Joe Lieberman: “I do want to respond to my friend from Idaho and say it is certainly the intention of the sponsors of the amendment--I…”

“I do want to respond to my friend from Idaho and say it is certainly the intention of the sponsors of the amendment--I am confident the desired impact of the sponsors of the amendment--to leave most of the contents of requirements of S. 1 intact, including the requirement that there be a Congressional Budget Office analysis of the cost of every Federal law which might result in a mandate on public and private entities, and that a measure would be subject to a point of order--a point of order would lie if there was not such an estimate. So we want to keep those facts in there, and we want to keep the second point of order in there with regard to the mandate that would impact State and local governments in the capacity of State and local governments, unique as it is, when they are not competing with anyone from the private sector. All we want to do here is to say that it is unfair to lower the bar on State and local governments when they are performing a function pursuant to a mandate that the private sector is also performing.”