Political Quotes

“Thank you for yielding. Mr. Speaker and my colleagues, let's just set the record straight. The other side says that this wasn't a bipartisan process. First of all, the first hearing was held in the ranking Democrat member's hometown and district in West Virginia. We went from sea to shining sea, all the way to Los Angeles, in order to accommodate a bicameral, unprecedented bipartisan hearing in Los Angeles. Again, the comments that are made here do not reflect the reality. In the committee, we took 100 Democrat amendments, and we accepted about 20 of them. In addition to when we drafted the legislation, 60 percent of the recommendations of the Democrats were in the draft that came before the committee. Yet there is this stuff about it not being bipartisan. Then the Republicans can't get it done. These are the people who cannot get it done. They controlled the House; they controlled the Senate; they controlled the White House during this entire process. They couldn't even get it to committee. They could not get the bill to committee. It passed a subcommittee. So we have passed it. They've made bipartisanship in this committee a one-way street, and it wasn't that way before. They will close down major projects across this country if we don't pass this extension. Why are we here for this extension for 90 days? Because we offered 90 days to begin with, and they said, No, we won't do 90 days because we want to keep things stirred up. So we said, Well, what do you want?…”