Political Quotes

“Madam President, I wish to catch up the membership on the floor and off the floor a little bit about where we are. We are at midweek for a third week of consideration of the FAA reauthorization bill. Last night, Senator Reid filed cloture on this bill. In a perfect world we would have finished this bill already without filing cloture, but we need to finish and that is what cloture motions are for. I will support cloture, needless to say. Senator Hutchison also filed cloture on an amendment that will bring conclusion to a debate on slots at National Airport. I will talk about that issue in more detail later. But I am saying right now slots are very important but they do not need to consume all of the arguments and all of the discussion on the floor about this bill. They are a very small part of the bill--an important part of the bill, recognizing the West has to be served much better than it is being--but it is not the entire bill. It is a very small part of the bill. Last night we disposed of two pending amendments by voice vote. I believe we have made progress to resolve some of the pending amendments, but votes will be required on several of them and I expect we will have those votes today. Senator Hutchison and I are trying to clear a number of other filed amendments. There were at one point 100 of them. I hope we can accept a number of them.…”