Angie Craig: “First, the Bush administration is not advocating drilling in all of the monuments of the lower 48 States. That is a…”

“First, the Bush administration is not advocating drilling in all of the monuments of the lower 48 States. That is a falsehood. What is important to say is that the Bush administration is proposing an energy policy that would open up public lands to be explored for the purpose of finding additional energy resources to determine whether or not they ought to be developed. That is a very real and different statement than the one my colleague from Illinois just made. What is important about this debate is a choice that we are asking the American people to make. I think it is an important choice. I think it is worthy of the debate that we are having. Energy security, the right of the family to know that their energy is secure, that their lights won't go out, or the cost of driving their minivan or their SUV is going to double or triple over the next couple of years, or the right and the power of big oil and OPEC to dictate that because policymakers were asleep at the switch or used false arguments to cause fear amongst the American people--if that is true, then shame on those policymakers.”