Jeff Bingaman: “today I joined Senator Daschle in introducing the Energy Policy Act of 2002. This bill is a culmination of a great deal…”

“today I joined Senator Daschle in introducing the Energy Policy Act of 2002. This bill is a culmination of a great deal of work involving several committees in the Senate. In the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources alone, we had over 50 hearings in the 106th and 107th Congresses that relate to this bill. The staff of the committee, particularly the majority staff, who have worked on drafting the legislation we introduced today, did yeoman's work. I will mention the individuals who worked so hard on this: Of course, Bob Simon, who is our staff director. This list is in no particular order except perhaps alphabetical, although I am not sure that is exactly right. Patty Beneke worked hard on various provisions; Jonathan Black; Shelley Brown helped us with the bill; Mike Connor; Deborah Estes; Sam Fowler, who was the principal draftsman on the bill; Jennifer Michael; Leon Lowery; Shirley Neff made tremendous contributions. Malini Sekhar, Vicki Thorne, John Watts, Bill Wicker, and Mary Katherine Ishee also made great contributions. So I want to publicly state my appreciation to them for the good work they did. Although the bill that we introduced today is the culmination of a great deal of work, it is also in many ways just a beginning. It is a starting point for the next phase of the Senate's consideration of energy policy.”