[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 171 (Tuesday, November 6, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S13939-S13940]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, there will be a period for the transaction 
of morning business for 1 hour today. Senators are permitted to speak 
for up to 10 minutes each, with the times equally divided and 
controlled, with the Republicans controlling the first half and the 
majority controlling the final half.
  At the close of morning business, the Senate will resume 
consideration of H.R. 2419, the farm bill. As a reminder, the Senate 
will stand in recess today from 12:30 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. for the 
respective party conference meetings.
  I mentioned yesterday that we have a lot to do this week, and we do. 
I have spoken with the Republican leader. The House is going to pass 
the conference report on Labor-HHS. As part of that conference report, 
there will also be military construction and the veterans' benefits. I 
have been told there is going to be a point of order raised against the 
military construction-VA aspect of that bill. In fact, if that is the 
case, we can set it up very quickly, as I explained to my Republican 
counterpart, to find out if there are 60 votes for that bill without 
the necessity of filing cloture. If, in fact, there are not 60 votes, 
that part, of course, will be peeled off, and we will pass the Labor-
HHS bill, and it will go back to the House. The House will concur in 
what we had done, and the President would be sent the Labor-HHS bill 
alone. We need to accomplish that work this week. We need to get our 
first appropriations bill to him--or bills, whatever the result.
  As we speak--we started 5 minutes ago--the House and Senate conferees 
are meeting on the Defense appropriations bill. That conference will be 
wrapped up fairly soon. There has been a lot of preconference work done 
on the bill. We have Senators Stevens and Inouye who have worked that 
bill for many years. They do very well with their House counterparts.
  It is a huge bill. I don't know the exact amount--$470 billion or 
some such amount. In addition to that, I think, as I told my friend, 
the Republican leader, the senior Senator from Kentucky, a continuing 
resolution will be put on the Defense bill just as it was done last 
year when Senator Frist was majority leader. That we should get soon. 
We will get it in the next couple of days. And we have to finish that 
legislation before we leave this week.
  It is extremely important that we don't wait until the last minute 
next week to take care of the Defense appropriations bill and the 
continuing resolution. That will leave us plenty to do next week. We 
have a lot to do, not the least of which is the Mukasey nomination 
which the Judiciary Committee will take care of this morning. That 
meeting also started 5 minutes ago.
  We are on the farm bill. I will have more to say about the farm bill 
a little later, but I do want to say this regarding procedures and the 
farm bill. I have had some real good teachers over the years as to how 
to handle legislation. Some of those teachers have been my Republican 
counterparts. No one was more versed in so-called filling the tree than 
my friend, the distinguished Senator from Mississippi, Mr. Lott.
  We have just a few days until we break for Thanksgiving. This bill, 
the farm bill, is a tax bill. It has tax provisions in it. So I want to 
make sure everyone understands we should do all

[[Page S13940]]

relevant amendments to the farm bill. There is no problem with that. 
That is what I said we would do. But this bill, as I have indicated, as 
I learned from my friends in past years from teachers such as Senator 
Lott, Senator Dole, and Democratic leaders, of course, is you have to 
be very careful in the waning days of any work period because any one 
Senator can shut this place down.

  So on the farm bill, that is not going to be the case. We are going 
to work to complete the farm bill. It is a good, bipartisan bill. There 
should be amendments offered. We have a number of bipartisan amendments 
that must be offered. We have one amendment that Senator Dorgan and 
Senator Grassley are ready to offer on payment limits. We have Senators 
Lugar and Lautenberg who want to offer a whole substitute for this 
legislation. So I hope we can get to this legislation.
  I have been told one of the things the Republicans will do in protest 
of what I am doing, which has been done countless other times in the 
past, is to go into a quorum call and prevent us from doing work on the 
farm bill. Everyone has a right to do that. We will have a few live 
quorums. If people don't want to do work on the farm bill, that is 
their right as a Senator.
  The farm bill is something I believe we should do. I am certainly not 
going to file cloture on the farm bill this week. So if my friends on 
the other side of the aisle just want to have us sit in a quorum call 
and not do any work on the farm bill and not do our other work, that is 
fine. I don't think it is very productive when I have indicated the 
farm bill is certainly one where we can offer amendments relating to 
it, that will be relevant to the farm bill.
  I, at a subsequent time prior to our getting on the bill, which will 
be an hour or so from now, will make sure I ask consent that we handle 
this bill with relevant amendments.
  I ask unanimous consent that the time I use and the time my 
distinguished friend uses not count against the hour for morning 
business.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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