Political Quotes

“I rise to oppose the bill, and I do so filled with regret, because the gentleman from Utah is a gentleman. He is a friend. He called me a couple of weeks ago and asked me if I would help him negotiate this bill, and the reason he called me is that one of the roles that has been assigned to me by the majority leader has been to try to build bridges between Republicans, Republicans who some of us come from the Northeast and have one orientation with regard to the environment, and some of our colleagues from the West and other parts of the country who have different perspectives. The process that we have tried to establish to do that is to say, if the goal is to make law, then that should be an easy process, because if this President is going to sign a bill, and if the goal is to get him to sign the bill, then we can certainly work out our differences. We tried that. I gave my staff the assignment to spend an awful lot of time on this measure. It did not work. We could not get the bill anywhere close in these negotiations to where it could be signed into law.”