Political Quotes

“Mr. President, yesterday 41 Senators refused to have a substantive debate on an issue that is critically important to all of our constituents--the scope of Federal authority under the Clean Water Act--and voted against a motion to proceed to Senator Barrasso's bipartisan Federal Water Quality Protection Act, S. 1140. Later in the day I was extremely disappointed to learn that 11 of those 41 Senators agreed that the EPA's rule is flawed, but instead of doing their job to provide legislative clarity to the EPA on the regulation of our Nation's waters, they wrote a letter. In this letter they told the EPA that they have concerns with the rule, but instead of acting now they reserve the right to do their jobs simply at a later time. If only 3--only 3--of these 11 Senators who signed this letter would have voted to proceed to the bill, we could have worked with them to resolve their concerns and ours about the WOTUS rule disapproval. As Senator Sasse so eloquently reminded us yesterday in his maiden speech, what are we here for if not to have a substantive debate on issues? No wonder the American people think Congress is not looking out for their interests. Instead of doing their jobs, 11 Senators asked the EPA to change the final rule through guidance. That can't happen. EPA can't do that. That would be a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, and I think most of us know that.…”