[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 107 (Thursday, July 10, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4377-S4378]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
BIPARTISAN SPORTSMEN'S ACT OF 2014
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will
resume consideration of S. 2363, which the clerk will report by title.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (S. 2363) to protect and enhance opportunities for
recreational hunting, fishing, and shooting, and for other
purposes.
Pending:
Reid (for Udall (CO)/Risch) amendment No. 3469, to clarify
a provision relating to the nonfederal share of the cost of
acquiring land for, expanding, or constructing a public
target range.
Reid amendment No. 3490 (to amendment No. 3469), of a
perfecting nature.
Reid motion to commit the bill to the Committee on Energy
and Natural Resources, with instructions, Reid amendment No.
3491, to change the enactment date.
Reid amendment No. 3492 (to (the instructions) amendment
No. 3491), of a perfecting nature.
Reid amendment No. 3493 (to amendment No. 3492), of a
perfecting nature.
Cloture Motion
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before
the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
The assistant legislative 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. 2363, a bill to
protect and enhance opportunities for recreational hunting,
fishing, and shooting, and for other purposes.
Harry Reid, Kay R. Hagan, Patrick J. Leahy, Tim Kaine,
Angus S. King, Jr., Thomas R. Carper, Bill Nelson, Jon
Tester, Patty Murray, Claire McCaskill, Mark Begich,
Sheldon Whitehouse, Martin Heinrich, Debbie Stabenow,
Tom Harkin, Tom Udall, Joe Donnelly.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum
call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that the debate on S.
2363, a bill to protect and enhance opportunities for recreational
hunting, fishing, and shooting, 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 assistant bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Maryland (Mr. Cardin),
the Senator from Maryland (Ms. Mikulski), and the Senator from Hawaii
(Mr. Schatz) are necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). Are there any other Senators in
the Chamber desiring to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 41, nays 56, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 220 Leg.]
YEAS--41
Baldwin
Begich
Bennet
Brown
Cantwell
Carper
[[Page S4378]]
Casey
Coons
Donnelly
Franken
Gillibrand
Hagan
Harkin
Heinrich
Heitkamp
Johnson (SD)
Kaine
King
Klobuchar
Landrieu
Leahy
Levin
Manchin
McCaskill
Merkley
Murray
Nelson
Pryor
Reid
Rockefeller
Sanders
Schumer
Shaheen
Stabenow
Tester
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Walsh
Warner
Whitehouse
Wyden
NAYS--56
Alexander
Ayotte
Barrasso
Blumenthal
Blunt
Booker
Boozman
Boxer
Burr
Chambliss
Coats
Coburn
Cochran
Collins
Corker
Cornyn
Crapo
Cruz
Durbin
Enzi
Feinstein
Fischer
Flake
Graham
Grassley
Hatch
Heller
Hirono
Hoeven
Inhofe
Isakson
Johanns
Johnson (WI)
Kirk
Lee
Markey
McCain
McConnell
Menendez
Moran
Murkowski
Murphy
Paul
Portman
Reed
Risch
Roberts
Rubio
Scott
Sessions
Shelby
Thune
Toomey
Vitter
Warren
Wicker
NOT VOTING--3
Cardin
Mikulski
Schatz
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote the yeas are 41, the nays are 56.
Three-fifths of the Senators present and voting have not voted in the
affirmative, the motion is rejected.
Mr. REID. Madam President, for those students who are out there
trying to learn what goes on in the Senate and for those professors who
teach what goes on in the Senate, this is not totally new, but this is
in the category of being fairly new.
This is an example of the Republicans filibustering not one of our
bills but their own bill. How about that? There are 26 Republican
cosponsors, and they filibustered their own bill.
We have asked on a number of occasions for what we have done around
this body for decades: You come up with a list of amendments, you come
up with a list of amendments, and we will work through those
amendments.
Do you know why we don't do that anymore? The Republicans cannot
agree among themselves what they want as amendments. They cannot come
up with a list. They are so tangled up with the tea party here, the tea
party there, people running for President, they cannot decide on a list
of amendments to bring before the body. So what do they do? They block
everything.
I was hoping that with the majority of the Republicans sponsoring a
bill, we could at least move forward on it. People who sponsored this
bill voted against it. They are bringing to this body a new definition
of what it means to sponsor legislation. I mean, who, of the people who
have come before us in this body, ever voted to filibuster their own
bill? That is what they have done. But it is nothing new.
I see on the floor the senior Senator from New Hampshire. She worked
for more than a year with some Republican colleagues to do something
that is so badly needed in this country now; that is, energy
efficiency. Energy is wasted every day in this country. She and some
Republican colleagues worked on a measure to reduce the waste of
energy. It is called the energy efficiency bill. Guess what. The
Republicans voted to kill their own bill.
I was originally told by Republicans: Go ahead and let's just vote on
it as it is.
I thought that was great because they had been working on it in
committee. They had a significant number of amendments that had been
dealt with before on the floor, and they put them in the bill and they
brought it to the floor. But then I am told--and I have said this
before, and I will say it again because we need to repeat something
that needs repeating--give us a vote on the Keystone Pipeline. All we
want is a sense of the Senate.
I didn't like that because we already had an agreement. I came back
and said: OK, do it.
Then we came back after a recess of a few days, and they said: Well,
we have a new deal now.
What is that?
We want an up-or-down vote on Keystone.
We cannot do that. We already have an agreement to get this moving.
I go back and mostly talk to myself, quite frankly, because it is not
very logical what I am being asked to do, but I talk to myself for a
while, and I come back and say: OK, on Keystone, an up-or-down vote
right here on the Senate floor.
They couldn't take yes for an answer even on that.
And then--the audacity--Republican Senators have come to the floor
since then and said: They won't give us a vote on Keystone.
They did it on Shaheen-Portman. We had an economic development
revitalization act. One of the Republican cosponsors there voted to
block that. Small business innovation--three Republican cosponsors
voted to block that.
This is a new phenomenon for the professors and the students to
figure out. You sponsor a bill and then you vote to kill it before you
even bring it to the floor. So I guess sponsorship doesn't mean what it
used to mean anymore. It means ``I am sponsoring this bill, but watch
out because I may vote against myself.''
So we are going to continue to work on this side of the aisle to try
to get work done, but observers need to look no further than Republican
sponsors voting against their own bills to see where the problem lies.
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