Political Quotes

“First of all, I want to thank Ranking Member Rahall for this time. I also thank him for his work on this legislation and for his decades of service to our great Nation. He will be sorely missed in the Transportation Committee and, indeed, in the Congress. I also want to thank Chairman Shuster, Chairman Hunter, and Ranking Member Garamendi for all of their hard work on this legislation. I rise today in support of this measure, H.R. 5769, the Howard Coble Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 2014. And it is interesting that Mr. Coble just got up to make sure that he thanked everybody, but I want to thank him. When I served as the chairman of the subcommittee, he was one of my staunchest supporters. He was the epitome of bipartisanship. He always made it clear that the Coast Guard was sometimes not put on the front burner, was on the back burner, and he wanted to make sure that they were on the front burner, and I want to thank him for this. This is so very, very significant, and I want to thank him for his friendship over the many years. This measure includes critical provisions strengthening the Department of Transportation's, DOT, authority to enforce cargo preference requirements to ensure that government-impelled cargoes are carried on U.S.-flagged vessels. Section 321 of this legislation clarifies that the DOT has exclusive authority to determine whether a government-impelled cargo is subject to these requirements.…”