Political Quotes

“Mr. President, each of these appropriations bills with which we deal is long and very much detailed. Sometimes it is difficult even for Members, much less the general public, to have a true understanding of what is contained in them. For this reason, I have asked my staff to prepare a series of charts or graphs on the appropriations for those subcommittees of the appropriations bills on which I serve. Unfortunately, I only have a page-size one here for energy and water. It is for the bill for the current year, 1996. Due to the efforts of the Senator from New Mexico, we now have an allocation for 1997 that is roughly equivalent of that for 1996. So the distribution of the money for the current year is, I think, relevant to what we are dealing with. Mr. President, I am sure your eyes may not be quite good enough to see anything on this chart other than the colors. But the red and pink portion of the chart show that the lion's share of this bill goes to the Department of Energy, which is not surprising. This is the energy and water appropriations bill.”