[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 106 (Thursday, July 17, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9515-S9516]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               RECOGNITION OF THE ACTING MINORITY LEADER

  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The assistant Democratic leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, first of all, Senator Dodd has agreed to a 
time limit. As soon as the Senator has an opportunity to review his 
amendment, I am sure he will agree to that time limit.
  Senator Byrd has an amendment he will offer following that. He said 
he would not agree to a time on this amendment, but he said he wouldn't 
take long.
  As the leader knows, we have agreed to vote on Senator Byrd's 
amendment, and then Senator Dodd wants a vote on his amendment after we 
complete the debate.

  We have a list of the amendments we are going to offer. Senator Byrd 
has three. Other Senators have one each.
  We should be able to move through this in a reasonable period of 
time--hopefully before too long. I assume the majority leader will have 
the Senate in recess from 3:30 until the time the Prime Minister of 
Britain completes his speech. I hope he follows the model and precedent 
of the most recent President as far as length is concerned so he 
doesn't take too much of our time off the floor.
  The Senate will bring up the Energy bill. We worked hard on the 
Energy bill. Senator Bingaman and Senator Domenici have worked hard. 
But we have not even spent 2 full weeks on that bill. Last time we had 
8 weeks. I

[[Page S9516]]

acknowledge that the last time, one of the reasons it took more time 
was ANWR, which this bill doesn't have in it. That will help us 
significantly. We will do what we did to cooperate with the majority on 
this bill.
  As everyone knows, the Democratic leader wants this bill passed very 
badly. But I say to the distinguished majority leader, he can only do 
so much. There are more than 300 amendments on both sides. It will be a 
heavy task to get through this in a week.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I appreciate those comments. As I 
mentioned, we started on the Energy bill on May 6. We had 12 days of 
consideration on the floor of the Senate. The bill was marked up prior 
to that.
  I have tried to lay this out from the outset recognizing that we are 
going to address the bill--and we spent 12 days on it--during the last 
week of this month so we can plan, so we can get amendments considered 
and get the list down to a manageable number.
  The reason I come to the floor every day is that I want to encourage 
Members on both sides of the aisle to focus on this right now. I get 
this feeling and sense that people are going to say we are going too 
fast and we are running out of time. That is the only reason I stress 
this in just about every other statement and in every meeting. I think 
everybody understands that and is working. But I do want to complete 
this bill. We are setting adequate time to do that.
  If we can come to some sort of agreement by midweek next week as to 
what amendments we will be looking at, it will be hugely helpful. That 
is what we are working for on both sides of the aisle.

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