Political Quotes

“I will be speaking each day this week on the issue of homeland energy security. I have come before the Senate on many occasions to discuss our needs for national energy in this country, some form of a national energy policy. I think my colleagues' focus for the most part is on the issue of opening and exploring that small sliver of the 19 million acres known as ANWR, an area the size of the State of South Carolina. This is a sliver because it represents roughly 1.5 million acres open for exploration that only Congress can allow, and the realization in the House-passed bill that there was only an authorization of 2000 acres, not much bigger than a small farm. This is the issue of opening up ANWR in my State of Alaska. Last spring, for example, Senator Breaux and I proposed a comprehensive bipartisan energy policy with some 300 pages. All that most people focused on was the two pages remitted to opening ANWR. I am a man of few words. It is fair to say some of the radical environmental groups have used ANWR as a cash cow in that they have milked it for all it is worth from the standpoint of membership and dollars. It is a great issue because it is far away--the American people cannot see for themselves and understand and appreciate the dimension, size, and magnitude nor the response we had in producing Prudhoe Bay, which could be transferred to the ANWR area. ANWR will be opened.”