Maria Cantwell: “I rise to discuss with my colleagues two bills that I believe we are being negligent as a body in not taking up and…”

“I rise to discuss with my colleagues two bills that I believe we are being negligent as a body in not taking up and passing. I am sure many of my colleagues are heading to the airport feeling like this week we accomplished a lot, or maybe they feel they gave a lot of speeches. The world is obviously a very dangerous and threatening place right now, and maybe my colleagues think if we get up and we communicate about that, we have done our job in Washington, DC. Well, the discussion is good, but action is even better when it comes to the American people. And there are two critical issues--two critical issues we have bipartisan support on, two critical issues both the House and Senate have passed legislation in the past to deal with and on which we could pass legislation today--that we cannot put on the priority list to take up and take action to help the American people. The first one is on the electricity grid and reliability.”