Mitch Landrieu: “with all due respect to my dear friend and wonderful colleague from Washington, I rise to oppose the position she has…”

“with all due respect to my dear friend and wonderful colleague from Washington, I rise to oppose the position she has outlined and to support the amendment by the Senator from Alaska. I think it is very important for us to spend time on this issue. One of the previous speakers said: Why would we spend so much time on this issue? Why would the Senate, all 100 Members of the greatest deliberative body in the world today, spend so much time on this issue? The answer is because this is not a small matter. This is not an insignificant debate. This is not a minor point. This is a major point in the debate on the future of this Nation and in what our energy policy is going to look like and how we can strengthen and improve upon it. It is said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But given what I have heard in this Chamber, I say that balance must be in the eyes of the beholder as well because those of us both for and against this amendment continue to say we are for a balanced policy. Yet we argue the different aspects of what balance really is. So I am going to give it one more shot by saying what I think balance is. The Senators from Alaska have done a magnificent job of making clear that we are not for drilling everywhere; we support a balance. When this area was created, the areas in dark yellow, light yellow and green, there was a balance in the creation of this piece of land, land that is as large as the State of South Carolina.”