Political Quotes

“Mr. President, in summary, I will say this: I do not want the American people to misunderstand what is before us in this resolution that will be coming up for a vote at a time determined by Senator Murkowski, as I understand it, under the rules. She is using the rules to be able to do this. I do not think the American people should be misled into thinking this is about postponing action on cleaning up carbon pollution. It is about something much deeper than that. If her resolution passes and if it does become the law of the land--and I hope and I do not believe it will at the end of the day--what she is doing is something unprecedented. That unprecedented move is to overturn a finding made by the scientists and the health experts on the impacts of carbon pollution. This has never been done before. Senators play the role of Senators; they do not play the role of doctors. They do not play the role of scientists. I will tell you, if we start doing that, there is no end to what we could do. We could overturn action on controlling the nicotine in cigarettes. We could overturn action to control the lead allowed in paints. We could overturn the science based on limits for arsenic in water. I could go on and list all the toxins--cadmium, carbon tetrachloride, naphthalene, toluene, and it goes on. That is why this is such a dangerous turn of events. I am very much up for a debate on the best way to solve this problem of too much carbon pollution in the air. We differ.…”