Political Quotes

“Madam Chair, I rise today in opposition to the two bills before the House, H.R. 2250 and H.R. 2681. There is an old saying, ``The people have spoken.'' The people spoke clearly back in 1990. They said, We want cleaner air and healthier communities. So President George H.W. Bush proposed changes to strengthen the Clean Air Act. The legislation to carry out these changes was introduced by a coalition of 22 Senators from both sides of the aisle, Democrats and Republicans. Then, after an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote of 401-25 in the House and 89-10 in the Senate, the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 were signed into law. That was 21 years ago that these updates to the Clean Air Act were enacted. The law required acid rain, urban air pollution, and toxic air emissions to be combated by reducing the release of 189 poisonous pollutants. The deadline for implementing these changes was the year 2000. Eleven years later, the people of Hawaii and the United States are asking for the certainty that they were promised, the certainty that by 2000 their air, our air, would be on the path to being cleaner. We have heard the arguments against these regulations before: They are too expensive; they will kill jobs. We have heard the same arguments for years. However, since the passage of the Clean Air Act 40 years ago, our Nation's economy has grown 200 percent.…”