Creating Long-Term Energy Alternatives for the Nation Act of 2007
Floor Speech
CREATING LONG-TERM ENERGY ALTERNATIVES FOR THE NATION ACT OF 2007 -- (Senate - June 21, 2007)
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, of all the many milestones along the way of the extraordinary career of Senator Robert Byrd--and, by the way, we have celebrated a few of those on the floor of the Senate since I have been here, as he achieves more and more distinction by setting more and more records about Senate service, I am always reminded that Senator Byrd said his greatest accomplishment was his extraordinary marriage to Erma for a longer period of time than many Americans live. I would suspect that if Senator Byrd were to list his most important achievement, it would be his incredible, successful marriage to his beloved Erma.
Mr. President, let me add, on behalf of those on this side of the aisle, our congratulations to the distinguished senior Senator from West Virginia.
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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, what I assume my good friend, the majority leader, is talking about is that there are three filibusterable motions prior to going to conference. What he is suggesting here is, in fact, the case, which is that rather than simply going to conference without any discussion of what might come out of conference, the matter could be discussed in some detail before we go to conference. I know that is what my good friend, the majority leader, was talking about.
Our concern, of course, was that Senator Conrad said, right here on the floor of the Senate tonight--I won't read it word for word, but these are direct quotes from the floor of the Senate tonight--that was the game plan, to simply put the tax component, which was defeated earlier today, back in the measure. That created a considerable amount of angst on this side of the aisle for obvious reasons. There was substantial opposition to this massive tax increase which would have been added to the bill.
So we will have a lengthy discussion before going to conference. Let me just say, as one of the States that does not find much to applaud in the bill in any event, there are ample reasons for voting against cloture. I certainly am going to vote against cloture and would hope that a number of our colleagues, sufficient to deny cloture, would have a similar vote.
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