Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, let me thank our ranking member, Mr. Markey, for the opportunity. This resolution is, quite frankly, an unfortunate use of our time. Rather than discussing jobs proposals, we are discussing a resolution that is telling ourselves to do something we are already doing, which is the regulatory review. The majority is intent on talking about what they perceive the unemployment problem to be while spending no time at all attempting to work on some real solutions. In the New West--and the chairman of our subcommittee, Mr. Bishop, mentioned that--there is high unemployment. I would suggest that we need to look deeper than the regulatory issues that he pointed out. The West leads the country in foreclosures. Those were the manipulations of banks and mortgage companies and shenanigans that Mr. Markey called. And as a consequence of that, we lead the Nation in unemployed construction workers. We lead the Nation in unemployed labor. And that is a deregulated industry. So I would suggest that if we are going to use unemployment as an example, we look at the root problem of where our unemployment is in the West. The Republican majority on the Natural Resources Committee seems to think that American people have to choose between healthy, vibrant national parks, forests, and public lands or jobs.…”