[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Page 57]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                         CLOSING OF THE SENATE

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I must say, once again, welcome to my 
colleagues and the Chaplain and a hardy band of brothers and sisters 
who serve as our staff. It is very tough today to be in the Nation's 
Capital with, I guess, 8 or 10 inches of snow on the ground and more on 
the way.
  I note, of course, to the Senator from Montana, it is nothing unusual 
for him; he is used to this kind of snow, I guess.
  To our Chaplain, I say thank you for being here this morning with 
your beautiful prayer, as always.
  On our leadership team, I thank Senator Nickles, Senator Mack, 
Senator Craig, and Senator McConnell for being here today. We have 
already had a leadership meeting. I thank Senator Reid for being here 
on behalf of the Democrats.
  I had several conversations early this morning with officials, the 
police, and also with Senator Daschle, about how to deal with the 
weather. It is a massive snow and certainly there is a great deal of 
danger in the amount that has come down. With the difficulty in the 
ability to move around and with a lot of our staff and Senators living 
out in Virginia and Maryland, it made sense to join the rest of the 
Federal Government and be closed today. However, due to the Senate 
rules, we have to be here for a few minutes so that we can adjourn to 
reconvene tomorrow. We had already entered the order that we would be 
here today at the assigned hour of 11:30 a.m., and so we had to be 
here. But we will go on with business that we must do today, and then 
everyone will be able to go home safely before it gets even worse this 
afternoon.

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