[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Page 17781]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, today the Senate will continue to work 
through the appropriations process by beginning consideration of H.R. 
2658, the Department of Defense appropriations bill. Last week the 
Senate was able to complete the military construction appropriations 
bill and the legislative branch appropriations bill. The hard work of 
Chairman Stevens, Senator Campbell, Senator Hutchison, and the 
Democratic leader enabled us to work swiftly on those measures.
  We are expected to continue this work by completing action on several 
more appropriations measures this week. Two additional bills are ready 
for action. They are the Homeland Security bill and the Labor-HHS-
Education bill.
  With respect to the Defense appropriations bill today, the two 
managers will be here throughout the afternoon and, therefore, Senators 
should be prepared to come to the floor to offer their amendments. Any 
votes ordered on those amendments will be stacked to begin at 
approximately 5:15 or 5:30. If an amendment is not available for a vote 
at that time, it would be my intent to have a vote on an executive 
nomination. Later this afternoon we will announce the precise time and 
subject of today's vote. We will have busy sessions this week to 
complete the bills I have previously mentioned. Therefore, rollcall 
votes can be expected each day.
  I also want to take a moment this afternoon to thank Chairman Lugar 
for his hard work and diligence throughout last week's consideration of 
the State Department authorization. I had hoped that the bill could 
have been completed last week. However, a number of extraneous issues 
not related to the underlying subject slowed the bill's passage. It is 
important and it is appropriate for the Senate to pass a State 
Department authorization as well as foreign aid authorization. Every 
Member does have a right to amend, but I would encourage Members to 
show restraint and allow the Senate to complete its work on this 
measure. There will be other opportunities for these nongermane 
amendments, and I hope we will be able to resume the bill for 
amendments that relate to the issues of the Department of State and 
foreign aid.
  On Thursday of this week, Prime Minister Tony Blair will be 
addressing a joint meeting of Congress in the afternoon. We will have 
further information and announcements about that as the week goes 
forward. I look forward to a productive week, a very busy week, and do 
believe we will make tremendous progress in terms of advancing these 
appropriations bills.
  Mr. REID. If the distinguished majority leader is finished, I would 
like to ask a couple questions.
  When we complete the work on the Defense bill, which hopefully will 
be this week--I am sure the leader wants it earlier rather than later--
do you have an idea yet what bill we will go to after that?
  Mr. FRIST. We intend to go to either Homeland Security or Labor-HHS. 
I will turn to the distinguished chairman either now or in a few 
minutes to comment on that as we go forward.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Roberts). The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, we are ready to go on either bill. We are 
trying to assure the presence of the ranking members and chairmen of 
those subcommittees. I prefer to give you that information later today 
if I may.
  Mr. REID. The second question or statement is that Senator Byrd and 
others have no problem going forward on this bill today. We would just 
ask that there be no agreements on time until that is cleared with this 
side. Agreements on time and things of that nature, we would like to be 
advised if there are time agreements that are needed. We would be happy 
to be cooperative, but we would at least like to know about that.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I yield to the chairman.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, we know of only two amendments so far 
that may come toward this bill. We would encourage Members to come 
forward and tell us if they are going to offer amendments. It would be 
our hope that we could proceed with this bill in a fashion that we 
could come to a final conclusion tomorrow afternoon and vote on this 
bill tomorrow afternoon and take up one of the other bills so we can 
move these bills along. This bill came out of our committee 
unanimously. We have taken care of most of the amendments in our 
committee. We will cooperate with you in every way to give you advance 
notice on the votes. If we can find out the number of amendments that 
are coming, we might even be able to make arrangements that we would 
vote early tomorrow morning on the amendments on this bill and just 
have one vote on the executive calendar.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, through you to the distinguished chairman of 
the committee, I have spoken to Senator Byrd today, and he may want to 
give a statement today. But he has indicated he certainly does 
tomorrow. He and I have talked. There are a number of people who at 
this stage have not indicated they want to offer amendments, but they 
do wish to make statements on this very important bill. At this stage 
there are four or five Senators wishing to do that. That will take a 
little bit of time in the morning but should not take a lot of time. I 
only know of four or five. And as soon as I learn about amendments, I 
will certainly let the distinguished ranking member know about those 
amendments.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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