Political Quotes

“Madam President, I want to thank Senator Capito and Senator Barrasso for their leadership on an issue that matters to every single American. This is one of those issues where the Congress of the United States should be coming together in a bipartisan way to make sure we have a permitting system that enables us to build things--every kind of thing we need: roads, bridges, ports, energy, renewables, oil, and gas. The system is broken. Everybody knows it. I like to show this photo when I am talking about permitting reform. Why am I showing this very iconic photo of some men here building the Empire State Building? Because we all know that one of the great things about America is that we used to be able to build things--big things-- on time: 410 days to build the Empire State Building. The Hoover Dam took less than 5 years to build. A little closer to home to me, the 1,700-mile Alaska-Canada Highway, what we call the ALCAN Highway, through some of the world's most rugged terrain--11 months. This was the great thing about America. With the best workers in the world, we built huge things, on time, on budget--but not anymore, not anymore. I don't want to be too partisan here, but one of the things that we all know we need is permitting. It is permitting. I am obsessed with this issue. But I will tell you this. Every time--and it is probably going to happen again--we have a big permitting opportunity, a big permitting bill on the floor, what happens?…”