Bill Nelson: “I am going to continue to speak out on the vulnerable position our country finds itself in with regard to our dependence…”

“I am going to continue to speak out on the vulnerable position our country finds itself in with regard to our dependence on foreign oil. Somewhere between 58 percent and 60 percent of our daily consumption of oil comes from foreign shores. If that in and of itself is not enough to alarm us--and I think the collective Nation has put its head in the sand to ignore the ramifications of that fact--certainly the two hurricanes, Katrina and Rita, hitting the gulf coast at a very vulnerable position of our oil supply as well as our oil refining capacity has reminded us. So now with several of the refineries shut down first from Katrina in the New Orleans region and the gulf coast region of Mississippi, but now with some additional refineries that will be shut down in the Lake Charles, LA, region as a result of Hurricane Rita, it all the more underscores how vulnerable we are on this thin thread of oil supply and oil distribution. I think we need an Apollo project or a Manhattan project for energy independence. I do not think we ought to make decisions for the governing of our country and the comfort and protection of our people based on a system of supply and distribution of energy that makes us so subject to the whims of things that can happen beyond our control. I think we are likely to see this play out in the concern that we are not going to have enough home heating fuel for this winter because of the disruption that has already occurred.…”