"This amendment is identical to legislation I previously introduced with Senator Crapo, who is also a co-sponsor of this amendment, to help communities determine whether there is a connection between clusters of cancer, birth defects and other diseases and contaminants in the surrounding environment."
"Why don't we help local communities deal with cancer clusters? And so this is an opportunity to add that to this bill. And I hope we will say yes to that."
"We are using existing resources. Now, the last, my memory tells me, and my staff says my memory is correct, we voted this bill out of this committee without a problem."
"When all the dust settles and everyone has a chance to read this bill, without this amendment, there are no deadlines to act on a chemical that is dangerous."
"And if you vote no on this, I would say you need to answer to your constituents who say, Senator, why wouldn't you want to know what chemical is stored near my drinking water supply?"
"Let the States do what they do best, which is protect their people until the EPA has completed their work on a chemical."
"This is an opportunity to add to the improvements that Senators Whitehouse, Merkley, and Booker made along with Senators Vitter and Udall."
"I am hopeful that you will accept this by voice vote."
"Aye by proxy."
"If you wanted to take action on asbestos, and as Senator Markey said, this has been an issue since a quarter of a century ago, you put it in the bill."
"It will strengthen Federal agency coordination and accountability when investigating potential disease clusters."