[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Page 3872]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, following leader remarks, the Senate will 
resume consideration of H.R. 933, the continuing appropriations 
legislation. The Senate will recess from 12:30 p.m. until 2:15 p.m. 
today for our weekly caucus meetings.
  We are going to continue to work to see if we can get these 
amendments in order. We wanted to vote on them last night, but we hope 
to complete the CR very quickly.
  I have not had an opportunity yet to speak to the Republican leader 
this morning, but very shortly I am going to move to begin work on the 
budget. Senator Sessions and Senator Murray are anxious to move forward 
on that.
  I had a long conversation with Senator Sessions last night--and I 
speak to Senator Murray quite often--and there is no reason that 30 
hours postcloture should be wasted. A Senator who doesn't like what 
went on before can have 1 hour, but we should not waste our time as we 
have done so often by killing 30 hours. We should start the budget.
  If people decide they are going to use the 30 hours and then another 
30 hours--we have to have cloture not only on the substitute but on the 
bill itself, it is 60 hours--that would mean we would start on the 
budget sometime Thursday morning. We are going to do it. The 60 hours 
will be eaten up sometime Thursday morning. I hope we don't have to 
waste that time, but we are going to finish the budget before we leave 
here.
  We have had conversations on both sides of the aisle about how we 
need a budget. Because we had the Budget Deficit Reduction Act, which 
set our 302(b)s, we didn't need to do our usual budget because we had 
one signed into law by the President. Regardless of that, there will be 
no more talk about not having a budget. We will have a budget. No 
matter how long it takes, we are going to do that before we leave for 
the Easter break.
  As everyone knows, there is 50 hours under the budget act, which is 
statutory, and then afterward there could be a lot of amendments. So 
everyone should be aware we should start using some of this time to 
work on the budget, and we will do that. I will come and propound my 
consent shortly.

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