Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, everyone in Washington is trying to arrive at the same destination. We seek to end our dependence on foreign oil, a dependence that endangers our environment, hurts our economy, and weakens our national security. Importantly, there is a right way to get there. That includes cracking down on oil speculators, ending Big Oil handouts, investing in public transportation and green energy, and increasing corporate average fuel economy standards. There's also a wrong way: ransacking our coastlines for oil. But you don't have to take my word for it. You can take a page from the history books on this one. For 8 years under the previous administration, the number of oil leases on public lands almost tripled. It didn't help gas prices, which doubled in 2008, and it didn't make us energy independent. Why not? The simple fact is the U.S. has less than 3 percent of the world's oil reserves. No matter how much we drill in the U.S., that number is not expected to change. We will never have enough oil to satisfy domestic demand for energy. After all, we currently use 25 percent of the world's oil, and we will never have enough to sufficiently impact prices on the world market. The U.S. Energy Information Administration has said as much, noting that increases in U.S. domestic production could be neutralized by a corresponding decrease in production among international oil producers, namely, OPEC. What's really to blame for high gas prices?…”