Political Quotes

“I say to my colleagues on the Senate floor, my worst nightmare is becoming reality. Tar balls have been discovered, as reported by CNN, in Key West. Even if they are not the tar balls from this spill, since the spill is flowing southward, it is getting into the Loop Current. That current goes southward into the Gulf of Mexico, around the Florida Keys, and becomes the Gulf Stream. The University of Miami oceanographer testified to us that once it gets into the Loop Current in the northern Gulf of Mexico, it will take, maximum, 10 days to get to the Florida Keys. Eighty-five percent of North America's living coral reefs are in the Florida Keys. The Gulf Stream hugs the Florida Keys going northward and the southeast coast of Florida. The Gulf Stream parallels the entire eastern coast, the Atlantic seaboard, all the way north to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, and proceeds across the Atlantic to Scotland. We are looking at a gargantuan economic and environmental disaster facing this Nation but particularly those States on the gulf coast and the Atlantic seaboard. We have heard all the pronouncements, and we have heard those pronouncements now going on 4 weeks. The oilspill has not been stopped.”