Heidi Alexander: “I am pleased to report to the Senate, on behalf of Senator Feinstein and myself, that basically we are finished with our…”

“I am pleased to report to the Senate, on behalf of Senator Feinstein and myself, that basically we are finished with our work on the Energy and Water appropriations bill. The final vote--all that remains to be done--will be set whenever the majority leader and the Democratic leader agree it can be. I will have more to say about the bill tomorrow, but I thank Senators for their cooperation on this. If we are able to pass it tomorrow, this will be the first time we have taken this bill--the Energy and Water appropriations bill--across the floor in the regular order since 2009. What that means is that every single Senator has had a chance to weigh in on it--first in the committee, where we received recommendations for policy from 80 or so Senators on both sides of the aisle, and then we processed another 21 amendments here on the floor. I hope it is a good model for the other 11 appropriations bills that we have. When we voted for the fourth time on whether to end debate on the bill, I was pleased to see that the vote was 97 to 2. I hope that is an indication of what the final vote will be when the leaders set it. I am confident that Senators will vote for it in big numbers because we have had an open and fair process. We have had a full amendment process. Almost every Senator is represented in the bill, and many Senators have already been home taking credit for what is in the bill.…”