Mr. Reid: Mr. President, today the Senate will be in a period of morning business until 12:30 p.m. During the period of morning business, Senators will be permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each. The first 30 minutes will be controlled by the Republicans and the second 30 minutes will be controlled by the majority.
At 12:30, the Senate will recess until the hour of 2:15. Upon reconvening at 2:15, the Senate will resume debate on the motion to proceed to S. 184. The cloture vote will occur at 2:30, with the time until then equally divided and controlled between the two leaders and their designees.
As I indicated yesterday prior to the Senate adjourning, the Republican leader and I have had discussions about the 9/11 Commission recommendations legislation, and while the time has been set for the cloture vote on the motion to proceed to S. 184, we will continue our discussions to ascertain whether we can vitiate that cloture vote. If we are able to do that, we would switch to S. 4, which is the Homeland Security-reported matter reported by Chairman Lieberman and Ranking Member Collins.
I would say, as I said last night, whichever vehicle comes to the floor--I would hope we could speed things up by 30 hours by doing S. 4--we need to get to this legislation. I had indicated prior to the recess, and indicate today, it is open to amendment. I, in fact, even have the first Democratic Senator who wants to offer an amendment. I am sure the minority has a lot of amendments they want to offer.
Mr. President, I want to bring to the attention of the body letters Senator McConnell and I received. They are dated yesterday. The letter to me states:
It has been exactly 14 years since the first attack on the World Trade Center; over 5 years since the terrorist attacks of 9/11; and over 2 years since the 9/11 Commission released a blueprint for strengthening America's security. The pace of Congressional response to these wake-up calls has been glacial.
Now, I am not going to read the other three paragraphs of this letter other than to say this letter is signed by different groups--widows and orphans--Carol Ashley, representing a group called VOICES of September 11th, who is the mother of Janice, who was killed in that 9/11 occurrence; Beverly Eckert, representing a group called Families of September 11, and who is the widow of Sean Rooney, who was 50; Mary Fetchet, the founding director and president of VOICES of September 11th, who is the mother of Brad, who was 24, who was killed in the incident; and Carie Lemack, the cofounder and president of Families of September 11, who is the daughter of Judy Larocque, who was 50 years old, who died in that terrorist attack.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the letter be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
February 26, 2007.
Hon. Harry Reid,
Senate Majority Leader U.S. Senate, Washington, DC. Dear Senator Reid: It has been exactly 14 years since the first attack on the World Trade Center; over 5 years since the terrorist attacks of 9/11; and over 2 years since the 9/ 11 Commission released a blueprint for strengthening America's security. The pace of Congressional response to these wake-up calls has been glacial.
The House of Representatives has validated its commitment to improving national security by passing H.R.1. When S. 4 goes to conference, its provisions must match or surpass the strength and comprehensiveness of H.R.l. Failure to act ratchets up the danger for America. The longer critical security issues remain unresolved, the more time and options the terrorists have.
S. 4 should be a clean bill, limited to implementing the remaining 9/11 Commission recommendations. This legislation is far too important to be politicized by the introduction of non-germane, controversial amendments and debate, particularly those relating to Iraq. Attention to both issues is critically important. As such, each deserves separate deliberation.
We urge you to act now to protect America by passing stand- alone, comprehensive security legislation under S. 4 based on the 9/11 Commission blueprint without complications regarding Iraq. The legacy of those whose lives have been taken by terrorists on American soil is in your hands. Prove to the families of those killed in 1993 and 2001, and to all Americans, that this is a new day in Washington, and that safety and security will finally take precedence over special interest groups and politics.
Respectfully,
Carol Ashley, Mother of Janice, 25, VOICES of September 11th.
Beverly Eckert, Widow of Sean Rooney, 50, Families of September 11.
Mary Fetchet, Mother of Brad, 24, Founding Director and President, VOICES of September 11th.
Carie Lemack, Daughter of Judy Larocque, 50, Co-founder and President, Families of September 11.
Mr. Reid: I say to my friend, the distinguished Republican leader and people on his side of the aisle, if people are concerned about going to S. 4 because of not being allowed to offer amendments, I have stated publicly--and I understand because there were no amendments on the continuing resolution--and I will state again, I appreciate very much the cooperation of the Republicans. Even though there were no amendments, this was an issue this Congress, this Senate had to complete. None of the Members of the body here are responsible for what took place prior to this Congress. The 110th Congress is our responsibility, and that is why I am very happy the Democrats and Republicans joined together and got the continuing resolution passed. We were able to work our way through the contentious matters we had dealing with the Iraq war. I stated at the time we were doing that the 9/11 legislation will be subject to amendments.
Senator McConnell and I are working our way through this issue to determine when the next debate will take place regarding Iraq. I hope it can be done on an agreement between the two of us. We are working on that. But I do say, don't anyone suggest the 9/11 legislation will not be open to amendment; it will be. We are going to work our way through that. There will not be cloture filed on this legislation until-- hopefully, it won't have to be done. I think this is a piece of legislation for which it would not be necessary. There certainly will not be anything in the next 10 days. We will take a look at it.
I will work in conjunction with the distinguished Republican leader to find out if cloture ever has to be filed on the 9/11 bill. But I would hope we could gain this extra 30 hours and move to it right away. We could get the opening statements out of the way and some amendments offered today.
I had a leadership meeting at 9 o'clock this morning. I told the Senators there they better be ready for some votes Friday, that we are not going to be finished by 10 o'clock Friday morning. We have to finish this bill and finish it in a way that is appropriate.
So we have a lot of work to do. When we finish the 9/11 legislation, we have stem cells, we have the budget, we have the supplemental during this work period. We have a lot to do. We will need the cooperation of both sides.
I spoke out here last night, and I did my utmost to lay out the facts. We have been able to get a lot done this last work period. It was a long work period. We were able to do some good things. We were able to pass the most comprehensive ethics and lobbying reform in the history of the country. We passed minimum wage legislation for the first time in 10 years. We got the country's financial house in order by completing that. We have done some good work. As I said last night, it has been done on a bipartisan basis. We have worked together. So I hope we can continue to do that.
