[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 61 (Tuesday, May 14, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4292-S4293]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             SENATE AGENDA

  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I will share some general thoughts I have. 
It seems to me as we look forward to the remainder of this session, the 
time is getting pretty short. In a couple of weeks we will begin our 
Memorial Day recess, and then we will be moving on towards our Fourth 
of July recess, of course. So between now and the time we adjourn for 
this year, we do not have an awful lot of time remaining.
  We collectively ought to see if we can figure out how we are going to 
accomplish many of the things that have to be done. Obviously, that is 
the responsibility of leadership, but we have not moved very quickly. 
We spent a very long time on energy--6 weeks. We have spent more time 
now on this trade bill, and it looks as if the prospect is we will be 
spending even more time than we had anticipated.
  We have a lot of things facing us. I hope we can wrap up the trade 
bill. I think it is very important. I think it is part of our future 
economy.
  As we do these things, I hope we can have a little vision of where we 
want to be when we are through. What do we want to happen with trade, 
for example, in the next 10 years? Do we want to be part of the trade 
process, with hopefully having fair trade around the world which will 
increase our opportunities to export?
  Thirty to thirty-five percent of our agricultural production has to 
go into export. As we do this, we think about what it takes to 
accomplish that goal, if that indeed is our vision.
  We are going to be dealing with permanent removal of the estate tax. 
That has been promised to be one of the things that comes up on the 
floor. So we have that to deal with.
  Immigration and border security is out there. That is very important, 
particularly important now because of terrorism, and very important in 
terms of the future: Where do we want to be in the future on 
immigration? How do we want to handle these things? And what are we 
doing that will cause us to arrive at where we want to be?
  We get a little inclined to look at the politics of the election and 
look at the politics in the Senate instead of having a vision of where 
we want the United States, our States, our families and our communities 
to be in the future, and then testing whether what we are doing now 
leads us there.
  The bankruptcy issue is out there. We have been talking about that 
for a very long time. There are some real problems that need to be 
resolved. We have not managed to get it to the floor.
  We do not have a budget. We were supposed to have a budget prior to 
now. We have none. The budget is very important. If we are somewhat 
concerned about spending and having an opportunity to at least limit 
spending and hope we can keep it down to a minimum to get that job 
done, we do not even have a budget, and, frankly, there is no sign of 
one appearing.

[[Page S4293]]

  Whether we like it or not, we are going to have to spend some time on 
the cloning issue. It has been promised that cloning and research--not 
an easy issue--would be before us.
  Then there is educational funding. We talk about education all the 
time. We have not even gotten to that. That is one issue that is going 
to be out there.
  Certainly, we have the issue of reinsurance for terrorism, an issue 
we keep talking about, but it is still not here. This is very 
difficult.
  Nuclear storage is an issue I am certain we need to handle. 
Obviously, again there are some problems pertaining to that issue. One 
can ignore it if they choose, but the fact is we do have nuclear waste 
stored around the country in a very unsafe way and we need to find a 
place to put that, particularly if nuclear energy is going to be part 
of our future. I hope it is. If one likes clean air, then nuclear 
generation is one of the ways to do that.
  We spent 6 weeks debating energy. Now we have not even moved into our 
conference committee.
  Frankly, I am a little disappointed about the fact that we have all 
of these things out there, and we recognize these are issues with which 
we must deal.
  Appropriations may be one of the most important things we do, not 
only in terms of funding the Government but in terms of giving great 
direction to where we want to be. The appropriations process has a good 
deal to do with whether we want huge government involved in every issue 
or whether we want to limit government. Appropriations has something to 
do with that, and they are very important. We are not there by any 
means.
  So we have a great deal to do, and I hope we can find ourselves in a 
position to move forward to accomplish these things. There are many 
more issues, I suppose, but these have already been listed as things we 
are going to do, as has been said, before we adjourn.
  We have some real problems to deal with. I hope we can move quickly 
to address these issues and find some suitable remedies for them.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. I ask unanimous consent to be recognized in morning 
business.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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