Political Quotes

“I yield myself such time as I may consume. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment that I'm introducing with my colleague, Ms. Gabbard from Hawaii, that would simply restore funding to the fiscal year '13 levels for cleanup and safety in public areas. We take great pride in the United States in our military being the best trained and most powerful fighting force in the world, but decades of military operations and training have left a toxic legacy of dangerous explosives and harmful chemicals on millions of acres in this country. The Department of Defense has an obligation to remediate these dangerous areas, often in public or residential areas, in a timely fashion. This contaminated real estate contains housing, schools, parks, and playgrounds in every State and almost every congressional district in our country. To help the Department of Defense become a better partner for our communities and our constituents, I urge you to join me in supporting funding for a program that will employ skilled, high-tech companies to clean up these dangerous liabilities and create opportunities for economic development on land that is currently a danger. Just last month, at the height of the tourist season, Maryland officials were forced to shut down Assateague Island after a visitor noticed unexploded ordnance, or UXO, had washed ashore. Upon further investigation, they found hundreds of pieces of UXO that were discovered and had to be detonated onsite.…”