Political Quotes

“I very much appreciate the advocacy of Chairwoman Waters, but this is fundamentally not a partisan issue, and I appreciate the ranking member making the point. This is a reputational issue, and I want everyone in the Chamber to understand that this is about the reputation of the United States, about the Congress, about the Treasury, and about each individual Member who votes today. This is a complicated deal. I have spent hours understanding this deal. But there is a big question that every Member ought to ask themselves: Is this the moment to relax sanctions on a Russian company; on a Russian oligarch? Is this the moment to sign off on a deal that allows an oligarch to hand his shares to a Russian bank, which is also sanctioned and controlled by the Russian Government? At the end of this deal, if this deal goes through, Mr. Deripaska will continue to own and vote 35 percent of the shares of this company. Mr. Speaker, you can control the company with 35 percent of the shares. But an additional 28 percent of those shares will be owned and controlled by affiliates of Mr. Deripaska. Now, Treasury says that doesn't matter because there will be somebody independently voting those shares. I have asked three times now, and Treasury has not told me who those people are. So what is the rush? There is no problem in the aluminum markets today. The price of aluminum today is lower than it was before this company was listed. This is reputational.…”