Floor Updates
|
|
|
|
Reid, McConnell
Opening Remarks
Dec 04 2014 9:50 AM
Today -
- Following the Leaders' remarks, the Senate will proceed to executive session, equally divided.
- At 10:00 AM, the Senate will conduct up to five VOTES on (roll call):
- Confirmation of Executive Calendar #555, Franklin M. Orr, Jr., to be Under Secretary for Science, Department of Energy;
- Confirmation of Executive Calendar #660, Joseph S. Hezir, to be Chief Financial Officer, Department of Energy;
- Motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar #1039, Gregory N. Stivers, to be United States District Judge for the Western District of Kentucky;
- Motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar #1040, Joseph F. Leeson, Jr., to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania; and
- Motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar #835, Lydia Kay Griggsby, to be a Judge of the United States Court of Federal Claims.
- Thereafter, the time until 1:45 PM will be equally divided.
- At 1:45 PM, the Senate will conduct up to six VOTES on (roll call):
- Confirmation of Executive Calendar #1039, Gregory N. Stivers, to be United States District Judge for the Western District of Kentucky (if cloture is invoked);
- Confirmation of Executive Calendar #1040, Joseph F. Leeson, Jr., to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (if cloture is invoked);
- Confirmation of Executive Calendar #835, Lydia Kay Griggsby, to be a Judge of the United States Court of Federal Claims (if cloture is invoked);
- Motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar #1082, Jeffery Martin Baran, to be a Member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission;
- Motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar #1083, Lauren McGarity McFerran, to be a Member of the National Labor Relations Board; and
- Motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar #552, Ellen Dudley Williams, to be Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, Department of Energy.
Senator Reid: (9:36 AM)
- Spoke on health care.
- SUMMARY "I was struck this morning by looking at the newspapers and listening to the news. Spending on health care in the United States grew in 2013 at the lowest rate since the federal government began tracking in 1960. It was the fifth straight year of exceptionally small increases in the closely watched indicator. The data defied critics who had said such low growth would not continue for long since the recession ended in 2009. Health spending was up last year but only 3.6%. It is really remarkable. This increase is the lowest on record going back to 1960."
Senator McConnell: (9:37 AM)
- Spoke on Senator Johanns.
- SUMMARY "I'd like to pay tribute today to a truly outstanding senator who will soon retire from this body after more than 30 years of public service. Of course, I'm speaking of senator Mike Johanns. Mike has had a remarkable career. He's the only current member of this body, besides Senator Alexander, who has served as senator, governor, and cabinet secretary. And yet for all he's accomplished, Mike isn't the flashiest senator. He doesn't hold the most press conferences. He doesn't yell the loudest. You never have to worry about him knocking you over to get to a TV camera. But in his steady and determined style, Mike has proven himself a remarkably successful member of this body."
Vote Results (Confirmation)
Executive Session (Hezir Nomination)
Dec 04 2014 10:30 AM
Confirmed, 89-3:
Executive Calendar #660, Joseph S. Hezir, to be Chief Financial Officer, Department of Energy.
The vote results will be posted here within one hour.
Vote Results (Cloture)
Executive Session (Stivers Nomination)
Dec 04 2014 10:53 AM
Invoked, 70-23:
Executive Calendar #1039, Gregory N. Stivers, to be United States District Judge for the Western District of Kentucky.
The vote results will be posted here within one hour.
Vote Results (Cloture)
Executive SEssion (Leeson, JR. Nomination)
Dec 04 2014 11:13 AM
Invoked, 66-26:
Cloture on Executive Calendar #1040, Joseph F. Leeson, Jr., to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
The vote results will be posted here within one hour.
Vote Results (Cloture)
Executive Session (Griggsby Nomination)
Dec 04 2014 11:36 AM
Invoked, 53-36:
Cloture on Executive Calendar #835, Lydia Kay Griggsby, to be a Judge of the United States Court of Federal Claims.
