Political Quotes

“First, I would also like to join my colleague in adding to the Congressional Record a list of the majority staff members. I must say in all fairness, while there was cooperation among the members of the committee itself, the cooperation among House and Senate Members was exemplary. I would also note the work of our staff, those good men and women, R and D, House and Senate, over the course of these years cannot be underestimated or underappreciated. The hours, the spirit of comity, the focus on accomplishing things, trying to do good policy, it just cannot be overstated how important all those good folks have been. With that, Mr. Speaker, let me simply close by saying this: no one cares more about agricultural policy, farmers and ranchers, consumers and everyone in the process that takes it from the seed to the plate or the bowl than I do. But I think in good faith I can say my colleague Mr. Peterson cares just as much as I do. The members of our committee care just as much as we do. This bill, done in what I would like to define as regular order through the committee process and the floor and the conference, may not have exactly everything my friends on the right would want or my friends on the left would want, but it represents making the process work, achieving consensus, putting into place policies that are better than what were there before to drive this effort forward.…”