Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise with my colleagues Senator Wicker from Mississippi and Senator Casey from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to talk about legislation that I believe is of vital importance to every State in the country--certainly to mine, the great State of Alaska. Most importantly, it is vitally important legislation to the men and women who serve in the U.S. Coast Guard. I am going to talk about them for a minute. Yet, in addition to the legislation we are talking about here, it is also vitally important to our maritime and fishing communities. This is very important legislation. Which legislation am I talking about? S. 1129, the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2017. It is legislation that has broad bipartisan support, including from Chairman Thune of South Dakota and Ranking Member Nelson of Florida of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee; my colleague from Alaska, Senator Lisa Murkowski; and many, many others, Republicans and Democrats. The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Coast Guard and our fishing fleets and our fisheries, marked up this important legislation back in May of 2017. Unfortunately, due to a lack of an agreement on one particular provision--although we have very strong support, even for this particular provision, of over 60 Senators--the Coast Guard bill overall remains stuck. We always talk about the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines.…”