William H. Frist: “Through the Chair in response to the Democratic leader, we laid out a plan at the end of last week where we can stay on…”

“Through the Chair in response to the Democratic leader, we laid out a plan at the end of last week where we can stay on the Department of Defense authorization bill. We have filed cloture to bring some order to that process. We will have the opportunity to vote on cloture this morning. I expect cloture to be invoked. We should finish the Defense authorization bill. I have also made it clear from this desk and on the floor that we are going to finish the gun manufacturers liability bill before we leave. That makes it challenging because we have the very important Department of Defense authorization bill, but we have a plan and a way to finish that by invoking cloture this morning, finishing with that issue, and then moving directly to the gun manufacturers liability bill. Therefore, I do not believe we need--in fact, I know we don't need a unanimous consent agreement in order to accomplish that. So at this juncture we will stay on the plan, the Department of Defense cloture vote this morning--and I expect it would be invoked--finish that bill and then proceed to the gun liability bill.”