[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 136 (Thursday, September 24, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Page S9761]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, following leader remarks, there will be a 
period of morning business, for up to 1 hour, with Senators permitted 
to speak for up to 10 minutes each. We will have the morning hour 
extended until 10:30 so the Democrats and Republicans can divide up 
that time because we have a cloture vote set for 10:30. The Republicans 
will control the first half and the Democrats will control the second 
half.
  Following morning business, the Senate will resume consideration of 
the Interior appropriations bill. Mr. President, I have spoken to the 
necessary parties this morning, and I think we are going to be able to 
work out an agreement so we will not have to have the cloture vote. I 
hope that is the case. If, in fact, that is the case, we will vitiate 
the cloture vote and what we will do--because of the heavy workload of 
the Finance Committee, and I have spoken to the necessary folks in this 
regard--we will schedule a time this afternoon to have a block of votes 
so they can come over at once and not have to keep going back and 
forth. We hope to work that out.
  We made progress on this legislation yesterday, and if we can get 
these block of votes out of the way, we will move on to our next 
appropriations bill, which will be the Defense appropriations bill. 
This comes at a very important time in the history of our country, with 
troops coming out of Iraq and the situation we have developing in 
Afghanistan. Mr. President, you can announce morning business now.

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