Mr. President, I want to briefly preview an amendment, Vitter amendment No. 178, which I will formally call up this afternoon about 2:45. This is a spending amendment to get back to what I believe is the central challenge we face as a…

Mr. President, let me just add a word. I see the Senator from Oklahoma. Again, as the managers of this bill, Senator Snowe and I have worked across party lines to bring the SBIR bill to the floor. We want to have as open an amendment…

Mr. President, I thank Senator Rockefeller and all of the Members who have come to the floor today debating this important bill and to share their thoughts about other amendments that are--some directly but some indirectly--related to our…

What I really wish to talk about is to give my heartfelt condolences to the people of Japan. We have watched all weekend, my family and I, in horror, watching the scene unfold with the terrible catastrophe that struck Japan on Friday…

Mr. President, I wish to follow the remarks of the Senator from Arizona and associate myself with part of his remarks that have to do with the energy policy of our country. I am disappointed in the administration's reluctance to get the…

Mr. President, I would like to speak for up to 15 minutes. I understand Senator Kyl will be joining us shortly. The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered. ____________________

I come to the floor to urge my colleagues to consider voting yes on cloture this afternoon at 5:30, to proceed to a debate on two very important Federal programs that come under the jurisdiction of the Small Business Committee. I know the…

Mr. President, I too take the floor of the Senate to urge all of us, Democrats and Republicans alike, to focus on the single biggest domestic threat to our country, our single greatest challenge in the eyes of every Louisianan and every…

I do. Too often we hear: Let's cut Washington. We don't care if the Federal Government shuts down because it's just a bunch of Federal employees. In fact, only 1 quarter of Federal employees works in the Three-State Region that comprises…

The gentlewoman from the District of Columbia raises yet another really interesting point and it is that not only could they go anyplace in the United States, but the world is their oyster. We know that our best and brightest are not just…

Well, I think that you raise such an amazing point for the American people on two points, one about Federal benefits. There is this wide assumption across the country that Federal workers don't contribute to their own health and life…

I want to thank the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia. Mr. Speaker, I'm here today because I'm here on behalf of and with the 150,000 Federal workers who live in the Fourth Congressional District in Maryland. But in our region, in…

I want to thank the gentlelady and my friend because I think what you've done is you've brought the connection from the public sector worker in Wisconsin and throughout our States to the Federal workforce and to the private sector…

I want to thank the gentlelady, because I think it's really important for us to understand really who is the Federal worker. You know, what is it that they do? And as the gentlelady has pointed out, our food is safe because of Federal…

Well, let me just go, because I am having a conversation this afternoon with the president of the University of Maryland. I was out at the University of Maryland campus over the past weekend. Like campuses all across this country that are…

Just yesterday, educators from my congressional district were here on Capitol Hill. They were educators from Bowie State University, an Historically Black College that is now poised to get research grants going to Historically Black…

I want to thank you, Mr. Garamendi, because I am excited about the prospect of manufacturing again in America. In my home State of Maryland, about 40 percent of our economic base was manufacturing. Today, that's under 10 percent. And I…

Today I rise to highlight the foreclosure crisis and recognize the thousands of distressed families in my district and across the country who continue to battle foreclosure. In Maryland our foreclosures approached nearly 800,000 in the…