Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from California for yielding time. I rise in strong support of the Protecting Hunting Heritage and Education Act, which passed unanimously out of the Education and Workforce Committee by a 42-0 vote. This is how Congress is supposed to work. The bill would ensure that archery, hunter safety, culinary, and related outdoor education programs will continue to receive Federal funding through the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, or ESEA. For decades, schools across the country in districts like mine have provided archery and hunter safety education classes with funding provided by the ESEA. These programs get kids off of their phones, out from behind the TV, into the outdoors. They learn focus, physical agility, and a respect for the outdoors. In many districts like mine, people hunt for food. Again, we want to promote gun safety, and, again, hunter training. Unfortunately, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, an important gun violence prevention law that Congress passed last year, contained language that mistakenly cut off the Federal funding from these programs. It was no one's intent. The Federal funding prohibition was not the original intent of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. I was proud to lead a bipartisan letter along with Representative Mike Thompson from California urging support for continued Federal funding for these programs.…”