Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, I couldn't agree with Congressman Griffith more about the necessity of transitioning communities. When I look back to the 1990s when something called NAFTA passed--the North American Free Trade Agreement--we were promised that there would be a North American development bank and that any community that was harmed in the South or the North would be helped. The Federal Government never kept its word. It never kept its word. Go try to find that North American development bank today and we look at hollowed-out communities across this country. If we look at the coal communities in--and Ohio has a lot of coal. We actually have more Btus under the ground between Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, all the way to Illinois, than the Middle East has oil. It is just a little bit harder. So we look at these communities that have been so devastated, and the Federal Government kind of sat on the side. Yes, we had the Appalachian Regional Commission terribly underfunded without the kind of bonding and development authority that should exist. I look at the steel communities that I represent. People in my district are getting pink slips every day at our big steel companies because of imported steel, and the Federal Government sits on its hand here at the Federal level in the International Trade Commission and the National Economic office over at the National Security Council. It upsets me a great deal that we haven't been able to help communities so impacted.…”