I announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Byrd) is necessarily absent. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber desiring to vote? The result was announced--yeas 55, nays 44, as follows: [Rollcall Vote…

I announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Byrd) is necessarily absent. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Begich). Are there any other Senators in the Chamber desiring to vote? The result was announced--yeas 58, nays 41, as follows…

I announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Byrd) is necessarily absent. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber desiring to vote? The result was announced--yeas 38, nays 61, as follows: [Rollcall Vote…

Right. So the argument from the other side is that even if we accumulated this money and put it into this fund for cleaning up spills, we shouldn't count it as additional money being held by the Federal Government at the same time; is that…

Could I also ask the chairman of the Finance Committee, in this situation--where BP is clearly responsible for the mess in the Gulf of Mexico and has at least stated its responsibility; where we have a deep-pocket defendant that declared…

And if we fail to increase this tax and increase the size of this fund, it means the taxpayers would be called on to bail out other oil companies that may be responsible for similar damage in the future?

So all the protests from the other side of the aisle about this 40-cent tax on big oil companies is basically not only to protect the big oil companies but to put the taxpayers on the hook for another bailout----

And if we fail to count it as an additional source of revenue being held by the Federal Government, is it not true that it would be subject to a budget point of order, which would then require 60 votes, and that would allow the oil…

6 years ago today, President Ronald Reagan lay in State in the Capitol Rotunda, a high and fitting honor for this consequential President and native son of my congressional district. Today, I bring to the floor a far more modest tribute, a…

I listened to the statements made today by the Republican leader about the increase in this fee that is to be paid into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. I would like to ask the chairman of the Finance Committee, currently, the fee is 8…

And the price of a barrel of oil, as of this morning's Wall Street Journal, is $71.99 a barrel?

That is being paid by oil companies into a fund so that if there would be a spill and the oil company responsible couldn't pay for it, they would have at least accumulated enough money to protect the taxpayers----

Twenty-one years ago. I might also ask the chairman of the Finance Committee, it is my understanding that the total value of the current Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund is somewhere in the range of $1.5 billion?

So the effort in this bill is to increase that per-barrel tax paid by oil companies for this oilspill liability fund to----

Forty-one cents. So 41 cents would represent, as I calculate it, one-half of 1 percent of the current cost of a barrel of oil.

You made that argument earlier, and I am going to reclaim my time. I have gone to the Mr. Frank School of Floor Management and learned well. Mr. Speaker, here was the opportunity for the majority to say, ``We are going to focus in on this…

I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, you know, I came here to the floor a couple of minutes ago, and I thought, ``Surely, I am not going to hear and see the tired, old, symbolic show pony of George W. Bush and his…

I announce that the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Bayh), the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Byrd), the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Inouye), and the Senator from Arkansas (Mrs. Lincoln) are necessarily absent.