[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Page 23069]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           ORDER OF BUSINESS

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, for the benefit of all Senators, we just 
sent to the House, again, the food safety legislation--extremely 
important legislation. I just got something on my desk today about a 
woman who is going to be--well, she was in the hospital a year and a 
half and is expected to be there for 2 more years as a result of eating 
some contaminated food. So it is so important.
  I am deeply appreciative of the cooperation from everyone, including 
my friend, the Republican leader, to help us get this done. It is very 
important for our country. Perfect legislation? No. But it is a broad 
step in the right direction. We haven't done anything in this regard 
for more than 100 years for our country, with all the change there has 
been in the processing of food. It is so important. I spoke to the 
Speaker tonight, and this will now pass the House when they come back 
Monday night or Tuesday. So that is extremely important.
  We had to file cloture on the continuing resolution to fund the 
government for the next couple of months. We hope to complete that on 
Tuesday. I hope that it won't be necessary to use any of the 
postcloture time. I rather doubt we will, but I certainly hope not.
  We are going to proceed, once cloture is invoked, to the cloture on 
the START treaty. We have made--from my observation as sort of an 
outsider watching all the good work of Senators Kerry and Lugar--some 
good progress on this, and I do hope this matter will pass. We will 
work on that as long as it takes. As I explained to a number of 
Democratic and Republican Senators today, we will work on it tomorrow. 
We will have a secret session tomorrow in the Old Senate Chamber at 2 
p.m., and then we will come in tomorrow night and continue to work on 
it. We can work on it, of course, all day Tuesday and for however long 
it takes. It is extremely important.
  As everyone knows, Senator Wyden is sick. He is going to surgery at 
10 o'clock in the morning because of a situation that has been in the 
press. He has prostate cancer. We wish him and his wonderful wife and 
his twins the very best. He is very confident he is getting the best 
care in the world, and I am also certain he is going to be just fine.

                          ____________________