On the recordJune 10, 2010
I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy, as I appreciate his leadership, and I think it is important for people to understand the genesis of the problem that we are facing here now. We've heard some of our friends on the other side of the aisle come to the floor somehow trying to lay this at the feet of the President of the United States, but sadly, what has happened here in the gulf is a direct result of policies that we have seen implemented by our friends on the other side of the aisle when they were in charge, particularly under the watch of President Bush, where it was routine to come to the floor repeatedly in efforts to undercut environmental protections, where agencies that were supposed to regulate the industry were stopped with refugees from the very industries, from lobbyists and association executives who are going back now and looking at from whence they had come. We had situations that, by the end of the Bush administration, it was clear in the MMS that there were people in that critical agency tasked by law with the protection of the public interest who were not only avoiding that responsibility, they were literally in bed with the industry. I look forward to an opportunity in the course of the next few minutes to discuss with you further the genesis of the problem that we face and approaches that we should be taking to make sure that we're no longer held hostage to what even President Bush referred to as our addiction to oil.
