Political Quotes

“first, I wish to congratulate the bill's sponsors, Senators Shaheen and Portman, for crafting the underlying bipartisan, commonsense energy efficiency bill. I am proud to be a cosponsor of their legislation, and I am pleased to see that the bill is being considered and look forward to the debate on energy efficiency. I would hope that as we consider amendments to this bill, we could consider amendments that relate to the issue of energy so we can make real progress and that we don't end up--as happened before the recess when I was managing a bill on the transportation and housing appropriations for the minority side--distracted on two issues that had nothing to do with the underlying bill, important though it was. I am very pleased to join my colleague, the distinguished Senator from Colorado Mr. Udall in sponsoring an amendment to help streamline the available Federal Energy Efficiency Financing Program to help improve the health and lower energy costs of our Nation's schools. There are a number of Federal initiatives already available to schools to help them become more efficient. However, in many cases schools are not taking full advantage of these programs. I think this is particularly a problem in rural States such as Alaska or Maine, where the schools don't have the luxury of having grant writers who can spend all day searching for Federal funding that might allow them to upgrade their energy efficiency or reduce emissions from their energy systems.…”