George Miller: “Mr. Chairman, many Members have come down to this floor and commented on a number of good projects in this bill, and…”

“Mr. Chairman, many Members have come down to this floor and commented on a number of good projects in this bill, and that is, in fact, accurate. But many Members who have good projects in this bill will be opposing this legislation because they understand that they are being used; that they are being held hostage to get some very bad pieces of legislation enacted into law. In fact, many of the organizations that are supporting many provisions that are in this bill oppose this bill because they understand that the harm that will be done by this bill is greater than the good that will be done by those provisions, many of which have bipartisan support. They also understand that this legislation, that a good portion of these bills, in fact, have received no hearings. Some 33 provisions of this legislation have received no hearings, 62 provisions have never been reported from committee, and yet we are told at the end that we have to take these provisions so that we can have a few good pieces, in many cases noncontroversial pieces of legislation, pass. That is not the way this place should work and that is not the way it will work.”