William H. Frist: “today we will again consider the emergency supplemental appropriations bill. Although no rollcall votes will occur…”

“today we will again consider the emergency supplemental appropriations bill. Although no rollcall votes will occur during today's session, we expect amendments will be considered over the course of the day. In a minute, I will call up a couple of amendments on behalf of other Senators so that we can continue to make headway on the bill. Senators should be aware that we expect the Senate to return on Monday to the bill, and I hope we will have several votes Monday evening to advance this bill. The bill has been pending for a week, and it is time for us to work towards completing action on this very important bill that addresses funding for our troops overseas. I had appealed to the body to defer and postpone most of the immigration amendments--again, this is a broad category of amendments-- but I have not been successful in convincing colleagues on both sides of the aisle to postpone those to a time when we can in a comprehensive way address immigration, a hugely important issue to America, to our people, and something we all hear about as we go back to our States and talk with our constituents. It is an issue we absolutely must address. Now is not the time because this is an emergency bill, a supplemental bill, and there is a time to do it later. In spite of that, there are several amendments that have been brought forward that are pending which we will address; and in a few moments, I will be laying out how we might do that. Before doing that, Mr.…”