Political Quotes

“I thank my colleague and friend for yielding. I also would like to express my gratitude to Mr. Keating, who unfortunately could not be with us today, for his hard work on this important issue, and I thank my colleague from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin) for his elegant words. Mr. Chairman, the estuaries in Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island and Buzzards Bay in Massachusetts face significant environmental challenges, many shared by estuaries across the country. These challenges include rivers and streams that are disconnected from the landscape, the loss of critical wetlands, the impacts of centuries of urbanization and development, and aging infrastructure. Southern New England estuaries are especially threatened by these challenges. Yet despite the harm that we know is being done to our estuaries, southern New England was the only geographic region in this bill which saw all of its estuary funding eliminated. While some geographic regions were underfunded compared to fiscal year 2016 requests, most requests for geographic regions were either met or, in some cases, increased. Inexplicably, it was only southern New England that was singled out for complete elimination of funding for the next fiscal year. This amendment would restore a modest $1 million funding for southern New England estuaries program, as Congressman Langevin said. Then, at conference, we hope that full funding is restored.…”