Pete Domenici: “I ask it be in order to ask for the yeas and nays on final passage at this time. The PRESIDING OFFICER. It is in order.…”

“I ask it be in order to ask for the yeas and nays on final passage at this time. The PRESIDING OFFICER. It is in order. Is there a sufficient second? There is a sufficient second. The yeas and nays were ordered. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona. Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I believe the hour now is 5 minutes to midnight as I note from the clock. We are now completing consideration of an appropriations bill that entails $31.2 billion of the taxpayers' money. We began consideration of this around 10:30, I think. So, between the hours of 10:30 p.m. and midnight we have now thoroughly scrutinized the expenditure of $31.2 billion of taxpayer money, which also happens to be $1.5 billion over the request. I am sure all of my colleagues feel we have thoroughly examined a $31.2 billion expenditure of their money. This system we are under now is broken. We shouldn't be, on a night before we are--we all know we are going into a recess--considering a bill of this magnitude in an hour and a half at a very late hour. I certainly do not quarrel with any of my colleagues who did not have an opportunity to examine the bill and the report language. It really rolls out the pork barrel. It has $1.5 billion for unrequested earmarks with more than $1.3 billion going to 618 Army Corps of Engineers projects, 618 projects that the Corps has not identified as priorities for fiscal year 2006.…”