[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Page 15564]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, in a moment we will begin consideration of 
the Homeland Security appropriations bill. Yesterday, all first-degree 
amendments to the bill were required to be filed at the desk. There 
appear to be about 100 that were filed. Although I hope the Senators 
will not feel compelled to call up many of these amendments, we have 
100. Hopefully we can narrow those down. The chairman and ranking 
member will do so over the course of the day.
  We will finish the bill this week. Therefore, Members should contact 
the two managers to schedule consideration of their amendments. At the 
current time, we have three amendments pending, one dealing with 
veterans health funding and two relating to the homeland grant formula. 
We hope to shortly work out time agreements on these and vote with 
respect to at least a couple of these amendments. Therefore, there is a 
chance for a vote prior to our policy luncheons today. We will alert 
Members as we come to an agreement on the starting times. We will 
continue to vote throughout the day on amendments. Senators can expect 
a busy day.
  Yesterday, we came in for a 3-week block. It will be a very busy 3 
weeks before our August recess. We need to continue to address the 
appropriations measures. Prior to the July Fourth recess, we finished 
some appropriations in a very positive way. We continue with Homeland 
Security, and we have a number of other legislative priorities. We need 
to make the most of this legislative period as we work together to 
complete all of the work that is ahead of us.
  We are likely to have a nominee for the Supreme Court sometime in the 
near future, and much of September, I suspect, will be focused on that, 
which again establishes a sense of urgency for addressing the very 
important issues of the business that is before the Senate over the 
next 3 weeks. I will be talking to the Democrat leader over the course 
of the day in terms of working through the specifics of that schedule.

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