David Obey: “I would not describe it as breaking the agreement. If the gentleman would be kind enough to let me explain what I think…”

“I would not describe it as breaking the agreement. If the gentleman would be kind enough to let me explain what I think has happened here. The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler) both missed their opportunity to offer their amendments in regular order because the reading went fast and neither of them was on the floor. We had a unanimous consent agreement which was about to be propounded by the gentleman from Ohio. When the gentleman from Illinois and the gentleman from New York discovered that they had missed their opportunity, the gentleman from Illinois asked for an opportunity to go back. At that point, I suggested that the unanimous consent agreement be rewritten to include your amendment and the gentleman's from New York. The committee majority preferred, and I can understand why, because it was time consuming, the committee preferred to simply rely on our ability to get unanimous consent to go back to consider yours and the gentleman from New York's amendment. However, the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) was not part of the arrangement. And since your amendment takes money out of a program in his State, he felt required to object. So I do not think that anyone is ``breaking an agreement.'' This is what happens, number one, when Members are not on the floor when they need to be. Secondly, it is what happens when we do not include matters like that in the UC agreement.…”