[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 60 (Tuesday, May 16, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Page S3965]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           THE SENATE AGENDA

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself 7 minutes, the Senator 
from Minnesota, 7 minutes, and the Senator from Iowa, the remaining 
time.
  First of all, I join with our colleagues who spoke earlier about the 
extraordinary events we saw on The Mall this past weekend.
  I was here a few moments ago when we listened to the majority leader 
talk about the urgency of passing a comprehensive energy program. 
Energy programs are important, and we have a great interest in it in 
our part of the country, particularly as we are looking forward to 
another fall and another winter, and the importance of developing some 
protections in the form of reserves and other factors. That is a very 
important policy issue. I am glad our Republican leader thinks that is 
of such urgency.
  But the fact is, the issues which the Senator from California and 
others have spoken about, and taking sensible and responsible and 
commonsense actions on guns, particularly to ensure greater safety and 
security in the schools of this country, are also a matter of enormous 
importance.
  I am reminded of the debate we had on elementary and secondary 
education. We had 6 days of debate, although some of that was limited 
in terms of being able to debate only a handful of amendments. We took 
16 days on the bankruptcy bill and had 67 amendments.
  Many of us on our side believe we ought to put our priorities 
straight. One of them is to take action in terms of sensible and 
commonsense issues on the proliferation of guns.
  Second, we ought to be addressing the education issue, which is of 
such importance to families across this country.
  We reject the position of the majority in giving short shrift on the 
issue of education. We want to debate that, and we want action on it.

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