Trent Lott: “in conclusion, before I take the Senate out following the statement of Senator Kennedy, I want to briefly comment on…”

“in conclusion, before I take the Senate out following the statement of Senator Kennedy, I want to briefly comment on some statements that have been made today and yesterday here and in other arenas and forums. There are those saying we should immediately bring up the ISTEA highway bill. First, I want to remind the Senate that I urged the House and the Senate and interested parties to do this bill last year when it should have been done, because it expired last year. That is No. 1. No. 2, because it was not an election year and I knew, if we waited until this year, we would have less time and more pressure as we try to decide how $175 billion or more is fairly distributed across the country. I remind the Senators of that, and they know now and they knew then that I was right. I stood right here and filed not one, not two, not three, but four cloture motions to try to bring to a conclusion unrelated debate and delays based on pure politics, if I may suggest, but for an unrelated issue. I kept saying we need to deal with this bill, and others kept saying, ``Until you agree to what we want on an unrelated issue, we are not going to let you bring up ISTEA.'' That was a mistake. The Senate made a mistake. Now some of the same people not voting to bring it up last year are saying, ``Where is it? Please bring it up,'' demanding that it be brought up right away. Well, the world is different now. A lot has happened.…”