[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Page 20162]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            SENATE SCHEDULE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have not had a chance to convey this 
information to the distinguished Republican leader. I have not had time 
because the decision was just made this morning. I want to go over the 
calendar for the remainder of this year.
  We, of course, know what we have to do this week and next week. We 
need to complete the work on the Homeland Security appropriations bill, 
which is so important, with the 9/11 recommendations to become 
effective soon, and we have the National Intelligence Estimate report 
just rendered which indicates we have to be vigilant at home. We must 
complete the appropriations bill dealing with homeland security before 
we leave this work period.
  We also need to do our work on SCHIP, children's health care. The 
Finance Committee, on a very bipartisan vote--17 to 4--passed that 
matter out of committee. It was led by Senators Grassley, Baucus, 
Rockefeller, and Hatch. What came out of that committee has been a 
compromise. That is how bipartisanship works. As reported in the 
Congressional Daily yesterday, that matter should have more than 60 
votes. So if there is, in fact, an effort to slow that bill down, it 
appears on a bipartisan basis we can move it forward. It is certainly 
important legislation, and we need to complete it.
  We also, as I just mentioned, need to complete the conference report 
dealing with the 9/11 Commission recommendations. We expect that to be 
passed in the House this week. The conference committee, basically, has 
wrapped up all its work on that bill. It has been very heartwarming 
that the conference has been led by Senators Lieberman and Collins, and 
we had an actual conference, just as we used to have around here all 
the time. The first conference committee meeting was mobbed with press 
looking in. That is the way it used to be. A real conference report 
will come out of that conference committee, and that is very important.
  Finally, we are going to complete the ethics legislation. I want to 
tee up so that when we come back in September, we will have some work 
to do without looking for something to do. What I would like to do is 
move to the VA-Military Construction appropriations bill. We will do 
that one way or the other. I hope on a motion to proceed that I will 
not have to file cloture, but if I have to, that is what I will do. So 
when we get back in September, we will have something to work on.
  Let's talk about September. Whenever we leave here, Mr. President--
and, as I have indicated, I hope it is next Friday, but that may not be 
the case if we have to do some extra days to complete our work--when we 
come back, of course, September 3 is a holiday, so we will come back on 
September 4. September 4 will be treated as most of our Mondays are 
treated. We will have a vote at 5:15 p.m. or thereabouts that evening, 
and we will work that week.
  On September 10--everyone is on notice--we will be in session that 
day, and we will have votes before noon. It is not going to be 5:15 
p.m. Everyone knows that is going to be an early vote day. Why? Because 
on September 10, 11, and 12, we will have full work days. We have to 
complete our work by 6 o'clock on September 12 because that is the 
beginning of the Jewish holiday, Rosh Hashanah. We will be out of 
session September 13 and 14. There will be no votes on Monday, 
September 17. It will be a work day, but we will not have votes. And 
then we are going to work the remainder of that week, the remainder of 
the next week, and the remainder of the next week. We could have--and I 
will try to give the distinguished Republican leader and all Senators 
notice--we may, because of what we are working on, have to have some 
Monday votes earlier than 5:15 p.m. We will try to announce it a week 
ahead of time so people can make arrangements.
  Then, on October 8, which is a holiday, Columbus Day, we are going to 
have that as a home State work period. That whole week, we are going to 
be out of session; that is, October 9, 10, 11, 12, we will be out of 
session. We will come back on October 15 and work that day. We will 
have votes on October 15. I don't expect early votes. We will have 
votes on the 15th. We hope we can complete work for the session by 
November 16. If we cannot, then we have to come back. We will come back 
on December 3 and complete our work. That will give us 3 weeks before 
Christmas. I hope we don't have to do that. I think it will be good for 
everybody if we can complete our work on November 16.
  I say to my friend, the distinguished Republican leader, if he has 
any questions about this, I will be happy to answer them. I apologize 
for not being able to give this information to him first, but the 
decision I was waiting to make was what to do on September 17, as to 
whether that will be a vote day. We decided it will not. I am now in 
position to state this publicly.

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