Political Quotes

“The history of this bill must be made permanent in the record. It started out as a disaster, and it got to a point where it is better than current law. That makes me very happy. The negotiations on the bill continued. Again, several Members helped us, and we still had problems with the bill. We tripled our efforts to improve it. I want to say that the 450 organizations that were part of the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition worked with me. They were the wind at my back. My staff, the EPW staff director and chief counsel, Bettina Poirier, and my senior policy adviser, Jason Albritton, were incredible. I also thank the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization. As I said before, asbestos is one of the most dangerous chemicals in existence today. It is the poster child for the failure of the old TSCA law that we are reforming. These organizations and States stood strong despite enormous pressure. They took a lot of heat. I am so grateful to them for their persistence because--let's be clear--without their persistence, without just a few lawmakers who had the courage to stand up to the special interests, we never ever would have been able to negotiate improvements to this bill--so many improvements to this bill. I want to be clear that a lot of these organizations still think the bill is too weak and still would like to see it stronger, and so would I. If I could write this bill myself, I would use the usual formula we have for environmental laws. We set a standard.…”