Political Quotes

“I know my colleague from Oregon is around somewhere and wanted to speak on this rule, and when he shows up on the floor, we will certainly give him the time to do so. I want to make a couple of points while we are waiting for him. First, in this discussion here with my colleagues, there is some discussion and I guess the start of what will be a continuing theme that somehow, if you get rid of regulations, we are going to restore competitiveness to the U.S. economy. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you ask businesses what we need to do to be competitive as a country, they will say: Make sure we have a great education system. Make sure we invest in R&D. Let's develop new technology. If we look at where businesses are locating, they want to locate in beautiful, pristine places because they know that is where their employees will want to locate. So, first of all, that somehow the government is going to restore the economy by deregulating and letting polluters pollute is just not correct. It is not what America wants. What people want is to have safe drinking water, and they want an outdoor economy that is supported by having a great environment. So I want to say a couple of other things. Obviously, this rule that we are talking about and that has been developed over a long period of time is an improvement over the 1983 rule because it gives us a better idea on the pollution that is happening.…”