Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for allowing me to speak on this important issue, H.R. 1229. Mr. Chairman, as you know, it is one of a trifecta of bills that we're passing out of the House, once and for all and after 40 years, to begin actually putting together a cogent energy policy for this country. Now, before I talk about it, I do want to make a couple of comments. Our President has been saying over and over again that our energy production, our oil production is at the highest level it has ever been. Ed Markey, the ranking member of the committee said the same thing. Mr. Salazar of Interior, Mr. Bromwich just the other day, and Ms. Wasserman Schultz said the same thing. Why are you saying this? Very clearly, right now we are producing oil at a level of 6 million barrels a day, down from a high in 1972 of 9 million barrels a day; and off the gulf coast, where you claim that production is its highest ever, we were down from 1.7 million barrels a day last year to 1.59 million today, and it will be going down by another 225,000 barrels of oil per day by next year. For heaven's sake, there's a reason we have a structural increase in the cost of our energy. It is, very simply, that we're constraining the output of oil. So let's get on it. Let's finally start producing oil in this country, and let's become energy independent once and for all. Louisiana is being hurt in two ways. Number one, of course, is the increasing price of gasoline; but it's also jobs.…”