David Vitter: “The fact is, what Americans are faced with is an energy crisis and we have all this ``inside baseball'' tangling us up…”

“The fact is, what Americans are faced with is an energy crisis and we have all this ``inside baseball'' tangling us up in the Senate, in the House, and we are not doing a darned thing about it. The other fact is there is no objection on the Republican side to calling this amendment up, No. 1776, to making it pending, to considering it. There are all sorts of debate and all sorts of discussions about other amendments. There is certainly no objection on our side to this amendment. Why should there be? Why shouldn't we allow individual States to say: Yes, we want to be part of the solution, particularly when all of the following events occur: average price of gasoline reaches $3.75 a gallon, foreign imports top 65 percent of everything used in the country, the President certifies that renewables can't make up the gap, the President certifies there is a continuing reliance on foreign oil, which is a national security threat?”