Political Quotes

“I would be pleased to yield for a question, but let me make one point first. I think it is not insignificant that each Senator who spoke against this proposed regulation hails from a landlocked State. Coastal States such as Maryland and Rhode Island have quite a different perspective because we have bays--in Senator Cardin's case, the Chesapeake Bay; in my case, Narragansett Bay. You don't have to look much farther than the Gulf Coast to see an example of what happens when landlocked States up the river overload flowing waters with chemicals, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, that have a beneficial use as fertilizer in those landlocked, upland States, but when they run off and come down into smaller tributaries and end up in the mighty Mississippi River and stream down through the middle of our great country and out into the Gulf of Mexico, they create, literally, dead zones in which nothing lives because the water has become anaerobic, meaning it does not carry enough oxygen to support life. Some of these can be vast dead zones, and very often they result in fish kills and crab kills because the species don't have a chance to get out of the way. Suddenly, they are strangling, they are suffocating in their own waters. That is not something we can overlook. I am willing to listen to my colleagues with upland, landlocked agricultural States tell me how important it is that they be able to load up with fertilizer, grow their crops, and do all of those things.…”