Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to H.R. 3301. My Republican colleagues argue that we need more bills like H.R. 3301 to transport oil and gas as quickly as possible, but building a modern energy infrastructure for the 21st century requires more than just drilling more wells, laying more pipelines, filling more rail cars with crude oil, and putting more tanker trucks on our highways. A modern 21st century infrastructure must address the threat of climate change, the biggest energy challenge we face as a country. Republicans can deny it all they want, but we can't have a meaningful conversation about America's energy infrastructure without also having a conversation about climate. We have a rapidly diminishing window to act to reduce our carbon pollution before the catastrophic impacts of climate change are irreversible. In fact, we are seeing, today, the devastating consequences in many parts of our country. The International Energy Agency has concluded that, if the world does not take action to reduce carbon pollution before 2017, then dangerous levels of carbon emissions will be locked in by the energy infrastructure existing at that time. The energy infrastructure decisions that we make today will have a real impact on whether we can mitigate climate change in the future or lock in carbon pollution for generations to come.…”