does senator murkowski have a point? >> i was disappointed when i saw the senator's release and does she have a point? i don't think so. i think what the governor did was actually look out for alaskans in this and made the comment i'm pass the ball when i have the full-court press on me so we can move the state forward. she accomplished more than most accomplish in one or two terms here so in that context i don't think so. >> karl rove let me bring you in. you are as plugged in to republican politics as any one this this country. what are you hearing from insiders that you are talking to about why sarah palin decided to step down? >> well, they are a little perplexed because if she wanted to escape the ethics investigations and save the taxpayers money she has now done that but it sort of sent a signal if you do this kind of thing to a sitting governor like her you can drive her out of office. she is not going to be able to escape media attention. if she thinks that she will be able to protect her family against the kind

senator and incumbent governor republican frank murkowski, fairbanks businessman, john finkly and in the middle the hockey mom turned politician. >> keeping the oil industry the way it has been for 30 years. >> you know, guys, we owe alaskans a better discourse. >> i agree. >> sarah with a firm voice said guys, you know what, and everything got quiet and she said you know, alaskans deserve a better discourse than this. >> greta: sarah palin became governor with 51% of the votes and won the hearts of alaskans with her first official act. >> one of the first things that she did was she put his jet up on ebay for sale. frank murkowski's jet was symbolic of everything that was wrong in the republican party in alaska at that time. it was an indulgences that was unnecessary. >> greta: palin vetoed nearly a quarter billion dollars in projects from the state capital budget in 2007 and took on big oil by boosting taxes on their profits. todd quit his job as a north slope production supervisor for bp when his wife the governor began negotiations for a natural gas pipeline. >> my job as the adm

and senator murkowski offered an amendment allowing insurers to rate base on tobacco use specifically, allowing insurers to vary premiums by one to five for use of tobacco. several amendments offered by senator burr and accepted by unanimous consent to ensure the community health insurance option operates on a level playing field with all the insurers and provided a clarification that federal and state laws relating to rating preexisting conditions and fraud and abuse and quality improvement and other provisions providing to these openings, as well. several hatch and senator coburn offered amendments allowing independent insurance agents and brokers be eligible to enough gate within the american health benefit gateways. my point, mr. president, is that in addition to these technical amendments there were many substantive amendments that were adopted at part of the committee effort and i invite our colleagues' attention. we have offered to brief any single member or others interested in this. this bill has now been on the web site where the public can read it, make comments and get ide

, senator begich, senator kohl, senator murkowski, senator cardin, senator inouye, senator webb, and senator warner. and it's bipartisan effort to correct certain inequities in the federal retirement system. that has been our effort in these amendments. also, this effort was supported by a huge number of groups that believe in this and support it. some of the organizations are the american federation of government employees, national treasury employees union, the international federation of professional and technical engineers, federal law enforcement officers association, american federation of state, county, and municipal employees, american postal workers union, national association of letter carriers, national rural letter carriers soshescarrierassociation, natiod retired federal employees association, senior executives association, federal managers association, government managers coalition, national association postal supervisors, national association of post masters of the u.s., and national association of assistant u.s. attorneys. this is the kind of support that we have for

and they have bad blood because palin ran against and beat murkowski's dad, i'm sorry that governor palin abandoned the constituents. quitter is a label and issue she has to deal with if she wants a political future. >> does it play more broadly with the enson and sanford issues having gone on in the last couple of weeks and losing one of their stars at least in some capacity for now. >> embarrassing to have the three fairly well known, palin, sanford and enson, but three republican leaders all involved in controversial issues and in one case quitting office or stepping down. but i don't know that it really matters. we are a long way away from 2010. i think in the end what is much more important for the congressional election is if republicans can develop a coherent argument as to why they oppose obama. it will also help if obama isn't doing well. as far as 2012 is concerned in the presidential election it is a lifetime away. it will be new people and new issues. who would have thunk in 2005 we would be talking about president obama. that is an eternity. >> she piqued a lot of trw t

murkowski? >> no by proxy. >> roberts? >> no by proxy. >> chairman kennedy? >> aye by proxy. >> the vote is 14 ayes, 9 nays. >> reed 200 is adopted. he has to relieve sen. dodd, and he will assume the position. are there any other amendments? sen. enzi? >> i would call up 204. >> enzi 204. hatch >> the purpose is to allow individuals eligible for medicaid to enroll in a qualified health plan. expanding the program to 150% of the poverty -- this will bankrupt the states. if we want to expand health-care coverage, medicare is a bad place to start. according to the washington journal, medicaid beneficiaries have more poor health and their friends with private insurance, many of them cannot find doctors and cannot get the care that they need. 51% of the family physicians participate, in michigan this is 64%, this is in 2005. i cannot believe that this forces them to stay in a dysfunctional system without allowing them to opt in the health care plan provided by the exchange. my amendment will allow them a choice to enroll in medicaid or unqualified health plan. pa