The vote results will be posted here within one hour.
Durbin, Toomey, Cornyn
Morning Business
Dec 04 2014 12:04 PM
Senator Durbin: (9:55 AM)
- Spoke on Ebola.
- SUMMARY "With the scientifically grounded and carefully measured approach the hope is health care workers with the same passion, dedication and courage as nurse Janet Teasely will volunteer to help those in need. I met with Tom free den, director of the C.D.C. a couple of weeks ago. He and the members of the public health community maintain the way to contain the spread of Ebola is to contain the virus at its source, to prepare for the possibility of Ebola patients here in America and to help with containment overseas, the Obama administration has requested $6.18 billion in emergency funding, including $1.83 billion for the C.D.C. I support the president. Janet Teasely is a valuable and commendable part of this effort. I hope people will hear her story and support the united States' efforts in Liberia."
Senator Toomey: (11:36 AM)
- Spoke on the Leeson nomination.
- SUMMARY "His practice includes litigation, municipal law, non-profit, religious law. Across the board, a very diverse portfolio. He's also had a long and distinguished commitment to public service. Joe Leeson has served as the Bethlehem city solicitor, as a member of the Bethlehem city council, as an administrator on the board of catholic conference. If confirmed, he will sit in the Allentown courthouse. We need a federal judge in the Allentown courthouse. We have an outstanding judge there now. We need another because the size of the Lehigh Valley region requires that. It will be terrific to have a second federal judge in the Allentown Courthouse for I think the first time. I conclude by saying there is no question in my mind that Mr. Leeson has the experience, the acumen, the temperament and the integrity to be an outstanding federal judge. He will be a great addition to the bench, and I urge all my colleagues to support his confirmation."
Senator Cornyn: (11:52 AM)
- Spoke on executive overreach.
- SUMMARY "The president's executive order represents a direct affront to the constitutional separation of powers, even if you agree on the substance of what did he, which itself is controversial, how he did it was a direct affront to our constitution and the separation of powers. And you know what, it's unsustainable. What happened is it provokes a response from Congress when it feels left out and, in fact, the president is going to need Congress to work with him to fix our broken immigration system because Congress has the power of the purse… Plenty of democrats understand that the president's action has made it significantly harder for us to get off on the right foot in the new year on a number of issues that we already agree on, by and large. The junior senator from North Dakota said the immigration order, "Could poison any hope of compromise or bipartisanship in the new Senate before it's even started." Well, I agree with the sentiment. I hope she's wrong and I hope we can prove that wrong by saying that we're not going to give up and we're not going to let what the president does determine what we do. We have to do our job and we have to function and then we're going to have to work with the president hopefully to try to move the country forward in a number of these areas. So I hope we can find a way to stop the president from acting on his own."
Coons, Ayotte, Tester, Sanders
Morning Business
Dec 04 2014 12:40 PM
Senator Coons: (12:03 PM)
- Spoke on the Manufacturing Skills Act.
- SUMMARY "The bill has one simple goal which we share - to spur reforms in manufacturing skills training across our country. That's it. Our bill would create a competitive grant program to help local and state governments design and implement manufacturing job-training reforms that fit their own unique local economic needs. Once proposals come in, a federal interagency partnership would award the five strongest state proposals and the five strongest local government proposals with funding for three years to implement their targeted reforms. To improve their manufacturing skills training. The funding doesn't all come from the federal government either. Something Senator Ayotte and I share enthusiasm for is getting investment for investment. The federal investment must match one-for-one."
Senator Ayotte: (12:07 PM)
- Spoke on the Manufacturing Skills Act.
