Political Quotes

“Madam President, I rise to speak about Vitter amendment No. 3458. I hope, by the time I wrap up, the Members leading the discussion on this bill will be prepared to make the bill pending so I may also make my amendment pending. This amendment is real simple. It is about the Coastal Impact Assistance Program, CIAP, which was established in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. This program is very important for energy-producing States. It takes some revenue from that energy production and leaves it in those States to deal with the impacts of energy production. The problem is, that funding was supposed to be distributed to these States from 2007 to 2010. The entirety of it was supposed to be distributed by and through this year. But that has not been happening at all because MMS has added an additional bureaucratic layer to getting funding out beyond that which was talked about and established in the statute. My amendment is simple. It would get rid of that bureaucratic layer. It would still retain oversight. It would still retain all the protections of the statute, but it would streamline the process so this funding actually gets out to the States as intended. It is way behind. Rather than 100 percent being distributed to the States by this year, they have only distributed 15 percent. Obviously, we are way behind the 8 ball. We would accelerate that. Because this funding has already been allocated, this amendment does not cost anything, does not score.…”