Dan Burton: “first let me say that my good friend, the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), and I did work very closely along with…”

“first let me say that my good friend, the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), and I did work very closely along with the Democrats on the committee to come up with a product that we can all be proud of, and it did pass by a vote of 30-1. While I do have some pride of authorship, I believe that the Portman amendment goes a little further and does a little better job than I did in the manager's amendment. First, in the committee bill we maintained whistleblower protections, veterans' preferences, and we retained collective bargaining rights, not that we thought the administration would in some way violate those things, but we thought they should be in the bill. We wanted to reassure the Federal workforce. But the Portman language goes even further. It provides against political retaliation regarding the Hatch Act. It retains protections against racial discrimination and gender discrimination. It protects health care benefits, retirement benefits, and it protects workers compensation. Those are things that ought to be in the bill that are not. Now, putting this department together is a monumental undertaking. We are talking about taking parts of 22 different departments and bringing them together to protect this Nation. It is not an easy job, and the administration is going to have a difficult time getting all of this accomplished, and they have to have flexibility wherever possible in order to make this whole thing work.”