Joe Biden: “what we are doing here today at the urging of Senator Murray and Senator Roberts is necessary and important. But I want…”

“what we are doing here today at the urging of Senator Murray and Senator Roberts is necessary and important. But I want to make it clear we didn't start this off as an ag bill. This is about foreign policy. This is about sanctions. It does affect us. It is important. My only regret here today is we are only exempting agriculture. I hear my colleagues from the agricultural States stand up and talk about how farmers are put at risk. I point out, people who work in a factory at Boeing are put at risk. People who work in the Du Pont Company are put at risk. People who work in every other industry are put at the same risk farmers are put at when we impose these sanctions. So we should go further than we are going today. That is the task that has been assigned to the task force that is chaired by Senator McConnell and myself. I am hopeful and I am encouraged by the fact that we have been nonpartisan in our approach so far, to try to deal with this. There is going to be a tendency on the part of Democrats to say, ``Gosh, if there is a Republican President next, maybe we should not do this.'' There is a tendency on the part of Republicans to say, ``We have a Democratic President for the next 2 years, maybe we should not do this.'' I hope we continue to rise above that and do what needs to be done and have a rationalized sanctions policy that is fundamentally different than what we have here today. But that is easier said than done. That is our task.”