[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 28 (Thursday, March 6, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Page S2005]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   RECOGNITION OF THE MAJORITY LEADER

  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The able majority leader, Senator Lott, is 
recognized.


                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, today, the Senate will be in a period of 
morning business to allow a number of Senators to introduce legislation 
and make statements. I understand the Rules Committee is scheduled to 
meet this afternoon to begin the markup of the Governmental Affairs 
Committee funding resolution. It is my hope that there will be an 
agreement reached on this for the consideration of the funding 
resolution. If an agreement is reached, the Senate may debate the 
resolution on Friday and on Monday, and, hopefully, complete action on 
the resolution early next week. It clearly, though, is our intent to 
take up the funding resolution for the Governmental Affairs Committee 
next week, hopefully earlier in the week, but at some point we clearly 
will want to bring it to a conclusion. We have had a lot of discussion, 
a lot of efforts to find a reasonable arrangement for the committee to 
go forward. I think we are close to accomplishing that.
  Also, I might say that there had been some thought that we would 
begin a discussion today, debate, if you will, on legislation involving 
the independent counsel, and we have some legislation pending in that 
regard. But in my discussions with the Democratic leader yesterday, he 
indicated that he thought perhaps we could come to some bipartisan 
arrangement to deal with independent counsel in the Judiciary 
Committee. I had hoped the Judiciary Committee could act on that today. 
I understand that perhaps there was an objection lodged to going 
forward today, and therefore it may be a week before the Judiciary 
Committee can act on that.
  But the Judiciary Committee, as I understand the independent counsel 
law, can act in a couple of ways. One, the full committee can act in a 
bipartisan way to begin a process of looking at whether or not an 
independent counsel is called for. Or a vote of the majority on the 
committee could also begin this process. We would like it to be 
bipartisan, and we will work to try to see if that can be accomplished. 
Since there was an indication that perhaps we could do that, I thought 
that the good-faith thing to do would be to make that effort in the 
Judiciary Committee before we begin debate on forcing that action here 
in the full Senate.
  Mr. President, there are a number of military nominations that the 
Armed Services Committee reported on Tuesday of this week. I am hopeful 
the Senate will be able to confirm all or at least most of those during 
today's session.
  Also, the Energy Committee has reported out the Pena nomination this 
morning, and it is possible that the Senate could take action on the 
nomination sometime next week. I will be working with interested 
Senators to see what problems might exist, to see what time they need 
to address their concerns. It looks like we will not be able to get a 
vote on the Pena nomination today, but I intend to call it up next 
week, at the very latest the middle of the week.
  As is also usually the case, I will notify our colleagues of the 
voting schedule as early as possible. I know they will be interested 
whether or not there will be votes this afternoon or tomorrow. We will 
get that information to all Senators as soon as we can work through 
some other scheduling issues with the minority.
  I thank all Members for their cooperation and their attention. I 
yield the floor.

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