[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 17499-17500]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                 ORDERS FOR MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2000

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate 
completes its business today, it adjourn until the hour of 12 noon on 
Monday, September 11. I further ask unanimous consent that immediately 
following the prayer, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, 
the morning hour be deemed to have expired, the time for the two 
leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate then 
resume debate on H.R. 4444, the China PNTR bill, with the Byrd 
amendment regarding subsidies pending to be debated under a previous 
order.
  Mr. REID. Reserving the right to object, I ask the majority leader, 
are we going to try to do an appropriations bill next week?
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, if I can respond, we will be working with 
the chairman and the ranking member on that. Thank goodness, we were 
able to get the energy and water appropriations bill completed. I 
believe the DC appropriations bill will not be ready until the week 
after next. We still have the Commerce-State-Justice and the HUD-VA 
appropriations bills on which we have to make a decision as to which 
one will go first. There is a problem with the level of funding, the 
cap on funding. We are going to have to work that out.
  We are looking next week at, once again, possibly dual tracking with 
the China PNTR during the day and an appropriations bill at night. The 
principal focus next week, I believe, has to be on completing work on 
the China PNTR bill. We are about halfway there, but we still have, I 
believe, about 11 or 12 amendments that have been identified that may 
very well require votes.
  It appears I will still have to file cloture on Tuesday. I want to do 
whatever is necessary to try to complete that bill by Friday of next 
week. It may not be possible, but if it means staying on that bill 
during the day and night, we will look at that option, and I will 
consult with the leadership on the other side for the need to do that 
if it appears it is necessary.
  Mr. REID. I also say to my friend, we keep hearing that 11 
appropriations bills have not been passed. That is true. But the fact 
is, we have completed action on more than the three bills. Just because 
we did one last night does not mean we have only done three.
  Mr. LOTT. Yes.
  Mr. REID. I say to my friend, the majority leader, while we are 
working on PNTR, I would hope that there is a concerted effort to get 
more money to solve the funding cap. We could work out a lot of these 
in conference. That is what we are waiting to do.
  Mr. LOTT. Right.
  Mr. REID. I think the sooner we do that the better off we will be.
  Mr. LOTT. As the Senator knows, we are hoping that early next week 
the House will take up the legislative appropriations bill coupled with 
the Treasury-Postal Department appropriations bill. It would be done in 
such a way that both sides find it acceptable. It is my understanding 
that the administration would sign it. So that would move two bills to 
the President. We hope to have that acted on in the Senate next week, 
hopefully by Thursday. So if that is done, that would put us then at 10 
appropriations bills having been acted on by the Senate, leaving only 
three.
  I will be working, again, as I said, with the chairman about which we 
would do next week, the HUD bill or CJS. And I don't know whether the 
HUD bill has come out of committee yet. So we are still working on 
that. We are still committed to getting through these appropriations 
bills, hopefully getting them all done through the Congress, going into 
conference, and hopefully down to the President before the end of the 
fiscal year.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have a couple more housekeeping matters.
  I say to the majority leader, are we going to have any votes Monday?
  Mr. LOTT. It is possible that we would have votes on Monday. But if 
we are making good progress--like this week, we didn't force votes on I 
guess it was Tuesday or Wednesday because we had debate, and we were 
able to get on the bill. We were able to get amendments done. But I 
would say this: If there are votes Monday, it will depend on--we were 
not able to get work done on amendments to the point where they could 
get a vote today. Votes will not occur before 5:30 or 6 o'clock. We 
will consult on the time. But it could be that the next votes will not 
occur until Tuesday morning. It just depends on whether we can get one 
racked up and in order.
  Mr. REID. Finally, Mr. President, I say through you to the majority 
leader, I also hope, in the limited things that you have to do next 
week, that you would give some consideration to the problems that 
Senator Levin and Senator Harkin have regarding judges. Both of these 
Senators have talked to Senator Daschle and me and are very concerned.
  I know they have been in conversation with you and Senator Hatch. We 
hope that there can be some progress made on the requests of these two 
fine Senators.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I just spent the last few minutes with 
Senator Levin. I understand his interest. The problem they are both 
interested in is in the Judiciary Committee. We will be working to see 
if anything could be done. It will be very hard at this point. I 
understand their interest. I know there is no desire to block the 
action of the Senate at this time. It is going to be difficult, but I 
certainly am going to listen to them and see what might be done. If we 
could keep working on it, maybe something can be worked out.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the majority leader's 
request?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LOTT. I further ask unanimous consent that at 1 p.m. on Monday, 
Senator Thompson be recognized to offer an amendment to H.R. 4444, and 
that Senator Helms be recognized at 2:15 p.m. on Tuesday to offer an 
amendment to the same.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I really had hoped that we could find a way 
to consider Senator Thompson's amendment, or bill, as a separate issue. 
I worked throughout the month of July to do that. I even tried as late 
as yesterday to have it considered separately. But I was told that 
there would be an objection to taking it up. Then

[[Page 17500]]

we would have to file cloture under a motion to proceed, and it would 
take days. If it took all that time, it actually could have displaced 
the China PNTR bill.
  So I think that Senator Thompson has no option but to offer his 
amendment on China PNTR. It is a very serious matter. Chinese nuclear 
weapon proliferation is something about which we have to be concerned. 
And I am convinced it continues to this day. We need a way to monitor 
it. And there should be a way to impose sanctions if that continues.
  So that issue will come up on this bill and we will have to see how 
it works out. I think this is going to be the toughest issue we have to 
face on China PNTR. There is opposition by some for other reasons, but 
this is one that will test the will of the Senate, I believe, in 
getting the work completed.
  Mr. REID. Mr. Leader, having looked at the votes on this issue, the 
Thompson amendment, I think it would be in everyone's interest if this 
could be worked out so there is a separate vote on this issue, separate 
from this legislation. Senator Thompson should know that there are a 
number of people who have a basic support for his legislation but would 
vote against it because it is on this legislation. He has worked so 
hard on this, so I hope he can have a separate up-or-down vote on the 
merits, not complicated by the PNTR issue.
  Mr. LOTT. I have spent a lot of time trying to find a way to do that.

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