Political Quotes

“I very happily yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), my colleague on the Rules Committee. Mr. McGOVERN. I thank the gentlelady for yielding to me and for her leadership on this issue. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the rule, and I rise in strong support of the underlying bill. And to my friend from Texas who talks about listening to our constituents, let me assure him, I listen to my constituents every week when I go home. And what I hear from them is that they are sick and they are tired of my friends on the other side of the aisle continuing to rise on this floor to be apologists for Big Oil. What my constituents want and I think what the American people want is smart regulation, better safety standards, whistleblower protection. They want to make sure that a repeat of what we just saw in the gulf never happens again. My friend talks about jobs. How many jobs have been lost because of this oil spill? How many fishermen are out of business? How many hotels and restaurants have lost business because of this terrible crisis? You know, this crisis has had such a negative impact on jobs that I can't even begin to quantify. So my friend talks about jobs, it is because of the recklessness and the lack of oversight by the Bush administration that got us here, and we don't want to see this repeated again and again and again. So this is a good bill, and it's a smart bill. If you want to apologize for Big Oil, go right ahead.…”