[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 16]
[Senate]
[Page 22172]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, following leader remarks, there will be a 
period of morning business for 1 hour, with Senators permitted to speak 
for up to 10 minutes each. The Republicans will control the first half, 
the majority will control the final half-hour.
  Following morning business, the Senate will resume consideration of 
H.R. 2996, the Interior appropriations bill. At 12 o'clock, the Senate 
will proceed to a vote in relation to the Feinstein amendment. The 
Senate will then recess from 12:30 to 2:15 p.m. for the weekly caucus 
luncheons.
  The official Senate photograph of the 111th Congress is at 2:15 p.m. 
today. Senators should be seated at their desks in the Chamber promptly 
at 2:15.
  Several things. No. 1, on the Interior appropriations bill, today is 
the day for Members to offer amendments. They had Thursday, yesterday, 
and today, so this is the time they should act because I am not sure 
what we will do after today, but we are not going to spend more time on 
this bill. We shouldn't, at least. I hope we don't have to because we 
have to get to the Defense appropriations bill at the earliest possible 
date.
  As to the photograph, normally what we do is we come in and convene 
at 2:15 and recess until the photograph is completed, and that is what 
we will do today, more than likely.
  I would also say that, as we speak, the Finance Committee has been 
involved in a markup of that important piece of legislation for 1 hour 
now. They started at 9 o'clock. They probably will only make opening 
statements this morning before the weekly caucus luncheons. After that, 
the amendment process will start.
  There will be a decision made, hopefully within the next several 
days, as to how we will proceed on this legislation. It is my hope we 
will have a bill reported out of that committee that will be brought to 
the floor, and then my responsibility will be to meld that bill with 
the HELP bill so we can have a piece of legislation on the Senate floor 
in the near future.
  This is an important step in the process. It is a step I am confident 
will bring results that will be favorable to the country. If we can't 
work this out--to do something within the committee structure--then we 
will be forced to do the reconciliation. Of course, that will be a last 
resort. I know a number of steps we can take before we do that, but a 
reconciliation bill is there for us. It was put there by the Budget 
Committee.
  If we can't come up with a bipartisan bill with the help of a few 
Republicans, then we will have to go the route of reconciliation. On 
reconciliation, under the order, there is only 20 hours of debate. It 
would be a free amendment process, which would take some time. We have 
done reconciliation on many different issues in recent years. We have 
done it on a number of health care issues, including the Medicare 
legislation. But it remains to be seen as to whether we will have to do 
reconciliation. I am confident and hopeful we won't have to do that but 
only time will tell.
  I would also say, we have scheduled the recess for the Columbus Day 
week. The reason that is done is because if we don't have that break, 
there would be 11 weeks until Thanksgiving and that is difficult. The 
Senate has changed over the years. Many Senators' families are in 
places other than Washington and 11 weeks is difficult not to have a 
week you can go home. But whether we will be able to keep that whole 
week depends a lot on when we get to health care legislation. It is 
obvious that if we are in the middle of health care, we can't take a 
recess for 1 week. So we will see as time goes on.
  We have CBO scoring and that will take a little bit of time and there 
are always difficulties that arise when you have a major piece of 
legislation such as this. But the schedule is as we have outlined it. 
We have given all interested parties the days that there will be no 
votes, and we do have that week scheduled now for a recess, but when 
that was done, we did it indicating it may not come to be. It is 
according to what happens with the schedule.
  We have a number of must-do things, and hopefully some of those will 
be done before the end of the month. We have to make a decision on the 
highway bill, we have postal reform, and we have a continuing 
resolution because we won't be able to complete all the appropriations 
bills prior to the end of the month. So there are a lot of things to 
do, and we will do our best to get them all done.

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