Political Quotes

“First I would like to begin by commending our Appropriations Committee for the extraordinary job that they have done to claw back this money and to reduce spending below the levels that we had last year or the levels in the CR. They have, indeed, done an exemplary job. But I think during these extraordinary and unprecedented times, we have to do more. And this Diesel Emissions Reduction program is one of those areas of funding that we can look at and say, indeed, this is duplicative, and because of that, we can eliminate this $30 million and move that funding into the spending reduction account. Now, DERA, the program under discussion, is a grant program administered by EPA. It seeks to reduce diesel emissions--that's a worthy goal--by providing funds for technologies to retrofit existing vehicles and infrastructure not subject to updated diesel air standards. This is something that at one point in time, yes, it was important and had a tremendous impact on some of our communities, and they have done grants all across this country. {time} 1900 Now I want to point out that President Obama's fiscal year 2012 budget recommends completely eliminating funding for the DERA grants, and there is a reason that it has done that. One of the reasons that they have done that is because since 2007, new diesel engines have to comply with a much higher emissions standard, therefore, it is decreasing the need for retrofits.…”