[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 133 (Tuesday, September 24, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11125-S11126]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, this morning there will be a period for 
morning business until the hour of 10:30 a.m., with Senators permitted 
to speak for up to 5 minutes each. Following morning business today, it 
would be my intention to begin consideration of a continuing 
resolution. We are fast approaching the end of this fiscal year. It 
certainly is my hope that we would be allowed to begin this important 
appropriations measure. At this time, we are unable to reach an 
agreement to begin that bill. I tried several different approaches last 
Friday in discussions with the Democratic leader. We were not able to 
come to any agreement at that time, but we will keep working today. 
Hopefully, we can reach some understanding as to how we would proceed.
  In accordance with the agreement reached on Friday, the Senate will 
resume consideration of the maritime security legislation today at 
4:30, with a series of rollcall votes beginning at 5 p.m. on or in 
relation to pending amendments as well as final passage on that. I 
presume there would be at least four votes at that time. So we will 
have the stacked votes at 5 o'clock.
  We are also hoping that the one outstanding issue on S. 1505, the 
pipeline safety bill, could be resolved, and we could complete action 
on that measure also.
  It is my understanding that the VA-HUD appropriations conference 
report may be available for consideration this afternoon. I know that 
the agreement has been worked out and that they are scheduled to vote 
sometime today. I do not know exactly what time we will get it. But as 
soon as we get it, we will try to get it into the mix at the earliest 
possible opportunity. It certainly is an important appropriations bill 
dealing with the Veterans' Administration and, of course, all of our 
housing policies in the country. We need to get that bill completed in 
order for the checks to go out on time at the end of this week or 
certainly the first of next week.
  We will stand in recess today from 12:30 to 2:15 for the weekly 
policy conferences to meet. Once again, I ask for the cooperation of 
all Senators as we begin what I hope will be the final week of the 
Senate's business prior to adjournment. In order to accomplish that, it 
is going to take a lot of cooperation, a lot of give-and-take. I 
certainly will make every effort to work with all Senators. I hope 
Senators understand that this week is going to be very hard to schedule 
votes around other events, especially if we are really moving seriously 
toward completing our work, as we should, on Friday or Saturday.
  In addition to that, we are working to see if we can clear problems 
with the NIH revitalization authorization bill. I understand there is 
the potential point of order that maybe can be worked out. There is a 
lot of support for this important legislation. I hope maybe we could do 
it like we did last week on the Magnuson fisheries bill, the FAA 
reauthorization, and the maritime bill. We can work through those 
problems and hopefully get about an hour to have some discussion to get 
a vote.
  We are also working with Senator Kassebaum, who is very, very 
interested in the job partnership training legislation. There are 
problems there again, a point of order, which looks like it may not be 
resolvable, but we may call it up for some discussion this

[[Page S11126]]

week and see what can be accomplished.
  I want to remind Senators we expect a veto override vote to occur on 
Thursday on the partial-birth abortion ban. And there are requests from 
Senators to be able to speak on that matter today also. But we would 
schedule a vote for Thursday.

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