Judd Gregg: “I wanted to speak briefly, partially in response to statements made on the other side of the aisle, specifically by the…”

“I wanted to speak briefly, partially in response to statements made on the other side of the aisle, specifically by the Senator from Vermont whom I had the good fortune to listen to and whom I always enjoy listening to--the junior Senator from Vermont. Although I always enjoy listening to him, the junior Senator, I enjoy listening to the senior Senator, too, but in this case it was the junior Senator, a very eloquent individual and a neighbor. I did want to make a couple of points. He said, or implied--in fact, he said--that the Cochran amendment was essentially a poison pill to the efforts of Senator Dorgan to generate reimportation language which would be effective in allowing Americans to purchase drugs from Canada, or over the Internet for that matter. Then he said this was a result of the fact that the Bush administration was basically a tool--those are my words, but I think that is a characterization that is fairly accurate--a tool of the pharmaceutical industry, and the Cochran language was a reflection of that sort of attitude. I think it is important to understand what the genesis of the Cochran language is. The Cochran language did not come from the Bush administration. The Cochran language actually came from the Clinton administration.”