Mark Hatfield: “I feel strongly enough about it to be here to do two things; one, to support the amendment, but the other is to…”

“I feel strongly enough about it to be here to do two things; one, to support the amendment, but the other is to apologize to the chairman of the Subcommittee on Appropriations, Mr. McConnell, for offering a rider to an appropriations bill, which I ask everybody to refrain from doing. So I guess there is no virtue of consistency in this particular environment we work in. Let me associate myself with the eloquent statement made by Senator Dorgan to explain this bill. I would only try to add perhaps one or two perspectives. First of all, I think we have to recognize that we are not locking the President out of an action that he might have to take if he has a problem in an emergency situation. In other words, the President would have the power to make a waiver, a waiver of the criteria we have set up in this amendment in case he feels that our national interest is at stake and to make a waiver that is in the interest of our national need and our national security. So it is flexible in that sense.”