Political Quotes

“I rise respectfully in opposition to the gentlelady's proposed amendment. Mr. Chairman, perhaps unknown to many of my colleagues of the House, for more than 50 years my little district of American Samoa has been the backbone of the U.S. tuna fishing and processing industries, just like Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands have been the backbone of the rum industry. Today, the U.S. tuna processing industry includes three major brands of canned tuna, namely, Bumble Bee, Chicken of the Sea, and StarKist. Bumble Bee was formerly owned by a Canadian company, then purchased by U.S. investors and is now resold to an investment group from Great Britain. Chicken of the Sea continues and has always been a subsidiary company of Thai Union, which currently is the world's largest producer of canned tuna. StarKist was formerly a subsidiary company of Heinz Foods Corporation out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, then was sold to Del Monte out of San Francisco, and it was purchased by the Dongwon Company out of South Korea. All three of these major tuna processor companies have corporate offices in Pittsburgh and in San Diego. However, their methods of processing and canning of tuna are quite different, along with the manner in which our U.S. tuna fishing fleet has been operating given the tremendous change now taking place in the entire global tuna industry.…”