Harry Reid: “we are very close to working out a unanimous consent agreement on the Harkin-Craig amendment which deals with Medicare…”

“we are very close to working out a unanimous consent agreement on the Harkin-Craig amendment which deals with Medicare and reimbursement of States. Senator Harkin has been here literally all day trying to get a time agreement. We hope we will have the approval from the minority. They have agreed on the fact we should do this amendment. The only question now is the time that will occur. In the meantime, we have had bipartisan support on the underlying Daschle amendment. We have had the manager of the bill, Senator Byrd, support it; the Republican manager of the bill has supported it, Senator Burns. In fact, Senator Burns is a cosponsor of the amendment. At last count, we had 18 or 20 cosponsors of the amendment. The problem we have is under the Senate rules, there can be a couple of people who will not allow us to go forward on legislation. That is what we have here. It is too bad. We have tried everything we could to get a vote. It appears to me that probably what we will have to do is go forward with a cloture motion on this amendment. That would be the best thing to do. I hope that can be done. Under the constraints of time we have we need to do that before the noon hour. I am confident we will have the necessary signatures on the petition to do that. As I indicated, there is overwhelming support for this amendment. This is something that all farm State Senators believe is important.”