Political Quotes

“I am prepared to close, and I yield myself the balance of my time. Madam Speaker, I don't really understand--and with tremendous respect to my colleague across the aisle--how assigning a report so that we can get more information about the effect of sanctions on the people of a country undermines in any way anything that we are trying to do in this bill. In fact, competitiveness is deeply tied to whether or not we adhere to human rights values that the United States holds very dear. And the question of how we can be most effective in our policy is very important to this bill. So I really don't understand why we wouldn't want the information that a report is going to generate unless we are afraid that it is going to present some choice that feels very difficult to us. So I am not sure why there would be resistance to a report that says, Department of Energy, in coordination with the State Department, tell us what impact sanctions have on our ability to be innovative, one of the key goals of this bill, in addressing the climate crisis and economic justice. Let's not disentangle competitiveness from justice. Let's not disentangle competitiveness from our ability to uphold our core values as a country. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.”