Trent Lott: “first of all, I point out this is a classic example of how we can work together to get an agreement to move needed…”

“first of all, I point out this is a classic example of how we can work together to get an agreement to move needed, necessary, balanced legislation. There have been a lot of glitches along the way, but there has been persistence by the Finance Committee and by the HELP Committee to report out the legislation, to have hearings, to listen to the arguments from the administration, from the private sector, from those who are experts in this field of the PBGC. I am very proud of the work that was done by the chairman of the Finance Committee, working hand in hand with the ranking member, Senator Baucus, to get the legislation passed and to allow an amendment in which I was very interested dealing with the airline pension situation. They could have said ``don't do it'' or ``we will do it later,'' but they allowed the process to work its way through. Then, also, I have to give tremendous credit to the chairman of the HELP Committee, Senator Enzi. He did not give up on it. He was dogged and he was working on trying to get this unanimous consent agreement on how we consider this legislation, and our leadership on both sides of the aisle were able to come together. There were a lot of people who had amendments they wanted. They had objections, there were holds here, holds there, yet here we are. So I hope we can look at this and see if we cannot do this again in the future. There is no question we need reform in this area. There is real exposure across the board.…”