[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 42 (Thursday, April 6, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Page S2270]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, the Senate will resume consideration of S. 
Con. Res. 101, the budget resolution. By a previous order, there will 
be two back-to-back votes beginning at 10:30 a.m. The vote on the Byrd 
amendment will be the first, to be followed by a vote on the Roth 
amendment. Following the votes, the Durbin amendment regarding tax cuts 
will be the pending amendment.
  For the information of all Senators, the so-called vote-arama--and I 
hope it will not rise to that level; maybe it will just be a few votes 
we will have to take one after the other--is expected to begin at some 
point this evening. I do want to emphasize, though, unless we are 
successful, on both sides of the aisle--let me say, Senator Reid has 
been working very hard on the Democratic side of the aisle. They have a 
reasonably low number of amendments still pending. We hope to reduce 
the number on this side of the aisle, too. We should be able to 
determine by late this afternoon whether we can finish tonight or we 
will go over to tomorrow. I think we need to go ahead and tell our 
colleagues they should plan on being in and having votes in the morning 
because at this point, with some 60 amendments pending, I do not see 
how we can finish it tonight by any kind of reasonable hour.
  I will stay in touch with Senator Domenici and Senator Lautenberg, 
the floor managers, and Senator Reid and Senator Nickles on our side, 
to assess the additional time that might be needed. Senators should 
adjust their schedules accordingly.
  I know there is an event tonight, a dinner. But we can finish tonight 
or we can finish tomorrow, or whatever it takes. We have to complete 
our work. There are only about 8\1/2\ hours remaining of time, so we 
should be able to finish that all right today. The remainder of the 
time will be determined by how many amendments we have remaining.
  I will be glad to yield to Senator Domenici.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Let me just verify, as the one who is working with 
these amendments, Senators should not assume it is very likely that we 
finish tonight. I reported that to the leader earlier this morning. I 
do not know how many amendments are pending on the other side. We are 
working with our people who have about 31 amendments, most of them 
sense-of-the-Senate amendments. I will give my colleague that list soon 
and see if he can help us. I will work at it and talk some Senators 
into understanding they would not have to offer them; they could offer 
them some other time when the Senate is considering another matter.
  If you just look at 8\1/2\ hours plus whatever it is going to take 
for half those amendments in vote-arama, I assume we will be in 
tomorrow.
  Mr. LOTT. I have been urging Senators, and I know Senator Daschle has 
also, to prepare to be in session on this Friday, knowing the budget 
resolution was headed for this date for at least a couple of weeks. So 
we should proceed with that in mind. If we get a lot of cooperation and 
something could be worked out, that would be different, but I do not 
see how we can predict anything at this point but having votes on 
Friday morning.
  I yield the floor.

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