[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 15560-15561]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         SENATE ACCOMPLISHMENTS

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I thought it was important to point out to 
the Senate and to the country what we have accomplished during this 6 
months that we have been in session. We have had some hurdles to go 
through, and as a result of that, it has taken a little longer than we 
wanted on most everything, but we have made some significant 
accomplishments, and I think the Senate should talk about the 
accomplishments we have made.
  Democrats can't take credit for all this work that has been done 
because everything that passed took Republican votes also. So I think 
we, as a Senate, should be able to talk about what we have 
accomplished.
  We have passed the minimum wage bill, which is now law. We passed a 
balanced budget, which also has in it the restoration of pay as you go. 
We passed a continuing resolution. Remember, when we came here, there 
had been no funding preparations made for after February 1, so we had 
to do that, and we did. We worked on approving the appointment of U.S. 
attorneys. That passed on a bipartisan basis.
  We worked to make sure there was equipment for Guard and Reserves 
that was appropriate for those people serving in Iraq. We worked hard 
to push Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, and now they are in 
theatre. We passed health care legislation for the veterans, and we 
provided military medicine that was over and above what the President 
requested.
  We basically full funded the Katrina disaster, which was something 
that was long overdue. We provided health insurance for children. And I 
would say, without question, this was as much pushed by Republicans as 
Democrats--the $600 million that will fund many programs in an adequate 
fashion until the 1st of October, which would not have been the case 
otherwise.
  We provided $1 billion for homeland security, something we had been 
working on for a long time. This will allow the Department of Homeland 
Security to provide more security at our train stations and on our 
rails and to do some things we have not been doing at airports.
  For 3 years, we have been trying to get agriculture disaster relief 
passed. We were able to do that. Again, clearly bipartisan. Western 
wildfire relief is important. For example, in the State of Nevada, more 
than a million acres have burned.
  We have had many hearings dealing with the conduct of the war. We 
have had only two things that have been vetoed. One was the emergency 
supplemental with timelines, and the other is--I don't know if the 
President has

[[Page 15561]]

vetoed it yet. I didn't check with my staff before I came here. But I 
know we sent the President the stem cell bill yesterday, and I am told 
he is going to veto that.
  We have a number of things that are in progress. We expect to be able 
to do the ethics and lobbying reform in the near future, hopefully 
within a matter of the next week or 10 days.
  The 9/11 Commission recommendations, Senators Lieberman and Collins 
have been working hard on that with their House counterparts. That is 
basically done. We have security at the U.S. courts. I have spoken to 
the House yesterday and they are going to move on that, so that can be 
completed with the conference because we passed it over here.
  Reauthorization of FDA, we have done that here. I think that should 
be able to be conferenced quite soon.
  WRDA, Senators Boxer and Inhofe are working on that very hard. We 
expect that conference to take place without a lot of heartburn. And 
the competitiveness legislation. I spoke with the Speaker last evening. 
They have a bill they have already passed. We have passed one. We 
should be able to do that--again, clearly a bipartisan bill.
  We have a number of things we tried to move on and were unable to do 
so because procedurally we couldn't get to them, even though we tried. 
One was to change the Medicare prescription drug law on negotiation and 
allow Medicare to do that. We wanted to do intelligence authorization. 
We were prevented from being able to get it on the floor because of a 
filibuster. Immigration reform is a work in progress. Perhaps in the 
next few days we will have a pathway to get that completed.
  I have had some good conversations this morning with both Democrats 
and Republicans on that issue, and the Republican leader and I hope we 
can sit down and talk about that when he has a proposal he can give. I 
understand that could come as early as today or tomorrow.
  We have on the Senate Floor now an energy bill--again, totally 
bipartisan. Everything that is in the bill that is on the Senate Floor 
has been bipartisan. So I hope we can move forward on that and complete 
that.
  As I indicated, we need to start, before we leave here, the Defense 
authorization bill. I hope we can do that.
  So we have done a lot. A lot of times you hear little bits and pieces 
of what we have done. I have not covered everything, but I have touched 
on most everything we have been able to do this year, and I think it is 
something that we should feel good about.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, will the majority leader yield for a 
moment?
  Mr. REID. I am happy to yield.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I would like to thank our majority 
leader for his effort. He read a list in the last few moments that goes 
through quite quickly a whole list of things that have required an 
extraordinary amount of effort to be able to accomplish, and I wish to 
thank him personally.
  This has not been an easy 6 months. I think our friends on the other 
side of the aisle have wished to slow things down, with procedural 
motions over and over again, to even go to a bill, and to see the 
leader's patience and determination and perseverance has been 
extraordinary.
  I am very proud of the fact, when we compare our first 6 months to 
the 6 months in previous Congresses, that this gentleman has been a 
task master. He has kept his nose to the grindstone and has kept us 
focused on things that matter to the American people, from the war in 
Iraq and bringing that to the forefront, to having hearings where we 
have asked for accountability and attempted to change the direction on 
the war, as well as to things we in Michigan are desperately caring 
about every day, in terms of our economy and our quality of life.
  So I wish to thank the leader personally for all he has done and will 
continue to do. I know that with all of us working together, we are 
changing the direction of this Congress and working very hard to 
address the things that people care about every day.

                          ____________________