Thomas Daschle: “I will be brief. The President again today admonished the Senate for moving slowly on homeland security. He again told…”

“I will be brief. The President again today admonished the Senate for moving slowly on homeland security. He again told his audience that he was very concerned that we are moving slowly on an issue of great import in terms of his design on homeland security and the need for a recognition of national security through this legislation. Let me simply say to the President and to anybody else who has question: There is no desire to slow down this legislation. There are Senators who have very significant concerns about various provisions, but there ought to be no question about our desire to continue to work to complete the deliberation of this legislation and send it to conference as quickly as possible. We have only had an opportunity to debate one amendment and bring it to closure. It would be my hope we could take up Senator Byrd's amendment sometime very soon and we could take up other amendments to the legislation as soon as possible. We have now been on this bill for 3 weeks, and I understand why some would be concerned about the pace with which the Senate is dealing with this legislation. I discussed the matter with Senator Lott, and I think he shares my view that we have to move the bill along. I note that if the President had supported homeland security legislation when the Democrats first offered it last summer, we probably would have completed it by now.”