Political Quotes

“Thank you so much for yielding again. The question has been brought up to try to shift the responsibility for, again, the possibility of the other body's not acting here to the question of the Republicans not appointing conferees. I might point out just for the record that in the 110th Congress-- this is for an entire 2 years--the Senate never passed an FAA reauthorization bill, so we never even got to preconference. We never got to the issue. So they never appointed conferees. There was a bill passed. And, again, huge majorities on both sides. In the 111th Congress, the House and Senate passed FAA reauthorizations and preconferenced for 5 months without naming conferees. They never named any conferees. This process of preconferencing is part of the bipartisan nature of our committee and our work and bicameral discussions. As I said, they've been excellent. The staff has been working well. These aren't new issues. The other side controlled the process for some 4 years. The bills have been out there for some time. I have the commitment from the leadership, when we are ready to go and having resolved most of the issues, and, again, there are only a couple and everyone knows what they are, I think that they can fall in place.…”