[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 21]
[Senate]
[Pages 29234-29235]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION

  Mr. REID. Through the Chair to the distinguished majority leader, 
there is some confusion over here because at one time last night, on 
the conference report on defense authorization--it was signed by 
everybody. Does the leader have the latest word on that? Senator Warner 
and Senator Levin, because they were trying to stick other stuff in the 
bill, were going to withdraw their signatures. Do we know if that 
happened?
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, through the Chair, I know it has not passed 
the House yet. I will have to check and see what the current status is 
on the Department of Defense authorization. I will have to check and 
see what the current status of that is. It was my understanding that 
would be ready at some point--or as of late last night they would be 
ready sometime today. The House has not yet acted on that.
  Mr. REID. We hope to have the Defense appropriations bill tonight or 
tomorrow? When is that expected?
  Mr. FRIST. Defense appropriations will likely be tomorrow. There are 
several items that remain to be wrapped up. Most of the meetings over 
the course of last night and today have been with the objective of 
having that wrapped up as soon as possible, but that will much more 
likely be tomorrow. It will not be tonight.
  Mr. REID. Does the leader have some indication as to what the 
schedule will be Monday? The leader has indicated that there will be no 
votes today or tomorrow. Are we going to have votes Monday?
  Mr. FRIST. We know we are not going to have rollcall votes today. We 
will be in a very short period of time today. I would think tomorrow, 
depending on how things go over the next couple of hours, we would come 
in fairly late waiting on action from the House of Representatives. 
Once we have a better feel when they are going to act tonight or in the 
morning, we will set a time to open tomorrow.
  We have not said no rollcall votes tomorrow, but we will be able to 
say that for sure in just a bit, in all likelihood. Then I expect we 
will need to come in early Monday and vote early Monday because at that 
point in time we should have legislation coming from the House. So 
Monday is going to be a very full day. For right now--we can talk

[[Page 29235]]

shortly if something else indicates otherwise--we would plan on voting 
Monday morning.
  Mr. REID. I told my Senators on call that they should be ready to go 
Monday morning, by 10 or so. Is that a fair statement?
  Mr. FRIST. I think that is a perfect goal and that we mutually share 
that, that we could start voting as early as Monday morning. Since we 
will be in tomorrow, if we can update that because most of our--many of 
our Senators are out around the country, we will do just that.

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