[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 68 (Wednesday, May 21, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4781-S4782]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, for the information of all Senators, today 
the Senate will immediately resume consideration of Senate Concurrent 
Resolution 27, the first concurrent budget resolution. Senator Kennedy 
will be recognized immediately to offer his amendment on tobacco taxes. 
Following the disposition of the Kennedy amendment, Senator Gramm will 
be recognized to offer his amendment regarding deficit-neutral natural 
disaster relief.
  Members can expect rollcall votes in relation to these amendments and 
others, and all Members will be notified when these votes are 
specifically scheduled.
  I am still hopeful that the Democratic leader and I can join together 
in an effort to yield back additional time off the statutory time 
limitation, which is 50 hours, for the budget resolution and permit the 
Senate to complete its work on the budget resolution today.
  Subsequently, Senators wishing to offer amendments to this 
legislation should notify the chairman of the Budget Committee or the 
ranking member of the Budget Committee of their intentions this 
morning.
  Again, Senators can expect rollcall votes throughout the day. We have 
a good deal of other work that we need to complete before the Memorial 
Day recess. For instance, tomorrow we already have a time agreement for 
3 hours on the Chemical Weapons Convention implementation legislation. 
We would, of course, like to complete this resolution and have it go to 
conference where, hopefully, there will be very little problem in 
working out the conference. Hopefully, there will be no real 
differences between the two bills. That is going to take a lot of 
discipline on our part throughout the day until we complete this 
legislation.
  We also have at least three nominations that will require some small 
amount of time--judicial nominations, district courts--and three 
recorded votes.
  The supplemental appropriations bill, or some version thereof, very 
likely would need to be voted on this week also.
  So it is essential that we stay with it and that we complete the 
budget resolution today, if at all possible.
  There is good news and bad news. The good news is that we made good 
progress yesterday. I think almost 10 hours have been used or yielded 
back already. We did take up some amendments and had votes. While it 
was difficult and delicate, the amendments were defeated by 
considerable margins. We need to continue to do that.
  There are going to be a lot of good and appealing amendments offered 
today. It will be difficult to resist those. But this is a very 
delicately crafted budget agreement that the Republican leadership 
signed onto and that the Democratic leadership has agreed to. The 
chairman and ranking member have been working together more so than I 
have ever seen before. I commend them for that effort.
  So I hope that we will continue to hold the line. If we start down 
the trail of changing the mix, where will it end? I know of several 
amendments that I am very attracted to. The one by Senator Gramm 
obviously is very attractive. He basically says we should have some 
revenue-neutral process to have funds set aside for the annual disaster 
relief bill. We have to come every year for $5 billion, $6 billion, or 
$7 billion. He says we should go ahead and set that aside so we have 
that planned for. That is attractive. But that was not included in the 
budget agreement, so we probably should not do that here.
  There will be an amendment offered by Senator Warner with regard to 
highway funds. I would like to see more money go into the highways and 
bridges in America out of the highway trust fund, which is there for 
that purpose.
  Of course, there is the amendment offered by Senator Kennedy here 
with regard to child health care.
  I want to emphasize that we discussed this at great length during the 
budget negotiations and in reaching

[[Page S4782]]

the budget agreement. There are funds in here for that area. There are 
more than enough funds in that area. In fact, I think there will be a 
struggle to find the best way to provide those funds to the people that 
want to have child health care.
  So it will be a very, very bad change in the makeup of this 
legislation and could unravel the whole budget agreement, if the 
Kennedy amendment is approved today.
  So I hope that we start off the day by having a fine discussion about 
what is in the bill, and what the alternative offered is. But we need 
also to recognize that is a substantial increase in what is provided in 
this particular area. It is totally different from what was in the 
budget agreement that the administration agreed to.
  So I urge my colleagues to keep calm. Let's keep working. But let's 
not start passing amendments that will change the mix of the make up of 
this budget agreement.
  I yield the floor at this time, Mr. President.

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