mr. bingaman: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from new mexico. mr. bingaman: madam president, i wanted to talk about another subject, and that is the five of the executive branch nominations pending before the senate today. just to put this in context, every day when the senate is in session, one of the documents that is put on every desk here in the senate chamber is what's called the executive calendar. and the executive calendar is a listing of all of the nominations that have been reported by the various committees of the senate for consideration by the full senate. and these are of course nominations that the president has made and asked the senate to agree with. so there is usually a list of these executive nominations. i've become particularly concerned in recent weeks that this list has grown and grown and grown. and in fact, there are now 79 appointments that the president has made, nominations that the president has made that have been approved by the various committees of the senate but have not been brought up and voted on here in the sena