Political Quotes

“I have had a series of discussions with my colleagues on the energy crisis in this country. I think it is fair to make a broad statement relative to the crisis. The crisis is real. We have seen it in our gasoline prices. We saw it last week when oil hit an all-time high of $37 a barrel--the highest in 10 years. And now we are busy blaming each other for the crisis. I think it is fair to say that our friends across the aisle have taken credit for the economy because it occurred during the last 7 years. I also think it is fair that our colleagues take credit for the energy crisis that has occurred because they have been here for the last 7 years. I have talked about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, what I consider the insignificance of the drawdown, and the signal that it sends to OPEC that, indeed, we are vulnerable at 58-percent dependence on imported oil. That sends a message that we are willing to go into our savings account. What did we get out of that? We got about a 3- to 4-day supply of heating oil. That is all. We use about a million barrels of heating oil a day during the winter. That has to be taken out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in crude form--30 million barrels--and transferred to the refineries which are already operating at capacity because we haven't had any new refineries built in this country in the last 15 to 20 years. This is not the answer.…”