[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Page 20471]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         PROGRESS IN THE SENATE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, last week we all did tremendously important 
work, including the work that was done by Senators Collins and 
Lieberman on homeland security. We extended the highway bill until next 
May. The welfare bill, TANF, was extended. We passed a continuing 
resolution. These are things that did not take a lot of time, but a lot 
of work was entered into with many different groups and people to get 
to where we could complete those three items.
  Mr. President, I would say through you to the distinguished majority 
leader, this week is going to be tough. We are going to have to have 
the cooperation of all Members because we not only have just a few days 
left, but those days are days that are involved with the Vice 
Presidential debate tomorrow and the Presidential debate on Friday. So 
we really have a lot of work to do. We are going to have to have the 
cooperation of all Members.
  I think we have had good bipartisan support to move down the road on 
the homeland security bill. But I think people are going to have to 
take a look at the amendments they have filed. If an amendment in a 
subject area has been decided by an overwhelming vote, I think Senators 
should reconsider whether or not to propose those amendments. Some 
Senators are going to have filed amendments that are germane and they 
are going to have to decide whether or not they want to take the 
Senate's time. It would appear to me a number of these are not going to 
pass.
  So we have a lot of work to do, a very short period of time to do it, 
and I think that with the spirit of getting toward the end of the 
session, which usually becomes a time for Members to cause problems, we 
haven't had that in the past several weeks and that has worked out very 
well. So I hope we can move forward as we have the past 3 weeks. It has 
been very rewarding to the Senate and to the country.

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