Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the ranking member, for his passion on this matter. I think he is wrong, and I think the entire Senate thinks he is wrong, and I think the majority of this House thinks he is wrong. He is, of course, entitled to his opinion, but I think that the statement that this bill is wrong is not borne out by the facts; it is not borne out by the sentiment, again, of the broader community. If there is a problem with NOAA or any other commissioned officer corps, the way to solve that problem is not to kill the corps itself. The way to solve that problem is not to deprive it of the resources that it needs to fix its problem and to continue its mission. For me to accept the ranking member's argument would be for me to accept that, in fact, NOAA itself is not relevant, and I don't believe that. I believe NOAA is entirely relevant, and it needs to be staffed by people who are incentivized to be recruited, who are incentivized to stay and to want to do their job, and who are recognized as such. This is not about the military, per se. I would disagree with his characterization that the NOAA Corps does not perform a military function. It is certainly quasi-military in many ways, but that is not what this is about. This is about fairly recognizing one of our seven commissioned officer corps organizations in our country. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time. The SPEAKER pro tempore.…”