Chellie Pingree Quotes

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

- Chellie Pingree

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.

- Chellie Pingree

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.'

- Chellie Pingree

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.

- Chellie Pingree

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.

- Chellie Pingree

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

- Chellie Pingree

In Maine, we are fortunate to have a Clean Elections system that allows legislators to turn down corporate special interest money. At the national level, Congress should follow Maine's example by empowering the voices of small donors.

- Chellie Pingree

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.

- Chellie Pingree

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.

- Chellie Pingree

There is an incredible renewable energy resource off both coasts of this country - wind and tidal energy that can power our economy, create good paying jobs and reduce greenhouse gas pollution.

- Chellie Pingree

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.

- Chellie Pingree

Like many older D.C. organizations, Common Cause has had to come a long way both in its use of the Internet and its understanding of the great value of engaging people in a broader online dialogue.

- Chellie Pingree

One of the reasons I wanted to leave my position at Common Cause and return to politics was to regain the freedom to speak out politically - to not be constrained by a non-partisan organization.

- Chellie Pingree

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.

- Chellie Pingree

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.

- Chellie Pingree

Having started and owned two small businesses, I know what a challenge it is to keep up with the rising costs of your employees' healthcare premiums.

- Chellie Pingree

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

- Chellie Pingree

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.

- Chellie Pingree

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.

- Chellie Pingree

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.

- Chellie Pingree

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.

- Chellie Pingree

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.

- Chellie Pingree

Corporations serve an important purpose, but telling people how to vote isn't one of them.

- Chellie Pingree

During the summer of 2009, the debate on health care reform was emotional and intense. At its best, it represented the free exchange of ideas that makes this country great. At its worst, it generated death threats and acts of violence.

- Chellie Pingree

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.

- Chellie Pingree

We need to make Net Neutrality the law. We need to elect a Congress that will make it a priority to keep this important principal intact - and insure equal and open access to the Internet for all.

- Chellie Pingree

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.

- Chellie Pingree

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.

- Chellie Pingree

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

- Chellie Pingree

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.

- Chellie Pingree

The FCC can and indeed should do more to protect the Internet as the free and open environment people have come to expect and depend on - which is why we need to stand up to attacks on the FCC's authority.

- Chellie Pingree

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

- Chellie Pingree

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

- Chellie Pingree

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.

- Chellie Pingree

Net Neutrality - a guiding principle of the Internet since its beginning - means that content is all treated equally.

- Chellie Pingree

No one branch of the U.S. government should have supremacy over the other two.

- Chellie Pingree

I never thought I'd see the day when the U.S. government could listen in on phone conversations or read private mail without first obtaining a warrant from a court. That sounds more like something that happened in the Soviet Union.

- Chellie Pingree

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.

- Chellie Pingree

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

- Chellie Pingree

I am especially proud of taking on issues most central to the health of our American democracy.

- Chellie Pingree