Political Quotes

“I appreciate the Senator from California yielding for a question, as I am listening to this debate and hearing from my colleague, the Senator from Michigan, as to the importance of pipeline safety, as we are now debating a very comprehensive bill to give approval for one specific pipeline in this country, which I think is very much an unprecedented type of vote in the Senate. My question is: Why do we not have an opportunity, or would the Senator not agree that we should have an opportunity, to offer amendments? I know I am new to the Senate, but I was informed this would be an open amendment process. My idea of an open amendment process means you can actually offer amendments. It means you can also actually debate amendments. That is an open process, particularly something as important as protecting our Great Lakes, this incredible, immense body of freshwater, one of the largest bodies of freshwater in the world. We have a pipeline that goes through there, above the lakebed, that could potentially be catastrophic if there is a break. As Senator Stabenow mentioned, in Michigan we have already had the most expensive pipeline break in history--4 years of cleanup of Canadian tar sands oil, oil that sinks to the bottom of the river. It is more expensive to clean up--over $1.2 billion in cleanup. So you can imagine if we had a pipeline break in the middle of the Great Lakes.…”