[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 1225-1226]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 RECOVERY REBATES AND ECONOMIC STIMULUS FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ACT OF 
                        2008--MOTION TO PROCEED


                             Cloture Motion

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 566, H.R. 
5140, and I send a motion to the desk, a cloture motion.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under 
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
  The 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 the motion to 
     proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 566, H.R. 5140, 
     the economic stimulus bill.
         Max Baucus, John D. Rockefeller, IV, Kent Conrad, Jeff 
           Bingaman, Blanche L. Lincoln, Debbie Stabenow, Maria 
           Cantwell, Ken Salazar, Herb Kohl, Daniel K. Inouye, 
           Byron L. Dorgan, Mark L. Pryor, Robert Menendez, Jon 
           Tester, Christopher J. Dodd, Barbara A. Mikulski, 
           Joseph I. Lieberman.

  Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum be waived 
and the cloture vote occur at 5:30 on Monday, February 4.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. I now withdraw the motion.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion is withdrawn.
  Mr. REID. Finally, let me say, I appreciate the patience of my 
counterpart, Senator McConnell. On Tuesday, I can't really say this; we 
weren't that close. But all day Wednesday, all day today, we have been 
this close. We have had the FISA thing worked out so many different 
times, and each time--not each time but a number of those times I 
either sent a message to the distinguished Republican leader or 
actually called him, sent him a letter. I have really tried very hard 
to finish this. I want to do it because we have a February 15 cutoff 
date. I don't want to jam the minority, and I don't want to jam the 
House. I think we have an obligation as a body to get something over 
there as quickly as possible, ``over there'' meaning to the House. 
Because once that happens, I would like to think that then it is up to 
the House and the Senate to work this out. But

[[Page 1226]]

we know how conferences work. The White House is going to be heavily 
involved in what the final product is because there is no need, at 
least in my estimation, to pass something that has ``veto'' written all 
over it. If it comes to that, then I can accept a veto. But at least we 
need to give the White House an opportunity, after we pass whatever we 
do here, and the House has already done their work, that when we do 
this conference, we know and have input from the White House. If the 
decision is made after that, we are going to just go forward anyway. 
That is what we do. But I want to make sure everyone understands, I am 
trying to do this as fairly as I can, recognizing there are heavy 
emotions on both sides of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act 
extension we are trying to do. There are divisions within the 
Democratic caucus. Not all Democrats agree how it should be handled. 
That is why we have worked so hard coming up with this agreement to 
move forward on it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I certainly don't fault the majority 
leader, but this has indeed been an exasperating week. We had our one 
and only vote last Monday and have had none since. At that time I was 
optimistic that we were on the cusp of two important bipartisan 
accomplishments at the beginning of the second session of the 110th on 
two extraordinarily important issues. We had seen on the stimulus side 
an example of the administration and the Speaker of the House and the 
Republican leader of the House coming together behind a package and 
passing it in record time, by a stunning, overwhelming majority, and 
sending it over to us. We have appeared to be on the verge of getting a 
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act out of the Senate basically in 
the same form it came out of the Intelligence Committee, 13 to 2, a 
Rockefeller-Bond proposal which the President has indicated he would 
sign.
  My optimism waned somewhat during the course of the week, but I heard 
my dear friend, the majority leader, reiterate once again that he 
thinks we can finish both of these jobs, and finish them soon, and 
hopefully get back about that on Monday. I am hoping for a better week 
next week. We are ever so close to achieving something important for 
the country in two areas that are of great concern to the American 
people, the state of our economy on the one hand and protecting us from 
terrorists on the other. Hopefully, next week will be a better week.
  Mr. REID. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ENZI. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call 
be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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