[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 37 (Monday, March 5, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Page S2647]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         CONSIDERATION OF S. 4

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the Senate is in the second week of 
consideration of the 9/11 bill. S. 4 was reported out during the recess 
and was available to all Members on Monday, February 26.
  We had to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed last Tuesday. Once 
cloture was invoked, there was a further delay in proceeding to the 
bill, and we were not allowed to begin consideration of the bill until 
Wednesday, February 28.
  On Thursday of last week, Senator DeMint offered his amendment to 
strike the TSA provision of the bill. We have been trying to get an 
agreement to vote on his amendment basically since that evening and on 
other amendments on the same subject matter as his amendment by 
Senators McCaskill and Lieberman.
  Today, Senator Collins offered her TSA amendment. We are willing to 
add her amendment to the agreement. That was objected to.
  As I indicated and the distinguished Republican leader indicated, 
tomorrow I will move to table the DeMint amendment.
  I mention this because this is a good, very important piece of 
legislation. It has all the markings of being able to do something on a 
bipartisan basis, once we get over these few little humps. There are 
now 31 amendments pending to the bill. Most of the amendments do not 
deal with 9/11 recommendations. They are important funding issues that 
must be resolved and other 9/11 issues I would like to resolve before 
there is a cloture vote on this bill. We have all day tomorrow and we 
have Wednesday to finish this bill.
  Accordingly, I am going to wait as long as I can to file cloture. We 
need to resolve this bill this week. Immigration amendments are going 
to have to wait until we deal with that bill later this year. It is not 
going to be too late because we are going to have to do immigration. I 
know the immigration people feel strongly about this issue. A number of 
the people who have been heavily involved in this immigration debate 
previously have offered immigration amendments on this bill. I think it 
is better we do the immigration legislation all at once and not 
piecemeal. I know how strongly the people feel who have offered these 
amendments, but this is not the vehicle to offer those amendments. If 
cloture is invoked, most of these amendments will fall. In fact, I 
think all of them will.
  I have indicated to the distinguished Republican leader that we are 
willing to make sure we can dispose of the amendments that appear to be 
germane prior to the cloture vote. We want to move this legislation as 
quickly as possible and as fairly as possible. So I hope the people who 
have amendments to offer will do it on this legislation. I hope they 
keep in mind that this is the 9/11 Commission recommendations and not 
an immigration bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, let me add briefly before we adjourn 
that I have asked my Members to come over, call up their amendments, 
and let's see how many we can get processed in the next couple of days. 
We are anxious to have amendments up and have amendments voted on and 
will be cooperating toward that end.

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