[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 20]
[Senate]
[Page 28378]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                           ORDER OF BUSINESS

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I hope now that Members will remain tonight 
to do their opening statements. I see the distinguished chairman is 
here, Senator Grassley from Iowa, who has probably asked me about this 
bill over 100 times this year. I apologize to him now for not having 
gotten it on the calendar and up for consideration before now. But he 
has been dogged in his determination to address this very important 
area.
  I say right up front we would not be having bankruptcy reform if it 
were not for the diligent efforts and the patience and the 
determination and the substantive involvement of the Senator from Iowa. 
So I think it is to his credit.
  Now we need to move forward and get this bill completed, get it into 
conference, and hopefully act on it very quickly out of conference.
  But since we do have this agreement now, and the manager is ready to 
go--and I presume the manager on the Democratic side is ready to go--I 
can announce now there will be no further votes this evening. The 
Senate will resume the bankruptcy bill at 9:30 a.m. on Friday. All 
Senators should be aware that votes could occur with respect to the 
appropriations process or amendments to the bankruptcy bill on Friday.
  Several Senators have been asking about exactly what we can expect 
tomorrow. I cannot say. If we have an appropriations conference report 
that has been cleared that we are ready to move on, we will try to do 
it on a voice vote; but if we have to have a recorded voted, we just 
have to have a recorded vote. If we are ever going to get to the final 
days of the session, we have to be prepared to vote on Fridays and 
Mondays, if that is necessary. So we cannot give any assurance at this 
point that there will not be votes tomorrow. There very well may be.
  Votes will occur at 5:30 Monday. And under this agreement, at least 
two votes will occur at 10:30 Tuesday.
  Then, in conclusion, I wish to, again, thank all our colleagues for 
their cooperation this week. The fact that we did overwhelmingly pass 
this very important trade bill involving the Caribbean Basin area, 
Central America, and Africa, after a long period of time, is a 
significant and positive step for our country, I believe, not to 
mention the additional trading opportunities in other countries. And 
also to have completed the conference report on the financial services 
modernization--the second monumental achievement this week--I think the 
Senate, as a whole, can take a lot of pride. And now we are ready to 
begin a third one. I wish every week could be as productive.
  With that, I yield the floor, Mr. President.

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