Orrin Hatch: “Today, I am pleased that we are proceeding to the consideration of bankruptcy reform legislation. Senator Grassley…”

“Today, I am pleased that we are proceeding to the consideration of bankruptcy reform legislation. Senator Grassley introduced S. 220 earlier this month, which is precisely the same legislative language that was contained in the conference report passed by the Senate in December by a vote of 70 to 28. That language has been marked up and reported out of the Judiciary Committee. It is that language we are considering today in S. 420, the 'Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2001.' As many of you know, we have been working on the issue of bankruptcy reform for a number of years now. By way of background, both Houses demonstrated overwhelming margins in favor of this legislation in December, but President Clinton pocket-vetoed the legislation and we simply ran out of time in the session to come back and override the veto. So earlier this month, rather than introducing something to serve as a starting point for negotiations, Senator Grassley introduced exactly the language that passed both houses so overwhelmingly in December. This language was the result of a long process of bipartisan negotiations last year that resulted in agreement on over four hundred pages of legislative language, on all but two issues.”