[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 163 (Saturday, December 17, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S13947-S13948]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   RECOGNITION OF THE MAJORITY LEADER

  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader is recognized.NOTICE

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By order of the Joint Committee on Printing.
                                                                
TRENT LOTT, Chairman.

[[Page S13948]]

  


                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, today I do not anticipate a lengthy 
session, but we are here for important work. We need to pass a short-
term continuing resolution, and we are waiting for the House to send us 
a joint resolution. We expect to clear a package of nominations this 
afternoon, and we will do that block of executive nominations by voice 
vote. We will also continue to process some of the other legislative 
items that have been cleared and are ready to move.
  Final discussions continue on the remaining must-do items, and I am 
hopeful that we will be soon able to take action on these items over 
the next couple of days. Members will be asking about the schedule, and 
I will make further announcements shortly on tomorrow's lineup. I want 
to confer with the chairmen and principals involved in the negotiation 
and then say more at the close of business today. Again, we will wrap 
up our work today in as quick a time as possible, and Members should 
stay tuned as everything is finalized.
  There is a lot of work going on in the Capitol today--until late last 
night and until the early hours of the morning. Just last night and 
over the last several days we passed very important pieces of 
legislation. If we look back on Friday, last night, we passed cord 
blood legislation, which opens up critical new research opportunities 
and clearinghouses for safe, ethically sound transplantation. That is 
going to save lives.
  We passed the Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005, which will provide a 
second major round of critical tax relief to our brothers and sisters 
in the gulf coast region.
  We extended the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, which takes another 
step toward reducing taxpayers' risk and minimizing the Government's 
interference with the private market.
  We passed an important new provision in the Violence Against Women 
Act, which will protect rape survivors who have already been victimized 
once by sexual assault.
  We passed the Bahrain Free Trade Agreement this past week, which 
enhances our bilateral relationship with a strategic friend and ally.
  I mention all of these because a lot of them we do actually in what 
we call wrap-up or by unanimous consent but all are major pieces of 
legislation. We now have, over the next several days--and I hope it is 
as few as possible--very important legislation on Defense, both 
appropriations and authorization, as well as the deficit reconciliation 
package and nominations that I mentioned. So we have a lot of work to 
do over the next several days.

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