[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 68 (Friday, May 7, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Page S3385]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, following leader remarks, the Senate will 
resume consideration of the Wall Street reform bill. There will be no 
rollcall votes today or on Monday or on next Friday. The following 
Monday, we will take a look at that. That is now scheduled as a no-vote 
day. We may not be able to do that. Other things have come up, not the 
least of which is a conversation with Secretary Gates yesterday about 
the supplemental war funding bill.
  We are going to do our utmost to finish the bill we are on now next 
week. We have today and all day Monday for people to work on 
amendments, and we would hope we can make some progress in that regard. 
Yesterday, there were a few difficult spots, but late in the evening we 
were able to get the Senate back on track. We had some important 
legislation done last night.
  I repeat what I said last night: There doesn't need to be long 
periods of time for debating most of these issues. We have all studied 
them. This bill has been in the public eye for a long time. Sherrod 
Brown had a controversial, important amendment. I supported that 
amendment. But he spoke for 5 minutes. The opposition spoke for 5 
minutes. Everyone understood what they were doing. It was a good vote. 
I use that as an example. We can move through this stuff much more 
rapidly.
  We want to make sure Senators have opportunities to offer amendments. 
As I said yesterday, there are lots of amendments. A lot of them are in 
the same area. We need to focus on these. Senator Durbin has six 
amendments. He is going to offer one of his amendments. That is an 
example for all of us to follow.
  Again, we ended the day on a good note. I believe that is important. 
We have already lined up some things to do when we begin legislative 
session on Tuesday, but on Monday, the two managers will be ready to do 
business on work they are doing. A number of these things can be worked 
out. The two people managing the banking part of this bill are longtime 
legislators. They have handled many bills on the Senate floor. They 
will accept a lot of these amendments.
  The derivatives part of this bill is, by some standards, a little 
more complicated, but even there the issues are fairly clear. Senators 
Lincoln and Chambliss are ready to work with Senators who have ideas as 
to how, if at all, they want to change the legislation. They are also 
ready for business.
  I hope people understand the urgency of our agenda. We have many 
things to do and a very short period of time to do them.

                          ____________________