Political Quotes

“Madam President, I am pleased to join Chairman Murray as we begin floor consideration of the fiscal year 2014 appropriations bill for the Department of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and related agencies. This return to regular order in which appropriations bills are considered individually, with the opportunity for full debate and for Members to come to the floor and offer their amendments, is welcome indeed. Like Senator Murray, I wish to commend the two leaders of our Appropriations Committee--Senator Mikulski, the chair, and Senator Shelby, the ranking member--for their commitment to returning to regular order. We simply must stop the irresponsible practice of waiting until the eleventh hour and then producing a bundled bill totaling thousands of pages with little or no opportunity for truly careful deliberation and debate. I wish to thank our subcommittee chairman for working very closely with me to craft this bipartisan bill. She has been a tremendous leader of our subcommittee and has operated in a way that has been completely bipartisan. This bill makes responsible investments in transportation and economic development and includes input and priorities from Members from both sides of the aisle. We listened to the concerns of our Members, and the bill was approved by a bipartisan vote of 22 to 8 in committee. The fact is that the transportation and housing appropriations bill has a long tradition of bipartisan support.…”