[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Page 21854]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I have a few announcements and then the 
Democratic leader may want to respond to those and then I will have a 
brief statement. I know he has a statement following that.
  Today we return to begin the process of finishing our work for the 
109th Congress. This afternoon we will begin consideration of the 
Military Construction and Veterans Affairs appropriations bill. Senator 
Hutchison will be here around 3 o'clock today to begin consideration of 
that bill with opening statements. Although we do not have any rollcall 
votes today, I hope the chairman and ranking member will work together 
to reach an agreement for completion of that bill during tomorrow's 
session.
  Over the course of the next several days, we have orientation events 
for Senators-elect for the 110th Congress. We will be welcoming them a 
little bit later tonight at a dinner that formally kicks off that 
orientation meeting. We will also have our leadership elections this 
week and policy luncheons as well. Those will be on Tuesday and 
Wednesday. The Democratic elections will occur Tuesday morning, 
followed by their Democratic policy luncheon, and on this side of the 
aisle we will proceed with our elections on Wednesday morning, with our 
policy luncheon to follow that afternoon. Given this schedule, our 
first vote will likely occur sometime Tuesday--late Tuesday afternoon. 
We do hope to finish the military construction bill on Tuesday 
afternoon.
  This week we will also consider a short-term continuing resolution. 
The current CR expires on Friday, and we need to pass a further 
resolution as soon as we possibly can. I have talked to the Democratic 
leader about this and we hope we will act on this quickly.
  This week we will also work toward agreements and passage of the 
Vietnam normal trade relations legislation and the U.S.-India nuclear 
agreement, as well as other appropriations measures that can be 
considered. We will keep Members apprised as we schedule these and 
other matters as we move through the week.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the majority leader and I have had a number 
of conversations and we think this should be a productive week. There 
will naturally be a number of interruptions, but we have our minds on 
completing the appropriations bill and finishing the very important 
nuclear agreement with the largest democracy in the world: India. We 
want to do it now for a number of reasons, not the least of which is 
the President is leaving in the next few days for Vietnam and we want 
to see if that can be completed with a minimum amount of debate and 
amendments. We are confident and hopeful that can be done.

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