Political Quotes

“I rise and will not oppose this motion to instruct as I did not in the committees, but I rise to basically let our colleagues understand what is at play here. Please do not feel assured because Members vote for this motion to instruct. It is not going to do what you are being led to think it will do. Now, I say that because I would not be in this body were it not for the first responders of this country. I grew up in a fire service family, became chief of my own department, went back and got a degree in fire protection and ran training programs for fire companies. In my home town, where I eventually became mayor and was the fire chief, had two of the largest refineries on the east coast and also had chemical plants and had the largest fire in America in 1975. I have traveled across the country as the founder and chairman of the Fire Caucus. There is no fire department in America that gets its training from the National Guard. National Guardsmen, by their nature, are part-time soldiers. They are there to respond when requested. Do my colleagues know what the time is for a RAID team to be called to active duty in a disaster? Is it 10 minutes? Is it 1 hour? Twelve hours. You will not have a RAID team on a scene until twelve hours.”