Political Quotes

“I do appreciate our friend from Colorado talking about the history here, because we hear people come to the floor to somehow lay this at the foot of President Obama, who has been busy since the moment he took office dealing with a series of disasters that he inherited. But the approach that has been taken by the Republicans when they were in the majority actually set the stage for this. In 2003, they added an exemption for all oil and gas construction activities from the provisions of the Clean Water Act. They had a stipulation that the BLM had only 10 days to make drilling permit decisions. They had new authority for the Department of the Interior to permit new energy projects in the Outer Continental Shelf without adequate oversight or standards and then providing, on top of that, $2 billion for already profitable companies to drill in ultradeep water. It is absolutely scandalous that we have had this steady assault. Luckily, we stopped that in 2003 when the other body used the filibuster constructively. But we faced it in 2005, as they actually were able to put those provisions in place, which our friend from Colorado and you, sir, Mr. Connolly, have pointed out. It continues to bedevil us. Sadly, some of our friends on the other side of the aisle simply haven't gotten the point. In this Congress, the gentlewoman from Minnesota, Mrs.…”