Political Quotes

“I rise today in strong opposition to H.J. Res. 27, a Congressional Review Act resolution to disapprove the Biden administration's rule defining the ``waters of the United States,'' or WOTUS, as it is popularly known. To many Americans, the definition of the ``waters of the United States'' may not seem like a controversial matter. To understand why it is, though, we need to first ask ourselves, how did we get here to this point? Well, a little more than 50 years ago, Congress came together to pass the Clean Water Act. In doing so, Congress affirmed our Nation's commitment to protecting and restoring waterways from industrial pollution. Until that point, our Nation's waters--which were and continue to be critical to our health, to our environment, and our economy--were subject to indiscriminate pollution and destruction. Polluters could dump their waste into upstream waters without consequence. In fact, some of you may recall that the Cuyahoga River in Northern Ohio was so polluted that it caught fire in 1969, not far from where I went to college as a Navy ROTC midshipman during the Vietnam war. The memory of that fire remains with me still today. When Congress passed the Clean Water Act, there was no confusion--no confusion or uncertainty--about what it was seeking to protect. At the time, there was broad bipartisan concern over the health of our Nation's waters. There was also consensus that we needed to fix a very real and a very costly problem.…”