[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Page 22336]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I hope everyone has had a good Thanksgiving 
recess--enjoyable, relaxing. We have a busy few days ahead of us as we 
have our final week for the 109th Congress, and there are a number of 
priorities we need to address.
  We have the Gates nomination. The hearing on that nomination began 
this morning. It is our intent to have the Senate address and complete 
action on this nomination no later than this Friday.
  We have a continuing resolution. I was just talking to the Democratic 
leader about that. The continuing resolution does expire at midnight on 
Friday. Absent action on any other appropriations, this continuing 
resolution will extend funding for Government operations into 2007, and 
it will not contain earmarks or policy initiatives.
  Also on the agenda are various tax, trade, and health extenders. 
Bipartisan Senate work has been spearheaded by Senator Grassley and 
Senator Baucus. They assembled a package of necessary tax, trade, and 
health policy extensions. That is being filed as we speak.
  Fourth, yesterday Senate conferees were named to the United States-
India civil nuclear cooperation deal. The burden now falls on the 
Senate and House conferees to conclude final work on this very 
important piece of legislation. It would implement a nuclear power 
technology sharing agreement with the United States and India. This 
morning I talked with Prime Minister Singh of India, who underscored 
the importance of this legislation.
  Fifth, the Senate is also close to action on the bioterrorism bill, a 
bill we had worked on in a bipartisan way. This legislation will make 
improvements and enhancements in our ability to anticipate and react to 
bioterrorism attacks--again a bipartisan priority. I very much hope we 
will be able to finish that this week as well.
  Sixth, we have the Vietnam trade agreement. If the House can act on 
the Vietnam trade agreement, the Senate will act on that measure.
  There are a whole range of other legislative initiatives that the 
Senate will consider as they do become available. These will include 
necessary programmatic extensions as well as any cleared nominations, 
so we have a packed agenda.
  Specifically for today, this afternoon we will begin with the time 
until 2 p.m. set aside for Senator DeWine. I will have a brief 
statement. The Democratic leader will have a brief statement after my 
opening remarks and announcements this morning. Shortly after 2 o'clock 
today we will proceed to the consideration of the Agriculture 
appropriations bill. Following the statements from the bill's managers, 
Senator Conrad will be recognized to offer his amendment on 
agricultural disaster. It is expected a point of order will be raised 
to the Conrad amendment, and a vote on the motion to waive will occur 
around 5 o'clock this afternoon. That will be the first rollcall vote 
this week. We have a number of items to address over the course of the 
week, which I have outlined.
  Mr. President, I do want to make a very brief statement.

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