Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close. Earlier, I misspoke when I said that we could vote for the motion to recommit. I should have said--and I correct the Record now--the previous question was what I was speaking of. The simple fact of the matter is we can vote in support of the previous question, and then we would be able to address the Flint crisis. Mr. Speaker, I want to reiterate that this bill is nothing more than an attempt by the majority to make political hay of the recent payment to the Government of Iran, a payment that was a legal settlement. It seems to get ignored by my friends that the United States and Iran are participants in a claims tribunal that was established 35 years ago under the Algiers Accords because Iran had held our hostages, and we needed a methodology to be able to pay and have those hostages remunerated appropriately. That said, $2.5 billion has been paid to American claims rightly. This framework is being followed, and what this legislation that is going nowhere would do, if it went somewhere, would be to fly in the face of that framework that was established. By prohibiting any future payments to Iran, this bill could put us in the position of violating the Algiers Accords and owing even more money. It comes at the expense of addressing issues that really matter, like Flint, like Zika, like the opioid epidemic, like gun violence, like the Louisiana floods and the crumbling infrastructure of this Nation.…”