Mr. President, as I have said before, this legislation is bipartisan. Most of the bill has been crafted in the past when Senator Snowe was chairman of the Small Business Committee. I am glad to hear my friend Senator Snowe has had a…

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: S. 3587 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of…

Mr. President, following leader remarks, the Senate will proceed to a period of morning business until noon. Senators will be allowed to speak for 10 minutes each during that period. The majority will control the first 30 minutes and…

Mr. President, I hope the distinguished Senator from Connecticut and I have an opportunity, which we will, to sit down and talk about what we have been through the last 2 years. We had a difficult situation with the banks, financial…

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that morning business be closed. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. ____________________

Madam President, today I hope we can return to the small business jobs bill. I am confident amendments should already have been exchanged. We are in a difficult situation. It is a tax bill. We can go back and look through many Congresses…

Madam President, following leader remarks, the Senate will proceed to a period of morning business. Senators will be allowed to speak for up to 10 minutes each. That will be until 12:30 today. Order of Procedure I ask unanimous consent…

I have a cloture motion at the desk. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. The assistant bill clerk read as follows: Cloture Motion We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance…

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum be waived. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The Senator from Connecticut is recognized.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the prayer delivered by our Senate Chaplain on Thursday, July 1, when the Senate gathered to remember Senator Robert C. Byrd, be printed in the Record and as a part of the memorial book of…

I now move to proceed to consideration of the conference report to accompany H.R. 4173. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion. The motion was agreed to. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The report will be stated. The…

Mr. President, I object to any further proceedings at this time. The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection having been heard, the bill will be placed on the calendar. ____________________

Mr. President, H.R. 5552 is at the desk and due for a second reading. The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will read the bill for the second time. The legislative clerk read as follows: A bill (H.R. 5552) to amend the Internal…

Mr. President, following leader remarks, the Senate will turn to a period of morning business. Senators will speak for up to 10 minutes each. This week, the Senate will likely resume consideration of the small business jobs bill, the…

Mr. President, I welcome back my colleagues and hope they are as eager to get to work as I am. During the week I spent in Nevada, I saw again how desperate our unemployment situation has become. As I talked to Nevadans, I heard over and…

I thank the gentleman for yielding. Last night, Mr. Speaker, I did a telephone town hall meeting in my district with more than 13,000 people on that telephone line with me. Hundreds of them wanted to ask questions. Obviously, I couldn't…

Thank you. We can go home, having done the responsible thing and knowing that we have helped all Americans. Most importantly, it's long past time for Congress to finally get serious about creating jobs. My constituents want paychecks, not…

Yes. I was able to work that out with Senator Landrieu a short time ago so we could do that now.