Political Quotes

“The amendment at the desk is consistent with the streamlining effort that has already been underway in this bill. I want to thank Chairman Shuster and Ranking Member DeFazio because they have put in yeoman's work to make this a bipartisan effort. Ultimately, my amendment will reduce the overall cost of projects and the need for mitigation. If implemented, it will save money. As we know all too well, highway storm water is a growing threat to water quality, aquatic ecosystems, and the fish and wildlife that depend on the health of these ecosystems. Moreover, the high volumes and rapid flow of storm water runoff from highways and roads poses a serious threat to the condition of our Nation's water and transportation infrastructure. Impervious surfaces create rapidly moving high volumes of untreated polluted storm water that rush off road surfaces, erode unnatural channels next to and ultimately underneath roadways compromising the integrity of roadway infrastructure, and increase the stress on storm water sewer systems, shortening the life of all of this infrastructure. The total coverage of impervious surfaces in an area is usually expressed as a percentage of the total land area. According to the Chesapeake Bay program, impervious surfaces compose roughly 17 percent of all urban and suburban lands in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.…”