October 30, 2007: Amtrak Reforms Passes; Cracks Develop in Senate Stance on S-CHIP

[20:26]
The Senate adjourned earlier this evening. It will return to session tomorrow at 12:00. After a one-hour period of morning business, the Senate will resume consideration of a motion to proceed to the S-CHIP bill. A motion to proceed only requires 50 votes to pass, but if a cloture vote on the motion to proceed is required, 60 senators will have to vote in the affirmative. Reid will likely not allow such a vote to go ahead if he does not have the 60 votes. I'll be interested to see how this plays out tomorrow and whether some other arrangement will be hammered out in the meantime.

[19:13]
Durbin is taking care of some Senate business. Reid often handles these matters. Perhaps is is occupied with negotiations over S-CHIP and the farm bill.

[19:13]
Richard Durbin (IL) is speaking about Iraq.

[18:48]
The Senate is in quorum call. Not much has happened since the Senate voted to pass the Amtrak bill.

I am anticipating Harry Reid's closing remarks; especially interested to see what he says about the future of S-CHIP and when the Senate will take up the Farm Bill.

Republican supporters of S-CHIP told Reid that they needed a couple of days to shape the bill so that it would garner more Republican support, whether that be the White House or House voters.

Reid propounded a unanimous consent request to vote for cloture on the S-CHIP bill late Wednesday but then take up the Farm Bill before returning to S-CHIP in a couple of weeks. The Republican leadership objected to this arrangement, leaving plans for the bill up in the air. The Republican leadership did not want to vote for cloture on S-CHIP when it remained unclear what the S-CHIP bill was going to look like. A successful cloture motion would limit further debate on the bill, making it harder to amend ex post facto.

[18:06]
Claire McCaskill (MO) is giving an elegy for Porter Wagoner. She says that Wagoner was from Missouri.

[16:55]
The Amtrak bill has passed with the support of virtually all of the Democrats and a majority of the Republicans. The bill now has to get the approval of the House of Representatives.

[16:40]
The Senate is in the midst of final passage of the Amtrak Reauthorization Act of 2007. A decent number of Republicans have voted against it, but it will pass with bipartisan support.

[16:11]
The Senate is voting on a DeMint (SC) amendment to the Amtrak bill. The amendment would require Amtrak to print on each ticket the amount of federal subsidy going toward the ticket. This amendment does not have very much support and it will not pass. Its detractors, including Lautenberg (NJ), argued that airline tickets do not feature the amount of federal subsidies supporting each ticket sold. The cost of printing this on each ticket would also be prohibitive, said Lautenberg, because the amount of subsidy could change.

[15:03]
The S-CHIP bill might be falling apart in the Senate. Lott (MS) says that there are "huge problems" with current negotiation on the bill. He says that Senate proponents of the bill including Hatch (UT) have gone around Republican leadership in trying to reach a deal on the bill. As far as Lott can tell, the new version of S-CHIP that the House passed last week actually costs more than the version of S-CHIP that Bush vetoed.

Republican leadership and a certain contingent of Senate Republicans have objected to a Reid unanimous consent request that would have moved the Senate right into S-CHIP upon completion of the Farm Bill. The objecting contingent wants to know what the S-CHIP bill is going to look like before they will agree to return to debate on it.

[14:51]
Majority Leader Harry Reid (NV) is speaking on the floor. Based on what he is saying, the Senate is not going to return to S-CHIP this week. Maybe not next week either. He said that Republican proponents of S-CHIP (e.g. Hatch (UT), Grassley (IA)) asked him for more time to come up with some changes to the legislation that will make it acceptable to the President or, in lieu of that, veto-proof.

The plan will be to work on the Farm Bill and then come back to S-CHIP in a couple of weeks. Once the farm bill is complete (which could take awhile!) the Senate would vote on a motion to proceed to cloture on the S-CHIP bill. You need 60 votes for that. Reid seemed to suggest that even though 67 senators previously voted for S-CHIP that somehow the Senate wouldn't have 60 votes for cloture on a return to S-CHIP.

