Trent Lott: “If I might say briefly--I don't want to drag this out-- obviously we need to be able to move our appropriations bills. I…”

“If I might say briefly--I don't want to drag this out-- obviously we need to be able to move our appropriations bills. I must say, of course, how quickly we do that depends on several things: One, how many controversial issues are in these bills when they come out of the committee. I don't know what happened, for instance, on the D.C. appropriations bill, but it had difficult and time-consuming issues in it. There may not be now. The other thing is several of the bills, including Labor-HHS, often take a week or two; Defense quite often takes 3 or 4 days. Part of it depends on the willingness of Senators to withhold controversial amendments to move the process along. We have been doing that magnificently over the past month. Hopefully, we can do that even with appropriations bills--even though these are big bills, important bills, and Senators may want to be heard and offer amendments. We also have to continue to work together on other issues that become problematic, such as getting judicial confirmations moving because there is a need for that, too. Senator Daschle and I are working on this on all fronts. I talked to Senator Stevens about it. I want to get the appropriations bills completed. It will take a lot of cooperation. We are prepared to give it that cooperation and time.”