Political Quotes

“first of all, let me thank my colleague from California, the chair, and all of my colleagues for allowing us to move forward with a very open amendment process. It is not quite as open a process as I would have wanted--namely on the Landrieu amendment because of the objection from my colleague from Pennsylvania. By any Senate standard, this has been a very open amendment process, and that is very healthy. I join the chair in urging all of our colleagues who would like to debate upcoming votes to come to the floor now. The time is between now and 5 p.m. Please come to the floor. I am doing that right now. I want to talk about one of those amendments on which we will vote, the Barrasso amendment, which is about waters of the United States. This is an important issue. John Barrasso and I and many others believe the EPA should not be able to define and expand its regulatory jurisdiction--in this case, we are talking about the Clean Water Act--without undertaking a formal rulemaking process that provides individuals, businesses, and other stakeholders the opportunity to give meaningful input. The Clean Water Act authorizes the EPA to regulate the discharge of pollutants into ``navigable waters.'' Again, that is a very clear term--``navigable waters.'' The act defines ``navigable waters'' as ``the waters of the United States, including the territorial seas.'' The trouble is clearly understanding what constitutes the waters of the United States.…”