Political Quotes

“Madam President, I appreciate my friend Senator Markey, his offer to work through this. He and I have worked together on a number of issues, actually a number of issues particularly related to America's fishermen. As he mentioned, Massachusetts has a lot of fishermen, and I have tens of thousands of my fellow Alaskans involved in the industry. And, again, I think he and I certainly agree with this concept. I think every U.S. Senator agrees with the concept of basic fairness in trade, basic fairness, in terms of reciprocity, in trade--all trade but especially the seafood trade. We have had 9 years of no reciprocity from Russia-- Putin, the thug. We shouldn't have to take it anymore, and it is hurting my constituents. Now, my understanding of the issue raised by Senator Markey is that it is primarily Russian pollock that is imported into Massachusetts. As Senator Markey knows, in Alaska, we have a huge number of fishermen engaged in that fishery. So maybe what we should look at is making sure Massachusetts' workers are actually processing American--Alaskan-- pollock, not the authoritarian pollock in Russia. That would be a fair way to resolve this. I appreciate the offer to work together on this, but I will tell the Senator we need to work quickly because it has been 9 years of nonreciprocal seafood trade. I am almost certain that Massachusetts fishermen who once exported to Russia have been hurt by this seafood blockade as well as my fishermen.…”