Trent Lott: “I rise to speak on this very important legislation, S. 3711. But like others today, I may decide I need to comment on…”

“I rise to speak on this very important legislation, S. 3711. But like others today, I may decide I need to comment on some other issues that will be discussed later on this week. First, I must say that this week I have been thinking repeatedly about that great line from Rudyard Kipling's ``If.'' ``If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you''-- And it goes on. It is a great poem, it says that if you keep your head when everybody else around you is losing theirs, you shall inherit the Earth, my son. That is what I would encourage my colleagues to do today. Let's keep cool. Let's not lose our heads. Every one of us is going to get up to speak, and there is going to be somebody on the other side of the issue or on the other side of the aisle who is going to say, That Senator lost his head. Let's keep our cool. I just heard a speech saying we shouldn't pass this bill because it is not big enough. Yet you are going to hear a speech later this week saying we shouldn't pass one of the next bills because it is too comprehensive. This is not a bill that is going to solve all of our energy needs. This energy problem has not developed in the past year, or 10, or 20, or 30. It has been coming for years. We have made speeches on this floor about how we are becoming more and more dependent on foreign oil. We were all worried that it would go up to 40 percent, then 50 percent, and now it is 60 percent.…”