Cord Byrd: “Exactly. And I am very much alarmed by it. I spent 3 hours yesterday talking about some of these provisions. And, of…”

“Exactly. And I am very much alarmed by it. I spent 3 hours yesterday talking about some of these provisions. And, of course, there is a provision in here to reward the pharmaceutical companies. That is pork for pharmaceutical companies. That just came to light. That did not go through any committee. That had no hearings, no testimony of witnesses--just slipped into the bill in the wee hours of the morning of Wednesday. It is alarming. Here we are about to pass this massive bill without our knowing its contents. It has never seen a day or an hour of hearings in any committee, and it is just put together by somebody in the shades of darkness. And then, here it is, dropped on our desks yesterday morning. We are supposed to pass this. It provides for a massive shift of power to the executive branch, a massive shift, and Congress will be left out of the loop. I think we ought to at least have a few more days to study this bill, have our staffs able to study it, and advise us as to what is in it. That is all I am asking. I do not doubt cloture will be invoked at some point, but it should not be invoked today. We ought to at least have until sometime next week to further study this before cloture clamps its beartrap on us.”