Peter Welch: “I happen to believe that process does matter, but I also think substance matters, and they have to go together. Ideally…”

“I happen to believe that process does matter, but I also think substance matters, and they have to go together. Ideally, when we're working in a perfect world, they do. But one of the major reasons that we don't have an actual conference committee report is because our friends in the other body refused to go to conference, refused, refused to go to conference to discuss our energy future, Mr. Speaker. How is that right? Is that a proper use of process? The reason we are here and the way that we're here is because there has been a decision made by the majority of the American people that they want a new energy policy, and the basic question for this body is whether we want to give that new energy policy or we don't. The best process is going to get the best bill, but it takes cooperation on both sides. And if we have, in the other body, a refusal to even go into conference, it leaves leadership in this body with a single choice: do nothing and capitulate, or move ahead.”