[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 22]
[Senate]
[Page 29863]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, this morning, the Senate will resume 
consideration of the Energy conference report. A number of Senators 
came to the floor to speak on the Energy conference report yesterday. 
We had a good debate, good discussion, and the Senate will continue 
this debate throughout today's session.
  I do remind my colleagues that a cloture motion was filed on the 
conference report during yesterday's session, and that cloture vote 
will occur on Friday morning.
  As we all know, we are scheduled to consider several major pieces of 
legislation over the next few days. In addition to the appropriations 
measures and the Medicare reform package, there will be other 
conference reports that will become available for Senate consideration, 
and we will attempt to clear those measures for Senate action as they 
arrive.
  In addition to that, we will also continue to work through 
nominations on the Executive Calendar. There are some roadblocks right 
now, but we are doing our very best to address those. There are a 
number of important nominations that are ready for confirmation, 
including judicial nominees who should be cleared, the Department of 
Homeland Security positions, a number of ambassadors, Health and Human 
Services officials, and the list goes on and on. They are ready for 
confirmation.
  I understand there are Members who are objecting to all of those 
nominations. I urge my colleagues to allow us to schedule votes on at 
least the noncontroversial nominations. Some of these nominations are 
being held up by colleagues who say nothing is going to go through. At 
least let the noncontroversial nominations proceed. It is clear we 
can't, in these final few days, be held hostage to unrelated matters on 
these important nominations.
  I mentioned the Senate will need to work this weekend in order for us 
to finish all of our business. We will have a clearer picture as to 
what to expect over the course of the weekend as this day progresses. I 
do alert everyone that the likelihood of being in Saturday is very high 
and possibly for a period of time on Sunday as well.

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