Political Quotes

“as the New York Times has rightly editorialized, ``Since sweeping into Washington in 1995, the Contract- With-America Republicans have tried every legislative trick in the book to undermine the Nation's environmental laws.'' The particular trick that elicited that assessment was the Gingrich scheme to tack on some 50 anti-environmental riders, a scheme to tack them into the appropriations bills that is still holding up appropriations bills in this Congress. It is a practice that was appropriately described as our Republican friends ``mugging the environment.'' Well, today we have something a little different. In this omnibus parks bill, we have another legislative trick. In fact, I guess in eager anticipation of Halloween, we have both trick and treat in this bill. The only problem is that the tricks are all in there for the taxpayer, and the treats are there for those who want to exploit the environment and particularly to exploit publicly-owned resources. Madam Chairman, this bill is a trick because it takes dozens of anti- environmental bills, stirs them all together in a big old legislative cauldron, including a few Democratic proposals that are good, which are sprinkled in there to give this measure a nice touch, as was just described by the honorable chair of our Committee on Resources.”