Dianne Feinstein: “the Senate works in strange ways. I think there is no question about that. Some of us were upstairs holding a press…”

“the Senate works in strange ways. I think there is no question about that. Some of us were upstairs holding a press conference on the fact that we had come together around a substitute amendment, and Senator Kerry, who had participated, came back up and said the amendment was agreed to. For me, I began this in 1993, so it has been a very long time. Senator Snowe and I have worked, first, for the SUV loophole closer and then for this ten-over-ten bill for 6 years now. So it was adopted by the Senate, and there are some people I would like to thank. I would like to begin thanking Senator Snowe, who has been the cosponsor of this legislation--10 miles improvement in mileage efficiency over 10 years--since we started; the chairman of the committee, Senator Inouye; the ranking member, Senator Stevens; Senator Carper, who was so helpful all the way along; Senator Dorgan, who had one part of the legislation, who agreed to a change and came into the compromise; Senator Kerry, who worked very hard with Senator Cantwell on the flex-fuel part of this; Senator Lott, Senator Corker; Senator Klobuchar; and many others. You, Mr. President, we thank you for being a cosponsor of this compromise effort as well. We have pushed the rock for so long I think it is hard to feel anything once the rock goes over the hill. But the amendment was adopted and it is in the base bill. For this, we are very grateful.”