Advancing America's Priorities Act - Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

ADVANCING AMERICA'S PRIORITIES ACT--MOTION TO PROCEED -- (Senate - July 28, 2008)

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I am going to take a minute or so of my leader time.

The issue before us, I say to my colleagues, is whether we are going to stay on the Energy bill. I have some optimism based on a conversation I had with the majority leader on the Senate floor earlier this afternoon that we might be able to come up with an agreement to go forward. This is not the time to go off of the No. 1 issue in this country. On every poll you have seen the American people expect us to deal with the energy problem and to deal with it now.

With all due respect to any other matters that might be pending that all of us have an interest in, the question is, what is the most important thing to do in the Senate this week, right now, and it is to stay on energy.

I would urge my friends on this side to oppose cloture. We will get back to this issue later. Let's stay on energy, finish the job, and deal with the No. 1 issue before the American people.

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I will be constrained to object because, as a practical matter, if we move to that issue, we will be off of the subject indefinitely because of concerns over here about this particular measure. We will be on it indefinitely. We will probably never get back to the No. 1 issue that is before us. So under these particular circumstances, I am constrained to object.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.

Mr. REID. We would be off this as long as it would take to adopt the motion to proceed, which would take 15 minutes for the vote. Then we could move immediately to the bill. We could do that immediately. We could finish it quickly. The only effort that my friend, the distinguished junior Senator from Oklahoma, wants is to throw a monkey wrench into proceedings around here. That is what this is all about.

I do not know why people on the other side of the aisle would join in this. You go home and explain to your constituents about Lou Gehrig's disease. You go home and explain about the stroke legislation. You go home and explain to your folks about the Emmitt Till legislation. You go home and explain to everyone there about the paralysis bill.

Next time you see someone in a wheelchair at home, explain to them how you voted against moving forward on something that may get them out of that wheelchair.

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I am confident--I see my friend from Oklahoma on the Senate floor. Maybe he would like to ask me a question.

Mr. CORNYN. If I might through the Chair, under the rules of the Senate, I would be entitled to 30 hours of debate postcloture on the motion to proceed.

Mr. McCONNELL. That is my understanding.

Mr. COBURN. Should we go past that to a cloture motion, I would be entitled to 30 hours of debate. If you add these, 60 hours of debate, unless we debate all night long every night, would that, in fact, take us past the time, the expected time of adjournment?

Mr. McCONNELL. Reclaiming my time, I think the answer to my friend's question is, that is where we would be. Thus my observation that if we want to deal with the No. 1 issue in the country in the last week we are expected to be here, the appropriate thing to do is to stay on the subject.

Obviously, my friend from Oklahoma feels very strongly about this matter. He and the majority leader are likely to have this exchange again sometime down the road. The question for all of us is, what is the most essential thing to do for America right now?

The American people are asking us to do something about the price of gas at the pump. The way to do that is to stay on that subject at this particular moment, and the way to do that is to vote against cloture on getting off the subject and going to something else.

Mr. REID. With all due respect to my doctor friend from Oklahoma, his math is not very good. The 30 hours, if he would want to take the 30 hours, which appears to be a little outlandish--but that would not be the first go-round we have had with outlandish stuff around here--that would run out sometime tomorrow. The cloture vote would be sometime on Thursday.

No one says we have to leave on Friday. No one says we have to leave until we complete our work. So I would say to my friends, do not take the bait.

First of all, we would be on energy. The Senator from Oklahoma can stall this out, and we know he is entitled to 30 hours after today and 30 hours when we invoke cloture on the bill itself because cloture would be invoked on it if people had a right to vote on that.

But do not take that bait. I say to everyone here, you go home and explain to someone, like I did, like I am going to have to do--Cathy Barrett from Sparks, NV, has Lou Gehrig's disease. She is going to die. The average time from finding out you have the disease until you die is 18 months. Go home and explain to her and her family. And there are 6,000 new cases every year. Lou Gehrig's disease, that is what it is all about.

