Political Quotes

“Maybe Mr. Hastings of Washington would be more comfortable calling it the Hastings-Connolly amendment, so that a Virginia name might make him feel more comfortable. Mr. Chairman, have we already forgotten the consequences of lax regulation? I know the gulf coast hasn't. For many Americans, the image of more than 200 million gallons of oil spilling into the gulf, an area of oil spill and oil slick that if superimposed in this region would have gone from my district in northern Virginia all the way to New York City. It threatened America's largest fishery, jeopardizing tourism, wreaking havoc with the region's entire economy. Sadly, the magnitude of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill might have been mitigated had BP and Transocean simply been required to do what this amendment requires--to comply with the basic environmental standards established to prevent such disasters from happening in the first place. Yet here we are 3 years later, and this Congress still has not taken a single action to improve drilling safety because the House majority has blocked every attempt. Now they want to make matters worse by gutting NEPA protections. I am pleased to join my colleague in offering a commonsense amendment to preserve NEPA protections, and at least some modicum of impartiality in this attempt to legislate the majority's motto of ``drill, baby, drill'' everywhere.…”