Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, it does not give me pleasure to be here today to say what I am about to say. I am really frustrated. The Energy and Commerce Committee, which I am the ranking member and former chairman of, we worked most of this year on legislation to ban the manufacture, processing, and distribution of asbestos. We found common ground. We worked together. We voted it out of committee by a 47-1 vote. We fully anticipated the work product of the Republicans and Democrats in that committee to be brought to the floor under suspension, as approved by the committee. Sadly, Democrats on Friday night listed the bill, but they had rewritten parts of it without ever consulting with Republicans and tried to cram it through the process. Now, after many days of trying to work this out between us, and we have offered many alternatives to try and accommodate our majority colleagues, they are trying to blame Republicans for this bill not coming to the floor. Well, I will tell you what, bring the bill we passed out of committee to the floor and we will vote for it, and it will pass overwhelmingly. You are the majority party. You just brought a $2.2 trillion bill to the floor; you can bring this one under a rule. Do that. Keep your word. Let's work together and ban asbestos. ____________________”