[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 113 (Thursday, August 1, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6154-S6155]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CLOTURE MOTION
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will be 10
minutes for debate only, with the Senator from Maine Ms. Collins
controlling 8 minutes and with 2 minutes equally divided in the usual
form prior to a vote on the motion to invoke cloture on S. 1243.
Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, the Senate is not in order.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is not in order.
The Senate will be in order.
The majority leader.
Mr. REID. Madam President, have Senators sit down and shut up. OK. It
is unfair. Senator Murray has something to say. Senator Collins has
something to say. It is just not polite.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will be in order. Senators will
take their conversations from the well. The Senate will be in order.
The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Thank you, Madam President.
Madam President, the Senate will shortly decide whether to invoke
cloture on the fiscal year 2014 Transportation, Housing and Urban
Development appropriations bill. We have spent nearly 2 weeks debating
this bill and working through approximately 85 amendments.
We were making progress. We even had a vote on a nongermane
amendment, which clearly would have fallen to a point of order had one
been raised. So no one has been shut out of this process.
Chairman Murray and I have repeatedly encouraged Senators to come to
the floor, file, and debate their amendments to improve the bill we
reported.
It has been an open and transparent debate thus far, a return to
regular order--something I have heard virtually everyone here urge us
to do.
Nevertheless, some Senators are intent on preventing this legislation
from moving forward, despite the fact that this bill is not the final
version of the transportation and housing appropriations bill. It is
only one step in the process but an essential step--one that will allow
the Senate to move forward and eventually negotiate with the House of
Representatives to decide on a top line and to further improve the
bill.
A considerable number of my colleagues have advocated for the House
funding level of $44 billion and have opposed the Senate bill. But I
would like to point out that not one of my colleagues has offered a
specific amendment, account by account, to reduce the funding levels,
program by program, in this bill to meet the $44 billion level in the
House bill.
I personally offered an amendment that said that in October, if we
find we have breached the top line of the Budget Control Act, we would
go back to the appropriations process and redo the bill to meet that
top line.
I would also point out that yesterday the House leadership was forced
to pull its THUD bill from the floor due to lack of support. Some
Republican Members thought the spending levels were too high. But it is
surely significant that a substantial number of Republicans felt the
bill, as written, was far too low and would hurt our homeless veterans,
would delay repair of our crumbling infrastructure, and would slash the
Community Development Block Grant Program to the lowest level in
history, to below the 1975 level when it was first created by President
Ford.
Let me point out that the numbers in the House bill were not
realistic. That is one of the reasons it failed. The numbers in our
bill are not unrealistic. They are too high. They would come down in
conference. The President's request was artificially low due to several
budget gimmicks and scoring differences. We took care of those
gimmicks. We have an honest bill that is before our Members. Let me
give you just one example of a gimmick that was in the President's
budget. His request for the section 8 project-based rental assistance
is insufficient to fully fund the 12-month renewal contracts with
private owners.
We are not going to be throwing people out of those subsidized
apartments after 10 months in the year. So Senator Murray and I added
funding to more accurately reflect what was needed. That was over $1
billion of the difference. There was the difference in the scoring by
CBO and OMB. We have to go by CBO. That accounted for $1.8 billion.
It is disappointing to me that we have not gone to conference on the
budget because we would not be in this dilemma. We would have agreed-
upon allocations that would guide the appropriations process. But in
the absence of that, what is wrong with proceeding with this bill with
cutting spending in it? If Members have amendments they wish to offer
to cut spending--and there are a few that have been offered, but as I
said, none that bring it down to the House's level in an account-by-
account manner.
I am still hopeful we will be able to pass this bill and start
bringing other appropriations bills to the floor before the end of the
fiscal year because forcing the government to operate under continuing
resolutions is irresponsible. It ends up costing more money in the long
run. It is wasteful because we continue to fund programs that are no
longer needed because we are just continuing current law.
So I urge my colleagues to think very carefully about this vote. It
would be so unfortunate if we go home to our constituents in August and
are forced to tell them we are unable to do our job. We should continue
working on this bill. We should invoke cloture. This bill undoubtedly
would have been reduced in conference had we been allowed to go
forward.
I do wish to thank many of my colleagues for working with us as we
tried so hard to advance this important legislation. I am particularly
grateful to Chairman Murray for her bipartisan approach and
collaboration and for working so closely with me throughout the
process.
Finally, I would be remiss if I did not thank our staffs on both
sides of the aisle for their hard work. They have worked night and day
on this bill. I will put all of their names in the Record. I know my
time is expiring.
