Dick Lugar: “let me try to describe what I believe is the lay of the land at this stage. We have had in the Foreign Relations…”

“let me try to describe what I believe is the lay of the land at this stage. We have had in the Foreign Relations Committee about 4 months of discussion about various ways that this issue might be approached. And that followed, as was pointed out earlier in the day in the debate, the remarkable bill that was offered by Senators Frist and Kerry last year. It passed unanimously. It did not receive consideration in the House, and it did not become law. The issue was revived in a big way when President Bush mentioned this prominently in his State of the Union Address. President Bush not only mentioned it then, but he has been mentioning it on almost every occasion when he has met with Senators. This is very important to us, it is very important to our President, and it is very important to the world that a bill pass this evening. The situation comes down to this. In the Foreign Relations Committee, ultimately, the distinguished ranking member, Senator Biden, and I formulated a bill which we believed had a strong majority in our committee. We believed it had a strong majority potentially on the floor of the Senate. The House of Representatives, in the meanwhile, under the leadership of Congressman Hyde and Congressman Lantos, has passed an excellent bill, in our judgment. We believe we could have improved upon it. The amendments that are being offered tonight all suggest they might improve upon it.”