[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 163 (Thursday, October 25, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Page S13391]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, we are going to have an hour of morning 
business. The time is controlled by the two leaders. The Republicans 
control the first half, the Democrats the second half.
  Following morning business, the Senate will resume consideration of 
Amtrak. Last night, an agreement was entered into regarding 
consideration of the pending Sununu amendment relating to rail 
subsidies. There will be 2 hours of debate on that amendment. Votes are 
expected sometime around 11:30 or 11:40 today.
  I would say that the Republican leader and I just had a conversation. 
We have to check with a couple of Senators on each side. What we might 
try to do to get out of the procedural problem we have now--because we 
do have one with this--is we may try to set up a couple of competing 
votes. We will try to do that. We know the issue is pretty well formed. 
We know what one side wants, and we know what the other side wants. So 
it is probably appropriate that we set something up so that we can vote 
on both of them. What has been suggested is that we have a 60-vote 
margin on both of them, which, of course, is certainly done on occasion 
around here.
  So as soon as I finish here, I am going to go make a couple of calls 
to my Senators and see if we can have Senator McConnell--if he has any 
problems on his side, he will do the same, and maybe we can enter into 
some kind of an agreement and vote at 11:30, maybe two votes. We are on 
top of that. I think it would be a way to move into this bill so that 
we are actually debating the railroad Amtrak issues rather than this 
Internet issue, which is important, and it has to be decided within the 
next few days one way or the other because otherwise it expires. So 
that is where we are.
  There should be amendments throughout the day. I know I have had one 
Senator who asked me if there will be votes tonight, and I think it is 
very likely there will be votes tonight. So I think anyone considering 
going to Boston to watch the World Series might not be able to do that.

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