Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), my friend, the ranking member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member of the subcommittee for yielding. He has already explained in detail what is important about this legislation: the first reauthorization since the creation of the agency, the streamlining of rate dispute processes, the potential of arbitration in the future, and enlarging the Board so they can be more facile in terms of making decisions without violating public meetings laws. All those things are very important. I am just going to add a little bit of what this means to me kind of stuff for anybody who might be interested. When I was a relatively junior Member of Congress--I think I am probably the only Member of Congress who has testified twice before the Surface Transportation Board--we had a huge crisis in the West--I think it was after the UP-SP merger--where my Christmas tree growers couldn't get railcars. So I famously made the ``How the Grinch Stole Christmas'' presentation to the Surface Transportation Board. We did, not too long thereafter, get some railcars delivered and got those trees to families all across the Western United States. That was important to an important little industry that we have in Oregon. More importantly, I went to the Surface Transportation Board again.…”