Sanford Bishop: “Again, I think that this is an amendment that is ill-conceived. I think it will do great harm, and I think it is not…”

“Again, I think that this is an amendment that is ill-conceived. I think it will do great harm, and I think it is not timely. I agree with the gentleman that the authorizing committee has great expertise. We have taken a lot of time to vet this program, and I think for us to come tonight willy-nilly and do it is very, very ill advised. Nineteen years ago when I came to this body I was on the authorizing committee, on the Agriculture Committee, and the chairman of the committee at that time was a gentleman by the name of Kika de la Garza. Mr. de la Garza was fond of telling us one of his life experiences, and that was his submarine story. He said that all of his life, from the time he was a little boy, even though he grew up in the rural areas in Texas on the farm, that he wanted to ride on a submarine. He always was just enamored with submarines. Finally, after he came to Congress and after he became the chairman of a committee, he had an opportunity to go out on one of our nuclear submarines. Of course, as the guest, he was allowed to take the wheel and to submerge the submarine, to get it up, to play with the periscope, and he was just really, really amazed at how impressive that nuclear submarine was. So he turned to the captain and he asked the captain, he said, Captain, how long can this nuclear submarine stay underwater without coming up? It is so fine, we have spent so much money and it is an excellent machine. The captain looked at him and said, Mr.…”