[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 57 (Thursday, April 10, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2933-S2934]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  TO AMEND THE SAFE, ACCOUNTABLE, FLEXIBLE, EFFICIENT TRANSPORTATION 
EQUITY ACT: A LEGACY FOR USERS, TO MAKE TECHNICAL CORRECTIONS, AND FOR 
                   OTHER PURPOSES--MOTION TO PROCEED

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed 
to the consideration of Calendar No. 608, H.R. 1195, the highway 
technical corrections bill. I ask that we move there at 3 p.m. Monday, 
April 14.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, there is objection.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.


                             Cloture Motion

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, in light of the objection, I now move to 
proceed to Calendar No. 608, H.R. 1195. 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 journal 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 the motion to 
     proceed to Calendar No. 608, H.R. 1195, an act to amend the 
     Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity 
     Act: A Legacy for Users, to make technical corrections, and 
     for other purposes.
         Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer, Richard Durbin, Charles E. 
           Schumer, Sherrod Brown, Frank R. Lautenberg, Jon 
           Tester, Mark L. Pryor, Bernard Sanders, Benjamin L. 
           Cardin, Jeff Bingaman, Patty Murray, Sheldon 
           Whitehouse, Debbie Stabenow, Bill Nelson, John D. 
           Rockefeller IV, Jack Reed.

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I now ask unanimous consent the cloture vote 
occur on Monday, April 14, at 5:30 p.m., the hour prior to the vote be 
equally divided or controlled between the leaders or their designees, 
and the mandatory quorum be waived as required under rule XXII.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The majority leader is recognized.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I hope we can proceed to this bill. This is 
another bipartisan piece of legislation. Senators Boxer and Inhofe have 
worked on this bill for months and months. It has been very difficult. 
It has been like pulling teeth. They get one thing done and something 
else crops up. It is now done.
  I hope we can move to this bill. If there are those who want to offer 
an amendment, good. Let them offer an amendment. This is something that 
is important and we need to do. I hope, recognizing this bill relates 
to the highway bill that we passed 3\1/2\ years ago, any amendments 
offered would be in keeping with the content of the bill. I don't want 
to get off on Iraq or some tax issue. I hope we can confine it to this 
legislation.
  This is the Senate. After we get on the bill, I hope we could go 
immediately to it; we wouldn't have to use the 30 hours. If there are 
things that need to be done, no one is trying to stop anybody from 
offering amendments. We are not going to be, unless there is a change, 
and I will certainly give lots of prior warning to the Republican 
leader after we are on this a while. I hope we can just go through the 
ordinary process, that we don't have to do any parliamentary maneuvers 
to get this very important bipartisan piece of legislation done.
  Mrs. BOXER. Will the leader yield for a question--a comment and 
question?
  Mr. REID. I am happy to yield.
  Mrs. BOXER. I thank the leader very much. This is a very bipartisan 
piece of legislation that Senator Inhofe and I are very happy is 
finally coming to the floor.

[[Page S2934]]

