Thomas Daschle: “the majority leader has spoken well about the difficulty of this agreement. This was, I told him, one of the more…”

“the majority leader has spoken well about the difficulty of this agreement. This was, I told him, one of the more difficult, if not the most difficult we have had in some time. I could name 30 Senators on this side of the aisle who have very important amendments, who are very concerned about the lack of an opportunity to offer these amendments on this bill or on other bills. So I, first, thank them for their cooperation and for their support in allowing us to move forward, as we are tonight. I believe there must come a time when this pent-up demand to offer some of this legislation has to be addressed. I will be speaking with the majority leader about that as we go through the schedule for the next couple of weeks. I might say, a major factor--and I have indicated this to the majority leader--in our ability to reach this agreement was his assurance that we were also going to take up, in a timely way, some other very critical pieces of legislation this agreement allows us to take up. First and foremost is a crop insurance and research bill that I have assured my colleagues will be taken up, if at all possible, this week. We don't know how long the amendment process will take. But the majority leader has assured me it is the next bill. So I thank him for that and, as I have indicated to him privately and I will say again publicly, that was a major consideration. Another was our strong desire to get on with the consideration of the tobacco bill.”