Political Quotes

“My friend, at the beginning of his last comments, said ``on public lands.'' I want to make it very clear that the implication, perhaps that we're not allowing that on public lands, there are, as I said, 80 percent of the already authorized spots on public land not being utilized today; so that this is not a question of where we have not authorized drilling. We're for that. We want to find more product. What we are saying is that we have now got the majority of authorized spots being unutilized. Now, why that is so, when the product is getting the highest price it's ever gotten, which ought to be incentive, in and of itself, to look for new product and to explore and to drill and to get new product to the market, which would then bring the price down. I hope that nobody is controlling supply simply to escalate price. We know that when demand goes up and supply is constrained, that prices inevitably rise. The American public is paying the price for that. Great profits are being made. But it is adversely affecting our economy and our families. And we share your view that we want to address this problem. But I want to say, we talk about today. Unfortunately, for too long, I'm old enough to have experienced the gas lines of the late seventies where you waited hours to get gasoline in your car. Hopefully that won't reoccur.”