Political Quotes

“Thank you, Congressman Garamendi, and thank you for your leadership in this area and for recognizing the next generation. Marianne Larson will be part of that next generation that is going to be asking the question: Did we do enough? The question I have tonight that I would like to pose is when will we see enough damage to say enough is enough. How many oil spills do we need before we take decisive action to end our dependence on fossil fuels? Just last week, probably not heard because we have been focused on the BP oil spill, but last week we saw yet another spill in Salt Lake City, Utah. Any oil spill is one too many, and the era of our planet being constantly contaminated by crude oil must come to an end. The preventable accident in the gulf claimed 11 lives, tragically, and is now the worst environmental disaster in this country's history, and the biggest environmental cleanup that we have ever undertaken. It serves as a terrible reminder of our country's dangerous dependence on foreign oil. As long as we remain addicted to that oil, foreign and domestic, spills are inevitable. The question we have to ask ourselves: How many more do we want to somehow live with? Live with the damage to our ecosystem, live with the damage to the people that are afflicted by it, the jobs that are lost, the tourism that is lost. They have been with us for over a century, these oil spills, and they will be with us for centuries more unless we break that addiction to oil.…”