Pete Domenici: “I congratulate Senator Talent for his excellent work in the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. He was the leader…”

“I congratulate Senator Talent for his excellent work in the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. He was the leader of a group that put together the new 8 billion barrels that we are going to have as our new American goal for ethanol. That was not easy to put together. It got a very large vote in committee. That momentum brought it here. I think he is to be congratulated for his effort. I appreciate Senator Craig's managing the bill for me. I would like to say to the Senate, there are two or three amendments that people want to offer to this bill. I wish they would bring them to the floor. We are prepared now, from what I understand, to debate amendments. I understand Senator Boxer has one. Maybe Senator Feinstein has one. There may be one other. If we could get them up, we are going to be here for a while tonight. Even though we are leaving early, we could get those debated and voted on, and then the next thing that we would do would be to take up the amendment the distinguished minority leader chooses to bring up. We hope that can come up tomorrow morning before Senators leave for the Exon funeral, which means we might get the amendment for Senator Cantwell offered that the minority leader wants to have brought up, get that up tomorrow before we leave. That would get two very major issues behind us, plus the amendments on this bill. Again, if Senators have amendments on the ethanol provision, bring them down so we can debate them.…”