- SUMMARY "Rather than proscribe job-training standards or dictate reforms from Washington, our bill allows local officials, business leaders and workers to come together in local communities to build training plans that fit their needs, to help grow jobs in the community. Because Wilmington and Newark, Delaware, have very different work force challenges perhaps than some of the areas of New Hampshire, whether it's Nashua or Concord or Berlin. And we need to ensure that those local officials, that the local employers and that the people of our states are really using the grants that we're able to provide under this legislation to design these training programs for those localities to really allow those workers to be trained for 21st century manufacturing skills. By both targeting manufacturing and giving localities the flexibility and discretion to design reforms that fit their needs, we've come together on a bill that can help our country meet some of its most critical economic challenges and opportunities."
Senator Tester: (12:19 PM)
- Spoke on the Postal Service.
- SUMMARY "The calls and the need for reform are stronger than ever. There is no reason to keep digging. There is still time for Congress to stop the mail processing facility closures scheduled to start in January. That will give us more time to pass good legislation that sets the postal service straight. I urge my colleagues in this body to do just that, because this country needs a viable Postal Service, one that the American people can trust. It's more than just holiday cards and packages. It's about making sure that payments arrive on time. It's about making sure that lease agreements get to the proper people. But it's not just about these things. It's also about having faith as a nation that we as a body, as a Senate, as a House, as a Congress, can make responsible decisions to preserve what's important in this country. There has been a lot of talk about working together and getting things done since the election. I wish it could have happened before the election, but we are where we are. We've got a great opportunity to work together to get something done to keep the postal service solvent and keep those standards high for not only urban America but rural America also."
Senator Sanders: (12:29 PM)
- Spoke on the Postal Service.
- SUMMARY "The reason that Senator Tester and I and hopefully others have come to the floor today is to send a very loud and clear message to the Postmaster General, to our colleagues here in the Senate, to our colleagues in the House and to the president of the United States. And that is at a time when the middle class is disappearing and the number of Americans living in poverty is almost at an all-time high, do not destroy decent-paying jobs at the Postal Service. At a time when the Postal Service is competing with the instantaneous communication of email and high-speed internet, do not slow down mail delivery service. Speed it up. Do not dismantle the proposals by shutting down up to a quarter of the mail processing plants that are left in this country."
Baldwin, Nelson, Murphy, Sessions
Morning Business
Dec 04 2014 1:45 PM
Senator Baldwin: (12:39 PM)
- Spoke on the Postal Service.
- SUMMARY "Congress has failed to act, and I don't know how many have sort of heard this in relation to bills to try to fix problems. Have you ever seen somebody presented an idea and they say, well, look, everybody who's a stakeholder hates this so it must be a good bill? Well, I kind of disagree with that proposition that it has to be that way. I can tell you that there is another way forward and that path involves working with, not against, Postal Service employees and customers. It relieves the Postal Service of congressionally mandated overpayments. It maintains service standards for all communities. And it provides postal service customers with certainty on postal rates. I am going to continue to fight on this issue. I'm delighted and proud to be joining my colleagues here today on the floor to raise this immediate issue of postal process facility closures, this impending issue, but also to renew our commitment to longer-range broader postal reform that gives our constituents, whether rural, suburban or urban the confidence and service that they deserve."
Senator Nelson: (1:00 PM)
- Spoke on the Orion spacecraft.
- SUMMARY "I wanted to share with the senate the fact that we are about to do the first flight test of the new NASA human spacecraft called Orion. As a matter of fact, it was attempted earlier this morning. There was a launch window between 7:05 and 9:44 eastern time. In fact, a combination of some weather concerns plus some questions of valves opening on some of the fuel lines in the rocket and trying to rework those valves ultimately led to the decision to scrub the mission today. The spacecraft looks like a capsule. If you recall the Apollo capsule that took us to the moon, it carried three astronauts. It was 12 feet in diameter. Orion is 16.5-feet in diameter and is being designed to carry four astronauts. But it is the forerunner to the space systems that will eventually in 20 years carry us to the planet Mars."
Senator Murphy: (1:06 PM)
- Spoke on land conservation.
