[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 1462-1463]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, this week, we are beginning with the House 
message on the Taxpayer Relief Act. This bill passed the Senate on 
February 2 by a vote of 66 to 31. The House has appointed conferees, 
and we are now taking up that message to appoint Senate conferees. 
There will be motions to instruct the conferees that will be offered by 
the other side. They have provided us with a list, and we hope they 
will not all be offered. We will be discussing that shortly after the 
opening this morning.
  In any event, we will begin the process of appointing conferees with 
votes on the motions to instruct. As I announced on Friday, we will 
debate the motions today and stack the votes to begin around 8 o'clock 
this evening. Therefore, we do expect votes to begin at that time. We 
may decide to have some of the votes on Tuesday morning, depending on 
how many of these motions to instruct the other side offers, but we 
will make that determination after we discuss what will be offered, and 
hopefully, during the course of the afternoon, I am sure that will 
settle out. I will reiterate that we will be in session into the 
evening with those votes.
  This is the last week of legislative business before the Presidents' 
Day recess. We will first appoint conferees on the tax bill, and we 
will return to the asbestos bill after we address the tax bill over the 
course of today and likely into the early morning tomorrow.
  We have a point of order pending to the asbestos bill, and Senators 
will desire some further debate before we vote on that waiver motion. 
We will be conferring with Senators on both sides to determine the best 
time for that vote.
  Finally, I also mention that we need to address the PATRIOT Act 
before we leave. We will complete the PATRIOT Act before we leave. It 
is a bill that addresses concerns on both sides of the aisle, and we 
will proceed to that bill before finishing the week. Senators should 
not plan to depart early this week. As my colleagues can tell, we have 
a very busy week planned with the three matters I have mentioned.
  In addition, I hope we will be able to proceed with appointing 
conferees to the pensions bill as well. It will be a full week, and I 
will be updating Members as the week progresses, but it will be a week 
that will require votes today, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday 
to complete our business.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, through the Chair to the distinguished 
majority leader, how many votes does the majority leader intend to have 
tonight?
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, through the Chair in response, it really 
depends on how many of these motions we have. They are coming from the 
Democratic side of the aisle, and although a list has been provided, 
how many actually will require a vote--I would think we would have at 
least two tonight, and then if there are a lot of motions, we would 
have to have more tonight because we do need to complete whatever votes 
there are tomorrow and then get back to the asbestos bill in the 
morning to continue to address the waiver of the point of order.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the distinguished majority leader mentioned 
the PATRIOT Act. While the Presiding Officer is in the chair, I express 
my personal appreciation for the many hours of work he put forth in 
resolving the PATRIOT Act dispute. It was a bipartisan problem. The 
distinguished junior Senator from New Hampshire worked long and hard to 
come up with a conclusion. I appreciate being advised during the 
process as he was visiting with the White House. Of course, as has been 
said, the Presiding Officer didn't get everything he wanted, certainly 
I didn't, but it is a much better piece of legislation than when it 
came back from the House. So I compliment and applaud the Senator from 
New Hampshire for his hard work.
  I say through the Chair to the distinguished majority leader, we are 
ready to move forward on this legislation. As has been explained by the 
Senator from Tennessee, we have at least one Senator who is going to 
make us go through all the procedural hoops, so that will take some 
time. But the vast majority of the Senators over here want this matter 
to move forward, and we will offer help in any way we can to move this 
along, with the understanding that there are some who want to make sure 
that all of the procedural hoops are jumped.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, in brief response, as I outlined, we are 
ready pretty soon to go to the PATRIOT Act. I agree, the negotiations 
which have taken place under the leadership of the Presiding Officer 
have gone smoothly, and I think we are going to have an overwhelming 
vote in the Senate. The House, through their leadership, has expressed 
support, as I believe the administration has. So I do wish to make a 
request of our colleagues that although there are procedural hoops 
which we can be made to jump through, I don't think it is in the best 
interests of the American people to unduly delay this important bill 
that essentially, at least by statements today,

[[Page 1463]]

is going to have overwhelmingly, strong support.
  We do have a lot to do this week, and we will use the time as 
effectively and efficiently as possible. But if we keep having delays 
such as people coming back tonight to vote on motions to instruct, on 
which we could argue as to how useful that actually is, or we have too 
many procedural roadblocks based on this bill, it is going to be 
impossible for us to move ahead and move the country forward when we 
have so much important legislation. So I think we can complete all of 
our business this week, but it is going to take a lot of cooperation on 
both sides of the aisle not to throw too many procedural roadblocks in 
front of us.
  I yield the floor.

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