[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Page 19056]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST--S. 2766

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, as I will every day, I ask unanimous 
consent that the majority leader, after consultation with the 
Republican leader, turn to the consideration of S. 2766, the Labor, 
Health, Human Services, and Education appropriations bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. NICKLES. Reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
  Mr. NICKLES. I did not quite catch the request. To clarify, this 
would set aside the homeland security bill? This would set aside the 
Iraqi resolution?
  Mr. HARKIN. Yes. The appropriations bill for Labor, Health and Human 
Services, and Education passed the subcommittee unanimously, and passed 
the committee unanimously. We are now in a new fiscal year. Our schools 
out there need this help. Every day that we don't pass it means they 
are getting less money for special education, less money for teacher 
training, less money for title I to help, as a result of the bill we 
passed just a year ago, to leave no child behind. So I have asked 
unanimous consent that the leader turn to the consideration of S. 2766, 
the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations 
bill.
  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I, again, say I am sorry that we hear an 
objection from the other side. We are not doing much around here. Every 
day we sort of hang around and have a couple of cloture votes and that 
is about it. We could bring up this education bill.
  As I said, it passed unanimously. That means both Republicans and 
Democrats supported this bill. It has money in it for Pell grants. We 
have a lot of middle-class kids going to college who are counting on 
these Pell grants. This bill had a $100 increase to help these middle-
class kids go to college. Yet we are being denied the opportunity to 
get that $100 increase per year for the Pell grant.
  We just passed a leave-no-child-behind bill last year. I ask Senators 
to go and talk to the principals in the schools. Where are the 
resources to back them up? Without the resources, a lot of children are 
going to be left behind.
  So this bill has resources in it for title I--as I said, about $700 
million. That is going to be denied to our public schools because the 
other side objected.
  Special education--almost $1 billion is tied up because the other 
side objects to going to our appropriations bill.
  I am sorry that the Republican whip has objected to bringing up this 
bill. But every day that we are here, I intend to ask unanimous consent 
to bring up the education funding bill.
  This is our ticket out of the recession. It is our ticket to a better 
future. It is a ticket to a stronger America. We can't back off of our 
support for education.
  I am sorry that we have gotten this objection on the Republican side. 
But, as I said, every day that we are here I will try to bring it up to 
get our education funding bill through.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.

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