Surface Transportation Act

Floor Speech

Mr. REID. Madam President, it is a real accomplishment for this Senate to pass this highway bill, and it will happen. We worked through all these amendments, different tones and variations of subject matter, many of them not having anything to do with the highway bill, but as everyone knows, that is what the Senate is all about a lot of the time.

I now call upon my friend, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to move this bill over there as quickly as possible. He has indicated that they likely will take up the Senate bill. I hope that is, in fact, the case.

At the end of this month the highway bill expires, which could lead to the laying off and termination of a little more than a million people. This bill, when it is signed by the President, will save or create 2.8 million jobs. It is important to get this done.

As for the judges, there have been conversations with me and a number of different combination of Senators, and I am hopeful we can work something out on this. If not, as I indicated, we will go ahead and have these judges votes. We need to get something done here. We have 17 judges--this does not count the appellate judges--that is, the circuit court judges--and there are 4 of those. I am hopeful we can work our way toward this culmination so we don't have this situation.

We have been in touch with the White House. There has been some concern about what happens with the 2-week recess that we have, and I am confident we will work our way through that. There is a conversation as to how we proceed with the IPO bill we got from the House. I think there is general agreement that there should be an extremely limited number of amendments, and we will move this as quickly as possible. So I hope the next day or two or three brings us more success here in the Senate.

Would the Chair announce the business of the day.

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