Chellie Pingree: “Let's just remember, we are here to protect the welfare of the American public, and we cannot close our eyes to the…”

“Let's just remember, we are here to protect the welfare of the American public, and we cannot close our eyes to the impacts of climate change: the drought, the flooding, the severe storms, the wildfire events that we are experiencing. Climate change has reached a crisis point, and we have to take bold action to avoid a major irreversible catastrophe. That means we have to invest in renewable energy. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are proposing this amendment that would focus all of BOEM's resources on conventional energy. If my colleague from New Jersey wants to talk about the tragedy of what could happen to our States--I represent Maine, and we care about our beautiful coastline. We are worried about offshore oil drilling and the fishermen's impact, the potential impact on tourism of an oil spill, all of the things we have seen happen in other places. We want to invest in the renewable and wind industry. To say it would reduce our tourism industry down to zero is ludicrous. To say it would do this to our fishing industry without careful management would be ridiculous. I have been to visit the countries of Norway and Denmark. I have talked to the people from Scotland about their offshore wind projects. It hasn't eliminated tourism or reduced their fishing industry. This is misinformation made up because people want to stick to their dependence on oil and gas and the things that we have to eliminate. I oppose this amendment.…”