WILL HEALTH REFORM, CAP AND TRADE, AND EDUCATION ALL HAPPEN IN ONE BILL?

One more tidbit from Senator Conrad's conference call. According to Conrad, the reconciliation process is structured such that if you included instructions on more than one priority -- say, both cap and trade and health reform, or cap and trade and health reform and education -- "you'd have to write the legislation as one bill." The Committee reports assigned by the reconciliation instructions would be returned to the Budget Committee, stapled together into an omnibus package, and go to the floor of the Senate as a single entity. And if you think health reform will be hard, imagine piling it on top of cap and trade and education.