John Kerry: “over the course of the day, there has been a lot of argument about what we seek to do and do not seek to do. I want to…”

“over the course of the day, there has been a lot of argument about what we seek to do and do not seek to do. I want to make it very clear. Both sides are seeking a fair and sensible way to address the Y2K problem. There is no argument that one side wants frivolous suits, the other does not. There is no argument that one side somehow wants to keep business from flourishing. We are all on the same side of the high-tech industry and of the capacity of that industry to flourish. The question is, what is the fairest, most balanced way to effectively approach the question of how we will do that. Senator Edwards from North Carolina has very effectively demonstrated one of the real flaws in the bill as presented by the Senator from Arizona. The economic losses will be denied in a way, particularly in a situation where there is fraud or misrepresentation, that no American deems to be fair. Equally important, when you balance the fundamental components of this bill on the question of proportional damages and who gets them and when, there is a difference between us in what we assert is the appropriate qualification for businesses to merit the proportional damages. The McCain bill automatically makes available, with a few small exceptions, those proportional damages to businesses without any fundamental mitigation requirement; that is the essence of this bill.”