[12:38]
The Senate has recessed for party lunches. Back in action at 14:15.

[12:10]
The Senate is voting for cloture on the Amtrak bill. Quick aside: After every vote, the senators mill around on the floor chatting about this and that, making it impossible for anyone to speak. It is the president pro tempore's responsibility to get the Senate back in order. Certain senators, sitting as president pro tem, are better at this than others. A lot of time, robert Byrd will turn on his mike in the audience and ask for order. Today he tells Bob Casey (PA), who was sitting as president pro tem, "Please crack that gavel, that's what it's for."

Result (60 yeas needed): Cloture succeeded

Yeas: Most senators
Nays: Republicans such as Coburn, Barrasso, Shelby, and Sununu

[11:43]
First vote of the day. The clerk will call the roll. The question is on the Coburn Amendment to the Amtrak Bill, No. 3474. See 11:16 entry below for explanation of Coburn's Amtrak amendment.

Result: 67-24 voted nay, the amendment was not agreed to

Yeas: Some Republicans and McCaskill (MO)
Nays: Everyone else

[11:38]
Now there is some back and forth between Coburn and Amtrak floor managers Lott and Lautenberg. Coburn says that American Airlines saved $30m last year by restricting food service. And you know what, he says, we still fly American Airlines. We just buy our food before we get on. He says that Amtrak loses $250m on food service every three years.

Lautenberg worries that if food service is cut on a line, people are not going to ride the line at all, and it will have to be cut.

[11:26]
Trent Lott (MS) is helping to manage the Amtrak bill on the floor. He is responding to a Coburn (OK) amendment on Amtrak food service (see below, 11:16).

He says that if the Amtrak lines can't offer food service, you might as well terminate the line. If you're on an overnight line, what are you going to do if there's no food service? Still, Lott agrees that Amtrak needs to look at how it manages its food service.

Lott, though, has a problem with Coburn's amendment to the extent that it requires Amtrak to renegotiate food contracts if, after one year, it is losing money on food service for a particular line. The amendment goes further to require termination of food service if Amtrak is losing food service on a particular line for two straight years. Lott can't support this.

[11:16]
Tom Coburn (OK) is offering an amendment to the Amtrak bill, No. 3474. It affects food service on Amtrak. "Anybody knows," says Coburn, "that when you fly American Airlines you can buy a Milky Way for $3." His amendment requires Amtrak to report yearly on how its food and beverage service is managed.

Under the amendment, all line would have to submit quarterly reports on food service profit or loss to the Secretary of Transportation. If a line loses money on food service during any one fiscal year, it must renegotiate its food service contracts (including labor). If during two consecutive fiscal years, a line loses money on food service, it must terminate food service. It can only recommence food service on that line after the passage of one year and with the approval of the Secretary of Transportation.

Coburn points to a chart showing that year-after-year, federal subsidies to Amtrak have increased. Coburn doesn't mind too much federal subsidies to Amtrak, but if Amtrak can't break even selling food and beverages, it should stop offering them, says Coburn. "I can't figure why we're subsidizing peoples' purchase of Three Muskateers and bottled water. The airlines know how to take advantage of a captive audience, he says. Why can't Amtrak do it?"

In general, the federal subsidies allow Amtrak to continue to operate on those lines that lose money. One example of a line making money is the Acela line that runs from DC to Boston.

[11:07]
Soon there will be a cloture vote on the Amtrak Reauthorization Act of 2007. The bill extends federal subsidies to the Amtrak service lines.

This will limit debate. One or two votes on remaining amendments could follow. Then the Senate will recess for a couple of hours. Later this afternoon or tonight, expect a vote on final passage of the bill.

The bill has broad, bipartisan support and should easily pass.

[11:05]
So far this morning, general speeches. Edward Kennedy (MA) reappeared in the Senate for the first time since undergoing surgery to clear blockage in an artery. He spoke about the S-CHIP bill, which the Senate could turn to this afternoon.

Ben Nelson (NE) spoke about Iraq.