Politics, how does it work?
Senator Reid is doing everything he can to make it possible for the seven vulnerable Democrat Senators who are up for election in '14 to be able to vote for UBC and still have a reasonable chance for re-election.
The Senator from Kalifornika will offer the AWB as an amendment. The vulnerable Democrat Senators will vote against it. They will vote for UBC. They will tell the voters they voted against extreme measures. They will tell the voters they voted for "common sense measures to keep guns out of the wrong hands". They just might bget re-elected.

I believe that to be true myself, but we need to take on the responsibility of informing and explaining this to all of the pro UBC folks out there.  Unfortunately, I think an overwhelming majority of Americans support Universal Background Checks...however, support falls off dramatically when those very same people are asked about UBC and registration.  We, the NRA, and all of the other pro 2A groups need to paint the picture of how meaningless and unenforceable the checks would be without registration, and how registration will necessarily follow any UBC legislation.  They have to go hand in hand, otherwise there'd be no point and no teeth to the UBC law.

It IS registration. The 4473's are surely all retained in some secret .Gov closet waiting for that dreadful rainy day.