Political Quotes

“Madam President, I just came back from Pensacola. I saw the oil not only out in the gulf, I saw the oil in Pensacola Bay. It is also in Perdido Bay. There are tar balls in the bay. They are slipping underneath the booms. Those tar balls are getting into the wetlands, into the marsh grass. But out there in the bay, there is this reddish orange gunk. Sometimes it is in streamers. Sometimes it is in hamburger-sized patties. Sometimes it is in quarter, dime-sized patties. It looks awful. That is what we are facing. We are going to face it for a long time, especially if the oil continues to gush into the gulf for the rest of the summer. We have to have a command-and-control structure. After talking to all of our people in Pensacola at the emergency operations center, it is getting better. But it had to get better because when the oil entered Florida waters in Perdido Bay, the emergency operations center in Florida was not even informed by the EOC in Pensacola. So it has to be tightened up more, like a military chain-of-command structure, so when things need to get done they can get done immediately. The problem in the past has been the Coast Guard is here. BP is there. BP is doing its thing. We can't do that for the long term, as much as we will be facing. Secondly, we have to set up a trust fund because we are going to be in this for the long haul.…”