  My question--it is really a comment in the form of a question. You 
pointed out we are 3 years after the highway bill. This is correcting 
some unanticipated errors in that bill. What is happening is, here we 
are in this recession. There are a lot of projects that are stymied. 
They were unintended to be stymied, but we need to correct that.
  My question is, Don't you think it is time to correct a bill that 
passed 3 years ago, and we are going to get to the new highway bill 
next year? This is unfinished business. It is bipartisan. My point is, 
do you believe as strongly as I do that the time has come to do this?
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I say to the distinguished chair of the 
Environment and Public Works Committee, I appreciate the work done on a 
bipartisan basis to get us here. If there were ever a time we should do 
this, a technical corrections bill on a bill that passed more than 3 
years ago, it is now. It has taken that long to get it done, especially 
since we have the highway trust fund that now is $5 billion short of 
what it should be. There are construction projects that need to go 
forward. Many of them cannot go forward until this technical 
corrections bill is passed.
  This bill does not favor Democrats. It does not favor Republicans. I 
think everyone should understand when Senators Boxer and Inhofe work on 
a bipartisan bill, that is a bipartisan bill. We all know the 
reputations of the Senator from California and the Senator from 
Oklahoma. This is a good piece of legislation, and I say to my friend 
from California, I hope we can get it done very quickly.
  We have lots of things to do. I am disappointed we are not going to 
be able to move to the patent bill. I am sorry about that.
  Mr. DURBIN. Will the majority leader yield for a question?
  Mr. REID. Yes.
  Mr. DURBIN. I may put the leader on the spot, but as I understand it, 
we have had to file a cloture motion on this bill, which means a 
threatened filibuster over going to a technical corrections bill to 
amend and revise a highway bill that is 3\1/2\ years old. I know the 
Republican minority set a record in the Senate with 62 filibusters last 
year. I don't know if the majority leader can tell us the ongoing 
number of filibusters from the Republicans at this point. I assume it 
is over 70 filibusters. The previous record was 62 filibusters in 2 
years. Now we have had over 70 filibusters, and we are just into this 
new legislative year.
  I ask the majority leader, in his experience in the Senate, does he 
ever recall a filibuster being mounted on a bipartisan bill that is a 
technical corrections bill related to highway projects and other 
building projects across the Nation, in both Democratic and Republican 
States?
  Mr. REID. I say to my distinguished friend, the answer to that is no. 
But I do say this: That is why I made my remarks very clear. I think a 
lot of it has been unfounded, but we have had some distrust that some 
of the things we are doing will prevent people from offering 
amendments; there will not be an opportunity to legislate on this bill.
  I have no intention--I made it very clear--of filling the tree. I 
used kind of a buzzword because everyone knew what I was talking about. 
But I have no intention of doing that. That is why I said I hope once 
we get on the bill, the 30 hours will not need to be used; we can just 
go to the bill and start legislating. That would be the right thing to 
do.
  We have now been in this session for 12-15 months. I would hope by 
this time we know each other a little better, we can trust each other a 
little better, Democrats and Republicans. I think we just finished some 
very good work. Today we passed an extremely important housing bill. It 
was bipartisan.
  I was with some people today, and they criticized: Why did you put 
this provision in there dealing with homebuilders? It is something that 
they don't need.
  I personally disagree with that. In Nevada we have homebuilders who 
are doing everything they can to hang onto land so when this market 
bottoms out they will still have some land to build on. Anyway, I said 
to them we in the Senate today have a very slim majority, 51 to 49. I 
said to my friend--I asked this question: We have a number of things in 
this bill that were put in that we did not especially like.
  The Republicans got a number of things in this very important housing 
stimulus bill that they did not like. But that is what legislation is 
about. That is the big speech I gave to my friend. I think he 
understood it after I said this a little better.
  After that, we also did something on a bipartisan basis: passed, all 
in 1 bill, 80 different bills. There is no need to go back into the 
history of why this happened, but it happened, and we were only able to 
get it done because we worked on a bipartisan basis. I want to do the 
same on this highway bill.
  We have other things coming up that we need to do this work period. 
As I indicated, because of the patent bill, for reasons that I am sure 
will be written about over the next few weeks, we are not going to do a 
patent bill now. The chairman and ranking member could not work out 
what they wanted to bring to the floor. So, as a result of that, we 
have a little extra time. I hope that because of that we can do highway 
corrections, we can maybe move to that.
  There is a veterans bill we are trying to get worked out. We know we 
have more than 50 votes; we hope we have more than 60; we are very 
close to that.
  We have an FHA reauthorization. We need to do that. I spoke to 
Chairman Rockefeller a few minutes ago.
  So without belaboring the point, in answering the question of my dear 
friend, the assistant Democratic leader, no, I don't remember ever a 
filibuster being filed on a bipartisan bill. But I do not know the 
entire history. I hope we can move forward on this piece of legislation 
in regular order.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I want to make one brief comment to the 
leader.
  I have no additional comment to make to the leader. I can pose it as 
a question, but I do not really need to. The leader is aware that there 
is no intention on the Republican side to filibuster this bill. I 
concur in his remarks about the bipartisanship that resulted in both of 
the bills passing today.
  There is one matter that needs to be resolved, as I understand it, 
with respect to this technical corrections bill, which does need to be 
dealt with, as the chairman of the committee noted. As far as I know, 
that is the only matter. There could be others, but I know of no 
intention on the part of anybody on our side of the aisle to raise 
extraneous matters to use the bill for any other purpose but to 
complete action on the bill. I am aware of the same matter that the 
majority leader is right now as the only matter that exists on our 
side. So there is no intention on our side of the aisle to filibuster 
the bill.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I say also through the Chair to my friend, I 
have spoken to that Senator, and still we might be able to work 
something out. If we cannot, he can offer an amendment and see what 
happens that way.
  Mr. KYL. Sure.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I feel comfortable with what we have been 
able to accomplish this week. I cannot say that every week we have left 
here, but this has been a really good week. I think we have 
accomplished a lot that is good for the American people in the process.
  We have a farm bill that is moving along. We had today an actual 
conference, Democrats and Republicans, trying to come up with a farm 
bill. It is wonderful that that is taking place because in recent years 
we have not had a real conference. We have had little meetings take 
place. But I think that is wonderful that we were able to get that 
done.

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