Political Quotes

“I thank the Senator from North Dakota for his leadership on this issue. He has been persistent, diligent, and very articulate as we have moved through the process, and I appreciate that a great deal. I thought I was going to be spending the vast majority of my time this week going through each of these many amendments that Members have presented. As I mentioned, we have 140-plus amendments. But my attention on Keystone and the issues in front of us was dramatically pulled away because of an announcement by the administration which I learned of late on Friday evening, and which was the first announcement today. The fact is I am not in a very good mood right now. I am not in a very good mood, and I think it is probably true to say that most Alaskans are not in a very good mood, because folks back home woke up Sunday morning to the news that this President effectively declared war on our economic future in the State of Alaska. I know those are pretty hard words. It has been suggested by some in the administration that perhaps I am overreacting. Let me tell my colleagues, when our economic opportunities as a State, which lie in our natural resources, are denied us as a State and the promises that were made when we entered the Union--the compact we made--we are now not able to see those promises, then there is nothing else. There is no other way to describe it than that it is a war on our economic future. We have winter going on in Alaska right now.…”