Ron Wyden: “I want to thank him for his patience in an effort to try to make this legislation responsible and fair to prevent damage…”

“I want to thank him for his patience in an effort to try to make this legislation responsible and fair to prevent damage to our economy. I also want to tell him that we have made exceptional progress in the last couple of hours, particularly in dealing with the number of those issues that were raised in the administration's letter. I really commend Senator Dodd for all of his efforts. As you know, he is the senior Democrat on the Y2K Committee. He has done yeoman's work over the last couple of hours, particularly on the issue of punitive damages, which is the issue raised by this administration, and also on evidence standards to make sure that you are fair to the consumer and to the plaintiff. Senator Dodd has worked very closely with the chairman of the Commerce Committee and myself, Senator Hatch, Senator Feinstein. It is a bipartisan group. We are going to continue to work in the spirit that the leader has talked about. As a result of the progress in the last few hours, I think we have gone a considerable distance toward meeting the leader's objective.”