Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Gibbs) and also the ranking member of the full committee, the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall), for their leadership on this issue. I am pleased to be a sponsor of this legislation. I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 2018. We call this the Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011. It is, indeed, a bipartisan effort. It has broad support from both Republicans and Democrats. It is a measure to restore some balance between the EPA, our Federal regulatory body that oversees the Clean Water Act, and our States, which are responsible for implementation of some of the important work that ensures that we have clean water. {time} 1440 Now, I know there is no one that wants to in any way degrade the quality of clean water, that wants to lower standards for emissions, you know, that is not a good steward of our environment. But there is no question that the action that we've seen from EPA has unleashed an unprecedented backlash. Everyone has called this a huge power grab by EPA. And EPA has indeed created a regulatory nightmare that affects almost every State in the Union. Our goal here is to assure that the Federal Government sets standards and that we do have a proper role for implementing the Clean Water Act. And once States have taken action, have their plans approved, that there can be some sense of reliability and stability in the decision that EPA has concurred with.…”