As I said before, you go and see someone in a wheelchair, and you tell them: I had the chance to do something about that, but I decided we would wait until next year. A year is not so important. You are only in a wheelchair for a limited period of time--perhaps your life.

I think you should also go home and explain to every parent who is concerned about Internet pornography--people who thrive on doing things on the Internet to be in the position to abuse children, that is in this bill too.

I think we should be concerned about an issue that every time you go home--and most everyplace in America has an African-American community. You see someone in that African-American community, you tell them: I did not vote for the Emmitt Till legislation. It was not important enough because I had other things I wanted to do.

So every time you go back to your constituents, African-American constituents, wherever it may be in this country, you tell them: I wanted to get out of Washington; I did not have time to do that.

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the majority leader just made a very strong argument for why this issue he is talking about should not be put off until next year. But the issue before us now is what to do immediately. We have been on the issue of energy for a week. It is time to stay on it and finish the job.

The majority leader, not the minority, determines what the schedule is. If the so-called Coburn bill is so important, I am sure the majority leader will turn back to it soon. But the issue is staying on the No. 1 concern in the country now and finishing the job. The majority leader, who controls the schedule, has it perfectly within his power not to delay this bill until later. In fact, this bill could have been done sooner than now--sooner than now.

The issue today is whether we stay on the No. 1 issue in the country and finish the job. I recommend that we do that.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I hope the Record does not show a grin on my face because there is not one. But I think the statement just made by the Republican leader: I could have gone to this earlier had I wanted to--we have had 90 filibusters, breaking all previous records, breaking all previous records of a Congress from the time we were a country until today. I could have moved to it earlier?

For the last 18 months since we have been in the majority, which I know has caused the Republicans to be in a snit, we have had to file cloture on virtually everything to work around procedural hurdles. So this is all part of the game. And I am disappointed that my Republican colleagues are buying the line of big oil.

We have offered, on many occasions, a vote on their drilling amendment. We did it again earlier today. I hope we can work something out on it. But please do not use that as an excuse to vote against these packages.

I say, and I repeat again, for the 34 different reasons--the 34 different bills in this package being held up for no good reason--it does not affect the debt at all. We have in the Record a letter from the head of the Congressional Budget Office that says it has no bearing on the deficit.

I would hope that because of our African-American communities, people who have Lou Gehrig's disease, people who are paralyzed, people who are concerned about pornography, you will vote for this.

Now, my friend casually says: Well, the Democratic leader will move to this some other time.

There are very few other times left in this Congress. We are going to get out of here in the next week or 10 days, I hope. We then come back in September where we have a few--literally, a few days. There is very little time. So as it happened with LIHEAP, you folks walked right off the cliff last week. You are going to have to go home and explain to the poor, the disabled, and the old people why you voted against LIHEAP because I do not know when we are going to be able to move to it again. I would like to, but I do not know when we can do that again.

I ask for a vote now.

Mr. McCONNELL. Let me say briefly, my good friend is making a campaign speech about who is going to pay a price for this or that or the other. I do not think the American people are particularly interested in that.

What we know they are interested in, all the surveys indicate what they are interested in, is seeing the Congress work together to do something important about the No. 1 issue in the country, and that is the price of gas at the pump.

We have a chance, if we stay on the subject--I am optimistic that we are going to have some amendments that are agreeable to both sides. We can move forward. The majority leader, who is in charge of the schedule, can get us back on any subject he chooses at any time of his choosing. So I would hope our colleagues would vote to stay on the subject of lowering the price of gas at the pump for the American people.

Mr. REID. Every Senator, all 100 of us, are experienced politicians. And for the Republican leader to say there is no price to be paid for what they have been doing: not allowing LIHEAP to go forward, and now, in effect, killing 34 different bills that should have passed like that you do not think there is a price to be paid for it come November 4? The American people will decide that.

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