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“JUMPSTART OUR BUSINESS STRENGTH (JOBS) ACT--Resumed” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Labor was published in the Senate section on pages S5044-S5047 on May 7, 2004.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
JUMPSTART OUR BUSINESS STRENGTH (JOBS) ACT--Resumed
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the pending business.
The assistant journal clerk read as follows:
A bill (S. 1637) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to comply with the World Trade Organization rulings on the FSC/ETI benefit in a manner that preserves jobs and production activities in the United States, to reform and simplify the international taxation rules of the United States, and for other purposes.
Pending:
Cantwell/Voinovich amendment No. 3114, to extend the Temporary Extended Unemployment Compensation Act of 2002.
cloture motion
Mr. FRIST. I now send a cloture motion to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
The senior assistant bill clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, hereby move to bring to a close debate on Calendar No. 381, S. 1637, a bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to comply with the World Trade Organization rulings on the FSC/ETI benefit in a manner that preserves jobs and production activities in the United States, to reform and simplify the international taxation rules of the United States, and for other purposes.
Bill Frist, Charles E. Grassley, Jon Kyl, Jim Bunning,
Lindsey Graham, Mike Enzi, Trent Lott, Mitch McConnell,
Craig Thomas, Orrin G. Hatch, Gordon Smith, Rick
Santorum, Robert F. Bennett, John Ensign, Olympia J.
Snowe, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Don Nickles.
Mr. FRIST. I ask unanimous consent the live quorum under rule XXII be waived.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I mentioned in my remarks last night the importance of finishing this bill. Members on both sides of the aisle understand the importance of this legislation, the importance of jobs in manufacturing in this country, and the importance of addressing this Euro tax that each month we don't act goes up by $30 million, $40 million, $50 million--a tax on products we all use in this country.
I hoped we could have finished the bill this week. I set out both several weeks ago and at the beginning of last week with the objective of finishing this bill over this last week. We have spent, I should add, 12 days on this particular bill. The Democratic leader and assistant leader have stated they are willing to lock in a short list of amendments with short time agreements to complete this bill. I have heard them. We discussed this both on and off the Senate floor. Unfortunately a number of those amendments are controversial and are not germane to this legislation.
We have had a fair process on this bill. We have given Members ample opportunity to offer their relevant amendments and have them debated. We voted on a whole range of amendments thus far. Issues like the overtime amendments, the trade assistance amendment, and others, to my mind, would have been better suited on other bills.
We do have an amendment pending on unemployment insurance which, again, is not germane to this particular bill; but, having said that, the UI, this unemployment insurance amendment, has been pending and, as both implied last night and in discussions off the Senate floor, it may be possible for us to reach an agreement to vote in relation to that amendment prior to cloture.
I say that because I just filed cloture, which doesn't rule out germane amendments. After cloture is obtained, if we obtain cloture, and I hope that we will, we will still have 30 hours to debate the germane amendments. I do hope we will invoke cloture. That cloture vote will occur on Tuesday so we can bring this bill to conclusion.
Again, I want to remind my colleague, if we invoke cloture, amendments are in order. There would still be up to 30 hours remaining on that bill.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic whip.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, we discussed at some length our desires to have the few amendments that we have debated and voted on. It would take just a short period of time. There is no need to go into that again. We feel it would be appropriate to do that. This bill could have been completed yesterday had we spent yesterday on these amendments that we talked about.
Of course it goes without saying that I am very confident that cloture will not be invoked unless there is an opportunity to vote on the unemployment matter. Even if that is disposed of, there is no guarantee cloture will be invoked.
I have said on two separate occasions yesterday and I say today, with our managers on the bill here, how hard they have worked. Certainly, what has happened on this bill or has not happened does not reflect in any way adversely on the good work they have done. They have done an excellent job.
With all due respect to the distinguished majority leader--and I know the burdens of his office are significant--I really believe the Senate should be treated as the Senate, as we have done for all these many years. I think it would be much better if we work that way. We are not the House of Representatives. We do not have to have a rule from a rules committee to tell us what is going to happen on the floor.
We have had hundreds of amendments on bills we wind up finishing. We don't have hundreds of amendments here, even though we started out on our side with 75 and we have been able to dispose of some. We have a couple of amendments that will be relevant and debatable postcloture. We know that. Those are the Hollings amendment and the Landrieu amendment, and there may be some others we can work in there. But I just think to avoid some contentious issues we are causing the Senate a lot of undue problems. As I said here last night, this legislation is going to pass; it is only a question of when. This is ``must do'' legislation. It has to pass before we leave here this year.
