Political Quotes

“I don't understand. We are 58 days into this oilspill. Eleven lives have been lost. We have seen up to 97 million gallons of oil in the Gulf of Mexico that is already on the shores of the gulf. We have thousands of wildlife covered in oil, many of them dead. We have fishermen who have lost their livelihoods, some, we guess, maybe for generations. We have countless hotels and restaurants that are empty during what should be their prime tourist season. I don't understand why, given all of this--the full devastation of this catastrophic spill is far from being known, although we know it is going to be one of the worst economic and environmental disasters in American history, and we need to make absolutely certain this never happens again--why people are still objecting to giving the bipartisan commission charged with investigating this disaster the subpoena power to do what they need to do to make sure this never happens again. In order to have a full and fruitful investigation, this commission must have subpoena power to get to the bottom of what safety precautions BP did and did not take leading up to the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Subpoena power is essential to their task of making meaningful recommendations on how to prevent future disasters. That is why I, along with 18 other Senators, have introduced this legislation to grant subpoena power to this commission.”