Political Quotes

“First, Mr. President, I have been told I will have our time that I may use, and I appreciate that very much. This morning we heard from the ranking member--from both sides. I am going to bring up something here that everyone agrees on, and that is with the things we do in our committee--we passed our highway bill, and we passed the TSCA bill. Right now, I wish to talk about the WRDA bill that is coming up. I am on the floor today to express urgency to the often-neglected issues surrounding our Nation's water resources and water infrastructure. In my nearly five decades in elected office, I have watched the impacts of Congress prioritizing and failing to prioritize our Nation's water system. In 1986, Congress enacted the cornerstone WRDA legislation that set cost-share standards and created the harbor maintenance trust fund and the island waterways trust fund. Following this bill, it was intended for Congress to reauthorize WRDA every 2 years. ``WRDA'' means ``Water Resources Development Act.'' When we talk about what happened in 1986, not many people are aware of the fact that my State of Oklahoma is actually navigable. We have an inland waterway. It was our intention at that time to have this bill every 2 years because it is just as significant as the highway bill. But then the trend came to a halt. Between 2007 and 2014, the WRDA bill--Congress went 7 years without a WRDA bill, the Water Resources Development Act. We got back on track 2 years ago.…”