Frank Lautenberg: “I will speak on the port security conference report we are just passing. I am a conferee on that bill and this…”

“I will speak on the port security conference report we are just passing. I am a conferee on that bill and this conference has been a sham. It is shameful because the Democratic members of the conference committee have not been allowed to offer amendments to the conference report. We were sitting on our hands for virtually an hour while the chairman of the conference committee was absent, without a piece of paper in front of us about what was in the port security bill. Nothing. There was no indication of what was there. No guide, nothing--just sitting there wiling away the time. Why, we asked, did the Republican leadership in the House and the Senate allow this perversion of the democratic process? Why make promises we would have a chance to offer amendments but never be able to do so? They wanted this conference to be a plain backroom deal. Their agenda is to strip from this bill important provisions on rail security, transit security and aviation security and replace them with legislation that has nothing to do with our homeland security at all, our port security.”