[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12349-12350]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                                Y2K ACT

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I have to rise to express my frustration 
with our current circumstances. I have been doing all I could to assure 
that we could bring this bill to closure.
  We agreed to a limited number of amendments. We agreed to time limits 
on those amendments. We have agreed to try to accelerate the 
consideration of this bill in every way, shape, and form. Now we are 
told we cannot have a vote on final passage until Tuesday.
  That is totally inexplicable. We have been told over and over and 
over again this bill is so important and time-sensitive. We have been 
told it cannot wait. We have been told we cannot take up other 
legislation because we do not have time.
  We have been on this bill for a couple of days. We have addressed 
every concern Senators have raised. We have offered amendments. We have 
no reason this bill could not be completed today--no reason at all.
  It is very hard for me to understand why, after all of this effort to 
bring us to this point, to have completed our work on the bill, we 
cannot bring this bill to closure, we cannot move on to other 
legislation. There is just no reason for it.
  I am very disappointed. It is very hard to ask my colleagues day 
after day to cooperate, day after day to try to figure out a way to 
complete work on bills, and then be told: Well, we have changed our 
mind. We don't want to complete work on a bill. We are going to bump 
this bill into next week. And, by the way, we are going to make up 
reasons to have votes.
  That is not the way to run the Senate. It is not the way to do 
business. It makes it very difficult to go back to colleagues and say: 
Now we have changed our mind again. We are going to try to finish this 
bill in 2 days. We are going to try to take something else up and work 
it through, but we want your cooperation.
  That is unacceptable. I do not know why we cannot have the final 
vote. I do not know why we cannot finish the legislation. I do not know 
why we cannot find a way to resolve all the other outstanding issues 
there are with regard to this bill this afternoon. We can do it this 
afternoon. It is only 2 o'clock.
  I am told that all we have left only two or three. That is all we 
have. We are told by the Republicans that there is no more time, that 
we will not be allowed to go to final passage today.
  As I say, it leaves me mystified. I am absolutely puzzled, 
exasperated. I do not understand. I just wish we had been told, because 
there have been a lot of other amendments we could have offered on our 
side had we known we would have all this time. We were told: No. We 
don't have time. Let's get this bill done, and let's get it to 
conference.
  We are now not going to get to conference--not now, not tomorrow, not 
until next week.
  There is no excuse.
  Mr. REID. Will the leader yield for a question?
  Mr. DASCHLE. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. REID. It is my understanding that we have been pressed on getting 
this bill to the floor for weeks and weeks; is that not true?
  Mr. DASCHLE. The deputy Democratic leader is right. There are 
absolutely as many references to that in the Record as any legislation 
I know of this year, especially from the other side. The Senator from 
Connecticut has been so diligent and so arduous in recognizing how 
important this bill is and urging us to move through this and get it 
done. He is on the floor. I am sure he would be more than happy to vote 
on final passage this afternoon, but that will not happen.
  Mr. REID. I also ask this question of the leader. We did not oppose 
the motion to proceed; the minority did not oppose the motion to 
proceed. But I am of the impression and belief that there are a lot of 
other things due. The Patients' Bill of Rights, for example, isn't that 
something that we need to move forward on?
  Mr. DASCHLE. We certainly do need to move forward on that. We have 
suggested 20 amendments on the Patients' Bill of Rights. Recognizing 
that there could be 60 or 70 amendments, given the way many Senators 
feel about that important piece of legislation, we have said not 60, 
not 50, not 40, but 20 amendments, and time limits on those amendments. 
The answer was, well, there may not be time to do 20 amendments.
  Here we are today. We were told that there wasn't time to do 15 
amendments on this bill.
  I have to give great credit to our ranking member, the manager on our 
side. He could have filibustered this legislation. I know how he feels 
about it. He could have been out here making the Senate go through all 
the hoops. We have talked about this. In the interest of expediting the 
legislation, moving this through, the Senator graciously has 
acknowledged that there will be another day. We will work through this 
in conference. The Senator has said that more than anybody. Ironically, 
the one man who could have held this thing up for weeks, if not months, 
is sitting here ready to vote. It is really an irony, it seems to me, 
that in spite of all the attention about expediting this bill, in spite 
of all the pressure and all the effort made to express the urgency of 
getting this done, we sit here this afternoon, at 2 o'clock, waiting 
for final passage.
  Mr. REID. One final question to the leader. We have, as I understand 
it, about 203 days left until the Y2K date arrives. If we wait now 
until Tuesday to vote on this, we are going to have less than 200 days 
to get this legislation passed, to get it to conference, to get it to 
the President. Each day that goes by, it seems to me, is very critical 
to the passage of this legislation. Is that not true?

