Political Quotes

“this administration has made new rules that are the biggest rollback of clean air protections in history. The amendment from me, Senator Lieberman, Senator Jeffords, Senator Reid, Senator Daschle, and others says: Before the administration puts kids with asthma and seniors with respiratory problems at risk, we ought to take at least 6 months to see what effect it is going to have on their health. In other words, what we are saying is let's look before we leap. The amendment from my friend from Oklahoma says exactly the opposite. It says let's leap and then later we will look. What are we going to say when the study that he is proposing is completed if, in fact, it shows what all of us believe it is going to show now, which is that this change will cause pollution, it is going to put kids with asthma at risk, it is going to put senior citizens with serious respiratory problems at risk? What are we going to say to them, those kids who have had asthma attacks, seniors who have had serious heart or respiratory problems as a result of these changes in the rules? In other words, what the Inhofe amendment is suggesting is let's pollute more now, study it, and when we find out we are wrong we will go back and do something about it. The responsible thing to do is to conduct a serious, quantitative analysis so we can determine what impact this will have on kids and what impact it will have on seniors' health before it has the force of law.”