[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 503-504]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST--S. 2541

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I am glad we have a large number of Senators 
here today. I want to go over the schedule for this week.
  First of all, I am going to ask unanimous consent, and I will do that 
now, that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. 2541, which is 
a 30-day extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act we are 
going to be dealing with; that the bill be read three times, passed, 
the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening 
action or debate.
  The reason I ask consent on this legislation is that this bill 
expires on February 1. The House has not acted on this bill yet, so 
when we pass this bill, the House has to pass their bill, and there has 
to be a conference. I hope we could have this extension. I need not 
belabor the point. I asked this consent before we left; I ask it again.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? The Republican leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, and I 
will be objecting, let me say, my good friend, the majority leader, and 
I have discussed this issue. There is a significant amount of time left 
this month to pass this bill in the Senate. A conference may or may not 
be necessary. Back in August, when we did an extension of the FISA 
bill, the House simply took up the Senate-passed bill and passed it, 
and it went down to the President for signature. So I think the 
discussion of extension, particularly when, hopefully, we will turn to 
this bill in the very near future in the Senate, is not timely and, 
therefore, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, for all Members here, we are on the Indian 
health bill now. I hope we can complete that bill tomorrow. The 
Republicans are having a retreat. They are having theirs tomorrow; we 
are going to have ours in 10 days or so. There will be activities on 
the Senate floor tomorrow, but there will be no votes. If there are any 
votes tomorrow, it will be after they finish their retreat, after 6 
o'clock tomorrow night.
  So we hope some work can be done on this bill tomorrow. We know the 
Republicans will be absent, so that makes it very difficult.
  We have to finish FISA this week. Everyone should be aware of that 
point. We have to finish it this week. I know there are important trips 
people want to take. We have the very important economic conference in 
Davos that Democrats and Republicans alike would like to go to.
  I say, unless we finish the bill Thursday--and we will not be able to 
get to it until tomorrow night--unless we finish the bill on Thursday, 
then we are going to have to continue working this week until we finish 
this bill. We have to finish this bill. It is not fair to the House to 
jam them so that they have 1 day to act on this legislation. If we 
finish it this week, I have spoken to the Speaker today and they will 
work to complete this matter next week. It would be to everyone's 
advantage if we had more time to do this.
  I respect what the Republican leader has said, but everyone here 
should understand all weekend activities have to be put on hold until 
we finish this bill. Now, it is possible we could finish it fairly 
quickly. We are going to work from the Intelligence bill, and if 
amendments are offered that people don't like, I would suggest they 
move to table those amendments. Because if people think they are going 
to talk this to death, we are going to be in here all night. This is 
not something we are going to have a silent filibuster on. If someone 
wants to filibuster this bill, they are going to do it in the openness 
of the Senate.
  We are not going to say, well, we can't get 60 votes on this. We are 
going to work toward completing this bill as quickly as we can. I would 
rather we didn't have to do this. And maybe if we get to it on 
Thursday, we can finish it Thursday. If not, hopefully on Friday. But I 
know of no alternative. This work period is very short. We have, after 
this week, only 3 weeks.
  I have had many meetings, and they have been bipartisan in nature, to 
try to come up with a stimulus package that is so important to our 
country. Everyone has seen what has happened to not only our own stock 
markets but those around the world. We may not be in a recession, but 
people are looking at an economic downturn as concerning to everyone, 
including the President. So we have a lot to do this work period. I 
have only mentioned a couple issues we need to work on, but there are a 
lot of others, of course, we need to do also.


                  Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 1255

  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to 
consideration of Calendar No. 213, H.R. 1255, Presidential Records Act 
Amendments of 2007; that the amendment at the desk be considered and 
agreed to; the bill, as amended, be read a third time, passed, and the 
motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; that any statements 
relating thereto appear at the appropriate place in the Record as if 
given; and that there be no intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. SESSIONS. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on the issue of FISA, let me second the 
observation of the majority leader. There is no more important issue 
for us to deal with in terms of protecting the homeland. I agree with 
his decision that we press forward on FISA and get it out of the 
Senate--but not just get it out of the Senate, get it out of the Senate 
and to the House in a form the President will sign. Nothing is more 
important to protecting the homeland than getting this done and getting 
it done properly.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Casey). The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, we have a number of Members who are 
supposed to go to the Davos economic summit tomorrow night, and I would 
note I have talked with Senator Bennett of Utah, who is the senior 
Republican on that trip, and the trip that is set to leave tomorrow 
night will not. We will put it on hold until Thursday, to determine 
whether we can leave on Thursday.
  If I could have the attention of the majority leader for a moment. I 
appreciate the majority leader has been very clear. I happen to concur 
with him that this is important and we should finish it. All we want to 
do is to know how it will go. There is a Judiciary Committee amendment 
to the bill. I would not anticipate taking a great deal of

