Political Quotes

“this is an amendment worked out in a bipartisan manner with the chairman and the ranking member of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee and the ranking member of the Finance Committee. I thank Senators Cochran, Byrd, and Baucus for their cooperation. This is an amendment that is cosponsored by Senators Byrd, Cochran, Specter, Murkowski, Voinovich, DeWine, Burns, Clinton, Mikulski, and Murray. It is a very simple amendment but an important amendment to provide a small amount of additional resources for some critical areas in our war against terrorism here at home. The Baucus amendment extends custom user fees that will expire next March. He extends the fee for 3 months. This extension increases the offsetting receipts in the Federal budget by $370 million during that period of time. Senator Baucus uses these additional resources to increase funds for a northern border protection program. Senator Burns is also a cosponsor of that amendment. However, the Baucus-Burns amendment allocates $200 million of resources for this activity, leaving approximately $170 million in additional resources to fund other homeland security programs.”