Political Quotes

“I understand that shortly we are going to be voting on the Hoeven amendment. The Hoeven amendment would prevent the clean water rule from going into effect. In 1972, Congress passed the Clean Water Act in response to what was happening around this country. We saw rivers literally catch on fire as a result of polluted waterways. We had Lake Erie, which was considered dead. The Chesapeake Bay was one of the world's first marine dead zones. That is nothing to be proud of. The environment and status of our water was a national disgrace, and through congressional leadership, we passed the Clean Water Act. We did that because we understood that the status of upstream water affects the status of downstream water--that we are all in this together. We understood that having clean water was a public health issue, from swimming in the water to the source of our drinking water supplies. One third of our drinking water supplies come from regulated waters. We also understood it was important for our economy. The status of tourism very much depended upon the quality of our water. Literally, people were concerned about going close to some of our inner harbor water areas. The Baltimore Inner Harbor is a tourist attraction, as are the inner harbors of many of our cities. It is important for our economy for agriculture. Agriculture depends upon clean water. We understood that when we passed the Clean Water Act in 1972.…”