Wednesday, June 29, 2005

6:20 Murray Amendment Accepted After a 98 to 0 vote on the Murray amendment, the Senate proceeded to the vote on Senator Dorgan's amendment which would add a humanitarian exemption to the law that currently governs travel to Cuba. 6:20:53 PM

6:00 Santorum Amendment Accepted Senator Rick Santorum offered a second degree amendment to Senator Patty Murray's amendment which would provide emergency supplemental appropriations for medical services for the Veterans Administration (VA). Senator Santorum acknowledged that he and a number of his colleagues had voted against an earlier amendment offered by Senator Murray that would have provided greater funds for the VA and said he did so because he was under the impression at that time that the VA had sufficient funding. He criticized the VA for both their management and their lack of communication once the VA realized they were facing a significant budget shortfall. In response to these comments, Senator Harry Reid pointed out that Senator Santorum has voted against funding for veterans three times and inserted into the Congressional Record Senator Santorum's voting record. The Santorum amendment was accepted with a vote of 98 to 0, meaning that an amended version of the Murray amendment will now be voted on.   6:01:01 PM

3:10 Dorgan and Sununu Amendments Not Accepted Senator Byron Dorgan spoke succinctly about his amendment which would provide additional resources for health services to Indians, and he mentioned that the government spends twice as much, per person, on health care for federal prisoners versus health care for Indians.  With a vote of 47 to 51, the Senate voted not to waive the Budget Act with respect to the Dorgan amendment.   Turning to consideration of another amendment, Senator John Sununu discussed his amendment which would require private timber companies to pay the cost of building roads needed to perform their work. He concluded with stating that it doesn’t make sense for the federal government to pay $48 million a year to yield $800,000 in revenue when our country already has such a large debt. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska pointed out the Sununu amendment focuses specifically on the Tongass National Forest in Alaska, and she questioned why not consider all 111 national forests. A rapid succession of a handful of members ensued as they voiced their position on this amendment, including Senator Bingaman offered his support of the Sununu amendment saying that it was a very meritorious amendment that would allow taxpayers’ money to be spent in a more useful way. The Senate voted 39 to 59 not to adopt the Sununu amendment. 3:10:12 PM

1:22 Burns and Boxer-Nelson Amendments Agreed To Senator Conrad Burns, the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Interior Appropriations, also offered an amendment concerning pesticides, to direct the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to conduct a review of all third party intentional human dosing studies to identify or quantify toxic effects. Opponents of this amendment voiced their concern that it would allow current testing to continue. The Senate accepted both the Burns amendment and the Boxer-Nelson amendment, with votes of 57 to 40 and 60 to 37 respectively. 1:22:10 PM

11:11 Debate on Boxer-Nelson Amendment Commentary on President Bush’s address on Iraq dominated today’s period of morning business. Senator Dick Durbin, saying that the President didn’t offer forth any new plans for the ongoing war in Iraq, pointed out that the President never once mentioned the word insurgency but made at least six references to September 11. Senator Ted Stevens voiced his support for the address and praised the Administration for its approach to the war on terrorism.   Changing topics, debate on the Interior Appropriations bill resumed with consideration of Senators Barbara Boxer and Bill Nelson’s amendment to prohibit the use of funds by the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to accept, consider, or rely on third-party intentional dosing human studies for pesticides or to conduct intentional dosing human studies for pesticides. Senator Boxer discussed how there is currently nothing in place to guide human pesticide experiments and that studies have found that these experiments routinely violate scientific and ethical standards.    11:11:37 AM

9:30 Senate Reconvenes The Senate begins today with an hour of morning business before returning to consideration of H.R.2361, the Interior Appropriations bill.  There are seven pending amendments awaiting consideration, ranging in topic from pesticides to veterans health to travel to Cuba, and stacked votes are expected to occur on at least a couple of these amendments around 12:30. 8:36:12 AM