[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 62 (Tuesday, April 4, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S5160]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                PROGRAM

  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, a cloture motion was filed on the substitute 
amendment to the appropriations bill today.
  We have been, throughout the afternoon, trying to figure out if we 
can reach some agreement. We have been working with the Democratic 
leader, Senator Daschle, in good faith on both sides, to see if we can 
come to some closure.
  We have also had discussions through Senator Lott with some of the 
Members of the House that will be critical in trying to get a 
conference report finished on the rescission bill. It is my hope that 
tomorrow morning we may be able to reach some agreement. If not, the 
cloture motion then would ripen on Thursday morning.
  I do not see any other way of dealing with 100 and some amendments at 
this point if we intend to complete action on this bill and on the 
other defense supplemental, on the DC bill, on paper simplification, 
and perhaps other items on which we can agree.
  So a cloture motion was filed on the substitute amendment to the 
appropriations bill just a few moments ago, and if we cannot reach an 
agreement there will be a cloture vote on Thursday.
  It is my hope that if Members feel constrained to offer amendments to 
the bill, they will be prepared to offer those amendments tomorrow to 
expedite action on the bill. And I would also say that if we complete 
action on everything on Thursday, we would probably either not be in 
session on Friday or have a session where there would be no legislative 
business conducted or only a pro forma session. It may be that some 
people might want to speak on Friday. Hopefully, we might have 
everything done so there would be no legislative business on Friday. 
But that will depend, of course, on the cooperation we have on both 
sides.
  There are a number of things going on as we speak to see if there is 
some way we can come together and some way we could complete action on 
this bill. We are talking about a $15 billion rescission package in the 
Senate, $17 billion in the House. If it is not completed before the 
recess, it seems to me that much of that money will be spent by the 
time we are back so we could lose, it has been estimated, maybe $1.5 to 
$2 billion--if we do not act before the recess. So hopefully we could 
have final disposition fairly soon; we could still have the conference 
completed and vote on the conference report either Thursday night or 
Friday morning. And hopefully, if we did that on Friday morning, it 
could be done without the necessity of a rollcall vote.

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