[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Page 9008]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            SENATE WORKLOAD

  Mr. REID. Madam President, as we look around the world, we have lots 
of issues that are extremely difficult ones. We have the Korean 
Peninsula situation that has drawn so much attention and rightfully so. 
We now have our Secretary of State in China working on this and other 
issues, and the Secretary of the Treasury is there. We have a situation 
where it appears a South Korean Navy ship was sunk for no reason; that 
dealt with the security of North Korea. We have the oil spewing into 
the gulf--thousands and thousands of barrels every day.
  We have two wars we are watching closely, of course, in Iraq and 
Afghanistan. We have the situation in Europe, where governments are 
staggering because of financial problems. We have our own economy, 
which is doing better but certainly far from being where we want it to 
be. Then, on the floor this week we have two extremely important issues 
to deal with. One is the supplemental appropriations bill that we have 
combined with one given to us by the White House. We have the war 
spending, and then we have all the emergencies that came up during this 
year. Every year, this is something we always do.
  We have to figure out a way to get through these in the next couple 
days. The House is going to act either tonight or tomorrow on an 
extenders bill--doing a lot of good things that our country and our 
economy needs very badly. We realize the efforts we have to undertake 
on the floor today, recognizing, of course, that we are not going to be 
dealing with all the issues I outlined, but we have important things to 
do this week. It will take the cooperation of both sides to get it 
done. I appreciate everybody's attention to the issues at hand but 
especially during this week.
  I hope it is not necessary that we are going to be in session during 
the Memorial Day recess. There are a lot of issues we all have to take 
care of at home. When we go home, it is not a question of sitting 
around the pool, sipping cold drinks. We have a lot of work to do. The 
people we represent need to see us. Not everybody can come to 
Washington and meet with us. There are people out there whom we are 
fortunate to be able to meet with during the break. When we are stuck 
in Washington, many times they simply cannot afford to come here. We 
also have the Memorial Day observances that are important to everybody, 
including the families of those who have lost loved ones. I hope 
everyone recognizes we have to try to get a lot of things done in the 
next few days.

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