Trent Lott: “having witnessed the vote earlier today, I am very concerned about our ability to complete action on the African and…”

“having witnessed the vote earlier today, I am very concerned about our ability to complete action on the African and Caribbean Basin Initiative free trade legislation. This is important legislation. I believe it is good for the United States. It will be good for Central America, the Caribbean, and Africa. This bill is supported by Senators on both sides of the aisle and by the President. I understand that maybe some Senator or Senators have gotten the idea, since we did not get cloture today, that was the end of it and this bill would just be set aside permanently. We are still very hopeful we can find a way to get this job done. We have a problem in that it takes a lot of time to get through the cloture motions and complete it, but I have not given up yet. I am going to file cloture on the pending substitute, and if cloture is not invoked on Tuesday, we will have to move on to other issues. I emphasize I am filing two cloture motions, so we can hopefully get cloture on the substitute and on the bill itself and allow us to get to the substance, have amendments that are important, and bring it to a conclusion.”