Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank my friends on the other side as well on the Rules Committee. I have been before them twice now on this topic and have enjoyed it immensely. I might say as a word of encouragement with regard to the hamster wheel, because I share the same concerns, but I am also encouraged by the fact that we are actually passing the Senate bill today. As many times as we have tried to pass this, we have never been able to get it to the President's desk. That will happen soon. That is progress, and I think we ought to celebrate the progress of that. With regard to being the least productive Congress, veto threats before voting on important things sort of leads to gridlock, I suppose. But I don't think that should stop us from doing our job and forwarding the ideas that our constituents have asked for. My constituents want the Keystone XL pipeline built. What we are doing today, as was teed up by the gentleman from Georgia, is, of course, talking about a Senate bill. We passed H.R. 3 when I introduced it the first week in the House, a closed rule, as the gentleman from Florida said, a simple bill. We have passed similar bills in previous Congresses, well vetted. And my colleague from North Dakota, Senator Hoeven, who is really the originator of this whole concept, introduced S. 1. The other reason I think we should be encouraged is not only did the Senate have an open process, they voted on 47--at least 47--amendments.…”