Political Quotes

“I again appreciate the gentlewoman's courtesy, as I appreciate her leadership on this, and that of my friend, Mr. Olver. There is a difference between flexibility in green building standards and gutting the provision altogether. Having green building standards should not be merely one factor that is considered, as will be proposed by the gentlewoman's amendment later in the game. The manager's amendment provides flexibility and allows the Secretary to deal with compliance. It does not have strict LEED certification, but still retains that environmental green building standard. Frankly, the notion that we just dismiss this as merely one factor to be considered is going to be regarded in the years to come as an embarrassingly shortsighted proposal. As I mentioned earlier in the debate we in Portland used HOPE VI to create an environmentally-sensitive community that actually provided twice as many housing units as had been on the site before, using HOPE VI as an anchor for more investment and as a development model. The provisions that are in the underlying bill and the manager's amendment will provide more environmentally-sensitive construction and, frankly, the costs are going to be recovered in relatively short order, as my friend from Massachusetts pointed out, in savings, not just from energy, but also water and sewer as well. These costs are going up exponentially over time.”