Orrin Hatch: “I thank my colleague for his kindness in doing that. I listened to the debate, and I have to say I am very disappointed.…”

“I thank my colleague for his kindness in doing that. I listened to the debate, and I have to say I am very disappointed. Everybody knew that Senator Schumer accommodated us--the ranking member and myself--in putting the language on the Customs bill. In fact, here is what Senator Schumer said: And, explicitly I did not offer the currency amendment to the TPA bill. We were told that it would not be part--if it were part of TPA it might kill it. My goal is not to use currency to kill the TPA bill and not to kill the TPA bill, it's to get currency passed. And that's why we offered it to the customs bill, on the view, strong view, that no one disputed in committee that we'd get a vote separately on the customs bill on the floor, that it would come to the floor just like the other bills. That was the agreement. The distinguished Senator from Oregon knows that was the agreement; that we were going to lump the two together, the TPA and TAA--although I would have preferred to have those voted on separately, but we agreed to do that because there was a concern on the Democratic side that maybe we wouldn't put TAA out. That was a ridiculous concern because we know TPA can't pass unless you give the unions what they want on TAA. So we grit our teeth and we were willing to do that. We put them together so we could accommodate again. And it was completely understood that the AGOA bill, the next two bills, would be voted on separately.…”