[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 139 (Wednesday, October 7, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Page S11670]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST--S. 505

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary 
Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 505, and that 
the Senate then proceed to its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, is this the 
copyright bill?
  Mr. LOTT. Yes.
  Mr. DODD. I don't want to object, but I have been asked about 
clearing this. Maybe a couple of us have questions about this. If the 
majority leader will withhold for about 15 minutes so we might be able 
to clear it up, we would appreciate it.
  Mr. LOTT. That is a reasonable request. I will withhold on that. I 
had believed that we cleared it with both sides of the aisle, but some 
Members may not have had a chance to check on it.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I take the blame for that. I assumed it had 
been cleared. The Senator from Connecticut said he had an issue, so if 
the majority leader will give us a few minutes to see if we can work it 
out.
  Mr. LOTT. I will do that.
  Let me just say again that I hope we can get this cleared because it 
looks like, after a lot of hard and good work by a number of Senators--
Senator Hatch worked very hard on this--that we are now in the position 
of being able to move the music licensing issue, the copyright bill, 
the international property issue, the international treaty; those are 
three major achievements that I thought a week ago we probably could 
not get done. They are all interrelated, actually. I hope we can get 
clearance to move forward on these issues. This is a reasonable 
request, and I withhold the unanimous consent request at this time.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, will the Senator from Mississippi yield to 
me for a moment on this?
  Mr. LOTT. I yield to the Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. The Senator from Mississippi is right. He has been working 
very hard with both sides of the aisle to clear the items he has 
mentioned. As he knows, we have been working very hard, as well. These 
are extraordinarily complex pieces of legislation. Unfortunately, the 
more complex they are, the more like a Rubik's Cube they are. I think 
we are extremely close, and we will continue to work with him. I 
compliment him on his efforts to help work these out.
  Mr. LOTT. Again, I say that I appreciate the help from Senator Leahy, 
and I also urge that we do this as soon as we can, because, as you 
know, at this late stage of the game, sometimes people come in with 
unrelated issues that start causing problems. Let's do it as quickly as 
we can.
  I yield the floor.

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