[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 80 (Monday, June 6, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3488-S3492]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              The Economy

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I wish to share a few thoughts about the 
state of the American economy and the lack of effectiveness of this 
Congress in confronting it--in particular, the lack of the leadership 
of the U.S. Senate to deal with the crisis we are facing both 
economically and financially as part of our economic condition. We 
can't separate those two.
  The leading economic indicators are not good. Last week, we were 
pummeled with a series of reports that were bad news. The numbers 
continue to be disturbing, actually. The share of our population that 
is employed today declined to 58.4 percent--the lowest level since 
1983. So the percentage of people working today is the lowest we have 
had since 1983.
  The May jobs report that just came in fell well short of projections. 
The consensus view of economists was for a gain of 165,000 jobs, but, 
in fact, we gained 111,000 fewer than that. We had a very low job 
creation month, and it marks the worst jobs report in 8 months. 
Everybody is saying things are getting better and jobs are getting 
better, but this is a wake-up call. The numbers have not been strong. 
They

[[Page S3489]]

have actually been very fragile. The jobs have to increase about 
180,000 a month to actually stay level, and to begin to increase, we 
have to be above that. To reduce our unemployment rate, it has to be 
above 180,000. So we were far below that this month.
  The percentage of people who are long-term unemployed--who have been 
unemployed for 27 weeks or more--jumped nearly 2 percentage points to 
45.1. The unemployment rate increased to 9.1 percent from 9 percent. 
However, the unemployment rate does not take into account those who are 
underemployed or who may have become discouraged. That is why we have 
such a low percentage of people working. Many are discouraged and have 
given up looking for work.
  Since its peak of 12,800, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 
now 698 points or more than 5 percent over the last month. I believe 
this is the sixth consecutive week the Dow has declined.
  Consumer confidence is also deteriorating. The Consumer Confidence 
Survey is down 12 points from its peak in February. It has been 
steadily going downward. Consumer expectations about the future are 
even worse, falling more than 20 points in the last 3 months, from 97.5 
to 75.2. The last time we experienced a 3-month drop in consumer 
confidence of more than 20 points was March 2008, during the heart of 
the great recession.
  The Misery Index, which combines the unemployment rate with the 1-
year change in inflation growth, hit 12.2 percent, the highest level in 
a year.
  Those are grim statistics. Indeed, I am looking at Barron's and a 
lead editorial by Mr. Abelson in today's issue. This is something he 
expressed unease about, very serious concern, in his lead column for 
the Barron's publication. He quotes a report from the Liscio Report, 
Philippa Dunne and Doug Henwood, and he quoted from their analysis:

       More than a little shocking to Philippa and Doug, and to us 
     as well--

  Referring to himself--

     is that private employment today is 2 percent below where it 
     stood 10 years ago and, as they've noted before, job loss 
     over a 10-year period is unprecedented.

  In other words, over 10 years we have 2 percent fewer people working 
in the private sector--the first time we have ever identified a 10-year 
period in our history--and he goes back to 1890--that we have actually 
seen a decline in employment over 10 years.
  It continues:

       So far, they point out somewhat grimly, ``We've regained 
     just 1.8 million jobs lost in the Great Recession and its 
     aftermath, or about one out of every five that have been 
     lost.

  So we only recovered about one in five of the jobs. We have been 
reading that job growth is out there, but it hasn't been much. It has 
been anemic, and so has been GDP growth.
  He goes on to note that ``the number of folks out of work increased 
by 167,000 and a goodly number of those--44.6 percent, to be precise--
have been unemployed for 27 weeks or longer, within crying distance of 
an all-time high. The average stay in the ranks of the jobless has 
reached the longest in the postwar period.'' That is World War II. So 
that is the longest time we have gone with almost half the people being 
unemployed for at least 27 weeks. So it is not a good situation.
  We have tried. The Federal Reserve has tried. The Congress rammed 
through a stimulus bill that didn't work. I felt it wouldn't work, and 
I explained why at that time, but it passed anyway, adding almost $800 
billion, $900 billion to the total debt of our country, and every penny 
of that was borrowed. It has not worked. But we will pay interest on 
it.

