Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I too want to join in the unanimous consent that has been raised by my colleagues Senator Portman and Senator Shaheen on this very important bill. I have to say it feels a little bit like instead of calling it the energy efficiency bill, we need to call it the groundhog day bill because it just keeps coming back. It is a measure that, as my colleagues have mentioned, is so commonsense. When we think about ways that we can do more to be responsible stewards of our energy resources and do more to reduce our costs, energy efficiency is just calling to us all. What we have in front of us today is not the full-on energy efficiency bill that Senators Shaheen and Portman have been working so diligently on for so many years now, but it is a slimmed-down version coming across from the House, a House-drafted, Republican-sponsored, cost neutral bill that passed that Chamber on suspension back in March, as was noted, by an overwhelming margin of 375 to 36. There are four major provisions in the bill, but none of these provisions are controversial. Probably the most important to us right now is the time- sensitive provision that provides regulatory relief for our rural electric co-ops. Under a consent decree from 2010, water heater manufacturers have until just mid-April--April 16--of this next year to meet revised minimum efficiency standards from the Department of Energy.…”