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Mr. DODD addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I want to join my colleague from Maryland in thanking our colleague from New York, the chairman of the committee, and others for putting this together. I want to commend as well my colleague from Maryland, who has done a very fine job in helping to fashion this resolution. I join with him and the chairman of the committee and others in hoping that we will be able now over the next several weeks to conduct a thorough and complete and fair investigation.

I will say, Mr. President, there are many people, of course, on this side of the aisle who, frankly, in fact, may have voted, if there were a recorded vote, may have voted even against that resolution, who felt that we should have wrapped this up and it is over with. So there is no recorded vote on this, and apparently there will be none. So there will be no actual recording, but Members can obviously speak for themselves. I would have voted for this resolution if there was a recorded vote. I want my colleagues to know that.

It would not be any great surprise to my colleague from New York if I say to him, Mr. President, that I would do so with great reluctance because I, frankly, would have liked to wrap this up earlier. So I read this and see this as a determination now to conclude our work by the 14th of June, with a couple extra days to get our report done. That is our goal and our determination. Certainly our colleague from New York has made it clear to us that that is his intent as well. We respect that and take that. The distinguished majority leader has indicated that as well.

So we have a lot of work, I know, to do in the coming weeks. But we are confident we can do it and bring this to a conclusion. It has been a long process, Mr. President. I think, as someone pointed out, it may be the longest set of hearings in the history of the Congress on a particular matter like this. Someone may challenge that, but certainly in modern Senate history, I think, the longest record, the longest set of hearings, at great cost. I am not speaking now exclusively of our work here, but the overall investigation. So the American public, I think, wants us to complete our work on this.

Also, I point out that because this is a special committee but made up primarily of members of the Banking Committee--of course, the chairman is the chairman of the Banking Committee as well--there is a great deal of work we have to do on the Banking Committee before this Congress ends. Our colleague from California has a number of issues that she is interested in. Senator Murray, from the State of Washington, has mentioned several issues she is interested in, along with our colleague from Maryland and others.

So our sincere hope is that not only will we get this done, I say to our colleagues--I know many are asking the question: Are you really going to get your work done? I am saying here we are going to have this done on June 14, a report several days afterward, and our Banking Committee is also going to get its work done on other issues that have been raised as well that should be addressed.

With that, Mr. President, I commend my colleague from New York, my colleague from Maryland, our ranking member, for bringing this to a final conclusion. We will have our work done by June 14.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I am not going to belabor the points that were made except to add my thanks to my ranking member, Senator Sarbanes, and my chairman, Senator D'Amato, for working this out with the able assistance of many people, particularly Senator Dodd.

I have always taken the position as long as there are Senators on the floor making it sound like there are issues that are being covered up or not looked at, it was very important for us to continue, because frankly, I think we have had a sufficient amount of time. We have had more days of hearings than the O.J. Simpson trial. The fact is, this has gone on endlessly.

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