Political Quotes

“I think we just heard a 1-hour audition for FOX News, but we did not hear a solution to what is a very real problem. We didn't hear a call for a vote, which we are going to have to take if we are to carry out our constitutional obligations, and that is going to be before us. I don't want to carry on the discussion about the very serious problem of ISIL or ISIS. We have heard a lot of that already. We will have to come to grips with that by October 6 or 7, when the 60-day clock on the War Powers Act runs out and our constitutional obligation takes place. There are many, many problems facing this Nation, and certainly, the international scene is one of them, but there is also a problem in our communities. I represent a large portion of California, the national forests on the Sierra side and the national forests on the coastal side of the Sacramento Valley. A lot of that is in the U.S. Forest Service, as well as in the Bureau of Land Management. Over the last several years, those two agencies have been struggling to put out the fires that have raged in the Western United States and, indeed, in the Southeast of the United States. The way in which we have set up the budgeting and the appropriation for fighting fires has created an ongoing cycle of increasing the likelihood of new fires. We need to change that. We need to get ahead of the century of fire repression and put in place policies and programs that will reduce the risks of fires.…”