Business Before the Senate

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Now, Mr. President, in a few moments, I will lock in an agreement on a number of important votes tomorrow.

First and foremost, we have reached an agreement for the Senate to conclude the confirmation process of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson tomorrow. We will hold a cloture vote tomorrow morning at approximately 11 a.m., and the final vote for her confirmation is on track to take place at around 1:45 tomorrow afternoon, depending on how many Members wish to speak.

It will be a joyous day--joyous for the Senate, joyous for the Supreme Court, joyous for America--but we still have a long way to go. America, tomorrow, will take a giant step to becoming a more perfect nation.

I will have more to say on this historic occasion tomorrow, but, for now, I wish to thank my Senate colleagues for working together to advance and finalize this historic nomination to the Supreme Court.

Second, I will also lock in an agreement to hold a series of votes on PNTR and the oil ban tomorrow.

After many rounds of negotiations with Republicans, we have reached an important and crucial breakthrough. This agreement clears the path to finally approve legislation that will strip Russia of permanent normal trade relations with the United States. It will also allow the Senate to take separate action on an oil ban proposal as we originally sought. These proposals both have the support of the White House, and it is a big, big deal that we are finally getting them done. I wish this could have happened sooner, but after weeks of talks with the other side, it is important that we have found a path forward to getting PNTR done on a bipartisan basis.

I want to sincerely thank Senator Crapo, who worked in good faith with us, together, and we wouldn't have reached an outcome--this outcome--without his diligence and good faith.

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