January 29, 2008: House passes a 15-day FISA extension; Senators ready stimulus amendments

Senate still going, but I must step away

[19:10]
The Senate is in a quorum call. At some point here, the party leaders will come out and explain what's been going on in the cloak room all afternoon. But I've got plans to go hear the Florida primary results with a good friend and a few brews. See you tomorrow.

Brown and Dorgan lament job losses

[18:38]
Sherrod Brown (OH) asks permission to vitiate the quorum call and speak to the House as if in morning business. C-SPAN2 shows Robert Menendez (NJ) cracking a smile in the chair, as he grants Brown permission to speak. Brown, of course, spent 14 years representing Ohio in the House before beating Mike DeWine for a senate seat in 2006.

I like Brown's energy, I must admit. He's got this gravelly voice, like he just smoked a pack of reds in the cloak room. He uses a lot of hand gestures and bounces back and forth as he talks. His speeches are getting better. For a freshman senator, he exhibits a savoir faire that's hard to come by. Another bonus, he is happy to yield to other senators for a makeshift colloquy on the floor.

And, hey, there's Byron Dorgan (ND) wanting Brown to yield for a question. They are chatting about trade agreements, among other topics. Brown and Dorgan for sure are among the most skeptical senators where new trade agreements are concerned. Brown also strikes me as a big labor guy.

Dorgan says that the economy needs more than a polish and someone singing a nice song. He cites the losses of jobs from Ohio including companies like Huffy bicycles and Etch-a-Sketch. He talks about Nabisco, the National Biscuit Company. Well, it ain't so national anymore because they make their Fig Newtons now in Mexico. You want some Mexican food? Eat Fig Newtons, he says.

Last night, President Bush urged Congress to approve free trade deals with Colombia, South Korea, and Panama. Dorgan and Brown will introduce a bill requiring that trade agreements meet certain benchmarks.

House passes 15-day FISA extension, while Senate remains in quorum call

[17:25]
The Senate has been in a long quorum call. Across the Capitol, the House has been busy. First it passed its version of an economic stimulus bill, something like 385-35. The House then passed a 15-day extension of the changes to FISA that Congress passed in August. Those provisions of FISA are set to expire Friday.

It has been a quiet afternoon in the Senate. Note that the Senate Finance committee is scheduled to "mark up" the House stimulus bill tomorrow. Marking up means rewriting the bill, at least in part, so as to reflect the interests of senators on the committee. Finance committee chairman Max Baucus (MT) has indicated that senators will indeed be offering amendments to the House-passed bill. He declined to agree that such add-ons would delay or derail the bill. President Bush last night warned senators not to alter the bill so as to delay or derail it.

15-day FISA extension is in the works

[16:34]
It appears that both houses and both parties of Congress have agreed to a 15-day extension of the current FISA law. Senators had been working to pass a revision of this law but progress on the bill stalled when Democrats wishing to amend the intelligence committee version of the legislation were met with a Republican-led amendment embargo. The White House has also indicated it would sign off on this 15-day extension, allowing senators more time to reach some agreement concerning these amendments.

One observation. It's not as though the whole FISA Act expires on Friday. Much of the FISA apparatus first passed into law in 1978 will remain intact. Expiring on Friday are only those provisions that Congress revised in August, when it passed the Protect America Act of 2007.

Harkin will offer stimulus package amendment on food stamps

[14:33]
Tom Harkin (IA) is the first senator to announce formally that he is offering an amendment to the stimulus package set to work its way through Congress beginning today in the House. Harkin, an advocate of food stamp aid, said his amendment would represent a 20% increase in food stamp aid over the next 12 months. How much is that gonna cost? Whoa! We're in for a wild ride when this stimulus hits the Senate.

Harkin is really wondering if the stimulus package negotiated by the White House and the House of Reps is going to help. I guess we'll just send everybody a check and they go spend it "on things probably made in China." He joins Byron Dorgan (ND) on the list of senators who are surmising that the stimulus package is going overseas.

Morning back-and-forth between leaders

[14:29]
While the Senate was still on recess, C-SPAN2 replayed a clip from this morning in which Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell were going back and forth about whose fault it was that a FISA revision is stalled on the floor. McConnell accused Reid of "political fingerpointing" and Reid refused to let McConnell have the final word, twice picking his microphone back up after he believed he was done speaking. Reid refuted McConnell's assertion that the FISA bill now on the floor was a "bipartisan bill." The bill on the floor is the intel's committee version of a FISA fix. There was also a version of the bill coming out of the judiciary committee, with which intel shares jurisdiction over FISA. Reid stressed that there have always been differing approaches to the bill.

Senate recesses until 14:15

[12:31]
The Senate is taking a lunch break. Back at you this afternoon. Still no deal on FISA. The act expires on Friday. Mostly speeches about the stimulus package this morning. The question is how much senators will slow down the package's progress in Congress by trying to add to its list of "stimuli".

Morning Business Speeches

[12:28]
- Judd Gregg (NH) says that the House stimulus package bothers him. He's not sure it's going to do much and in fact it could be inflationary with more debt for our kids to boot. But what scares him even more is what might happen to the stimulus in the Senate. He is afraid that "we're going to bid up" the House package. He is arguing against extending unemployment benefits. It's going to give people incentive not to go out and find a job, he says. State and local aid he says is just a grab bag of giveaways. It won't stimulate the economy and it'll slow this bill down significantly.
I congratulate the House on agreeing to a package but let's be honest, he says. The big benefit of this package is psychological. He also indicates that his Republican colleagues want to ensure that high-income persons also get the tax rebates.

- Banking committee chairman Chris Dodd (CT) responds to State of the Union address. The elephant in the State of the Union was of course that the State of the Union's in tough shape, he says. Dodd wonders why Bush didn't spend much time talking about the economy. I'm wondering what Dodd would have to say about the oversight that his banking committee practiced throughout 2007.

He wants to see some of the following added to the stimulus package: food stamps, extension of unemployment benefits. It has to be on a temporary basis, he says. And we need to do it as soon as possible. He is also calling for a raise on the loan limits, to accommodate so-called "jumbo loans." Federal law limits the amount that pseudo-governmental loan agencies such as Freddie Mac can lend to borrowers.

He is also calling, as did Byron Dorgan (ND) for a second or even a third installment of the stimulus package, to make more long-term fixes to the economy. He wants to see funding for the community development block grant funding program increased (CDBGs).

- Several senators went back and forth assigning blame and at the same time calling for cooperation on the FISA bill. I did not hear anything about an agreement on a short-term extension of the bill.

Precap:

At 10:00, the Senate convenes and begins a period of morning business. Thereafter, it resumes consideration of S. 2248, the FISA Amendments Act of 2007.

Yesterday, senators failed to invoke cloture first on the intelligence committee's version of FISA legislation; and second on legislation that would have extended the current FISA law 30 days beyond its impending Feb. 1 expiration.

Both votes were party-line.