Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer this amendment in a bipartisan fashion with my colleague, Mr. Higgins from New York. What we're looking to do here, Mr. Chairman, is amend the proposal before the committee to restore $36 million in funding to non-defense environmental cleanup. Mr. Chairman, last year, a similar amendment passed the House with total votes of 261 people in favor of the proposed amendment. Mr. Chairman, I understand the dire fiscal situation that we find ourselves in America today. What I have proposed here is putting that $36 million out into the field to deal with nuclear waste and nuclear waste cleanup sites across America. I have one of those nuclear waste sites in my district, the West Valley Demonstration Project in western New York that abuts where Mr. Higgins' district is located. What we're trying to do is take that $36 million that is otherwise going to be used in the bureaucracy of Washington, D.C., for administrative purposes here, and allocate that money out to the field, to the sites where it can be best utilized to clean up these nuclear waste facilities and make sure that the threat of nuclear waste to all of our citizens is completely remediated and taken care of so that we do not have to deal with this year after year after year. There are numerous reports out that show that by cleaning these facilities up sooner than later, we can potentially save hundreds of millions of dollars. So to me, at this point in time, this amendment makes sense.…”