Thad Cochran: “it is not my intention to use all of the time available to this side. I have had no requests for speaking time for any…”

“it is not my intention to use all of the time available to this side. I have had no requests for speaking time for any Senator on our side on the conference report. So the disagreement can be obviated very quickly with my assurance that I am going to speak for no more than 3 or 4 minutes, and then I was going to yield back all the time remaining under this conference report under my control. I advised the Senator from New Hampshire of that. That is why he made the request, because it was not going to infringe on anybody's time, considering the order under which we are operating. I will proceed to conclude the debate on the conference report and let everybody work out their differences on who speaks next and for how long. I am pleased we were able to get a bipartisan agreement on this conference report. Senate conferees worked together, Republicans and Democrats, to identify the priorities, to have suggestions fully considered and fairly considered. I am proud of the work product of our Committee on Appropriations in the Senate. I am particularly grateful for the support of the distinguished Senator from West Virginia, who is the ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations. He cooperated in every respect in terms of scheduling hearings, working to make sure that our committee had all the facts we needed to proceed to making a decision on the President's request. Our staff members are the very best.…”