Political Quotes

“Members, welcome to the roaring twenties, not the ones you may have read about in F. Scott Fitzgerald novels, not the ones with jazz and liberation and industrial boom. I mean these roaring twenties--the ones where instead of flappers, you get fossil fuel and dirty air; where instead of innovation, you get obstruction, tariffs, isolationism, blinding nostalgia for a world that no longer exists. Instead of leaders who want to tackle the climate crisis head-on, you get votes to tear down the tools that we need to fight it. The reason I stand here today and was here last night until 1:30, 2 in the morning is that Senate Republicans have pushed through resolutions to revoke California's authority to set its own vehicle emissions standards, to set its own rules about what kind of air we breathe in California. This is an authority that my State has had by statute for more than 50 years. We have had the right to deal with our unique problems of congestion, our topography, our smog. We have had the right to demand of ourselves cleaner air, for ourselves and for our children. That is under attack right now, and not just California's ability to set its standards to protect its people, but because other States have also followed California's lead. This will affect the quality of air all around the country. And that is the gravamen of the problem for my colleagues in the GOP. And that is that it is not just California.…”