  Last year, our highway spending was about $40 billion. The interest 
on that stimulus bill will be almost that much unless we find some way 
to start paying down our debt. And there is no plan on the table to 
reduce our debt in the immediate future. That is for sure.
  So what would I say about where we are today? I believe this Congress 
cannot justify having created a financial situation in which 40 cents 
of every $1 we spend is borrowed. We take in $2.2 trillion, and we are 
spending $3.7 trillion. Every economist has told us in the Budget 
Committee--I am the ranking Republican there--this is unsustainable.
  President Bush's highest deficit was too high: $450 billion. Under 
the first 2 years of President Obama, we have had $1.2 trillion and 
$1.3 trillion added to the debt, and this year, on September 30, we 
expect $1.5 trillion to be added to our debt. We will have doubled the 
entire debt of the United States under 4 years of his leadership.
  His budget he submitted to us earlier this year makes the situation 
worse. If you take the basic trajectory of the Congressional Budget 
Office, the President's budget, even though it raises taxes, raises 
spending more and actually puts us on a more unsustainable path than 
otherwise would be the case. Over the 10-year budget he proposes, the 
lowest single deficit is $748 billion, and it is going up to around $1 
trillion in the 10th year. These are systemic, unsustainable deficits, 
and they have to be confronted.
  We have to reduce spending. Everybody knows that. But we are not 
willing to do so. The Democratic leader, when we had the continuing 
resolution and we had the debate over how much to spend the rest of 
this fiscal year, proposed a $4 billion reduction in spending. And our 
deficit will be $1,500 billion this year. He proposed to cut $4 billion 
in this year's continuing resolution. After much fight--and the House 
had passed $60 billion or $70 billion in spending reductions through 
the rest of the year--the Senate finally, under the Democratic leaders 
here, got it down to $38 billion, I believe.
  We are not facing up to reality. So what do you do? The Fed has cut 
interest rates to zero. We are spending unlimited amounts of money. We 
have tried all kinds of gimmicks and efforts--reducing the Social 
Security tax, other things--to try to create growth in the economy, and 
it has not worked. I suggest part of the problem is the deficit itself.
  Professors Rogoff and Reinhart have written a book: ``This Time Is 
Different.'' In their analysis, when your debt equals 90 percent or 
more of your economy, you will show at least a 1-percent reduction in 
economic growth for that year. This year our debt, which is already 
about 95 percent of GDP, will be 100 percent of GDP by September 30. So 
the first-quarter growth numbers were 1.8 percent below what had 
originally been projected. That was a reanalysis of it--1.8 percent. 
According to their theory, it would be 2.8 percent growth if we did not 
have debt in excess of 90 percent of the gross domestic product.
  I asked Secretary of the Treasury Geithner at the budget hearing 
whether he agreed with the Rogoff-Reinhart study, which has received 
quite a bit of attention and a great deal of respectful attention. He 
said he did. He said that in some ways the situation is worse than that 
suggests because we could have an economic crisis. When your debt-to-
GDP is 90 or 100 percent, that is how you can have a circumstance 
somewhat like we had with the financial meltdown or like they are 
having in Greece.
  So we have been warned by the fiscal commission Chairman and 
Cochairman, appointed by President Obama, Mr. Erskine Bowles and Alan 
Simpson. They testified that we are facing the most predictable 
economic crisis in our Nation's history--the most predictable. When 
asked when it might happen, Mr. Bowles said 2 years, give or take. So 
we do not know what is going to happen.
  I think we have to just grow up, realize that we have placed our 
Nation in financial jeopardy, that this country has spent money it did 
not have to a degree greater than this Nation has ever spent before, 
except maybe in the height of World War II when the entire Nation was 
in a life-and-death struggle. We have never spent this kind of money. 
We have never had these kinds of deficits.
  Many remember the big fight over spending in the mid-1990s that 
resulted in the balancing of the budget in the late 1990s. That was a 
much simpler problem than we have today. I have looked at the numbers. 
I have studied the numbers. To get this country to a balanced budget is 
going to take some very serious, sustained work. It is going to be much 
more significant than it was in the mid-1990s. We simply cannot grow 
this economy--which is the key to getting ourselves out of the mess we 
are in--we cannot grow it by just passing more taxes. We cannot do 
that.
  Congress has to step up to the plate. I remain extremely disappointed 
that

[[Page S3490]]

the majority in the Senate did not even bring a budget to the floor 
last year. We are now at 750-, 760-some-odd days without having a 
budget. That is one reason we are spending so much money we do not 
have. We do not even have a budget. It was not even brought to the 
floor last year. Not a single appropriations bill was brought to the 
floor and passed last year. Since I have been here--and I guess in 20 
or more years--our Democratic majority had the largest majority any 
Senate has ever had. They had 60 votes last year in the Senate. It only 
takes 50 to pass a budget. You can pass a budget without a 
supermajority, without a filibuster. It is designed to make sure we 
pass a budget because it is needed that we pass a budget. But it was 
not even brought up last year.
  So what about this year? We have not even marked one up. We have not 
had a hearing in the Budget Committee to mark up a budget. Under the 
Budget Act, the budget is supposed to be passed by April 15. The House 
has passed a budget, a historic budget, a sound budget. It changes the 
unsustainable trajectory we are on. It is responsible. It has gotten 
widespread bipartisan applause for being a serious attempt to confront 
the financial crisis we are facing.
  The Senate has not produced anything. Indeed, my good friend--and he 
has a tough job--our majority leader, Harry Reid, said it would be 
foolish to pass a budget. And his staff said something similar to the 
press. Foolish to pass a budget? What did he mean by that? Would it be 
against the American interest to pass a budget? Would it make our 
country less strong financially if we passed a budget? Would it be less 
responsible to pass a budget than to not pass one? I do not think so.
  Actually, I do not think that is what he meant. What he meant was it 
would be foolish politically to pass a budget. So he did not bring one 
on the floor last year when he had 60 Senators. He has 53 now. He is 
not going to bring one up again this year. He would be foolish to. Why? 
Because when you produce a budget, you have to set forth, for the 
entire world--the financial world, the American people, the political 
world, the individual citizens of this Republic--what your plans are 
for the future. What are we going to do? How much are we going to 
spend? How much are we going to tax? How much deficit will be created, 
or surplus, if one is to be found? And it is not going to be found 
soon--a surplus--trust me. I have looked at the numbers. But we have to 
get on the right path. So he thinks that is foolish. I guess because, 
well, if he produced a budget, he might have to cut spending and 
somebody might complain. If he produced a budget and it is consistent 
with what some of my tax-and-spend friends believe and he has a bunch 
of tax increases in there, that might not be popular. So since it is 
not popular, we are just not going to do it, while we have the lowest 
number of people working in this economy since 1983 and we are 2 
percent below the number of people who were actually working 10 years 
ago.
  This Keynesian spend-tax-spend idea of how to make an economy grow is 
not sound. We have tried it. It was done over my objection, but it was 
done. We threw money at this economy the likes of which we have never 
seen before.
  Now, the Brits, they are reducing their spending. They are making 
some tough choices in the UK. And some have been pushing back: Oh, you 
are cutting too much. They are having riots in Greece, where people are 
saying: You are cutting back spending too much. We have to have this 
money. But what did the International Monetary Fund say today? I 
believe it was today. They said: The UK, the Brits, stay the course. 
Stay with your fiscal responsibility that was initiated by the new 
conservative government. Do not go back to spending. Do not adopt the 
idea that you can create something out of nothing by borrowing money, 
money you do not have.

