mr. leahy: madam president, i move to reconsider the last vote. mr. reid: move to lay that on the table. the presiding officer: without objection. the clerk: nominations: james d. pettit of virginia to be ambassador to the republic of moldova. pamela leora spratlen of california to be ambassador to the republic of uzbekistan. united states tax court: tamara wenda ashford of virginia to be judge of the united states tax court. l. paige marvel of maryland to a judge of the united states tax court. cary douglas pugh of virginia to be a judge of the united states tax court. department of the treasury: ramin toloui of iowa to be a deputy undersecretary. department of agriculture: lisa afua serwah mensah of maryland to be under secretary of agriculture for rural development. department of state: george albert krol of new jersey to be ambassador to the republic of kazakhstan. donald lu of california to be ambassador to the republic of albania. brent robert hartley of oregon to be ambassador to the republic of slovenia. department of defense: robert m.speer o

mr. leahy: mr. president, would the republican leader yield for a question? mr. president, would the republican leader yield for a question? well, then i unfortunately will not yield for a -- unfortunately, he will not yield for a question, but i would note based on his concerns about the bipartisan piece of legislation regarding n.s.a. and others and his concern about isil, which we all share, that n.s.a. and all our intelligence community had every single -- every single tool the republican leader advocates for while isil built up its strength, while isil had iraq's army flee from them, while they went forward, and with every single one of those elements that the republican leader advocates for, there was not one single alarm bell that rang. so let's -- let's deal with facts, not hypotheses. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. under the previous order, the senate wil will proceed to the consideration of s. 2280, which the clerk will report. the clerk:

mr. leahy: mr. president, will the distinguished majority leader yield? the presiding officer: will the majority leader yield? the floor is yours. mr. leahy: mr. president, in the years i've served here, i've never seen a time when so many noncontroversial nominations are being held up, whether we've had a republican or democratic president. and i note for the majority leader, we have on the calendar 18 nominees for federal judgeships that passed unanimously. every republican, every democrat in the judiciary committee voting for them. many of them recommended by republican senators, and four of them, four judicial emergencies. now, and the oldest one has been pending since june, having gone through the committee unanimously. mr. president, this is not being responsible to the american people. the distinguished majority leader talked about the use of executive orders. concerns have been expressed by the other side about executive orders on immigration. i would remind everybody that this body, by a tw