Political Quotes

“I truly enjoy working with the chairman and his staff in putting together the Energy and Water appropriations bill each year. The third time's the charm. This time, I think we really have completed work on the FY 2001 Energy and Water Appropriations bill. I am a little surprised to be talking about final passage of the Energy and Water Appropriations bill in late October. Ours is usually one of the earliest to be passed and signed by the President. Ours is also a bill that is very rarely vetoed. However, this has been an unusual year. We have modified our bill to meet the Administration's needs on the Missouri River and I am confident that the President will now sign this bill promptly. For the information of Senators: the Energy and Water portion of this Conference Report has not changed since all of our colleagues joined us in voting on this matter last week. Our counterparts in the House insisted upon having a Conference, but no changes have been made since we completed work on the package that came before the Senate last week. In fact, it has not changed much at all since it originally passed both Houses earlier this month. For the third, and, I hope, final time this year, I encourage all of my colleagues to support final passage of this Conference Report which includes both the final energy and Water and VA-HUD Conference Reports.”