Political Quotes

“Madam President, I call your attention and that of my colleagues to the activity in the U.S. House of Representatives which occurred the day before yesterday, rather late at night. This involved the reporting out of an energy bill, a very comprehensive bill. As a consequence, the baton now passes to the Senate. There is going to be a great deal of debate in the committee, on which I am the ranking member, along with other members of that committee, including the Senator from Louisiana who just addressed this body. As a consequence of that debate and the development of our own energy bill at this time, I will highlight one of the topical points in that bill that affects my State of Alaska. That is the issue of ANWR, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The action by the House is very responsible. It puts the issue in perspective. The issue has been that somehow this huge area called ANWR, an area of 19 million acres, an area that is approximately the size of the State of South Carolina, is at risk by any action by the Congress to initiate authorization for exploration. What the House has done is extraordinary, mandating a limitation of 2,000 acres to be the footprint associated with any development that might occur in that area.”