[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Page 20355]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, good morning to everyone.
  Today, we once again will return to the intelligence reform 
legislation sponsored by Senators Collins and Lieberman. This week, we 
have made steady progress. As we set out, we will be completing this 
bill in the near future, but we have a number of amendments. I thank 
both of the managers for their patience and willingness to work through 
a maze of amendments.
  We had all amendments submitted 2 days ago and all the language for 
the amendments as of yesterday. The managers and staff and Senators 
have been working hard over the course of the night to look at the 
amendments, to address them, and to establish an order to which they 
can be addressed over today and Monday.
  As announced last night, there will be no rollcall votes today. We 
will have a full day of debate with a number of people speaking on 
their individual amendments. We will continue to move forward. A number 
of Senators have committed to being present today to offer their 
amendments. I thank them in advance for their participation. I 
encourage them to talk to the managers as to roughly when we will be 
discussing each of those amendments.
  Monday, the plans are to stack the votes. We will have a series of 
votes, probably beginning around 3 o'clock Monday. There will be a 
series of rollcall votes beginning midafternoon. The specific time we 
will announce a little bit later today.
  The Democratic leader and I have come to the Senate floor regularly 
over the course of the last week to comment on the progress being made 
on the bill. We will continue to monitor the progress. The bill itself 
is being discussed after full hearings in August and months and months 
of work, so the objective of completing this bill in the near future, 
both the internal organization, reorganization, and external by the 
time we depart, is the goal we hope to accomplish. We need to continue 
with the deliberative process, but we do need to bring the bill to a 
conclusion; therefore, there is a sense of urgency to have Members come 
to the Chamber and discuss their amendments.
  We had, as of 4 o'clock yesterday, 233 filed amendments. The Senate 
has considered 34 amendments thus far, and 15 have been adopted, 5 
tabled, and 14 are still pending.
  Having said that, cloture may be a necessary tool. Again, the 
Democrat leader and I have been in consultation. We first mentioned 
cloture a couple days ago. It is a tool we might use. I point out that 
amendments that have been filed that are ready to be considered right 
now and even after cloture will remain, and we have 30 hours and could 
consider, of course, at that point all germane amendments.
  I will be in consultation with the Democratic leader over the course 
of the day. We will have a full day today. I appreciate everyone's 
consideration.
  We are also--not on the Senate floor but in a task force--considering 
the Senate's oversight of intelligence and homeland security. A number 
of people are asking: What is the appropriate vehicle? We are 
concentrating through the Collins-Lieberman bill on the external 
relationships, but what about the internal relationships? The 
appropriate vehicle and the vehicle that has been set up by the 
Democratic leader and myself is through Senate resolution where 
specific changes to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence would 
be entertained and where we would deal with the changes in the Senate 
results, especially as it applies to committee jurisdictions.
  It is my hope we can come to final agreement on this package by next 
Friday. The Democratic leader and I await the specific recommendations 
from the task force we appointed about a month ago.
  We have had a long week, a very productive week. We have accomplished 
a great deal. The task before the Senate is in reforming the 
intelligence community's responsibility and oversight. It is a huge but 
an essential task. We learned on 9/11 how our enemies are working day 
and night to visit terror on our soil. That is what we have learned 
since September 11. They dream of ever more catastrophic attacks. They 
plot and they plan in the false belief that they will elude capture. 
They are absolutely wrong.
  The work we do this week and next week in the Senate will strengthen 
our defenses and it will improve our ability to gather data, to analyze 
data, and to defeat our enemies. It will help us find them and to stop 
them and bring them to justice. When we are done, America will be safer 
and more secure.

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