Zoe Lofgren: “Mr. Speaker, I am happy that we are here today and about to approve this conference report with what I'm certain will be…”

“Mr. Speaker, I am happy that we are here today and about to approve this conference report with what I'm certain will be a very wide margin of votes in support. Just a week ago, I was not at all confident that we could achieve what we are about to achieve here today. People had dug in and compromise seemed unlikely. I was actually a member of the conference committee, as the Speaker well knows. It was the first conference committee I had ever been a member of, and I could easily observe at our first and only meeting that there was a great deal of anger in the room. People were fed up with the process that brought them there, to that meeting. Without going into who did what to whom, and how it could have been improved, we got past that anger. Many have been mentioned for their contributions to this process. I want to give special thanks to my colleague and my leader on the Committee on the Judiciary, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), the ranking member, whom I think, showed great serenity and leadership as he tried to sort through the many complex issues that comprise Y2K. I also want to mention someone who has not been praised by anyone else today, and that is Senator Hatch.”