Thomas Daschle: “if I may respond to the Republican leader, first, I agree with virtually all he has said. There is an urgency to the…”

“if I may respond to the Republican leader, first, I agree with virtually all he has said. There is an urgency to the airport security bill that dictates that we come to the floor this afternoon. I know Senator Hollings, Senator McCain, and others have spent a good deal of time working in concert with experts and with others to reach the point that they have in bringing this bill to the floor right now. Earlier today, I made the announcement that we were going to take up airport security first and counterterrorism second, and that my hope was that we could take up counterterrorism as early as Tuesday. That may not now be the case. I don't know that there are two more urgent pieces of legislation than these two bills that are virtually ready to go. Obviously, that doesn't mean because these two bills are urgent, that there is no other urgent matter related to the tragedy that has to be addressed. The question is, How many vehicles do you have, given the very serious limitation on time? Senator Lott and I have spent a lot of hours, working late into the night trying to pre-conference some of this. But a lot of our colleagues, understandably, say, ``What about us? We want to participate. We have amendments that are good ideas that we would like to offer.'' So acknowledging that some of these matters cannot be pre-conferenced, our only option is to come to the floor. Then our only option is to hear out other ideas, as Senator Lott suggested.”