Political Quotes

“there are four Senators on the floor who are each going to take about 5 minutes or so as we try--the leadership is now working to make it possible for us to have a unanimous consent request so that we can have a vote on the helium legislation after the respective caucus lunches. So as of now we all will take, the four of us involved--Senator Murkowski, Senator Barrasso, Senator Cruz--about 5 minutes. We hope to be able to propound the unanimous consent request as we all talk. We want all Senators to know that we hope to be able to vote on the legislation shortly after lunch. We know that in Washington, DC, it is almost as if there is an inexhaustible capacity to manufacture false crises. I am here to say that if Congress does not act immediately to pass the legislation we are discussing, scores of American manufacturing and technology companies employing millions of American workers are going to find it impossible to continue their current operations. That is because without this legislation, those workers and companies would no longer be able to get access to helium, which is a critical industrial gas without which these companies cannot operate. Every week in our country there are 700,000 MRI scans performed. Without liquid helium, which is used to cool these superconducting magnets, without which you cannot run MRIs--if you did not have that capacity, millions of Americans would lose access to a critical diagnostic test.…”