Byron Dorgan: “It might be useful to discuss the plans as we proceed. We introduced the legislation today here in the Senate. It will…”

“It might be useful to discuss the plans as we proceed. We introduced the legislation today here in the Senate. It will be concurrently introduced in the House of Representatives by our colleague, Congressman Pomeroy. At that point my expectation would be that we will want to hold some hearings. This will likely be referred--without doing the Parliamentarian's job, I assume will be referred--to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on which I sit. We expect to request some hearings by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. My expectation is we would want to perhaps hold some North Dakota hearings with the joint leadership in North Dakota to have an opportunity to further discuss this project. I want to emphasize something Senator Conrad just indicated. There will be opposition. This is a bipartisan approach, but there will be opposition. There is this old story about the radio announcer who was interviewing an old guy, some 85-year-old codger. And he said, ``You've seen a lot of changes in your life, ain't you?'' And the guy said, ``Yeah, I sure have.'' The old guy added, ``I've been against all of them, too.'' You know, there are people like that. They are against all changes until it is demonstrated that change was good, and then they say, ``OK, now let me just oppose the next change.'' So it is clear to me that we will have opposition.”