23 March 1998
(Lott discusses Senate action on foreign policy issues) (580) SENATE VOTE ON NATO NOT LIKELY UNTIL END OF APRIL, LOTT SAYS Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (Republican-Mississippi) says the Senate will probably not vote until the end of April on a resolution he personally supports approving the admission of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). At a March 23 press briefing, Lott blamed the Democrats for the situation. "Democrats filibuster every bill that comes up," he said. "They delay every bill. This Congress I've had to file 43 cloture petitions, and we've had 31 votes to actually cut off filibusters so we can get to issues. So the Democrats are delaying everything that comes up, and it's just caused the schedule to be shoved off." In addition, the Majority Leader said a number of Senators had come to him, including Max Cleland (Democrat-Georgia), Pat Moynihan (Democrat-New York) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (Republican-Texas) "and said, 'We really think that NATO enlargement is such a serious issue, we should not be doing it in between other bills. It needs to be focused. It needs to have the amendments offered and have a vote.'" During the week of March 23-27, Lott said, the Senate will begin debate "on the supplemental appropriations bill that provides the supplemental funds that have been requested by the President for the Bosnian effort, as well as our troops in the Persian Gulf, and natural disaster assistance. "The reason why we're going ahead with this supplemental is because I had the impression we needed to get this done before we leave for the Easter recess ... and because there are some problems with the Pentagon budget as to how they would continue to pay for the Bosnian operations and the Persian Gulf operations." The Senate needs "to have the bill ready to go to conference as soon as the House acts, and we would need to get a conference agreement next week and then vote on it before we leave" April 3, Lott said. On March 26, the Senate likely will begin debate on the Mexico decertification resolution, and vote on it by March 27, Lott said. "This is not an issue that you have the choice of bringing up. Once the decertification resolution is filed, we have to act on it, under the rules, by Saturday of this month. So we'll pretty much have to do it Thursday. Under the rules, it can take up to 10 hours," he said. Lott said that during the week of March 30-April 3, the Senate plans to turn to the FY-1999 budget resolution and, if time permits, perhaps even the second supplemental providing funds for the International Monetary Fund (IMF). "Efforts are still under way to reach an agreement on the conditions that would be added to the IMF legislation to make it possible for the replenishment to be provided," he explained. Asked about funding for the United Nations, Lott replied: "We're waiting on the House to act on that. There is a bill out of conference that would provide the U.N. arrearage funding, State Department reorganization, and of course the prohibition on lobbying for abortions with taxpayers' dollars in foreign countries. Hopefully, they'll get that up this week, and then we would take it up immediately after that, or as soon as we could after that, in the Senate, he said."