Let's do the right thing. Let's proceed to end the debate on this
bill, take
[[Page S6155]]
care of the rest of the germane amendments and proceed to final passage
and ultimately to conference with the House. Let's show that we mean it
when we say we are committed to full and open debate and returning to
the process that used to serve us well.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I wish to echo what my good friend and
partner on this bill Senator Collins just said. Similar to all of us,
when I go home to my State of Washington, I do not hear a lot from my
constituents about partisan politics. They do not ask me which party is
up or which party is down. They do not care about the political games
and certainly not who is winning or losing them.
The vast majority of people I talk to when I go home ask me what we
are doing in Congress to create jobs and get this economy going again.
They ask me what we are doing to break through this gridlock and the
constant manufactured crises and make sure this country, this economy,
is working for them and their families.
They tell me they want Democrats and Republicans working together.
They want us to get into a room and put politics aside and put our
country first and find some common ground and get something done. That
kind of work is far too rare these days, though many of us are fighting
to change that. I am very proud the Transportation bill we are about to
vote on does just that.
The bill is not exactly what I would have written had I done it on
our own or what Senator Collins would have done on her own.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for 30
additional seconds.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. MURRAY. This is a bill that is a compromise that reflect the
deep cuts we have set in the spending levels of the Budget Control Act.
It reflects the best ideas of both sides. So I urge my colleagues to
move past the obstruction, get over the gridlock. Let's show the
American people we can work for them.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I wish to commend the Senior Senator
from Maine for the extraordinary amount of work she and her staff have
put into this bill. But regretfully, where we are is cloture on this
Transportation bill will be viewed as a question of whether we intend
to keep the commitment we made to the American people 2 years ago this
month to reduce $2.1 trillion in spending over the next 10 years.
The House of Representatives is marking to a $91 billion-a-year lower
figure which reflects the law. I believe that if we invoke cloture on
this bill and move forward, it will be widely viewed throughout the
country that we are walking away from the commitment we made, on a
bipartisan basis, that the President signed just 2 years ago, that we
would reduce spending by this amount of money, $2.1 trillion over the
next 10 years.
Regretfully, I would strongly urge my colleagues to keep the
bipartisan commitment we made 2 years ago and to vote no on cloture on
this bill.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
The 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 S. 1243, a bill
making appropriations for the Departments of Transportation,
and Housing and Urban Development, and related agencies for
the fiscal year ending September 30, 2014, and for other
purposes.
Harry Reid, Patty Murray, Barbara A. Mikulski, Jon
Tester, Tom Harkin, Jack Reed, Dianne Feinstein, Tim
Johnson, Tom Udall, Mark Begich, Christopher Murphy,
Patrick J. Leahy, Richard J. Durbin, Bill Nelson,
Christopher A. Coons, Amy Klobuchar, Mazie K. Hirono,
Richard Blumenthal.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum
call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on S.
1243, a bill making appropriations for the Departments of
Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, and related agencies
for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2014, and for other purposes
shall be brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Louisiana (Ms. Landrieu)
is necessarily absent.
Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the
Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe) and the Senator from Arizona (Mr.
McCain).
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 54, nays 43, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 199 Leg.]
YEAS--54
Baldwin
Baucus
Begich
Bennet
Blumenthal
Boxer
Brown
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Collins
Coons
Donnelly
Durbin
Feinstein
Franken
Gillibrand
Hagan
Harkin
Heinrich
Heitkamp
Hirono
Johnson (SD)
Kaine
King
Klobuchar
Leahy
Levin
Manchin
Markey
McCaskill
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Murphy
Murray
Nelson
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Sanders
Schatz
Schumer
Shaheen
Stabenow
Tester
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Warner
Warren
Whitehouse
Wyden
NAYS--43
Alexander
Ayotte
Barrasso
Blunt
Boozman
Burr
Chambliss
Chiesa
Coats
Coburn
Cochran
Corker
Cornyn
Crapo
Cruz
Enzi
Fischer
Flake
Graham
Grassley
Hatch
Heller
Hoeven
Isakson
Johanns
Johnson (WI)
Kirk
Lee
McConnell
Moran
Murkowski
Paul
Portman
Risch
Roberts
Rubio
Scott
Sessions
Shelby
Thune
Toomey
Vitter
Wicker
NOT VOTING--3
Inhofe
Landrieu
McCain
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 54, the nays 43.
Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted in
the affirmative, the motion is rejected.
____________________