Political Quotes

“Thank you. And I appreciate your pulling these pieces together, Congressman Inslee. I think you hit the nail on the head. I am hopeful that throughout all of this, that we can conduct this debate from this point forward by being honest with the American public. There is no one single cause for what we've seen happen with oil prices--speculation, world market, increased demand, hiccup here, there are a whole host of things that we see. Likewise, there is no one single solution. We need a comprehensive array. We do want to restrain speculation, whether it's $1 a barrel or $50 a barrel. It's unfair to the American consumer. It's unfair to the industries and small business people, and homeowners that rely on fairly priced petroleum products. We need to encourage using the energy leases that are out there right now before we consider surrendering our energy future by turning over even more leases. Use the 68 million acres that are available now. We have to stop wasting more oil than anybody else on the planet. Three times I've had an amendment that has passed in our legislation to close the Hummer loophole, but with our tax code, we're still subsidizing, with your tax dollars, the purchase of the largest, most fuel-inefficient, expensive vehicles, costing the Treasury hundreds of millions of dollars and working against ourselves. We need to change that; something that we have been unable to do with the current configuration, but it has passed the House.”