Tom Harkin: “I harbor no ill will at all. I have great respect for the Senator from Arizona. He knows that. I am just trying to be as…”

“I harbor no ill will at all. I have great respect for the Senator from Arizona. He knows that. I am just trying to be as open as possible. We all know that legislative matters and requests for changes do come up throughout the process of putting a bill together. Some do come in late, but that is the right of senators to request modifications. However, nobody is trying to ram anything through that people don't know about. I will say to my friend from Arizona that this managers's amendment has been scrubbed and checked carefully, but there is another stopgap within this process just in case something gets through inadvertently that may not have been obvious or to which someone had a serious objection but had not raised it for some reason. We have to go to conference. Everything in this bill and managers' amendment is out there in that conference. Everything is out there for everybody to see. I say to my friend that there is another level which we are going through. This amendment and this bill are not the final word.”