mr. martinez: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator florida. mr. martinez: i ask that further proceedings under the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. martinez: this week the senate will be considering the travel promotion act, which is an important bill for my home state of florida. every year millions of tourists travel to the united states from overseas helping our economy, generating revenues for states and communities and creating job opportunities for millions of americans. but for most of this last decade, there's been a huge drop jooff in visiters to the united states if other countries -- a huge dropoff from visitors to the united states from other countries. the united states tourism industry has experienced 182 billion dollars in lost spending, $27 billion in lost tax receipts, and $47 billion in lost payroll, and we've also lost 245,000 jobs. one in every -- one in eight americans is directly or indirectly employed by the travel industry. the industry contributeds $115 billion in tax revenues. in flor

mr. martinez: mr. president it gives me good pleasure and honor as an individual who lived in pursuit of free cuba and a better america, colonel radio moan marking an accomplished military leader, diplomat and entrepreneur. cuba was it native home he made our nation a bitter place during the years he lived in exile. he was born in cuba on may 12, 1914. at able 19, he joined the cuban army and served his country and graduated from the cuban military academy in 1941. during his years of military service, he attended various u.s. army schools in the united states. following a distinguished career in the military, he found his passion in military education. in the classroom, he worked to instill a culture of civic awareness within the military's ranks and found the cuban national war college and eventually was promoted to the director of cuba's military schools. following his career in cuban military education, he was appointed as cuba's military attache to the united states and delegate to the defense boa

mr. chairman i look for to hearing the answers to both, thank you. >> thank you pericenter martinez at. >andç thinking ranking member hutchinson for holding this hearing at an important time. i will echo theç remarks of so many of my colleagues about the importance of dealerships to kinase and also the very? that senator isakson just asked without a sales force had we remain viable but where i want to zero in and the questions i want answered are very specifigç which are two examples of dealerships that are closed in the san of florida. one is inç crisis and cheap doe and his dealership was perhaps a top seller and one ofçç the tp 100 in the country. and seems to me the kind of dealerships you'd want to see continue. the other one is central florida, holler chevrolet i have grown up in central florida on my life and it is synonymous with chevrolet in this central florida region. until chevrolet and ceased to exist the remember to and there would be the number one dealer in the central florida region. how in the world doesn't make sense for a dealership like that two also be on the li

mccaskill, klobuchar, whitehouse, udall, shaheen, kaufman, martinez, demint, barrasso, wicker, johanns and risch. the majority leader is recognized. mr. reid: the resolution on will meet at a time to be determined. the presiding officer: the senate will take proper order and notify the house of representatives and counsel for judge kent. mr. reid: mr. president, i would ask in an orderly fashion that senators approach the desk for signing of the resolution. of the impeachment before they leave the chamber. i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call : quorum call:

mr. president, before i proceed i ask unanimous consent that henry williams and jessica martinez of senator bingaman's office be granted privileges of the floor during the debate of travel promotion bill. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. inouye: mr. president, i find it very difficult to be on the opposing side to my dear friend from new hampshire. there's been a lot of discussion on the premise that the conferees did not pay for the cash for clunkers bill. mr. president, technically, that is correct. but i believe my colleagues should be advised that under the congressional budget office, the c.b.o. scoring, the conferees are scored with a savings of $1.47 billion in discretionary spending in this bill. in title 14 of the bill, the conferees included a provision which mandates that more than $1 billion in discretionary spending in rescissions shall be allocated as savings to the bill not used as an offset. while the conferees were required to designate the cash for clunkers title as an emergency for technical reasons, it is also true that we included $1 billion off

martinez and beltran, wright, church and sheffield. murphy, schneider and castillo. >> jim: let's take a look at our pnc scouting report on koji uehara. mr. splitter, he will use that pitch along with his fastball. two walks in 29 innings here at home, so he's going to command the strike zone. his last win, even though he's pitched better than his record indicates, was on the 13th of april. so, again, not a whole lot to show. they don't give him a whole lot of runs. he hasn't been hit particularly hard by lefties or righties. just seems maybe six innings, hopefully after that, you really have to go to your bullpen. the ball not likely to carry very well with the winds swirling in. pitch is up high for a ball. cora had a 3 for 5 in the ballgame last night. cora getting work in the lead- off spot. reyes continues out at shortstop, so he's in. he's taking all the way for a strike. the mets come in now, 15-18 on the road, while the orioles here at home are 19-17 on the season. fooled him, way behind on it. and a 2-2 count. >> jim: it will be interesting to see the hamstring problems, his last start against the mariners, probably not a litmus

mr. stevens personally. i never met the man but he comes highly recommended, i must say, by people who are knowledgeable, in fact, senator martinez have talked about him. bob, you and i have talked about him. i have constituents in for my state that is knowledgeable about fha work and know mr. stevens swell and have recommended him highly. senator shelby points out some issues that the committee could not ignore in the midst of this. i've talked to the secretary of hud about the nominee and what steps they might be willing to take to provide some assurances to the committee dealing with respa and other matters. i don't believe forcing this on the committee -- i'd like the consultation advice of my colleagues as well on a matter like this rather just bringing up a matter -- i always like on these matters where we can to have a bipartisan support for a nominee. and particularly there's an outstanding issue. we're all aware of what can happen. it sounds fine but six months, a year from now something pops up and obvious questions, well, you had some idea this might happen. why did you go forward? i'm not sure that should always be th

martinez grounded out his firt time up. and that one in the air to let center field. jones coming over. >> jim: mr. bobblehead.t weighed about 7 pounds. i said you cannot use that glove. it looks pretty, he goes no, that's just -- they send it to me, and i said don't bring it out. nobody will want to dance with you out there with that glove. >> gary: here's castillo, and the unusual shift as they move scott over to the line way in. jones in center playing like a softball center field. markakis straightaway in right. and it is inside. two down. castillo has the only hit for the mets, a single that came in the third inning. other thing berken is doing he lasted 4 and a third, and 3 13 in innings pitched. grounded to second base. right now, berken is dominatig through five. shutting out the mets. ♪ ah, man, love that drinkability. drink-a what? drinkability. it's what makes bud light so incredibly refreshing. it's like a wave of refreshment, gently washing over your whole body. it's getting bigger. here comes the refreshment. [ sfx: screaming, wave splashing ] whew. well that almos

bond, brownback, enzi, graham, martinez, thune, wicker, alexander, cochran, ensign, vitter, and i'm sure there are others. it's a bipartisan bill. now, mr. president, we have already wasted so much time on this. we had to file cloture on a motion to proceed to this heavily bipartisan bill. and once we're on the bill -- i spoke to the republican leader and we thought when he a pathway to having civility here so the republicans would try help us. but, of course, we learned that yesterday the senate g.o.p. still saying "no." democrats need to know when the bring bills up we're going to extend the debate as long as we can even if we can't win. we said okay, let's -- you offer -- you, the republicans, offer four amendments. and they did. they picked all the amendments they wanted to offer want germane to this bill. and i said okay. they were all involving tarp, the money that we all know about by now. and so i said, well, senator -- i told senator from vermont, senator sanders, i said, if republicans want to offer nongermane amendments, i'll be happy to offer your amendment. his is -- his is really a fairly simple amendment, mr. president.