Political Quotes

“Madam President, I wish to give the Senate a report on the gulf oilspill. Mother Nature is now developing hurricane and it is very likely within a couple of days of reaching hurricane strength, which is 75 miles per hour or greater, but Mother Nature is smiling on us in that it is going on a more westerly track. It will probably go into the coast at northern Mexico, possibly southern Texas, but it will keep it away from heading into the area to the east of Louisiana where the oilspill is. Of course, if it had gone on that trajectory, then one of the worst nightmares would be that it takes all that oil on the surface, and in the rage of a hurricane, the counterclockwise rotation of the winds would take that right on to shore over the barrier islands, into the bays and estuaries where oil, once contaminating all the marsh grasses, becomes so difficult to get out. The effects of that we don't know. It could be for years to come, just as we don't know the effects of the subsurface oil that is there, that the scientists have identified, that BP denies, that even some of our Federal officials in NOAA deny. We are waiting on their report. Of course, we won't know the effects of that for years. We have a lot of uncertainty here. But at least for the moment, the hurricane is not bearing down on the oilspill, although let me remind my colleagues that we have a very active hurricane season coming up.…”