- SUMMARY "Congress passed, enacted in 2006, a land conservation incentive in our tax code that gives a small tax incentive to farmers who decide to put a conservation easement on their land to make sure that it doesn't fall into the hands of developers. Further, we provide a slightly smaller discount, a slightly smaller tax incentive to private nonfarm, nonagricultural landowners who want to donate their land, want to put a conservation easement on their land to make sure it doesn't get developed. This has been of enormous benefit in the state of Connecticut. We have preserved 11,000 acres of land in Connecticut just since this tax incentive went on the books. That's a 45% increase over the previous period of time before we put that tax incentive on the books. It's a wonderful bipartisan policy because we are able by discounting people's taxes to be able to keep land as open space. Without it, frankly, going into the hands of public landowners, which are often met with resistance from a lot of members from our western states."
Senator Sessions: (1:16 PM)
- Spoke on immigration.
- SUMMARY "It is statement to the world, no matter what the law says, you come to America, you get to stay. You'll not be deported. This is a recipe for disaster. It cannot work. What we need in this country, can achieve if Congress and the president will act, is to create a lawful system, enforce the law, to make it a system that we can be proud of, that's fairly applied, a system that ends the ability of people to defraud our country and come in unlawfully and to serve the interest of working Americans. That's what it's all about. Are we serving their interests or are we listening to special interests, political groups and activist groups, politicians who think they gain political advantage and certain businesses who want more cheaper labor? Don't we represent the vast majority of the people? Isn't there a national interest, an interest of the American people? Somebody needs to defend that interest."
Vote Results (Confirmation)
Executive Session (Leeson, Jr. Nomination)
Dec 04 2014 2:14 PM
Confirmed, 76-16:
Executive Calendar #1040, Joseph F. Leeson, Jr., to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
The vote results will be posted here within one hour.
Vote Results (Cloture)
Executive Session (Baran Nomination)
Dec 04 2014 2:33 PM
Invoked, 53-40:
Cloture on Executive Calendar #1082, Jeffery Martin Baran, to be a Member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The vote results will be posted here within one hour.
Vote Results (Cloture)
Executive Session (McFerran Nomination)
Dec 04 2014 2:53 PM
Invoked, 51-42:
Cloture on Executive Calendar #1083, Lauren McGarity McFerran, to be a Member of the National Labor Relations Board.
The vote results will be posted here within one hour.
Vote Results (Cloture)
Executive Session (Williams Nomination)
Dec 04 2014 3:11 PM
Invoked, 57-34:
Cloture on Executive Calendar #552, Ellen Dudley Williams, to be Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, Department of Energy.
The vote results will be posted here within one hour.
Rockefeller, Grassley, Roberts
Morning Business
Dec 04 2014 4:58 PM
Senator Rockefeller: (3:11 PM)
- Spoke on his retirement.
- SUMMARY "To my staff, a senator is really nothing without his staff - or her staff. And there is not a more committed, talented, and deeply passionate staff in the United States senate. Staff, you live and breathe your work every day. You inspire me with your endless capacity for addressing injustice and for fighting for people who need you and come to you in need. You never turned a single West Virginian away. I glory in my gratitude to you. To my family who has sacrificed so much, I thank you. I have been selfish in my devotion to my work, and I have been vastly inept in balancing family and work. Public service is not encouraging of balance. Sharon, you are everything, an extraordinary mother, a remarkable businesswoman, and you are a public servant. You have been a visionary in public broadcasting. Our entire nation to indebted to your efforts to educate and inform us. The impact that you continue to make on public life is truly remarkable. Any achievement I am proud of I share with you eternally. Our children, John, Valerie, Charles and Justin, have all been very thoughtful and endlessly supportive in my absences, and my grandchildren bring me so much joy and I hope to see a whole lot more of them. And to West Virginia, thank you for placing your faith in me. I know it was hard at first. And giving me the greatest reward: The chance to fight for meaningful and lasting opportunity for those who are too often forgotten but absolutely deserve the best. My fellow West Virginians, I am forever inspired by you and I am forever transformed by you."
