[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Pages 19881-19884]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   ADVANCING AMERICA'S PRIORITIES ACT

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have a unanimous consent to take up, if we 
have someone here on the other side. We have been working for this 
entire Congress, especially hard the last 6 months, to complete 
legislation that one Senator has held up--34 different bills dealing 
with very important issues: stroke victims, people who are paralyzed, 
postpartum depression.
  We have situations dealing with very serious issues. In fact, the 
``Oprah'' show has dealt with one issue that this one Senator has held 
up dealing with sexual predators, pornography. But one Senator has held 
up 34 different bills. Now, remember, these are authorizations. There 
isn't a single penny spent in any of these bills.
  We have legislation being help up which deals with Emmett Till, 
giving some recognition to what has gone on in years past about people 
of color and how they were treated.

[[Page 19882]]

  So I am going to take a few minutes to make a series of unanimous-
consent requests to try to get some important bills passed. I will 
start with S. 3297, the Advancing America's Priorities Act. And then if 
Republicans block that, I am going to break it into various parts and 
seek unanimous consent to pass these.
  The Senator from Oklahoma has said he has no problem with eight or so 
bills. We will see. It is hard for me to comprehend how, each day that 
goes by, these very important pieces of legislation are held up. We 
have tried to get these passed. I have filed cloture on two separate 
occasions, and it has been blocked by Republicans. This is regrettable 
obstructionism, but it has plagued this Congress. We have had 
approximately 95 filibusters used this Congress.
  We all know the Senate was not built for speed. That is the way the 
Founding Fathers set this up. But what has happened is ridiculous. The 
Senate rules give rights to the minority, as they should, and even 
individual Senators. The Senate rules sometimes make things move slowly 
and don't allow the majority to run roughshod over the minority, and I 
agree with that. The rules promote bipartisanship. They promote a 
deliberative process and policies with broad support throughout the 
country.
  At the same time, however, these rights come with some 
responsibilities. Traditionally, the rules of the Senate have not been 
abused by the minority or by individual Senators. When a policy has 
brought bipartisan support and the Senate committees have acted, 
individual Senators would not hold up important pieces of legislation 
in years past because, otherwise, one Senator is saying: I know best. 
That is what has happened here. I know better than the committee. I 
know better than the Congress, better than the Senate, better than the 
broad bipartisan majority. The Senate rules were meant to promote 
centrism, not egocentrism.
  It used to be that if one Senator was trying to abuse the Senate 
rules, then his or her caucus would set them straight--they would vote 
for cloture, to end the filibuster of the one who was halting progress 
on broad bipartisan legislation. Unfortunately, we have a minority now 
that is not interested in keeping the trains running in America. In 
fact, they are interested primarily in obstructing the process on 
important legislation. There is no better example than what has 
happened on these bills.
  Remember, these bills have passed the House of Representatives, they 
have been reported out of the committees of jurisdiction. We have seen 
an unprecedented number of filibusters by the Republicans. It is not a 
few more than previous Congresses. The Republicans have shattered the 
record for obstructionism. At each step of the legislative process, we 
have seen delay, obstruction, delay, obstruction. We have had to waste 
weeks and weeks of Senate floor time before we could vote on 
legislation which ends up passing by a huge margin.
  We are told by the Secretary of the Treasury, we are told by the head 
of the Federal Reserve System that the No. 1 problem that caused the 
start of the financial meltdown was the housing crisis. Let's go back 
and look at that: Seven filibusters were initiated to pass the housing 
legislation that we ultimately passed. Seven filibusters. In that 
process, more than 100,000 people went into foreclosure.
  We have seen delay, delay, delay. It is regrettable. It is an abuse 
of the process, and it is shameful. The height of the ridiculousness 
came on the cloture vote on the motion to proceed to S. 3297, these 47 
bills, this package of legislation made up exclusively of bills with 
broad bipartisan support. These bills all passed the House with huge 
bipartisan votes--an average of about 380 votes in the House. Almost a 
third of the package has been introduced by Republican Senators. All 
the bills had bipartisan lists of cosponsors--every one of them. The 
bills had seen extensive legislative action. All had been marked up by 
the House committee, voted on by the House, marked up by the Senate 
committee, and reported to the floor. The vast majority had seen all 
three processes. Scores of amendments had been considered and disposed 
of during the legislative process.
  In Congresses past, these bills would have passed with unanimous 
consent with minimal floor time or at least gotten the support of the 
minority to stop this abuse of process. But here, no. In fact, some 
version of the six bills had passed by unanimous consent in previous 
Congresses. Those six bills, plus scores of others, with over $1.3 
trillion of new authorizations, passed under Republican rule last 
Congress with no offsets. How foolish it is to have offsets for 
authorizations--and that is just counting the bills that passed by 
unanimous consent or with the ``yes'' vote of Senator Coburn. But not 
this Congress. This Congress, the Republicans allowed each of these 
bills to be held up by the whimsy of one Senator of their caucus, and 
then, to show the height of how the Republican minority doesn't help, 
now I am being asked to wait until 6:30 or 7 o'clock today, until he 
shows up, holding up the entire Senate, holding up the passage of these 
bills. These bills are not just naming of courthouses. These are bills 
dealing with the Christopher Reeve paralysis bill, helping people who 
are paralyzed, stroke victims; setting up a registry for Lou Gehrig's 
disease.
  What were the bills the Republican Congress allowed Senator Coburn to 
hold up? I will talk about each one at greater length later, perhaps, 
but here is a quick rundown of each of these bills: a bill to stop 
exploitation of children by Internet predators, which has been held up 
for months and months; bills to promote research and education about 
strokes, paralysis--including helping paralyzed veterans. We have seen 
it on their license plates--``paralyzed veterans.'' That is what they 
have in Nevada. I don't know if they have it other places. Paralysed 
veterans--held up; Lou Gehrig's disease; postpartum depression; a bill 
to promote Internet broadband access throughout the country; bills to 
improve research into knowledge about oceans; a bill to improve the 
health and safety of America's beaches; a bill to improve treatment 
options for mentally ill criminals; a bill to help keep America's kids 
off the streets and extend a helping hand to children who have already 
run away from home; a bill to reauthorize an agency that operates at a 
net profit to the U.S. Government, that has helped promote U.S. exports 
for years; bills to promote important U.S. foreign policy and diplomacy 
programs.
  Each of these bills has broad bipartisan support and has seen 
extensive legislative action. Yet Republicans are allowing one person 
to hold up these bills. They vote with him. They vote with him. They 
are just as responsible as he is because they let him get away with it.
  One of the worst things about this obstructionism is that it was 
based on false and disingenuous arguments. The primary argument made by 
Senator Coburn was the package of bills would spend over $10 billion; 
it costs too much. There is not one penny spent. To show how absolutely 
foolish this is, he wrote me a letter and said what he would like me to 
do is for me to pick $10 billion out of this, delete it from the bill, 
and then offer an amendment to put it back in--that I would do that. 
The argument that it would cost $10 billion is simply false. It is not 
true. It is erroneous. The package of bills included only 
authorizations. There was not a dime of appropriations to the package.
  Everyone in the institution knows an authorizing bill does not spend 
a penny. Just to hammer the point home, we had the independent CBO 
confirm that the package did not result in any new spending--which 
didn't take a Ph.D. at CBO to figure that out. Authorizations allow 
programs to be created and funded. When we pass an authorizing bill, we 
hope the authorized level will be looked at it in appropriations 
committee--as I did as a longtime member. But we realize there are 
competing priorities, and full funding doesn't come very often.
  There is an entirely separate process that determines actual spending 
levels;