. >> reporter: many national republicans are highly critical like alaska senator lisa m murkowski. i'm deeply disappointed that the governor has decided to abandon the state and her constituents before her term has concluded. >> sean the fbi says they are clearly not investigating. why would they come out and make that statement? >> yeah. that is an unusual move. the reason they are doing it, the blogs are out there. the other shoe is going to drop. there is a scandal somewhere. it is going to affect the governor. the fbi says, look, we are not investigating her. she has been the target of 15 ethics violations allegations. she has been cleared of 12. three are pending. she spent $500,000 defending herself. she said i'm done i want to move on. >>> joining us now the author of the "vanity fair" article, the title of the article "it came from wasilla." todd purdam joins us from washington. you spent many months reporting on sarah palin. were you surprised by the announcement and why do you actually think she quit? >> i was surprised by the resignation. i was not surprised that she did

life, hecommute to juneau and they deny criticm from even me republicans here in alka ke senat la murkowski that she should hav finished the job. even some le here in wasilla y they're disappointed. they like palin and they wanted her to finish the job, take up the figh with lislatu and not back down. bushe's off to greater things, presumably some bigrewards like a book dealalreadynegotiated, lecturfees a possibly even a ta show. allison? >>hanks for your reporting tonight. let's turn now to someone who knows sarah palin well. decratic alaska senator hollis french. senator french, thank you for yourime tonight. >> nice to be here, alison. just a basic question. were there any rumbles on the grown that this was in e pipeli, pardon the pun? >> lutely not. you know, pnerhaps the coention wisdom leading up to last friday was that she would not run for re-ection. st thought she wou decide step down an theened end of h term to prepare r a national race but i don't think u could have would have guessedshe would quit midterm >> there appear to be two camps on this event. there's governor palin is c

senator murkowski from up alaska cent-a-gallon is abandoning the state. here's part of her announcement followed by fox contributor karl rove or had. >> you are naÏve if you don't see a full-court press on the national level taking a bite right now. a good point that this is what she does. she drives through a full-court press, protecting the ball, keeping her head up because she needs to keep her eye on the basket tonight that's unexpected and it is also odd. listening to it when she talked about the national full-court press when she talked about the ethics investigations it sounded like she felt she was being forced out that she was running away and quitting the fight. that's never attractive to make payments to serving as a lame duck would not help the state. others say it could give her more time to travel to the lower 48 and ten political support campaign for other candidates and focus on the 2012 presidential run. number two, sean parnell will be sworn in at the governor's picnic at the end of the month. >> julie: later tonight "fox news" will reen

susan collins and lisa murkowski both from the more moderate wing of the party. they were here at a meeting at the suggestion of grassley, the ranking republican on finance and you know why i think, chris? because if the president's talking to those republicans then he's going to have an easier time selling ben nelson and dianne feinstein to stick with them on these things and mary landrieu the conservative democrat who might be teetering that look, i'm still reaching out to republicans. he may not get their votes but it's a way of reaching out to conservative democrats. >> susan. >> i think it's hard to believe democrats are going to defeat the president on a health care bill. he may end up with a stepping stone to bigger reform. >> you expect 60 votes. >> i expect democrats not to be the reason this plane goes down. >> one of the nice things, i'll give you a complete rosy scenario. i think i'm more optimistic than chuck who's at the white house and probably knows more what's going on. my view is this, the president's out there saying the house acted yesterday,

because she'd taken on frank murkowski, republican governor, very corrupt and she'd done a lot of damagepublicans in her own party. almost everything she did in her first term -- first two years, excuse me, was on the backs of democratic support. not republican support. so that 86% approval rating was really a lot of democrats, a lot of independents, not a lot of

