Political Quotes

“I appreciate the opportunity to present this amendment that deals with the Corps of Engineers' new program that was put in place 2 years ago, specifically in the New Orleans district, called the Modified Charleston Method. The Corps changed the usual and normal method for mitigation. On any kind of mitigation that's done on wetlands throughout the country, you have to mitigate if you are going to do development. Everybody understands that. Everybody has worked with that over the years. Two years ago, the Corps changed, specifically for the New Orleans district, that process and literally put in place a process that has made it very unworkable to do a lot of our flood protection projects and economic development projects. This amendment, by the way, is identical to language that we passed in the same appropriations bill last year, so the House has already gone on record saying that this is an unworkable plan by the Corps of Engineers. This new MCM method, as it is being referred to, has literally shut down many flood protection projects and economic development projects in south Louisiana. What we have been saying to the Corps of Engineers is let's work together on putting reasonable rules in place. This rule is unworkable, so much so that the Corps didn't even use these rules when they were doing their own projects.…”