Political Quotes

“My amendment would strike $13 million in nonemergency funding for the National Weather Service's ground readiness project. This funding, found in the Frelinghuysen amendment, is for work that is already underway as part of a yet unfinished state-of-the-art weather satellite system. It is my understanding that this particular amount is meant to speed up the preparations needed to get ready for data that will come from these new weather satellites, which are set to be launched 2 to 5 years from now. Madam Chairman, our hearts go out to the victims that are suffering from the devastation from Hurricane Sandy. However, in the wake of large storms like this, government's knee-jerk reaction is often to throw money at forecasting or storm modeling in order to prevent widespread damage in the future. Unfortunately, even with the best imaginable forecasting systems, we would not have been able to prevent the structural damages which resulted from this particular storm. Yet here we are debating funding for a project due to go online years from now in an emergency supplemental bill, which is meant to provide aid to those who are still suffering in the wake of Sandy. For fiscal year 2013, the National Weather Service received a total of $991 million. That's $20 million over their initial request.…”