Political Quotes

“I rise first to pay respects to the distinguished gentleman on the majority side handling the legislation to tell him that I have affection and respect for him, but he is handling a bad bill. I also want to thank my good friend for yielding me this time. I have been to Alaska many times. I have hunted there. I have fished there. I have been to the NPR-A. I have been to all of the refuges in the national forests and national parks and the BLM lands up there. I have seen what a treasure it is. I have also supported, actively, the idea that this Nation must make it possible for us to easily produce energy, but not at the price of throwing away things like our basic fundamental environmental protection laws. This legislation is not going to significantly increase production of oil. All it is going to do is throw away the things that are necessary to protect it against unwise use. This has been a battle that we have had in this body many times, where the majority will consistently seek to make it easier to drill for oil that either isn't there or isn't there in the amounts or that is not going to be produced by the oil companies, because we are finding that there is a lot of oil where there is authorization for drilling where they just got the drilling permits and they sit there and look at the drilling permits. Oil is not produced.…”