Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, thank you very much. I will be joined during this hour by my good friend and colleague from California, Congressman John Garamendi. I would like to just begin this discussion on oil prices by recalling that in 2008, the constant refrain that was heard in this Chamber over and over again was ``Drill, baby, drill'' by my colleagues on the Republican side. And the good news is that's precisely what we've done. In fact, in USA Today, Citigroup analysts are quoted as saying in a recent report, Energy independence ``is no pipe dream. The U.S. is already the world's fastest-growing oil and natural gas producer. Counting the output from Canada and Mexico, North America is `the new Middle East.' '' So it's interesting to note that as much as we've been wringing our hands, there is oil being produced here in the United States. In fact, a lot of oil is being produced in the United States. And we're going to go over a few charts now to show how, in fact, things are looking a little bit better. This first chart really shows what happened with oil production. When George Bush was still the President of the United States, the price of gas hit $4.10 a gallon. It was very high. And then gas prices hit rock bottom when President Obama took office because of the global financial crisis that hit. When President Obama took office, there were fewer than 400 oil rigs operating in the United States, falling below 200 rigs by mid 2009.…”