Highway Technical Corrections Act of 2007 - Motion to Proceed - Continued

Floor Speech

HIGHWAY TECHNICAL CORRECTIONS ACT OF 2007--MOTION TO PROCEED--Continued -- (Senate - April 15, 2008)

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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, under cloture, what it means of course is we are doing nothing--good speeches on important topics, but we are not considering legislation. We are not debating a bill. We are killing time, which turns out to be the major occupation of the Senate for the last year and a half. Why? Because the minority party, the Republican Party, has a strategy. It is a strategy of using filibusters to slow down or stop any bill from passing in the Senate. Today we are seeing that strategy in the extreme.

The bill pending before the Senate is H.R. 1195. In the annals of legislative history in the Senate, this will not go down as a great piece of legislation. This is not a bill that was worked on for years by Senators and their staffs, conceived with grand ideas to change this great country. This is a bill which by and large changes punctuation in the Federal highway bill, a bill we passed several years ago. Then when we carefully read it afterwards, we said: We got some of this wrong. This should not have been ``trail.'' It should have read ``road.'' This section you referred to wasn't exactly accurate. It is another section.

So we created a technical corrections bill, a bill that cleaned up the Federal highway bill. This technical corrections bill is now being filibustered by the Republican side of the aisle. They want to stop us from voting on a technical corrections bill. They want to delay our consideration of even this housekeeping bill. You ask yourself why. Frankly, because they don't want us to take up legislation of even greater importance. This is an important bill. Don't get me wrong. By cleaning up the old Federal highway bill, we can move forward on highway projects. We can spend a billion dollars creating good-paying jobs right here in the United States, 4 to 500 different projects across our country, 40,000 new jobs. That is good.

But these were all destined to occur. We are just making sure the language is clear enough to move forward.

We are really not generating a lot of controversy and debate, are we, about this bill? Two or three little amendments we could take care of in a matter of an hour, that is about it. But what has happened is that the Republican minority is trying to stop the majority party--the Democratic Party--from considering and passing important legislation.

In the history of the U.S. Senate--this grand body, this deliberative body--in the history of this institution, the record number of filibusters in any 2-year period of time was 57, until the Republican minority decided to take on this strategy. So far, last year and the first few months of this year, there have been 65 Republican filibusters this Congress, and still counting. They have broken a record. Who cares? Well, I think a lot of people should care.

We heard the Senator from Vermont a few minutes ago. He talked about his genuine concern about working people in his State. He talked about the impact of this economy on average working families. He talked about the impact of gasoline prices, $3.50 a gallon and higher. He talked about the impact of food costs going up on families all across America, the cost of health insurance, the cost of college education, the cost of daycare for kids. He talked about the fact that the majority of families have not seen an increase in real income over the last 7 years of this administration. He feels, as I do, that this Senate should be dealing with that issue. What is keeping us from doing so? The filibusters from the Republican side of the aisle: 65 and still counting, a record number of filibusters.

So Senator McConnell, who is the Republican minority leader in the Senate, was asked a question at a press conference today. The reporter said to Senator McConnell about his Republican caucus:

Are you and the caucus prepared now to start slowing down work on the floor and legislation in response?

He answers:

Well, we are on the highway technical corrections bill. It is open for amendments. We were discussing various amendments at our lunch earlier and I assume amendments are going to be offered and dealt with.

That was his answer, and unfortunately it is wrong. We are not considering amendments to this bill because we are still under cloture on the motion to proceed that doesn't expire until 11:30 p.m. tonight.

So if Senator McConnell really wants us to consider amendments to this bill and get it finished, he needs to walk out on the floor and agree to a unanimous consent to move to this bill immediately and consider it. Then his statement to the press this afternoon will be accurate. But until he does, it is not accurate. We are stuck, stuck on cloture, stuck, as we have been time and again by this Republican minority. I, for one, believe they have pushed it to the extreme--a filibuster on a technical corrections bill.

Can you think of anything else, Madam President, we might be considering? Well, how about the policy on the war in Iraq, a war that claimed 2 American lives yesterday, a war that has taken over 4,025 of our best and bravest, that has injured more than 30,000, that has cost this country over $700 billion, that continues to cost us $10 billion to $15 billion a month; a war that claims the lives of our soldiers, ruins the morale of many troops who refuse to reenlist; a war that has stretched our military to a breaking point. Is that worth a few minutes of debate here on the floor of the Senate, the policy of this country toward the war in Iraq?

How about the war in Afghanistan? A war that was designed to go after those responsible for 9/11, to capture Osama bin Laden; a war which is stalled because we have dedicated so many resources to Iraq; a war which we must win so that al-Qaida and the Taliban do not resume their control over this poor country; a war which sadly has not resulted in the capture of Osama bin Laden more than 6 years after the terrible tragedies of 9/11. Is that worth a few hours on the floor, maybe a resolution, maybe a discussion about policy? I think it is, but we can't get to it because Republican filibusters are stopping us.

Maybe we should spend a few moments talking about our dependence on foreign oil and what we can do to bring down gasoline prices across America; how we can work on a bipartisan basis to find renewable, sustainable sources of energy that fuel our economy without killing our environment. Is that worth a little debate here on the floor of the Senate? Most Americans think it is an important issue but, sadly, we are stuck with a Republican filibuster again. Maybe we could spend some time bringing the bill out of the Committee on the Environment, the cap and trade bill, a bipartisan bill by Senator Warner, a Republican of Virginia, Senator Lieberman, an independent

Democrat of Connecticut. Maybe we could bring that to the floor and talk about a way to clean up this world's environment so our kids have a fighting chance to have a planet they can live on, so that we can devise with American ingenuity a system using our free market to make this a cleaner planet. Is that worth a few hours of debate on the floor?

Debate on the Children's Health Insurance Program that the President has vetoed not once but twice, a program to extend health insurance coverage to some children in America who are not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid and not lucky enough to have parents with health insurance, is that worth a few hours of debate on the floor? I think it is.

Those issues and so many others are the ones the American people expect us to be talking about right here in Washington. But instead we have a bill, with grammar and punctuation, trying to clean up a Federal highway bill of several years ago, that is being filibustered by the Republican side of the aisle. This is shameful. It is such a waste of time in this great institution, but it is a specifically designed strategy by the Republicans to slow down the business of the Senate and to stop us from considering critically important legislation for America.

I would say to Senator McConnell, who said that we are on the highway technical corrections bill and it is open for amendments, it will be open for amendments when Senator McConnell comes to the floor and gives us his consent to stop the filibuster and to give us a chance to pass this bill, as we should have last week, and move on to more important legislation--legislation the American people ask us to consider. Sixty-five Republican filibusters this Congress and still counting. The Grand Old Party, the Republican Party, the GOP now has a new name. It is no longer the GOP, Grand Old Party. From the Republicans in the Senate, we have learned that it is the Graveyard of Progress. That is their idea of their role in the Senate. Any proposal for change, any proposal for progress, they want to kill. This graveyard is going to speak back to them in November.

I think the American people have had it with the obstructionism, the slowdowns, and the obstacles we are seeing here in Washington. The voters get their chance in November. I hope they will join us. I hope they will send more Senators to Washington who are prepared to not only debate but vote for change, Senators who are willing to say: Put an end to these mind-numbing filibusters and get down to work. Roll up your sleeves and do something to make life better for working families. Do something about this energy crisis. Make this planet a safer place for our kids to live on. Be responsible when it comes to spending, and start bringing the American soldiers home. That is what we should be doing. Instead, we are stuck in another Republican filibuster.

I yield the floor.

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