  Of course, Julie Andrews laid that out really well in her song. I 
have thought and always try to remember: Nothing comes from nothing. 
Nothing ever could.
  You cannot borrow your way out of debt, as one person in Evergreen 
told me his granddaddy said. We have to face the music. We do not have 
the money to operate at the level we are.
  I was at a town meeting in Marion, AL, and an elderly gentleman said 
he lived through the Depression, he lived through World War II, he 
lived through the great inflation surge in the 1970s, and he sees this 
other challenge we face today. He said the problem is not the high cost 
of living; the problem is the cost of living too high. That just sort 
of closed the meeting. He was the last one to speak. I thought there 
was a real silence there--the cost of living too high.
  We have just been living on the idea that these brilliant people--the 
Fed and the Treasury and all--that they can just borrow money and spend 
it today, and that will make the economy flower, and we will all be 
successful, and we do not have to worry about paying it off.
  What is a little debt? Well, we went down that road, and it has 
gotten completely out of control, and we cannot sustain it.
  We are at a point where our debt threatens our economic growth. 
According to Rogoff and Reinhart, it is already reducing our growth by 
1 percent. And if we have 2 percent growth for the year--if we have 2 
percent growth this year instead of 1.8 percent, as we did the first 
quarter--that means 1 million more people employed. A 1-percent growth, 
economists tell us, is equal to 1 million people employed. If you get 3 
percent, 4 percent, 5 percent growth, like we ought to have coming out 
of a recession, then you can have millions of jobs created and change 
this direction of our country.
  We have used every weapon we have except common sense and sound 
policy. So what do we do? How do we get out of the mess we are in? It 
is not going to be an easy road, but we need to reduce spending. We 
have increased spending in the last 2 years--the first 2 years under 
President Obama--24 percent in discretionary nondefense spending.
  We cannot cut that back to where we were in a previous day? Is the 
United States of America going to cease to exist if we reduce spending? 
We are going to have to. We do not have the money. So we do that. We 
send a message to the world as the people in England have that we 
understand the problem. We know we have gone too far. We are going to 
get on the right road. We are going to put our shoulders to the wheel, 
and we are going to lift this country forward and put it on a sound 
path.
  We can do that. We will do that. That is what the American people 
said they wanted--I am convinced--in this last election. They want some 
responsibility here, and we owe it to them. I hope and pray that we can 
come together and make some significant changes in the way we spend 
money and the amount of debt that we have.
  Yes, it might be tough for a while, but we will get on the right 
path. We will get this country going in the right direction. So when we 
are confused about the future, nobody knows exactly what to do, I think 
it is time to take a deep breath and go back to the old verities, the 
old truths that nothing comes from nothing. Hard work pays off. 
Borrowing, borrowing, borrowing is a road to disaster. We need to start 
paying down our debt. The kinds of things we tell our children every 
day, this Nation needs to do.
  If the world and if the business community in our country saw us in 
that direction, nothing could be better for our economic growth. They 
would say: The United States of America has finally got it. They have 
their heads on right. They are making the decisions that will lay a 
foundation for sound, positive growth in the future, and they are not 
trying to get their way out of the problem they are in by something for 
nothing, some gimmick.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would like to share some brief 
thoughts about the nomination of Donald Verrilli to be Solicitor 
General of the United States. Solicitor General has been called the 
greatest lawyer job in the world. It is the position in the

[[Page S3491]]

