[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 7 (Wednesday, January 28, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S328-S329]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       SAFE TRANSPORTATION EQUITY ACT OF 2003--MOTION TO PROCEED


                             Cloture Motion

  Mr. FRIST. With that objection, I now move to proceed to the 
consideration of S. 1072, and I send a cloture motion to the desk on 
the motion to proceed.
  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 motion to proceed to Calendar No. 426, S. 
1072, a bill to authorize funds for Federal-aid highways, highway 
safety programs, transit programs, and for other purposes:
         Bill Frist, James M. Inhofe, John Cornyn, Susan Collins, 
           Craig Thomas, Pat Roberts, Conrad Burns, Thad Cochran, 
           Norm Coleman, Richard Shelby, Mike Crapo, Robert F. 
           Bennett, George V. Voinovich, Ted Stevens, Lamar 
           Alexander, Lindsey O. Graham.
  Mr. FRIST. I now ask consent that the mandatory quorum be waived and 
that the vote on the motion to invoke cloture occur at 5:45 on Monday, 
February 2.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, let me just 
say that I am disappointed we are not going to move forward on the bill 
Monday. That is very valuable time. We are not going to have a lot of 
time to finish this bill. This is a bipartisan bill. This is my fourth 
highway bill, third or fourth highway bill, and this is a most fair 
bill. We have every State that will get at least 95 percent of the 
money they pay in. Every State gets an increase of what they have 
gotten in the last bill. It is fair.
  In the past, some States did extremely well and some States did 
poorly. Take the States of California and Texas, for example. At the 
end of this bill they will get 95 percent of the money they pay in. 
That is very costly. Therefore, that being the case, and it certainly 
seems fair to me that they should get 95 percent of what they pay in, 
their 5 percent that they are not getting pays for a lot of the States 
that do not have many people. These are bridge States. They still have 
the interstate going through them and there is a lot for maintenance.
  The bill is far from perfect. We have done the best we can to try to 
make it a better bill than those in the past. We need to get to it. 
This is an extremely important bill. This is not a bill for the 
Democrats or a bill for the Republicans. It is a bill that will allow 
the construction to go forward on highways and transit for the next 5 
or 6 years.
  The reason that is important, we can come back and do a 1-year bill 
like we did last year. But there is no way--and the Presiding Officer 
was a Governor of a very large and important State--there is no ability 
to plan with a 1-year program.
  I hope we can get this done. It is important to every State in the 
Union. I know some people are not happy with what is in the bill. We 
have done the best we can; if everyone wants their dollars back, we 
cannot. We will find a lot of States that will not be very happy. If we 
want everyone to get the average, there is no average.
  We are happy to work with every State and are doing better than we 
had done in the bill. But the allocation will not be changed. It was 
done with a computer. The information was fed into the computer. It 
would be extremely difficult to start all over again and come up with a 
new allocation, especially in a timeframe when we will have to work on 
this bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I very much appreciate the comments by the 
assistant Democratic leader. It is absolutely critical we get to this 
bill. I suspect this cloture vote on Monday will be overwhelming, 
probably 95 to 5 or 98 to 2 or 99 to 1. Maybe everybody will vote for 
it. But what it does, from a scheduling standpoint, on a bill that 
deserves debate, as good a bill as it is--and it is the most fair bill 
it could possibly be, as we have just heard it described--there is 
going to be debate. I think both the assistant Democratic leader and 
myself, and the leadership on both sides of the aisle, have agreed to 
bring this bill to the floor at the earliest possible date.
  I am disappointed because I literally said 3 months ago we were going 
to go

[[Page S329]]

to the highway bill on Monday, and that we were going to spend the 
appropriate amount of time on it, that people would be able to debate 
and amend it as necessary. A few people, for whatever reason--maybe 
some good reasons--are going to set us back. It sets the overall agenda 
of the Senate back. And what, in effect, it does is it causes us to 
lose a day when we were going to have debate only. We were not going to 
have amendments on Monday but, in effect, we lose the opportunity to 
start on a very important bill.
  I mention that now because it is early in the second session of this 
Congress, and we have to have cooperation. I plead with our Members to 
have cooperation so we can do what this body does best, and that is to 
debate, bring bills to the floor and debate them, and vote them up, 
vote them down, defeat them, pass them. It is inevitable we will get 
there.
  People are going to watch what the vote is going to be Monday night. 
It will be overwhelming. And I am not pointing just my finger at the 
person who objected because he is really speaking for, probably, a 
couple other people as well, but we have to proceed with this bill. It 
is an important bill.
  Leadership on both sides of the aisle has said that we are going to 
spend an appropriate amount of time on this bill. So people have some 
idea, it could be a week, and it could be as long as 2 weeks, but we 
have to get to the bill. Then we can bring amendments up and debate 
them.
  Mr. REID. Will the distinguished leader yield?
  Mr. FRIST. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. REID. I will make a suggestion. After the vote is completed, it 
will be approximately--let's see, what time are we going to vote?
  Mr. FRIST. At 5:45.
  Mr. REID. So starting at 6:15 on Monday maybe the two subcommittee 
leaders and the two full committee leaders could begin their 
statements, and then we could go right to the meat of the bill on 
Tuesday. I would certainly recommend we try to get Senators Inhofe, 
Jeffords, Bond, and Reid to get their statements out of the way Monday 
night, and then go to the bill Tuesday. That way we will not have lost 
any time except a little time of the staff.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I think we should encourage that proposal. 
Again, the whole purpose is to get the bill to the floor, and to debate 
it and appropriately amend it and do what we all want to do to support 
appropriately the infrastructure that is very much the foundation upon 
which our economy works day in and day out.

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