Ben Cardin: “let me thank my friend for yielding to me and thank him for bringing this issue before this body. As he pointed out, in…”

“let me thank my friend for yielding to me and thank him for bringing this issue before this body. As he pointed out, in last night's debate, we had a little bit of a discussion about the environment, not enough of a discussion on the environment. There is a clear difference between the Vice President and the Governor on the environmental issues. The Vice President, as the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey) has pointed out, throughout his entire career has been one of the real leaders on sensible environmental policies, policies that not only help preserve our environment but also deal with economic expansion but not at the cost of destroying our woods or our airs. He understands the importance of smart growth. He understands the issues of being sensitive to our environment. I particularly appreciate the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) taking this time. Because when we contrast that to the record of Governor Bush and the State of Texas, which has one of the worst environmental records of any State in this Nation, and the Vice President mentioned some statistics yesterday as related to health care, it is very clear that the State of Texas has been at the bottom of our Nation in providing health benefits for its citizens, but it is also at the bottom of our Nation on its record on environment. They have literally destroyed much of their environment at the cost of trying to do certain types of growth when it was not necessary to do that.”