Jim Saxton: “Mr. Speaker, this is good legislation and I am sure it is legislation that every Member of the House will want to…”

“Mr. Speaker, this is good legislation and I am sure it is legislation that every Member of the House will want to support. But this legislation is just an example of what can be done when we work on a bipartisan basis. The gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie), who has served for 3 years as the ranking member of the committee, has been a major, major contributor to the bipartisan spirit that has permitted us to move through issue after issue and, frankly, without rancor, and frankly I cannot think of a time that we have come to the floor with major legislation since the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) has been the ranking member when we have had a disagreement. We work things out ahead of time. We do it in an amicable way. As a result of that, we have been able to pass legislation that deals with the marine environment, been able to pass a major legislation that deals with fisheries resources, major legislation that deals with the marine mammal, the Marine Mammal Protection Act. We passed legislation on protection of coral reefs. We reformed the national refuge system with new legislation last year.”