Political Quotes

“Madam President, today is a happy day for me to be joining my friends Senator Menendez and Senator Sullivan here on the Senate floor to celebrate the successful conclusion of a second chapter in a long effort to address the problem of ocean plastics pollution, which has been described so well by my friend Senator Sullivan. When we began, there was actually no program whatsoever on ocean plastics in the Senate. There had never been legislation in this area. With Senator Sullivan's support, we decided to see what the traffic would bear, see what the Senate and the House might tolerate in terms of legislating in a new area. For that, we undertook the Save Our Seas bill. And at the end of the day, after a certain amount of static, actually on both sides of the aisle, we were able to get Save Our Seas passed by unanimous consent. Every single Member of the Senate had to agree to it. To me, that was a really exciting test to the proposition that Senators actually care about this. One of my favorite moments in that whole episode was when a Senator, with whom I am often at war-- Senator Inhofe of landlocked Oklahoma--became an ally and a friend and a supporter of Save Our Seas, the original bill. And he did so because he had childhood experiences on the gulf coast with sea turtles that made him care about the plastic that was piling up in the oceans and strangling and drowning sea creatures. It has, this topic, a gift, I guess, for bringing people together.…”