[[Page 19883]]

that is, the budget and appropriations process. The budget and 
appropriations process determines total spending and sifts through 
competing priorities to determine how much money each program should 
get.
  Further, even when a new program is funded, that money does not just 
appear out of thin air. The appropriators make tough choices. Sometimes 
they will cut one program to the bone to accommodate a new program. 
Other times they will take a little bit here or there to accomplish 
what they want. But in all cases the spending decisions are made 
through budget and appropriations, not through the authorizing process.
  Unfortunately, pesky little things like facts and the truth have not 
been much of an obstacle to obstructionism this year, especially on 
these 34 bills. It is an old playbook. If you repeat a lie enough, then 
gullible people, I guess, believe it. But facts are facts and truth is 
truth. The main argument against this package is false.
  I am going to try again. Due to Republican obstructionism, we simply 
do not have time to spend a full week of Senate floor time on these 
bills. I filed cloture on a motion to proceed once before. The 
Republicans voted against it, so we would have to do that. It takes 2 
years--2 days, I am sorry; it seems like 2 years--2 days to get to that 
first vote, and then there is 30 hours, and then on the bill I have to 
file cloture again; 2 more days, 30 more hours. That has happened 
almost 95 times this year, but on these bills, that is what they did. 
We do not have time to do that. If we have a lameduck session, perhaps 
so.


