[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Page 8655]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          UNFINISHED BUSINESS

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, we worked late last night trying to take 
care of some of the final discussion on this legislation before cloture 
today. The reason we have an hour of morning business is to give 
Senators some time to say whatever they want to say as well as to give 
Senators time to look at the proposed consent agreement that was 
arrived at last night between the majority and the minority. I hope 
Senators will allow this agreement to go forward. If people look at 
what is in it, I think there is a series of amendments that will be 
accepted by the two managers of the bill. If someone doesn't like 
something in the consent agreement, be sure and talk to the two 
managers. It would be good to get some of these matters out of the way. 
We have had a number of Senators who have waited a long period of time 
to have their matters resolved. For example, Senator Harkin last night. 
We were able to arrive at a conclusion of an amendment that he felt was 
appropriate. It is an amendment I support and others support it. I just 
think it wouldn't be--for lack of a better word--fair to not let some 
of these amendments go forward, but Senators have the right to make 
whatever decision they feel is appropriate.
  As far as the cloture vote, I don't think anyone can criticize our 
having taken time on this legislation. There are a number of amendments 
the proponents of which worked to perfect the language on and it took a 
while for them to do that. There comes a time, however, when we have to 
put this thing to rest. We have been on this bill for a month. As of 
tomorrow, it will be 1 month. We have another step we have to go 
through and that is conference. People have all kinds of opportunities 
there to make whatever decisions they think are appropriate to make 
this bill better. It gives both sides all the adequate protection they 
want when the bill comes back in its conference form.
  I hope we can move forward. We have a few hours before cloture. I 
hope cloture will be invoked. If it isn't, we will continue working 
until we finish this legislation. As I have told everyone and I will 
say again, we have to finish this legislation, Wall Street reform; we 
have to do the supplemental. I wish to get the supplemental started 
sometime tomorrow. Then we have the extenders we have to do. We have 
parts of that extenders bill that are essential to the economic 
recovery. There are many aspects that are important, but one is the tax 
credit for research and development. Businesses absolutely need that. 
The uncertainty of it is hurting the overall economy.
  We have to do those before we take the Memorial Day break. We can't 
let the troops go unfunded and we can't let those provisions expire.

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