Political Quotes

“I rise to speak to the pending bill and a potential amendment Senator Vitter is preparing and hopes to offer, an amendment which would make sure that any increase in the trust fund for oilspills would be spent on cleaning up oilspills. That might seem rather obvious, but it turns out that the bill before us increases the required contribution of oil companies to this trust fund to clean up oilspills from 8 cents to 41 cents per barrel and then spends the money not to clean up oilspills but, rather, to pay for other items in the underlying legislation, the so-called extenders bill. That is not right. If we are going to increase the money to pay for oilspills, we ought to spend the money to clean up oilspills. What the Vitter amendment does is very simple. It says if that is what we are raising the money to do, then that is what we should spend it on. I will quote from the amendment: The revenue resulting from any increase in the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund financing rate under section 4611 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 shall-- (1) not be counted for purposes of offsetting revenues, receipts, or discretionary spending under the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 or the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010; and (2) shall only be used for the purposes of the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. It is fairly straightforward. Why do we have to have this amendment?”