Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman from South Carolina for hosting this event tonight. Madam Speaker, this is really important because it impacts every single American. Energy is one of those pervasive issues that, if you drive a car, if you ride in a taxi, if you take public transit, if you have a house or you have an apartment, you have to pay the energy bills. It affects every single one of us. Madam Speaker, we have options before us. We can choose to go down this path of ignoring the energy abundance that the United States has; we can pivot in this direction of blindly seeking these lofty goals or ambitions without any technological basis, without any basis in infrastructure or reality; or we can move in a direction where we can produce American energy, and we can produce it safely and we can produce it affordably. Madam Speaker, let's go down the paths of what these options look like. If you look back in 2011, Madam Speaker, one half of this Nation's trade deficit, one half of it was attributable to us importing energy from other countries--one half. That means that we are sending hundreds of billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of jobs, we are sending them, we are empowering them in countries like Iran, in countries like Venezuela and other Middle Eastern and African nations in many cases, Madam Speaker, that don't share our values. They are taking those dollars and coming back and directly challenging American interests around the globe.…”