I, again, recognize the problems the majority leader has. All his problems are not on our side, I say with some degree of understanding. He has problems on his side. This bill is certainly an example of that.
So we will do whatever we have to do to meet the demands of our slight minority here. As you know, the Senate is almost equally divided. That is one reason everything we do here is made more difficult. It is 51-49 on every issue that comes up. We are all looking for a little advantage.
I think unemployment compensation, where we have more than a million people who would receive this money immediately, certainly makes our case strong.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I very much commend and thank my colleagues, the majority leader and assistant minority leader, in trying to work through this bill as we are approaching the endgame. We are about there. We are very close to being there.
I might recall, a few weeks ago many observers had written off this bill and said the bill was deadlocked--for example, over the overtime provision. But to paraphrase Mark Twain, his comment to the New York Journal years ago: The report of this bill's death was an exaggeration.
Instead, we are now back to doing what the Senate does best; that is, working through amendments, doing our work, doing our business, doing what we should do. We have considered 28 amendments. We have already adopted 17 amendments to this bill. I will not read them all, but they are very important amendments. We have been on the bill 13 separate days over the course of 4 separate weeks.
It has been the desire of this Senator to have the Senate consider as many relevant amendments as possible. Since we have already adopted 17, I think we are virtually there. Regrettably, we are at a point where several Senators are not agreeing to the setting aside of pending amendments so other Senators may offer amendments, which is making it a little difficult to move forward. But nevertheless, I believe that the resolution that has been worked out by the majority leader and the assistant minority leader and others of us who have been working on this, by having a vote on the pending Cantwell amendment on unemployment insurance, is a real key. It is very important to the successful conclusion of this bill. It is something we sought all along on our side, and I think it is also something that would be presumptively in the best interests of the majority side as well. Now that a cloture motion has been filed, we still expect to proceed to additional amendments--there are not many--that will be germane: the Hollings amendment, the Levin amendment, the McCain amendment, also Senator Landrieu's amendment, and maybe one or two others. We will continue to seek agreement on the amendments and, therefore, we will be doing what the Senate should be doing--simply facing the issues and voting. That is when the Senate is at its best.
Let me also make it clear that this Senator believes it is entirely reasonable to bring this debate to a close. We have worked hard on the bill. We have done a great deal of work, much more than many expected. This is an important bill. It is important to creating jobs in America. It is important to ending the European tariffs that mount on American businesses, growing higher.
The coming cloture vote will be a true test on this bill, a test of whether we do address the jobs problem, whether we address the European tariffs. It is our duty to do so. Thus, when the roll is called, I will vote for cloture. I will also urge my colleagues to do so as well. If we do so, we may best hope to conclude action on this bill by next Tuesday or perhaps on Wednesday.
I thank my colleagues for their cooperation.
Mr. REID. While the distinguished manager of the bill is on the Senate floor, I direct a question to him through the Presiding Officer.
Hearing the statement of the Senator from Montana, I wonder, would the Senator vote to bring debate to a close if we do not have a vote on the unemployment compensation matter, the Cantwell amendment?
Mr. BAUCUS. I say to my good friend, it puts me in a very awkward position, frankly. I say awkward because it is a hypothetical which I hope does not occur. It is very important.
Mr. REID. I accept that answer.
Mr. BAUCUS. It is very important that the Cantwell amendment be brought up.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of both of my colleagues. Both reflect we want this bill completed. It is an important bill that will take bipartisan cooperation to finish.
I restate that we have spent 12 days on this bill. The purpose of the cloture motion is to allow us to continue to debate, to continue to amend, but to bring closure to a process that has gone on 12 days, that has included 20 individual amendments that have been adopted in the Senate, 11 of those amendments by voice vote and 9 disposed of by rollcall votes. Of the 20 amendments, 8 were Democrat amendments, 8 were Republican amendments, and 4 were from the Finance Committee, 1 of those being the substitute amendment. The new substitute, in itself, had 64 amendments that had been requested by Members of the Senate.
We have voted on amendments that meant a lot to the Democrats, including Senator Harkin's amendment on the Department of Labor overtime regulations and Senator Wyden's amendment on the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program. We made huge progress. Now is the time to give definition to closure where we will still debate the germane amendments and have that debate and vote.
I want to give adequate time, but I plead to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to understand we have the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act that I hoped we would do on Monday, an important bill that affects about 4 to 5 million Americans that we must get to, that we will bring to the Senate. We have unanimous consent to deal with it once we get it to the Senate, but I cannot get it to the Senate as long as we are debating amendments. All of the amendments have substance to them, but we need to take a bill and concentrate on the amendments that are germane to that bill, and then we move to the next bill.