Department of Justice that represents the United States in appellate 
courts and the Supreme Court. As they said, again, there is no higher 
honor than to appear in the highest Court in the land and be able to 
announce that you represent the United States of America. That is what 
the Solicitor General gets to do and supervises that. It is a very 
important position.
  It requires integrity, independence, and a commitment to the rule of 
law. Mr. Verrilli, by the account of quite a number of people, is a 
smart lawyer with significant experience in appellate matters and is 
respected as to his integrity and his legal ability. I say that because 
I am not going to be able to vote for him today, but what I am saying 
about him is not to be personal in any way. I can disagree with someone 
about their approach to law and still sometimes be able to vote for 
them.
  I voted for most of the President's nominees. I supported Attorney 
General Holder's nomination. But what I want to say is, we are in a 
struggle internationally with a most virulent form of terrorism that 
has been declared by virtually all objective people as a war. We are 
involved in a war on terrorism. That is just what it is. Bin Laden and 
the people who attacked us on 9/11 had declared war against the United 
States. They had officially said they were at war with us. Our 
President, on occasion, has acknowledged that we are at war. Congress 
has authorized the use of military force in Iraq, Afghanistan, and 
against al-Qaida. We have authorized it. We have not in Libya, but we 
have in those other instances.
  So the Department of Justice, of which I was honored to be a member 
for 15 years as a Federal prosecutor, and U.S. attorney in Alabama for 
12--and I loved that great Department and believe in it deeply. I am 
troubled by the extent to which it is being led by people who have an 
unwise understanding of the nature of the struggle we are in. One of 
the ways this plays itself out is to conclude that an individual 
affiliated with al-Qaida was presumptively to be tried in civilian 
courts like a normal criminal. But under the rules of war, under our 
Constitution and laws, and consistent with the history of the United 
States, it is perfectly permissible to capture an enemy combatant who 
is threatening us and to put them in jail and detain them, just like 
all prisoners of war have been detained, until the conflict is over.
  No, we do not give them a trial. They are not entitled to lawyers. 
They are not entitled to go before a judge. They are prisoners of war. 
They are held in prisoner of war camps. They have to be humanely 
treated. They cannot be tortured. We have a specific statute about 
that, and I know we have had some instances where people said we are 
torturing. Some say it is not. But that is not the situation today. We 
are not close to the line of what is torture of anybody that is being 
held in custody today.
  So the question is, What does the Department of Justice say? Well, 
they have made the statement that there is a presumption that these 
individuals should be tried in civilian courts. Congress, after several 
years of debate, finally passed a law that prohibited the funding of a 
civilian trial of any of the 9/11 terrorists who have been captured. 
Some have been held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. They have 
to be tried, if they are tried, before military commissions.
  Military commissions have historical precedent. For example, in World 
War II, Nazi saboteurs entered the United States and attempted to 
attack us. They were captured. Trial was held within a few weeks by the 
military, and most of them were executed promptly. The Supreme Court, 
in ex parte Quirin, held that was perfectly appropriate.
  Now, we cannot try a normal prisoner of war and execute them. We 
cannot do that. If a prisoner of war, however, violates the rules of 
war and commits crimes above and beyond the rules of war, then they can 
be tried and punished appropriately.
  The 9/11 conspirators and other terrorists are wholly and totally 
committed to violating the rules of war. They attack innocent men, 
women and children. They attack noncombatants. That is all prohibited 
by the rules of war. They do not wear a uniform. If they want to have 
the protections of the rules of war, they have to wear a uniform when 
they go into combat. If they are captured, they have to be treated as 
prisoners of war. But if they have been sneaking into the United States 
surreptitiously, with a plot to bomb a target and murder innocent men, 
women, and children, then they have committed a war crime, and so they 
can be detained as prisoners of war and can be tried by the military as 
the war criminals they are.
  So this has been a big battle, and we went through it for years. On 
the Judiciary Committee, of which I am a member, we had quite a bit of 
discussion about it in hearing after hearing. We somehow have 
tragically convinced the world that the American military is torturing 
people at Guantanamo, and it is not so. The people who were found to 
have been waterboarded and that kind of thing, it was not done at 
Guantanamo, and it was not done by the U.S. military. Zero.
  At any rate, we had all of those debates, and we had fusses. We had 
lawsuits filed, and people were complaining about President Bush and 
all his policies. And we remember that. So now we are here with a 
series of people being appointed to the leadership of the Department of 
Justice, the law enforcement agency, the top prosecutors in the 
country, and those positions are being filled by the people--not who 
are prosecuting terrorists, not who know something about it, not 
skilled professional prosecutors who know how to do this job. The top 
positions are being filled with the people who protested.
  Attorney General Holder himself has said that these cases ought to be 
tried in a civilian court. The Acting Deputy Attorney General, Mr. 
Cole, wrote an op-ed in the Legal Times saying the war on terror was a 
criminal matter, not a military matter.
  Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division, Tony West, 
defended John Walker Lindh, the American Taliban; the Acting Solicitor 
General, Neil Katyal, argued on behalf of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, bodyguard 
and chauffeur for Osama bin Laden, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, arguing that 
military commissions were illegal. These are some of the top positions 
in the entire Department of Justice: the Attorney General, a Deputy 
Attorney General of the Civil Division, and the Acting Solicitor 
General, and the person who is nominated to fulfill that spot.
  So Mr. Verrilli, I believe, is a good man. In normal circumstances I 
would be willing to accept his nomination and vote for him. I am not 
going to try to slow it down. I am glad to have the vote and cast my 
vote. I am sure he will be confirmed. But it has been reported in the 
media that President Obama has now appointed 13 to 16 lawyers to high-
ranking positions in the Department who themselves previously 
represented alleged terrorists or their supporters or were senior 
partners at their law firms when their firms decided to accept alleged 
terrorists as clients. Many of these lawyers, including Mr. Verrilli, 
support the view that terrorists are criminals and not unlawful 
combatants. It is all right to defend unpopular people, criminals who 
are unpopular. It is perfectly all right.
  But I just want to say, as someone who loves the Department, I am 
concerned about the positions they are taking on the questions of the 
civilian trials of unlawful combatants.
  I think it is wrong, and I have voted for the last one I am going to 
vote for to a top position at the Department of Justice who advocate 
that view. I think it places our Nation at greater risk. We do not need 
to be treating these individuals in that fashion.
  As a practical matter, it works out this way. If you apprehend the 
Christmas Day bomber, he is treated as a civilian and he has to be 
given his Miranda rights within minutes of being arrested, which say 
that you can have a lawyer, you can remain silent, and you will be 
appointed a lawyer promptly. He has to be taken before a magistrate 
promptly--letting all his terrorist associates know he has been 
captured. He is entitled to discovery in the government's case in short 
order, and he is entitled to a speedy trial.
  All of those things are part and parcel of the civil process. But if 
a suspected terrorist is captured as an unlawful combatant and detained 
by the military, he can be held as a prisoner of war, and he can be 
interrogated--not

