Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise today again to respond to some of the concerns that have been expressed on this floor regarding the Keystone XL Pipeline, to urge my colleagues to move this important, shovel-ready project forward. I had a chance earlier this afternoon--I guess it was this morning--to listen to a fair amount of the debate as I presided. A lot of what we are hearing over and over again is the same messages, in some ways confused messages, because I do not know if we are talking about stopping the oil sands in Canada or if we are talking about approving a pipeline; I do not know if we are talking about doing the State's work in siting a pipeline within their State, or if we are talking about making a determination as directed by legislation from this body to the President to make a determination on whether approval, which is to take that pipeline across the border of this country, is in the national interest. I think we have confused a lot of the dialog here. I just want to take a moment to start from Ground Zero. That is that we have a requirement that when a pipeline--a legislative requirement--that when a pipeline is going to come across a border, the State Department has an obligation to determine whether that is going to be permitted. The determination is whether it is in the national interest.…”