mr. brouillette: thank you, sir. mr. brouillette, congratulations on your nomination, and welcome to your family. thank you for taking the time to meet with me in my office this week. as you well know, the nevada national security side is relative to nevada. you play a big role there. i want to ask you a couple of questions as it relates to that site particularly. the first one is the juncker a mountain. support radioactive waste coming out of there? mr. brouillette: i sincerely appreciate you taking time out to meet with me. cae policy question of yuc mountain is for us to make a determination on. -- i'm of the land obligated not to spend money that has not been appropriated to the u.s. department of energy to pursue the policy directives given by the congress. at the moment, i can give you assurance that in the near term as secretary, tell -- until they make a decision on yucca mountain, nothing will be done. >> senator rosen and i introduced the nuclear waste act. would you support the bill? mr. brouillette: i have not

mr. brouillettes nomination. i want to welcome his family, his amazing wife adrian and the nine beautiful children you have, you should be very proud. i know you both are. and you also are willing to serve at this important post. i enjoyed our discussion earlier this week and look forward to continuing it today. dr. brian anderson from morgan town, west virginia, you visited morgan town and we want you to come back. a lot of good things. i think we can do a tremendous job. we're going to put that plug in. i think thank you so much for that and your attention to the importance of nettel. the secretary's job is enormous which has been mentioned and talked about and all of us know the secretary of energy is responsible for leading the world's premier science and technology enterprise. we count on it and its labs for the cutting edge research and technological break throws needed to keep us strong and secure. at the same time the secretary most oversee the nation's nuks laer weapons stockpile which a lot of people do

mr. paul: i ask unanimous consent that the cloture vote on the brouillette nomination occur at 1:30 p.m. today. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. paul: mr. president, i rise to present an amendment to this bill. my amendment is simple and it reflects the kind of commonsense budgeting we ought to be doing here in washington. today i offer the penny plan for infrastructure. this plan cuts one penny, 1% of all spending, and puts that money in a fund for infrastructure. my amendment would put about $12 billion per year into a fund to fix our roads and bridges. every agency would still get 99% of the spending they got the previous year. sure, they would need to trim some fat, but they would still be fine. a lot of businesses and organizations will tell you that they have to cut much greater than 1% in a year. i visited a business recently that in the downturn of 2008-2009 had to cut 30% of their expenditures. so business men and women in america are used to having to cut expenditures. government never does. whether it's our highways, our bridges or our waterways, our infrastructure

brouillette nomination. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. perdue: i suggest the absence of a quorum. quorum call: mr. perdue: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from georgia. mr. perdue: i would ask the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. perdue: i understand there is a bill at the desk and i ask for its first reading. the presiding officer: the clerk will read the title of the bill for the first time. mr. perdue: i now ask for a second reading -- the presiding officer: the senator will suspend. mr. perdue: as if in legislative session, i understand that there is a bill at the desk that i ask for its first reading. mr. perdue: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from georgia. mr. perdue: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to legislative session and be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. perdue: i understand that there is a bill at the desk and i ask for its first reading. the presiding officer: the

mr. brouillette some basic questions about what i've outlined here. and what i wanted to know wasn't real complicated. who did secretary perry meet with regarding ukraine and nafta gas? he was a powerful, powerful guy. and he wielded major influence over a nation that's dependent on aid from the united states as it resists aggression by russia. who else was in the loop with secretary perry? now, deputy secretary brouillette acknowledged in my questions only that there were meetings but provided no further details about who took part in them. in follow-up written questions, again he just wasn't forthcoming. he wouldn't provide any answers. so i'm sending a letter to deputy secretary brouillette to give him yet another chance to answer basic questions. to who was mr. brouillette referring to when he acknowledged that perry held meetings on seeking changes at naftogaz. when and where did those meetings take place. who outside the department did secretary perry speak to regarding changes in naftogaz and the substance of those communications. and then whet

brouillette nomination. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mrs. fischer: if there's no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until 9:30 a.m. tomorrow.