Political Quotes

“Thank you, Mr. President. I take this time--and some of my colleagues will be joining me--to express concerns about the first major bill that has been brought to the floor under the Republican leadership dealing with the Keystone Pipeline. I want to start first by talking about the so-called urgency for us to take this issue up and circumvent the normal process. The normal process would be for this matter to continue through the regulatory review, which is there to protect the public interest. To short-circuit that in an unprecedented way and for Congress to approve a site for a pipeline is not the way it is done. In order to consider this there must be some urgency. First, let me just share with my colleagues what the American people are experiencing with the price of gasoline at the pump. It is at a historic low over the last 5 years, with $2.19 the average price for gasoline at the pump. So there is certainly no urgency if we are talking about trying to get more oil in the pipelines for the cost of energy. By the way, I think we all understand that our actions here in this Congress will have very little to do with the availability of oil in the near term. It would take some time to construct the pipeline and for it to have an impact on the level of oil that is available.…”