Tom Harkin: “the first amendment vote today will be on the amendment I laid down yesterday on the Labor-HHS part of this so- called…”

“the first amendment vote today will be on the amendment I laid down yesterday on the Labor-HHS part of this so- called continuing resolution. As I pointed out yesterday, the amount of money I am dealing with in my amendment is exactly what is in the CR. There is no additional money in there, but you need to understand whoever negotiated this package kept Labor-HHS, NIH, and others in a CR rather than in a bill form. Interestingly enough, in the package before us Defense receives a full-length appropriations bill, as well as Homeland Security, Agriculture, Military Construction, Commerce-Justice-Science. They receive a full appropriations bill but not Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies. Interesting. The one bill which speaks to educating our young, ensuring working families have adequate childcare protection, increasing our medical research to NIH, protecting food safety and drug safety through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention--this must be on autopilot from last year and the year before. Therefore, my amendment costs exactly what is in the underlying CR. What is in this amendment was agreed upon by the House Democrats and House Republicans, Senate Republicans, Senate Democrats in our negotiations last December in the Appropriations Committee. There is a lot of talk about being bipartisan around here. We engaged in bipartisan negotiations last fall. It took us months, and we reached an agreement in December.…”