Political Quotes

“first of all, I cannot express how humbled I am and how proud I am of all of us, and my colleagues here, my dear friend Senator Warner. We were Governors together. We split the Virginias--Virginia and West Virginia. We worked together. He has the same constituency base I have in West Virginia, in Southwest Virginia, and all of West Virginia. He knows the mining industry. He knows the hard-working people. To Senator Donnelly from Indiana, we have been there together with the coal miners and the people who moved the coal and do the hard lifting. To Senator McCaskill from Missouri, Senator Casey from Pennsylvania--Pennsylvania has a rich tradition in coal mining--Senator Klobuchar and everyone who has spoken, and I want to thank the Presiding Officer too. He was an original cosponsor from Arkansas. So this is truly bipartisan. From Arkansas, the Presiding Officer understands hard-working people. He signed on to the bill without hesitation. I want to thank him. So it was really a team effort. People have been talking about all of the things and the passion we have for different things. My passion comes from the people I was born and raised and grew up with in the coal mining towns. So all I ever saw in my life was people around me who nurtured me and guided me and taught me who were truly coal miners or coal miner families. That is all I knew. My Little League coach was a coal miner. My Boy Scout leader was a coal miner.…”