I call up amendment No. 3125 and ask that it be reported by number. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment by number. The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows: The Senator from Rhode Island [Mr…

CBO has a longstanding reputation for independence and provides a critical function to Congress.

I think we have an enormous amount of work to do, and I think we have to be very prudent about what we set before ourselves.

The threshold that has to be met if you depart from the budget is 60 votes.

The United States Constitution is a process document. Then came the Bill of Rights, which moved a whole lot of more substantive rights into the equation.

While many Democrats, including myself, would be open to a budget resolution that spans 2 years, I believe there is far less support for shifting to a 2-year appropriations cycle.

That focuses on hurricane damage specifically.

When we are in crisis mode and our budgets are being worked out between the Speaker, the Majority Leader, and the President, then there is zero transparency in that.

a budget point of order against an appropriations bill that blows through the budget that this Committee has gotten passed is a useless effort because it gets overcome by a 60-vote vote.

60 votes have really been the rule in the Senate.

I would suggest that budgeting by crisis happens when obstruction becomes the rule.

When you are dealing with veterans, I think you are probably actually better off working with veterans' organizations.

I appreciate very much your attention, Mr. Chairman, to budget process reforms, including proposals such as portfolio budgeting.

As somebody who has to try to fight to get attention for programs into that process, and it is all--you know, you are calling people on the phone saying, 'Can I get this in? Can I get this in?'

I would like to go back to the point that I ended my remarks with about trying to sort of revive the relevance of the Committee and that as a larger issue around it, which is reviving the transparency of our spending.

It is important that that not be compromised.

I hope that you, Mr. Hall, can help lead us along with the Chairman, and I think there is going to be a lot of support for it on our side, to have a conversation about how we can use this Committee to facilitate a broader and more…

I believe process matters, and I think we can do a lot better.

Director Hall is entitled to the benefit of the doubt, and he will have it.

I only wish for a moment to speak in favor of the Crapo-Whitehouse amendment. I could do that for a minute or for 10 seconds later on. I don't need the time now. We can get to the vote as the chairman wishes.

as the lead Democratic cosponsor of Senator Crapo's amendment, I want to commend and salute him for his leadership. Senators Durbin and Booker and I have all joined from our side. Senator Crapo, Senator Risch, Senator Hatch, and Senator…

today marks the 125th time I have come to the Senate floor to ask this body to wake up to the threats of climate change. This week is a little different because we are currently debating the bipartisan Energy Policy Modernization Act. The…

If there are no alternatives to which a certain set of customers or patients can readily turn----

It just strikes me that if we can correctly define the characteristics of the bad behavior that everybody on this committee sees and acknowledges exists, then going the long way around to trying to figure out how your drug approval process…

I am not an advocate for government price controls, but it does seem to me that there are circumstances in which very clever people have either observed or created a monopoly for themselves and then used that monopoly power to extort…