[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 19]
[Senate]
[Page 26365]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. REID. This morning, following the time Senator McConnell and I 
may use, the Senate will be in a period of morning business for an 
hour. The time is equally divided and controlled. The majority will 
control the first half; Republicans will control the final half. 
Following morning business, the Senate will resume consideration of 
H.R. 3222, the Department of Defense appropriations bill, and then 
conduct up to 30 minutes of debate with respect to the Graham amendment 
relating to emergency funding for border security. A vote in relation 
to that amendment will occur once the time is used or yielded back, 
around 11 or shortly thereafter.
  I know I speak for the managers when I say that if Members have any 
amendments, they better get here because Senator Stevens and Senator 
Inouye won't wait. In fact, I think they will ask consent when the bill 
is on the floor that at a certain time, if no other amendments are 
offered, the only amendments in order would be those filed up to that 
time. Cloture was filed--not that it is necessary. We hope it isn't. I 
hope we can finish this bill today. I have had a short conversation 
this morning with the Republican leader. We are moving along. If we can 
finish these two bills this week, we will have done half of what we are 
obligated to do regarding the appropriations bills.
  I think at that stage--and I told the Republican leader--we are going 
to start conferences on all these bills we have passed, four already, 
starting today. We need to be in a position where we can start sending 
some of these bills to the President. As I indicated, I will confer 
with the Republican leader as to which ones we should send out first. 
We need to get moving along.
  We have to do everything within our ability to try to finish our work 
by November 16. That is not going to be easy, but we should try. As I 
have indicated previously, there are a lot of things left to be done 
prior to the Senate recessing on November 16 and work to be done prior 
to our recess--hopefully, tomorrow--dealing with various work we think 
we can do by unanimous consent. I urge Members to continue the level of 
cooperation we have witnessed, as we consider other appropriations 
bills.
  I have also explained this to Senator McConnell, my desires in that 
regard; that is, as soon as we get back, that we start to complete the 
Labor-HHS bill. Before we leave here this week, we are going to do a 
circuit judge and a number of district court judges.

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