Political Quotes

“Mr. President, first, I thank my friend from Maine and appreciate the conversations we have had in this past week. He has taken a journey to the north that most of us only dream about. He is engaged in issues I care deeply about as it relates to the Arctic. Although I know that was not the discussion my colleague was speaking to earlier, I just wanted to note while my friend from Maine was still on the floor that I look forward to working on these issues of great importance not only to my State but truly to our entire Nation and Arctic Nation. I come to the floor this evening to speak very briefly about the physical security of our Nation's power grid, which is a very important subject. Recently, there were stories in the Wall Street Journal about an attack on the California Metcalf substation that happened last April and has drawn considerable attention. While those stories about that attack highlighted potential vulnerabilities, my principal focus will be to highlight not only the safeguards that are already in place to protect the Nation's bulk power system but also to announce a step that I believe is now necessary to prevent the undue release of sensitive nonpublic information. First and foremost--and I think this is important for people to recognize--it is important to remember that during the Metcalf incident, the PG&E system did not lose power. In fact, it was an incident that many didn't know had taken place until months after because there was no loss of power.…”