Dale Bumpers: “I think that, considering the constraints that Senator Cochran--who is really the crafter of this bill--considering the…”

“I think that, considering the constraints that Senator Cochran--who is really the crafter of this bill--considering the constraints that he was operating under, this is a remarkable bill. We were allocated, and even in the President's budget request, $1 billion less than we had last year. To try to craft a bill meeting the really mostly legitimate demands--or at least even funding or increased funding--under that kind of a burden was extremely difficult. I did not interfere--tried not to interfere very much in Senator Cochran's work because he was already burdened heavily enough in trying to fit all the pieces of this mosaic together. But he deserves the praise and the accolades of every Member of this Senate for what I think is a remarkable achievement. Let me simply say Senator Cochran and I have done the best we could with limited resources to maintain the activities at USDA, FDA, and other agencies that are so important to the American people.”