Political Quotes

“To my friend and colleague from North Dakota, it is all about infrastructure. In Alaska, my home State, we have boundless supplies of oil and natural gas, but until we were able to build that 800-mile pipeline across two mountain ranges to deliver oil from Alaska's North Slope to tidewater in Valdez, that oil didn't do anybody any good. Today,the oil pipeline in Alaska is less than half full. So we are working to try to figure out how we can do more as a State to contribute more to our Nation's energy needs, to allow us as a State to be producing more for the benefit not only of our State but of the Nation as well, but we are held back by policies that limit us. So it is policies and it is infrastructure. It is absolutely infrastructure. We are trying to move Alaska's natural gas to market as well. But, again, if we don't have the infrastructure, it sits. It stays. It doesn't benefit consumers, it doesn't create jobs, and it doesn't help any of us out. So Keystone truly is about infrastructure. I thank my colleague from North Dakota for leading on this issue for years now and for reintroducing the legislation, S. 1, the first bill to be filed in the Senate this year. It will be among the first bills to pass in this new Congress and appropriately so. This is a measure that not only enjoys bipartisan support in the Senate, it enjoys broad support over in the House, and it enjoys support across our Nation for great reason. So why are we where we are?…”