[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 166 (Wednesday, December 15, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Page S10236]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, following the remarks of Senator McConnell 
and myself, we will be in a period of morning business until 11 a.m. 
with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each. At 10 
o'clock this morning, Senator Bayh will deliver his farewell remarks to 
the Senate, and at 10:30 a.m. Senator Voinovich will deliver his. I 
spoke yesterday about Senator Bayh and what an outstanding person he is 
and how much we will miss him. I will have something to say in a few 
minutes about Senator Voinovich.
  At 11 a.m. today, the Senate will resume consideration of the House 
message with respect to H.R. 4853, the vehicle for the tax compromise. 
There will be 1 hour for debate prior to a series of up to four 
rollcall votes. There will be votes on three motions to suspend rule 
XXII, and the last vote will be on the motion to concur with the Reid-
McConnell amendment.
  Following this series of votes, the Senate will resume morning 
business until 2:15. At that time, we intend to move to executive 
session for the purpose of considering the START treaty. Senators 
should expect a rollcall vote to proceed to executive session, and for 
the information of all Senators that is simply a majority vote.
  Following the vote to proceed to executive session, Senator Lincoln 
will be recognized to deliver her farewell speech to the Senate. Upon 
conclusion, the Senate will resume executive session.
  We have Christmas, which is a week from Saturday. We have a lot of 
things to do. I have talked about that before, but let me just briefly 
say again what we have to do.
  We are going to finish this tax bill within the next couple of hours. 
It is a tremendous accomplishment. Whether you agree with all of the 
contents of the bill or not, everyone should understand this is one of 
the major accomplishments of any Congress where two parties, 
ideologically divided, have agreed on a major issue for the American 
people. It will go directly to the House of Representatives. They will 
take it up quickly.
  We are going to move to the START treaty. I hope we can have a good, 
fair debate. No one needs to be jammed on it. There is lots of time for 
people to do what needs to be done. If people want to offer amendments, 
they can do that. This treaty has been around since April or May. Even 
a slow reader could finish every word of that many different times. I 
would hope no one will require us to read the treaty. What a colossal 
waste of time. So I hope that is not going to be necessary.
  We then are going to move to the spending bill, which is so important 
to get done for our country. We will move to that as quickly as we can. 
We will see how things go with this treaty. But it is clear, I have 
spoken on many occasions with the Republican leader, we are going to be 
in session this Sunday. There is work to do. We hope we can complete 
what we have to do a day or two after Saturday. We want to complete the 
things I have just mentioned. We are going to have to have a vote on 
the DREAM Act. We have the 9/11 issue. We are working on nominations to 
complete the work we need to do this Congress.
  Unless the House sends us something I am not aware of at this stage, 
I think I have pretty well lined out what we need to do. On 
nominations, the Republican leader knows the President is very 
concerned about having somebody at the Attorney General's Office. We 
need somebody to be second in command. The Deputy there has been going 
a long time. There has been one Senator holding that up, and we hope 
that matter can be resolved. The lands bill, we are trying to work it 
out, and we hope we can get that done. It is a bipartisan bill. That is 
certainly possible.
  So we have a lot to do, and we need everyone's cooperation to get it 
done so we can get out of here as quickly as we can.

                          ____________________