i reintroduced s. 507, which is included in the amendment, with senators murkowski, inouye, and begich. it is nearly identical to the bill that passed the senate last year. it is a bipartisan effort to transition employees in hawaii, alaska, and the territories to the same locality pay system used in the rest of the united states while protecting employees' take home pay. the measure passed unanimously to committee on april 1, 2009. the second provision i want to highlight corrects how employees' annuities are calculated for part-time service under the civil service retirement system. this provision removes the disincentive that now discourages federal employees near retirement from working on a part-time basis while phasing into retirement. it would treat federal employees under csrs the same way they are treated under the newer federal employer retirement system. the third provision i want to discuss would allow fers participants to apply their own used sick leave to their length of service for computing retirement annuities as is done for csrs employees. the congressional research s

@@@@r@ @ @ @ 0 >> senator murkowski? >> aye by proxy. >> senator coburn? >> aye. >> senator roberts? >> aye by proxy. >> chairman kennedy? >> no by proxy. >> the vote is ten ayes, 13 nays. >> the vote is -- the amendment is defeated. i also know that our staffs have been working to clear some amendments and i understand that we can accept by unanimous consent enzi 243 and enzi 261. is that agreed to by unanimous consent? very good. is there any senator who has an amendment? >> i do, madam chairman, if it's in order, i would be happy to call up mine. >> senator, why don't you offer your amendment and then after you, i have an amendment also. >> i will wait for you if you want to offer yours first. because we had ours over here. >> i'm going to try to get while senator harkin's gone, you want to offer an amendment, i'm going to offer one on women's health. are there other senators on our side who are going to offer amendments later on this afternoon? senator bingaman? anybody else? okay. why don't i do mine. you'll do yours and we'll go back to bingaman. doe

and senator murkowski offered an amendment allowing insurers to rate base on tobacco use specifically, allowing insurers to vary premiums by one to five for use of tobacco. several amendments offered by senator burr and accepted by unanimous consent to ensure the community health insurance option operates on a level playing field with all the insurers and provided a clarification that federal and state laws relating to rating preexisting conditions and fraud and abuse and quality improvement and other provisions providing to these openings, as well. several hatch and senator coburn offered amendments allowing independent insurance agents and brokers be eligible to enough gate within the american health benefit gateways. my point, mr. president, is that in addition to these technical amendments there were many substantive amendments that were adopted at part of the committee effort and i invite our colleagues' attention. we have offered to brief any single member or others interested in this. this bill has now been on the web site where the public can read it, make comments and get ide

and senator murkowski offered an amendment allowing insurers to rate base on tobacco use specificallyallowing insurers to vary premiums by one to five for use of tobacco. several amendments offered by senator burr and accepted by unanimous consent to ensure the community health insurance option operates on a level playing field with all the insurers and provided a clarification that federal and state laws relating to rating preexisting conditions and fraud and abuse and quality improvement and other provisions providing to these openings, as well. several hatch and senator coburn offered amendments allowing independent insurance agents and brokers be eligible to enough gate within the american health benefit gateways. my point, mr. president, is that in addition to these technical amendments there were many substantive amendments that were adopted at part of the committee effort and i iite our colleagues' attention. we have offered to brief any single member or others interested in this. this bill has now been on the web site where the public can read it, make comments and get ideas a

. >> senator murkowski? >> senator coburn. >> no by prox. >> i senator roberts. chairman kennedy? by proxy. >> vote is five neys, 17 yais. >> the amendment is not agreed you to. the second amendment now is on the hatch amendment. for the record, i want to be sure that modification was included. >> the modification of the six months, is that modification? >> what's this? >> yes. >> six month addition for pediatrics. >> this is the hatch amendment. >> modification. >> six months for pediatrics. >> okay, i object. i didn't realize that we had a motion to do that. >> i mentioned it at the end of my discussion. >> i didn't understand it was on the floor and there was a chance to object then. >> do you are a right to modify -- >> you are the right to modify amendments. >> second degree amendments. the amendment is on the hatch amendment as modified. which is what? >> so this gives it a 12 1/2 year, the six-month pediatric gives them the first 12 years also? >> that's correct. >> okay. >> so this actually is a longer agreement than the agreement that senator hatch touted as what we had a

