Heidi Alexander: “first let me join the Senator from Maine in expressing to the Senator from Montana my regret that he is retiring. He has…”

“first let me join the Senator from Maine in expressing to the Senator from Montana my regret that he is retiring. He has had a long and distinguished career here, and I have enjoyed working with him and look forward to working with him the rest of this year and next year. He has a history of independent thinking and working across party lines, which is valuable in the Senate. On the point the Senator from Maine made--and I see the Senator from Montana may want to say something, so I will be brief. The bill as proposed, the Marketplace Fairness Act, the pending act, has a 6-month implementation period. This would add 6 months to that so there would be a total of a year for implementation of the bill. This is a reasonable period of time. As far as the bill going to Finance Committee, it has been in the Finance Committee. Nothing would have pleased the sponsor of the bill more than for the chairman and other members of the committee to bring the bill up, mark it up, and send it to the floor, but they didn't do that. As Senator Collins said, Senator Enzi has been introducing different bills for the last decade or so. But he introduced this very basic bill, about 11 or 12 pages, S. 1832, on November 9, 2011. It was referred to the Finance Committee. In April of 2012 there was a Finance Committee hearing on State and local tax issues, including the Marketplace Fairness Act.…”