Gerry Studds: “For those who think that the only true reflection of this House is some of the partisan fire that preceded this debate a…”

“For those who think that the only true reflection of this House is some of the partisan fire that preceded this debate a few moments ago, I would ask them to reflect on what is transpiring now. This is the House at its best. This is substantive, nonpartisan legislating about things that matter, where people who have been colleagues and friends for many, many years come together to do things that we are all here to do. The gentleman from Alaska [Mr. Young], I know what he meant when he said there are so many Republican projects and so many Democrat projects in this bill. What he meant, I know, is that this has been approached in an utterly bipartisan fashion. I do not know a project in this bill that can be characterized frankly as a Republican or Democrat project. I know the many projects in Alaska. I know the Boston Harbor islands in my own State to which the gentleman referred. There are 31 islands there, and so far as I know none of them has a partisan registration affiliated with it. What we do here speaks to history, speaks to culture, speaks to aesthetics and speaks the environment; speaks to everything that is best in this House.”