Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, I rise in strong support of the Consolidated Land, Energy and Aquatic Resources Act. It is often said that experience is the best teacher. Unfortunately, it often seems that experience is the only teacher when it comes to developing common sense safeguards to prevent oil spills. As I speak, at least 800,000 gallons of oil has spilled from a pipeline into the Kalamazoo River in my home state of Michigan. We are just a few days into this crisis, but surely this accident could have been prevented. In 1989, the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska and spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound, fouling hundreds of miles of pristine coastline. In the months that followed, Congress responded by approving the Oil Pollution Act that strengthened the Federal Government's role in oil spill response and cleanup in the case of oil tankers. Among its many provisions, the Act required vessels carrying oil and operating in U.S. waters to have double hulls to prevent further accidents of this type. The law has been a success, but the damage to Alaska's environment was done. We are more than 100 days into the oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico. To date, between 90 million and 180 million gallons of oil has been released into the environment. The BP Deepwater Horizon spill might have been prevented if there had been some basic drilling safety standards in place, and if there had been effective oversight of BP's actions as it was drilling the well.…”