Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 2011
Floor Speech
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Mr. BILBRAY. I've got to say, quite frankly, I appreciate the gentleman from American Samoa and his position. If I represented that island, I would be wanting to defend the monopoly that island has in the western Pacific today.
But the fact is, as a Nation, we've got to look at not only the great economic impact of this monopoly of forcing boats to travel for thousands of miles to get back to one centralized location because of a political decision here in Washington, but we've also got to look at this fact that the lady from California has an amendment that will address not just the economic impact but what about the environmental.
And I would ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, consider the fact that we talk about greenhouse gasses and emissions, but, as a law, we're requiring these fishing boats to travel for 6 to 7 days over thousands of miles because of our laws here. If we truly want to say we want to reduce emissions, we should reduce the emissions forced by regulation by supporting the gen tle lady's amendment.
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