On the recordApril 13, 2011
following any leader remarks, the Senate will be in morning business until 3 p.m. today. During that period of time, Senators will be allowed to speak for up to 10 minutes each. The Republicans will control the time from 11:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m., and the majority will control the time from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. We are working on an agreement to complete action on the small business bill. It has been a difficult thing to do. We have a number of amendments that are pending. Some Senators will not allow an agreement on those amendments unless they get their amendments. There are a lot of amendments, and we are trying to work our way through them. The three amendments at the top of the list are one offered by Senator Cornyn, one by Senator Hutchison, and one by Senator Sanders. We have not been able to work through this legislative morass. We have spent more than enough time on this bill. I am going to continue working on that with time here not being so heavily used. Certainly yesterday was a case in point. Everyone is looking forward to the final conclusion of this fiscal year 2011 budget. We are going to have a vote this week to complete that. Everyone, I guess, is anxious to get that done. We need to get the small business jobs bill done. Additionally, the text of the long-term CR has been filed in the House and is available for review. We expect to receive it from the House sometime tomorrow--of course, from my perspective, the earlier, the better.…





