Political Quotes

“Mr. President, Senator Reid has asked I announce to Senators that there will be no further votes this evening and there will be no votes tomorrow. We expect the next vote to be Monday at 5:30 p.m. We do expect finally that we are near an agreement by which we would be able to finish this FAA reauthorization bill with a final vote Monday evening. That is our expectation. I indicated I would describe the circumstances. We are hopeful, as I indicated earlier, that we would be able to reach conclusion on this bill. We were hopeful in doing it tonight. That was not possible. But we expect to have final passage on the FAA reauthorization bill on Monday at 5:30. But let me describe the discussions we have had more recently with Senator Kyl and Senator Warner and many other colleagues--Senator Hutchison. There remains very little to be done on this bill. We have 17 amendments that have been agreed to on both sides that would be offered en bloc. We were not able to offer those until we were able to resolve another issue or at least begin discussion of another issue. And then there was an issue dealing with slots and perimeter rules for Reagan National Airport. It has been controversial in the past--for many, many years--and some colleagues on both sides of the aisle have offered amendments dealing with slots and the perimeter rule. So it has caused a lot of discussion for some long while.…”