David Obey: “I do not even know what the content of most of these amendments is, but what is going on here is that the staff has been…”

“I do not even know what the content of most of these amendments is, but what is going on here is that the staff has been attempting to work out understandings under which a huge number of amendments can be disposed of in the most efficient way possible. As I understand it, there are approximately 39 pending amendments which are probably in order and about 69 that are not, and those numbers may be off a little bit but they are not bad for government work at 8:30 in the middle of a Red Sox game. But having said that, what this represents is that the sponsors of these amendments have agreed--all but two of these amendments as I understand it are in order, and those amendments, the sponsors have agreed to a severe time limit in order to have them considered. And in the case of the two amendments offered by persons who did not have germane amendments, my understanding is that those Members have agreed to drop all of their other amendments in return for a 5-minute consideration for their amendment before the point of order is lodged. I think that is roughly what it is that we are agreeing to, if this is, in fact, agreed to by the body. So it is simply an attempt to try to take a huge universe of amendments and to create some smaller, manageable universes so that we can move the process along.”