Political Quotes

“I also want to commend the chairman, Mr. Oberstar, who is really interested in transportation issues, a good man of heart, and I applaud your leadership. Mr. Chairman, this authorization bill brings 1,500 new Coast Guardsmen. We're proud of their service. My debate, my concern, over the past 2 weeks, obviously, is energy and the increased cost of bringing on the 1,500 new Coast Guardsmen in addition to the burden on the government. It would be better if we had lower energy costs to help meet those needs, but we don't. We have higher costs. Of course, the Coast Guard uses aviation fuel too, quite a bit of it. So does the United States Air Force. For every $10 over a barrel, it costs our Air Force 600 million more dollars out of the budget. We know the burden on the Coast Guard helicopters. We know the cost to the Coast Guard ships that are diesel run. For every dollar increase in diesel fuel, it costs the Coast Guard $26 million to operate. And this is the kind of the charts I have been using over the past 3 weeks and will continue to use this ad infinitum until this country, which is the greatest country on the face of this Earth, does what other developing countries do: that we go and explore and use our own resources to meet our own needs. We know that we are dependent upon imported crude oil. Shame on us. Shame on us when we have the ability to meet our energy needs. And this is what happens: When this majority took over, the price of a barrel of crude oil was $58.31.”