Jay Inslee: “I rise to urge a no vote. And that is not out of disrespect to the work done by Senators McCain and Murray in the other…”

“I rise to urge a no vote. And that is not out of disrespect to the work done by Senators McCain and Murray in the other Chamber in an attempt to advance this cause. But, Mr. Speaker, the majority leadership has not brought one single House bill on this issue to the floor of this House this session despite multiple tragedies in multiple States of this country, not one single bill. And why is that important? It is important because, unless we have a strong mandate that pipelines be inspected, a stronger mandate than is in the Senate bill, we will be committing the very same blunder, the very same blunder that Congress has made for 20 years running. They have deferred to OPS to pass rules 22 times, and 22 times that has been ignored. The House bills that we want to vote on a simple chance to vote plug that gigantic hole. Now, there is one thing I know. I am not a scientist. I am not a meteorologist. I am not a hydrologist. But there is one thing I know, and that is that nobody has ever gotten a different result by doing the same thing. We must break this chain of failure and statutorily mandate inspections or commit the same blunder that every Congress has made late in the session saying, it is the best we can do. It is not the best we can do, and it is not up to American standards.”