Political Quotes

“I yield myself as much time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for offering the amendment, and I thank the gentleman for his kind remarks. I guess my career would never be complete unless we did this one more time. But this amendment, Mr. Chairman, is identical to an amendment that failed 2 years ago in this House, and, I might say, it failed by a broad bipartisan vote. I will also remind my friend from Oregon that this issue has been repeatedly settled in the Nation's courts of law, with the courts determining that rewriting the terms of these leases to include price thresholds would be a direct violation of contract law. That is what the issue is here really with this. Now it was during the Clinton administration that this happened. And I agree with the gentleman; it shouldn't have happened. But it happened. And the courts have spoken very clearly on this. The U.S. Supreme Court found that the Department of the Interior did not have the authority to rewrite these contracts that were issued under the 1995 law. And I will remind the gentleman that the Department of the Interior has lost this issue in the district court, the appellate court, and the Supreme Court. Ultimately, this amendment seeks to force U.S. companies to break a contract legally negotiated under government law, or else be denied the opportunity to do business in the U.S. The amendment aims to back companies into a corner and attempts to force them to break legally binding contracts.…”