Jim Inhofe: “I understand what is customary; I am just saying that we are entitled to close debate. Apparently, the Senator from…”

“I understand what is customary; I am just saying that we are entitled to close debate. Apparently, the Senator from California is not going to allow me to close debate. So let me just say for a few minutes here that I was going to go through every argument the Senator from California has made. For example, first of all, I already did the first one where she talks about subsidizing oil companies. No corporation in America is being subsidized by this. She said also, we don't want to become a China, where they do not care about the people and how they suffer. We don't want to go there. Politicians are prone to hyperbole, but the junior Senator from California has reached a new level. Nowhere in this bill or any other I would consider would I seek to make the United States similar to China. By the way, talking about China, one of the problems we are having right now is that while we do not have the refining capacity, they do. While we are not building generating plants, they are. While we have gone 15 years without adding a new coal-fired generating plant in the United States, China is cranking out one every 3 days. The argument that was made was American families who want their health protected do not want us to waive every single environmental law that protects the quality of the air they breathe inside their bodies. They also do not want to waive any single environmental law. We are not doing that. We are not waiving any environmental laws with this bill.”