Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, let's break this apart a little bit. So my friend from South Carolina has proposed this amendment because he wants to protect the environment. Well, let's look at what happens when you do this. My friend sat in the House Committee on Natural Resources where we had experts, not people standing here behind the microphone, but real experts who came to the Congress, who testified before us, and who said: We have looked at this issue when you stop producing energy domestically. We have looked at it. And what happens when you stop producing it domestically? You import it. You import it from foreign countries. All right. So, one, you are not stopping the production of energy. You are just doing it in another country, and you are paying them and creating jobs there. Number two, when you do this, you still have to actually ship the energy. It doesn't just pop up in the socket. You have to ship the energy. Look at the studies. Look at the reports. You have a greater chance of threatening your global environment, threatening the coast of South Carolina by transporting it by ship. Look at the statistics. It is safer to do exploration and production activities, to put it in a pipe in the United States. Mr. Chairman, my friend was there and heard the witnesses talk about this. It is important that we make sure that we are doing things that don't just feel good, but things that will actually achieve the goal of protecting our environment in the United States.…”