Senator Grassley: (4:23 PM)
- Spoke on the inspector general.
- SUMMARY "The inspector general's office needs strong leadership that has the courage to tell it like it is and to report wrongdoing promptly to agency heads and even congress with recommendations for corrective action. When the secretary and the under secretary stand accused of misconduct as in this case, the I.G. should double down and ensure public accountability. Thus far in this matter there has been none because truth was hidden behind questionable policies that may have been abused. There is an excellent case in point from just a few years back. Deputy secretary of defense and C.I.A. Director John Deutch allegedly mishandled highly classified information and got hammered for doing it. He lost his security clearance for six years and came very close to prosecution, unlike this case, the zero dark thirty leaks, that John Deutch matter was dealt with effectively and it was aired publicly. The zero dark thirty model was wasteful of the taxpayers' money. It was harmful to morale and harmful to perceived independence of the I.G.'s office. It should be used as an educational tool to teach office of inspector general employees in any department of government how not to conduct investigations of alleged misconduct by senior officials."
Senator Roberts: (4:46 PM)
- Spoke on tax extenders.
- SUMMARY "Since business today is mired in the swamp of regulation and guessing games and unpredictability, the focus of a so-called tax extenders bill should have darned well been focused on business. Not every person in America works for our growing government. The deal would have also helped individual taxpayers from teachers taking a deduction for school supplies they purchase with their own money for help to homeowners who have defaulted on a mortgage or face financial hardship to deductions for college tuitions and expenses. These provisions would keep more money in the pocket of taxpayers, a better place for it. The package represented months of good-faith work by the tax committees and leadership in both houses of Congress, something unique that we have experienced around here for quite awhile. Now obviously the deal wasn't perfect by any stretch, but it would have been a great down payment for true tax reform. But most of all, it would have brought certainty and clarity to tax policies, something we sorely need and which is long overdue… Why are we at this point debating another kick of the can down the road? Well, the imperial presidency has happened. The president has decided that instituting executive amnesty was the best course of action before the end of the year. President Obama's immigration grenade doomed the tax extenders deal and negotiations unraveled."
Heitkamp, Shaheen, Thune, Coats
Morning Business
Dec 04 2014 5:45 PM
Senator Heitkamp: (4:56 PM)
- Spoke on Mayor Denny Walliker.
- SUMMARY "I first want to offer my great condolences to the family of Mayor Denny Walliker from our great city of Fargo, North Dakota. It is with a heavy heart I come to pay tribute to the mayor of Fargo who passed away Tuesday after a very short but aggressive fight in his battle against his cancer. His passing, I think, shocked most of us and certainly saddened all of us. Mayor walliker was a giant in Fargo not only in stature. He was a big guy but as a leader and fighter for the city he loved. He dedicated his entire life to public service first serving in the North Dakota Department of Public Transportation, later joining the city of Fargo as a civil engineer. For 40 years Denny has been a fixture in this growing city from leading the city's flood fight in 1997 as operations manager for the city he later became mayor for."
- Spoke on Senator Rockefeller.
- SUMMARY "I celebrate a senator with an enormous intellect, an enormous capacity for facts and data and public policy, but that wasn't what made him a great senator. What made Jay Rockefeller a great senator was his enormous heart for the people he served."
Senator Shaheen: (5:06 PM)
- Spoke on tax extenders.
- SUMMARY "That's a commonsense, bipartisan, bicameral provision that enjoys a lot of support and one that I think should be included in any reform or extension effort, and that is the enhanced tax incentive for conservation easement donations. Conservation easements are a critical component of modern day efforts to preserve our outdoor treasures. That's something that means a lot to us in New Hampshire where we have so many wonderful natural resources and historic resources and we want to try and preserve them. One of the things that conservation easements do is provide a flexible, voluntary, nongovernmental and nonregulatory approach to protecting our nation's places. Conservation easements and tax incentives for their donations allow landowners to exchange development rights in order to protect a property's conservation values, and that then allows them to pass on those conservation values to future generations. Easements keep the land in its natural state and ensures that these outdoor treasures aren't sub divided and exploited."
