Political Quotes

“Madam President, later we will be taking up an amendment I filed to the supplemental appropriations bill--amendment No. 4191-- and at that time, with an agreement that is reached by all sides, I will not be asking for a vote on that amendment and will be withdrawing it. I wanted to give the reasons why I will be doing so. I was pleased that President Obama announced today that he would put on hold the lease-sale 220 site that is off the coast of Virginia for offshore drilling. Let me take us back to March, when President Obama made the announcement that certain parts of our coast--previously off limits for offshore drilling--would now be allowed to go forward with drilling. At that time, Senator Mikulski and I sent a letter, issued a statement, making it clear we would resist any efforts to drill off of the Virginia coast 50 miles from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. We thought the risk of these drillings were too great with the amount of oil that may have been there. The President's announcement today takes that issue off the table, at least temporarily. The amendment I offered to the supplemental appropriations bill which, of course, would have been in effect during the use of the funds in the supplemental appropriations, would have prevented any of those funds from being used for drilling off the Atlantic or the straits of Florida.…”