Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the House consideration of the Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act that House Republicans have incorrectly and misleadingly renamed the Zika Vector Control Act. In the 113th Congress, this exact legislation with a bill number of H.R. 935 failed under suspension of the rules 253-148. At the time, Republicans subsequently rescheduled it 2 days later under a closed rule to allow passage. I was a Democratic manager of that bill under consideration in 2014. In fact, since my statement laid out a real substantive concern with the legislation, I include in the Record a copy of my remarks from that time. Mr. Speaker, in the 112th Congress, the Republican leadership moved similar legislation under the guise that, unless Congress acted, the process for applying a pesticide would be so burdensome, that it would grind to a halt an array of agricultural and public health-related activities. Some may say that this may be a bit of hyperbole to describe the impacts of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) pesticide general permit. However, if you were to compare the concern expressed before the agency's draft permit went into effect with the almost non-existent level of concern expressed after almost three years of implementation, you would likely question why we are here this evening debating this bill.…”