Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I thank my good friend from California, and I rise in full support of H.R. 3644, the Ocean, Coastal and Watershed Training Act. I was proud to be an original cosponsor of this bill which creates the Bay Watershed Education and Training program. Dozens of my constituents have written in support of the Bay Watershed Education and Training program which will strengthen local environmental education in Northern Virginia and in other parts of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. When John Smith arrived in 1607, the bay estuary, the largest in the country, had an unbelievable profusion of fish, oysters and mussels. Smith's men fished from their boats just by dipping a frying pan in the water, and Smith wrote that the oysters ``lay thick as stones'' on the bay floor. Not true today. A central part of restoring America's largest estuary is teaching the next generation about how to be good bay stewards. Northern Virginia educators do an outstanding job teaching students about the environment, including issues ranging from global warming to acid rain, to the health of the bay itself. Every year, thousands of students will visit Occoquan Bay Wildlife Refuge, Mason Neck State Park and Pohick Bay Regional Park to learn about the Potomac River tidal ecosystems. Unfortunately, constraints on local resources have prevented most northern Virginia students from participating lately in these programs.…”