Chellie Pingree: “Honestly, I don't even know where to start. I am pretty sure it is about midnight, and this is the United States…”

“Honestly, I don't even know where to start. I am pretty sure it is about midnight, and this is the United States Congress. We are dealing with enormous challenges in the world. We currently have a war going on in Ukraine with Russia, in Israel with the Hamas, and we are trying to face a climate change and so many serious issues, and we are here debating a plastic straw, whether or not plastic straws should be used, whether or not they are the best alternative. I understand it is complicated, what is the best kind of straw to use, a reusable straw, a paper straw, or a plastic straw, and there are issues related to this. Nonetheless, this is because of a mandate to reduce the amount of single-use plastic. I don't know about you, Mr. Chair, but I have an ocean border that is longer than any other ocean border in the United States, and one of the big challenges that we are dealing with right now is an excess amount of plastic in the ocean. We have no good recycling in this country. We have excess amounts of plastics in our landfill, and we have toxics that we are dealing with every day. So reducing our amount of single- use plastic is important. Whether or not it is our job in Congress to decide what kind of straw should be used or exactly how these bans should be implemented, I just don't think it is something that we should be doing at midnight when we have a lot of big problems to deal with.…”