Offices Closed, Capitol Work Continues

W A S H I N G T O N, Oct. 24, 2001 -- 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.

QUESTION: What sort of time frame do you see going through theSenate and then the conference committee and the end game?

DASCHLE: Well, we still are, maybe optimistically and maybe toooptimistically, still hopeful that we can complete all of our workbefore Thanksgiving.

Their offices still closed Wednesday while hazardous materials teams scoured for anthrax, members of Congress and their staffers nevertheless made due with whatever space they could find and returned to work.

The Capitol itself was the only congressional building open for business. All six main office buildings on Capitol Hill were closed for testing since last week, when Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's office was contaminated with anthrax spores that burst out of a letter mailed from New Jersey.

Some lawmakers set up shop in vacant spaces under the Capitol dome, others used office buildings blocks away. With little room for staff to work, most kept in touch by cell phone from remote locations. Some were dispatched to temporary space in other federal buildings. Some showed up to the makeshift offices, only to leave frustrated because phones and computers were not set up for them.

The Russell Senate Office Building opened this morning. The Dirksen building, which houses the Senate mailroom where anthrax spores were discovered, will remain closed pending further environmental testing results. Daschle's building — the Hart Senate Office Building — will remain closed for at least a week while traces of anthrax are cleared from the building. The corridor where the poison letter was opened could be off-limits for several weeks.

Legislative Wheels Keep Turning

Open or not, the work of Congress continues. The House has already begun making contingency plans to work out of Fort McNair, an Army post just a few miles from Capitol Hill, in the event of another emergency that shuts down congressional offices.

One lawmaker is making arrangements to help the House keep functioning after a deadly attack.

Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash., is pushing a constitutional amendment that would let governors fill House seats if 25 percent of the House were killed or disabled. The replacements would remain in office for 90 days, until a special election could be arranged.

Under the Constitution, governors can already appoint senators in the case of vacancies, but House seats must be filled by special election.

Back to Bickering

For now, however, the crisis at hand is more typical. Lawmakers are squabbling over legislation.

The Senate has passed a measure to create a federal security force at airports, but it's being blocked in the House by Republican leaders who oppose giving the federal government more power and reach.

"The American people do not have the confidence that they need to have in flying on an airliner today that hurts the airlines, that hurts the economy, and it hurts the American people," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said today, joining a group of senators pressing the House to act. "We need to pass this legislation."

Democrats, who control the Senate, were more direct in their talk of the Republicans in charge of the House.

"To have a few people, for reasons of their own, holding up in the House, because they know they can't win if it comes to a vote," Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said, "it disgusts me."

The House today approved a compromise anti-terrorism package hammered out with the Senate in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. Next up in the House is an economic stimulus package.

Brian Hartman, Ed O'Keefe, Linda Douglass and Dean Norland contributed to this report.