Political Quotes

“Madam President, I seek to speak on the floor to speak of my residence of Alaska, a State that constantly overcomes adversity in its tough winters. This year has been an especially tough winter. Alaska's history is marked by stories of people coming together to overcome extreme hardships and save their communities. None is more memorable than the 1925 Serum Run, when diphtheria ravaged the remote Arctic community of Nome. The needed vaccine was raced to the community by a team of 20 mushers and some 150 sled dogs. They faced brutal February weather and extreme cold, with winds and snowdrifts, and carried their precious cargo--the vaccine--some 700 miles in just 5\1/ 2\ days. It is a speed record that has never since been broken, and it saved the community. The feat is memorialized by the 1,000-mile Iditarod sled dog race known as the last great race on Earth. This year, the city of Nome faced a 21st-century challenge: the need for energy. The fall fuel barge--the last scheduled before winter set in--was blocked first by a mammoth October storm which swept up western Alaska and then by heavy sea ice. The barge had to turn back, but without the delivery Nome would run out of fuel by March. Nome is not connected by road, and the earliest the next barge would arrive would be this June. Flying in 1.3 million gallons of fuel would have taken 300 flights and would have boosted the cost of an already expensive gasoline and home-heating fuel to over $9 a gallon.…”