Political Quotes

“it has now been 99 days since the Deepwater Horizon drill rig caught fire and sank to the ocean floor. That incident--and the millions of barrels of oil that have spilled into the Gulf of Mexico since it began--has made it absolutely clear that our Nation's offshore energy regulations need to be reformed. Even in a Congress as deeply and bitterly divided as this one, the fact that we are living through a terrible environmental disaster, caused at least in part by certain failures of the government, should be more than enough for us to work in good faith and reach consensus on a path forward. For the past 3 months, that is exactly what the members of the Energy Committee have sought to develop. We have been working toward a responsible path that is acceptable to all--or at least most--of the Members of the Senate. We started by holding four major hearings on the gulf spill. This allowed us to build a record within the committee on everything from blowout preventers to certificates of financial responsibility. Our committee worked very hard on this. We spent countless hours working on legislation to repair the failed offshore regulatory system. We concluded our efforts last month, after all these series of hearings, and we unanimously passed legislation, S. 3516, the OCS Reform Act, out of committee unanimously.”