Political Quotes

“my congratulations to us and to the American people for having had the professional service of these two gentlemen who are leading this bill, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Myers] and the gentleman from Alabama [Mr. Bevill], who both have served 30 years each. Three decades they have given to our country in a very professional committed manner, demonstrating that civility is here and does have a place in the legislative process. Now commenting on the bill, Mr. Chairman: Within the energy and water development appropriations bill, the Congress must ensure that we equip the Department of Energy to effectively meet our present and future energy needs. While the bill before us funds many critical programs, it would restrict the Department of Energy's ability to perform its mission by including a 30 percent reduction in the Department of Energy's departmental administration overall funding. DOE's departmental administration salary and expenses budget is reduced by more than 20 percent, a reduction of over $50 million in fiscal year 1997, and instead of allowing DOE to reallocate their reduced resources as they deem appropriate, it reduces DOE's departmental administration staff of 1,500 FTE's as full-time equivalents by another 500 FTE's, a cut of over one-third of their staff, and sets specific FTE targets for each office. So there is no flexibility for the right decisionmaking.…”