Gerald Kleczka: “Mr. Chairman, I think the intended purpose of the legislation before us is quite laudable. Although I have yet to hear…”

“Mr. Chairman, I think the intended purpose of the legislation before us is quite laudable. Although I have yet to hear any real cogent arguments against the amendment pending before the House, we are told by the author of the bill that it is going to gut the bill. I do not think that is sufficient enough for any of us in this Chamber to not support the amendment before us, which I think is a reasonable correction to the bill, because in its current form I do not think the bill is passable. One can only look to last session, where early on in the session the House passed the legislation, it went over to the Senate, and they did not even take the time to take it up and debate it, even though there was a Senate counterpart also introduced in the Senate. If in fact the authors of the legislation are serious about getting this bill signed into law, I think it is imperative that they work with not only this side of the aisle but the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) to see if there is some kind of accommodation that can be had to address some serious flaws in the legislation.”