[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 63 (Friday, May 7, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5044-S5047]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          JUMPSTART OUR BUSINESS STRENGTH (JOBS) ACT--Resumed

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the pending business.
  The assistant journal clerk read as follows:


[[Page S5045]]


       A bill (S. 1637) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 
     to comply with the World Trade Organization rulings on the 
     FSC/ETI benefit in a manner that preserves jobs and 
     production activities in the United States, to reform and 
     simplify the international taxation rules of the United 
     States, and for other purposes.

  Pending:

       Cantwell/Voinovich amendment No. 3114, to extend the 
     Temporary Extended Unemployment Compensation Act of 2002.


                             cloture motion

  Mr. FRIST. I now 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 senior assistant bill 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, 
     hereby move to bring to a close debate on Calendar No. 381, 
     S. 1637, a bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to 
     comply with the World Trade Organization rulings on the FSC/
     ETI benefit in a manner that preserves jobs and production 
     activities in the United States, to reform and simplify the 
     international taxation rules of the United States, and for 
     other purposes.
         Bill Frist, Charles E. Grassley, Jon Kyl, Jim Bunning, 
           Lindsey Graham, Mike Enzi, Trent Lott, Mitch McConnell, 
           Craig Thomas, Orrin G. Hatch, Gordon Smith, Rick 
           Santorum, Robert F. Bennett, John Ensign, Olympia J. 
           Snowe, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Don Nickles.

  Mr. FRIST. I ask unanimous consent the live quorum under rule XXII be 
waived.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I mentioned in my remarks last night the 
importance of finishing this bill. Members on both sides of the aisle 
understand the importance of this legislation, the importance of jobs 
in manufacturing in this country, and the importance of addressing this 
Euro tax that each month we don't act goes up by $30 million, $40 
million, $50 million--a tax on products we all use in this country.
  I hoped we could have finished the bill this week. I set out both 
several weeks ago and at the beginning of last week with the objective 
of finishing this bill over this last week. We have spent, I should 
add, 12 days on this particular bill. The Democratic leader and 
assistant leader have stated they are willing to lock in a short list 
of amendments with short time agreements to complete this bill. I have 
heard them. We discussed this both on and off the Senate floor. 
Unfortunately a number of those amendments are controversial and are 
not germane to this legislation.
  We have had a fair process on this bill. We have given Members ample 
opportunity to offer their relevant amendments and have them debated. 
We voted on a whole range of amendments thus far. Issues like the 
overtime amendments, the trade assistance amendment, and others, to my 
mind, would have been better suited on other bills.
  We do have an amendment pending on unemployment insurance which, 
again, is not germane to this particular bill; but, having said that, 
the UI, this unemployment insurance amendment, has been pending and, as 
both implied last night and in discussions off the Senate floor, it may 
be possible for us to reach an agreement to vote in relation to that 
amendment prior to cloture.
  I say that because I just filed cloture, which doesn't rule out 
germane amendments. After cloture is obtained, if we obtain cloture, 
and I hope that we will, we will still have 30 hours to debate the 
germane amendments. I do hope we will invoke cloture. That cloture vote 
will occur on Tuesday so we can bring this bill to conclusion.
  Again, I want to remind my colleague, if we invoke cloture, 
amendments are in order. There would still be up to 30 hours remaining 
on that bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic whip.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, we discussed at some length our desires to 
have the few amendments that we have debated and voted on. It would 
take just a short period of time. There is no need to go into that 
again. We feel it would be appropriate to do that. This bill could have 
been completed yesterday had we spent yesterday on these amendments 
that we talked about.
  Of course it goes without saying that I am very confident that 
cloture will not be invoked unless there is an opportunity to vote on 
the unemployment matter. Even if that is disposed of, there is no 
guarantee cloture will be invoked.
  I have said on two separate occasions yesterday and I say today, with 
our managers on the bill here, how hard they have worked. Certainly, 
what has happened on this bill or has not happened does not reflect in 
any way adversely on the good work they have done. They have done an 
excellent job.
  With all due respect to the distinguished majority leader--and I know 
the burdens of his office are significant--I really believe the Senate 
should be treated as the Senate, as we have done for all these many 
years. I think it would be much better if we work that way. We are not 
the House of Representatives. We do not have to have a rule from a 
rules committee to tell us what is going to happen on the floor.
  We have had hundreds of amendments on bills we wind up finishing. We 
don't have hundreds of amendments here, even though we started out on 
our side with 75 and we have been able to dispose of some. We have a 
couple of amendments that will be relevant and debatable postcloture. 
We know that. Those are the Hollings amendment and the Landrieu 
amendment, and there may be some others we can work in there. But I 
just think to avoid some contentious issues we are causing the Senate a 
lot of undue problems. As I said here last night, this legislation is 
going to pass; it is only a question of when. This is ``must do'' 
legislation. It has to pass before we leave here this year.
  I, again, recognize the problems the majority leader has. All his 
problems are not on our side, I say with some degree of understanding. 
He has problems on his side. This bill is certainly an example of that.
  So we will do whatever we have to do to meet the demands of our 
slight minority here. As you know, the Senate is almost equally 
divided. That is one reason everything we do here is made more 
difficult. It is 51-49 on every issue that comes up. We are all looking 
for a little advantage.
  I think unemployment compensation, where we have more than a million 
people who would receive this money immediately, certainly makes our 
case strong.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I very much commend and thank my 
colleagues, the majority leader and assistant minority leader, in 
trying to work through this bill as we are approaching the endgame. We 
are about there. We are very close to being there.
  I might recall, a few weeks ago many observers had written off this 
bill and said the bill was deadlocked--for example, over the overtime 
provision. But to paraphrase Mark Twain, his comment to the New York 
Journal years ago: The report of this bill's death was an exaggeration.
  Instead, we are now back to doing what the Senate does best; that is, 
working through amendments, doing our work, doing our business, doing 
what we should do. We have considered 28 amendments. We have already 
adopted 17 amendments to this bill. I will not read them all, but they 
are very important amendments. We have been on the bill 13 separate 
days over the course of 4 separate weeks.
  It has been the desire of this Senator to have the Senate consider as 
many relevant amendments as possible. Since we have already adopted 17, 
I think we are virtually there. Regrettably, we are at a point where 
several Senators are not agreeing to the setting aside of pending 
amendments so other Senators may offer amendments, which is making it a 
little difficult to move forward. But nevertheless, I believe that the 
resolution that has been worked out by the majority leader and the 
assistant minority leader and others of us who have been working on 
this, by having a vote on the pending Cantwell amendment on 
unemployment insurance, is a real key. It is very important to the 
successful conclusion of this bill. It is something we sought all along 
on our side, and I think it is also something that would be 
presumptively in the best interests of the majority side as well. Now 
that a cloture

