Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I will take a couple of minutes before we vote to speak to the Franken amendment. I think all of us want to buy American and buy local whenever and wherever we can. We strongly support that since it does mean jobs--whether we are talking about a pipeline or otherwise. But I think the bigger question here--and what we have in front of us with the Keystone XL Pipeline--is what this amendment would do. This amendment would mandate specific materials for the Keystone XL pipeline, and I think we need to put this into context. This pipeline is a private project. This is not a federally funded infrastructure project. This would be the first time that Congress has directed or forced private parties to purchase domestic goods and materials. We actually asked the Congressional Research Service to look into this to see if there was any other instance at the Federal level where private parties were told that they must purchase 100-percent domestic goods and materials, and so far the answer to that inquiry has been that they can find no instance of that. I think we need to be careful about this as a precedent because if we are going to direct this particular project--the Keystone XL--to have this requirement on it, where do we go next? What will happen to the next project that we have? Will it be the next pipeline or the next renewable energy project? Where does this slippery slope go?…”