Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to thank the gentleman from California. Mr. Farr has been one of the leaders who has been concerned with the oceans, and this debris bill is crucially important to the State of California and especially to Alaska. Mr. Farr came to me many months ago and said we've got to get this done. We've got to get this done. A lot of people weren't interested, and now we finally get to a point where we see what's occurring from the tsunami, although we may not have that recur again. The crisis in the ocean, though, is detrimental, as I mentioned in my opening statement, to the fishermen whom I represent and to the recreational people whom I represent. So to get it out of the ocean even before it reaches the beaches is crucially important. The beaches sometimes are sort of fun to beachcomb, but if there is something bad that's in the ocean, we should try to retrieve it sooner, if possible; and when it gets there, we really want to be able to take care of it. There should be more money--I won't disagree with the gentleman from Washington--but we're moving this down the road. We'll see what happens on the Senate side, and we'll see if we can't get a little more effort, because it's a partnership program that makes this thing work. A lot of people have interest in Alaska and in trying to clean the beaches after it arrives, and we're trying to get more people interested in cleaning the ocean up before it does arrive.…”