[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 133 (Thursday, September 25, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11929-S11930]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, this morning the Senator will conduct a 
period of morning business to allow Senators to speak. Following 
morning business, at approximately 10:30, the Senate will begin 
consideration of the conference report to accompany the Defense 
appropriations bill. Senators Stevens and Inouye will be ready to give 
their remarks at that time. It is my hope that we can schedule the vote 
on that conference report prior to noon.
  Yesterday, we completed two conference reports--the Homeland Security 
and the legislative appropriations reports. I thank Senators Cochran, 
Campbell, and the ranking members for assisting in getting these ready 
for the floor for full Senate consideration.
  Following the Defense appropriations conference report passage, we 
will consider the remaining available judicial nominations and another 
two or three still on the Executive Calendar that hopefully we will be 
able to clear. There is a standing request from the other side of the 
aisle that a rollcall vote be held on judicial nominations and, 
therefore, we will schedule those votes accordingly.
  We will resume consideration of the District of Columbia 
appropriations bill today. Senator DeWine has been actively engaged in 
working through a number of possible amendments to that bill. I hope we 
can make substantial progress today toward finishing that measure.
  We have a number of the appropriations bills and conference reports 
to consider, and we will consider those as they become available. I 
thank Members for their cooperation in this regard.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, if I could, through the Chair, ask the 
distinguished leader a question, we have a number of Jewish Members who 
are concerned about tomorrow. They want to be home by sundown. We have 
at least one Senator who would like to be home in California in time 
for observance of the holiday. I am wondering if the leader has made a 
decision about tomorrow yet because of the holiday.
  Mr. FRIST. We will discuss tomorrow's schedule over the course of the 
morning. We will let people know. Obviously, we will take that into 
strong consideration in terms of scheduling votes for tomorrow. I do 
expect us to be voting in the morning. But in terms of specifics, we 
will have announcements as we go through the day.
  Very shortly we will be going into morning business, but I want to 
make several comments.
  As most people know, my colleagues and others, we have made a 
concerted effort to respond to the President of the United States in 
terms of emergency requests to support our troops and our military 
efforts overseas--the men and women who are fighting for freedom and 
democracy. Thus, over the course of this week, we have held a number of 
hearings at the committee level with the hopes that we would be able to 
end at a reasonable but as short a time as possible so as to bring that 
request to the floor of the Senate in order to have plenty of time to 
both look at amendments and to debate, discuss, and examine the 
specifics of that request.
  We are going into a recess at the end of next week. That is what is 
anticipated now. As I said last week, knowing that the supplemental 
would be delivered last week, we immediately began to set up a 2-week 
period by which the Senators would have sufficient and adequate time to 
address this particular request. This week, we had over 30 hours of 
hearings at the committee level.

  The distinguished President pro tempore attended most of those 
hearings.

[[Page S11930]]

  There have been seven separate hearings in the Senate alone in 
addition to the hearings that are being held in the House of 
Representatives.
  We have had attendance at the policy lunches to be briefed on both 
sides of the aisle by Ambassador Bremer. The President has given two 
national addresses that relate to this supplemental request.
  I mention this because I have said I would schedule adequate time for 
consideration. It requires a lot of participation over the course of 
this time. Probably over 70 Members are participating in those 
particular hearings that are being held this week.
  I think it is important to have us come to the floor so we can have a 
full debate and debate amendments on the floor as well.
  That will be the goal for next week. Again, because at the end of 
next week we will go on a recess for greater than a week, I believe it 
is important to respond to the emergency requests by the President of 
the United States, our Commander in Chief, in a timely way. That means 
this week and next week.

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