Political Quotes

“Mr. President, with all due respect to my friend from Mississippi, I don't consider this a friendly amendment. I consider this a major departure from the agreed-upon structure of this broadband section of the bill that we are talking about. This, as we all know, was a heavily negotiated bill. There are provisions in it that I don't like. There are provisions in it that I wish were there that aren't there because of the negotiation. This provision, which appears innocent, to reinsert the Administrative Procedure Act into this process would bureaucratize the process, slow it down, and would not assist in the process. Here are some points that I think need to be made: The first is I consider the broadband section one of the crown jewels of this entire bill. And the fact that it is structured in such a way that the grants will go to the States and the States will decide how best to administer those programs because of their knowledge of their needs in their States--yes, they are going to use maps--updated maps, I should say--from the FCC, but this is, really, a State-driven process. The Administrative Procedure Act is principally a regulatory process, and we are not talking about a regulatory process here. We are not talking about the issuance of a lot of long and detailed regulations. We are talking about a grant program to States, and so the burdensome administrative requirements of the APA are really not necessary in this case because it is not a regulatory process.…”