William H. Frist: “this morning, following the opening statement of the two leaders, we will proceed to passage of the Energy bill. A lot…”

“this morning, following the opening statement of the two leaders, we will proceed to passage of the Energy bill. A lot of work has gone into this bill at this point, and this upcoming final passage vote is one further step toward a national energy policy. We look forward to a good conference with the House to produce a final Energy bill for the President to sign. Following that vote, we will resume consideration of the Interior appropriations bill. Pending to that bill are approximately 40 first- degree amendments. The committee, over the course of the weekend and yesterday, had been reviewing those amendments and, hopefully, we can dispose of most of those amendments without rollcall votes. We will need to debate and vote on some of the pending amendments, and therefore we will have votes throughout the day. We would like to finish the Interior appropriations bill today, and I will be speaking shortly to the two managers with regard to progress that is being made. We will be recessing from 12:30 to 2:15 today. When we conclude the Interior bill, the Senate will begin the Homeland Security appropriations bill, and we will finish that bill prior to the start of the July 4 recess. In addition to funding the work of the Department of Homeland Security, that legislation begins the hard work of enhancing the security of our borders. We will complete action on this piece of border security legislation this week.…”