Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation that will speed the next phase of a renewable energy project in my home State of Alaska, that Congress effectively authorized 35 years ago. Back in 1980, Congress in Section 1325 of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, noted that the Kodiak Electric Association Inc., KEA, then wished to build a lake-tap hydroelectric project by taking water from Terror Lake, a high alpine lake, whiph was placed just inside the boundary line of Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge by the act. At the time KEA had wanted to build a 20 megawatt hydroelectric project inside the refuge to power the namesake community on Kodiak Island. Under the law, the Secretary of the Interior was to approve the project and its expansion on a ``case-by-case'' basis--the law simply saying that nothing in the 1980 Act ``shall be construed as necessarily prohibiting or mandating the construction'' of the project. The Secretary the next year approved the power project, which started generation in the mid 1980's. A third 10-megawatt turbine since was added to the project in 2012-13. Kodiak Electric Association, a rural electric cooperative, is a leader in Alaska in promoting renewable energy. In 2014, 99.7 percent of its total electricity came from hydroelectric generation and from a Pillar Mountain wind turbine farm--the first community in Alaska to be nearly 100 percent supplied by renewable energy sources.…”