Ron Wyden: “There we have it, folks. In essentially the late 1990s-- 1998-1999--as the distinguished chairman of the committee has…”

“There we have it, folks. In essentially the late 1990s-- 1998-1999--as the distinguished chairman of the committee has pointed out, the Clinton administration dropped the ball. No question about it. It was costly to taxpayers. But I have just read a recitation of how the Secretary of the Interior compounded the problem and how on her watch the sweetener got even sweeter. The price of oil was still shooting up. The price of oil had doubled over the last few years, and she just kept ladling out the sugar. It just kept coming. Then, on top of it, we had the energy conference agreement between the House and the Senate. So on top of the problem that we see stemming from the last administration and then Secretary Norton sweetening the pot even more, we then had in the energy conference agreement additions to the royalty program, additions at a time when clearly they were not in the public interest. I think we are close to being able to move ahead in the Senate. I want to have some discussion with the floor manager, the distinguished Senator from Washington. But what we have seen in the last few minutes as a result of the unanimous consent request propounded by the Senator from Nevada is that this Senate will not be allowed to vote at any time on the granddaddy of all of the subsidies. We have tried to work out arrangements to have a vote that would be fair to both sides. I have propounded a variety of requests through the Chair in an effort to do it.…”