Political Quotes

“Mr. President, over the past couple of days here on the Senate floor we have had a lot of discussion about domestic energy production and there have been a lot of good points made. But, frankly, it is more of a political exercise than something that is going to help the American people. If one listened to the debate, one might think there is no consensus and no way forward. I disagree with that. I think given our energy challenges, including $4 a gallon gasoline, we need an energy policy that encourages more affordable, reliable, and cleaner energy. I think we can reach a consensus on a few areas, and let me raise a couple of them today. The first is natural gas exploration and development. In my own State of Ohio, we have had exciting new developments over the past several years. Geologists have known we have big shale formations in the eastern part of the United States for years, but until recently we haven't had the drilling technologies that allowed us to tap into these huge reserves. We now have that. In Ohio, we have both the Marcellus and the Utica shale finds that, unfortunately, have not been tapped yet but have tremendous potential. Some of the oil and gas reserve estimates associated with these finds are truly amazing. For the State of Ohio alone, in one of those formations--Utica--I am told we could yield over 15 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.…”