mr. vitter: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. vitter: madam president, i have a motion to commit with instructions at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from louisiana, mr. vitter, moves to commit the bill, h.r. 2918, to the committee on appropriations with instructions to report back to the senate making the following changes: one, amend the amounts appropriated in the bill so as to report back a bill with an aggregate level of appropriations for fiscal year 2010, not more than the level enacted for fiscal year 2009. , which while not reducing appropriations necessary for the security of the united states capitol complex. mr. vitter: madam president, i'll outline my motion to commit shortly, but, first, by way of introduction, let me say how disappointeed and strufted i am that another amendment i had proposed for this bill was consistently blocked out all of this week and no vote, no consideration was allowed by the distinguished majority leader. that amendment, madam president, which

mr. vitter: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. vitter: madam president, i ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. vitter: thank you, madam president. madam president, today i rise to speak on two crucial issues which i had hoped we would not only be debating in the context of this f.d.a. bill currently before the senate, but actually acting on in that context. and so i have to say, madam president, as i speak about these two issues, i'm really disappointed we're not taking this obvious major opportunity of acting on a major f.d.a. bill to, again, not only have me speak, but all of us act together on the crucial issues of, number one, the re-importation of prescription drugs. and, number two, meaningful generic drug reform so that we get generics to market sooner as a lower cost alternative for american consumers. i want to touch on each of these in turn, madam president. madam president, i was glad to support my friend, the distinguished senator fr

mr. demint: senator, i'm prepared to grant a unanimous consent to move ahead right now if i can be guaranteed seven amendments, three by myself, two by senator coburn, and two by senator vitter, and i'll be glad to describe what those are if you like -- mr. reid: the only thing that -- as i want the -- as i told -- told you in my opening statement here, we'll -- the appropriation bills have a little different rules than just a regular bill. but we -- we're happy to work with you and i'm -- i'm curious to find out what amendments you're interested in. would you run over them with me? mr. demint: yes, i'd be glad to. and, again, this is a trust, but verify. we have had a few problems with getting amendments on some other bills, so i just want to make sure that we're in agreement and there are no surprises. i've got three amendments that we would like and one is related to the capitol visitors center. the other is related to rescinding unspent stimulus money, and the other is asking for a g.a.o. audit of the federal reserve. senator vitter has an amendment related i believe related to our pay raises as well as a motion to recommit the, i -- i guess someone is going to have to e

mr. vitter: thank you, madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. vitter: i'll be brief. in summary, madam president, let me try to clarify and rebut a few points. first of all, to say this bill is a 2.4% increase over last year is a complete fiction because that assumes the stimulus into last year's number. that inflates last year's number because of the stimulus, and the stimulus was a onetime bill, not a normal fiscal year bill. number two, last year's bill, as i mentioned, was an 11% increase over the previous year, three times the rate of inflation. number three, i wanted to give the committee maximum flexibility in making this modest cut, but there are plenty of suggestions i would have. and i'll be happy to offer specifics. i'll offer one right now. the open world leadership trust fund, $14.5 million. that would be almost a quarter of the savings i'm asking for. that is a program to bring governmental officials from russia and eastern european republics to tour the united states. i'm sure it's a nice idea, but i think there would be a lot of a

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.