mrs. boxer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from california is recognized. mrs. boxer: in any event, i ask that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. the presiding officer: morning business is closed. under the previous order the senate will resume to executive session to resume to the nomination. the clerk: nomination, the judiciary, goodwin liu to be united states circuit judge for the ninth circuit. mrs. boxer: mr. president? the presiding officer: under the previous order the time until 2:00 p.m. will be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees. mrs. boxer: mr. president, i am very honored to speak in favor of the goodwin liu nomination and to urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to cast a proud vote for an extraordinary person, a remarkable young man who, for want of a better word, is a star at everything that he has done. this is a picture of goodwin. to say that goodwin person nice th

quorum call: mrs. boxer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. boxer: i ask that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mrs. boxer: mr. president, it is my honor to be here today to support the nomination of judge edward chen to the northern district court of california. i congratulate justice -- judge chen and i congratulate his family on this momentous day that is long overdue. i want to thank senator feinstein for her hard work and her leadership in support of judge chen's nomination. the way we do our judge recommendations in california, i think is just exemplary. what we do is we each have a committee that advises us, and they come up with the names of a few people that they think are the top choices. then each of us makes that recommendation to the president. and judge chen was her nominee. and he has had a distinguished career, and he enjoys broad support and respect in california's legal community. and when i heard the remarks of my colleague from iowa, senator grassley, it really broke my

quorum call: mrs. boxer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. boxer: i ask that the quorum call being dispensed with. and i yield back all the remaining time. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. boxer: and i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the dalton nomination is confirmed and the question now occurs on the sharp nomination. the yeas and nays were requested. is there a second? there appears to be a second. the clerk will call the roll. vote: vote: vote: vote: vote: the presiding officer: are there any senators wishing to change their vote or to vote? if not, on this, we have 89 nay, no zeros, and with that, the nomination is confirmed. under the previous order, the motions to reconsider are considered made and laid upon the table, the president will be immediately notified of the senate's action, and the senate will resume lenl laifb session. -- legislative session. mr. reid: mr. president, what's the pending business? the presiding officer: s. 493, which the clerk will report. the clerk: ca

mrs. boxer: thank you very much, mr. president. what is the order? what is the order? the presiding officer: there are 4 hours of debate equally divided on the question of s. 940. mrs. boxer: is there a specific time limit? on each individual senator. the presiding officer: the majority leader has 107 minutes remaining. mrs. boxer: i would ask for as much time as i might consume; probably less than 15 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. the senator is recognized. mrs. boxer: i want to say the senator from alaska does an excellent job of representing the oil companies. she puts forward the oil companies' arguments magnificently. she's real good at it. she was an economics major, and so was i. and she said what she learned in her time, and let me tell you what i learned. i learned that corporate welfare is wrong, that corporate welfare to companies that are on the fortune 500 list particularly wrong. exxonmobil number 2 on the fortune 500. excuse me if i don't cry for ex

mrs. boxer: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that i may speak for up to 20 minutes and then followed immediately after with -- by senator isakson as much time as he may wish to consume. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. boxer: mr. president, yesterday the senate ethics committee voted unanimously to release the special counsel's report regarding the actions of former senator john ensign. the committee also voted unanimously to refer several findings to the department of justice and to the federal election committee. federal election commission. because we have reason to believe that senator ensign violated laws within their jurisdictions. i want to thank, from the bottom of my heart, the senators who participated in this investigation. many of whom are on the floor today. my vice chairman, the extraordinary leader, senator isakson. and i say leader, i mean a leader on the committee, and i consider him to really be a co-chair with me. and senator roberts, who has been on this commit

mrs. boxer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. boxer: mr.want to thank senator leahy for his eloquent statement that he made about the capture and the killing of osama bin laden and its impact and the need for us to come together as one nation. and i want to thank him for his leadership for the judicial nominees that will be on the floor and i support the one that will be voted on later. is it necessary that i ask consent to speak as if in morning business at this time. the presiding officer: yes, it is. mrs. boxer: i would ask unanimous consent that i ask to speak as if in morning business and at the conclusion of my remarks that senator murray be recognized. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. boxer: mr. president, 10 years ago -- almost 10 years ago, after the horrific attacks of 9/11, i voted to go after osama bin laden, as all of us did in the senate at that time, to make sure that justice would prevail. and now we know and the world knows that osama bin laden has paid the ultimate price for what he did. his death doesn't les

mrs. boxer: mr. president, it is my privilege, it is my honor to support goodwin liu, a californian and a brilliant californian, who has been nominated by the president to the united states ninth circuit court of appeals. and what a fine nomination this is. and i want to thank the president for his belief in goodwin and his, you know, i think amazing perception, that this is a young man -- and he's young; he is be he's about 40 -s the perfect example of the american dream and someone who has worked so hard to put him into this position where he was nominated for this great honor. i want to show folks a picture of goodwin. he's a very, very special and talented person, and he's had a long struggle with this nomination, which we will talk about. i also want to thank, of course, chairman leahy for working hard to bring this nomination to the senate floor, and senator feinstein, my colleague, for her hard work in the committee and her leadership in helping to shepherd this nomination in the senate. this

