Tom Harkin: “I wish to echo a little bit what my friend from Georgia just said. I will say in all candor to my friend from Idaho that…”

“I wish to echo a little bit what my friend from Georgia just said. I will say in all candor to my friend from Idaho that his action last week had an effect. I will be very frank about that. It did not go unnoticed in our deliberations. Frankly, I think it caused us to do a lot of things in the last week. So I give that to my friend from Idaho. I guess the only reason I was a little upset, I think sometimes when we try to do some things that are unrealistic--I think the specter of what you said last week was pretty realistic, and that caused us to do some things. I guess my only problem with this is that I think everyone recognizes that even though we are very close, we can get this done before next week, it cannot get done legislatively, the paperwork. Sometimes if you hold something out that is unrealistic, people tend to pooh-pooh it and say: Oh well, we will get another extension and we can dribble along. But if you know the curtain is coming down, then things happen. That is why I asked for 2 weeks. People know that is realistic. We have to get it done. It has to be done. But if it is 1 week, then, well, we will come back next week, and hopefully we can get whatever extension is necessary to get the paperwork done and everything. I want to say again, Senator Chambliss and I--all of us on the Agriculture Committee worked very hard. The groundwork was laid when Senator Chambliss was chairman of the committee.”