[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 145 (Friday, October 24, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Page S11187]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        INTERMODAL SURFACE TRANSPORTATION EFFICIENCY ACT OF 1997

  Mr. LOTT. I now ask the Senate resume the highway bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows.

       A bill (S. 1173) to authorize funds for construction of 
     highways, for highway safety programs, and for mass transit 
     programs, and for other purposes.

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.


                             CLOTURE MOTION

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under 
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

  We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the provisions of 
rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, do hereby move to bring 
to a close debate on the modified committee amendment to S. 1173, the 
Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act:

         Trent Lott, John Chafee, John Ashcroft, Larry Craig, Don 
           Nickles, Mike DeWine, Frank Murkowski, Richard Shelby, 
           Gordon Smith, Robert Bennett, Craig Thomas, Pat 
           Roberts, Mitch McConnell, Conrad Burns, Spence Abraham, 
           and Jesse Helms.

  Mr. LOTT. For the information of all Senators, I have just filed the 
last cloture motion to the highway bill. This cloture vote will occur 
on Tuesday. If cloture is not invoked on Tuesday, I will have to ask 
the Senate then to move on to other items.
  Needless to say, I hope cloture will be invoked on Tuesday. I know 
there are some Senators who have voted against cloture three times who 
intend to vote for it if this is going to be the last one. I have, as 
majority leader, basically given 2 weeks to opening statements and a 
preliminary discussion about the highway bill while we tried to see if 
other issues could be resolved. But unless we can get cloture invoked 
and I can unstack the tree of amendments and allow us to go forward 
with full debate and amendments on ISTEA, if this matter is going to 
continue to be held up at the insistence of Senator McCain and Senator 
Feingold because of the campaign finance reform issue, then I have no 
alternative but to stop.
  I really think that is unfortunate. I think the Senate was showing 
leadership by moving on to the ISTEA highway bill. The Environment and 
Public Works Committee came up with a good bill. It was reported 
unanimously from the committee. I think we would show leadership to 
pass the 6-year bill whereas the House had only passed a 6-month 
extension. I think it would be better for the country if we did this 
bill now. I think it would be better for the Senate if we did it now. I 
think that next spring or next summer or, heaven forbid, next fall, if 
we are still working on the highway bill, it will get tougher and 
tougher and tougher as more problems are developed, more amendments are 
written and as we get closer to elections. Every State is going to 
believe it has to have a little bit more, a little bit more for 
highways and bridges. That is fine. We all need that. But we need some 
kind of closure on how we deal with the formula and what funds are 
going to be available to our States.
  I think this is very unfortunate. I do not see there is any process 
now for there even to be a short-term extension. Everything seems to be 
tied to something on campaign finance reform that we have not been able 
to develop yet. I want to emphasize to all Senators that yesterday I 
believed Senator Daschle and I had come very, very close to having an 
agreement worked out whereby we would consider this other, unrelated to 
the highway bill, campaign finance issue next March, by the end of the 
first week in March, and that amendments would be in order and that 
there wasn't going to be an effort to fill up the tree and that 
Senators could offer amendments, first degree, second degree, and 
motions to table would be in order. Everything would basically go the 
regular order. But for some reason, at the last minute, interested 
Senators could not agree to that, but a very good-faith effort was made 
by Senators on both sides of the aisle and on both sides of the issue, 
and it did not come about.
  I am willing to have the Senate have this issue before it and have 
one more cloture vote, but then we will have to move on.
  I also want to emphasize that next Monday we do intend to take up 
some important issues, including the Interior appropriations conference 
report we have finally completed action on. If we have to, we are going 
to call for a vote on the Federal Reserve nominees that the President 
has sent to the Senate and the Senate committee has now reported to the 
full Senate for action. And we are going to have to take up legislation 
dealing with the threatened Amtrak strike.
  So we will have a full plate of things to do Monday and Tuesday, and 
we hope other appropriations bills will be ready in short order next 
week. In fact, we had meetings this morning on two of them, the Labor, 
HHS appropriations bill--we think maybe some good progress was made 
there, I say to the Senator from West Virginia--and we are getting 
closer, I believe, on the foreign operations appropriations bill. So we 
have other business that we need to do and must do, and we cannot give 
the balance of our time to the delay of the ISTEA bill based on the 
campaign finance reform issue.

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