Barbara Boxer: “Mr. President, yesterday Senator Inhofe repeatedly quoted Senator Feinstein in a way that suggested she supports his…”

“Mr. President, yesterday Senator Inhofe repeatedly quoted Senator Feinstein in a way that suggested she supports his amendment. He kept reiterating a statement she made about streamlining which had nothing to do with this amendment. Senator Feinstein has told me she opposes the Inhofe amendment. I think it is important that I make that point. All you have to do is look at the title of this amendment: The Gas Petroleum Refiner Improvement and Community Empowerment Act. You ask yourself: OK. What are we giving the gas petroleum refiners that they do not have right now, that they did not get in the 2005 Energy bill, when they got all kinds of streamlining and everything they wanted and all kinds of money and all kinds of grants and the rest? This is a giveaway to the people who are gouging us at the pump. That is the first point. Yes, life will improve for gas petroleum refiners, who have it very good. Now, let's take the second part, the Community Empowerment Act. Your communities and mine and the communities in Washington State and, frankly, in Oklahoma and all over this country, I believe those communities will be hurt by this bill because it says there will be a giveaway to energy companies, a giveaway of taxpayer-owned land, former BRAC land, former federally owned lands that are now in the BRAC procedure. A lot of communities want to sell these lands. They want to use these lands for economic development.”