Pete Domenici: “I want to say to everyone in the Senate, in all honesty, they ought to have a chance to hear the Senator from Tennessee.…”

“I want to say to everyone in the Senate, in all honesty, they ought to have a chance to hear the Senator from Tennessee. If they haven't, they ought to read what he said because there is no question that I, as a rather informed Senator, had no idea what this bill does until I listened to him and then looked at it. It is absolutely incredible that we are thinking of a bill such as this to solve climate change when, as a matter of fact, it is going to be the biggest redistribution of wealth we have ever adopted in this Senate, and we are not even sure it will accomplish anything very significant toward the reduction of carbon dioxide as an impediment to climate change. I cannot understand why we would be doing this. One little piece is a commission of five men who will distribute allocations pursuant to this legislation, totally at their discretion, a trillion dollars or more. Who on God's Earth would think that is in this bill? But it is. I commend him. I hope he comes here two or three times and explains again in more detail what this bill does. I am not against legislation for climate change, but I am convinced that we better do something for the American people on bridging crude oil use, crude oil development, putting some of the things we need in place for energy before we put this legislation in place. I think the American people will soon understand that.”