Byron Dorgan: “This Senate is 51 to 49. Some pretend it is 100 to zero. In the circumstances, for example, with the energy conference…”

“This Senate is 51 to 49. Some pretend it is 100 to zero. In the circumstances, for example, with the energy conference, I am a Democratic conferee, and we have been disinvited and not allowed to attend any of the conferences with respect to the Energy bill. That is the wrong way, in my judgment, to do business in the Senate. It pretends as if one-half of the Senate doesn't exist when you do that. We find ourselves now in the first week in November, with a number of very important appropriations bills not yet completed, with stories earlier in this week that the majority may well want to put unfinished appropriations bills in another appropriations conference and create an omnibus bill, and bring it to the Senate as a conference report so Members of the Senate would be prevented from offering any amendments to the legislation. Well, that is not acceptable; it is not the way to do business.”