[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 91 (Tuesday, May 25, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Page S3401]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE SESSION

  The Senate will now resume legislative session.
  The Senator from Mississippi.


                                S. 1260

  Mr. WICKER. Madam President, I would like to be recognized for a 
moment before we proceed.
  This is an important step in the consideration of the Endless 
Frontier Act. We have just locked in six votes for this afternoon--two 
important side by sides, Wyden and Crapo on Finance Committee matters; 
a Paul amendment on the National Institutes of Health funds being used 
in China; an Ernst amendment on the Wuhan lab; a Daines amendment on 
intellectual property in China; and the Lee amendment on stem cell 
research.
  This is a great step forward; that the Senate is proceeding this 
afternoon to regular order, and regular order allowing Senators to come 
forward and offer amendments that might improve the bill is helpful. It 
is hoped that we can do that again tomorrow and Thursday and move 
toward an opportunity to pass this bill.
  I would point out to my colleagues--and I know the distinguished 
chair of the Finance Committee will agree with this. We have locked in 
six 15-minute votes. In fairness, really, the five subsequent votes 
should be 10-minute votes. We can fool around and wander in here for 
hours and be here until 8 or we can begin at 4:45 and resume the 
practice that we had for years before we quit doing regular order in 
this body.
  If Members will hold each other accountable and if the Chair is 
willing to say after a certain amount of time, if a straggler is 
missing, that that Senator simply has missed votes, then we can do this 
in an orderly fashion. I have an appointment at 5:30 that I have had to 
cancel. Perhaps others will have to do that too.
  But we are making progress on a very substantive bill about the 
future of this country and moving toward competing in a better way with 
China. And I would suggest that maybe appointments in the early 
afternoon might be canceled, and we can get back to quick votes and be 
considerate of others, realizing that some of us may miss votes if we 
are late. I make that suggestion, and I thank my colleagues on both 
sides of the aisle for the hard work in locking in these six votes.
  I yield back.

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