[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 10971-10972]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRESS

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, before closing, I want to mention several 
things that have occurred over the past several weeks on a different 
topic. We are an evenly divided body in the Senate, and people say they 
haven't seen more partisanship ever in their lives than over the last 
several years. I know that is true, but at the same time all of us, 
both sides of the aisle, recognize we were sent here to govern and to 
serve the national interest.
  As we prepare to enter into our weeklong Memorial Day recess, very 
quickly I want to look back and share what progress we have made. Two 
days ago we passed Project Bioshield. It was supported by 99 Senators 
with a resounding yes. Project Bioshield, proposed by the President in 
his 2003 State of the Union Address, is comprehensive legislation that 
encourages research and encourages the development of new cutting-edge 
countermeasures to fight biological terrorism, chemical warfare, 
terrorism used with radiological or nuclear weapons. It is critical to 
our national security. This body came together and 2 days ago passed 
this important piece of legislation.
  We also passed the JOBS bill which will protect more than 1 million 
high-quality manufacturing jobs in the United States. It cut taxes, a 
Euro tax that was going up at $40 million a month in this country on 
100 American-made products.
  Last week we passed, in terms of education, the Individuals with 
Disabilities Education Act. That special education bill refocuses our 
Federal law on

[[Page 10972]]

outcomes for disabled children. It affects over 6.5 million children in 
this country and well over 400,000 special education teachers.
  In the field of taxation and technology, we passed an Internet access 
tax moratorium extension which makes sure that we will be able to 
continue to access and promote broadband technologies. We are going to 
conference on the bill. We had agreement last week, actually last 
night, to go to the highway bill with the appointment of conferees. We 
have been able in the past week to come to an accommodation on the 
appointment of the President's judicial nominations.
  We confirmed the nomination of Marcia Cooke. We confirmed John 
Negroponte to become American Ambassador to Iraq. The Senate has been 
productive, and I thank my colleagues for their hard work and 
cooperation.
  When we return following Memorial Day we will go straight to class 
action reform. We will also return to the Department of Defense 
reauthorization.
  We have a lot more to do, and I look forward to working with my 
colleagues in a productive, collaborative way as we move forward.

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