Political Quotes

“I am offering this amendment to restore funding to the top 25 cities under the Urban Area Security Initiative. This issue is personal to me. I spent a great deal of my career in the anti-terrorism field. I have developed threat assessments and plans for terrorism countermeasures and prevention on the local, State and Federal levels. I oversaw medical response operations to the embassy bombings in East Africa in 1998 and the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, and I was a first responder to the World Trade Centers. I felt the heat from the rubble pile as it melted firefighters' boots. I breathed the dust and chaos into my lungs as we worked around the clock. I have seen terrorism firsthand; and I will, we must, do everything possible to prevent another attack on this U.S. homeland. One of the failures identified after the 9/11 attacks was the lack of coordination between local first responders and Federal counterterrorism specialists. The UASI grant fills this vacuum. If this amendment doesn't pass, key areas' terrorism readiness funding will go away. I understand the need to prioritize dollars and scarce resources, but limiting funding to a cap of 10 cities threatens our overall national preparedness. This amendment does not increase costs, but expands the total number of cities under consideration to at least 25. Let me tell you about my district, my area, Las Vegas and Clark County.…”