[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Pages 23515-23516]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I welcome everyone back for the final 
wrapup of the 108th Congress. I was just speaking with the Democratic 
leader, and we were remarking that we have a lot to do in a short 
period of time over the course of the week.
  There is a lot going on in terms of orientation of new Senators who 
will not officially take office until January, but there are also 
leadership elections occurring today and tomorrow. I expect that in 
this brief session, which will bring the 108th Congress to a close, we 
will finish before Thanksgiving for sure. And as we sort out both the 
agenda and work that has been accomplished over the last several weeks, 
we will have a much better and clearer idea as to when we will finish 
this brief session.
  I know everybody is anxious to get back to their families after this 
week or week and a half and to spend time with constituents and begin 
enjoying the eventual holidays and planning for the year ahead.
  I look forward to working with the new Senators as they come onboard, 
and the leadership, as the leadership elections occur. I think we will 
all join with a renewed commitment to working together, working across 
the aisle, working with civility and respect for the traditions of the 
Senate. I think we will be able to build effectively on the 
accomplishments we have achieved to date in the 108th Congress.
  Over the next several days, we have a lot of business, with three 
essential pieces of business that must be addressed. The nine remaining 
spending bills for fiscal year 2005 are currently being addressed in 
what is called an omnibus bill. It is a bipartisan bill. There has been 
huge progress over the last several weeks as staff and Senators have 
been working together on this very important bill.
  Second, we have intelligence matters and an authorization bill for 
the Intelligence Committee that is currently being addressed, as well 
as legislation that is currently in conference that addresses the 9/11 
Commission reform recommendations, an effort we began to aggressively 
address in late July once the 9/11 Commission Report was released, and 
immediately Senator Daschle and I set a course that has been followed 
pretty much as we intended. That is, following hearings, we would 
discuss and write a bill in the Senate and pass that bill, and the 
House likewise.
  Conferees were appointed several weeks ago, and the conferees have 
been working constantly to generate and produce a bill that I am very 
hopeful we will be able to bring to the floor later this week.
  The third issue is the debt limit. Secretary Snow informs us that we 
have a short window of opportunity to get the debt limit accomplished. 
The Treasury Department estimates that Congress must take action by 
Thursday in order to prevent the Federal Government from defaulting on 
the debt. Discussions have been underway in the last several days and 
will be underway today as to how best we accomplish that.
  We have some scheduling challenges that will occur over the course of 
this week, a little bit later in the week. It obviously is an issue we 
will be addressing. I am confident we will be able to take the 
necessary steps to avoid even any consideration of default.
  In addition, there are a number of other issues that we will be 
addressing, such as nominations that we would like to settle in this 
108th Congress. Those discussions are underway. We have the Individuals 
with Disabilities Education Act, IDEA. The House and Senate conferees 
will be meeting on Wednesday to approve the negotiated language. So I 
expect we will be able to pass that bill by the end of the week and 
have it on the President's desk before we adjourn.
  Briefly, with respect to the schedule today, we will be recessing at 
12:30 p.m. in order for the Democratic policy luncheon to meet. This 
side of the aisle will be conducting our leadership elections in a 
policy meeting tomorrow.
  Today, we will reconvene at 2:15 p.m. to begin consideration of the 
nomination of Francis Harvey to be Secretary of the Army. The order 
provides for up to 3 hours of debate, and if all that time is used, we 
will be voting at approximately 5:15 p.m. today. We will be updating 
Members this afternoon as it becomes clear how much of that debate time 
will be necessary.
  We will be having discussions with leadership over the course of the 
day on the debt extension bill as to how we will plan that out in terms 
of voting so people will be able to have their schedules accommodated 
for especially Thursday. As all of our colleagues know, the Clinton 
Library will be inaugurated at that point in time, and we will be 
making appropriate accommodations for voting.
  I mentioned the appropriations process. I do think we are going to be 
able to carry out closure on those negotiations quickly and that we 
will have something for action sometime this week.
  We in all likelihood will remain here this week and finish our work 
on the appropriations bill--hopefully this week, obviously very late 
this week. We will keep Senators notified as to the schedule.
  I mentioned the Intelligence reform bill is still in conference. 
Members were working late last night and are in through today. As I 
mentioned, it has been nonstop. I am very hopeful we will be able to 
complete that bill as well.
  In short, in closing, there are a very few days remaining. We have a 
lot of scheduling challenges. I will be looking forward to working with 
our counterparts on the other side of the aisle in addressing the 
business with the expectation, if at all possible, that we will be able 
to complete work this week, which would be the objective. Again, that 
is a lot to accomplish in the next several days.
  I yield the floor.

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