[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12167-12168]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    ORDERS FOR MONDAY, JUNE 13, 2005

  Mr. FRIST. I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its 
business today, the Senate stand in adjournment until 2 p.m. Monday, 
June 13; I further ask that following the prayer and pledge, the 
morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved 
to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved, and the Senate then 
return to executive session and begin consideration of the nomination 
of Tom Griffith to be a United States circuit court judge for the DC 
Circuit as under the order.
  Mr. REID. Reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Isakson). The Democratic leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, as I expressed to the distinguished majority 
leader personally, and I say so today, and I have said so publicly on a 
number of occasions, I wish this week we had been working on something 
else. The fact is, we have now what I consider a bump in the road out 
of the way. I am glad we are now going to move on to legislative 
business. We have so much to do in the next few, literally, weeks we 
have remaining in this legislative session.
  I appreciate very much the people on both sides of the aisle allowing 
us to move forward on the Energy bill. It is a big piece of legislation 
that is vitally important to the people of America. Of course, in a big 
piece of legislation such as this, there will be problems, and 
certainly there will be in this bill.
  Again, as I said previously, I am grateful to Senators Domenici and 
Bingaman for getting the bill to us initially. It is a bill that is 
developed by consensus of the committee. That speaks well of both 
Senator Domenici and Senator Bingaman and the members of the committee. 
That is going to be some heavy lifting in legislative terms.
  The distinguished majority leader has set a very high mark for the 
Senate before we leave here. He wants to finish at least two 
appropriations bills. I think it is possible we can do three 
appropriations bills. I hope we can do that. If we can get rid of--I 
say that in a most positive sense--the Homeland Security, the Energy, 
water, and Interior bill, and it does not matter what order, that would 
be good work for this work period.
  I also express to the distinguished majority leader my appreciation 
for his hard work. We are not there yet. But we hope we can arrive at 
some agreement on stem cell research during that work period. It would 
make everything move a little more quickly if we do that. The leader is 
working on that. I am working on that. I hope we can, maybe in the next 
week, agree on something that will allow us to do that so we do not 
have a lot of hurdles thrown up in other legislation because of that.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator withdraw his reservation?
  Mr. REID. I do.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, briefly in response--really in agreement--
as we heard from the Democrat leader, we have a lot to do. We have an 
ambitious agenda with a superb piece of legislation that we bring to 
the Senate early next week, the Energy bill, which addresses gasoline 
prices, energy independence, a move toward energy independence, issues 
important to the American people.
  In addition to appropriations bills, the Democratic leader mentioned 
stem cell research. I add to that the Department of Defense 
authorization which is ready for consideration. Asbestos--the 
distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania who was just here, Senator 
Specter, has worked so hard on that particular bill. That is important 
to job creation, to health care, to getting benefits to people who need 
it. We have a lot to do. I look forward to beginning that process.
  Next week, we have one more judge, Thomas Griffith, on Monday. Then 
we can go to the Energy legislation. So we have an ambitious agenda, 
but we are

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working together and we have made a huge amount of progress in the last 
week.
  Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. FRIST. I yield.
  Mr. REID. It has been brought to my attention that we also have to do 
in the next few weeks the Native Hawaiian legislation we talked about 
that we would help Senator Akaka on; also, we have a couple of hours 
the Majority Leader has agreed to set aside for the China trade issue 
with Senator Schumer. Those things I am sure we can work in, but those 
are things we have to keep in mind that we have to do.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, as you can see, the list is huge. We are 
going about it systematically, in discussion on a regular basis with 
the Democratic leader. That is the way we will continue as we address 
many issues important to the American people.

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