obviously, with tom harkin working on the issues in the bill, holding a hearing to develop the ideas, murkowskiabout improving quality, bingaman serving in the kit -- both committees, pat roberts on coverage, with an idea on the pay or play for the employers, making certain that everyone will be covered, murray made a contribution on the workforce, we will get people the health care that they need, the primary health care of the nation. jack reed made a number of contributions that have been worthwhile, and you are working on the biological issue and he was able to achieve what he wanted despite the differences, bernie sanders in increasing the penalties for the people guilty of fraud and abuse, sherrod brown on biologics and other areas. we did not prevail with your idea but this will go forward. casey made great contributions, kay, you hvave helped with these issues and the part-time workers and making certain that they not discriminate, jeff merkley, for the council yesterday to provide the support so intelligent people are making decisions, and sheldon in dealing with the public auction, th

workforce and the district of columbia, i'm proud to join with senators collins, lieberman, voinovich, murkowski, begich, kohl, mikulski, cardin, webb and warner in this bipartisan effort to correct certain inequities in the federal government retirement system. this amendment very familiar to an amendment that was included in the house-passed fy 2010 national defense authorization bill. each of these provisions is much needed and has been thoroughly tee baitd by the appropriate committees in the house and the senate. many of the changes were requested by the administrators of the retirement plans and are strongly supported by many organizations. the list of supporters is too long to read here, but it includes every major federal employee union, postal unions, supervisors, and post masters, the federal law enforcement officers association, and several government managers groups. i spoke in more detail last evening about the substance of the amendment and i call up the amendment at this time. i strongly encourage my colleagues to support this amendment, the federal retirement reform provisions an

and i'm so pleased to be joined by senators burr, casey, cornyn, hey again, landrieu, murkowski, reich, rockefeller, snowe, udall of colorado and wyden in this effort. it is identical to the legislation i have previously introduced which has 32 bipartisan cosponsors. it is a great move to help our children, particularly our troubled children, and more importantly, it really sends it in the right direction so they can become contributing parts of this great nation. so i encourage my colleagues to look at this amendment and help us get it passed in this very important bill. mr. president, you've been incredibly patient, and i appreciate that patience, having to talk about five different amendments. bus these -- but these are issues critically important to me and critically important to the people of arkansas. my final amendment would grant full veterans status to those in the armed forces who have 20 years of service. i am joined in this effort by senator hutchison of texas. this amendment is endorsed by the military coalition, which is a large coalition of military groups. under current

i would like to start by thanking former governor, frank murkowski, for appointing notice serve as theommissioner of the department of military and veterans affairs and as the general to alaska. i've enjoyed the four years that i worked with governor murkowski and appreciate his willingness to allow me to be on his cabinet and to serve at a state level in the great state of alaska. it was an important position to me. i think i did a good job, and i think that was confirmed by many very appreciative comments when i talked about sarah palin. sarah palin kept me on as the commissioner, kept mo as the adjunct general. now, it is true sarah palen and i had known each other years. i saw her on the city council on wasilla, a young lady who wanted to make sure his community was represented by a voice. i've seen that grow toward today, governor palin has stepped up to what she wants to do for this state and for our country and for all of us in alaska we should be very honored and appreciative of what she has done. some in this crowd may never understand what sarah palin did, but what she did is

appoints the following conferees: the clerk: senators nelson of nebraska, inouye, pryor, tester, murkowski and cochran. mr. cochran: mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call: mr. coburn: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent the call of the quorum be dispensed. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. coburn: i want to talk about what's going on in honduras. i have a lot of friends in honduras. and i have this peculiar worry that we find ourselves on the wrong side of freedom in the situation that's happening in honduras. as you read the press clips what we heard was there was a coup. that, in fact, is not true. the supreme court of honduras under the direction of the congress asked the military to intercede because the president of honduras had violated their own laws. yet we have our state department and our foreign policy siding with chavez, raul castro and the former president. there's no question that improvements have been made in the past in central and south america but tonight

murray, landrieu, lautenberg, tester, specter, voinovich, cochran, gregg, shelby, brownback, and murkowski. mrs. murray: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: move to reconsider and lay on the table the last. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. murray: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate move to morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. murray: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the tributes to senator in the "congressional record" be printed as a senate document and that senators be permitted to submit statements for inclusion until friday, august 7, 2009. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. murray: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10:00 a.m. tomorrow, friday, july 10. that following the prayer and pledge, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day and there then be a period of morning busine