Political Quotes

“One of the linchpins of the RAPID Act is its set of provisions that: deem a permit approved if the permitting agency refuses to meet the bill's reasonable deadlines; and, prohibit a court from overturning a permit approval simply because the permit was deemed approved when deadlines expired before action was taken. If we do not include consequences like these in the bill, how will we ever ensure that recalcitrant, foot-dragging Federal agencies will achieve the bill's goal of streamlined permit decisions? The amendment, however, removes all consequences for agencies' foot- dragging so long as the projects at issue would either limit access to or opportunities for hunting or fishing or impact an endangered or threatened species. That is in the bill. The amendment's sponsor offers no sound reason to do this. The bill does not require projects with these kinds of impacts to be approved. It just requires that permitting decisions, up or down, be reached after, at most, 4\1/2\ years of environmental review. Surely that is enough time to review all kinds of projects, including those that limit access to or opportunities for hunting or fishing or impact endangered or threatened species. To make matters worse, the bill would allow agencies to drag their feet without consequences even if a project had a beneficial impact on an endangered or threatened species. Why should we allow delay for that? I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment. Mr.…”