[[Page 12350]]


  Mr. DASCHLE. That was the whole reason we agreed to be as expeditious 
as possible. I am going to vote against final passage. I hope a number 
of my colleagues will join me in doing that. But that doesn't mean I do 
not want a bill. I have said repeatedly on the Senate floor I want a 
bill, but I want the right bill. The only way we are going to get to 
the right bill is to continue to work on it. We are not going to do 
that this afternoon. We are not going to do that tomorrow. We are not 
going to do that Monday. We are now going to have to wait until 
Tuesday. So that just delays for another week the prospects of 
meaningful compromise and meaningful resolution of the outstanding 
questions.
  Mr. REID. But the leader and other Senators voted for a version of 
this bill yesterday; is that not true?
  Mr. DASCHLE. Absolutely. We voted for a version the President can 
sign yesterday. He said he would sign it. I am very hopeful he will 
sign a bill. We can't go through the rest of this year without some 
resolution to this issue. But it is disappointing to me that we are not 
in a position to resolve this matter today, this afternoon, so that he 
can sign the bill.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. HOLLINGS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the distinguished leader is manifestly 
correct.
  I was told, let's not even have a cloture vote, because looking at 
this measure, there could be three more cloture votes. And viscerally, 
not next Tuesday, I hope we do not vote until Tuesday 2001, the way I 
feel about it. But I entered public service to get some things done. 
You win some; you lose some. You have to go along.
  This is embarrassing to the body. Here we are, the Senate, talking 
about all the important things to get done and everything else of that 
kind. So we yield. We talk Senators into not offering their amendments. 
We finally get time agreements on all of the amendments on this side so 
no one has been in a proliferation or stretchout or extended debate. We 
were even forced to vote early last night to make sure we cleared the 
way to finish this afternoon.
  All we have is Senator Sessions' amendment and Senator Gregg's 
amendment, two amendments that could be disposed of in the next hour. 
In fact, the manager and our chairman, Senator McCain, has been 
yielding back his time and ready to vote. So it could be less than an 
hour. By 2:30 this afternoon, we could be finished with the bill.
  My question is, why do we want to wait and palaver and waste time and 
not go on to some of these important measures this afternoon? We are 
here and we are ready to go.
  I thank the minority leader and the whip for their particular 
comments, because we have been riding all the Senators pretty hard to 
limit the amendments and to have time agreements. Let's get moving. 
Senator McCain wanted to move the bill. We said so. I know the 
Republican screen all week long said they are going to finish this 
afternoon. I can't understand the change of pace now, to do nothing but 
talk to each other all afternoon. What a distressing situation this is, 
and no votes tomorrow and on Monday and just wait until Tuesday.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. GORTON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, we continue to attempt to negotiate a way 
in which to deal with the Boxer amendment in a way that we hope can be 
worked out, Senators Gregg and Sessions then be recognized to offer 
those amendments, and that the bill be advanced to third reading, 
substitute the House bill for it and then vote on final passage at 2:15 
on Tuesday. We will then begin on Monday, as I have been given to 
understand it, to do the energy and water appropriations bill, which we 
may very well be able to complete on Monday.
  I do find it interesting that the Senator from South Carolina, who 
successfully, on two occasions, prevented this current bill from coming 
up at all by filibusters and saw to it that cloture could not be 
invoked, is now so anxious to finish it.
  We think this is a very good bill. I said yesterday I hoped that it 
was stronger, but it is the result of negotiations that have involved 
Members of both parties. To let the country and the industry look at it 
over the weekend and to allow both sides on the outside of the Senate 
to communicate their desires to Senators is a highly appropriate method 
of dealing with the bill. We will soon propound a unanimous consent 
proposal to the end that I have just described, and we hope that that 
unanimous consent will be granted.
  We will finish most of the debate, I suspect, the debate on all of 
the amendments to this bill, before this evening, and then go forward 
with final passage on Tuesday.
  Mr. HOLLINGS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, as I understand the Senator from 
Washington, he has not propounded the request. Listening to the 
request, this Senator is perfectly willing to go along with every 
element of it, save and excepting right after the disposition of the 
Sessions and Gregg amendments, we then vote on final passage.
  I don't understand the delay, because those two amendments can easily 
be handled within the hour. So we can vote early this afternoon and go 
on with the business of the Senate. We have very important work to do. 
Yes, I was the one who held it up, but it didn't hold up any 
consideration of other things, I can tell you that. They immediately 
kept filing cloture, as they will to other measures. I don't feel badly 
about that, because it wasn't really a holdup.
  When they finally persuaded me they had the votes and they were going 
to really move with this thing, then I got into a movement disposition 
and persuaded our colleagues on this side of the aisle to limit their 
amendments, to give time agreements. Now we are ready to go, and here 
at the last minute, for no good reason at all, other than the 
bemusement of the distinguished Senator from Washington, he won't agree 
to vote when we get through with all amendments, which will be the 
Sessions and the Gregg amendments. Once they are disposed of, let's go 
right ahead to final passage.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. BYRD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia is recognized.

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