Byron Dorgan: “Next week we will have an enormously important vote in the U.S. Senate. There are days when people come to the floor of…”

“Next week we will have an enormously important vote in the U.S. Senate. There are days when people come to the floor of the Senate and debate almost nothing or find almost nothing to debate about. But, of course, almost nothing can provoke a debate in the Senate. We tend to get involved in discussions back and forth and find reasons to dispute each other over the smallest word or the smallest nuance in a piece of legislation. Sometimes that is a little frustrating, especially if you came here wanting to do some important things and some big things. Next week we will do something important and tackle a big issue. It's the chemical weapons treaty. It is an attempt by a group of countries, hopefully including our country, to ban an entire class of weapons of mass destruction. The negotiation on a Chemical Weapons Convention to ban chemical weapons was begun by President Ronald Reagan. President Bush was active as Vice President and as President in supporting the treaty. The treaty was the great achievement of the last month of his administration. Today, he very strongly supports ratification. President Clinton back in 1993 submitted the treaty to the Senate for ratification. This treaty is the result of decades of negotiation and leadership by our country. The treaty which came from those negotiations needs to be ratified by the U.S. Senate, and it has been hanging around for some long while.”