Nancy Pelosi: “Mr. Chairman, throughout the course of all of this we have striven to find our areas of agreement, and we have made some…”

“Mr. Chairman, throughout the course of all of this we have striven to find our areas of agreement, and we have made some successes in that regard. Every now and then something will come along that just really takes your breath away. That happened last week when we had the markup of the bill when the majority tried to give an indefinite extension for the installation of detection devices for explosives in baggage and when the distinguished leader put into his mark a total immunity, a total immunity, for those who were guilty of wrongdoing and jeopardizing the safety of the American people. So here we now have today an en bloc amendment, the en bloc amendment of the chairman, which we would all love to support. The chairman has worked hard on this bill and he has some technicalities he would like to correct, and we would like to support him. Except, once again, out of the blue, comes an amendment that fatally flaws this en bloc amendment. Let us dissect that. This amendment is fatally flawed. That means it has a flaw that kills it. It is fundamentally flawed. It is flawed in a way that undermines any reason why anyone should vote for it. The Armey amendment takes a bad provision, which gives immunity to corporate wrongdoers, and makes it even worse.”