Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise to join my colleague Senator Hoeven in offering this amendment and urging our colleagues to support the amendment to strip the wind protection tax credit from this massive bill. I feel like I am living in an episode of the ``Twilight Zone,'' and I wish I could say that I am surprised. But I am not, because here we go again. Despite numerous requests and appeals and deals with the leader and the chairman of the Finance Committee to not jam this body with a 13th extension of the wind protection tax credit, here we are with another one in front of us. Since the credit's inception in 1992--and for a lot of those years I was a utility regulator--it has always been promised that it would be temporary and would expire. Last year, we got jammed at the last minute with another extension, and, rightfully, the people back home are really, really upset with us. And it didn't sit very well with me either. That is why, in April of this year, I led a letter to Leader McConnell with colleagues from West Virginia, Wyoming, and Georgia saying it was time to finally level the playing field and get rid of this market-distorting atrocity. In July, I led another letter to Chairman Grassley with even more colleagues--from West Virginia, Wyoming, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania--with the same message: Let this credit expire. Yet here we are again. The requests have fallen on deaf ears, and we have simply been given another pill to swallow with the extension today.…”