[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 9518-9519]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            SENATE SCHEDULE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, we have had in our cloakroom numerous phone 
calls. I have spoken to a number of Senators. We have military funerals 
going on around the country people wish to attend. We have two Senators 
now in attendance at a military funeral. We need to move on with the 
business of the Senate. We are here, ready to go.
  The reason I say this is that throughout the day I will get inquiries 
from Senators about why can't we move along more quickly. We are going 
to ask that our member of the Budget Committee go forward with his 
statement on the budget. If there is no one here from the other side, 
that would be unfair. But I hope we can get to this soon because if we 
use all 10 hours on the budget alone, we are not going to finish until 
approximately 10:15 tonight--I am sorry, 8:15 tonight. There will be a 
lot of concern about that.
  We still have the supplemental. We are going to conference at 10:30. 
We have a lot of work to do. I am disappointed that we are not on the 
budget now. Senator Conrad is ready to go. As I have said two times 
already in my brief discussion, we are having a lot of inquiries about 
people wanting to go home for the work period that we have scheduled.
  We hope everybody understands that 10 minutes this morning is 10 
minutes lost this afternoon. Airplanes need to be made.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I inquire of the distinguished leader, on 
our side, we are quite anxious to act on the nomination of MG Steven 
Blum to become the National Guard Commander. All 50 States are 
involved. The Armed Services Committee unanimously voted him out 
yesterday.
  Mr. REID. We will be happy to look at that. Maybe if we get on the 
budget--if it is cleared--we can get off the

[[Page 9519]]

 budget for a short time and clear that. I think we need to get the 
time running on the budget.
  Mr. WARNER. I thank the assistant leader. He represents so many 
guardsmen who are now fighting valiantly. I thank the Senator.
  Mr. REID. Some of whom, from Nevada, have been killed in combat in 
the war in Iraq.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.

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