Political Quotes

“Madam Chairman, I rise to offer an amendment that would address concerns in funding the Regional Ocean Partnership program under NOAA that is included in the underlying amendment. Let me tell you what this amendment is not. It is not a poison pill designed to stop funding for Sandy relief. It is not an amendment designed to delay aid to Sandy victims. It is not an amendment designed to stop the much-needed aid to Sandy victims. All the amendment does is it stops the ability to allow a crisis to be used by the White House to fund Executive Order 13547, which is basically to zone the oceans. Funding for that could be used for purposes like this: to regulate economic activity in the Mississippi River watershed. And you could see that none of the money that's used for this program would be used to help Sandy relief. So that's just an example of what it would do. According to the NOAA Web site, the Regional Ocean Partnership grant program was developed to advance effective coastal and ocean management through regional ocean governance, including the goals for national ocean policy or, in other words, Executive Order 13547, set out in the President's final policy of the Interagency Ocean Task Force, dated July 19, 2010. Again, back to the Executive order. This amendment is essentially the same amendment that was passed that was part of the CJS appropriations bill that passed by a bipartisan vote of 246-174 last May. Now, we can all agree that ocean planning is a good thing.…”