Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I look at the nutria, and I have to disagree with my friend from California. I feel like I see swamp rats on the floor all the time. But I do appreciate him bringing the actual species here to help folks understand what it is that we deal with. Madam Speaker, I have come on this House floor many times to describe the coastal challenges that we have in Louisiana. We have lost 2,800 square miles of our coast. And I remind my colleagues that if the State of Rhode Island lost 2,800 square miles of their coast, we would have 49 States today. Nutria is part of the problem. It is an invasive species. The population in my home State is nearly 4.5 million people, yet we have an estimated 20 million nutria. It is an extraordinary figure. If we could count them in the Census, we would have an additional 27 Members of Congress. We are having infestation without representation, and we need to do something about it. In Louisiana, we have a thing where if you can't beat it, you eat it. So, we have even tried. We have tried to do nutria fajitas. We have tried to fry it. We have tried everything. It is not my favorite, Madam Speaker, but this really is a huge problem. Very seriously, we have 20 million nutria, and they cause the destruction and damage of tens of thousands of acres of our coastal wetlands every single year. As my friends Mr. McClintock and Mr.…”