I wish to make a comment about the so-called co-op approach. My friends, you can call it the government option. You can call it a co-op. You can call… - John McCain

Mr. President, I was pleased to vote today in support of S.J. Res. 22, which would nullify the Environmental Protection Agency's recently finalized clean water rule. Just yesterday, I voted in support of a bipartisan bill, S. 1140, authored by my colleague, Senator John Barrasso, which would have forced EPA to pull the rule. Unfortunately, that bill did not receive the 60 votes necessary under Senate rules that are needed to pass. The resolution passed by the Senate today is supported by hundreds of national and local organizations, including the American Farm Bureau Federation, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the National Homebuilders Association, to name a few. While I understand that the White House has threatened to veto this resolution if it reaches the President's desk, it is still important that a majority of Congress voice their opposition to the EPA rule as Federal courts continue to weigh its legality. Americans around the Nation are lining up against the EPA clean water rule because of its economic cost, the regulatory impact, and the uncertainty it engenders among State and local governments, businesses, and consumer alike. The rule itself bypassed Congress by redefining the types of water bodies under the Clean Water Act that EPA has the authority to regulate. EPA pushed forward without regard for State and local environmental protection laws, which is partly why about a dozen State attorneys general, including from my home State of Arizona, have won injunctions in Federal court against the EPA rule.

Mike is the most entertaining, most knowledgeable, and most insightful guy I have ever dealt with. I am constantly entertained by him.

We have made mistakes. We haven’t always used our power wisely. We have abused it sometimes and we’ve been arrogant. But, as often as not, we recognized those wrongs, debated them openly, and tried to do better. And the good we have done for humanity surpasses the damage caused by our errors. We have sought to make the world more stable and secure, not just our own society. We have advanced norms and rules of international relations that have benefited all. We have stood up to tyrants for mistreating their people even when they didn’t threaten us, not always, but often. We don’t steal other people’s wealth. We don’t take their land. We don’t build walls to freedom and opportunity. We tear them down. To fear the world we have organized and led for three-quarters of a century, to abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems is unpatriotic. American nationalism isn’t the same as in other countries. It isn’t nativist or imperial or xenophobic, or it shouldn’t be. Those attachments belong with other tired dogmas that Americans consigned to the ash heap of history. We live in a land made from ideals, not blood and soil. We are custodians of those ideals at home, and their champion abroad.