Political Quotes

“I just want to make note that I do appreciate my friend from Oregon's comments, and I appreciate his sensitivity to timelines. But that is what this amendment addresses: timelines. In many cases, our local government simply cannot continue to carry these debts and not get reimbursed. In regard to the amount of money, perhaps $100,000 is not a lot of money to the city of Portland, but I am going to guess to the city of Coos Bay it may be important. In regard to the details of the amendment, Mr. Chairman, I am from Louisiana. If the gentleman from Oregon can help us make this even better, then I would be happy to work with him on that. But I think this is very, very important. Access to due process is important. The existing process does not allow supplemental material to be considered to respond to concerns that were raised by agency officials. This is a good model. It has proven effective in the past, and I urge its adoption. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time. Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the remainder of my time. I will say to the gentleman that my staff tells me they did contact his staff, they did express concerns. They said: Thank you for your concerns. And then, next thing we knew, the amendments were filed. And then she still said: We'd be happy to work with you. And we get no response. I think there may be kind of a staff issue going on here.…”