Political Quotes

“I rise to speak tonight about the Miners Protection Act. First, I commend and salute the work that has been done in this Chamber. I especially highlight the Senators on the Democratic side who have been working. I know this will not cover everyone, but I thank Senator Manchin, the senior Senator from West Virginia, Senator Brown of Ohio, Senator Warner of Virginia, and others, including the Democratic leadership, for working on this. I know we have bipartisan support on this issue. I thank our Republican colleagues who have worked on this. Unfortunately, just today we are told that in the negotiations, in the back-and-forth on the continuing resolution, which we should be voting on this week--we are told that Majority Leader McConnell is not going to include the Miners Protection Act in the continuing resolution. That is very bad news, especially when we consider how we arrived at this point in terms of bipartisan support. I will get to that in a moment. Instead, apparently the proposal--or I guess at this point it might be beyond a proposal because it might be in a draft of the continuing resolution. Be that as it may, what has been proposed is 4 months of health care for miners and their families instead of a lifetime guarantee. In a word, that is unacceptable. I will not dwell on that because I want to get to the rest of our arguments on why this is a proposal we cannot accept.…”