Cord Byrd: “I will shortly call up an amendment. Before doing so, I would like to recall a statement by the late Reverend Peter…”

“I will shortly call up an amendment. Before doing so, I would like to recall a statement by the late Reverend Peter Marshall, possibly, even probably, the most famous and well known of the Senate chaplains, who offered this prayer at the opening of the second session of the 80th Congress: Let us not be content to wait and see what will happen, but give us the determination to make the right things happen. Sometimes we can do that, sometimes we can't, but at least we can try. For too many months now, the Congress and the administration have taken a ``wait and see'' approach when it comes to today's life- altering price of gasoline. The administration has pinned its rhetoric to an energy plan, waiting and hoping to tout a reduced dependence on foreign oil, while conceding that no energy plan will provide immediate relief to high prices at the pump. The American people have waited and have waited and have waited for the United States to get tough on OPEC and other nations responsible for the recent spike in gasoline prices. Their elected leaders offer explanations and more explanations and still more explanations and equivocations about why such action has not reduced prices at the pump. The American people are out there listening and they are watching; they see what is going on here on the Senate floor. They watch us through those electronic lenses behind the Chair, the Presiding Officer.…”