Ron Wyden: “To respond to my friend from Arizona, he is very good at working out arrangements to get votes on these matters that are…”

“To respond to my friend from Arizona, he is very good at working out arrangements to get votes on these matters that are so important to the public interest. Perhaps it is possible, through his good offices, to persuade Senator Cochran and others that we can make arrangements. I am not anxious to hold up the time of the Senate. By the way, I was here late last night, and I would have been prepared to vote last night. So this Member was prepared to vote last night. I am prepared to vote now. I am prepared to give up the floor as long as there is a commitment that we get a vote. But the handling of this program is a disgrace. You cannot make an argument for having no accountability whatsoever at a time when billions and billions of taxpayer dollars are used. That is what happened during the energy legislation where in the dead of night, not only was the program preserved, the program was sweetened at a time when the President says you cannot make the case for these kinds of subsidies. We will continue with this discussion. My door, as always, remains open to colleagues. I would like to think I was bipartisan before it became fashionable to be bipartisan. I note that Senator Kyl is a cosponsor of the legislation. Senator Lieberman has joined on as a cosponsor of the legislation. I remain anxious to work with Senators to get this worked out. We have been talking a lot about lobbyists. We have had a lobbying reform bill and the Senate has acted.…”