quorum call: quorum call: mr. pryor: mr. president?the presiding officer: the senator from arkansas. mr. pryor: i ask that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. pryor: mr. president, i know that we're in republican time, and i would like to use some of the democratic time -- i'm sorry, use the republican time to talk about an important issue in the farm bill, which is catfish. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. pryor: thank you, mr. president. i'll be brief. i know we have other colleagues on the way so i will be brief and i will yield when they get here and are squared away. mr. president, thank you for acknowledging me and let me just talk for a few minutes about catfish and something that i think is very, very important, and that is that catfish be inspected. this may sound like a no-brainer, something that's simple, we certainly would expect and april that all cat -- anticipate that all catfish raised in the u.s. would be inspected and call all the usda and other requirements an

mr. reid: on behalf of senator pryor, i have a first-degree amendment which is at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from nevada, mr. reid, for mr. pryor and mr. hoeven proposes an amendment numbered 2469 to amendment number 2468. mr. reid: i ask for the yeas and nays on that. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the yeas and nays are ordered. mr. reid: i have a second-degree amendment which is also at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from nevada, mr. reid, proposes an amendment numbered 2470 to amendment number 2469. roeufp an amendment -- mr. reid: i have an amendment at the desk to the language proposed to be stricken. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from nevada, mr. reid proposes an amendment numbered 2471 to the language proposed to be stricken by amendment number 2468. mr. reid: on that, mr. president, i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the y

mr. pryor: i would ask that i be given ten minutes to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. pryor: thank you, mr. president. i would like to commend my colleague from tennessee and his leadership when it comes to clean air. he does have a long history of fighting for clean air in tennessee and in this country, and we do share the common goal of maintaining a safe and reliable source of electricity but also one that's safe for human health. cleaner air means better health for arkansans, for tennesseans, for everyone in the entire country. you know, this all started back in 1990 with some clean air act amendments signed by president george h.w. bush that authorized the e.p.a. to regulate hazardous air pollutant emissions from power plants. now, these decades -- excuse me, these regulations have been two decades in the making. it started back in 1990, as i said. a lot has changed since then, but one thing that has improved greatly since then is technology a

mr. pryor i want to thank the senator from california and just say right now when you open the pair, turn on the evening news you see ads for clean coal. we need clean coal. we're like the saudi arabia of coal. we have, they say, 400 years' worth of coal supply in this country. and we have the technology now to take 90% of the mercury out and a local of the particlates and we should do it. this is our chance to do it. this is a rule that's been 20 years in the making. this is not something that people dreamed up the last couple years. it's been 20 years in the making that congress has mandated that we do this. and i'd say this, in closing for my part of the closing, is that we should not have to make ourselves a false choice here. we don't have to be anti-coal and pro-health. we can be both. we can do what's good for the health of the country and good for coal and that is have clean coal, uphold this rule and vote against the inhofe resolution. thank you. mrs. boxer: madam president? the presid

mr. pryor: i understand we're in a quorum call. i ask that be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection, and the senator is recognized. mr. pryor: thank you, mr. president. i rise today to discuss the national flood insurance program and the status of the bill that's in the senate today. this is a bill that the banking committee has been working on, and we certainly appreciate the chairman and ranking member and all the members of the banking committee for working on this very important piece of legislation. i will note that when the bill came through the banking committee, that the chairman and ranking member has asked that no amendments be offered, that those would be handled on the floor at a later time, and here we are today and it's time for us to handle those amendments and those changes to this very important piece of legislation, but unfortunately we're hearing rumors that now the house and the various negotiations going on with the transportation bill as well as the stud

mr. pryor: thank you, mr. president. let me just give the other side of the story here. that is that we have a lot of fish that gets imported from -- important trading partners like vietnam and other asian countries, but it's disputed whether they meet the definition of catfish. they certainly aren't an american variety of catfish, probably some other type of fish but regardless of all the science there, it's important that we inspect these fish as they come in because they are not grown in the same sanitary conditions that we have in the united states. they use different herbicides and pesticides and different pollutants. in fact, we've seen documented cases where they're raised in sewage water, water contaminated with sewage. and we need to make sure that these fish are inspected when they come into the united states and that's what the underlying bill provides and that's what i support. thank you. the presiding officer: all time has expired. the question is on amendment number 2199. a senator: yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there's