Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time. Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. The Acting CHAIR. The gentlewoman from Minnesota is recognized for 5 minutes. Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would stop the EPA from requiring farms to submit a plan on how they will prevent oil from entering navigable waters. I come from Minnesota; so, this seems like a pretty commonsense requirement to me. If a facility has large amounts of oil, it should tell the agency responsible for an inland oil spill cleanup how it will prevent an environmental disaster. Why shouldn't the holder of gallons of oil have a plan even if it is an agriculture business? It should have a plan. And there are criteria to make sure that a facility truly should be subject to the Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure rule. It has to meet three criteria. It must be nontransported. It must have an aggregate aboveground storage capacity greater than 1,320 gallons or a completely buried storage capacity greater than 42,000 gallons. We are talking about a lot of oil. The third point is that there must be a reasonable expectation that, if something were to go wrong and if there were a discharge, it would go into navigable waters of the United States or of adjoining shorelines.…”