Richard Burr: “I have waited for the merits of why this bill, a bill that puts a gag order on extension agents in this country, is…”

“I have waited for the merits of why this bill, a bill that puts a gag order on extension agents in this country, is good. I have heard about smoking and I have heard about this and I have heard about that, and now we have heard about PAC money and we have heard about influence. We still have not heard any merits on why extension agent gag is an appropriate method. In fact, tobacco is an attractive target these days. The administration is on it. We have got the Durbin-Waxman two shoe again. It is consistent. In due respect to them, they are consistent. They continue to do it. Why do they do it? For the same reason my colleague from Texas was just up here. Because it is profitable for them. Because they do not talk about the money they raise from the people that fight this industry day in and day out. Congress has the jurisdiction on what the legal status of it is. If the American people want it changed, I will assure my colleagues they are a much more powerful lobby than is any single interest group here in Washington or the whole interest groups here in Washington combined. We give the American people the wrong impression when we say that they do not have a voice here. Well, they do have a voice in the Fifth District of North Carolina and they elected me to be here.”