Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I appreciate that. This is a bill that has been on the President's desk. It passed the Senate, which means that 60 Senators were supportive of this rule not being able to go forward in its current status. The President vetoed the bill. This would be a time for the Congress to stand up. If you didn't have any other interest in this fight, it is the time for the Congress to stand up and say: If you are going to change the law, the only way to change the law is for the Congress to change the law. The President appears to be willing to discover all sorts of ways that can't be found in the Constitution to change the law. But even if you were on the other side of this issue, even if you want to come to the floor of the Senate and vigorously argue that the EPA needs the jurisdiction of all the water in the country, as a Member of the Senate, the Senate should do that, the House should do that, and the Constitution should work. Senator Barrasso, it is clearly not working here. ``Navigable waters'' has been used in Federal law since about 1846, and until the last couple of years when the EPA asserted differently, everybody always thought they knew what that meant. If you could move something on it, navigate it, then the Constitution says the Federal Government has the obligation for interstate commerce. So debating how much of the Missouri River, as Senator Hoeven brought up, is navigable is a constitutional debate to have because it is a commerce issue.…”