[[Page S3492]]

tortured--over a period of weeks, or months; and the military does not 
have to appoint a lawyer for them. Unlawful combatants can be tried at 
Guantanamo Bay by a military commission--and potentially found in 
violation of the rules of war--which is what ought to happen in these 
cases.
  But that is not the position of the Department of Justice. The 
Department has been populated with people who have a different view--I 
think a wrong view--of it. Although I have great respect for Mr. 
Verrilli and his record, which seems to be a good one, the fact that he 
is another voice in the Department for a wrong philosophy is something 
I will vote against by voting no.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired.
  The question is, shall the Senate advise and consent to the 
nomination of Donald B. Verrilli, to be Solicitor General of the United 
States.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Boxer), 
the Senator from Iowa (Mr. Harkin), the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. 
Kerry), the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Kohl), the Senator from 
Louisiana (Ms. Landrieu), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Nelson), and 
the Senator from Montana (Mr. Tester) are necessarily absent.
  Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. 
Graham), the Senator from Texas (Mrs. Hutchison), the Senator from 
North Dakota (Mr. Hoeven), and the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. 
Wicker).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Manchin). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 72, nays 16, as follows:

                       [Rollcall Vote No. 85 Ex.]

                                YEAS--72

     Akaka
     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Barrasso
     Baucus
     Begich
     Bennet
     Bingaman
     Blumenthal
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Brown (MA)
     Brown (OH)
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Coats
     Cochran
     Collins
     Conrad
     Coons
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Grassley
     Hagan
     Hatch
     Inouye
     Johanns
     Johnson (SD)
     Kirk
     Klobuchar
     Kyl
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Lee
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lugar
     Manchin
     McCain
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Portman
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Snowe
     Stabenow
     Thune
     Toomey
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Warner
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--16

     Burr
     Chambliss
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Heller
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johnson (WI)
     Moran
     Paul
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rubio
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Vitter

                             NOT VOTING--12

     Boxer
     Coburn
     Graham
     Harkin
     Hoeven
     Hutchison
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Nelson (NE)
     Tester
     Wicker
  The nomination was confirmed.
 Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I was necessarily absent for the 
vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the nomination of Donald B. 
Verrilli, Jr. to be Solicitor General of the United States. If I were 
able to attend today's session, I would have supported the motion to 
invoke cloture.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the President shall 
be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

                          ____________________