Political Quotes

“several weeks ago, on September 28 of this year, I joined three of my Senate colleagues--Senators Shelby, Cornyn, and Hutchison--in requesting from the Obama administration and its Interior Department a detailed plan about what their new 5-year energy lease plan was going to be, as well as their plans for moving forward with scheduled leasing. We finally got some of the answers to that today as the administration released its new 5-year oil and gas lease plan. I guess that is the good news--we finally got our questions answered. There is a lot more bad news, unfortunately, which is what those answers are. It is deeply disappointing that we are not moving forward in a far more aggressive and positive way in developing our own domestic energy resources. As I said, today Secretary Salazar introduced President Obama's plan for the next 5 years of energy production, specifically on the Outer Continental Shelf. For those Members in the Senate and for others who are not as familiar with energy production on the Outer Continental Shelf, this is basically the 5-year strategy for us as a nation in terms of oil and gas production domestically--what we are going to do in these next 5 years to produce more of our own energy. The opportunity was enormous.…”