Political Quotes

“This is a simple amendment. It addresses the roadless areas in national forests but, specifically, in Alaska. It does not overturn the roadless areas. This is an attempt, as previously stated in this Congress, that highly mineralized areas would not be affected by the roadless area. It directly affects the Vulcan find of rare minerals, rare Earth. And I have to address my colleagues for a sense. Now, right now China controls the rare Earths of this world. Yet, we have tremendous deposits in Alaskan lands and in other lands of this Nation. But rare Earth is the future of all this high technology that people do support, and the so-called things that we try to develop are from rare Earth. It's wrong to have China control the price, control the quantity and availability for modern technology when we have our own. All we're asking in this is to make sure that an area that has high potential areas of rare Earth be accessible to the water. And the rules of roadless area do not apply. They were exempted before. They should be exempted now. But a ruling in 2011 made this area unaccessible for the development of rare Earth for this Nation. If you believe in the independence of this Nation, if you believe the importance of technology for the future, then you'll support this amendment. This is the right amendment for the right time to make sure we have this development.”