Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment to protect the coastlines of Florida from the scourge of offshore oil drilling. I am proud to say that this amendment, as we will see this morning from my colleagues' comments, has strong bipartisan support from our colleagues in the Florida delegation. When it comes to the idea of turning our beaches into a fossil fuel industrial zone, there is no divergence between Democrats and Republicans in Florida. We stand united to prevent drilling off of our cherished coasts. Florida's famous beaches are central to our $65 billion a year tourism industry. Our hotels, fishermen, and recreation industries depend on clean coastal waters, and the still recovering Florida Bay cannot afford an oil spill. Every time I speak about this issue, I make sure to mention the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Apparently, the current administration has already forgotten what happened to us 9 years ago. At its worst, the spill leaked more than 60,000 barrels of oil a day. Eighty-seven days went by while crude gushed into the ocean nearly unchecked. By its end, millions of barrels of crude oil were released into the Gulf of Mexico. This devastated the entire Gulf ecosystem. Thousands of protected species were harmed by oil slicks and dead zones. Coral reefs between Alabama and Florida were decimated and suffocated by oil, and hydrocarbons were found on hundreds of miles of beaches around the Gulf. This environmental impact also left a human toll.…”