(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says he and fellow Republicans in the chamber are forging ahead with the wide-ranging so-called Big, Beautiful Bill and he remains hopeful they will be able to pass the massive tax-and-spending cut package by the White House’s deadline of July 4th.

“All I can tell you is last night from 6:00 to 7:30, we had a caucus and there’s a commitment on everybody’s part to get this done,” Grassley says. “We probably won’t finish until Sunday, but we’re going to stay in session until we get it done.”

The Senate’s parliamentarian has removed several key elements from the bill, including a provision that would have prevented people who aren’t documented from getting benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

“Illegal immigrants are illegally in the country. I don’t think we should be supporting people that entered illegally into the country,” Grassley says. “There’s legal ways to get here and we’ll help people that need help that legally enter our country and obey our laws.”

Reports say the parliamentarian also removed a measure for price supports on a host of farm commodities.

“That’s a loss from this standpoint, that if we get it in the reconciliation bill, it’ll be taken care of and make up for the fact that we have a seven-year Farm Bill now from 2018,” Grassley says. “We should have had two years to get a new five-year Farm Bill. We won’t get it. I think we’ll get it this year. We’ll take care of these things in the five-year Farm Bill.”

Another controversial measure was reportedly removed that would have created a framework for the sale of some 250-million acres of federal land, though Grassley says he might have supported that portion of the legislation.

“Two-hundred-fifty-million acres sounds like a lot of land, doesn’t it,” Grassley asks. “It’s one-half of one-percent of all the federal land. That’s what this statute says.”

The land is now owned by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. The plots are in 11 states, all in the western U.S., none in Iowa. The provision would have opened up broad expanses of that wilderness for development.