
just like every other illness in our health care system.
  To Senator Simon for his work on the privacy issues.
  To Senator Mikulski and Senator Dodd who were extremely active and 
involved in the markup and are always involved, Senator Dodd 
particularly, on children's issues and Senator Mikulski on the impact 
of this legislation and also the minimum wage legislation on women in 
our society.
  To Senator Breaux for his help in making the compromise possible.
  And to all the others who helped.
  I also thank all of my staff who worked so tirelessly: David Nexon 
who has done such an extraordinary job over many years and has devoted 
the better part of his life to trying to improve quality health for 
American people. I think all of us at this time are mindful of the 
extraordinary quality of individuals on our staff who really make such 
an enormous difference in the legislative achievements and for changes 
in policy.
  Carey Parker; Nick Littlefield, our overall staff director for his 
tirelessness in both of these endeavors; Lauren Ewers, who has been a 
key member of our health staff; Jim Manley; Dennis Kelleher, Sue 
Castleberry, April Savoy, Brian Moran.
  I, too, want to thank Dean Rosen and Susan Hattan of 
Senator Kassebaum's staff.

  I think we have been fortunate on our committee to have Republican 
and Democratic staff. There have been extremely important and 
cooperative, and have high talent on both sides of the aisle. Senator 
Moynihan's staff, Laird Burnett and Jon Talisman, have been enormously 
helpful.
  Finally, I also thank Minority Leader Gephardt in the House of 
Representatives for his strong support and advocacy in working with all 
of our friends and Members of our party.
  Congressman Dingell, Congressman Waxman and the others in the House 
who participated in the conference committee. I am grateful to all of 
them.
  With respect to the minimum wage, this uphill effort against the odds 
could not have succeeded without the leadership and support of 
Secretary of Labor Bob Reich and the contributions of his Department. 
Many people there lent us their expertise, but let me single out 
Assistant Secretary Geri Palast, Chief Economist Lisa Lynch, John 
Fraser at the Wage and Hour Administration, and Seth Harris at the 
Office of Policy.
  Many organizations made a difference in this effort, but I want 
especially to thank the U.S. Catholic Conference, the Women's Legal 
Defense Fund, the Mon Valley Unemployed Council, and the Business and 
Professional Women USA for all of their help. As always, the AFL-CIO 
and its unions worked very hard for this legislation,

[[Page S9528]]

even though very few union members earn wages low enough to be affected 
by this increase. They did so because they honor work and care about 
the well-being of every American--not just their members. Chris Owens 
worked with all of these groups to help educate the public and the 
Congress.
  Finally, on my own staff, Sarah Fox devoted her phenomenal energy to 
this bill for a year before leaving to join the National Labor 
Relations Board. And Ross Eisenbrey, a congressional fellow detailed 
from the Department of Labor, worked very hard over the last 16 months 
to help us accomplish this 22 percent pay increase for millions of 
Americans.
  I thank the majority leader for his help and assistance and courtesy 
on these issues, as on others.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.

                          ____________________