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the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent that the call of the quorum be terminated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: madam president there are a number of amendments that have been filed. they're at the desk. they haven't been offered as yet. amendments on both sides in agreement should be considered and we were very, very close to working out an agreement to do just that. the vast majority of the amendments would be germane postcloture and i've even indicated that those are arguably germane. that i would be willing to work with the person that offered the amendment to have a vote on it. but one senator has held this up. that's the way things can happen around here. it's unfortunate, but it does happen. we've worked for a couple of days to arrive at the point we are. and the sad part about it is that the senator that has held all of this up has an amendment that isn't remotelyier -- isn't remotely germane to this bill,

but has lodged an objection to this agreement that is agreeable by all other senators. i would hope that the senator would reconsider this objection over the next few days. in the mean time, i've had conversations with the managers of the bill. i've spent a lot of time with senator dodd. this is an important piece of legislation. the presiding officer, i watched her offer her speech today. what a sad thing the man that you talked about -- a picture's worth a thousand words, the picture that you had in talking about this bill, how important it is, was worth more than a thousand words. and i'll have more to say about this on monday. but madam president, my --

everyone in my family smokes. sadly, my parents are dead. my dad's minor consumption was terribly exacerbated by his smoking. and so when did he start smoking? as a kid. he started smoking as a little boy. same with my mother. same with my brothers. one brother started when he was in the air force. he was -- i guess 20 years old or something like that. he wasn't very old. all of my other family members started smoking as kids. one of my brothers chewed tobacco. i can remember i had a friend that learned that my brother had chewed tobacco. he was a lobbyist for the tobacco industry, and he said, i'll send him a case of -- what

kind does he chew? i didn't think that was a good idea. so, you know, i -- i met in los angeles last week the first lawyer that filed a litigation -- serious litigation against the tobacco industry, a wonderful man. he got terribly upset with the joe camel advertisements when they placed those little -- that little comic strip character on lunch boxes for kids. and he also was upset at that time that the tobacco industry went through another one of their ideas to get kids to start smoking in stores like a 7/eleven store, they would have bins of cigarettes out there. you're supposed to pay for them. but they were there. kids could steal them so easy. and so he filed this lawsuit. he had the confidence to tell me

he lost that lawsuit. but when all of the lawyers got together to go after the tobacco companies big time, they -- they pooled their money and went after the tobacco companies, they used all of his pleadings. he said even the misspelled words they used. they didn't change anything. ultimately that led to the favorable ruling by the courts that the tobacco company's reliable for the damages and the billions of dollars. so it's important that we move forward on this. i would hope that cloture would be invoked on this monday afternoon. it's one of the most popular piece of legislations we could do. and i'm sorry we weren't able to work anything out on the amendments, but we simply were not able to do so. no one can complain, this entire congress, that we haven't had the ability to offer amendments.

we were concerned for a lot of reasons. one is that we have the supplemental appropriation bill -- appropriation bill floating around here and we didn't want a lot of nongermane amendments on this. but there were no restrictions on even nongermane amendments. the republicans wanted to look at ours, we wanted to look at theirs. we used to do that a lot, we can still do that. but no one can complain and use as an excuse not to vote for this bill that we haven't been willing to offer amendments on this side. so i hope that senators will take a look at this and move forward, let us invoke cloture on this, complete this legislation. i have already indicated i would be happy to work out something that would be fair and reasonable to dispose of the amendments that are germane to this bill that have been filed. a senator: madam president? the senator from connecticut. emr. dodd: i want to begin by thanking the majority leader for his efforts and for those of

others. we're prepared to debate the germane amendments, or the amendments that are arguably ger pain it is regrettable we couldn't do that. this bill has enjoyed overwhelming support in the previous congresses that have been raised in both chambers. and as i pointed out that every single day that we fail to act on this legislation, the statistics are that 3,000 to 4,000 children begin to smoke every day. 400,000 of our fellow citizens will die each year. and thousands more will live very debilitating lives as a result of being contaminated by cigarette smoke and tobacco products. we're on the eve of a national health care debate where the major part of that will be prevention. what better way to begin that debate than the congress taking a step in this area that will make a difference. i thank the majority leader for his efforts. i'm still hopeful that we can get this done. i believe we can. people like senator burr,

senator hagan who have legitimate interests and concerns about the legislation before us deserve to have their amendment considered and discussed. it is regrettable that one single member of this body on a nongermane proposal can cause us to delay or avoid meeting the obligation of the issues and concerns about tobacco and their effect on our citizenry. i thank the majority leader for his efforts. be here next week to be prepared to debate those amendments and hopefully our colleagues will invoke cloture to get this matter addressed. mr. reid: while the distinguished senator is on the floor, senator enzi has been a real partner in what we've done here. he asked that we do a committee hearing on this bill. we could have brought it to the floor, this bill has had lots of hearings in the past. but because mike enzi is such a

gentleman, and he thought it would be the right thing to do, we went ahead in spite of the very difficult schedule that we have, and the schedule that especially senator dodd had, that all of the things that we were doing under the jurisdiction of the banking committee, senator kennedy was the one obligated to do this legislation, so we have done that. we jumped -- see wee have jumped through all of the hoops. i hope that no one will in voting cloture say that we have been unfair. it would be unfair to say that we have been unfair. madam president, i would ask that we now terminate morning business and have the bill reported. the presiding officer: morning business is closed. under the previous order the senate will consider h.r. 1256 which the the clerk will report. the clerk: h.r. 1256, an act it protect the public health by providing the food and drug administration with certain authority to regulate tobacco products and for other purposes.

mr. reid: madam president? i send a cloture motion on the dodd substitute amendment to the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: cloture motion: we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on dodd substitute amendment number 1247, to calendar number 47, h.r. 1256, family smoking prevention family act. mr. reid: i ask consent that the reading of the names be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i now, madam president, send a cloture petition to the desk. and this is on the bill itself. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: cloture motion:

we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on calendar number 47, h.r. 125, family smoking prevention and tobacco control act signed by 17 senators as follows: reid, dodd -- mr. reid: madam president, i would ask the reading of the names be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask the mandatory quorum under rule 22 be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask that we go into a period of morning business with senators allowed to speak therein up to 10 minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: we just went -- i would like to go into morning business. the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: i have an amendment that i've been trying to get a vote on. i would say to the distinguished majority leader and it certainly is important to the