Political Quotes

“Mr. President, it is good to be here on the Senate floor talking about where we are in the process to hopefully finally move toward approval of a permit to allow for construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline. It has been interesting--the past couple speakers this morning have all mentioned that they don't understand why the first order of business in this new Congress should be this measure, that there are a lot of issues out there. And there certainly are. There will always be issues in the Senate. This is what we do. These are all weighty issues. But I would remind my colleagues that one of the reasons we are moving early to the Keystone XL Pipeline legislation is because in many ways this is a bit of unfinished business. It was just 6 weeks or so ago that we had this measure before us on the floor of the Senate. It was before this body for debate--a good debate--led by our former colleague from Louisiana who was absolutely passionate--absolutely passionate--in her defense of why this was timely, important, critical that this measure be approved. We had that debate, and unfortunately in the final vote we were shy one vote and so we did not see passage. It was a measure that was in front of us because it was timely and also because of the work this body had done to advance it. The energy committee had hearings, process, and we had a bill in front of us.…”