mrs. hutchison: mr. president, i come to the floor today to discuss and pass the risk-based security screening for members of the armed forces act. how many times have you been at an airport screening line, you're getting ready to go through the machines that are going to determine that you're safe to travel, and standing right there in the line is a man or woman in their military fighting gear, their camouflage and their combat boots, and they're having to take off their combat boots, many times in their two-week r & r period between their stints in afghanistan or iraq, and you think, oh, my gosh, i mean, that is just unbelievable that our military people who are putting their lives on the line, who are sacrificing so much are having to go through a procedure that just doesn't have a commonsense feel about it? so, last week senator rockefeller, senator burr, and i introduced senate bill 1954, the risk-based security screening for members of the armed forces act. the bill was a modification of the house

mrs. hutchison: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mrs. hutchison: mr. president, i ask that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. hutchison: mr. president, we seem to be heading to an agreement today. at this point, the house appears to be ready to vote on the conference report on the appropriations bills for the rest of the fiscal year, which would be until the end of september of next year. i think this is a good thing. we came to an agreement in august called the budget control act. it was a ten-year commitment to lower spending, lower our deficits and it requires a cap in each of the next ten years that would be a down payment on our debt. lower the deficits and lower the debt. the omnibus appropriations bill obviously because it has so many different agencies in it rather than each separate agency bill going forward as we have done normally in the past in the senate, because it has so many, there are people who are going to disagree with parts of it. there is no getting around that. the military construction of w

mrs. hutchison: mr. president, at a time when our economy is staggering, global unrest making long-term energy supplies uncertain, we are going to eventually be able to take up a bill that has been passed by the house that would bypass the president's decision to postpone until 2013 after the elections next year a domestic infrastructure project that promises 20,000 immediate jobs and 118,000 spinoff jobs and provides a stable energy source from our trusted neighbor canada. after three years of unprecedented reviews by state and federal agencies, the administration decided to delay the keystone x.l. pipeline until after the 2012 election. now, why? it would seem obvious, mr. president, that this is a decision that could now be made, the studies have been done and the jobs are needed. this is a privately financed traditional energy project. it is truly shovel ready. it is not a temporary government stimulus program based on wishful thinking looking for things that can be done around the country. it is rea

mr. hoeven: i would like to thank the senator from texas. senator hutchison is, as usual, not only eloquent but has hit the nail on the head. look, whether db across our country from north dakota to texas to oklahoma, across our country we need these jobs and this is the way to get them, and we can get them now. we need our president to act. this legislation is a solutions-oriented bill. this is about job creation. it is about energy independence. it is about good environmental stewardship. we need to do it. i would now like to turn to my esteemed colleague from the state of oklahoma, senator inhofe. senator inhofe is the rank member on environmental and public works. he has a tremendous background in energy, as does senator hutchison, and i would turn to senator inwho have for his comments. mr. inhofe: well, i do appreciate that. and i sometimes -- sometimes we stand on the floor here and we talk about jobs. but you are the evidence -- you know, oklahoma has a big dog in this fight, not only do we have cushing -- when the senator from north dakota has talked

mr. chairman. >> i'm happy, and my time is up. senator hutchison. >> thank you, mr. chairman.st, i think that you pretty much answered, mr. pai, in your opening statement, but i wanted on the record and clear, that you have recently joined a law firm which does have business before the fcc, including one of the sites and potential merger between at&t and t-mobile, which has been abandoned but not necessarily permanently. so my question is, do you have any possible conflicts of interest? would you recuse yourself if there were a conflict between your previous law firm and business that comes before the fcc? i'd like to know exactly how you plan to handle the. >> thank you, senator hutchison for the question that i do not believe that my short period of employment at jenner and block would preclude you from being an efficient commissioner. i was aware starting literally on my first day of the from that i was under consideration for this position. accordingly during my time at jenner, i've not represent any clients before the fcc. my name has not appeared in a comment or please b

mr. chairman. chairman rockefeller, ranking member hutchison, members of the committee. thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to appear before you today. i appreciate as well the many courtesies you have extended to me during this process. i have enjoyed my meetings with many of you and your staff and if confirmed, i look forward to continuing that pro ductive dialogue and serving with my distinguished counterpart ms. rosenworcel. i would like the very kind introductions. the support has been gracious and the service on behalf of the people of kansas, outstanding. i would like to thank the president for nominating me. i am deeply humbled by the honor and if confirmed by the senate, i will do my best to be worthy of the privilege of serving the american public in this capacity. with the committee's indulgence, i would like to introduce members of my family who are in attendance. this might take a while, but i stress the word indulgence. supporting me today and all days is my wonderful wife janine, my son who has absconded, he wanted to make a contribution to t

mr. mayor. i am laura haber, director of marketing/planning for city car share. as was just alluded to, i'm here on behalf of rick hutchison who sends his regrets. as mentioned, this program is two years in the making. rick is the c.e.o. and now presenting at the international car association in montreal as we speak. car share is being promoted worldwide. just so you know, not just here in san francisco. i want to thank again mr. mayor, president chiu for the early vision and leadership in this program and sfmta and city administrator's office, who's been a pleasure to work with operationally. we're very excited about the launch of this pilot program for a number of reasons, not the recent of which raises profile of car sharing. one of the aspects is making it more visible in the community with the very prime locations and congested neighborhoods and also makes it more accessible for people because many of our what we call pods, which are where cars are located or private garages or public garages and they're not as visible to the community. in these dense neighborhoods, car sharing does a couple things. number one, it put

>> woodruff: senator hutchison, why is that the wrong argument and why is cord ray not the right person? >> we are not arguing about mrrdray. i think he does have qualifications if we can get this structure set so there would be an accountability in this agency, which is there is not. it's unprecedented the power that was put in this agency and it doesn't even go through the appropriations process. there is no oversight. they just have had v the ability to go into the federal reserve and take up to 10% of the federal reserve's revenues. well, that's stunning. we need to have an agency that is run by a head... a board that appoints the director and then that director has to respond to the board. the other thing, judy, is we are so worried about the overkill in this. we have potential regulators in the banking and lending industries now. that has been cleaned up. we have the controller. we have the fed, we have the f.d.i.c.. another layer of bureaucracy is going to cause consumers more and it's not going to be more protective. >> woodruff: senator brown, what about her first point that this is an unprecedented amount of

mr. hoeven: i rise this morning to discuss the north american energy security act in a colloquy with my colleagues joining me will be our leader, senator mitch mcconnell of kentucky, senator kay bailey hutchisone great state of georgia, and mike johanns from nebraska and jim inhofe from oklahoma. we're here to discuss a very -- a solutions-oriented piece of legislation. it's about creating jobs, it's about creating energy security for our nation. it's about good environmental stewardship. it's about all of these things and more. and we want to take this opportunity to discuss the legislation and encourage, to urge our fellow colleagues to join with us to create jobs and opportunity for the american people. in a nutshell, this legislation clears the way for the keystone x.l. pipeline which is a 1,700-mile pipeline that will run from alberta, canada, all the way down to the gulf coast region of the country down 0 the refineries in the united states. this blue line shows the route of the keystone x.l. pipeline. this red line shows an existing pipeline, the keystone pipeline which was built very recently by transcanada. it provides almost 600,000 barrels a day of crude to the united states. the k