Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I appreciate, again, the comments from the ranking member, but I think he is out of step with the majority in this House, given the bipartisan nature of this particular legislation. A couple of quick points to answer some of his objections. First of all, as I mentioned earlier, the Zoological Association of America has withdrawn its opposition to this bill. The Zoological Association of America, contrary to the statement, is not opposed to this bill. Second, he talks about the guidelines by the USDA being sufficient. They are obviously not sufficient when the status quo across this country still has such a tremendous and deleterious impact on animal welfare, as well as presents a continued risk for public safety. As was noted in some of the comments earlier, in fact, we have a patchwork of regulation across this country; whereas, it is time for us to have one uniform standard across this country that would apply everywhere. He complains that this bill is a matter of special interest. I would submit, if the special interests are those special interests that are concerned about the welfare of animals and are concerned about public safety, then those are good special interests to be aligned with. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Case) that the House suspend the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 1380, as amended.…”