Political Quotes

“I have very little to add to what my colleague from Texas just said. I continue to reserve the balance of my time. Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want my colleagues to understand why I think we should reject this rule. Let me just mention two amendments that were germane and that were brought to the Rules Committee by our colleague from California (Mr. Garamendi). One amendment clarifies that a viable merchant marine is in the public interest and should be taken into consideration when processing applications under section 3 of the Natural Gas Act. The other grants priority to the processing of approvals for LNG facilities that will be supplied with or will export LNG by U.S. flag vessels. These are, basically, two amendments that are germane to this bill that would strengthen our shipping industry, and they were ruled out of order. For no reason, they were just randomly ruled out of order. Those are the kinds of things that Members of Congress do not have an opportunity to vote on when you close the process. Again, this is the most closed Congress in the history of our country--with more closed rules than any other Congress in history. So the tendency of this leadership, notwithstanding what the Speaker promised, which was to have a more open and transparent process, has been to become the most closed Congress in history. Mr.…”