[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 185 (Wednesday, December 10, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10841-S10842]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE


                           Order of Procedure

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, following the leaders' remarks, I ask 
unanimous consent that we stand in a period of morning business until 
12:30 today; and that from 12:30 to 2:15 the Senate stand in recess.
  The Republicans are going to hold a caucus at that time. I ask 
unanimous consent that be approved.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, this is Wednesday, and each day we come here 
and say the document that is going to be the bill that we are going to 
report on is done. Now I understand it is done. But the piece of paper 
is not before the Senate. There are two provisions I have instructed 
Senator Dodd--and he has agreed--to take out of the document we are 
moving forward on, and that should be done momentarily.
  I understand, in fairness, that all parties, Democrats and 
Republicans, deserve the opportunity to study this bill. It is about 25 
pages long, as I understand it. But even though we have some speed 
readers in the Senate, they still need time to study it. In speaking 
with various Senators today, it appears pretty clear that the minority, 
the Republicans, are not going to move forward on this unless there is 
a lot of opportunity to study this legislation.
  Therefore, it appears unlikely we will be able to have a vote on this 
today. That being the case, let me say I will file the work done by the 
Banking Committee, the Senate Banking Committee, because they are not 
totally in agreement with what is done by the House.
  That way I will have it here, we will file the necessary motions on 
that, which would mean we would have a cloture vote on Friday on a 
motion to proceed to it. Now, we can always move that forward with 
unanimous consent. But everyone should understand, if this is something 
that everyone is going to make us dot every I and cross every T, then 
we would have that cloture vote early Friday morning, maybe as early as 
9 o'clock.
  If we did that, then the second vote would not take place until 
Saturday afternoon at about 3 o'clock, give or take a little bit of 
time. Then everyone can do the math as well as I can. The next vote 
would probably take place about 9 o'clock on Sunday. So the point is, 
if everybody is not cooperative and wants to create problems, we would 
not be able to complete this until Saturday or Sunday, but we are going 
to complete it. And when I say ``complete it,'' that means we are going 
to have our final vote on it, it will either pass or fail, but we are 
going to give Senators an opportunity to vote.
  As indicated in the press today, Senator Biden said he would be 
willing to come back and vote if his vote were necessary. I apologize 
to everyone but not too sincerely, because I have done the best I can 
to move this forward. It is difficult.
  We have the House, the Senate, the White House, and once in a while 
we hear from the new administration. So it has made it real difficult 
to come up with a final piece of paper, which I hope will be 
forthcoming in the next few minutes. But I think I have done the best I 
can to alert everyone. I know there are lots of people, Democrats and

[[Page S10842]]

Republicans have a lot of important work to do. But this is also 
important business we are dealing with, dealing with the Detroit 
automobile manufacturers.

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