Political Quotes

“To me this is an issue where we have had some debate about the pipeline and the oilspill liability trust fund. I would hope we would come back to that issue because these issues about spills and safety and security should be part of the debate. But I go back to the larger issue which is I hope we turn down this legislation overall. To me all of the issues we are talking about, whether it is about safe drinking water, whether it is about oilspills and the requirements on these companies or if it is about whether TransCanada can take U.S. property under eminent domain or whether it is about the route itself, all of these questions in my mind are premature for us, the Congress, to decide. Over 60 percent of the American people say they want this pipeline decided in a normal process. They want the State Department, in this instance because it crosses a border, to be the entity that determines national interest. So I do not want to predetermine that when there are so many important issues to be negotiated. The very company that wanted to negotiate with the State Department on this pipeline was negotiating some of the original routing. Yet at the very time the State Department was telling them the original routing would not work, they were here trying to persuade Members to vote for the authority to override the President and to give that routing, which we now know was flawed. I do not want to be premature about this. I do not want to be premature about cutting off debate.…”