John Kerry

The question of Iran's relationship with its neighbors and with the world is much on everybody's mind.

You guys are the protectors of our democracy. You are the protectors of the viability of thought and communication.

I thank my friend from Oregon. Nobody works harder on building coalitions than the Senator from Oregon. He has done a superb job on health care and tax policy, so those words mean a lot. I appreciate that. Thank you.

It is very important to all Salvadoran-Americans to know that the United States reaffirms its long-standing commitments.

Mr. Chairman, thank you. I didn't realize you were going to put me ahead of yourself.

Thank you for taking the time to read this statement by the Associated Fisheries of Maine on the subject of the current state of the Massachusetts groundfish industry.

We need good science to fight what we think is not good science, and that means adequate funding for SMAST.

I have to say that I'm very proud--when we were still allowed to earmark, I will confess that SMAST was very high on my list of earmarks, and I think that that was helpful.

I know we can do a better job, because as a matter of common sense, we can find the sweet spot between preservation and protection and the right to fish.

I think the fishermen who are here, the ones who are struggling and fighting in that small business category... isn't automatically a natural environmentalist.

There are hundreds of millions of dollars a year, to summarize, that would be available to the economy, but they aren't because of fishery management.

We have to incorporate common sense here.

There are only two regulatory agencies I can think of that have a genuinely sort of hostile attitude toward the people under their control.

Most Federal agencies are somewhat advocates of the people in their name.

I mean, that's why we now control over 50-plus percent of the market of this country, because sustainability--

We will do everything in our power to move to that as fast as we conceivably can.

You have to preserve the stocks, correct?

We don't have adequate science. We can't do this on a two and three-year basis.

Well, that's Washington, folks.

So, in effect, what we've really got to do is we've got to look at the functionality of the Council itself.

Do some of those eight guideline laws need to be changed?

Well, how do we make it work is the question everybody's asking.

Is it fair to say that sometimes the competing interests actually prevented things from getting done?

We created eight regional fisheries councils to manage the living marine resources within that area.

It's pretty democratic, folks. It's one of the most democratic regulatory regimes we have in America.