Political Quotes

“I appreciate this opportunity to engage in a discussion with my colleague from Massachusetts on the important issues. He has raised several issues in regard to oil export and then also in regard to the environmental aspects. If I could take a minute to address both of those, for starters, I would point out that it is interesting that the Senator, my good friend from Massachusetts, is opposed to this pipeline project and talks about our need to import oil, and therefore we should not allow any exports, because we need to import oil. Yet he is opposed to a project that would not only bring Canadian oil to our country, 830,000 barrels a day, but also would help us move 100,000 barrels of oil a day from my State of North Dakota and my neighboring State of Montana--light sweet Bakken crude. So he objects to that, and he talks about our need to import oil. The irony here is that if he is successful and he and the other critics or opponents of this pipeline and the infrastructure are successful, then what Canada will do is they will build a pipeline to the west coast of Canada, and they will export that oil to China--100 percent of it. So it appears that his argument is that because some portion of this oil may be exported if we build the pipeline, somehow it is better to force Canada to export 100 percent of it to China. Now, I do not begin to understand that argument.…”