On the recordMay 6, 2010
let me briefly express my gratitude to my great pal and friend from New Jersey, Bob Menendez, once again. We look around. There are 100 of us here. I do not often acknowledge these things, but if I had to pick one of our colleagues to be in my corner as an advocate, I would pick Bob Menendez every time. He is a strong advocate. When he is focused and passionate about a matter, as he is on this one, there is no better advocate in the Senate. He has been a great member of our committee and a great help over the last few years where we have worked together on a number of bills coming out of the committee. His understanding of this issue is exactly right. I say, there are ideas people can offer on which they can make a case that they strengthen our particular provision. But I say, respectfully, this is such a step backward, it is even hard to imagine someone could actually conjure up an amendment that would step us this farther away from even the status quo. I thought I might get an amendment that would strike this and leave the world as it is. Senator Thune made that argument, that somehow this is not broken, leave it alone.