Senator Thune: (5:20 PM)
- Spoke on staffer Summer Mersinger.
- SUMMARY "She has tirelessly dedicated herself to public service, to serving the people of South Dakota, to serving the United States Senate and to serving in our office. It will be a very big void indeed when she leaves. But we're grateful for that outstanding service for the time that we've had to work with her, and, you know, most importantly I want to thank her for her outstanding work for the people of South Dakota, for the United States Senate, for our office, but for her friendship. And her always wise counsel. We know whatever she does she will be out there making a difference because that is the kind of person that she is. So we say farewell to her at the end of the year and wish her and her family well and look forward to seeing her around the neighborhood and maybe even someday back in the small down of Oneida, South Dakota."
Senator Coats: (5:25 PM)
- Spoke on Iran.
- SUMMARY "Four American presidents, including this current president, have declared that a nuclear-capable Iran is unacceptable. To give meaning to that repeated commitment, to do whatever is necessary to prevent Iran from getting that dangerous capability is the most urgent matter facing the United States and international security. A robust uranium enrichment industry in Iran means a capability to produce nuclear weapons within an unacceptably brief amount of time. The consequences of a nuclear weapons-capable Iran are not tolerable, not acceptable, and must motivate the most powerful and effective efforts possible to prevent it from happening. That is our challenge. That is the role of the United States Senate. So we must insist on playing a significant role in the examination of whatever is being done and whatever might be put before us and insist that it will be put before us so that we can examine it carefully and not repeat the mistakes of the past, as we have with the Northern Koreans."
Dec 04 2014 7:25 PM
Monday, December 8 -
- The Senate will convene at 2:00 PM.
- Following the Leaders' remarks, the Senate will be in a period of morning business until 2:00 PM, equally divided.
- At 5:30 PM, the Senate will conduct up to three confirmation VOTES on (roll call):
- Executive Calendar #1082, Jeffery Martin Baran, to be a Member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission;
- Executive Calendar #1083, Lauren McGarity McFerran, to be a Member of the National Labor Relations Board; and
- Executive Calendar #552, Ellen Dudley Williams, to be Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, Department of Energy.
Tuesday, December 9 -
- At 10:30 AM, the Senate will conduct up to two cloture VOTES on (roll call):
- Executive Calendar #1080, Virginia Tyler Lodge, to be a Member of the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Valley Authority; and
- Executive Calendar #1081, Ronald Anderson Walter, to be a Member of the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Valley Authority.
- At 6:30 PM, the Senate will conduct up to two confirmation VOTES on (roll call):
- Executive Calendar #1080 (if cloture is invoked); and
- Executive Calendar #1081 (if cloture is invoked).
- Spoke on the National Defense Authorization Act.
- SUMMARY "The bill provides continued funding and authorities for ongoing operations in Afghanistan and for our forces conducting operations against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, so-called ISIS. As requested by the administration, it authorizes the Department of Defense to train and equipment vetted members of the moderate Syrian opposition and to train and equip national and local forces who are actively fighting ISIS in Iraq. It establishes a counterterrorism partnership fund to provide the administration new flexibility in addressing emerging terrorist threats around the world. In addition, the bill extends the Afghanistan special immigrant Visa program, providing for 4,000 new Visas and addresses a legal glitch that precluded members of the ruling party in Kurdistan from receiving Visas under the immigration and nationality act. Our bill takes steps to respond to Russian aggression in Ukraine by authorizing $1 billion for a European reassurance initiative to enhance the United States military presence in Europe and build partner capacity to respond to security threats of which no less than $75 million would be committed for activities and assistance to support Ukraine by requiring a review of United States and NATO force posture, readiness and contingency plans in Europe and by expressing support for both lethal and nonlethal military assistance to Ukraine."
