Political Quotes

“we have sat here for the past hour and listened to so many speakers talk about energy, when the underlying bill is actually the Coast Guard reauthorization bill. But if our colleagues want to talk about energy, then I think we should point out some very obvious facts to them. First of all, when the Clinton administration finished in the White House, oil was at $27 a barrel. It is now at $119 a barrel, a significant increase. Yet they try to point the finger at this Congress, this Democratic Congress that has been in the majority for 16 months. Yet on every bill that we bring up, every bill that the Democrats bring before this Congress that attempts in any way, shape, fashion or form to reduce the price of oil, we get nothing but ``no'' votes from the other side of the aisle. That is their response to high energy costs. That is what they want to do to the American people in terms of the energy costs. I said earlier in the debate a point that I think is very important. They want to talk about priorities as what we do for the big energy companies, what we do for the big oil companies. Well, that is not the priority of this side of the aisle. We want to talk about alternative energy. We want to talk about reducing the dependence on foreign oil, reducing the dependence on gas and on fossil fuels, thereby making our country stronger, both domestically and internationally. If they want to talk about gas and oil, that is the debate.”