[[Page S5046]]

motion has been filed, we still expect to proceed to additional 
amendments--there are not many--that will be germane: the Hollings 
amendment, the Levin amendment, the McCain amendment, also Senator 
Landrieu's amendment, and maybe one or two others. We will continue to 
seek agreement on the amendments and, therefore, we will be doing what 
the Senate should be doing--simply facing the issues and voting. That 
is when the Senate is at its best.

  Let me also make it clear that this Senator believes it is entirely 
reasonable to bring this debate to a close. We have worked hard on the 
bill. We have done a great deal of work, much more than many expected. 
This is an important bill. It is important to creating jobs in America. 
It is important to ending the European tariffs that mount on American 
businesses, growing higher.
  The coming cloture vote will be a true test on this bill, a test of 
whether we do address the jobs problem, whether we address the European 
tariffs. It is our duty to do so. Thus, when the roll is called, I will 
vote for cloture. I will also urge my colleagues to do so as well. If 
we do so, we may best hope to conclude action on this bill by next 
Tuesday or perhaps on Wednesday.
  I thank my colleagues for their cooperation.
  Mr. REID. While the distinguished manager of the bill is on the 
Senate floor, I direct a question to him through the Presiding Officer.
  Hearing the statement of the Senator from Montana, I wonder, would 
the Senator vote to bring debate to a close if we do not have a vote on 
the unemployment compensation matter, the Cantwell amendment?
  Mr. BAUCUS. I say to my good friend, it puts me in a very awkward 
position, frankly. I say awkward because it is a hypothetical which I 
hope does not occur. It is very important.
  Mr. REID. I accept that answer.
  Mr. BAUCUS. It is very important that the Cantwell amendment be 
brought up.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of both of my 
colleagues. Both reflect we want this bill completed. It is an 
important bill that will take bipartisan cooperation to finish.
  I restate that we have spent 12 days on this bill. The purpose of the 
cloture motion is to allow us to continue to debate, to continue to 
amend, but to bring closure to a process that has gone on 12 days, that 
has included 20 individual amendments that have been adopted in the 
Senate, 11 of those amendments by voice vote and 9 disposed of by 
rollcall votes. Of the 20 amendments, 8 were Democrat amendments, 8 
were Republican amendments, and 4 were from the Finance Committee, 1 of 
those being the substitute amendment. The new substitute, in itself, 
had 64 amendments that had been requested by Members of the Senate.
  We have voted on amendments that meant a lot to the Democrats, 
including Senator Harkin's amendment on the Department of Labor 
overtime regulations and Senator Wyden's amendment on the Trade 
Adjustment Assistance Program. We made huge progress. Now is the time 
to give definition to closure where we will still debate the germane 
amendments and have that debate and vote.
  I want to give adequate time, but I plead to my colleagues on both 
sides of the aisle to understand we have the Individuals with 
Disabilities Education Act that I hoped we would do on Monday, an 
important bill that affects about 4 to 5 million Americans that we must 
get to, that we will bring to the Senate. We have unanimous consent to 
deal with it once we get it to the Senate, but I cannot get it to the 
Senate as long as we are debating amendments. All of the amendments 
have substance to them, but we need to take a bill and concentrate on 
the amendments that are germane to that bill, and then we move to the 
next bill.

