Political Quotes

“My colleagues, I rise in rather strong opposition to the measure before us, H.R. 348, the Responsibly and Professionally Invigorating Development Act of 2015, or its nickname, the RAPID Act. H.R. 348 has a number of flaws. I won't try to go into each and every one of them. Most critically, this measure would jeopardize public safety and health by prioritizing project approval over meaningful analysis that is currently required under the National Environmental Policy Act. By giving the proponents of construction projects greater control over the environmental approval process, this bill is the equivalent of giving Wall Street the authority to write its own regulations for financial responsibility. The bill accomplishes this result in several respects. To begin with, under the guise of streamlining the approval process, H.R. 348 forecloses potentially critical input from Federal, State, and local agencies, as well as from members of the public, to comment on environmentally sensitive construction projects that are federally funded or that require Federal approval. The bill also imposes hard and fast deadlines that may be unrealistic under certain circumstances. Moreover, if an agency fails to meet these unrealistic deadlines, the bill simply declares that a project must be deemed approved regardless of whether the agency has thoroughly assessed the task. This is an embarrassment, my friends. As a result, H.R.…”