[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Page 19672]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. REID. Thank you very much, Mr. President.
  Today we will be on H.R. 2669, the education reconciliation measure. 
There are 10 hours of time remaining for that matter. Two amendments 
were offered yesterday, one by Senator Murkowski, another one by 
Senator Kennedy. We will vote on those amendments at around 12 o'clock 
today.
  For this bill, we have two of the most competent managers we could 
have, Senators Kennedy and Enzi. It is a great picture for the country: 
one Senator from the State of Massachusetts, who certainly is known 
worldwide, and Senator Enzi, who may not be known worldwide, but the 
Senator from Wyoming is one of the most gentle, competent people I have 
ever worked with. He is a wonderful man. I know the relationship he and 
Senator Kennedy have developed will make it possible to get through 
this with a minimum amount of strife. I admire both of those men and 
how they have worked on this bill.
  The managers expect other amendments to be offered. As Members are 
aware, once all time is expired, Members can still offer germane 
amendments with no debate time and have them voted on. I am hopeful 
there will not be a vote-arama at the end of the time and Members who 
have amendments will work with the managers to get those amendments 
considered during the time limit.
  There is no reason we cannot complete this bill by sometime this 
afternoon.
  On the Homeland Security appropriations bill, it is hard to 
comprehend, but I had to file cloture on that bill, a bill to fund 
homeland security for our country. There was an objection to our moving 
to that bill. I hope an agreement is reached where we would not have to 
vote on cloture tomorrow, which is set. I hope we can complete action 
on this bill early next week.
  SCHIP. I heard on the radio this morning--I had not read the 
President's letter to the Finance Committee members that he was going 
to veto the bill. The statement of policy on vetoing bills, it seems 
they all fit the same pattern. Any time it helps people who are 
incapable of helping themselves, then the President is anxious to step 
in.
  I heard on the radio today he wanted to veto this legislation because 
he felt it should be all handled by the private sector. We would not 
need this legislation if things were handled by the private sector. We 
have millions of children in America--not in some other country--
millions of children in America who have no health care. That is what 
SCHIP is about.
  So I appreciate the work being done on a bipartisan basis by Senators 
Grassley and Baucus and Hatch and Rockefeller, the senior members of 
that committee and respective subcommittee. They have come up with a 
bipartisan bill. It is not a bill that everyone is elated about, but it 
is a good bill that will help provide health insurance for as many as 6 
million children. It is too bad that I assume we are going to have to 
file cloture on that. But we are going to work on SCHIP next week. I 
would hope we could finish Homeland Security, and maybe even move to 
another appropriations bill. The Finance Committee is meeting this 
morning to report out a bipartisan bill that we can take to the floor 
dealing with health care for millions of American children.
  Conference reports. The 9/11 conference report is moving along well. 
The conferees are meeting today. They hope to move this conference 
quickly so we can finish it next week.
  For the ethics conference, we still do not have the appointment of 
conferees. I am trying to figure out some other way to complete that; 
otherwise, we will have the necessary cloture votes to get that to 
finality. It is a shame it is being held up. It was the No. 1 bill we 
took up this year. Why? Because it was the No. 1 problem people 
identified when Congress was elected last November. The culture of 
corruption was so rampant, that was one of the things people focused 
on.
  While it may not be the No. 1 issue today because of Iraq stepping 
ahead of it, it is still an extremely important issue, and I think it 
is a shame we have not been able to go to conference on this measure 
because of objections from the Republicans.

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