[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 1547-1548]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, this morning, after 10 minutes for debate, 
the Senate will vote in relation to the Inhofe amendment regarding 
clean air, to be followed by a vote in relation to the Edwards 
amendment. Following those votes, the Senate will proceed to executive 
session for the consideration of the nomination of Tom Ridge to be 
Secretary of Homeland Security. We have a consent agreement which 
provides for a limited period of debate, and therefore I expect a vote 
on the confirmation prior to the policy luncheons. I expect the Senate 
to recess for the policy luncheons following the vote on the Ridge 
nomination.
  Additional amendments are pending to the appropriations measure, and 
therefore rollcall votes will occur throughout the afternoon and into 
the evening.
  I remind my colleagues that late nights are anticipated as we 
continue to make progress on the bill.
  As of last night, 245 amendments were filed. As I look through page 
after page of these amendments, I think all of us expected much fewer 
than that. I encourage my colleagues, as I look through page after page 
of amendments, to come together and ask that most or many of these 
amendments not be called up, that we can work them out in other ways. I 
also ask my colleagues to recognize that we do need to finish this 
appropriations bill in short order and go forward as we look at issues 
such as funding first responders and funding election reform which we 
have already passed.
  Our goal, I think on both sides of the aisle, is to finish this bill 
as soon as possible, allowing time for debate and consideration of the 
appropriate amendments on this bill. Our goal is to finish this week. 
We will continue to work in good faith, working across the aisle, 
addressing each of the issues that are important to these 
appropriations bills. We worked yesterday and made great progress. We 
made great progress last night, into the early evening, and have been 
working on the amendments over the course of the last 18 hours since we 
have had the amendments. That goal of finishing this week is real and 
one that we should work towards accomplishing.
  If we do finish this bill Thursday night, I expect we would not have 
rollcall votes on Friday or Monday. If we cannot finish it by tomorrow 
night--again, I recognize that is ambitious, but if we focus on 
completion of the bill, we can accomplish that--we will have rollcall 
votes through Friday and we will have rollcall votes until we finish 
it, including Monday and into next week.
  Again, working together, looking at these amendments, having a number 
of them not called up and recognizing we can address these issues in 
other ways as we go forward, I hope we get these to a manageable 
number.
  Mr. REID. If the majority leader will yield, this morning, on the 
Ridge speeches, people who have designated time should be here or they 
will lose their time because the time will run. It is my understanding 
that the majority may not use all their time so I suggest to those on 
this side of the aisle they should be here; otherwise, they will lose 
their time.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I add to that, we decided not to do the 
Ridge nomination out of consideration for a number of people who wanted 
to speak who either were not back last night or prepared to go forward. 
We reached an agreement yesterday we would give time to people who 
requested it. We did that by unanimous consent and it is set up for 
this morning. I ask anyone on that list to come down and we will 
respectfully give them that time. We need to finish this vote this 
morning. We would like to have a vote this morning or shortly after 
noon.
  Mr. STEVENS. Will the majority leader yield for a brief statement?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. STEVENS. I address the majority leader. We have gone over the 
amendments. Quite a few of them are technical in nature and legislative 
in nature. We have members of our staff in the appropriations room 
downstairs, room 128, prepared to discuss any amendment that a Member 
wishes to try to work out with the committee and have it adopted 
without votes. I believe there are quite a few in that category we 
could accept. All of the amendments are being checked with the 
committees of legislative jurisdiction where they are legislative in 
nature and they do not affect the bill from a financial point of view.
  I hope Members would tell us if they sincerely wish to press their 
amendments. There are a great many that are very redundant. We will 
have to choose as to which amendment the individual Senator wishes to 
bring forward. If we are to finish this bill and be able to get it to 
the House for conference, when the House comes back, this means a lot 
of long hours.
  I say at the outset, there are 129 amendments that our committee 
would oppose. If a Member wishes to know which we will oppose, we are 
happy to tell them. I urge the majority and minority to help us by 
determining the amendments that Members absolutely insist they will 
raise so we can get a schedule and start working our way through these 
amendments. It will take the cooperation of every Member.
  Keep in mind, these are bills that should have been passed last year.

[[Page 1548]]

Amendments should not be the vehicle for legislation that would arise 
in this 2-year period of the new Congress. I hope everyone will join in 
tabling amendments that are legislative in nature, that should be 
raised later in the session. To hold up this bill at this time is very 
unfair to the thousands of people out there waiting to know whether 
they will have funding at the level of 2003, as intended by the 
President and by the Congress, instead of continuing at the level of 
the 2002 appropriations which, after all, were devised in the late part 
of 2001. We are dealing with people who have been waiting for 2 years 
now to have different types of funding.
  I hope we can get this bill done this week. I hope we have that will 
to get it done.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, let me continue through the Chair to 
encourage the managers to work very aggressively on both sides of the 
aisle to complete this bill.
  What I just heard from the bill managers, we need participation of 
everyone pulling together to give some focus to the 245 amendments in 
order to complete this bill. This is unfinished business from the last 
Congress. As my colleagues know, we are supposed to be on recess right 
now, a scheduled recess for this week. We have called everyone back on 
the floor of the Senate, all 100 U.S. Senators, and asked them to 
cancel their plans from overseas travel, meeting with leaders around 
the world, to meeting with constituents at home, for the sole purpose 
of completing this bill and addressing these very important issues.
  Again, I am optimistic we can finish this week, I am confident we 
can, but only if we have the participation of everyone, recognizing the 
importance of this bill and the appeal that the managers are making 
that we all work together to get these amendments condensed to a 
manageable number, and their willingness to work with us, again, 
essentially around the clock, on time that was supposed to be a recess, 
to complete this important bill.
  Mr. REID. Mr. Leader, if I could, the manager of the bill, the 
President pro tempore of the Senate, has done outstanding work last 
night and was able to get rid of 116 amendments. If we give him a few 
more hours, maybe he can do better than that. I have great faith in the 
Senator from Alaska and the Senator from West Virginia.
  I would say--and this is not the time for debate--people contend we 
did not do the work of last year, and we should have, we acknowledge 
that, but it was not the fault of the Senate. It was the fault of the 
House.
  We are going, as I told the leader yesterday, to do everything we can 
to move this bill as quickly as we can. I think it would be in the best 
interests of everyone if we did move it.

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