Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Utah (Ms. Maloy) and the gentlewoman from Alaska (Mrs. Peltola) for coming together on this important bipartisan legislation. Mr. Speaker, the reality is that there are abandoned mines all over the United States. There are very few in Louisiana because you hit water when you go subsurface in most cases, but we do have some mines in the northern part of the State. The reason I am excited about this legislation is because it incentivizes the right type of behavior. Mr. Speaker, my colleagues need to think about the two alternatives here. One alternative is that these abandoned mines and the environmental risks that they pose are left unadulterated. They would be left behind with the risk and the threat. The other is you allow the work of a Good Samaritan, someone who wants to come in to help carry out remediation efforts. This can't be someone that created the mine. It can't be someone who is a PRP or otherwise has liability associated with the mine. They are folks who want to come in to eliminate the risk, to reduce the risk, and to clean things up. This is exactly the type of behavior that we should be incentivizing. This is exactly what we should be doing. In fact, I would love to see us actually expand this into areas like coastal Louisiana, where we have lost 2,000 square miles of our coast, incentivizing Good Samaritans to come in to carry out remediation efforts or restoration efforts. Mr.…”