Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman and my colleagues, I have been married for 38 years. I have a wonderful wife. I fell in love with her almost at first sight. We have been together for three, almost four decades. Probably the one I spend the most time with other than my wife is Mr. Oberstar in my work on the committee. We have been together on the committee for my 18 years. He has been there for 32, a lot longer. Now, with my wife from time to time I do have disagreements, like just about every day on some issue. This happens to also be with Mr. Oberstar sort of like that marital relation, that I would disagree both with my good friend and colleague Mr. Oberstar and also my colleague from Michigan. I think that on this, this isn't worth burning the house over, and I think the gentleman is offering an amendment that is well intended, and he has a sincere interest in protecting freshwater estuaries. A definition was cited about freshwater estuaries. And yes, there are probably thousands, maybe millions of freshwater estuaries. That is the whole point here is we are expanding a limited definition of marine estuaries that have saltwater. And one of the justifications for this whole program at the Federal level is the sea does encompass the entire perimeter of our coastal areas, particularly Florida, which we have some of the biggest coastline. We have many places where fresh and saltwater mix. And that is the importance of this particularly important but very small Federal program.…”