Ed Markey: “All you have to know about the political nature of this bill--and the next bill that we're going to be voting on that…”

“All you have to know about the political nature of this bill--and the next bill that we're going to be voting on that allows for drilling off of the beaches of Massachusetts and southern California and Maine and Maryland, New Jersey, without new safety safeguards being put in place--is that they kind of pick a whole bunch of States that are on the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, but they leave out one State. Now, why did they leave out that State? I wonder why they left out Florida. Why isn't Florida on the list? Why did they exclude that one State out of their systematic goal of increasing energy independence and compromising, if necessary, the beaches of all of these other States in the advancement of that goal to help Exxon Mobile and BP and Shell drill off of our coastline? Why don't they want to drill off of Miami Beach? Why don't they want to drill off of Jacksonville's beaches? Why don't they include Florida? Hmm. Ah, Gore v. Bush. Florida could decide the Presidential race. Ah. Oh, the Republican convention is in Florida this year? Oh. They don't want 1 million people coming to protest the drilling off of the beaches of Florida? Oh. That makes a lot of sense. That's a good justification for excluding Florida, but not Massachusetts, not Maine, not Maryland, not Virginia. But Florida, they're out.…”