[[Page 504]]

time on that, but I think the distinguished majority leader is doing 
the absolute right thing.
  He has the worst job in America, trying to accommodate the schedules 
of 99 other people, plus his own, which usually comes in number 100 out 
of the 100. I am not in any way suggesting we change for the Davos 
summit. I will keep in touch with him, Senator Rockefeller, and others 
as we go forward. If it is possible for us to leave Thursday night, we 
will be able to leave Thursday night. But I would not suggest the 
bipartisan delegation go to Davos if this matter is pending.
  I appreciate the distinguished leader spending a lot of time on the 
phone over the weekend and again today and I appreciate his 
consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. If I might address the majority leader for a moment, we 
have had a great deal of debate today on the Indian Health Care 
Improvement Act, and I appreciate, as I said earlier, the willingness 
of the majority leader to bring this bill to the floor of the Senate. I 
know it deals with about 4 million Americans. But the fact is there are 
people dying, dying in this country, because of inadequate health care 
for a trust requirement, a responsibility our Government has for the 
health of the American Indians.
  I know we will be considering that issue still tomorrow. I talked to 
Senator Coburn, who indicated he has some amendments and will be here 
tomorrow to be discussing the bill. My hope is we could get the 
Senators to come and offer amendments, that we can finish these 
amendments, and for the first time in 10 years get this bill passed. 
Senator McCain, when chairman of this committee; Senator Ben Nighthorse 
Campbell, when chairman; and now myself, along with Vice Chair 
Murkowski, have worked hard to get this done. We are so close, and I 
appreciate the cooperation of the majority leader.
  I understand we will have to move to FISA at some point, but I know 
the majority leader wants to give us fair opportunity to consider these 
amendments and see if we can finish in a day or so, and I hope that can 
be the case.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, through the Chair to my friend from North 
Dakota, we have a Presidential debate going on now. Democrats and 
Republicans are talking about health care. I say to my friend, there is 
no place, no people in America more badly in need of health care than 
Native Americans. In Nevada, we have 22 different tribal organizations. 
The sickest, the most dependent people on health care are Indians. We 
had hospitals that used to exist where they could go, but they are 
gone. We had a hospital that was brand new. It was never staffed. The 
people have to drive 110 miles over the worst roads in Nevada to go to 
the hospital--these Native Americans.
  So I say if we, as a people, have any concern about health care, 
please direct it to the Native Americans. No one needs it more than 
they do. That is what this legislation is all about. We have legal 
responsibilities to take care of it, and we have neglected those 
responsibilities. We as a Federal Government have neglected those 
responsibilities.
  So I so appreciate the chair of this committee, the ranking member of 
the committee, Senator Murkowski of Alaska, and I hope the two of you 
can work hard to get us a piece of legislation we can send over to the 
House and that the President will sign it. People desperately need this 
legislation.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I thank the majority leader. I understand 
we are going to need to move off and go to FISA at some point. We need 
some time, at least another day, to have some amendments, and then I 
think we can finish this bill.
  Frankly, we have a trust responsibility. We have signed treaties, and 
this great country needs to keep its word. It has not kept its word on 
Indian health care. That is the reason we are on the floor of the 
Senate. So I wanted to make this point as we move to consider all these 
other priorities, that one of the significant priorities is to get the 
amendments on the floor, get them debated, have time agreements, and 
let us get this bill passed. It is 10 years late, but let us at least 
pay respect to our word, the commitments we have made, the treaties we 
have signed, and the trust responsibilities that are ours.
  I heard someone say, people aren't dying over this. They are dying 
over this, I guarantee you. I will get you their names. There are 
people who deserve health care who aren't getting it, and the fact is 
people are dying today as a result of it. Ten years later we ought to 
pass this legislation. I have worked hard with Senator Murkowski, 
Senator McCain, and so many others to move this legislation. All we ask 
is fair opportunity to get the amendments to the floor and get them 
considered and voted on and let us do the right thing.
  Tomorrow, I will be back. I do have great passion about this because 
I have seen people who are sick, I have seen people who are suffering 
and I have seen people and talked to people who had children die and 
spouses die because of inadequate health care, because of full-scale 
health care rationing in this country for American Indians. That is 
unacceptable, and it ought to be unacceptable to every single Member of 
this Senate.

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