Political Quotes

“I have a news alert. This afternoon, we had a 7.3 earthquake off of the coast of Alaska. Pretty big. We got the alert from KUCB staff members who felt this earthquake out there in Alaska. They contacted the emergency responders. It was an all-hands-on-deck. I am looking at a text I received from the station manager there at KUCB: Three staff members worked at sea level in our studio to get emergency messages on the air in coordination with local public safety officials. A fourth employee worked remotely to update the web and social media. When the tsunami sirens started to glare, the voice message in the warning instructed community members to tune into the local radio. We provided up-to-date information throughout the entire evacuation and all-clear procedures. So the good news is, tsunami is all clear. They say this is the work we do to keep Alaska safe, and it is only possible with Federal funding. Mr. President, I have an amendment that protects public media, their independence, their ability to provide local news, weather reports, and, yes, emergency alerts. What we do in this amendment is we tweak the rescission for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to protect public broadcasting while removing the pot of money that can go directly to NPR. We are reminded today that this stuff matters. I would hope my colleagues would recognize what is at stake and vote for my amendment.”