mr. merkley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: mr. president, i ask consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: thank you, mr. president. i wanted to take a few minutes to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, tonight we're wrapping up affairs here on the floor, and what is going on right now is that the main substitute amendment that had a whole series of other amendments attached to it that has been the result of the work over the last couple days has been withdrawn. and so we're back to square one in terms of addressing a series of national disasters around the country. and tomorrow the new amendment, we'll start off the day with a new basic amendment and a new chance to have amendments to the replacement. and i explain this simply to say that a number of senators who had amendments over the last couple of days will

mr. merkley merkley: thank you. ,mr. president. i wanted to make a few comments on what has transpired here on the floor of the senate. first, some enormously good work has been done with regard to addressing the disaster caused by hurricane sandy. i know in a number of states, unprecedented devastation has occurred and we should respond extremely quickly, more quickly than we have. and i hope the house will immediately take up this -- this package. certainly, disaster relief delayed is disaster relief denied. so i hope the house will, indeed, move extremely quickly to address the devastation throughout the northeast. mr. president, i also wanted to note that tonight, 55 senators stood up and said as we assist the victims of hurricane sandy, we should also assist the victims of unprecedented drought and fires that devastated much of our country this last summer. how is it, you might wonder, that we had devastating fires in july and august and into september, devastating drought, and we still haven't approved the disaster assistance

mr. president, i yield the flo floor. mr. merkley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. will there be order, please. mr. merkley: mr. president, is it time to speak to amendment 3435? the presiding officer: yes. mr. merkley: thank you, mr. president. i rise in support of the merkley-lee amendment. i thank him for being lead cosponsor. the presiding officer: please take your conversations out of the chamber. please. mr. merkley: colleagues, this is all about supporting the fourth amendment and opposing secret law. as we all know in this nation, law consists of both the plain language of the court interpretations of what that plain language means. in the case of the fisa rulings, the public never finds out the second half and, therefore, doesn't really know when information can be collected, if you will, that is relevant to an investigation. no one ever knows what that means. the public should be able to know and should be able to -- to weigh in. this amendment is constructed so it protects national security, says this will o

mr. merkley: mr. president? if there is no one else waiting to speak, i ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business and will yield when someone is ready and prepared to speak to the bill. the presiding officer: is there objection? the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. feinstein: let me do something i do sometimes correct myself. if the senator is offering the time against his amendment -- or time against the bill using that time, that's fine with me, as long as he's not using the time for the bill. mr. wyden: mr. president, i think this is acceptable, yes. mrs. feinstein: i thank the senator. mr. merkley: thank you, mr. president. i thank my colleagues for setting out the parameters. i'm going to wrap this up in fairly short order here. again, i want to emphasize that if any of my colleagues to -- would like to come down and argue that this in any way compromises national security, i would be happy to lead the debate. this has been laid out so the attorney general has complete con

mr. merkley: mr. president, i ask the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent for the chamber to give privileges of the floor to my intern, mark suzuki, for the balance of the day. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. merkley: thank you, mr. president. i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll of the senate. quorum call: quorum call: a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cardin: mr. president, i would ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cardin: mr. president, i take this time to share the views of many people that i've talked to in maryland, i'm sure the same is being said in oregon and around the nation, people are frustrated by the inab

mr. merkley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: mr. president, i call up my amendment which is at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from oregon, mr. merkley, proposes an amendment numbered 3435. at the appropriate place insert the following: mr. merkley: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to dispose with further reading of the amendment. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: thank you. i rise this morning to talk about the foreign intelligence surveillance act and concerns that i have on it and concerns that many of my colleagues have. early this morning senator wyden, my senior senator from oregon, was discussing at length the importance of the fourth amendment, the importance of americans knowing the boundaries and the rules under which our government collects intelligence and to know that their rights to privacy are protected. under the foreign intelligence surveillance act there are a variety of ways in which that assurance is compromised, and senator wyden did a ver

mr. merkley: madam president? mr. leahy: madam president, i see the distinguished senators from arizona and others who may wish to be speaking in morning business. may i suggest that we close morning business, go back on the bill, and if somebody wishes to speak, as many do to our departed colleague, they could always ask consent and go back as if in morning business. i would ask the morning business be closed and we go back to h.r. 1. the presiding officer: morning business is closed. under the previous order, the senate will resume consideration of h.r. 1 which the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 14, h.r. 1, an act making appropriations for the department of defense, and so forth and for other purposes. mr. merkley: madam president? i ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up my amendment number 3367. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, the clerk will report the amendment. the clerk: the senator from oregon, mr. merkley, proposes an amendment numbere

