[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 102 (Friday, July 20, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Page S8031]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              SENATE WORK

  Mr. DASCHLE. Madam President, this is the end of the week. I thank my 
colleagues for the effort that has been made to get as much 
accomplished as we were able to achieve. We passed the energy and water 
appropriations bill. We passed the legislative branch appropriations 
bill. We just now passed the supplemental appropriations conference 
report. We appointed conferees to the bankruptcy reform legislation. We 
confirmed 23 nominations, including 3 judicial nominees this week. And 
we began consideration of the Transportation appropriations bill.
  While I wish we could have gone further with regard to our work on 
the Transportation bill, I am pleased that as a result of a bipartisan 
effort to achieve this success at the end of the week I think we have 
accomplished a good deal.
  I thank the distinguished Republican leader for his efforts in 
allowing this kind of accomplishment to be noted. I appreciate very 
much the hard work of the Appropriations Committee and the 
appropriations subcommittees that were very involved in the work of 
this week; that of Senator Domenici, the ranking member of the energy 
and water appropriations subcommittee, and Senator Reid in particular 
for his outstanding leadership in bringing about the successful 
conclusion of his bill. Senator Durbin has done an outstanding job with 
his legislative branch appropriations bill.
  As my colleague just noted, so much work went into the supplemental 
appropriations bill. I am very pleased that Senator Byrd and Senator 
Stevens once again were able to complete their work as expeditiously as 
they did. I was contacted earlier today by the Vice President who asked 
if we could move this bill today. It was originally my intention to 
hold the bill over the weekend in order to give Senators more of a 
chance to examine the results. The bill was just presented to us this 
morning. But in order to accommodate a request by the administration, 
we chose to take up the bill, given the fact that no one had made a 
request for a rollcall vote. I thank my colleagues for their 
cooperation in not asking for a rollcall on this particular bill so we 
could move it ahead to accommodate the administration's request.
  I am also very pleased with the success we have had in confirming 23 
additional nominations; as I said, including 3 judicial nominees. That 
means that in the last 2 weeks we have now confirmed 77 nominations. I 
don't know what kind of a record that is, but it has to be one of the 
largest numbers of appointments confirmed in the shortest period of 
time. And we will continue to work at achieving just as impressive 
results in the coming weeks.
  Madam President, we have had a good week. I look forward to a very 
successful week again next week working on, first, the Transportation 
appropriations bill, and, secondly, other available appropriations 
bills, in addition, of course, to other nominations.

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