Ed Whitfield: “We all recognize that in this country we recently had a national election. We have a lot of new Members of the House of…”

“We all recognize that in this country we recently had a national election. We have a lot of new Members of the House of Representatives. We have new United States Senators. President Obama and Vice President Biden are back in their offices. We've had new officeholders elected in many State and local communities as well. And while we have a lot of change in the elected offices, we all know that a big part of government relates to what we would refer to as the executive branch. And that means various departments of government and agencies within those departments of government. And those people work very hard. They're committed to the American people. They're not elected. And many times we do not even know who they are. Now today, I want to raise an issue that is vitally important to all of the American people because on or about December 10 the levels of water on the Mississippi River are going to be so shallow between St. Louis, Missouri, and Cairo, Illinois, and then, on top of that, because of rock pinnacles near Grand Tower and Thebes, Illinois, that river traffic may come to a halt on the Mississippi River. And that means there's going to be millions of tons of commodities that are not going to be able to be transported north and south on that river. Of course, that affects not only the recipients of those commodities and the shippers of those commodities but indirectly people who mine, make, manufacture, supply those commodities.…”