Political Quotes

“I rise also to laud a really significant achievement that we are going to finalize tonight with the final passage of the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act. This much needed bill will provide updates that have been due literally for decades to the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, known as TSCA for short, which has been outdated and overdue for updating since almost that time. Now, getting to where we are tonight, about to pass this by an overwhelming vote, following the 403-to-12 vote in the House a few weeks ago, did not happen overnight. In fact, it took about 5-plus years. In 2011 I started discussions with a broad array of folks, certainly including Senator Lautenberg. That is when I first sat down with Frank and started this process in a meaningful way and when we agreed that we would try to bridge the significant differences between our two viewpoints and come up with a strong bipartisan bill. That same year I also sat down with John Shimkus of Illinois to let him know that Frank and I were going to put in a lot of effort to come up with this framework, and we wanted him to be a full and equal and contributing partner. Over the next year and a half, we slogged through that process of trying to come up with a strong bipartisan bill. It wasn't easy.…”