Byron Dorgan: “my colleague from Arizona used the dreaded words ``killer amendment.'' It is like killer bees and killer whales. On the…”

“my colleague from Arizona used the dreaded words ``killer amendment.'' It is like killer bees and killer whales. On the Senate floor, it is ``killer amendment.'' Pass this amendment, and we will kill the bill, we are told. I said yesterday that it is like the loose thread on a cheap sweater: You pull the thread, and the arm falls off or, God forbid, the whole thing comes apart. It is not just this bill. This happens every single time a group of people bring a bill to the floor of the Senate. If you amend it, if you change our work, then somehow you kill what we have done. Of course, that is not the case at all. Let me talk about a couple of the items that have been raised. Worker protection. The workers in New Bedford, MA. Let me describe to you a worker in the Gulf of Mexico just after Hurricane Katrina hit. His name is Sam Smith. Sam Smith was an electrician. Just after Katrina hit, he knew there was going to be a lot of reconstruction work. Sam Smith was a skilled craftsman, an electrician. He was told by an employer that he could come back and take a $22 an hour job--$22 an hour--for work as an electrician. The job would last 1 year. It only lasted a couple weeks.”