Political Quotes

“I will speak on carbon pollution and the damage we are doing to our world. As I try to point out every week--and last week I was not able to, but Senator Kerry made a wonderful, marvelous, very compelling speech on this subject. We have kept the floor busy every week between the two of us. I hope other Senators will join us more and more. This is an issue we have to address. It is a disgrace, frankly, that this is one of the very few buildings in this country in which climate denial is still happening wholesale. Here and the boardroom of ExxonMobil are probably the two holdout locations. I want to address a few things that happened this week. I want to begin by correcting an error I made in remarks last week when I came to the floor and spoke in favor of EPA's mercury and air toxic standards for powerplants. This is very important to Rhode Island, as we are a downwind State-- as is a good deal of New York--and we are bombarded by Midwestern powerplants that, frankly, deliberately send polluted air into the atmosphere through high smokestacks so that it will land elsewhere. Guess what. We are the elsewhere. We were about to vote on a resolution that would have avoided these standards and put Rhode Island at considerable peril. It would have gone so far as to bar the EPA from ever issuing a similar rule. It would have had a lasting, as well as damaging, effect. It was a reckless proposal. I am pleased we defeated it in the Senate.…”