Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I come to the floor this evening to talk about two issues that are of particular importance to me. When most look at me now, they think about energy and more typically about Alaskan energy. I am not going to disappoint tonight. I would like to speak to that, but I would also like to speak this evening about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the SPR. We have been talking about it a lot of late. It has been viewed as a source of revenue--a pay-for, if you will--with certain measures that we have seen of late, whether it be the transportation measure that we have in front of us, the budget deal that was executed a couple weeks ago, or other measures. I want to take a few minutes this evening to talk about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. I will start by first addressing what I will call the flagship SPR. It is the very important stuff, if you will, within the Reserve, and that is the crude oil. I call this the flagship because there are five product petroleum reserve sites in the Northeast. We have product reserve sites for gasoline, distillate, and home heating oil, but these are relatively small reserve sites. There are about 2 million barrels total. I think their effectiveness is probably more controversial. But the flagship SPR is truly--when we think about the impact, the import to our economy and to a level of stability, the flagship Strategic Petroleum Reserve occupies giant underground caverns along the gulf coast.…”