[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 126 (Wednesday, October 11, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Page S10229]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST--H.R. 4461

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask consent that at 10 a.m. on Friday the 
Senate turn to the conference report to accompany H.R. 4461, the 
Agriculture appropriations conference report, and it be considered 
under the following agreement, with the time equally divided in the 
usual form.
  I ask consent that debate continue beginning at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday 
and proceed through the day.
  I ask consent the vote occur on adoption of the Agriculture 
conference report at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday and paragraph 4 of rule XII 
be waived.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, we have no 
objection if we would move to this by a vote. We would agree to a voice 
vote. We do not believe we can do this by consent.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, if I could ask the Senator to yield and make 
sure I understand what he is saying, did you say we could do this by 
voice vote?
  Mr. REID. We would be willing for you to move to proceed and we would 
voice vote that.
  Mr. McCAIN. I object.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, again, we will keep working to try to get 
agreements accepted. I do not quite understand why the Agriculture 
appropriations bill cannot be debated tonight, now, and voted on 
tomorrow. And I do not understand why we cannot get an agreement to 
have debate on it on Friday and Tuesday, and a vote on Wednesday. I 
know there are Senators who want to talk on it. That is their right in 
the Senate. But if we are ever going to get this process completed, we 
need to get the Agriculture appropriations conference report done.
  I am still holding out some hope that maybe the Commerce-State-
Justice conference report and even the Labor-HHS conference report 
could be agreed to and could be dealt with tomorrow in such a way we 
could have a vote on them on Thursday or Friday. But we do not have 
that yet.
  Is there objection?
  Mr. REID. Mr. Leader, if I could just say before you withdraw the 
consent request, we would be willing, tonight, to have you move to 
proceed to this measure.
  As I said, we would be agreeable to move to proceed to this bill by a 
voice vote and start the debate tonight. We are not in any way trying 
to delay the consideration of this very important bill.
  Mr. LOTT. I think the Senator knows there is a great difference 
between moving to proceed and asking unanimous consent. For now, 
obviously, we cannot get the unanimous consent agreement, so we will 
not be able to proceed.
  In light of the discussions we have just had, and since we cannot get 
an agreement on taking up Agriculture now, the next votes will occur at 
12:30 p.m. tomorrow regarding HUD-VA and related issues, and additional 
votes will occur late tomorrow afternoon regarding the DOD 
authorization conference report if we can get this time agreement 
worked out, and I assume we will be able to. With that, I yield the 
floor.

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