Political Quotes

“And I rise in opposition to this instruction. First of all, whatever your views are on the pipeline coming out of Canada, this is not the place for this issue to be brought up because what this provision would do would be to short-circuit the decisionmaking and mandate approval of the pipeline. It doesn't belong in the transportation bill. We see this over and over again. Our Republican colleagues like to take bills and then hold them hostage to get what they want. They wanted to get the pipeline approved so they mandated the President had to make a decision within 60 days in a previous bill. The President didn't want it. He said, Okay, I'll sign it. But then he said he's not ready to make a decision in 60 days. So this provision doesn't require him to make a decision. It tells him this is going to be decided. This is going to be done. That's what we used to call earmarks, and in fact this is an earmark--a special interest earmark. On its merits, this legislative earmark for TransCanada makes no sense. Mandating approval of the Keystone XL pipeline might help jobs in other countries. It might create more jobs in Canada. But when the Republicans tell us it's going to produce so many jobs in the United States, they are not buying a pipeline; they are buying a pipe dream. A green light for Keystone will lead to massive imports of transmission pipe manufactured overseas.…”