December 19, 2005

Summary. Three record votes were taken. The Senate voted to proceed on i.e. debate three bills:

1. Medicaid Reconciliation Act of 2005 a.k.a. the Omnibus Deficit Reduction bill. 86 yeas, 9 nays, 5 no votes.
2. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006. 95 yeas, 5 no votes.
3. Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2006. 94 yeas, 1 nay, 5 no votes.

There are two distinct Defense bills out there.

The Defense Appropriations bills includes provisions for:

a. Aid for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, $29b
b. Bird flu funding, $3.79b
c. Liability limitations for pharmaceutical companies producing flu vaccines
d. Drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)
e. $453.3b for the Pentagon, including $50b for Iraq/Afghanistan
f. Funds for low-income families facing high heating costs
g. A 1% across-the-board cut in all federal programs except veterans adminstration

The Defense Authorization Act has more to do with military policy. It includes the anti-torture language McCain fought for, and it includes language limiting the rights of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The Medicaid Bill includes deficit reduction measures. These include a law forcing all television signals to go digital by 2009. The government is freeing up the analog spectrum in order to sell it for $10b to parties including wireless companies. Part of the freed up spectrum will be reserved for emergency responder communication. What this means is that TV that cannot receive digital signals will become obsolete in 2009. No Democrat in the House supported this bill.

The three votes today were similar in nature, approving motions to proceed on each respective piece of underlying legislation. None of these votes passed any type of legislation.

Reid forecasted that a cloture vote on the Defense Appropriations bill could occur Wednesday, although Tuesday is not out of the question. Some uncertainty remains as to whether the Democrats will filibuster this bill; Sen Lieberman indicated he would be willing to filibuster, which makes a filibuster sound possible. Yet, Sen Stevens has added language to the ANWR provision directing a portion of the ANWR leasing payments to the gulf states hit hard by the hurricanes. Finally, some unusual procedural matters surroung the bill due to the way Sen Stevens went about attaching the ANWR language to it. However, only 50 votes will be needed to get past these procedural obstacles and move on to the cloture vote. Tomorrow morning beginning at 9:45 est, the Senate will resume consideration of the Omnibus Deficit Reduction bill.

Without further ado, some of this morning's action:

[9:33 est]

Sen MaJ Leader Frist (TN) comes on. Sen Murkowski (AK) is presiding officer. Frist recounts House passage of the Defense spending bill and the deficit reduction conference report. He says he'll be working to schedule a vote on defense authorization bill. There will be ten hours of debate on the deficit reduction conference report. No roll call votes this morning but very possibly after lunch. Now he's talking about having hosted Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts in the Capitol. Something called the Support our Scouts Act of 2005, which is in one of the defense bills...tremendous contributions of scouting...congressional charter in 1910...tune out at [9:37]...he suggests absence of a quorum at 9:43...

Sen Feingold (WI) ends the quorum call at 9:57. He is addressing the omnibus department of defense appropriations bill and how drilling in the Arctic has been attached to it. Drilling in ANWR has no relation to the defense bill, he says. He is reading from Senate web page on rules. Conference committees, reports: conferees should not insert into their report matters not agreed to...You can break the rules because you will immediately reinstate the rules...is this really the message the Senate wants to send to the public...just attach language to an important funding bill...is this the precedent we really want to set?...how will we respond when our constituents ask us...I hope when it comes time for the Senate to go on record that a majority will take the position that these rules are worth defending...

[10:02]
Ted Stevens (AK) now comes on...he talks about ANWR and how the Senate has passed it before but Clinton vetoed it...we don't filibuster national security issues, he says...the constant filibuster during this decade...cites how much oil the department of defense uses...says this is a bill about domestic oil production...I am not trying to overturn the rules...we disagree that oil is not needed in national security...the ones who vote for this are the ones who believe in national security...national security defense appropriations act of 2005...something about the right to vote to overturn the conference chair ruling...

[10:11]
Feingold is back on. He says Senate has never passed the version of ANWR in this bill. He yields the floor.

Stevens is back on. If it was possible to have appeal of chair...that's not breaking the rules...we took bill that passed house and added to it the Katrina provisions...it's the version of it that passed the House before...says Feingold's comments come close to breaking the rules themselves...if there is a ruling, we do not want to disturb the rules is the language we used...something about worrying that if chair is overruled the rule might be nixed so saying you aren't trying to take Rule 28 out of the rules making clear that we don't want the rule to be nixed...says Min Leader Reid came up with this maneuver...I am not violating the rules...I'm putting my faith in the senate to support national security as they support the conference report...I'm not offering an amendment to the bill...I'm managing the conference report [meaning it won't need 60 votes, will need only 50]...only 1.5m acres open for development...

Reid makes parliamentary inquiry...would this set a precedent...almost impossible to enforce?...this is clearly what is being attempted by Stevens, wrong...another parliamentarian fired over a matter similar to this...this is a defense approp bill...to wave flag of national defense...it'll be ten years before we get any oil...why not do it the right way?...voted against it being inserted in reconciliation...he won there...but to do it this way is wrong...if the rules are inconvenient let's just go around them...this has never been done before...contempt for the rule of this body...Lord Acton was right...absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely...ethical lapses in this town...we'll vote on cloture probably on Wed...then we'll vote on upholding the ruling of the chair...

[10:22]

Stevens back on. I have maintained a constant position...

Reid Says, If the defense bill is filibustered will be quickly modified and passed...he says it was Stevens who said that to a newspaper yesterday...no one voting on this point of order will stop the defense bill...this bill will go forward...we have a continuining resolution to take us til the end of the year...we could go home today...as soon as the new session convenes he could get this through...

Stevens, I do believe we can go back to the conference to help the department of defense...

Reid says possibility of two cloture votes back to back so he says we could agree to a time limit on this legislation...

Now, Sen from WA, Maria Cantwell...concerned about this process...because this legislation from the House, there are senators who have great concerns over this measure...would like to wrap this up and go home and spend time with my family...could go home today if Senator would take this language of the bill...in fact it is being help up...controversial provision, House couldn't get it passed with it in there...colleague says he's not holding up the process when it's very clear he's holding up the process...arguing about this for 25 years...notion that this is about national security is unclear to me...what's national security is passing a clean DoD bill...safety for pipelines in Iraq...we're talking about something we're doing today...we should strip this ANWR language out and pass this bill...it's in someone's interests, it's in Alaska's interests...I get why the state of AK cares so much, of course AK would hold up the legislative process...get ANWR in by hook or crook...get off of overdependence on oil...diversify and move forward...affordable energy rates in this country...overruling the parliamentarian (our judge here)...voting to overturn the parliamentarian and then quickly reinstating the rule...legislative blackmail...must-pass bill...asking members to overrule the parliamentarian...and then go back and say the parliamentarian was right?...how many rules are we willing to break?...American people want us to send the money to the troops and go home...let's give the troops the money they need to make sure that 800,000 bpd are protected right now...

Sen Dorgan (ND). When we debate this issue (Wednesday), those who believe it violates the rules of the Senate will raise a point of order. Indeed my colleague has a right to pursue it but it will require violating and changing the rules of the Senate. It abrogates other rights of the Senate. Rules are rules. If we decide that we can stick anything unrelated on this conference report...there's an arrogance there that does not befit the Senate...