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




                           THIS WEEK'S AGENDA

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I want to acknowledge the work the 
majority leader has clearly laid out as an agenda that I think both 
sides wish and hope we can accomplish this week. There is a lot to be 
done but a lot has been done.
  The distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Committee has worked 
diligently these past weeks to reach a point where we have agreement, 
as I understand it, on all but one of the bills. That will allow us to 
expedite consideration of the appropriations process this week.
  A lot of work has been done on the
9/11 Commission. Even though we still have not resolved some of the 
remaining questions, I hope Senators--and House Members especially--
would refrain from extraneous issues because that only complicates our 
ability to complete our work.
  There is a lot of effort that has been made now on the nominations 
package that has been the subject of a great deal of discussion and 
negotiation for many weeks. As the distinguished majority leader has 
noted, there is a possibility that we could also do IDEA. I think that 
would be a great culmination of the effort that has been made 
throughout the last several weeks as we have looked to completing that 
work before the end of the year.
  So much remains. Much has been done. We hope to work very closely 
with our Republican friends to make this as productive a week as we 
can.
  We are also appreciative of the majority leader's willingness to 
accommodate the schedule for many of us to allow for the travel to 
Little Rock to attend the dedication ceremonies for the new 
Presidential library, the Clinton Library.
  It will be an exciting week, a very busy week, and one that I hope, 
at the end of the day, will be a very productive one as well. I look 
forward to working with the majority leader in that regard and will 
have more to say on many of these bills as the week unfolds.

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