Political Quotes

“Thank you, Mr. President. In Alaska there is a great deal of attention focused this week on the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964. March 27 marked the 50th anniversary of this amazing physical event, the second largest earthquake that has ever been recorded, an episode Alaskans have been talking about for the past 50 years and will be talking about for the next 50. I rise this afternoon not to speak about that anniversary but to speak of a 25-year anniversary that while not caused by Mother Nature had a devastating impact on Alaska and the surrounding waters of our State. I would like to speak very briefly about where we are 25 years after the Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef. The Exxon Valdez was a 987-foot tanker. It was carrying 53 million gallons of crude oil. It struck Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound at 12:04 a.m., on March 24, 1989, and within literally hours it had released approximately 11 million gallons of crude oil into the water. As most know, the Alaskan coastline isn't just a nice thin straight beach; it is hundreds and hundreds of coves and islands and miles of shoreline. That oil spread over approximately 1,000 miles of shoreline across our coast. It is absolutely a fact that this environmental disaster is something that has left an impression on Alaskans not unlike what we experienced 25 years prior to that with another one of Mother Nature's devastations, the Great Friday earthquake in 1964.…”