Pete Domenici: “I could give these remarks now or I could have given them when we were on the bill because they address something that…”

“I could give these remarks now or I could have given them when we were on the bill because they address something that is disturbing a number of Senators. That concern is that the majority leader may be thinking of filling the tree, which means he is not going to allow us to offer a significant number of amendments to this bill. That is, from what I can tell, something that we should not do, and he should not do. As someone who knows him well and works with him well, I think it would be a mistake to fill the tree on a bill like this, and let me give a few examples from my own experience. When we used to do business the way the Senate does business, not filling trees but filling many days with legislation of importance, we had a Clean Air Act, Mr. President. The manager of the bill was Ed Muskie. The Clean Air Act; Ed Muskie. The first bill of that sort that came to the floor. I was a brand new Senator. I was on the committee. Very interesting. I spent a great deal of time on the Senate floor just listening and watching. That bill was on the floor of the Senate 5 weeks--5 weeks not 5 days--with 168 amendments considered and 162 acted upon. Of those, 60 were Democratic.…”