[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 14934-14935]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          NEXT WEEK'S SCHEDULE

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, the distinguished Republican leader and I 
have been discussing the schedule for next week, as I noted a few 
moments ago. We know there are many obstacles and many challenges we 
will have to face next week. I believe it is important we come to the 
floor to share with our colleagues at least what our intentions are and 
indicate that, on a bileadership basis, it is our desire to work 
through each of these priorities in an effort to get as much done as we 
can and complete this work period as successfully as possible.
  In keeping with that spirit, let me say it was our intention to 
attempt to complete our work on the prescription drug benefit by 
Tuesday night. We, of course, will take up additional nominations on 
Monday, three judges, and additional Executive Calendar nominees. We 
will chip away at that each day. We will be doing another block of 
nominations today. As we noted earlier this week, we are working under 
a unanimous consent agreement to take up the DOD appropriations bill no 
later than Wednesday. Now, it does not, of course, stipulate when on 
Wednesday, so in keeping with that request and that consent, we are 
obligated to bring it up.
  It is my expectation that certainly if the prescription drug benefit 
bill has been completed, we will be able to come to the DOD bill and 
stay on it until it has been finished. We recognize there are those who 
are in opposition to both the trade promotion authority as well as to 
Homeland Security. Yet it is our desire to complete work on the trade 
promotion authority bill, the conference report, next week. So we will 
file cloture on the motion to proceed to the conference report in an 
effort to complete our work.
  We also have a need to begin work on the homeland security 
legislation. It was reported out of committee on a bipartisan basis, 
out of the Governmental Affairs Committee this week, so we will file 
cloture, recognizing that there will be a need to do so. We will file 
cloture on the homeland defense bill and have a vote on the motion to 
proceed to that bill prior to the end of the week.
  So that clearly will require cooperation and a good deal of effort on 
everyone's part. I think there is a mutual interest in getting this 
work done. Many of the issues that we will be taking up next week are 
high priorities for the administration, as they are for us. So I 
appreciate very much the distinguished Republican leader's interest in 
working together to accommodate that schedule. I thank him for coming 
to the floor.
  I yield the floor at this time for whatever remarks he may want to 
make.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority leader is recognized.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished majority leader 
for his comments and for the effort that he has put into a number of 
these issues this week. For every small agreement that is entered into 
on the floor it quite often represents hours of effort on our part, 
many times having had to go to Members repeatedly and work through 
concerns and legitimate disagreements. Then we finally get an agreement 
on the floor, and it moves quickly and it looks like it was a piece of 
cake, but it was not that way at all, as the distinguished Senator in 
the chair knows because he is here on the floor working these issues 
day in and day out.
  As is always the case, this next week has the potential to be a very 
productive week. One of the two busiest weeks and most productive weeks 
each year is the one right before the August recess and the one right 
before we go out at the end of the year. I remember one day, the last 
day of a session, we moved over 50 bills at the last half of the day 
when most Members had gone. But we had worked through a number of 
agreements.
  Next week we have a chance to do a lot. I want to look back, though, 
just a moment, to this week because there were some significant 
achievements this week. It looked as if at times we were not reaching 
agreement--we weren't. But sometimes before you reach an agreement you 
have to be clearly in disagreement. Maybe that is where we were this 
week.
  But we did finally start to break the deadlock and had a thaw on 
nominations. We had reached almost a record high of 90-something 
nominations pending on the calendar. But efforts were made to work 
through that. Senator Daschle and I had worked through it twice, only 
to be met with a different hold. But the White House worked out 
concerns with Senator McCain and we started moving nominations, 
including, I think, some 15 last night. We are beginning to make a 
little progress on the judges.
  We have some 204 nominations still pending in committees, but if 
everything goes according to normal practice around here, a lot of 
those nominations will be coming out next week and we will be moving 
them, hopefully, as fast as we can once we get them cleared.
  We are doing some judges. It is difficult, but we are going to get 
action on one more circuit judge completed on Monday. We moved one 
other district judge last night and voted on that, I believe--this 
morning, actually. We are going to do two more, I believe Senator 
Daschle said. So we are beginning to thaw that issue, and that is good.
  On the accounting reform, I want to emphasize once again we not only 
got an agreement on the conference, we got the conference done and sent 
to the President, and I believe that was a positive factor in beginning 
to restore confidence in our corporate world and accounting procedures.
  The House is in the process, or has by now completed homeland 
security legislation. The Senate committee completed markup and we are 
ready to go forward. That was a very big achievement by the committee. 
Even though you disagree with some of what was done, they did get their 
work completed and they reported it to the Senate, and we did the 
legislative appropriations bill and we got an agreement to do the 
Department of Defense appropriations bill.
  For our colleagues on my side of the aisle, they have been calling 
for this. In fact, we are going to get it done, we are going to call it 
up next Wednesday, and we will complete it if it takes 2 hours a day or 
2 days, as Senator Daschle said. So those things we did, after a lot of 
work, seeing some agreement reached.
  On prescription drugs, we don't have agreement. It is obvious we had 
concerns about the way it was brought to the floor and about some of 
the legislation that was offered. But efforts are still underway to see 
if we can find common ground. We will continue to try to do that.
  There is pending an amendment on medical malpractice. That is an 
issue that is very important to a lot of people of my State. There has 
developed a real problem with tort reform and with doctors losing their 
insurance coverage or leaving the State because there is no limit on 
punitive damages. No matter how this turns out in this debate, this is 
a debate that we and the States of America are going to have to deal 
with in some way.

