Neil Abercrombie: “That may be, and that makes my point. I certainly was not among the ones to create it; but I'll tell you, had I been…”

“That may be, and that makes my point. I certainly was not among the ones to create it; but I'll tell you, had I been here in 1984, I probably would have voted for it. I voted for these kinds of things before without thinking much about it because it was an easy vote, it was an easy vote as to come and say, well, environmental groups, they all know all about this, why get crossways with them when you have a good environmental record. I've gotten my awards, too, not because of my bright perception, but because I voted the right way without thinking much about it. Why is this here in the Interior bill on appropriations? Why do we have members of the committee standing up ahead of time? I don't know that anybody on Appropriations knows more about it than the people on Resources or the Energy Committee. But why? Because we legislate on an appropriations bill, that's why. And we didn't break any agreements down here. If the agreement was what was being broken, why is this moratorium again being put into the bill this year? If we had an agreement last year, you wouldn't need the moratorium.”