Political Quotes

“I reserve the right to object and to explain why to my colleagues here in the Senate. This is an unfortunate, terrible exploitation of a crisis in Russia by the oil and natural gas industry of the United States of America. They have no shame. They have no conscience. They have no sense of decency. This industry, this unscrupulous industry led by the American Petroleum Institute--really the ``American Prevarication Institute,'' which is what we are hearing here today and what we have heard on airways with tens of millions of dollars of television ads saying we have just got to ``drill, baby, drill'' here in the United States, that that is the answer to the invasion of Ukraine by the Russians. Well, a few facts might be helpful so that the American people can understand, once again, that all the American Petroleum Institute is about is tipping consumers upside down at the pump and shaking money out of their pockets. That is who they are. So just a few facts here: The oil industry in the United States has bid for leases on American public lands. Right now, 53 percent of the leases that the oil industry, the natural gas industry of the United States have onshore in our country--in our forests, in our fields--they are not drilling on them. Fifty-three percent of all the leases that they have from the American people, have they been drilling to protect us against this day? No, they have not. What about offshore?…”