[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 45 (Thursday, March 15, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Page S3149]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, today the Senate will be in a period of 
morning business for 90 minutes, with each side controlling 45 minutes. 
The first 30 minutes will be under Republican control and the next 30 
minutes under majority control. The next 30 minutes will be equally 
divided, so whoever is recognized will be able to speak for up to 10 
minutes.
  Yesterday, the Senate voted to invoke cloture on the motion to 
proceed on S.J. Res. 9. Since that time, the Republican leader and I 
have been discussing a proposed agreement that would allow votes on 
various proposals. Late yesterday, we received a proposal from Senator 
Warner, and I understand Senator Ben Nelson was involved. We have it 
here now. It has been rewritten during the night, and we will see if we 
can include it in some agreement we have. If we can do that, we will go 
ahead with whatever we can work out to vote on today.
  I would say--and the distinguished Republican leader knows this--we 
are going to do everything we can to put the votes over until a 
specific time so that people aren't coming back and forth. That is 
principally for the Budget Committee, which is meeting as we speak to 
try to finish that bill as quickly as possible so we can work on it 
next week.
  I know Members were counting on the previous announcement of no votes 
this Friday. We are going to do everything we can to make sure we have 
no votes, but until we get an agreement on this Iraq issue and on the 
U.S. attorneys, we will have to have everyone wait until--we should be 
able to have something even before morning business is closed. If we 
can work on it prior to morning business closing, we will come, the 
Republican leader and I, and announce that agreement. We hope we are 
close.
  Again, I thank everyone for their patience, especially the Republican 
leader. We have tried to be fair to everyone, and sometimes that is 
difficult to do, as people have so many different opinions as to how we 
should proceed. I will keep the Members apprised of the schedule based 
on the outcome of our negotiations.

                          ____________________