Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, it is difficult to tell a friend that he has got an ugly kid, but many of us have had to do that, and I am not telling any of my friends across the way that they have ugly kids, but this mother of all ugly bills is ugly, and the kids of it are ugly, and this is a chance to make one of those kids not quite so ugly. The amendment offered by the gentleman from California [Mr. Pombo] does just that. First of all, not all off-roaders' vehicles, and this is not an off-road-vehicle amendment, but I would like to correct my friend at least by perception that all off-road-vehicle drivers are not destructive to the desert. As a matter of fact, many of those fees and registration fees go to protect the deserts, and many individual groups actually repair a lot of the desert that has been damaged from natural causes as well. But 85 percent of the roads in the amendment offered by my friend, the gentleman from California, 85 percent of those roads access private property, and most of us are concerned about private-property rights.”