                   Unanimous-Consent Request--S. 3297

  I am going to seek unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to 
Calendar No. 894, all 34 bills, that the bill be read three times, 
passed, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, and I will 
object on behalf of Senator Coburn, the majority leader is correct, he 
will be here a little later this afternoon and will speak to each of 
these issues. In the meantime, he has asked that I respond to the 
majority leader's unanimous-consent request. The only other thing I 
would say is that his primary objection, as the majority leader is 
aware, is that there have been 35 bills combined into one. Instead of 
having different votes on different bills, you get one vote on 35 
bills, and Senator Coburn has already indicated his willingness to 
allow votes on several of these bills: the Drug Endangered Children 
Act; child pornography prosecutions--Enhancing the Effective 
Prosecution of Child Pornography Act; the Appalachian Regional 
Development Act Amendments of 2008; the Prenatally and Postnatally 
Diagnosed Conditions Awareness Act; the Christopher and Dana Reeve 
paralysis bill that the majority leader mentioned; the Vision Care for 
Kids Act; the Preservation of Records of Servitude, Emancipation, and 
Post-Civil War Reconstruction Act; and with some changes the ALS 
Registry Act; the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act; and the 
PROTECT Our Children Act.
  As I said, the majority leader is aware of Senator Coburn's 
objections to considering these bills as one, and therefore I would be 
required to object.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard.
  The majority leader is recognized.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I say to my friend, with all the many days, 
weeks, and months they have been held up, you cannot blame Senator 
Coburn alone because there has been the complicity of these people on 
this side of the aisle allowing him to do this. It is shameful. There 
is no other way to say it. Everyone knows this doesn't cost a single 
penny. To say they are objecting because we lump them together--did 
they want us to file cloture on every one of these 34 bills? Every one 
of them? Remember what it takes; I have gone over it: 2 days to get to 
cloture, 30 hours after that, get on the bill, 2 more days, 30 more 
hours--it is outrageous what has happened to this country with this 
Republican status quo. And look what the status quo has gotten us. We 
are now in a financial meltdown.
  The objection is unfortunate. These are broadly bipartisan bills, 
these are good bills, these are important bills, but we are not going 
to let obstruction go that easy. I am going to enter a series of 
unanimous-consent requests here to try to move pieces of this package.
  I repeat, the outrageousness of all of this--do you think I might 
have something else to do tonight at 7 o'clock while we are waiting for 
him to jet in from Oklahoma or wherever he comes from? Do you think 
other people have other things to do than to meet his schedule, so he 
can be here to do a few things?
  The first unanimous-consent request is the entire health care portion 
of this package. This portion consists of very important bills covering 
a range of diseases and conditions. I venture to say that every 
American, every family in America is touched by some portion of the 
health care provisions of this package.
  I see in this body the Senator from Maryland. With her help--we were 
new in this body. I had three women come to visit me in Nevada. They 
were all very sick. They had a disease called interstitial cystitis. I 
had never heard the words in my life. Those women did not want to see 
me. They were sick. More than 90 percent of the people who get this 
disease are women. Because we are a male-dominated legislature--not as 
much as we used to be--she was here alone, the only woman. I said we 
have to do something about this because people say this was a 
psychosomatic disease. Fortunately, one of the women who got this 
disease was an orthopedic surgeon. She said: It is not psychosomatic. 
It is like slivers of glass being shoved up and down in my bladder. It 
is not psychosomatic.
  I got the Senator from Maryland to help me. First of all, we 
established a registry for this disease. Now 40 percent of the people 
who get this disease are symptom free. There is a medicine that has 
come about that helps these people.
  In addition to that, because of the advocacy of the Senator from 
Maryland, the National Institutes of Health now have a protocol, so 
that everything that is done to study disease, women have to be 
included. She knows they studied 10,000 people to find out what effect 
aspirin would have on heart disease. We looked at the study and not a 
single woman was tested. They were all men. We have been a male-
dominated legislature, so we ignored them. But because of Senator 
Mikulski, we have not done that.
  What we are trying to do with this registry is the same thing, with 
interstitial cystitis; that is, start having someplace where a doctor 
in Las Vegas or a doctor in Baltimore or a doctor in Chicago or in 
Phoenix can send to a place: Here is what happened with ALS. We were 
able to diagnose it; she got it; he got it; here is how long they 
lived; here are the symptoms--put something together so the great minds 
of America can work to deal with this disease. It doesn't cost any 
money. But Dr. Coburn has held it up, and he is going to continue to 
hold it up. He said this is one he will not agree to.
  As I mentioned, every one of these deals with some problem that 
people within the sound of my voice--either their families, friends, or 
neighbors have a situation that encompasses this. The Christopher and 
Dana Reeve Paralysis Act has been held up for 2 years by this guy--2 
years. I mentioned that also includes paralyzed veterans and the STOP 
Stroke Act. We have the Melanie Blocker Stokes MOTHERS Act--that is 
postpartum depression. Postpartum depression is serious. People are 
hospitalized as a result of that.
  We need do some work on it. Dr. Coburn said this would not accomplish 
a thing, doctors know what to do now. All it would do is create a lot 
of bureaucracy. We do not need to worry about these people. Doctors 
know what to do.
  Vision care for kids, and the Prenatally and Postnatally Diagnosed 
Conditions Awareness Act. Three of the six bills on here, on the health 
care title package, were introduced by Republicans. All of these bills 
passed the

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House with strong bipartisan support and have strong bipartisan support 
in the Senate. But they will not let us go forward, the Republicans, 
even though there are an equal number of bills basically on both sides 
of the aisle. The Republicans are supporting Dr. Coburn in helping us 
get nothing done.

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