Trent Lott: “I ask that we consider filing cloture on the underlying amendment, just ATPA. My cloture and amendment had been both…”

“I ask that we consider filing cloture on the underlying amendment, just ATPA. My cloture and amendment had been both trade promotion and Andean trade. If we file cloture on just the Andean Trade Preservation Act, that would ripen Monday night or Tuesday if we got an agreement, and it would at least guarantee we would be able to get that issue resolved and hopefully sent to the President by Tuesday or Wednesday, thus dealing with this problem that Senator McCain addresses. If we don't, we are going to have this deadline that we are facing. I say this in a bipartisan, nonpartisan spirit. It would be one way to make sure we get a vote on that. We could still get an agreement and vitiate if we had to and get the trade promotion authority and trade assistance also. I might say that I understand we need to try to make progress. But we have only spent about 12 hours on this bill and really only one serious amendment has been offered. I know you, Senator Daschle, would have liked to have had more amendments offered. Certainly we assume that will occur, perhaps even still. But we have not spent much time on the trade bill itself. I would address the question--urge you to consider, even today, within the next hour, filing cloture on the underlying ATPA.”