Political Quotes

“before I begin my remarks, I want to welcome the new pages to the Senate. We said goodbye to a great group of young men and young women from around the country last week, their last day being Friday. Here we are on Monday, and we have a whole new batch. So to you all, through the Chair, welcome. Know that you are here at a most exciting and interesting time. We rely on our pages a great deal, and it is always nice to see these young ambassadors who come to us from around the country to serve us in the Senate. Welcome. Mr. President, I wish to give an update as to where we are on the status of our broad bipartisan energy bill. Last week we started out a little rough because of the blizzard, the snow days. But once we began the debate, we heard some very strong statements in support of our Energy Policy Modernization Act. We heard it from Members on both sides of the aisle, and that was very encouraging. We heard Members tout provisions that relate to supply, to innovation, to efficiency, really the whole gamut. As we promised, we began an open amendment process, which has already drawn close to 200 proposals now. Last week we accepted 11 amendments. We had three rollcall votes, and we had eight voice votes. I think it is important to recognize that those amendments were sponsored by 10 different Senators.…”