Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Our job is ordered by the Constitution of the United States to conduct oversight on these conditions that will kill people.

The Supreme Court has ruled that ongoing litigation is not a reason to resist that answer.

This policy will murder her.

For reasons that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said, the litigation is irrelevant to the statement of a fact.

This is a threat to even the rule of law when it comes to U.S. immigration policy.

I think it's important that we acknowledge here that we are getting open resistance that are citing illegitimate legal grounds.

There has been a lot of chaos caused by this policy change, and the administration, because they did not advise Congress ahead of time on how this would be enforced or what would happen, there are a lot of outstanding questions.

The Supreme Court has determined it, that ongoing litigation is not grounds to resist an answer to a congressional inquiry.

The Supreme Court has ruled several times that ongoing litigation is not valid grounds for resisting an answer to congressional questions.

I think it sounds fair. I think it'd be good for us to come together and at least provide some certainty for the lives of these folks.

This is a cruel policy change, and this fits a pattern that we have been seeing over and over again before this committee of a culture and an of policies specifically almost animated by cruelty.

I would like to apologize to you on behalf of the United States of America for the dehumanizing policies that they are pursuing to--that are, frankly, targeting you and targeting many people in the United States.

I'd also like to apologize to you both for the behavior of some of the members of this committee where they are speaking in profoundly dehumanizing terms to you, and you don't deserve that.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I would like to thank my colleague Ayanna Pressley and Mr. DeSaulnier for your work also in organizing this hearing and a critically important issue at this time.

It's Congress' fault, congressional Democrats.

And if that's the case, why is 3M taking a position of denying the scientific findings of its own scientists?

I want to spend some time here discussing some of 3M's current tactics when it comes to accepting responsibility for PFAS.

Do you agree with this statement?

In the lobbying materials by the coalition, it states, and I quote, the weight of current scientific evidence does not show that PFOS or PFOA cause adverse health effects in humans at current rates of exposure.

I would like to enter into the record a presentation by the Responsible Science Policy Coalition dated July 24th, 2018.

Why is 3M taking a position of denying the scientific findings of its own scientists?

Thank you for holding this hearing and ensuring that we don't let this go until we get some real answers on this issue.

This committee has heard stories of families whose babies have had their brains damaged for their entire lives by PFAS chemicals.

There is no other word for it but shameful.

We in Congress have not done enough to mitigate these fires for the future.