[[Page 14935]]

  We will have an opportunity late Monday afternoon and Tuesday to see 
what can be done on prescription drugs. I know there are conversations 
going on today between Members of the Senate and House, Republican and 
Democrat, and also with the administration to see maybe what can be 
done there. Senator Daschle has indicated that he would begin action to 
get a vote on at least cloture on a motion to proceed on homeland 
security. I had hoped and he had hoped, and had stated, that we would 
do our best to get homeland security completed before the August 
recess. But there is a physical limit to what we can do in a limited 
period of time, especially if we have Senators who are going to 
exercise to their fullest their rights to have debate.
  The trade conference report, I think the whole city was shocked this 
morning when they got up and found out that there had basically been an 
agreement on the trade conference report. As I look at it, it sounds as 
if they have done a good job. I would probably change parts of it, and 
so would Senator Daschle, but I do think they probably have made a very 
wise move. Instead of subjecting themselves to 6 weeks of pressures and 
counter-
pressures, they went ahead and addressed the issue and had the bill 
ready.
  We are going to work together next week to take the early action 
necessary to get cloture on fast track and complete action on that 
bill. This is a very important bill for the economy of our country and 
for our ability to be involved in trade promotion and trade, fair trade 
and open trade, all over the world. We have kind of fallen behind in 
that area with some other countries.
  The bankruptcy conference report finally worked out, too. I would 
like to see us even try to deal with that. If we cannot get that done 
next week, we will be ready to go to it shortly after we return.
  I do want to say to Senator Daschle and to others, I am working to 
try--I discussed concerns about getting agreement to go ahead with the 
energy and water appropriations bill. If we could add that to our list 
next week, that would be very big. I don't find a lot of resistance to 
it, but we have had to clear it with some people who did have some 
potential amendments. There is one other concern related to that bill 
that I am trying to work through.
  We have just given a litany of bills. It will not be easy to get all 
that done. We may not get it all done next week. But by working 
together and by asking our colleagues to cooperate with us, I think we 
can produce an awful lot of good legislation next week. I would like to 
be able to have a press conference next week as we go home and say: The 
Senate has done well. I haven't said that a lot lately, but I am 
prepared to do so when it is merited. I think there is a chance for 
that to occur next week. We could have a really important legislative 
achievement next week with a little extra work and a little extra input 
from all of our colleagues.
  I thank Senator Daschle for working with us to move these 
nominations. There are a lot of people who try to view every bill, 
every nomination, as leverage on some other issue. At some point we 
have to stop that and move them forward in order to do what the 
American people expect us to do. I am going to be involved next week to 
try to help in every way I can.
  Quite often, Senator Daschle and I get accused of being on both sides 
of the same issue, by many different forces. It amazes me sometimes 
what I am supposed to have done. In fact, I saw yesterday where 
somebody had put out that there was a Daschle-Lott agreement on 
prescription drugs. It came as a shock to Senator Daschle and me, but 
it was actually something in writing. Somebody downtown had a brilliant 
idea. Maybe we ought to look at it.
  I am thankful for the comments of Senator Daschle, and I will work 
with him next week to do everything we can to produce a good result. I 
yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I compliment the distinguished Republican 
leader for the spirit of his comments, and indicate that he is so 
correct. There are so many times when there are rumors and there are 
allegations of all kinds, sometimes positive and sometimes negative, 
about things that he and I are doing, which is why I thought having a 
colloquy at the end of the week might be helpful.
  With regard to the schedule, with regard to our intentions, let me be 
clear. It is my hope, based on the cooperative spirit that we both have 
attempted to articulate this afternoon, that we can get a lot done.
  I have indicated to the President this week that it is my hope we can 
clear the calendar of all of the noncontroversial nominations, both 
judicial as well as executive appointments. That is what we will 
continue to try to chip away at. I don't see any reason why, at the end 
of the week, all noncontroversial nominations could not have been 
successfully addressed. We will do that.
  I appreciate very much Senator Lott's willingness to come to the 
floor to restate our intentions to try to achieve this ambitious 
agenda.

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