Barbara Boxer: “We have to take a stand on the floor of the Senate once in a while for average people--people who are faceless in this…”

“We have to take a stand on the floor of the Senate once in a while for average people--people who are faceless in this institution. They think it is dominated by the special interests. My friend from Wisconsin who works so hard every day to get the special interest money out of this Senate has made a very important point--that the very companies that are going to benefit from the Hutchison amendment have given huge contributions to Federal candidates and to Federal committees. If you put that together, as my friend points out, with the retired ARCO employee testimony under oath that he lied 5 years ago--he admitted he was not truthful when he testified in the deposition that ARCO-posted prices represented fair market value. He goes on to honestly say he was afraid he would lose his retirement. He was afraid he would be fired. You put together the contributions from big oil with the testimony of this former ARCO employee, who sat in the room when the decision was made to stop taxpayers from getting their fair share-- when you put that together with the recent settlements by many States with the oil companies, the oil companies saying to the States: Take your lawsuit out of here. We will pay you billions of dollars to go away.”