Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I wish to address an issue that the Senator from Alabama touched on before he leaves the floor. I am here to speak about the Florida Everglades, but since the Senator just raised the issue of the Gulf of Mexico, which is certainly an interest of his, just as it is for the Acting President pro tempore, the Senator from Louisiana, I just want to clarify something and make sure the Senators understand that this part of the Gulf of Mexico, which is off- limits to drilling up to and through 2022, has nothing to do with the Obama administration. It has to do with a law that Senator Martinez and I passed in the last half of the last decade. Now, why did we do that? Well, it would be nice to say that we were prescient and understood that when the oil spilled into the gulf off of Louisiana--relative to the whole spill, a little oil got into Florida and covered up Pensacola Beach and got into Perdido Bay, Pensacola Bay, Choctawhatchee Bay and went as far east as Panama City Beach; the sugary white beaches that so many people visit were just covered with tar balls--as a result, a whole tourist season was lost, not just for Pensacola, Destin, Sandestin, and Panama City Beach but for the entire gulf coast of Florida down to Clearwater Beach, Sarasota, Fort Myers, Naples and for the farmost beaches on the west coast of Florida on the gulf and Marco Island.…”