Political Quotes

“last Friday, I spoke of the high energy prices--I have done that on a number of occasions recently--and the need for the Senate to pass the Consumer-First Energy Act. That will be the first vote we will have. When I came to the Senate floor Friday, we had already had a very difficult day. We got up and saw in the newspaper that day that the market had crashed and gas prices were spiraling up to $132 a barrel. There were other things that were not good from an economic perspective. I did not have any idea that the price of oil would go up to almost $140 a barrel. Actually, it did that during the remarks I was making. The massive spike in oil prices we saw on Friday and the corresponding 400-point drop in the Dow only compounded the crisis that has been growing for months and even years. When President Bush took office, a barrel of oil cost $32 and a gallon of gasoline cost less than $1.50. Of course, now, the average price in our country is more than $4 a gallon, for the first time in the history of our country. The President took us to war--a war of choice--and Vice President Cheney invited oil executives to the White House to secretly write our national energy legislation. It was secret, so people went to court--it went all the way to the Supreme Court--to try to find out whom he met with, what he talked about, and what arrangements he made with the big oil companies. He was able to keep it secret. It is still secret.…”