Chellie Pingree Quotes

Incredibly, oil and gas companies don't have to pay certain environmental costs that amount to small change to them, while an offshore wind project start-up is faced with fees that could mean the difference between building a wind farm and packing up and going home.

In my home state of Maine, we've seen out-of-state groups with anonymous donors spend millions of dollars to campaign against issues that don't fit their agenda.

With Net Neutrality, the level playing field that gave us Google, YouTube and eBay when they were start-ups would suddenly start to tilt in favor of the big, established players.

As president of Common Cause, I joined a coalition of groups ranging from the Christian Coalition to Consumers Union, and we went to Congress with over a million signatures asking that Net Neutrality be made law.

I work in a world of words - words that inspire, words that persuade and, increasingly, words that can send the message that it is acceptable to hate.

Renewable energy has economic advantages that extend beyond steady, predictable electric rates - and Maine is in a good position to capitalize on those opportunities.

I live on an island, and my community is served by a ferry that goes three times a day.

As more and more people reach the Internet by mobile phone, we should make sure users are getting the open access they believe they're paying for.

When I was in the Maine Senate and proposed Maine RX - a plan to lower prescription drug costs by forcing the pharmaceutical companies to negotiate - I was told by many people that it was too big an idea, and we couldn't overcome opposition from the drug companies.

There's great value to knitting or digging up your garden or chopping up vegetables for soup, because you're taking some time away from turning the pages, answering your emails, talking to people on the phone, and you're letting your brain process whatever is stuck up in there.

I am an excellent eviscerator of chickens ... a helpful skill in Congress.

The need to do something about global warming is obvious. And it's also pretty clear that the public understands the need for change and is ready to embrace it. What is missing is political will in Congress to stand up to the powerful energy companies and their well-paid lobbyists.

When I stood up to oppose an invasion of Iraq in 2002, it wasn't a popular thing to do.

For too long, the system has been biased in favor of oil and gas developers: sweetheart lease deals, generous subsidies and a regulatory process so slanted in favor of Big Oil that often permit reviews are simply waived.

Access to quality, affordable health care is particularly important here in Maine, where many of us own small businesses or are self-employed.

The founding leaders of our country believed in a three-part sharing of governmental power, with each branch jealously watching the actions of the other two.

I think we've found a better solution on North Haven and Vinalhaven: Instead of paying increasing expensive electric bills every month, with the money going out of our community, out of state, and even out of the country, the wind turbines bring the promise of decades of steady rates with the money staying right here.

A company's best advantage should be a quality product offered at the right price. That fair competition is what drives innovation.

Our businesses can't create jobs when they're losing revenue, and the unemployed can't apply for jobs when they can't pay their phone bill.

People's mouse clicks decide what businesses, services, and content succeed. Users have equal access to tiny businesses with viral ideas and blue-chip companies, allowing these enterprises to compete on their own merits. It's how so many small start-ups have been able to become Internet success stories.

When you're elected to Congress, you take a vow to uphold the Constitution and its system of checks and balances. That vow doesn't say, 'Unless it's politically uncomfortable.'

Maine people have a live-and-let-live philosophy, and tend to be fair and open-minded.

Certainly, my advice is that communicating, lobbying, fundraising and engaging the public in policy and politics is far more exciting and inexpensive via the Internet. Old guard organizations like Common Cause had to evolve to embrace this new environment.

I love to come home and work on one of my other jobs. Just to remember that the floors gotta be mopped, and that everything isn't centered around what you fought about in Washington last week.

Vegetables are called 'specialty crops.' Don't ask me why.

I'm always amazed how many politicians have a very unlikely story, and when I talk to groups of students, I remind them that not everybody who gets into politics is a lawyer or went to school to study it. We all come to it for different reasons.

One of the first members of Congress I met when I was first elected in 2008 was Barney Frank.

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords has been one of my good friends in the House of Representatives. When she was brutally shot, Gabby was out doing what she loved to do - meeting with her constituents in a local setting, allowing people to speak to her directly about the issues that concerned them.

It's crazy that the Constitution has to be amended to clarify what for the majority of Americans is a clear and true statement: corporations are not people.