[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 104 (Tuesday, September 7, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8815-S8816]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             SENATE AGENDA

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I say to my friend, the distinguished 
Senator from Mississippi, and all those within the sound of my voice, I 
appreciate his dissertation on what we should do in the approximately 
15 days we have left in this legislative session. I appreciate his 
observations. The fact is, whether we want to acknowledge it, we have 
not done anything the whole year. If there is any cause for our having 
so little time to do so much, it is because we have not done anything 
up to now. We have not passed any appropriations bills--one.
  To hear talk about an omnibus bill should cause the hair on 
everyone's neck to rise. The omnibus bill we had last year was a 
disaster, in my opinion. I hope we do not do that again. I would rather 
have a series of continuing resolutions than have this big, ugly piece 
of legislation that has so many ways of creating mischief.
  I do appreciate my friend from Mississippi, who has a wealth of 
experience, having been majority and minority leader of the Senate, but 
he should acknowledge what he is talking about is pie in the sky. We 
cannot do that. We do not have time.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, will the Senator from Nevada yield?
  Mr. REID. I will be happy to yield. Mr. President, we have to do the 
best we can with the tools we have.
  I will be happy to yield for a question from my friend.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I listened to my colleague from 
Mississippi. I agree we should pass a good energy bill and a jobs bill. 
I agree with all that. He suggested at the end to the Senator from 
South Dakota--I assume he was referring to the Democratic leader--that 
it would be good to get things done. I point out the Wall Street 
Journal article of today titled ``Lawmakers Face Big Backlog.'' Let me 
read what this article says, and most of us know this to be the case:

       The highway bill, for example, is hung up in a dispute 
     between Republican Senators and the White House. . . .

  That is not obstructionism by this side.

       In the energy debate, oil-state Republicans, led by House 
     Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, want liability 
     protections for companies that make the fuel additive MTBE; 
     Northeastern Senators, such as Sen. Judd Gregg of New 
     Hampshire, are opposed.

  That is not obstructionism on this side. That is the Energy bill.
  Quoting again:

       The animosity between House Ways and Means Committee 
     Chairman Bill Thomas and Senate Finance Committee Chairman 
     Charles Grassley has slowed progress on tax legislation.

  That is the JOBS bill about which my colleague was talking. There is 
the highway bill, the Energy bill, the JOBS bill, and this article from 
the Wall Street Journal today, hardly a progressive organization, says 
the problem is not obstructionism by this side of the aisle; it is the 
other side of the aisle that is having an internal debate they cannot 
resolve, and that is what is slowing things down.
  I say on my behalf and I expect I say on behalf of the assistant 
minority leader from Nevada and certainly from the standpoint of the 
Democratic leader, Senator Daschle, we would like nothing more than to 
get a good highway bill, to get a good energy bill passed through the 
Congress, to proceed and deal with the issue of jobs. We cannot resolve 
on this side of the aisle the internal debate that goes on between the 
White House and the majority party in the Republican caucus. That is 
exactly what is holding up these issues. My hope is they will resolve 
those debates. We can work together and find a way in a bipartisan 
manner to address all of these issues--energy, jobs, and the highway 
bill. I think we should do that.

