Intelligence Bill Passes Senate
WASHINGTON, Dec. 9, 2004 – At times it seemed the intelligence reform bill was destined to fail.
“This was the most difficult bill to bring from conception to birth that I can imagine being involved with,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the bill’s sponsor. “That makes the bill doubly satisfying.”
After months of intense public and private lobbying, Sen. Collins spoke after the Senate passed the legislation 89-2 and thanked the families of the September 11 terror attack victims as well the bill’s supporters in the House and Senate.
“I think one of the bleakest moments was back on Nov. 20, when the four of us had negotiated a very hard fought agreement, and then the Speaker, in deference to two chairmen – and I certainly understand his decision – decided not to proceed with the floor vote,” she said. “But that turned out to be just a bump in the road.”
Collins sponsored the bill in the Senate with Joe Lieberman, D-Conn. The two key negotiators in the House were Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., and Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif.
Contending that the bipartisan vote in both the House and the Senate means that Congress believes that the reforms will make the country safer, Collins went on to thank her counterparts in both the House and the Senate “for never giving up, for persevering, even when the negotiations were extremely difficult.”
Lieberman also breathed a sigh of relief. “This was the most sustained, in many ways most difficult, I know it was the most important legislative experience I’ve ever had,” he said. “I’m just grateful it ended in success.”
The bill now goes to the President’s desk for his signature.
