point of clarification. My understanding is the Senator from California cannot yield time to another Senator.

I rise in support of the amendment that has been proposed by my colleagues from Maine and Oklahoma, Senators Snowe and Coburn, the Freedom from Restrictive Excessive Executive Demands and Onerous Mandates Act of 2011. This is a very…

I appreciate that, Mr. President. I don't know if there is any time agreement, but I think it is appropriate to go back and forth. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.

I don't have any objection to that. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? The Senator from Maine.

What are the rules of discussion or debate right now? When the Senator from California wraps up her remarks, would it not be appropriate to have someone from the other side speak at that time? The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is no order for…

Well, I would say through the Chair that there may be many efforts, as there typically are here in the Senate, to address some of the issues, and a lot of our Members have different ideas about how best to do that. I happen to believe the…

The economy should be roaring back by now, but instead it's still struggling, and the unemployment rate is 9.1 percent.

the effective risk management for agriculture producers needs to be one of the highest priorities that all of us, I think, have on this committee as we look to writing the next farm bill.

I also am concerned about the perception that a lot of people have that the entire agriculture budget goes into production agriculture.

Ensuring that Korea's beef regulations are based on sound science has been a high priority for Chairman Baucus.

These trade agreements are critical to the economy, they are critical to jobs and export markets.

Is Trade Promotion Authority important to the administration's stated goal of doubling exports over the next 5 years?

last week I came to the Senate floor to talk about the crushing burden of debt that will soon be coming our way because of government spending, mainly driven by entitlement programs. I noted that our unfunded liabilities in Medicare and…

this proposed change has the potential to cause financial hardship on many farmers in that area and in North Dakota and Minnesota who have not abused prevent planting provisions.

I want to work with my colleagues on this committee to ensure that our consumers in this country have access to affordable, safe and timely air service.

It will be cold comfort, Mr. Thune, for the family of a victim of an aircraft accident if it's determined that it was due to controller error and that the controller was fatigued at the time and had been deprived of opportunities for rest.

But I also wanted to point out, I guess, over the next 10 years we're going to be looking at 11,000 new controllers being hired and trained.

Well, it just seems like that with that kind of information that managers might be in a better position to schedule and mitigate potential issues for controllers before they happen, if that kind of information and data is available.

Senator Thune. Right. Let me ask just a general question, too, because you've implemented the nine-hour rest period.

Last Friday, the Social Security trustees' report and the Medicare trustees' report were both released. They showed that as large as our debt and deficits are now, without tackling these two entitlements, our future debts and deficits will…

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank all the panelists.

But we want to make sure that when we do it, we do it in a way that does appropriately protect consumers online without stifling that innovation and growth.

I ask unanimous consent that speakers on the Republican side be allocated up to 10 minutes each. The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered. ____________________

since I first came to the Congress back in 1997 as a freshman Member of the House of Representatives, I have been talking about spending and debt and deficits, and that was a key, central element of my campaign for my first election to the…

at some time in the not too distant future--there is some speculation about exactly when--our country will be dealing with the issue of exceeding our borrowing authority. In other words, we have maxed out our credit card. That would be the…