  I wanted to make that point quoting from an article that was in the 
Wall Street Journal today which I believe describes what is really at 
work here that has held up the progress and business of the Senate.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I say to my friend, the distinguished 
Senator from North Dakota, he has pointed out in reading from the Wall 
Street Journal a few of the problems are around here. These very 
important issues cannot be resolved, in my opinion, in just a matter of 
a few days. For them to come out now and say we suddenly have our act 
together now, let's have no debate and rush these through because we 
have no time left in this legislative session, is not fair. It is not 
fair to the Senate but, more importantly, it is not fair to this 
country.
  Mr. President, I hope all Senators had a good productive 6 weeks 
since we were last in session. I personally had a productive time in 
Nevada. I held many townhall meetings all over the State of Nevada, 
from Sparks to Pahrump in southern Nevada. They were productive 
meetings, but I was surprised the meetings all related to the same 
subjects.
  People brought up the same issues no matter where we were in Nevada: 
Health care. People are tremendously concerned about health care. The 
people of Nevada realize we have 44 million people with no health 
insurance, millions more who are underinsured, and those who have 
health insurance see the costs escalating. Small businesses are finding 
it more difficult all the time to give health benefits to their 
employees. It is not because they are cheap. It is not because they are 
mean. It is simply that they cannot afford health insurance. They know 
they would have a more productive workforce if people had health 
insurance. This is a tremendous issue all over the State of Nevada and 
this country.
  Senior citizens. I had a number of townhall meetings related 
specifically to senior citizens. To say they do not like the new 
Medicare bill is an understatement. It is a bill that is designed to 
bankrupt Medicare and is in the process of doing so. To top this off, 
they were told last week that there would be a 17-percent premium 
increase. They are very concerned.
  Education. The Leave No Child Behind Act is leaving children behind. 
It is ruining public education not only in Nevada but all over the 
country. Nevada is a rapidly growing State. We created about 15 new 
schools this year. When school started a week ago, we had in Clark 
County alone 15 new schools, 3 new high schools. There are so many new 
teachers hired in the Clark County school district they cannot get them 
all together at one time. I talked with all the new teachers, but it 
took 2 separate groups of 1,000 each--2,000 new schoolteachers in Clark 
County alone.
  These young men and women are anxious to begin a new career. There 
are some teachers who have transferred from other places or who have 
come from other places, but most all the teachers are first-year 
teachers, and they are excited about being able to educate these 
children, to form the minds of these little people who appear before 
them.
  They are concerned because they know the reputation of the Leave No 
Child Behind Act has preceded them, and they know how difficult it is 
with this law, these unfunded mandates that are contained therein, to 
do a good job of teaching. Administrators acknowledge this.
  I met with all 17 school administrators, school superintendents, in 
the State of Nevada. All 17 said the Leave No Child Behind Act is 
destroying public education. These 17 superintendents are from school 
districts as large as the one in Clark County of 300,000 students, to 
Esmeralda County, Goldfield, NV, 88 students in that school district.
  I did not ask their party affiliation, but I am sure they are 
Democrats and Republicans. They all acknowledge that the Leave No Child 
Behind Act is simply not working.
  My friend from Mississippi gave a short dissertation on all the 
things we need to do, but what one needs to do is look at the calendar 
and how we are going to accomplish this. It is a very short period of 
time. I think the majority leader will tell us we are going to end 
around October 8. This is a real short week, so there is 1 week, 2 
weeks, 3 weeks, 4 weeks. That is 5 weeks. We have the Jewish holidays 
week after next which will make that a very short week. We have 
Columbus Day. We have so few days to do so much.
  What I think we need to do is make sure we fund the Government. If it 
means a lame duck session, which none of us like, it means a lame duck 
session. The fact is, we have so little time to do so much. I hope we 
would be able

[[Page S8816]]

to focus on what is absolutely necessary.
  Again, I have the greatest respect and admiration for my friend, the 
junior Senator from Mississippi. But what he is talking about does not 
acknowledge what we did not do before the break occurred.
  I look forward to working with Senator McConnell. Senator Daschle has 
asked me to work as the lead Democrat on the working group to consider 
the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. We will focus on the role 
Congress plays in supporting our intelligence community and the 
Department of Homeland Security.
  I start out on this acknowledging that the two people who led this 
Commission, Governor Tom Kean and Congressman Lee Hamilton, are two of 
the finest public servants anywhere in America. They spent a year of 
their lives working on this issue. They had good Commission members. 
They had 80 of the top people in the world to help them do their 
research and investigations.
  What they came up with is good, and it is going to take some real 
strong evidence to show why we should not follow that. I have an open 
mind and look forward to working with Senator McConnell, for whom I 
have the highest regard. This is a bipartisan working group and we must 
keep it that way. We have to keep politics out of this process. We are 
in the middle of an election, but this is not a partisan issue. I am 
going to work with every member of this group to find solutions that 
will make our Nation stronger and improve our intelligence 
capabilities.
  I hope we can finish the so-called FSC bill that the majority leader 
has named the JOBS bill. I hope we do this for lots of reasons, but the 
most important reason, as far as I am concerned, is when I went home 
people are concerned about energy.
  This country has less than 3 percent of the known oil reserves in the 
world, counting ANWR. We cannot produce our way out of the problems we 
have. There are things we can do to improve our production, but we 
cannot produce our way out of our problems. We use 12 million barrels a 
day. We import over 60 percent of those 12 million barrels. That cannot 
go on forever.
  I hope we would recognize that this FSC bill, the JOBS bill, has in 
it section 45 production tax credits to give tax credits for Sun and 
wind production of energy, geothermal production of energy, and 
biomass. This is the future. When a country has less than 3 percent of 
the known oil reserves in the world, this is where we need to go. We 
need to go to alternative energy. That way we can move to a production 
society. We can do lots of good things.
  The tax credit for wind energy expired the first of the year. We know 
it worked well. We know there are some farms in the Midwest that make 
more money producing electricity than they do growing soybeans, corn, 
and wheat.
  Developing these clean, renewable resources, in addition to being the 
right thing to do, will create thousands of new jobs, and it will help 
consumers by providing a steady and reliable source of electricity and 
it will protect our environment. Because renewable energy is made in 
the USA, it will help reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
  We have so much to do. We have only passed 1 of the 13 appropriations 
bills. We need to address these most important issues. As I have 
already indicated, I personally am opposed to an omnibus. I would 
rather have continuing resolutions than an omnibus bill because it was 
not a good experience last time. We have a lot of work to do. Let us 
get busy.
  I see the majority leader on the floor of the Senate, and I yield the 
floor to him.

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