Political Quotes

“I rise to speak about a provision of the debt ceiling deal that I will later today offer an amendment so that we can remove it. It is the provision dealing with the Mountain Valley Pipeline. I appreciate the hard bipartisan work that has been done to put together a deal. And the deal has things I like and things that I don't like. That is the nature of any deal that is struck between Houses of Congress controlled by different parties. It would have been my intention to be a supporter of the deal despite its imperfections. However, a provision was added to the deal to green- light a pipeline project that goes through two States: West Virginia and my Commonwealth of Virginia. It was struck without any consultation with either of the Virginia Senators. It is a highly controversial project in Virginia that directly impacts families whose land will be taken for the pipeline project. I stand to speak on their behalf about the reasons that I will seek to remove the Mountain Valley Pipeline provision from the bill when we vote on it later tonight. It would be one thing if you could build pipelines in midair, but you can't. To build a pipeline, you have to take people's land. Sometimes the land you take might be public land, a national park or a national forest, but in any pipeline project of size--and the Mountain Valley Pipeline is about 330 miles long--you have to take a lot of land from private landowners, most of whom don't want to give up their land.…”