[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 66 (Wednesday, May 24, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Page S5134]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                PROGRAM

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, in the morning we will work toward passage 
of the immigration bill. We have our final amendment list lined up. We 
will likely debate the amendments and stack them together very early in 
the afternoon. I do anticipate passage of the bill by early afternoon 
following those votes.
  Following passage of this comprehensive immigration bill, we will 
proceed to the cloture vote on the Kavanaugh nomination. I filed 
cloture the night before last. We are attempting to reach a time 
agreement on the Hayden nomination. I feel strongly we need to complete 
action on the Hayden nomination before we leave. It is an important 
position, General Hayden being the right man for this position at a 
very important time in our history. We also have the Portman nomination 
for OMB and the Schwab nomination at the USTR to clear this week, as 
well. It is my goal to reach an agreement with the other side of the 
aisle as to when we might be able to bring him to the Senate.
  Finally, I mention that I filed a cloture motion on the nomination of 
our former colleague, Dirk Kempthorne, to be Secretary of the Interior. 
I have tried over the course of the day, to no avail, to be able to 
bring that to a vote and was unable to do so with an objection on the 
other side of the aisle. I have filed cloture tonight. This vote will 
occur on Friday.
  We end Wednesday, at a late hour, having had a very productive day 
today, very productive day yesterday, really, this whole week. I 
appreciate the collegial approach our colleagues have taken in allowing 
amendments to come forward, to be debated, thoroughly debated, 
discussed and voted upon. We set out on this immigration bill well over 
a month ago. We had a hiatus over the recess, came back and in a very 
bipartisan spirit had an agreement to proceed to consider votes with 
these amendments and have the votes taken.
  We have had huge progress. The debate has been very good. Everyone 
has participated in that debate. Everyone has had the opportunity to 
submit amendments and have them debated.
  With that, we have progressed in our understanding of both the 
importance of this bill but also the importance of having a 
comprehensive solution to the challenges we face, with 12 million 
people here illegally, the need, absolute necessity of having a strong 
temporary worker program in this country for economic reasons and 
employment reasons and then, first and foremost, sealing our borders, 
locking down our borders in the sense we can have legal immigration and 
not illegal immigration coming across at ports of entry.
  I have been very pleased with the debate. It has been very tough, 
very challenging, for a number of our Members. There is no consensus in 
the sense that everyone has gotten exactly what they wanted, but I will 
be absolutely satisfied with this bill as a reflection of the will of 
100 Senators, the will of this Senate after this very long time in the 
Senate but very good and productive time where so many amendments have 
been considered.
  We will complete the bill tomorrow. I expect the bill to pass 
tomorrow. I can't predict what the final outcome will be, but I think 
it will reflect this very open, free, deliberate process we have seen 
over the last several weeks.

                          ____________________