mr. merkley: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to add senator franken, senator tim johnson, and senator tom udall as cosponsors to the amendment. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. mr. leahy: mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma is recognized. mr. inhofe: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent the quorum call in progress be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: it's my understanding at 4:00 senator durbin from illinois will be speaking and i ask unanimous consent i be allowed to speak at the conclusion of his remarks at or around 4:15. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. kyl: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from arizona is recognized. mr. kyl: thank you, mr. president. i am deeply honored to have served for 1

mr. merkley: mr. president, just following up on the comments of my colleague from alaska, he has laid out some very important thoughts regarding the farm bill, regarding the debt ceiling, regarding social security, and i applaud him for coming to the floor and sharing his thoughts with his colleagues and with the american public. mr. president, these are big issues that we're wrestling with here in the u.s. senate. the farm bill is something that was passed in a bipartisan nature through the senate. it is over in the house. it will have to come back through here. we have a proposal from the republican leader put forward this morning that we were ready to vote on and that he objected to himself at the last second. but the debt ceiling is an important issue because it involves paying the bills on the decisions that have already been made and implemented by the u.s. government. it's not about spending more. it's about paying the bills on the spending that's already taken place, and it should be debated

quorum call: quorum call: mr. merkley: i don't think it will come as a surprise to anyone that the u.s. senate, once famed as the world's greatest deliberative body shall has become paralyzed. now, at the heart of that paralysis is a change in the use of the filibuster. now, a filibuster is a term that comes -- i believe it is from the dutch -- and it refers to piracy. and in this context, it's really about someone taking over this chamber, taking over the normal process by which we debate issues and decide issues here in the u.s. national by majority vote. and in the past, what everyone understood at the very heart of what we do here is to make decisions by majority vote, the filibuster to take over this carriage the objection to a simple-majority vote was very rare. people did this only once or twice in a career for some issue of profound personal values or of extreme concern to an issue in their state. and it was most often small factions that would do this. in 1916 there was a debate, a debate that went on abo

mr. president, just for the record i would ask consent that the joint economic committee fact sheet on the payroll tax cut dated december 4, 2002, that -- twoif, that -- 2012, that that be made part of the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. casey: just a couple of points. when you look at the economic impact of what happens in families when they have dollars to spend, the payroll tax cut put a thousand dollars on average in the pockets of most families in america. families making under $150,000 are responsible for almost 82% of consumer spending. so the reason we're creating jobs with the payroll tax cut or a tax credit, the idea i mentioned before, is because you're giving consumers, families and small businesses the opportunity to create jobs because of economic activity. i did mention the -- the job impact of the payroll tax cut created or saved 400,000 jobs in the last year. and did -- didn't in any way harm the social security trust fund. in fact, it enhanced our a

they it want to bring back the filibuster as it existed in "mr. smith goes to washington." they want it it to be like jimmy stewart where they had to go to the floor and stand on your principles. now, unfortunately, the filibuster is usually used secretly behind closed doors to stop debate to prevent us from even having a vote. that has nothing to do with what americans understand as a filibuster and there is simply no reason to allow the abuses to continue. >> well, it means that if they were to filibuster, they have to go to the floor and do as you say, "mr. smith goes to washington," and talk endlessly until some conclusion. what do the changes mean for democratic bills, you think? >> it could mean a lot, because many of the bills that democrats have proposed have majority support. they can win in the senate. the problem is they can't get to the 6 o votes that would be required to break a filibuster or force a vote. and so all that's being proposed here is to say, look, if you want to do a filibuster, you got to be public about it, go to the floor, you've got to speak op

merkley: mr. president, i'm delighted to partner with senator blunt and senator stabenow on this important amendment which addresses the disasters that occurred this last summer in terms of the centuries -- a century's worth, the worst fires and the worst drought. this is a true emergency in which our response has been delayed because of programs that are tied up in the farm bill. i reserve the balance of my time but ask colleagues let's address this real emergency. mr. sessions: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from alabama is recognized. mr. sessions: this amendment -- and i respect my colleague's desire to get this matter done, but the language that he is advocating is already in the ag bill. we need to get that ag bill passed and i think we will soon and it's paid for. it's part within the budget limits that the ag committee has done. this amendment defines disasters so broadly that it would include almost anything that results in a livestock death and the taxpayers would be b