Dan Coats: “I felt compelled to give the other side of the story. Yesterday, when I offered the fetal tissue amendment to the…”

“I felt compelled to give the other side of the story. Yesterday, when I offered the fetal tissue amendment to the Parkinson's legislation, I had discussed the matter with Senator Wellstone. I had indicated I was willing to take a 20-minute time agreement on the amendment, 10 minutes on each side. I didn't want to do anything that unnecessarily delayed the bill. I was informed that it was not--it was acceptable to Senator Wellstone but it was not acceptable to Democratic Members who wanted to speak on the bill but didn't want to do it yesterday. That is within their rights. We could have proceeded. We didn't. This Senator agreed to allow to be pulled over until this morning. I once again offered a time limit, and the time limit was not acceptable. So we essentially sat here for 22 hours this morning listening to Members of the party of the Senator from Massachusetts oppose the amendment, which they have a right to do. But there was no delay initiated on the part of the Senator who offered the amendment, nor was there any delay on the part of the majority leader. In regards to the FDA legislation, we were ready to go with that legislation before the recess, and it was the Senator from Massachusetts who prevented us from doing that. The Senator has every right to do that. If he has an objection to a part of the bill, he has a right to utilize the rules of the Senate to stop the bill from moving forward. But the facts are that the Senator doesn't have the votes.…”