John Bel Edwards: “Despite all of the good efforts, and they have been good efforts, of the gentleman from Alabama (Chairman Callahan), the…”

“Despite all of the good efforts, and they have been good efforts, of the gentleman from Alabama (Chairman Callahan), the bottom line is this: despite the tragedy of September 11, this Congress, without passing the Obey amendment today, will have cut funding for the primary programs intended to keep nuclear materials in Russia from getting into the hands of terrorists and killing 2 million innocent men, women, and children here in America. We can do better than that. My hope is with the bipartisan leadership of this House, we will do better. We ought to do better in this bill by passing the Obey amendment. I certainly hope we will do better in conference committee and adequately fund these important programs that our Department of Energy has said should be funded now.”