[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 18]
[Senate]
[Page 25192]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     FINISHING APPROPRIATIONS BILLS

  Mr. REID. If I may be heard briefly, the Presiding Officer is 
chairman of the Appropriations Committee. I know the chairman of the 
Appropriations Committee and Senator Byrd have worked very hard to get 
appropriations bills through this soon.
  I want to respond to my friend from Mississippi to indicate we may 
not like what is proceeding--that is, the Healthy Forests initiative 
and the way it has been brought to the floor, and class-action 
legislation. They are important pieces of legislation; we understand 
that. But the most important business to be conducted in this body is 
to finish our appropriations bills. We simply are not doing that.
  I am extremely concerned the House is out of session this week. They 
will be in one week. They have conferences that cannot be completed 
because they are not here. They are AWOL. In addition to the conference 
reports--and there are a significant number of those: military 
construction, Energy and water, Interior, and Labor-HHS--there are six 
other bills people on the majority side are talking about lumping into 
one big omnibus bill. That really doesn't work well. Those bills are so 
large and unwieldy, it is difficult to get the detail to find out what 
is in them. They become a mishmash of legislation.
  I hope Members understand the best thing we can do is work to get 
these appropriations bills passed. There is no reason we cannot pass 
them. The bills that have come before the Senate have passed in a 
reasonably short period of time.
  I hope in addition to the other things the majority leader wants to 
do, he will focus on these appropriations bills. They are important. It 
is not good to have large, unwieldy omnibus bills, and it appears it is 
being done for reasons I don't fully understand. Part of it is simply 
that the numbers are not there and there is some effort being made, 
especially in light of the $87 billion and the attention focused on 
that, the $21 billion spent on Iraq and very little being spent in 
America--the American people are concerned. These bills being brought 
to the Senate would focus more direct attention on that.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The acting majority leader.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time for 
morning business be extended to 2:15 p.m.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  Mr. REID. Reserving the right to object, I say to my friend, is there 
any way we could get a little more time on that?
  Mr. COCHRAN. I am advised there are Senators who have been told they 
could come over and talk on the motion to proceed to consider the class 
action at 2:15.
  Mr. REID. That will be fine. I ask that the time between now and 2:15 
be equally divided, even though my friend gave a very fine speech and 
took a long time. But we won't count that against morning business.

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