Political Quotes

“Madam President, I am on the Senate floor today to talk about the protection and restoration of the Gulf Coast, an issue extremely important to those I serve in Louisiana in the Gulf Coast, but important to the rest of the Nation, whether the rest of the Nation knows it or not. I will explain why that is. In the coming days, the Senate will vote on whether or not to pass the Great American Outdoors Act. This bill dedicates funding over 5 years towards deferred maintenance. We have spoken about it at length. It adds an additional $900 million to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, an amount which is already authorized but never funded. This would make it mandatory that it is funded. Many will say that this is a good thing or even a great thing. I will tell you, for Louisiana, for the Gulf Coast, and for a lot of other States, this is not a great thing in its current form. In fact, I will show how this bill currently benefits only certain States at the expense of others. First, it is almost entirely funded with money from the Gulf of Mexico oil and gas production. So 50 to 60 percent of the dollars go to five States. So we are going to put up about $9.5 billion, and 50 to 60 percent of it goes to five States. Needless to say, that lacks equity. I would argue that we can make this bill better in terms of benefiting many more Americans than it currently does. First, let's speak about where the revenue comes from.…”