Ron Wyden: “I want to again highlight that this Senator very much wants to accommodate the Senator from Colorado and to do exactly…”

“I want to again highlight that this Senator very much wants to accommodate the Senator from Colorado and to do exactly what he is talking about--what I wanted to do hours and hours ago, but the chair of the committee is the one who has objected. I called the chair a half an hour before we went into session, knowing that we were really looking at the prospects of this kind of gridlock because I know the decisions about this multibillion-dollar boondoggle have always been made behind closed doors. When I offered this amendment last night, and it was pending when he came in this morning, I knew there was the potential for this. I called the Senator from Mississippi a half an hour before we went into session this morning in an effort to try to work out what is done in the Senate all the time. I see Senator Dodd here who is our leader on the Rules Committee and knows vastly more about this than I. But what I tried to say is let's do what is done in the Senate every single week. You consider a big batch of amendments, and at some point after both sides have been noticed, then you go to a vote. You go to a vote so that both sides are aware of what is going on. I have also offered here that I wouldn't even be in the first cluster of amendments that were considered. So that, again, even though my amendment was pending last night, when we came in, we could have colleagues get the first votes. Colleagues would get the first votes before my amendment.…”