Political Quotes

“this second part of the 9/11 Commission recommendations is winding down. I know there has been a lot of hurt feelings today: You took too much from my committee; you are not giving enough to my committee. People are very protective of what they have around here and what they fear they might lose. I have been chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee on two separate occasions, and transferred from the Environment and Public Works Committee today was a very important aspect of the Public Works Committee, FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Administration. I only indicate that because when the dust settles, we will find that we have created a much more powerful Intelligence Committee, a much more powerful intelligence apparatus, and we will find that the homeland security committee, which we have created, merged with the Governmental Affairs Committee, is going to be one of the most powerful committees in the Congress of the United States. As I said, there are a lot of hurt feelings. This has been very difficult for Senator McConnell and I. We did not run for this assignment to manage this bill, but this is part of the responsibilities we have, and we have done the very best we can. I hope tomorrow people will sit back and rather than lamenting what they did not get or what they felt they should get, they will understand what we are doing. This is part of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.”