[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 20]
[Senate]
[Page 28478]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, this morning we will return to the Amtrak 
legislation. I am not certain the managers have that many amendments to 
deal with, so I don't think we will be in session for a long time 
working on this bill, but we are open for business. While no rollcall 
votes will occur today, the majority manager, working with Senator 
Lott, is expected to be here to work with any Members who want to offer 
amendments.
  I am going to shortly file cloture on this bill. This cloture vote 
will occur during Tuesday's session, and it is the expectations of the 
managers it can be concluded during Tuesday's session. Let me say, this 
is a rare cloture petition. It is signed by Democrats and Republicans 
in equal numbers. This is an extremely important bill for our country, 
and the Senate realizes that. I am hopeful and quite confident that we 
will not need cloture, but if we do, we can go ahead and do that. If we 
don't, that will save us some time. We have lots to do here that is so 
important.
  I am also going to--unless something untoward comes--move to the farm 
bill a week from Monday or thereabouts. The reason for that is this is 
a bill we need to do every 5 years. While I, like many, think the bill 
could be better, I think the committee did a tremendously good job. 
There are a lot of reforms in this bill. For some there are not enough, 
but for the farm bill, I have seen a number of them come through here. 
It is certainly an improvement. I look forward to having the managers 
work through it in the quickest time possible. I congratulate the 
committee. They worked very hard to come up with this bill.
  As previously announced, there will be no rollcall votes on Monday, 
but Members should be here Monday to offer amendments on Amtrak if they 
so desire.

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