Political Quotes

“Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will then just conclude this discussion on the river and not address any other subject matter. We have not, as a Congress, looked at this Missouri River issue. It's a natural disaster that has been, to some degree, mitigated by the Corps of Engineers. Some of those decisions were awfully tough on a lot of people, and I believe we have an obligation to manage this river system, to protect us from serious downstream flooding, to set that priority and to set the levels, not at 16.3 million acre-feet anymore, that was 1881, but to increase those million acre-feet, not all that much, but enough to protect us from that serious downstream flooding. If the Members of Congress that represent those areas come together unanimously, we can move a piece of legislation through this Congress, and I would think we could do it under suspension. It's a no-cost piece of legislation. It is a commonsense piece of legislation. It really isn't all that tricky, although we went through all 450 pages of the master manual, and it was hard to write; but now it's a pretty simple solution to a complex problem. I would urge my colleagues to take a look. I would thank all of those involved for their public statements last night in Omaha and all the meetings that will be taking place up and down the river. I thank the Corps of Engineers for their cooperation in getting me accurate data to work with.…”