Political Quotes

“he who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it. This House has debated time after time the energy crisis which we had in the 1970's and 1980's. To deal with that, one of the principal weapons we achieved was to set aside the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which was supposed to constitute 1 billion barrels. We have 592, less than half of what it is. This bill, in an improper procedure which had to be sanctified by an immunity bath given by the Committee on Rules, which waived points of order against this particular proposal, which would be subject to a point of order as legislation in an appropriation bill, has presented us a device which will encourage this country to buy oil at $33.50 a barrel and sell it for $15. The net cost of this kind of folly is two-fold. One, it is going to cost this country $106 billion that we are going to lose. The total cost of what we are going to sell is going to be double that. The loss is $106,500,000. However, the real loss is if this country gets into some kind of a crunch, because when this country produces less than half the oil that it uses, the one mechanism we have to protect our industry, to protect our military, to enable us to protect the force that is necessary to defend ourselves, and to address the problem of stabilizing the petroleum market, is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Adopt the amendment, reject the language of the bill, and let us get down to the business of legislating wisely.”