Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, in a few moments this morning, I will be introducing a House resolution, a bipartisan House resolution, with Congressman Don Young from the State of Alaska calling on the Senate to, once and for all, ratify the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea Treaty. Mr. Speaker, this is a treaty which was negotiated by the Reagan administration back in the late 1980s. It is a treaty which has been endorsed by Democratic Presidents, Republican Presidents, Condoleeza Rice, and military leadership of all stripes, to create a system of rules of the road in terms of maritime disputes. As I said, the military leadership of this country has been adamant and consistent year in and year out about the need for our country to join 166 other countries in the world in terms of ratifying this treaty. As Marine General Joe Dunford said a short time ago, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: ``We undermine our leverage by not signing up to the same rule book by which we are asking other countries to accept.'' Today, as this map shows, all the purple countries are those that have ratified the treaty, and the blue countries are those that have not. The United States joins the following company in terms of refusing to ratify this treaty: North Korea, Iran, Syria, Libya, and Venezuela.…”