Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, this amendment is a very simple amendment. It simply strikes three words, ``not to exceed,'' with respect to the budget of an office that I consider to be pretty important, and that is the Intelligence, Security, and Emergency Response. As you look through the bill, every single part of the Office of the Secretary has a separate line item, and in looking at the bill, I noticed, for example, that for emergency response and security we have budgeted a little over $10 million. On the other hand, we have budgeted about twice as much for the lawyers for the Office of General Counsel. The lawyers somehow get twice as much as emergency response and security. Frankly, as I look at the list and how the money is divided, we spend $24 million roughly, which is nearly more than two times as much for the Assistant Secretary for Policy--all of that being more important than security. For me, as a Member of Congress who represents some 59,000 square miles, including five ports of entry and 800 miles of the Texas border with Mexico, an area, frankly, where we have seen emergencies and emergency response before, frankly, where the Congress is consistently and rightfully concerned about security, it seems to me that we would give the Department of Transportation some additional flexibility. This doesn't raise per se the amount of money that's available to them.…”