Political Quotes

“I rise to speak on behalf of permanent trade relations with China and in support of H.R. 4444, which is PNTR for China. I come to this body, after some 20 years, no stranger to China, having traveled there on numerous occasions, more recently a journey down the Yangtze River to observe the controversial construction of the building of the Three Gorges Dam. It has been a great concern by America's environmental community as to the legitimacy of this project. It will be one of the largest construction projects in the world. But looking back at what we did in the United States in the 1930s with the TVA project, the flood control, the power generation, what we have done in the Columbia River system, it is very much in parallel to what China is attempting to do: flood control, power generation, and cleaning up their air. It is interesting to reflect on the experience of U.S. participation in this project. The Eximbank believed that the project did not meet its environmental examination sufficiently so it exempted any U.S. firms from participating in the sense of funding two Chinese contractors to buy American equipment. As a result of the inability of the Eximbank to get a clearance on the environmental consequences and adequacy, there was no U.S. construction material that went into this. As a consequence, Caterpillar alone lost over $1 billion in sales.”