Cory Booker

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Sullivan, on the topic of fishery and data collection, I have a real big New Jersey specific concern.

I also have an issue that has been important to me for some time, which is the issue of bycatch.

I do not support something that does not have the government as a stakeholder.

I rise today with a very heavy heart because of the horrific tragedy that occurred and is still unfolding right now. Late last evening, an Amtrak train, train No. 188--a train I myself have traveled on--carrying 243 passengers and crew…

I think it is really important to have strategies that create an atmosphere in which those organic voices can emerge without being delegitimized by the U.S. Government.

We need to compete at the speed of social media.

I want to thank the panel so much for being here today, and your written testimony was so strong.

If we have an inadequate response to that, it is very frustrating.

I think you are speaking not only a truth but you are speaking an urgent truth.

And, Mr. Bergen, I have very little time left, but when I was mayor of Newark, we saw that the mentions of our city were incredibly negative, and we set out on social media to change that.

You would agree that listing and delisting decisions should be made by experts, scientists, not by Congress?

We are now in the next major mass global planetary extinction. And that is unacceptable.

You would agree that listing and delisting decisions are best made by science and the available science there is, right?

I thank you, Chairman Inhofe and Ranking Member Boxer, for giving me a chance to talk about my Refuge Cruel Trapping Act, which would ban the use of body-gripping traps in the national wildlife refuge system.

These decisions should be made based on science by the agency, not by all the political forces that often work.

President Nixon said there is nothing more priceless and more worthy of preservation than the rich animal array of life with which our Country has been blessed.

The more resources you have, the more delisting you could probably do.

I hope we will all work together on that bill.

That is the point I want to go a little further with.

States really need flexibility to meet the unique conditions that we find in each of our states.

As I suspected, and saw in your written testimonies, everybody on the panel echoed the urgency of the moment.

There is no Democratic or Republican way to fill a pothole.

This is no way to run a country. In fact, if this was America, Inc.

I am proud to join Senator Gillibrand in support of the introduction of the Voter Registration Modernization Act of 2015. This bill would improve the fabric of our democracy and bring our election procedures into the 21st century by…

It will never be enough to bring the system to a state of good repair, never mind achieve the growth that we need economically.