[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Page 3422]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       SURFACE TRANSPORTATION ACT

  Mr. REID. Madam President, it is a real accomplishment for this 
Senate to pass this highway bill, and it will happen. We worked through 
all these amendments, different tones and variations of subject matter, 
many of them not having anything to do with the highway bill, but as 
everyone knows, that is what the Senate is all about a lot of the time.
  I now call upon my friend, the Speaker of the House of 
Representatives, to move this bill over there as quickly as possible. 
He has indicated that they likely will take up the Senate bill. I hope 
that is, in fact, the case.
  At the end of this month the highway bill expires, which could lead 
to the laying off and termination of a little more than a million 
people. This bill, when it is signed by the President, will save or 
create 2.8 million jobs. It is important to get this done.
  As for the judges, there have been conversations with me and a number 
of different combination of Senators, and I am hopeful we can work 
something out on this. If not, as I indicated, we will go ahead and 
have these judges' votes. We need to get something done here. We have 
17 judges--this does not count the appellate judges--that is, the 
circuit court judges--and there are 4 of those. I am hopeful we can 
work our way toward this culmination so we don't have this situation.
  We have been in touch with the White House. There has been some 
concern about what happens with the 2-week recess that we have, and I 
am confident we will work our way through that. There is a conversation 
as to how we proceed with the IPO bill we got from the House. I think 
there is general agreement that there should be an extremely limited 
number of amendments, and we will move this as quickly as possible. So 
I hope the next day or two or three brings us more success here in the 
Senate.
  Would the Chair announce the business of the day.

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