In the House, courtesy of the Office of the Majority Leader:
FLOOR SCHEDULE FOR THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2010
House Meets At... 10:00 a.m.: Legislative Business
First Vote Predicted... 10:30 – 11:30 a.m.
Last Vote Predicted... 2:00 – 3:00 p.m.
“One Minutes” (5 per side)
H.R. 4785 - Rural Energy Savings Program Act (Rep. Clyburn – Agriculture/Energy and Commerce) (Subject to a Rule)
Postponed Suspension Votes (3 Bills)
- H.Res. 1612 - Expressing the support for and honoring September 17, 2010 as “Constitution Day” (Rep. Latta - Oversight and Government Reform)
- H.Res. 1613 - Expressing condolences to and solidarity with the people of Pakistan in the aftermath of the devastating floods that began July 22, 2010 (Rep. Berman - Foreign Affairs)
- Senate Amendment to H.R. 3562 - An act to designate the federally occupied building located at 1220 Echelon Parkway in Jackson, Mississippi, as the 'James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and Roy K. Moore Federal Building' (Rep. Thompson (MS) - Transportation and Infrastructure)
- Conference Reports may be brought up at any time.
Motions to go to Conference should they become available.
Possible Motions to Instruct Conferees.
In the Senate, courtesy of the Office of the Majority Leader:
Convenes: 9:30AM
Following any Leader remarks, the Senate will resume consideration of H.R.5297.
At 10:45am, the Senate will proceed to vote on the motions listed below in the order in which they were offered , not necessarily in the order listed.
- Grassley motion to suspend the Rules in order to consider Grassley amendment #4433 (to extend expiring tax incentives for biodiesel and renewable diesel) (67-vote threshold); and
- Hatch motion to suspend the Rules in order to consider Hatch motion to commit H.R.5297 to the Committee on Finance of the Senate with instructions to report the same back to the Senate with changes to make permanent the research credit under section 41 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1996 (67-vote threshold).
The second vote in the series will be 10 minutes in duration and there will be 2 minutes for debate prior to each vote.
At 12:00 noon, the Senate will proceed to a series of up to 2 roll call votes in relation to the following items:
- Motion to invoke cloture on H.R.5297, as amended (60-vote threshold); and
- Passage of H.R.5297, as amended (majority vote threshold).
The House's work is pretty straightforward today. But what's up in the Senate? Yes, it's the Small Business Jobs bill -- the one you heard they won the cloture vote on the other day. And they're having... another cloture vote on it. Of course!
Why? Because Tuesday's cloture vote (actually the third of three taken that day) was really a cloture vote on the Baucus substitute for the House's original text. That technically closed out the opportunity to do any more amending on the bill, but it didn't get them all the way to a final vote on the bill itself. That's what they'll be doing today.
Oh, but first, they're going to vote on a couple more amendments. Of course, you probably recall my saying that Tuesday's third cloture vote precluded any further amendment. And you probably remember it because I just said it about six seconds ago. Well, I said that cloture technically closed out the possibility of more amendments, which is to say that according to the rules, there really shouldn't be any more allowed. And that's why both of the amendments (the second one styled as a motion to commit) seek first to suspend the rules in order to allow the actual amendments to be offered. And suspending the rules requires 67 votes, which is a pretty tall order. But Republicans have either found two new amendments that are wildly popular, or two new ways to waste more time even after cloture has been invoked.
How do you like that?
Today's committee schedule appears below the fold.
Today's committee events of note:
- Senate Foreign Relations: Markup of the New START Treaty. Thursday, 9:30am (NOTE: no livestream)
- Senate Appropriations: The Promise of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research. Thursday, 10am (NOTE: no livestream)
- House Ways and Means: China’s Exchange Rate Policy (Part 2 of 2), with Treasury Secretary Geithner. Thursday, 2pm
Today's committee schedule: