Don Nickles: “I understand his situation. We are dealing with $20 billion projects, $10 billion worth of loan guarantees, and we…”

“I understand his situation. We are dealing with $20 billion projects, $10 billion worth of loan guarantees, and we haven't had nearly the number of hearings necessary to consider proponents of both sides and environmentalists. In addition, we should have people who are going to be granting permits, and so on, to give us some input and some estimates on how much it will cost and what the time delays would be, and so on. I haven't seen that being done. I want to have this hearing--and I may not get this hearing before this bill is taken care of, but I want to have a hearing on this before we get a conference report. We are not going to have a conference report until we get to have some hearings. I think if we get to the conference, I might have something to do with what is going to be in the conference report. To have this kind of issue and ask Senators to vote on it when we haven't properly reviewed its substance in committee, that is a real procedural mistake. We need to have more significant input from many more experts before making these decisions. I think it is a mistake for us to dictate which pipeline we should be building, without more information.”