Political Quotes

“I know we have matters under discussion with the distinguished chairman and the distinguished ranking member of the committee. I have discussed with them that I am not bringing up an amendment at this point. But let me talk about an amendment that I will bring up and expect to pass at some point. The amendment I will call up at some appropriate point is legislation I have been trying to get enacted for more than 3 years called the Dale Long Public Safety Officers' Benefits Improvement Act. This legislation improves the Public Safety Officers' Benefits Act, which is the Federal death and disability program for our Nation's first responders who are killed or disabled in the line of duty. Just so Senators will know, an earlier version of this legislation was adopted here on the Senate floor by voice vote in December 2011. The Presiding Officer will recall it was almost exactly a year ago when we brought that up. It was adopted as part of the FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act. During the course of conference negotiations related to the FAA legislation, the House Judiciary chairman Lamar Smith and I negotiated additional measures to be added to the legislation. Our work together produced a package of improvements that contains a modest expansion of benefits for deserving emergency medical responders, and a host of reforms to make the Public Safety Officers' Benefits program stronger, more effective, and more cost efficient.…”