On the recordJune 13, 2011
I rise today to express my strong opposition to the amendment offered by my colleague from Oklahoma which we will be voting on tomorrow. Before I talk about the substance of the amendment, I wish to comment on the procedure through which it was offered. There was no warning to Senate leadership or to any of our colleagues. And while technically it wasn't in violation of Senate rules, it undermines the basic comity that makes this body work. It is a disservice to do business this way--to our colleagues, to bipartisanship, and to the American people who sent us in Washington to get work done by working together. So I am disappointed in the way this was handled. Now let me talk about the amendment itself. Today, families in Minnesota and around the country are paying painfully high prices at the pump as oil still hovers around $100 a barrel. What this amendment does is cut the legs out from under the most viable alternative to foreign oil we have. Despite decade after decade of rhetoric about weaning our country off foreign oil, we are still dependent on it. And while about a third of our oil imports comes from Canada and Mexico, close to half come from the Persian Gulf, Africa, or Venezuela. Last year at this time we were dealing with the gulf oilspill, the worst environmental catastrophe we have ever had. That was maybe the most jarring reminder of what has been clear for decades--that we have to kick our addiction to oil.…