  I have the Individuals with Disability Education Act; I have 
bioshield. Right now bioterrorism is an existential threat which 
affects all of us. There is an important bill called bioshield that I 
need to bring to the Senate to address the safety and welfare of this 
Nation. We have the Department of Defense authorization that I have to 
go to in about 8 days. Again, we are trying to do the Nation's 
business. We are fighting a war right now that is affecting this Nation 
and the entire world. It is our responsibility to be able to address 
and give that adequate time in the Senate.
  Again, this bill we are on, FSC/ETI, is as important as any, but we 
need to stay on it in a focused way. The managers have done a great job 
to date. We are giving further definition to it by hopefully invoking 
cloture.
  We have seven ambassadors to bring to the Senate to be confirmed. We 
have 33 judges. Under the current system, we bring a judge, have a 
rollcall vote on each judge. I am having a difficult time getting 
judges to the Senate floor. Thirty-three judges are waiting to be 
confirmed by action of this body. I say that because--and I know my 
colleagues know this--we have a lot to do in a very short period of 
time. Thus, we have to use our time in the Senate as efficiently as 
possible and consider those amendments which are appropriate and 
germane to the bill under consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The assistant Democratic leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I express something I know sounds like 
heresy: One thing we could do is work more days. I came here many years 
ago. The distinguished manager of the bill has worked in the House of 
Representatives, as I. I still use the House gym. I say to everyone, I 
own the gym. They are never there. They are there Wednesday and 
Thursday morning. That is about it. And late Tuesday night. They left 
yesterday afternoon. They were out at 2. When we worked there, we 
worked Mondays, Fridays, all night.
  I say to my friend, the distinguished majority leader, I know people 
are campaigning. When we were in the majority, we got tremendous 
pressure from Members wanting to leave and catch airplanes, but maybe 
we could try working a little bit longer around here and get judges 
confirmed and other things that need to be done. I know it is heretical 
asking for longer hours, but that is something we should consider.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I will move on to other topics, given the 
fact that some people think we work too many hours already. And I 
comment--because a lot of people are listening now--there are committee 
meetings going on right now, actually very important hearings and a 
markup of the defense bill that will go on until probably 7 o'clock 
tonight by Senators in our Nation's Capital. Although we are not right 
here, because we are going to try to close down in a few minutes, our 
colleagues are working, doing very important business in committee 
markup at hearings on Capitol Hill. They will go until probably early 
this evening.
  I take the opportunity to comment on the economic news from this 
week. It is dramatic and encouraging. Although we wake up, turn on the 
television, read the paper, and we cannot help, by the time we get to 
the second page, being depressed about what is going on in the world, 
we have some great news that affects America, every American, every 
working American, every family member out there. The news is about 
jobs. It is nothing short of amazing what can be said about the 
economic statistics that have come out over the last 48 hours.
  With today's report of 288,000 payroll jobs being created in the 
month of April, the economy has created over 1.1 million jobs over the 
last 8 months. The job gains were widespread, and the revised figures 
at the end of each month--you go back and revise the figures for the 
previous month--now show manufacturing jobs have grown for the last 3 
months. That is the first time we have had a sustained 3-month growth 
in years.
  Second, the past 2 months have been the strongest 2-month job gain in 
over 4 years. The number of persons unemployed dropped by 188,000 last 
month. That is still unacceptable, to have 8.1 million unemployed. But 
this is the lowest it has been since the winter of 2002. So it is 
progress. We are moving in the right direction.

  Thirdly, construction spending was reported this week at the highest 
level in history--at the highest level in history.

[[Page S5047]]

  Fourth, the service sector is growing at its fastest pace, not just 
in 1 year or 2 years or 3 years or 5 years, but the fastest pace in 7 
years.
  Finally, in terms of great news, the Congressional Budget Office 
estimated, yesterday, that revenues are running $30 billion to $40 
billion higher than anticipated for the year. Of course, that goes 
right to the bottom line in terms of reducing the Federal deficit.
  All this is good news, but we have so much more to do. So I say, it 
is good news, but we cannot rest until we make sure everybody who is 
looking for a job can get a job. It really ties into our previous 
discussion on the importance of bringing to closure passing this FSC/
ETI JOBS legislation. But it has been a remarkable past 8 months.
  Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. FRIST. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I am not much for giving advice to the 
distinguished Senator from Tennessee, but here is some advice I would 
like to give you.
  In the morning, when you get up, just as I do--I grab the newspaper, 
but I go immediately to the sports page. That way, there is good news. 
I feel pretty good then. And then I work my way to the front page. I 
would suggest you do that because there is always good news on the 
sports page.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, is that in the first section or the back 
section?
  Mr. REID. I go right to the front page of section C. Usually all of 
it is the sports.
  Mr. FRIST. I will take that counsel, and consider the previous 
counsel on working harder and later and more days, but I am not sure I 
will take that.

                          ____________________