David Cay Johnston: “just very briefly, one of the biggest fights we have had about this bill--and make no mistake, it has been a fight--is…”

“just very briefly, one of the biggest fights we have had about this bill--and make no mistake, it has been a fight--is about the question of supermandates; that is, whether this bill supersedes the underlying bill such as the Clean Air Act. Mr. President, I laid down a marker in negotiation with Senator Dole and his staff, and Senator Hatch and others, that we would simply not accept a supermandate. The way the bill was drawn as it came from the House was that it said this section shall supersede existing law-- supersede. As it was reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, it said this bill shall supplement existing law. As we finally agreed, we came up with language that says this bill shall supplement and not supersede existing law.”