[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Page 5664]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I am sure it is difficult for people who 
live outside the Washington, DC, area to understand why we are not 
going to be able to have a couple votes this morning. I have not had a 
chance to speak with the Republican leader. I apologize. There is 
nothing to apologize for, I just have not had the opportunity to do 
that, or to talk to the two managers of the bill. But in Washington, it 
is different than a lot of places. We have several bridges that feed 
into this area coming from Virginia. A lot of the staff and Senators 
live in Virginia when they are here attending sessions of Congress.
  To make a long story short, we have essential staff who are not here 
right now. We have Senators--at least one Senator stuck on a train 
because of the bad weather. As I say, it might be difficult for people 
who see a lot of snow all the time to understand why an inch or two or 
three of snow causes all these problems, but it does. It has been that 
way and will continue to be that way.
  Because of that, I am going to ask consent that the votes scheduled 
to occur at 10 a.m. occur later this afternoon. We will try to do it at 
about 1 o'clock. One reason we cannot back the votes up is because we 
have a joint session of Congress with King Abdullah, the King of 
Jordan, who has been such a good ally--he and his father--of our 
country, and a lot of us are looking forward to hearing that speech he 
is going to deliver.


                           Order of Procedure

  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the votes scheduled to 
occur at 10 a.m. occur later this afternoon. I will work with the 
Republican leader to make sure it is a time that is convenient.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I would say the two votes we had lined up we 
have been wanting to do for a while, the one offered by the manager of 
the bill, Senator Collins, and the one offered by Senator McCaskill. We 
will try to do those votes first and then move on to other matters.
  Staffs are also working to see if we can come up with an agreement on 
the nongermane amendments. We have a number of nongermane amendments on 
both sides. We are going to try to set up votes on those. One of the 
things we have to make sure is covered in any consent agreement is, if 
we do vote on these nongermane amendments, it does not change what 
would be germane postcloture because, in fact, if we did not do that, 
there would be a lot of things that would be germane postcloture that 
should not be attached to this bill. But we have very able staff who 
can work on this along with the managers of the bill.
  I again apologize to everyone, but those are the facts of life in the 
bitter winter of an inch of snow in Washington.

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