Political Quotes

“I rise today to talk about gas prices and the energy situation in our country. First, to agree with my distinguished colleague from Utah, in fact there are long-term issues we have to address. There is no question about that. Alternative fuels, the efforts to put forward very aggressive alternatives such as ethanol, soy-based biodiesel, and other alternatives that create real competition, are critical, but there are short-term actions we can take right now that will help the families who are being squeezed on all sides by outrageous prices, along with outrageously high profits of the oil companies. Today our leader on the floor, our Republican leader, said there ought to be an investigation going on, and the President said today we ought to have an investigation going on as to possible price gouging. I come to the floor today, as the author of the amendment that successfully passed in the Energy bill last August, to say that we have an investigation going on. The Federal Trade Commission was authorized and charged with doing an investigation, which they are doing as a criminal investigation, into possible price gouging. I was pleased to be joined by Senator Dorgan and Senator Boxer and others in that effort. Since that time, because they began to move extremely slowly last year, I was pleased to coauthor an increase of $1 million in the budget in order to fund that investigation. We passed that last fall.…”