Mitch Landrieu: “I thank the chairman, the distinguished Senator from New Mexico, because he is absolutely correct. I share his…”

“I thank the chairman, the distinguished Senator from New Mexico, because he is absolutely correct. I share his frustration. All I can say is as we proceed, we will continue to talk about these issues and educate the American people. People are afraid. They tend to be afraid if they are not sure of the facts. Sometimes people get the facts all confused. But as I hope people understand, as I keep speaking the truth on this and people understand there are ways you can do this drilling, particularly for natural gas, that are safe for the environment, that meet every environmental standard we have today, and actually meet the clean air standards set out in our own act, we can most certainly explore these opportunities and continue to work on this bill. I thank the Senator for his comments, for his interest and his knowledge of the subject. I can only say I will continue to try to tell the story, and as the American people learn more about it, perhaps some of the fear will dissipate, reason will prevail, and we can begin to understand that here at home we have places on our shores and off our shores that we can tap into and minimize our dependency on foreign oil and foreign gas. For the short term, this bill, and with the support of most of these Senators, will begin importing natural gas. We have policies in this bill to allow that to happen.…”