On the recordJune 8, 2010
I come to the floor to talk about the ongoing oil disaster in the gulf. Being from Louisiana, we view this, correctly, as an ongoing disaster. This is not history. This is not a past event. This is not just some issue to debate in Washington. It is an ongoing crisis, an ongoing oil flow that continues to pollute the gulf and continues to devastate the region economically. So in that context, there is, perhaps, only one thing that is more frustrating than an inadequate response from BP or an inadequate Federal response. The only thing more frustrating than that--in fact, more infuriating--is when this ongoing crisis and disaster is used and abused politically for other purposes. I think that is exactly what is going on in this extenders bill. Because in this bill there is a huge increase in taxes that go to the Oil Pollution Act trust fund, but that money is not going to oil cleanup in the gulf. It is primarily being used to go into the trust fund to be stolen from it for unrelated spending to mask the deficit spending in this bill. Quite frankly, when we are going through an ongoing crisis in the gulf, that is not frustrating, it is outrageous.
