It is my understanding, the majority leader said on the floor of the Senate: Our goal is to try to get out by the 18th because we do not want to be here on Christmas Eve like we were last time. I think that was music to most of our ears…

Let's stop there. The Omnibus appropriations bill was defeated last night; is that correct?

OK. As I understand it, there is going to be another vote on the DREAM Act coming up maybe tomorrow?

OK. And those negotiations have resulted in a vote in the House last night. What else have we done? Was there an effort to pass the Defense appropriations bill without any ability to amend it, I ask Senator McCain? Mr. KERRY addressed the…

I say to Senator Kyl, I do believe, in addition, you are our whip on the Republican side; is that correct?

I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I first want to thank Chairman Boucher, and to let Mr. Boucher know that it has been a privilege to work with him during our years together on the Energy and Commerce Committee, and…

I yield myself 30 seconds. I want to thank my friend for this debate. I would say to my friend that this bill is identical to the bill that we had in the House. It is an identical bill. It is identical in portion. It is not the entire bill…

Reclaiming my time, that bill was the companion bill here in the House, which was the same as the Boxer bill. It was Ms. Eshoo's bill, which passed the committee 45-1, with 18 Republicans supporting it, including Chairman Barton, who is my…

I yield myself an additional 30 seconds. When people's health and safety is involved, we should never skimp on that. If we are going to err, let's err on the side of doing the most we can do based on the technology we have with a bill that…

I yield myself an additional 30 seconds. So when you put this all together and you see that we have a piece of legislation here which passed the Senate unanimously, and we have an opportunity to set a national standard which is state of…

In closing, Mr. Speaker, this bill passed unanimously in the House of Representatives when it was H.R. 1147. This bill has broad bipartisan support. I want to thank all of my colleagues for their work, and I would hope that we could have a…

I would just say to my friend, the one thing I would agree with my friend on is that the House of Representatives is not the United States Senate. I wholeheartedly agree with that. I would also say to my friend, and I believe he may not…

How many efforts have there been since the Wednesday in question dealing with the DREAM Act? How many opportunities have we had to deal with different versions of the DREAM Act that may come before the Senate?

Thank you. That has been counterproductive to overall immigration reform, and I don't think it is immigration reform more than it is politics. So, in conclusion, it has been a week from hell. It has been a week where we are dealing with a…

We are going to have a little exchange here in a minute about what the last week has been like. There have been some statements that Republicans have not been here offering amendments, that somehow we have sort of been letting time pass at…

I apologize. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. McCAIN. My only answer to that is, yes. There was a lot of work and effort and time spent on that issue, yes.

So one thing that has happened is we have been trying to make sure there was not a vote on the Defense authorization bill in a fashion where there could be no amendment by the Republicans. I think we were successful in beating that; is…

At a time when Americans are worried about the state of the economy, the Senate tried to push a reckless $1.1 trillion spending bill. The omnibus bill contained over 6,000 earmarks costing taxpayers close to $8 billion. The 2,000-page bill…