Offices Closed, Capitol Work Continues

W A S H I N G T O N, Oct. 24 -- Well, Russell is up and running. We're very pleasedthat we were able to open up the Russell Building this morning, andour expectation is that we'll be able to open up the Dirksen Buildingno later than Friday, including the mail room. We are cleaning it upin the next 24 hours, and depending on how long it takes, ourexpectation is that at the very latest next Monday it will becompletely opened; that is, the Dirksen building will be completelyopened.

The floor is going to be occupied today by the debate, of course,on the foreign ops bill. We're very pleased that the Republicans havemade their decision to allow us to proceed on the appropriations billsand we'll try to finish the foreign ops bill today or tomorrow at thelatest and move on to other appropriations bills.

Terrorism is going to be a big part of the agenda, as you mightexpect. I think it is possible we could pass the counterterrorismbill by the end of the day tomorrow. The House may be taking it uptoday, as you know. ll in all, it's been I think a good week. We'remaking progress on the buildings. We're making progress onappropriations bills. We're making progress on terrorism and thecounterterrorism legislation. And I think we're making some progressnow on economic stimulus.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) inside a $60 billion to $75 billion range?

DASCHLE: Well, we're still in the deliberative stages. Wehaven't come to any conclusions yet about how we're going to do this,and I'll be meeting again with Senator Byrd this afternoon to talkabout it. But we are going to produce a bill that meets the criteriathat I've just outlined again, and I'm confident that we can do that.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE). In your meeting with the president, didyou talk about the economic stimulus bill?

DASCHLE: We did.

QUESTION: I mean, he's (OFF-MIKE) the Republican Congress.

DASCHLE: That's correct.

QUESTION: What did you talk about?

DASCHLE: Well, we've made it a practice not to revealconversations at the meeting, but I think it is fair to say that hewants a stimulus bill that generally meets the criteria that we allagreed to. I support that. I'm appreciative of his adherence tothose principles and I hope we can come up with a bill on a bipartisanbasis that allows us to do that.