Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I have listened to some comments from my friends on the other side, and I am just going to share some examples of how section 401 of the Clean Water Act has been weaponized. Some of these I touched on a little earlier, and some of these have yet to be stated, as far as I know. In Oregon, a proposed liquified natural gas pipeline and export terminal, which would have had the capability to liquefy over 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, was blocked by that State. The reason? After giving the project applicants the runaround, Oregon denied the certification, citing incomplete information given to the State. Once again, that was a project that was estimated to have generated up to $100 million in revenue annually, blocked, just like that. Despite FERC finding that the project's plan for environmental mitigation and impact minimization was satisfactory, Oregon denied certification based on reasons outside the scope of the CWA, the Clean Water Act. My second example here comes from a proposed natural gas pipeline's 37-mile extension that New York denied. The project would have added enough additional natural gas per day to meet the needs of approximately 2.3 million homes in a region where demand for natural gas is at an all-time high. Additionally, the project would add an estimated $327.2 million to the region's economy.…”