I have the Individuals with Disability Education Act; I have bioshield. Right now bioterrorism is an existential threat which affects all of us. There is an important bill called bioshield that I need to bring to the Senate to address the safety and welfare of this Nation. We have the Department of Defense authorization that I have to go to in about 8 days. Again, we are trying to do the Nation's business. We are fighting a war right now that is affecting this Nation and the entire world. It is our responsibility to be able to address and give that adequate time in the Senate.
Again, this bill we are on, FSC/ETI, is as important as any, but we need to stay on it in a focused way. The managers have done a great job to date. We are giving further definition to it by hopefully invoking cloture.
We have seven ambassadors to bring to the Senate to be confirmed. We have 33 judges. Under the current system, we bring a judge, have a rollcall vote on each judge. I am having a difficult time getting judges to the Senate floor. Thirty-three judges are waiting to be confirmed by action of this body. I say that because--and I know my colleagues know this--we have a lot to do in a very short period of time. Thus, we have to use our time in the Senate as efficiently as possible and consider those amendments which are appropriate and germane to the bill under consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The assistant Democratic leader.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I express something I know sounds like heresy: One thing we could do is work more days. I came here many years ago. The distinguished manager of the bill has worked in the House of Representatives, as I. I still use the House gym. I say to everyone, I own the gym. They are never there. They are there Wednesday and Thursday morning. That is about it. And late Tuesday night. They left yesterday afternoon. They were out at 2. When we worked there, we worked Mondays, Fridays, all night.
I say to my friend, the distinguished majority leader, I know people are campaigning. When we were in the majority, we got tremendous pressure from Members wanting to leave and catch airplanes, but maybe we could try working a little bit longer around here and get judges confirmed and other things that need to be done. I know it is heretical asking for longer hours, but that is something we should consider.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I will move on to other topics, given the fact that some people think we work too many hours already. And I comment--because a lot of people are listening now--there are committee meetings going on right now, actually very important hearings and a markup of the defense bill that will go on until probably 7 o'clock tonight by Senators in our Nation's Capital. Although we are not right here, because we are going to try to close down in a few minutes, our colleagues are working, doing very important business in committee markup at hearings on Capitol Hill. They will go until probably early this evening.
I take the opportunity to comment on the economic news from this week. It is dramatic and encouraging. Although we wake up, turn on the television, read the paper, and we cannot help, by the time we get to the second page, being depressed about what is going on in the world, we have some great news that affects America, every American, every working American, every family member out there. The news is about jobs. It is nothing short of amazing what can be said about the economic statistics that have come out over the last 48 hours.
With today's report of 288,000 payroll jobs being created in the month of April, the economy has created over 1.1 million jobs over the last 8 months. The job gains were widespread, and the revised figures at the end of each month--you go back and revise the figures for the previous month--now show manufacturing jobs have grown for the last 3 months. That is the first time we have had a sustained 3-month growth in years.
Second, the past 2 months have been the strongest 2-month job gain in over 4 years. The number of persons unemployed dropped by 188,000 last month. That is still unacceptable, to have 8.1 million unemployed. But this is the lowest it has been since the winter of 2002. So it is progress. We are moving in the right direction.
Thirdly, construction spending was reported this week at the highest level in history--at the highest level in history.
Fourth, the service sector is growing at its fastest pace, not just in 1 year or 2 years or 3 years or 5 years, but the fastest pace in 7 years.
Finally, in terms of great news, the Congressional Budget Office estimated, yesterday, that revenues are running $30 billion to $40 billion higher than anticipated for the year. Of course, that goes right to the bottom line in terms of reducing the Federal deficit.
All this is good news, but we have so much more to do. So I say, it is good news, but we cannot rest until we make sure everybody who is looking for a job can get a job. It really ties into our previous discussion on the importance of bringing to closure passing this FSC/
ETI JOBS legislation. But it has been a remarkable past 8 months.
Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. FRIST. I am happy to yield.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I am not much for giving advice to the distinguished Senator from Tennessee, but here is some advice I would like to give you.
In the morning, when you get up, just as I do--I grab the newspaper, but I go immediately to the sports page. That way, there is good news. I feel pretty good then. And then I work my way to the front page. I would suggest you do that because there is always good news on the sports page.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, is that in the first section or the back section?
Mr. REID. I go right to the front page of section C. Usually all of it is the sports.
Mr. FRIST. I will take that counsel, and consider the previous counsel on working harder and later and more days, but I am not sure I will take that.
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