mrs. boxer: mr. president, yesterday the senate ethics committee voted unanimously to committee voted unanimously to >> mr. president, yesterday the senate ethics committee voted unanimously to release the special counsel's root port regarding the'seg actions of for senator, john ensign. to the committee also voted unanimously to refer several thd findings to the department of justice into the federal election committee.eve that for election commission becauses he had reason to believe that senator ensign violated laws within their jurisdictions. i want to say from the bottom os my heart, the senators wholoor participate in this investigation, many whom are in the floor today.y. my vice chairman, the extraordinary theater, senator isakson. and when i say later, i need a a leader on the committee and i consider him to really be a cochair with me. and senator robert who has been on this committee a long time, and a who has a sense of history and a sense of levity, pragmatism and cooperation. to i want

mr. lieberman, the senator from california, ms. feinstein, the senator from california, ms. boxer senator from south dakota, mr. thune, the senator from texas, mr. cornyn, the senator from indiana, mr. luger, and the senator from utah, mr. hatch. the speaker: the members of the escort committee will exit through the chamber doors, please. >> mr. speaker, the acting dean of the diplomatic corps. >> mr. speaker, the president's cabinet. >> mr. speaker, the prime minister of israel. the speaker: members of congress, i have the high privilege and the distinct honor of presenting to you his excellency, binyamin netanyahu, prime minister of israel. >> thank you. thank you very much. thank you. vice president biden, speaker boehner, distinguished senators, members of the house, honored guests i'm deeply moved by this warm welcome. an i'm deeply honored that you have given me the opportunity to address congress a second time. mr. vice president, do you remember the time that we were the new kids in town? and i do see a lot of old friends here. and i see a lot of new friends here as well.

boxer of california. this is 40 minutes. >> mr. president, i rise to follow on the majority leader's bringing this legislation to the floor which i'm privileged to sponsor with a whole host of my colleagues, and really to speak out for taxpayers and -- sorry -- really to speak out for taxpayers and against continuing to provide subsidies to multibillion dollar big oil companies, and we're talking about the big five. we're not talking about any other entity, just the big five. a vote on my bill presents a positive vote on my bill and presents a simple choice for everyone in this chamber. are you on the side of working class families, or are you on the side of bill oil? there are lots of ways to cut the deficit. many of our colleagues, particularly the other body, they want to end medicare and cut student loan programs. what i and my co-sponsors want to do is end wasteful oil tax breaks or a wealthy industry that does not need them. now, mr. president, clearly, we need to tighten our belts to address the deficit, all of us, even the

mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator lugar. senator boxer. >> thank you. thank you all for your testimony. it is very important for us to do this because we are in afghanistan now for a very long time. and allied to do a reality check. and i will ended with a question to dr. jones, because his statement that a large-scale withdrawal of u.s. forces from afghanistan would reaffirm "the regional perception that the u.s. is not a reliable ally." that is very troubling to me. i want to correct you on that, doctor, if i might. are you with me? ok. talking about the mission. i like to go back to why we went there. since most of us sitting here, either the house of the senate, we voted to go into afghanistan. why did we do it? we had no interest in doing that. i talked about the taliban for years. they would talk about the purpose and say, we have to get rid of the taliban. no one said the less we pass legislation never to recognize the country of afghanistan as long as it was led by the taliban. and i was proud to be involved with that in a bipartisan way. so we went in there because of the horri

mr. president i want to thank hd chairman boxer for the methodthe she has handled this from the ad beginning to the end and who has been her aid throughout and helpful as i also want to joa commend chris car on my staff t for their tireless effort.e memf the members of the committee should be commended for their ad rerd work, and has been hard t work. ben cardin has been a tremendous legal mine for us, sherrod browo has been an insightful person to carry out the information and guidance in the right directionn my friend senator roberts on the floor today is senator roberts,r senator cardin, senator brown senato from idaho but deserves equal b credit and as the chairman saidc his legal mind and hisal insightful nature helped us come helped us to the conclusions we came to t. today. i want to repeat myo thanks to carroll bros for her effort in the work that she did as well ae brian, mike missile and john long who all work with her legal team. t the stafeaf of the ethics committee, this after the actoro to see to it that a treaty was crossed and that the committee did its job and that bill cork

mr. president, i do believe that our senate would have done better not to have had filibusters. that was my view. but we had a debate on that, and it changed. if senator boxer and other democrats now have rethought that matter and would like to talk to me, i would certainly be willing to consider restoring the traditional view of dissent with regard to filibusters of judges. i don't think that's likely to happen, because it was done systematically and deliberately, with great deliberation and determination, by the democrats in the early -- in 2001, i believe it was, and they imposed that change on the senate. and that's what we're operating under today. and based on that, i do believe that senate -- presiding officer liu should -- professor liu should not be confirmed. i thank the chair and would yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: madam president, i want to join my colleague from alabama, who has served for a long time on the senate judiciary committee, as have i, in voition my strong opposition to this -- in voicing my strong opposition to this nominee. it is odd, it seems to me, to have someone who's actually been

mrs. boxer: thank you. well, i just wanted to acknowledge the hard work of the chairman of the intelligence committee and the chairman of the judiciary committee on the patriot act. and to state that i'm on an amendment that senator leahy has authored which has bipartisan support. i think that what senator leahy's amendment does is to put a couple of checks and balances in this bill that i think are essential, but i really hope that we don't have delays because delays would cause trouble for law enforcement people and for the work we are doing to make sure that we continue making progress against those who would harm this country. i fully agree with the statements that we have the balance of security and liberty, and i think that the leahy amendment goes a long way toward that. but again, we need to give law enforcement the tools that they -- that they need. mr. president, as we look at what's ahead for us this week, it is not only the patriot act, but we also are going to be looking for votes on the -- a c